29th Jan2010

Filing Chapter 13

by Aaron

The main advantage to not having specific writing goals is the immense weight lifted off my shoulders compared to goals that didn’t match up with my availability for writing. So far, this is working out good for me. I’m still getting some writing done and I still have the positive outlook that I can get much done this year, but it’s nice to not feel stress.

I started thumbing through “The War of Art” By Steven Pressfield which is a real eye-opener and kick in the butt to get personal projects off the ground. I won’t go into much detail about it but if you feel yourself struggling against ‘Resistance’ then you should really check out his handy-helper.

With that said, I did get work done on Spirit Hackers last week. I completed chapter 13 and this brings me into a transition point in the novel where the story will progress to the next ‘plot point’. I feel that the fact that I prepared to write this book with an outline has significantly helped me since gaps in my time to write has caused me to re-read where I last left off. I’m sure when I finish the book and read it over, it’ll feel slightly disjointed and it’ll need some finesse. Regardless, writing is writing so I say ‘Mission Accomplished’.

Spirit Hackers now stands at 13 completed chapters with 21,792 words. My book has passed the 20k word count and is officially more than a quarter written. Not so bad. Lets see what next week brings.

Category : Just me, Spirit Hackers
Tags :
2 Comm
15th Jan2010

Fighting Back in 2010

by Aaron

Welcome to 2010! The future. Well, not so much. We don’t have flying cars, people living in space, time travel, robots, hoverboards or a thousand other things that were predicted for humanity. At least, not in real life. This is where our books come into play.

So a new year and (giving in to social convention) a new decade is upon us and I am in an interesting situation. A year ago, I sat in a chair and outlined my 2009 goals to everyone. I put myself on notice that there were things I wanted to do and things that needed to get done. Out of the five things on that list, I accomplished one: looking at other freelancing work. Spirit Hackers remains unfinished (though I did get some more written since that old post) but I am still determined to make it into a complete work and get it out there for the potential agents / publishers.

So what happened in 2009? The same thing that happens to everyone: life. I got sick, I procrastinated, I re-launched my podcast, I lost my drive. There’s plenty more that factors into my lack of writing and there’s plenty of blame go around but the focus of that is on me. *I* did not write. *I* got lazy and *I* did not want it bad enough.

I’ve said a hundred times on this blog that if you want something bad enough, you’ll make it happen. My lack of results reflect my desire to make things happen but I believe that is going to change.

So… for 2010 there’s no lofty goals. There’s not target word-counts. There’s no outlines, projects, plans, or anything else of structure. This year, 2010, is about one thing: writing. It doesn’t matter what I write. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it. If I am to make a serious go at becoming a professional writer, I must do what others cannot: write. Days off will happen and other things I do will preempt words getting into stories, but the goal is to write. Whether it be blogging or getting the last sentence of Spirit Hackers out there, it’s all the same. Words are words.

So with that, I am off and running. My first post of 2010 is complete. If you’ve been here at all somewhat recently, you’ll see that I’ve implemented a new theme here at Copious Notes. I’m going to feel it out and see if I like it or if something better is out there. Feel free to let me know what you think.

For now, I (as always) thank you for stopping by. I’ll talk to you again soon.

Category : Just me
Tags : ,
0 Comm