I mentioned in an eariler post how I’m back on track in regards to working on my latest novel (working title: “Night of the Lonely Werewolf”).  I started this novel as part of National Novel Writing Month ‘08 and I did great all through November (hit the 50k word goal in 24 days).

Well, like the Magic of Eyri before it (NaNoWrimo ‘05), it took some time for me to work on it after Novel Writing Month. Problems included the holidays, travel, starting freelance writing, starting the Magic of Eyri podcast and other things in my personal life.

Having finally turned a corner, I’m back on track. I’ve been working the novel every day this week, even if only for twenty minutes or so at a time. At least I’m writing every day. I’m at just under 62,000 words and my goal is 80,000 for the first draft (a fry cry from Magic of Eyri’s 170,000+ words).

The problem with getting back into writing a genre novel (fantasy-horror-detective-steampunk, in my case) after being away from it for so many months is that I kind of forgot some of my ‘rules’ and what my characters were doing the last time I spent time with them.

Being a firm believer in “The First Draft Can Be Crap” philosophy, I tried not worry about that problem and just kept going. Still, it can be challenging–especially when you’re dealing with things like werewolves, magic and pseudo-steampunk technology.  If I were just writing memoirs about high school or something, this would be considerably easier.

While kind of breaking one of my first draft rules (don’t read/edit what I wrote), I’ve gone to the beginning of the manuscript and started reading so I can remember what I was doing back in November/December.

I think it’s a good sign that I found quite a bit of it amusing (which is also what I’m going for, I like writing ‘humor’ into my stories). It also helps that I kept notes during the original writing/world building process. Those come in handy.

This draft is far from perfect, but I want a first draft done by Summer’s end (September).  After that, start work on the always important second-draft.

I’m just happy to have my inspiration/writing drive back again.  The last six months were kind of scary.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

A few posts back, I mentioned how I picked up an electric timer to help me stay on task when working on projects at home.  I’m great at meeting deadlines someone else gives me, but I’m not good at self-imposing them (stuff for school/work/freelance is no problem–I always meet deadlines,  but the stuff I do more-or-less for fun takes some serious focus because there isn’t another person telling me to do it).

I gotta say, this is already paying dividends.

Say I’m working on editing a podcast episode. I’ll set the timer for twenty minutes or so, and just work for that period of time and not do anything else (on the flip of the coin that is me, once I get into the zone while working–I don’t stop, so the timer doubles as forcing me to walk away from the computer for a bit).

9 times out of 10, I’ll reset the timer for another twenty minutes (give or take) and keep working, which is great. But other times I’ll work for the allotted time, do something else for a few (see: wasting time on the Internet), and then get back at it.

It is really helping with getting me back on track with novel writing. I’ll say to myself, “Your Royal Awesomeness Self, you’re going to write for twenty minutes and I don’t care if it is genius or crap.” (it is mostly the latter).  To wit, I’ve written more this week than I have in the past few months. Huzzah.

I kind of fell off the creative horse a bit since the New Year while going through a bit of a rough patch in my personal life, but I think I’m back in the saddle (at last).  Yoga has helped with that too.

Speaking of yoga, I’ve only been doing it for only a few weeks and I’ve been seeing results from the get-go. I really started seeing the benefits of yoga when I began doing it in the morning right after getting out of bed (so I’ve been doing it at least once a day, but usually twice a day during the work-week).

It wakes me up and energizes me. I’m also way more toned than…probably ever…and I’m actually developing upper body strength.  And I recently dropped down to 140 lbs*. (what my doc says I should be at for my height), having been at around 160ish a few months ago.  I think the biggest thing I take away from doing regular yoga is getting used to the breathing exercises, which help with stress a great deal and help me settle down after staring at a computer screen for hours on end.

And being swimsuit season, I sure picked a good time to drop twenty pounds.

*now staying AT 140 is the real trick, as I will go up and down a couple pounds daily, but I wasn’t able to get any where close to that for the longest time before starting the yoga stuff.  I do other exercise besides yoga and I try to stick to a ‘lots of fruits and veggies and not too much meat’ diet.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

I found out today that I was one of the winners of the Tales Out of  Miskatonic University contest!

The contest was to write a short piece about a character reminiscing of their days at Miskatonic University, a fictional university that is mentioned in the works of horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft.

Winners of the contest will have their stories included in the Tales Out of Miskatonic University anthology (edited by William Jones, who also set up the contest). The anthology is a collection of stories that take place at MU and are written by present day writers.

I’m not getting paid for this, but I get a writing credit–and that’s fine by me, it was a flash fiction piece (a very, very short story–mine was around 330 words), so it isn’t like I wrote an epic novel. Because, now when I send out other manuscripts I can list that in my cover letter (as well as put it on the ol’ resume).

While I can’t put up the actual story online, I can say what it is about–I went with a bit of a different direction, making it more humorous and satirical. The narrator (this is a first person point of view) talks about being awarded a track scholarship to MU and is a background character for lots of wacky stuff going on around campus.

Lots of Lovecraft stories deal with characters finding some kind of ‘forbidden knowledge’ or science gone wrong or beings from other dimensions. My narrator isn’t directly involved in any of that, but his (ever changing) roommates are.

Think Death Star construction workers. Something like that.

I don’t know yet when Tales Out of Miskatonic University will be released, but I’ll do a post once I find out. And better still, I think it might be available at bookstores.

I’m excited!

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

Why is it always that things you think will be simple, end up being the  most difficult?

Case in point: for the past few weeks, I’ve been on the search for a battery powered electric timer. I’m trying to get better at my time management skills (when I’m home and just goofing around on the computer), so borrowing a tactic I picked up from a co-panelist (Mary Robinette Kowal) at PenguiCon last month, I decided to invest in a timer to give me some kind of boundaries.

I’m very much a person that thrives with deadlines, due dates and challenges. So, when I have none of those, my mind wanders. A perfect example of this is National Novel Writing Month. I can write 50,000+ words in 25 days while I’m on deadline, but good luck getting me to finish a manuscript on my own after that. Seriously, I hate it.

So, the idea with the timer is I set it for say 20 minutes and force myself to work on (whatever) for that time, or set it and say “I can goof off on the Internet for this long, after that, back to work.”

A great concept. Well, getting the device itself proved to be quite the task.

I wanted a timer with Hours and Minutes, because I’ll have situations where I have a hour or more of ‘free time’ and need to stay on task (say, before band practice). I had a heck of a time even finding a place that had timers with Hours. At last I found what a thought was one of these, but after I got home I realized it was Minutes and Seconds. D’oh. Returned.

Then, I finally found one that had Hours and Minutes.  Got home, tried it out and the screen was screwed up (which I couldn’t figure out until actually using it). Returned.

I know what you’re thinking, “Why not use your oven timer or set an alarm on your cell phone?” A) the oven time isn’t portable B) I like seeing the countdown and also not having to do the math in regards to what time it is when setting an alarm.

After returning the second timer, I at last found one–and I’m using it right now. I have five minutes to go to get this post up, so I think I’ll end here.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

I’m trying out my new blog settings–this should get mirrrored over to the ol’ livejournal account. The LJ account gets my daily Twitter dumps though, so if you like reading that stuff, make sure to bookmark the ol’ LJ. I’ll still respond to comments on LJ though, so don’t worry–I’m not giving up on it.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan.

Penguicon starts today, my schedule is behind the cut below.  I'm on a bunch of panels, but thankfully my schedule isn't that crazy--I actually have some gaps and my first panel isn't until 6 PM tonight (although I'll be there way in advance so I check in and relax...speaking of, I still have packing to do and other prep stuff, oy). Don't forget--I'm giving out free CDs with the first three episodes of the Magic of Eyri Podcast.

In freelance news, my latest article for Lansing Capital Gains is online--featuring an interview with everyone's favorite goblin author, Jim C. Hines (jimhines ), oh and the other fellow in the article is the bass player for the band I'm in (I'm the drummer). Jon wasn't originally in the article, but one of the folks I interviewed moved out of state after I turned the piece in, so we had to quickly find a replacement. Thankfully, I remembered that Jon had spent some time in D.C., so I was able to interview him ASAP (the article is on Michiganders who left the state for work/school and then came back).

Additionally, I was contacted yesterday about taking part in a local teen writing workshop. I don't know all the details yet, but I said I would be glad to help out--I just hope I can fit it into my schedule. I think my role would be to help the kids learn about the 'writing process.' Sounds like fun, I have a few ideas to make things interesting. The main thing I'll stress is don't worry about the first draft being perfect, that's what the later drafts are for.

( click to read my panel schedule )