Let’s talk about luck. Luck of the draw, luck of not getting run over by Santa’s reindeer (sorry, Grandma)…You know, luck. In stories, we don’t really like it when some lucky happenstance comes around and makes things all better for the protagonist. I mean, buddy, if you’re a good protagonist, you gotta learn to do things yourself! Right? Yes. And no. But mostly yes. However, while we don’t want our characters getting by all thanks to…
The team of scientists from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention worked tirelessly to keep the outbreaks at bay. Quarantines struggled to remain in place. Try as they might, the situation was getting out of hand. As the diseases spread, riots broke out. Citizens turned barbarous. Cities fell. The team moved sluggishly through each city they came to, doing what they could to fight the epidemic, but it was without hope. Their resources were being used…
As a grad student, I moved in with my friend who had his own place. It was nice enough, except in my room there was no bed, so I slept on an air mattress. It beat buying a new one. One cold winter night I lay fast asleep. I sleep better in the cold. Deeper. Must be a side effect of being Canadian. Anyway, sleep had overshadowed me like a thick fog. I was out for…
It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated this, but that’s because United Airlines tried to kill us all. Sort of. We were heading to Canada for Christmas, and we left on the 23rd of December. We made it safely from Salt Lake City to Denver without any problems at all. Then we tried to leave Denver. Our United flight was delayed due to…toilet problems. Apparently the flusher wasn’t working. So we waited. Soon enough…
I was hoping to give an update on my novel progress last week, but life got away from me, as it is wont to do. But, now I’m here, updating! And the first news is…I finished book two last Monday! I reached my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo in November (which is all that matters), but I finally finished the last sentence on December 1. I had considered combining book two with the first one because I didn’t…
It took me all of 19 days, but I reached the 50,000 word count for NaNoWriMo! While it may look like it came easy since I’m done with 10 days left to spare, let me tell you, it was far from easy. The writing was, of course, enjoyable. I love figuring out who my characters are, what bugs them, and how they react to the story. I love connecting bits and pieces together into something much…
While at work today, I was listening to an older Writing Excuses podcast while I did some mundane tasks. On one of the episodes, they had a special guest with them (E.J. Patten I think is his name). He mentioned a story he wrote/wanted to write, and then talked about how it changed and then was nothing like the idea in the first place. His story idea was about kids dressing up for Halloween and their…
I’m halfway there! I have surpassed the 25,000 word mark in my NaNo novel. To be honest, I didn’t even know if I would make it this far! But I did, thanks to my lovely wife who demands me sit down and write each night. What would I do without her? My novel is going as planned. It’s also going in places in which I never expected. Before November, I constructed a short outline of where…
Welp, we’re five days into November and NaNoWriMo is going strong! I have broken the 10,000 word mark and am well on my way to winning. This can only last for so long. In previous years, NaNoWriMo wasn’t too bad. I had plenty of time to write and few distractions. It helped that I could even write at one of my jobs. Now, time is a lot more difficult to come by. My job doesn’t…
Halloween is a frightening time, and last night, while I was writing a Halloween short story, I was (un)fortunate enough to have a little scare. Alright, it was a big scare. I had started writing the story during my lunch break yesterday, and then around 8:30 pm I started back up on it. I was enjoying where the story was going, while at the same time giving myself the creeps just a little bit. Then, about…