I'm back, baby!!!

A friend of mine, Joe (@pseudojoe), one of the best I have in Charlotte, twittered earlier today about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which is in November. I would like to say it took him twisting my arm, much begging, pleading, and purchasing of fine Starbucks, but as soon as I saw the website (nanowrimo.org), I knew this was going to be my project for November. The premise of NaNoWriMo is to produce a 175 page; 50,000 word novel between Nov 1 and Nov 30. The focus is on quantity, not quality, but the plan is to create a relatively cohesive and developing story that will flesh itself out over the course of the month.
I haven't updated this blog in over a month, simply because I have had little to write about that hasn't been covered by Twitter or Facebook that I am interested in and free to write about. I'm going to work out if I want this blog to be a part of my NaNoWriMo submission. If so, I'll keep updates here; either way, I need to do something useful with this space.
I have over a month at this point to plan this out and have a start at writing in November. I'll keep posted here what I come up with, and will hopefully be ready by Halloween!

Sometimes, writing goes like this...

I wrote something today, got about three fourths of the way through, and realized it was total crap. It wasn't even something that could be saved in editing; all I could do was highlight it all and hit the 'delete' key. After I had written it, I had already lost the reason for writing it in the first place. It was one of the worst pieces I have produced in months, and it had to die.

The tricky thing is not letting it get me too down. I know that just as I have bad writing days like today, I have good, and occasionally rare great days other times. As with anything in life, you have to work through the bad to get to those good times, and even in the bad, you can learn a lot. That's why after the last three years I should be on Jeopardy, because I should know close to everything by now.

Now that I am about to start working, I will have to schedule time for writing. Hopefully by the end of October, I will have a regular routine that allows for all of the things I have been working to develop. Purposefully building the foundation for a life, having made so many mistakes before, is allowing me to pick and choose the things I know are important.

Driving through Charlotte today, I thought about where I have been, and how right it feels to be here after so long. The jobs I accepted will have me working all over the area, from the middle of uptown to locations further out. I came to become a part of things, and it appears I am getting what I want. I never want to have to start over again, or go somewhere else. For the first time, when asked by people I meet about the future, when and where they may see me, or run into me, I just reply "I'll be around, I'm not going anywhere". This is home, and in ten years, I hope you can find me here, happy, well, and closer to who, what, and where I should have been all along.

As this weekend things are about to change, again, as I move into the next part of the big plan, I will going into a different post style starting next week. The other project is almost ready to get off the ground, and once it starts, it may end up taking priority over this project. As far as content, I will continue to stand by my own rules about no work related posts. I think I am going to have to sign a non-disclosure for one of my jobs anyway, and the other is all about confidentiality in the first place, so aside from the "things are good" or "things are bad", there will still be no work related posts.

I think there will be more photos coming, though. I have taken some writing advice and now carry my camera with me most of the time. I have been devoting a fair amount of time learning more about photography on my time off, and my pictures are starting to look better for it. I took one today of a construction crew that I hope turns out well. I have a link on the right hand of this page to my web album, but I need to add one to my Flickr account.

Well, thanks for reading and keeping up. I do need to give a mention to my friend Wendy in Hawaii that keeps on leaving some incredibly witty comments, and encourage her to do her own blog on a non-myspace site so I can link to her (I do like Blogger). Not only a witty writer, she takes some great photos as well, living in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

3000 Word Day!!!! [Insert evil laugh here]

The last two afternoons, I have been working on a writing project that is quickly coming together. While this ambitious project first seemed it was going to be too much for me to handle, now having the time to write has changed my approach. After today, it has structure, style, and a clear direction, through a completed introduction, outline, and segment ideas for the next three months. In all, the mighty word count tool advised me of my first 3,000 word day. The only thing is that it is going to be completely anonymous. There will be no link here, and no identifying parts in the end product. I am doing it purely for the joy of writing, and I have not had so much fun, even writing posts for this blog. If I am lucky, maybe you will read it sometime, not knowing, not thinking it is the product my mind. If I am successful, you will never know.