Yeah I know, I’ve been absent from doing as much Flash publishing for the second half of July after a strong start in the end of June. The good news is that this isn’t because I’m not writing, it’s because I’m working on another project (or three). The biggest project will be finished by the weekend coming up. The other projects are on going but will take a back seat once August crests the month line.

So what is FlashWriMo to me? FlashWriMo is taking the rules of NaNoWriMo and applying it to writing a ton of flash fiction. That’s 51,667 words in 31 days (NaNo is 50K is 30 days, do the math). At under 500 words a story, that will be at minimum 103 pieces of flash fiction to create in 31 days. Since my plan was 104 pieces of flash fiction this year (two a week), this will meet my quota for the year, my quota for the special post year project, and allow me to possibly twice to posting three stories a week. If that happens that I work on 156 pieces for the year, I’ll up the special project at the end of the year to 200 pieces of fiction. If you’re counting still, that’ll be 100,000 words. Hrm, that sounds familiar… like it’s the length of something else you’d put in book form.

If FlashWriMo works out, maybe I’ll do a repeat come NaNoWriMo time and just get the first half of the stories done for 2011 ready. What? Did you think I was only doing the flash project for a year? Oh no, this is a lifetime project. So long as I can still interact with the written word, you’ll always find flash fiction on my writing site. Flash fiction is fun, and even if my writing career never really picks up, I’ll continue writing the micro pieces.

I… just would prefer… you know… if it did take off.

Okay, so expect new fiction starting August 1st (or technically the 3rd, since that’s Tuesday). There’s a post highlighting this on the fiction site if you want details on knowing which stories started in FlashWriMo.

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Let me start off by showing what my desk used to look like.

Note that I used to have a back panel on the desk. Still weird seeing that back wall now.

Okay, so the new desk. I ordered an Ameriwood Work Center-L desk from Amazon back in April. Not too expensive, but I was a little hesitant about ordering from a company I didn’t know. I would come to find out, my instincts were right. (see multiple angry tweets about not getting my instructions… that’s another story).

Fast forward to two weeks later. I have my instructions, and I’ve moved Trish’s desk where mine once was. This first shot is a few steps in and the top is still upside down.

So I start building higher and higher, getting more parts together and keeping cats from grabbing the tiny bits and screws.

Look! It’s standing! I’m so proud.

One wing done.

(Look, a cat distraction!)

And here’s the left wing. FYI, this step is recommended for two people. The manual is not lying. This was a pain in the ass crawling behind and attaching that wing. (Also, I got the top up too)

So, that’s the desk done. It’s a few weeks later and now here’s the current desk:

If you can name a few dozen geeky things in that picture, a cookie for you.

So, desk images delivered. Are you happy now Dakota?

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A new story will also show up tonight for yesterday and I’ll have tomorrow’s cooked up. Later this week I will also be talking about the source I’m using for some of my flash fiction.

Okay, that said, let me jump out of here, go start some of the flash fiction and be ready for action this evening.

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So the breakdown:

Work – They kept another person, reducing my work load by a 1/3. Awesome. They also activated the program they were testing and things were wonderful. Awesome. I’m shifting to an 8am-5pm work schedule. Not awesome, but I’ll deal with it. These three points combined make life a hell of a lot better.

Home Life ­– Some issues, but progress is continuing. The new desks arrived and I built one of them (pictures to come later). Too big to have two in the office though, so we’re giving one to Trish’s dad. Sounds good too as he’s moving closer. That will make life easier with just being able to interact with them on a regular basis as opposed to being two hours away. A few things I need to touch on in the coming weeks, but overall, things are on the up and up.

Writing – New life blog today, new flash fiction tomorrow! That’s right, the flash fiction is returning as of June 1^st, and so help me I will never have a break again unless I end the project. I’ve only completed yesterday’s work but I’ve resolved myself to write a piece a day. It’s going to take a bit to get my groove back but everything is rolling. I’m not sure how often I’m going to blog here over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll try to keep this place in the know regarding the big things like, when I’m going to be at D*C, any conventions I’m heading to, and where my writing it going. Life marches on.

That’s it for the update! Expect more! Demand More! Communication! End!

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The primary source of my busy state is the paid gig. The day job has been taking up a great deal of my time and effort, spilling into over time in the last two weeks. Whereas work five weeks ago was relaxing, focused, and allowed me a certain level of mental groove; the most recent iteration of work since the 19th of April has been epic in the amount of issues, assistance, and general size of my work pool. Frankly, I haven’t felt the desire to do anything after working these past few weeks beyond mental simplicity. It’s just been that kind of month. That said, things with the job should begin to change come the 31st of this month. Hush-hush on the details but work should be more back to a stable structure instead of the madness that engulfs the current focus.

There has been some progress at home though during this cycle. Trish and I started having weekly meeting regarding the standing of our household, finances, and things that need to be acted on. It has really made her happy as she feels like I’m more “involved” with the house and I agree. It makes me feel like I’m more involved. We’ve even started doing more with the house because of it. I bought some new desks and they should arrive this week. I can’t say putting them together will be fun, but it will be great to have the change of scenery. We’ve had the same configuration for the past 3 and 1/2 years.

On the writing front, these are the first words I’ve written since the 27th, when the last post showed up on the writing side of the blog.I missed a great deal of days in April and all of May. I won’t have June ready by the 1st of the month I believe. I’d like to, but it’s just unlikely. I do have a plan for continuing the flash project. I even know where, oh, about 40 stories are coming from. I’ll share the inspiration later once I have it rolling. The goal, right now, is to be up to date by the end of June and have July rolling. Be the end of July, I expect to have everything up to Dragon*con ready. By Dragon^Con, I expect to be done for the year except for the stories I’m going to add to the purchasable book.

Like I mentioned, it has been a busy time. Life is stabilizing though, and within the next week or two, I’ll be into my new routine.

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For now, just a quickie update.

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Even managed to complete something like 5000 words on brainstorming for the new D&D campaign. Did I mention that? Yeah, turns out I managed to recruit five people to be a part of a 4^th edition dungeons and dragons game. Awesome.  The story concept is familiar, very Romanesque in a magical realm. Think it’ll work, we’ll see though won’t we.

Fun note about last Thursday’s flash fiction, Corporate World: I ended up being inspired to make this piece after listening to the first few episodes of Nathan Lowell’s Quartershare. So far the book is pretty good, looking forward to how it ends, and the inevitably the half dozen sequels.

Woo, getting tired. I suppose that exercise is catching up to me.

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Starting with my fiction, I’m currently working on a piece of for the Escape Artists Flash contest. While I can’t provide any details for the story as that would be against the contest rules,  I will say that I’m really enjoying the piece I’ve put together. You’ll get to see the piece on the writing site regardless if I win or not. The story has been trimmed down I just have to give it one last editing sweep before submitting it tonight.

The year of Flash continues with my Tuesday/Thursday posts. Still going strong, and now I’m all caught up except for three remaining posts in January. I should have that corrected by the end of this week which will let me move onto the next phase of the project: Getting ahead of schedule. In order for me to have the book ready by the end of the year, I have to have the fiction written long before December. Ideally, I’d like to be a month ahead of schedule by the end of April or May, two months by the end of June/July, and be finished with the year by the end of August/September. This would let me work October through December preparing the book while getting ahead of schedule for the next year.

Finally, I’m working on a short story based on a writing assignment from the March FWA meeting. The outline is complete and I just need to put meat on those bones. The goal is to have a final draft edited by the end of April, and then have a finished copy ready to go for submissions by the end of May.

Outside of fiction writing, I’m back at working on an RPG system. This one is very similar to one I worked on years ago with one of my best friends. She had wanted something akin to an Alice In Wonderland rpg, so it had to be based on cards instead of dice. I’m now further into the new development on the project than when I was working on it ten years ago. The current timeframe is to be able to run play tests by this weekend. Going to hijack my wife into playing the game with me for a bit. Ideally I can have something ready by the end of Spring.

Moving on from writing, the recording of TDC3 is tonight. I’m sorry that the second episode isn’t up yet, but hopefully things can get rolling soon. Haven’t had much chance to talk to Andrew over the past two weeks, so I’m assuming he’s been very busy with work. Happens I guess. I’m still debating starting my own show, but I don’t have the editing expertise Andrew has. We’ll see how this tonight goes.

I’m happy to see that productivity is abound. I see 2010 as a great year for my projects and while there have been set backs (see my posts about the post-apocalyptic Shadowrun project earlier this year), one thing I’ve learned from that project is that I can’t get too hyped up about the project until I’m certain it’s something I know I will love.

We’ll see just how well that goes with the current cooking pots.

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I’m also considering picking up a webcam for the recording as that seems to be a growing trend in podcasting these days. Not certain if that’s right for us just yet, but we will inevitably get it rolling.

Oh quick update on the writing site, we are on schedule this week for two new pieces Tuesday and Thursday. I’ll be preparing some backlog stories this week to fill the rest of Jan, Feb, and Mar. Hopefully I can be finished with the backlog before April. I’ve got a week and a half so I need to get in gear.

Writing Goal for the week: 500 words written or edited each day not counting blog posts.

That’s it. Just a quickie on what’s happening this week.

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…

Okay, there’s a lot of jokes in that sentence, as well as incorrect information, especially considering how ‘un-weekly’ this posting has been over the last month. Enough about that, diving in.

So for the last two weeks of February I was doing good with getting out and walking every evening at work. From 6:00 to 6:10, I did a half lap around the building for two weeks.

Then March hit my like a brick and I haven’t exercised since. In that time frame, though, I learned some things. First, my weight as of 3/3/10 is 387 lbs. That’s a high number, but that’s much better than the 396 I was last year in October. 9 pounds less in six months especially when I know that I did bad over the holidays. The fact I loss in that period is awesome.

Second, I’m learning how to treat food properly. I’ve been getting better at turning away from foods I don’t need and avoid eating just for taste. Still not perfect but I’m getting better as I go on.

So, going forward, I’m going to get back out there and walk. The bronchitis is still hitting me, but if I don’t get my blood flowing I’m not going to get back to full and healthy, and the sickness wins. I’m going to take it easy at first, but I want to be where I was two and a half weeks ago soon. I was so close to being ready to doubling my exercise time, and it was torn down by that virus. I’ve got two weeks left in March to get up to speed to double my exercising in April.

And damn it, April will be an awesome month.

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