Tag: Thoughts and Reflections

Lord of the Rings marathon

Yeah!  My last class this week ended at 3:00 on Monday, so I decided to borrow the Lord of the Rings movies from my brother-in-law and throw a marathon!  Instead of watching them all in one day (which would probably have been really disgusting), we watched one each night, Monday thru Wednesday.

It was way fun!  It’s been so long since I’ve immersed myself in this epic fantasy world.  So classic!  I can see how so many different fantasy stories have spun off of the genius of this man.  And the films–they’re different from the books, in some ways, but still AMAZINGLY good.  Especially the battle scenes!

So after finishing Return of the King tonight, here are some of my thoughts:

I wonder if it’s a requirement of epic fantasy to have some dark evil overlord as the main antagonist?  Is it possible to have a world where evil exists, but it can’t be nailed down to just one person?  For some reason, I can’t think of a fantasy series whose villain isn’t entirely evil.  What if nobody is entirely evil, but the fact that they just can’t get along is the evil?  Sci fi tends to blur the lines a lot more like that–why not fantasy?

Regardless of that, every fantasy needs epic battle scenes.  There were so many awesome battles in Lord of the Rings–Helm’s Deep, the fields of Pellenor, various battles for Osgiliath, the battle at the gates of Mordor, etc etc.  It made me think back to the battles in Mistborn, or the battles in the Chronicles of Prydain, or even the Chronicles of Narnia.  Heck, you can even trace it all the way back to the Iliad.  Every good fantasy needs some epic battles–not just the fighting and all that, but the before and after: the rallying of the troops, the “we must save our homeland” and “save the women and children,” and afterwards the mourning for the dead, various rites of burial, etc.

Man, all this Lord of the Rings goodness is making me want to write a fantasy story!  That will probably wait until after November of next year, but I can start dreaming it up and figuring it out right now.

Satisfaction

Yes.  I finally broke through this one scene that’s been giving me trouble for the last few days.  I don’t believe in writer’s block, but I do believe in writer’s avoidance, and I’ve had that for the past ten days or so because of this one chapter.  I’ve really wanted–and really needed–to get beyond this section of the book, but this one part of Tristen’s journey has really been hanging me up.   Now that the climax has passed, I’ve only got a few hundred words before the next chapter.  Thank goodness.

As frustrating as the last few days have been, and as frustrating as it was to slog through 1,700 words to close up the major fight scene in this chapter, it felt really satisfying to have it behind me.  These last few days, I haven’t been writing very regularly, and I’ve also felt kind of…down, a little.  I don’t know if it’s connected to my frustrations with this novel or with something else, but it just really feels good to know that I wrote 1,704 words today and got past a major hurdle.

Productivity.  What an aphrodisiac.

If I finish the chapter tonight with another 500 words or so, then that’ll bring the 7 day wordcount meter up around 5,500 or so.  If I write another 1k or 2k tomorrow, that’ll push it up around 7,000.  If I write another 3k or 4k on Friday (and that’s not unreasonable–I’ve got the whole day off), I can probably be in the red.  If I keep up with at least 2k for the rest of the break, I can have both counters in the red for at least three days.

And hopefully, before Monday comes around, I’ll be at that part of the book where I want to end up–with my main character offworld, headed for his mother’s home planet.

There are other things about this book that I want to talk about, but the library is closing and I have to go.  Fortunately, I went ahead and bought that tiny little laptop I was talking about in the previous post, so come next week I won’t be limited to public computers outside of my apartment.  I’m excited to get this thing in the mail!  Now that’s going to be satisfying!

I’m being responsible (for once)

I’ve got this history paper due on Thursday.  It’s the big research paper for the semester, and it counts for a large portion of the final grade.  Because the deadline is coming up, it’s really pressing on my mind right now.

Earlier in the semester, we had smaller assignments related to the paper–for example, we had to get our preliminary bibliography together, write a preliminary outline, etc.  I…pretty much did the bare minimum on all of those.  Yeah.  Didn’t do so well.

So for this final paper, I decided to finish it early, so that I could bring it in to the FHSS Writing Lab where I work and have one of my coworkers help me with it.   That means, of course, that I can’t wait until the night it’s due to write it (which is pretty much how I’ve done every other paper of my college career).  I need to be responsible and get it done early.

I woke up today thinking “crap, I’ve got a paper I’ve got to write.” I decided that I’d sit down and write the whole d*** thing today after dinner.  I had the urge to play Genghis Khan II, but I resisted it and went to the library.  I worked really hard–I only spent about 25% to 35% of my time there chatting with friends and engaging  in avoidance activity.  It was tough.

I started out hating the paper, but once I had a thesis and an outline, I started to really get into it.  History is kind of like storytelling, and I like storytelling.  When I figured out how to insert footnotes on Word 2007, I started to get the urge to just insert a ton of them everywhere because it’s so cool.  Gamila was chatting with me, and when she mentioned something from her Latin class, I said “hey, you could be the Franks and I could be the Saracens–after all, Saladin’s given name was Yusuf!” (my paper is on the crusades–can you tell?)

The coolest thing was that when I came back to the apartment, I just felt so FREEEEEEEE!  I mean, yeah, the paper is still due on Thursday, and yeah, there is still a ton of work that I have to do for it, but it’s half done, and the rest is easy!  I’m even starting to really enjoy this subject.  I can’t wait to tell the story of Reynauld de Chatillon and all the things he did to piss off Saladin!  That guy was so smug, sitting in his castle in Kerak.  He even defied the orders of the king in Jerusalem to break the truce between the Franks and the Saracens!  If it wasn’t for that, perhaps the Battle of Hattin would never have happened–perhaps the Kingdom of Jerusalem would have survived.  Who knows?

So, yeah, I was responsible tonight…and dangit!  It’s 1:45 am and I haven’t written at all for today!  I would crank out a couple hundred words before going to bed, but I’ve got to get up at freaking 7am…holy cow, it’s going to kill me.

But yeah, I’m just really happy to have that burden at least partially lifted from me.  Being responsible can have its perks–I should try it more often.

No writing yesterday…but there is a reason

Well, as you may notice, I didn’t write at all yesterday.  My wordcount meters are both down significantly, especially the 7 day one.  Grr…I will get them back up before too long!  New goal: get both meters in the red by the end of the week.

However, I have a reason for not writing, and it’s not a lame excuse that such-and-such happened outside my control and I had to put my writing on hold.  It’s a lot more complex than that.

Basically, the scene that I’m stopped at has some graphic content, and I didn’t feel that it would be appropriate to write that scene on a Sunday.  At the same time, I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t write this scene at all.  In terms of the story, I think that this scene is necessary, but I can see people taking it the wrong way when they read it.  I can also see myself feeling somewhat embarrassed when my friends read it.  I’m not usually the kind of person that avoids controversy, but this is something where I’m not sure how to proceed.

Basically, here’s what I have in mind: Tristen, the main character, is on a mission to find his birth family.  He’s left behind this futuristic Bedouin camp that’s raised him, except that the sheikh of this camp will do anything to get Tristen to stay.  The first leg of Tristen’s journey is a pilgrimage to this famous temple, and the sheikh sends his daughter with Tristen, ostensibly because she want’s to make the pilgrimage too, but won’t have the opportunity in the future.  Really, though, the girl has conspired with the Sheikh to try and seduce Tristen to convince him to stay.

That’s the background, but it really has nothing to do with this specific scene.  In the scene I have in mind, Tristen and the girl are in a bar/restaurant halfway around the world, way far away from home, when this graphic performance occurs on the stage at this place.  Basically, there is this major religious cult in this part of the world whose priestesses are basically holy prostitutes, like many Ancient Near East goddess cults.

The scene would involve some suggestive nudity and would raise the already existing sexual tension between Tristen and the daughter of this Sheikh.  Basically, he’s been raised in this ultra-moralistic conservative environment, so the dance of this temple prostitute shocks him to the point where he doesn’t know what to think about it.  He gets these images in his mind that he can’t get out, and he feels confused, guilty, passionate, and just…well, weird.  This confusion gets him to the point where he doesn’t know what he’s doing with this girl who’s supposed to seduce him, so that she is able to break through his resistance and almost succeed in getting him to stay (and all that that implies).

Also, I want to throw this scene in to show the moral depravity of the society that Tristen passes through.  By demonstrating just how graphically immoral the mainstream society has become, I’m hoping to show who Tristen really is–a morally upright person.  I want to have this contrast in the story, even if it does mean writing a scene that might cause a lot of LDS readers (and even some of my friends) to throw the book across the room.

So how do I do this?  How can I write a scene that is graphic and yet not pornographic?  What do you think about my ideas here?  What should I do–and not do?  Why?

Destiny

A couple of weeks ago, we started learning about the Seljuk Turks in History 240 (History of the Middle East to 1800).  This band of rugged, horse-riding nomads went from mercenary warriors of some Persian dynasty to the de facto rulers of nearly half the Muslim world.  In an era when radical Shi’ism swept across North Africa and the Levant, and people thought the rise of the Fatimid Empire marked the end of the world, the Seljuks, self-appointed defenders of Sunnism headed the Fatimid conquest at Baghdad and pushed them back to Egypt.  Fascinating stuff!

Then we learned about the Mongol invasion and the sack of Baghdad in 1258, when the world really DID end from the point of view of the Arabs, and I knew that Central Asia would never be boring to me again.

The Turks and the Mongols were both nomadic peoples who lived on the steppes of Central Asia–basically, an enormous stretch of grassland like the prairie in the American Midwest.  These guys lived in camps, with their cattle and horses, and looked down on the thought of settling down in cities and living a civilized, sedentary life.  To them, the nomadic life meant freedom–the people of the cities were voluntary slaves and beneath the hardy nomads.

Genghis Khan, born Temujin (“Genghis Khan” is a title that basically means “ruler of the world”), united the Mongol tribes and built the largest empire the world had ever seen.  Bigger than Alexander’s Hellenist Empire, bigger than the Roman Empire, bigger than the Babylonians, Assyrians, Sassanians, Umayyids, or Abassids.  The Mongol Empire was BIG–it stretched from Korea to the Black Sea!  If it weren’t for the Mameluks (one of the few Arab kingdoms that wasn’t mismanaging itself to death), the Mongols might have swept North Africa and the Mediterranean!

The coolest part of the story was the religious justification behind Genghis Khan’s ruthless, bloodthirsty conquest.  When Temujin was a young boy, the shaman of his tribe told him that the great sky god Tengri had given Temujin the world.  By conquering millions of people, massacring hundreds of cities, and building an empire of blood, death, and fire, Genghis Khan was only fulfilling his destiny!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been practically obsessed with all this history.  It’s fascinating!  Like reading a really good novel–except it’s real life!  Orson Scott Card often says that anyone interested in becoming a writer should study history instead of English in college, and I can see what he means.

All this stuff I’ve been learning about the Mongols has given me dozens of story ideas, many of which I plan on including in my current novel, Hero in Exile.  I’ll write a separate post to explain it all, but basically it involves the Mongol Empire in space.  Just like the Mongols considered themselves the only free people in the midst of sedentary urban dwellers, so the Hamejis in my novel (a spacefaring people who live entirely in their spaceships) consider themselves free in comparison with the billions of people living under continent sized domes across nearly a hundred settled planets.  Just as the sky god Tengri gave Temujin the world, so the god of the epistellar jovian in the Hameji home system has given them the universe.  It is their destiny to take and rule it by blood and fire.  Bwahahaha!

(photos taken from Genghis Khan II by Koei, a 90s DOS game)

The week is OVER!!!

I am so happy.  Yeah, I’ve got a current events paper I’ve got to write for MESA 201…but I can do that in like twenty minutes.  Especially since the paper itself is not due, just the stuff that has to be peer critiqued.  And really MESA 201 is like a flashback to high school, so it’s really not that hard.

As for Arabic homework…I’m trying hard not to think about it…was trying…dangit!

This is the main issue I had with this past week.  Every time I thought I was free, some assignment or deadline that I’d forgotten would pop up and smack me across the head.  Today, it was the Poli Sci 201 midterm (take home, open book).  There was no other time except today (when it was due) that I could take it, so I ended up clocking out at work and doing it then.  Freaking test probably cost me $30 to $40.

But this blog isn’t supposed to be about my frustrations with school, it’s supposed to be about my frustrations with writing.  And other life stuff.  So I’ll write about something else.

I’ve started to think about what I want to do after I get my bachelor’s degree(s?).  Which is to say, I’m completely clueless at this point, but I’m trying to get a feel for my options.  Yesterday there was an information session for the Masters of Public Policy program at BYU, and it looks interesting.  I would like to go to grad school, and it looks like this program would take me in a direction I’d be interested in following.

Basically, the program prepares you to work as a policy/research analyst, which seems like an interesting skill set I could take to a non-profit / NGO / lobby group / think tank, which is a career path (or set of paths) that I find intriguing.  I’ll bet I could find some real satisfaction putting my mind to work for a social cause that I really believe in.

But is this really what I want to do with my life?  Do I want to spend 90% of my time working behind a computer at a desk, crunching statistics?  And what about Arabic?  How would I be able to use that?  These are questions that need answering.

As for writing, the plan at this point is to do it on the side if/until it becomes lucrative enough for me to support myself and my family.  In other words, for the next five-ten-fifteen years / forever, I’m going to be a mild-mannered man in a conventional (at least partially) career by day, and a super-power world-saving writer by night.  Writing, at this point, is a given, a constant–I know what I’m doing as far as my writing career.  I just don’t know if/when I’m going to make it my primary, so I have to make other plans like grad school / career path / whatever.

I guess that’s one thing I find reassuring about all of this: writing leaves me a means of escape from being pegged down in a boring career for the rest of my life.  And my pursuit of a career feeds my writing by giving me new and exciting ideas and perspectives to bring into my writing.  I’m glad I’m not studying English.

And…that’s about it for tonight.  Holy cow I’m tired!

Hooray for Obama!

Well, the President of the United States has been decided.  Obama won.  I honestly can’t say that I’m disappointed.

No president would do all of the things that I want him to do, but I think Obama is going to steer this country in the right direction.  Less foreign intervention, more multilateralism and better relations with our allies, more economic regulation, etc.

The only thing I’m really worried about is the fact that the Democrats have such a commanding lead in the Senate–I would rather have the branches of government balanced between the parties, especially when one party nearly has the sixty votes necessary to ride out a fillibuster.  But I’m not too worried.

Obama’s acceptance speech was very good.  I like how he emphasized his family and his wife.  The more I listen to him, the more he strikes me as a well-meaning, honest family man.  He just seems like a clean statesman in a country filled with ridiculous political scandals.  It’s going to be interesting to see who he picks as his advisors and cabinet members.

So, overall, I can’t say I’m disappointed.  I’m optimistic that the next four years will see increased American credibility in the world and a government that can stand up to the domestic crises of our times and lead us through.  We’ll see whether I’m wrong.

The election issue that I’m most interested in, however, is Prop 8 in California.  This isn’t just because I served my mission there–it’s because I think that this election will deal a decisive blow to either the gay-rights movement or the traditional family.  I wholeheartedly believe that marriage is an institution between a man and a woman, and that the state should uphold this institution defined as such.  In a dramatic move, the LDS church has stepped into this issue and mobilized its adherents across the nation to vote, volunteer, fast, and pray for this ballot initiative to pass.

Fortunately, it looks like it’s going to happen.  We’ll know for sure in the morning.  I’m almost too nervous to watch, but inshallah, it will happen.

In the meantime, not a lot of writing today.  Between elections, homework, and exhaustion, I slipped in about 570 words.  Not bad, but I want to keep those pointers in the red all through November.

Halloween and Nanowrimo kickoff

So, if you checked my blog earlier today, you may have noticed the, um, lack of progress as noted by the speedometers.  Well, all I can say is that yesterday was kind of a special case, it being a holiday and all.

However, it was an awesome Halloween!  I went to work at 10:30 am and started noticing people in costumes, which made me think “hey, today is Halloween…I should get a costume!” (I’ve noticed lately that I’ve been doing things more and more at the last minute, and I don’t know what’s more unnverving: the fact that I’m doing it more often, or the fact that I’m becoming so good at getting away with it).

While chatting with my coworkers in the FHSS writing lab, I decided to dress up as a writer.  After all, the costume shouldn’t be too hard–I am one, after all, right?  Well, it proved to be a lot easier than I’d thought!  Turtleneck sweater, Birkenstocks with socks, a copy of Strunk & White in my pocket–all I really needed was a gray sports coat and a European cap, both of which I got at DI (one I bought, the other I borrowed from a friend I happened to run into at the store).

Properly attired, I was ready to attend the Quark Halloween party!

It was lots of fun!  There were LOTS of costumes this year, nearly twice as many as last year.  Most of the people were some obscure Anime character that I didn’t know about…I’m a nerd, but pretty ignorant when it comes to anime and manga).  I did recognize quite a few of them, though!

A bunch of the guys from the Super Smash Bros tournament dressed up as their favorite characters.  There were three Links, a Princess Peach, a Pikachu, Nes, and a bunch of other characters that I didn’t recognize.  I thought it was really funny how Lunesar (on the right) and his wife dressed up as their favorite characters.  It’s especially ironic because that’s how they met each other–through the Smash Bros tournament.  Hoorah for Geekdom–it’s what brings us together!

I really liked Miriel and her husband’s costumes–Star Wars!  Miriel is on the staff of The Leading Edge and helps us with back issues to give out as prizes for the writing contests.  I really liked her hair in this picture!  She gave me a huge box full of back issues of the magazine at the party, which was really nice–we’d been running short.  With the new box of contest prizes, though, we’re ready to have lots more contests in the months to come!

For the Halloween short story contest, we did something new and experimental: we had a live reading during the actual party.  I was a little bit worried at first, but it worked out really well, I think.  We had the third, second, and first place stories read out loud by their authors.  It wasn’t as visually exciting as watching anime explosions and giant mecha fighting each other, but it was still a treat to hear the stories read out loud, especially the first place winner, The Beauty of Decay.  We actually had a big prize to give out (a $20 gift certificat to the BYU Bookstore), so it was lots of fun!

Aneeka, who won 2nd place, wasn’t there to read hers (since she’s in Germany, and, um, graduated), so we had Gamila, one of the old timers, read it for her.  I briefly told the audience how Aneeka started the writing group, back in the day, and how she was the one who got Jakeson and Gamila to start dating (they’re married now–both were there at the party).  It’s always fun to pleasantly embarass your friends.

So yeah, this writing contest thing is definitely something we should keep on doing!  I just need to convince the rest of the officers to set aside more money for contest prizes.  Everyone who participated got a copy of The Leading Edge, which was motivational I think.  Besides that, the voting was fun as well.  We need more contests–and not just contests, but readings as well!

So that was the Halloween party.  It was basically one of the awesomest Quark socials of the year.  I love this club!

Today, instead of having a writing meeting where we critique each others’ stories, we had a writing party in room 135 of the TMCB instead.  I think it went really well!  We started out with lots of food, chatting, and distracting conversations, but for about an hour-long stretch, there was nothing but writing.  It was pretty cool.  Then, towards the end, I started getting distracted with showing people photos from my photoblog via the overhead projector, but all in all I think it went well.

Today is (was?) November 1st, the first day of nanowrimo!  Sadly, I’m not doing nanowrimo this year–at least, not strictly speaking.  The rules of nanowrimo state that you have to start on November 1st with a wordcount of 0 and end with a wordcount of 50k.  Unfortunately, if I were to freeze all my current projects and focus on something totally new, I’d lose so much time and momentum with the other projects that I doubt I’d meet my goal to have three manuscripts ready for World Fantasy 2009.

Still, nanowrimo is pretty cool, and it’s a good way to connect with the wider writing community, so I’ve decided that even if I’m not strictly going to do nanowrimo this year, I’m at least going to do something in keeping with the spirit of it.  My goal is to get 50k into my current project, Hero in Exile, so that I’ll have a wordcount of 64,500 by December 1st.  It’s going to require more than 1,500 words a day, but I think I can handle it.

At the writing party, I got about 700 words in, and when I transcribed it from my notebook to the word document, I got in about another 300.  Right now, I’m finished with all the buildup, and now I’m poised to go for the jugular: the next scene is going to involve some fighting, explosions, death, and heroics.  I’m excited!

I’ve also got to prepare a Sunday School lesson tomorrow morning, so even though we get to set our clocks back tonight, I think I’d better get to bed now.  So far, the first half of this weekend has been awesome–and since I don’t have to do any homework on Sunday, I think that the second half has the potential to be just as good!

Grr…

Man, I’ve been busy this week.  I have been making progress–750 words isn’t bad, even if it is lower than I’d like–but I haven’t moved past this one scene.  It’s kind of frustrating.

I have the next couple of scenes figured out in my head, and I’m really excited to get to them (they’ve got all kinds of action and explosions and such), but the more I try to get there, the longer and longer the current scene becomes.

It’s not a bad scene.  It’s just…unexpected.  The plan was to quickly show Mira and Tristen entering one of the planetary domes for the first time and their awe at the lush, rolling agricultural land inside.  Instead, it’s morphed into a confrontation with customs and security at the entrance to the dome.

I considered cutting it all out, but as I read over it I realized that it seems to be working.  I sat down tonight, hoping to get past there so I could start tomorrow with the exciting stuff, but now it looks like other characters are getting drawn in.  Grr…

In all reality, though, this is probably a good thing.  The story is starting to take on a life of its own, and the characters are starting to act for themselves instead of having me pull the marionet strings all the way.

At least, that’s what I hope is happening.  I still worry that Tristen is a little too flat.

In the meantime, I saw something interesting on the Publisher’s Lunch email for today.  A minor publisher is offering to give away free books to bloggers who promise to post reviews of the book on their blogs and on Amazon. Free books, eh?

I checked the list of books available to review so far, and it looks like most of them are either non-fiction and/or mainstream Christian, but the concept is very interesting.  If a minor sf/f publisher were to do the same thing, I’d be all over it.

Oh, and this made me laugh today.  I still need to figure out what I’m going to be for Halloween…

Okay, a new direction

I owe a lot to Aneeka.  She is the one who motivated me to write The Phoenix of Nova Terra back in 2007 when I didn’t really think I could finish a novel before the end of the school year.  Like I said in the last post, I’ve hit something of a wall in my writing life recently, and a couple of days ago she was the one who pointed it out to me.  The conversation went something like this:

Empress: lol – okay, okay!
how are your stories going?
me: very slowly
frustrating
mostly just because of personal disorganization
Empress: yeah, that can happen. tired of school? or just a lot of things you want to do?
me: school is pretty easy right now
it’s just hard to get back into writing regularly
I dunno
I’m trying to juggle two projects
Empress: maybe that’s the problem?
it’s hard focusing on two stories at once
(says the girl that does it all the time – the irony!)
but it really is hard to get all focused on two projects at once
me: it probably is
Empress: I flit between projects because I’m not that into them and write because I’ve been inspired (and tend to be inspired on different stories all the time)
when I get into a project though, then it’s best that I leave the rest behind and just focus on that one
get out all that I have and see how far I can go before I get distracted again
me: yeah
I’m trying to be 100% into two projects at the same time
trouble is, I can’t keep the momentum going on both
Empress: yeah. looks like you’re human, after all 😉
me: dangit!
Empress: you should choose one to focus on and then, if inspiration hits for the other one, focus on that one for a bit before turning back to the main project
me: grr
Empress: think of it this way. You could struggle for 6 months trying to work on two projects and arrive halfway done with both
OR you could focus on one project for 6 months, finish it, and then have plenty of energy to finish the next one
me: that’s true I guess
Empress: it’s better than wearing yourself out
then you’ll be left with no project finished
and just a heap of frustrated dreams
me: I guess that’s right
question is, do I revise my old novel or do I go ahead with the new one?
I’m more excited about the new one, but I want to get the old one finished
Empress: how long would the old one take to get finished?
wait…and you’re having problems with them right now, right?
you know, I would think it’s easier to edit two stories then to write two stories at once. maybe you could finish up the new story and then edit both of them at the same time?
me: that’s an idea
Empress: and NaNoWriMo is coming up. you could finish up the first draft by next month and whallah! only have 2 stories to edit 😀
me: ugggggggggggh
I coooooooooould
that’s intense, though
Empress: well, doing two projects at once is intense as well
why not just switch it around and do this kind of intensity instead? 😉

So, after mulling it over for a couple of days, I’ve decided to do things a little differently.

Instead of trying to do two major projects at once, I’m going to put the revision of Phoenix on hold for now and focus all my energy on Hero in Exile.  For November, instead of doing nanowrimo, I’ll try to get 50,000 words deep into this novel instead.  After that, if I do roughly 1,000 words a day, I should be in good shape to finish it before the end of January.  I don’t anticipate this novel going over 120,000 words, and if it tries to, I’ll do my best to reign it in.

So that’s my goal: Finish Hero in Exile before the end of January.  Oh, and write 50,000 words in November.

I’ve noticed that I tend to either be too focused or too distracted.  Trying to balance two projects at the same time has taught me that…well, I can’t do it very well.  But I do know that once I have one project that I can focus on, I can focus on it until it gets done.  That’s what I’m going to do now.

In the meantime, I was chatting with Drek from the writing group, and found out that he could program a way cool widget for my sidebar!  It’s going to be a pair of speedometers that show my daily wordcount and my wordcount over the course of the last seven days.  Oh, and if I’m nice, he might program a widget that displays my writing projects as status bars!  I’m way excited!

Drek recently designed a website for nanowrimo this year.  The idea is that every minute, it displays a new word from his novel.  Something like that.  It’ll be really interesting to see what happens once november starts up.

I can definitely say that the goatee gives Drek programming +2.