Happy New Year
Well, it has been a pretty good year for me, all things considered. Especially in the writing world, which is of course the focus of this particular blog. During this year I worked on 3 works of popular fiction (well not popular yet, but that of course is another story for another year, another day, whatever), worked on some academic writing relating to my job, and explored the glorios world of blogging. I will spend this last entry of 2002 discussing and exploring and considering these various aspects of my life the last three hundred, sixty five days. Did you know that that is right around nine thousand hours? Or that that is just over half a million minutes? Which of course is about thrity million seconds. But this blog is supposed to be about the world of words and not the worlds of numbers, so I will end my digression and return to the main thrust of this evening's symposium.
During this year, I worked on three of my works of popular fiction, if you will. I did the least amount of work on a novel about a graduate students who discovers chat rooms and online relationships and take his interest (or is it an obsession? I have not yet decided how far to take it and how dark to make it) in the online world a little too far. Themes of anonymity online, issues of community, and what makes for strong relationships are addressed. Well, they are not exactly addressed yet, but they will be once the work progresses more. I have about three thousand words written and just a few more scenes specifically outlined. But I have done research, I have a passion for the story, and look forward to geting back to it to some degree over the next year or two. I think it could be good. So far it is called L O L, but I am leaning towards changing it to A S L. It will have some humor, but L O L sounds too much like a comedy, while A S L specifically anchors the work in the chat world.
Secondly, I worked a little on my novel about life in a small country church. This novel is written from the persepective of the young pastor and four of the parishoners. It has gotten up to about twenty seven thousand words and although I do not have much specifically outlined yet, I know where the story is going and have some scenes planned out in my mind and I just do not know what order and how the action will work. I lie this story, but I think I will get to the one above first. This is more of an evergreen, a book that I can get back to any time. Of course if I never finish this, I can't get to the other two books in the series, about life in a city church and life in a suburban church. So there is some motivation to get on with this, but it is not the passion that A S L is for me, so it may sit on the back burner, somewhere deep on the shelf, for quite some time. I know, there is not a burner on the shelf, but just humor me, okay?
The third work I worked on this year is te Na No Wri Mo novel, which got to just over fifty thousand during the magic month of November and which is now up to fifty seven thousand words or so. I have about another ten or fifteen thousand words to go, which I hope (plan? I like plan. That sounds so much more positive than hope. Sort of like a New Years Resolution, except that I expect to actually keeip this one) to have finished by the end of January.
The master plan is then to spend February to May revising the first novel I have written, a thriller that is three years old. I have done some research since then, and am ready for it to be better than it is now. I am ready to get on the revision bandwagon. After that, June to September is for revising the second one, the Na No Wri Mo novel, the one that will be finsihed in a month. That will give me October to think about, plot, plan, outline, and research next year's Na No Wri Mo novel, which will of ocurse be written in November. And don't even let me think now about what I am going to do next December. That is a little too far away and as much as I believe in planning, planning that far in advance is just plain crazy.
I have an academic paper that I am also in the revision stage of, which has been accepted at a pair of academic conferences and one journal. So if that gets published in August like they promise, I will have at least SOMETHING published in 2003! Not exactly literature, of course, and it won't help me get any fiction published, but a publication is a publication. And of course it will help my career prospects tremendously, which will help me find time to write. So in the long convoluted way, it will help me with my writing. So it counts.
Of course this year I also started my blogging. I must give credit where credit is due, and the first blog I ever found (or even heard about) was the political blog of Andrew Sullivan, who is a tremendous writer and commentator on social and political issues. A writer for the New Republic, Sullivan is a conservative, Catholic, homosexual Republican. As you can imagine, his blog makes for fascinating reading. Well, anyway, after spending months on his site and reading about the explosion of blogging, I just linked to Blogger from Sullivan's site just to see how easy it really was, and there I was. Then, I read a book by Carolyn See in which she recommends that writers do a thousand words a day, five days a week, and then there I am.
It's been a good year for blogging and for my writing, and I look forward to a productive 2003. Take care, all.
Well, it has been a pretty good year for me, all things considered. Especially in the writing world, which is of course the focus of this particular blog. During this year I worked on 3 works of popular fiction (well not popular yet, but that of course is another story for another year, another day, whatever), worked on some academic writing relating to my job, and explored the glorios world of blogging. I will spend this last entry of 2002 discussing and exploring and considering these various aspects of my life the last three hundred, sixty five days. Did you know that that is right around nine thousand hours? Or that that is just over half a million minutes? Which of course is about thrity million seconds. But this blog is supposed to be about the world of words and not the worlds of numbers, so I will end my digression and return to the main thrust of this evening's symposium.
During this year, I worked on three of my works of popular fiction, if you will. I did the least amount of work on a novel about a graduate students who discovers chat rooms and online relationships and take his interest (or is it an obsession? I have not yet decided how far to take it and how dark to make it) in the online world a little too far. Themes of anonymity online, issues of community, and what makes for strong relationships are addressed. Well, they are not exactly addressed yet, but they will be once the work progresses more. I have about three thousand words written and just a few more scenes specifically outlined. But I have done research, I have a passion for the story, and look forward to geting back to it to some degree over the next year or two. I think it could be good. So far it is called L O L, but I am leaning towards changing it to A S L. It will have some humor, but L O L sounds too much like a comedy, while A S L specifically anchors the work in the chat world.
Secondly, I worked a little on my novel about life in a small country church. This novel is written from the persepective of the young pastor and four of the parishoners. It has gotten up to about twenty seven thousand words and although I do not have much specifically outlined yet, I know where the story is going and have some scenes planned out in my mind and I just do not know what order and how the action will work. I lie this story, but I think I will get to the one above first. This is more of an evergreen, a book that I can get back to any time. Of course if I never finish this, I can't get to the other two books in the series, about life in a city church and life in a suburban church. So there is some motivation to get on with this, but it is not the passion that A S L is for me, so it may sit on the back burner, somewhere deep on the shelf, for quite some time. I know, there is not a burner on the shelf, but just humor me, okay?
The third work I worked on this year is te Na No Wri Mo novel, which got to just over fifty thousand during the magic month of November and which is now up to fifty seven thousand words or so. I have about another ten or fifteen thousand words to go, which I hope (plan? I like plan. That sounds so much more positive than hope. Sort of like a New Years Resolution, except that I expect to actually keeip this one) to have finished by the end of January.
The master plan is then to spend February to May revising the first novel I have written, a thriller that is three years old. I have done some research since then, and am ready for it to be better than it is now. I am ready to get on the revision bandwagon. After that, June to September is for revising the second one, the Na No Wri Mo novel, the one that will be finsihed in a month. That will give me October to think about, plot, plan, outline, and research next year's Na No Wri Mo novel, which will of ocurse be written in November. And don't even let me think now about what I am going to do next December. That is a little too far away and as much as I believe in planning, planning that far in advance is just plain crazy.
I have an academic paper that I am also in the revision stage of, which has been accepted at a pair of academic conferences and one journal. So if that gets published in August like they promise, I will have at least SOMETHING published in 2003! Not exactly literature, of course, and it won't help me get any fiction published, but a publication is a publication. And of course it will help my career prospects tremendously, which will help me find time to write. So in the long convoluted way, it will help me with my writing. So it counts.
Of course this year I also started my blogging. I must give credit where credit is due, and the first blog I ever found (or even heard about) was the political blog of Andrew Sullivan, who is a tremendous writer and commentator on social and political issues. A writer for the New Republic, Sullivan is a conservative, Catholic, homosexual Republican. As you can imagine, his blog makes for fascinating reading. Well, anyway, after spending months on his site and reading about the explosion of blogging, I just linked to Blogger from Sullivan's site just to see how easy it really was, and there I was. Then, I read a book by Carolyn See in which she recommends that writers do a thousand words a day, five days a week, and then there I am.
It's been a good year for blogging and for my writing, and I look forward to a productive 2003. Take care, all.
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