If anyone's got moneys to spare, and any friends or relatives who work as librarians, I do have that Cafe Press store of Witty Librarian gear.
I just added some Christmas ornaments, a vanity plate for cars, a few more shirts and sweaters, and ereader (Kindle and Nook) sleeve covers! If you are looking for any fun merch for Festivus/Saturnalia/Christmas please check it out!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Why I Failed NaNoWriMo This Year
Well...
1) Personal issues such as the loss of my poor Silly Kitty Page, whose cancer got bad enough to take her to the vet for one last visit...
2) Problems with my story's narrative, even with trying to correct some of the character introductions and opening action scenes. Things felt heavy-handed or operating on poor assumptions.
3) Chronic Depressive Mood and growing stress from job-hunting as I close in on my third year of full unemployment... :(
All apologies. I am thinking of getting some short stories or novella-type work done in the coming days.
1) Personal issues such as the loss of my poor Silly Kitty Page, whose cancer got bad enough to take her to the vet for one last visit...
2) Problems with my story's narrative, even with trying to correct some of the character introductions and opening action scenes. Things felt heavy-handed or operating on poor assumptions.
3) Chronic Depressive Mood and growing stress from job-hunting as I close in on my third year of full unemployment... :(
All apologies. I am thinking of getting some short stories or novella-type work done in the coming days.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
One Week In On NaNoWriMo 2011
...and I am above 11,000 words.
It's a story idea I've considered before, which had some big flaws about halfway into it, about a university librarian and his crazy student workers who have various "spooky" adventures involving ghosts girls, clones, aliens, and whatnot (various plot ideas from back when I was a huge X-Phile).
I've rebooted the start to be more action-packed, and looking to streamline some of the character introductions.
Wish me luck.
It's a story idea I've considered before, which had some big flaws about halfway into it, about a university librarian and his crazy student workers who have various "spooky" adventures involving ghosts girls, clones, aliens, and whatnot (various plot ideas from back when I was a huge X-Phile).
I've rebooted the start to be more action-packed, and looking to streamline some of the character introductions.
Wish me luck.
Monday, October 31, 2011
NaNoWriMo 2011
Yes, I will be doing NaNoWriMo this year.
Yes, you can track my efforts here.
Yes, I will get this damn novel finished for once. We'll see how it goes.
Yes, you can track my efforts here.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
A Gift To The Seven People Who Read This Blog
A FREE download of The Hero Cleanup Protocol!
1) Visit the Smashwords' website for the estory.
2) Select Add To Cart button.
3) Use the Coupon Code JJ47F. It should drop the price of the estory to FREE.
4) Follow the download instructions for the version of ereader you have. There are separate versions for Kindle, ePub (covering Nook, iApple and other readers), and more.
5) Install the story file to your reader and enjoy!
If you can, please give the estory a review (and be gentle!). Thanks!
EDIT: The code is good until November 1st.
1) Visit the Smashwords' website for the estory.
2) Select Add To Cart button.
3) Use the Coupon Code JJ47F. It should drop the price of the estory to FREE.
4) Follow the download instructions for the version of ereader you have. There are separate versions for Kindle, ePub (covering Nook, iApple and other readers), and more.
5) Install the story file to your reader and enjoy!
If you can, please give the estory a review (and be gentle!). Thanks!
EDIT: The code is good until November 1st.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Sticking To Deadlines
As far as the writing plans for the Labor Day Weekend panned out... not so well. In short, I'm scrapping what I did write (which wasn't much). And focusing on getting a few other projects prepped for later.
Writers Block. I hate it. I have it.
There was a time when I spent a lot of it (time, that is) writing. Mostly fanfiction, back in the Nineties during my love affair with the television show The X-Files. Gossamer has an archive of most of what I wrote in terms of fanfic. For normal writing, regular fiction writing, I was focused on short stories mostly for writing contests. Eventually I coalesced the more coherent shorts into a smallish anthology Last of the Grapefruit Wars, which I published in 2003 through a Print-on-Demand service Xlibris.
And since then?
Most of my ambitious projects - actual novel writings, additional short story attempts for contests - don't go very far or very well. I've tried the 3-Day Novel contests for years to no avail... I've joined the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and while the last two years I've "won" the months by hitting the 50,000 word counts I've yet to complete either novel into an acceptable conclusion. This year was practically a miracle seeing me get some stories - Welcome to Florida and The Hero Cleanup Protocol - self-published...
I could explain it away if I was distracted by work or by family. But I've been unemployed full-time the last two years (going on three), and my family is mostly off doing their things while I'm struggling with mine (and family have never really been major motivators in my writing projects, to be honest).
The unemployment issue is what worries me most: when I was working, I was stimulated with library work - research, above all - and that stimulation helped with getting some works off the word processor. Now, stressing out over each submitted resume and cover letter seems to dull my interest in getting writing work done. Even suggestions that I go into freelancing work (for websites like Guru or Examiner.com for example) somehow don't appeal to me even though there's a huge part of me that does. It's even part of the reason why I don't blog as much as I should: if I kept more active, I'd think I'd get more traffic here.
As for future projects... there's obviously NaNo in November. I've been given a heads-up about a 24-Hour Comics contest, hosted this year on Saturday October 1. I am/will be tempted to join in that.
Wish me luck.
Writers Block. I hate it. I have it.
There was a time when I spent a lot of it (time, that is) writing. Mostly fanfiction, back in the Nineties during my love affair with the television show The X-Files. Gossamer has an archive of most of what I wrote in terms of fanfic. For normal writing, regular fiction writing, I was focused on short stories mostly for writing contests. Eventually I coalesced the more coherent shorts into a smallish anthology Last of the Grapefruit Wars, which I published in 2003 through a Print-on-Demand service Xlibris.
And since then?
Most of my ambitious projects - actual novel writings, additional short story attempts for contests - don't go very far or very well. I've tried the 3-Day Novel contests for years to no avail... I've joined the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and while the last two years I've "won" the months by hitting the 50,000 word counts I've yet to complete either novel into an acceptable conclusion. This year was practically a miracle seeing me get some stories - Welcome to Florida and The Hero Cleanup Protocol - self-published...
I could explain it away if I was distracted by work or by family. But I've been unemployed full-time the last two years (going on three), and my family is mostly off doing their things while I'm struggling with mine (and family have never really been major motivators in my writing projects, to be honest).
The unemployment issue is what worries me most: when I was working, I was stimulated with library work - research, above all - and that stimulation helped with getting some works off the word processor. Now, stressing out over each submitted resume and cover letter seems to dull my interest in getting writing work done. Even suggestions that I go into freelancing work (for websites like Guru or Examiner.com for example) somehow don't appeal to me even though there's a huge part of me that does. It's even part of the reason why I don't blog as much as I should: if I kept more active, I'd think I'd get more traffic here.
As for future projects... there's obviously NaNo in November. I've been given a heads-up about a 24-Hour Comics contest, hosted this year on Saturday October 1. I am/will be tempted to join in that.
Wish me luck.
Friday, September 2, 2011
And The Winner Is... PIE!
Wait.
Damn you Carl Sagan and your obsession with pies!!!
Actually, the early vote results are for the "unemployed insomniac" plotline. That means my primary writing objective today shall be a story I titled Midnight Blues. I consider it an attempt to create a new subgenre: the Recession Noir. Hopefully I can get a chapter or two done today... off to work. Happy Labor Day to all of you who voted! And to those who didn't vote... the pie was crumbly.
Damn you Carl Sagan and your obsession with pies!!!
Actually, the early vote results are for the "unemployed insomniac" plotline. That means my primary writing objective today shall be a story I titled Midnight Blues. I consider it an attempt to create a new subgenre: the Recession Noir. Hopefully I can get a chapter or two done today... off to work. Happy Labor Day to all of you who voted! And to those who didn't vote... the pie was crumbly.
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