My personal productivity has taken a nose dive in the past week. The novel currently hasn’t been started yet (since I scrapped those 10,000 words), mostly because the time I normal would be writing has actually been taken up by the day job. This means I need to stop depending on the free time at work and start making time at home. Not going to be easy but it will be done.

As I’ve said, the Novel is at a standstill. I still have plans for completion by the end of summer for the first draft, so each day I delay means I’m just making it harder on myself. I’m still excited about the direction the story is aimed at so that’s not the issue. It’s just a matter of realizing I need to sacrifice free time for writing time if I’m ever going to become something more than a wanna-be writer. I’m not a novelist yet. Not until I actually finish a novel.
In other but related news, I’ve found some new Crack. Inside of the game City of Heroes, there exists the ability to customize the base of your super group. In terms of most MMO’s, think of super groups as the guild or clan. As your members fight as representatives of your SG, they will earn prestige that can be used to purchase useful items like storage racks and teleporters, to less useful but prettier items like technical looking toys or magical artifacts. In the game, various players have discovered you can “stack” certain items to allow an SG to build up an area in a normally impossible way. This has lead to a portion of SG’s into the habit of creating extravagant structures and designs. Within my Super Group, I am this designer. Namely because I’m the only active leader, but anyway… I’ve come to really enjoy making custom looking areas and chambers in rooms for the base. The only major problem is that I may be making too many items and such as I’m really starting to eat into the prestige. Most likely I will actually curtail this development until the base is at a more complete level. Besides… I need to start inviting more members to gather more prestige.

Looks like this is going to be a brief one. Odd that I both don’t feel like writing fiction or blogging. Gotta get myself out of this artificial funk and start writing again full time.

jdiehl

April 16, 2009 · Posted in Entertainment, Projects  
    

This is a reupload of a post that was, well, breaking things.

So the writing is going on strong. I haven’t reached to target of 10 000 total words that’s required by the end of this week, but I’m pretty close. I just put the final touch on the rough draft of Chapter four, and I know where I’m going with Chapters five and six. After that the first quarter of the book will start to reach a very climatic point soon, before settling down into the middle plot line. A few people have gotten to see the first three chapters but that’s it as far as sharing the work before it’s done. Once I’m complete with the rough draft, I’ll share it with a few pre-readers. Then, after I leave it down for a month or so, I’ll come back to it and start the first series of edits. Target goal right now? Have the rough draft ready by the fall (two weeks in already, at least 20 total weeks to write at 5 000 words a week), then have the edits complete by the New Year.

Beyond writing, things are going slow in other areas of production. Expansion of the Dynamic IP SG is going slow, which I should have come to of expected considering the fact we don’t have too many high level characters that are on often. For that matter, none of the leaders are over level 30 yet. I think I’m going to try to push to have Nathan and Dakota each get a 50 on Victory. After that, whatever alts they want to play is their business, but if we’re going to have the group keep growing, the leadership needs to appear more like leadership. It shouldn’t take either of them beyond a month or two to get characters to 50 anyway, since both are out of work, although Nathan does have that whole school thing.

For now though, I’m happy that I’m writing. This is the furthest I’ve been when it comes to writing a real novel. Granted, I did and won NaNoWriMo last year, I hated every minute of it and mostly wrote horrible gibberish. This time, I’m at least 7000 words in and I’m loving the story. There are things that I need to adjust, that I know I need to edit, but I’m getting it done.

I wonder though, if I’m ever going to get back to working on the game project I had started. I’d like to, but I have a feeling if I start on that, I’m going to lose time with the writing. In fact, I’m certain I will because I have that habit of losing interest in the old if I start something new. Maybe that’s why I’ve stuck with City Of Heroes for so long. Because I’m not letting myself be too distracted by other games.

For those you who are interested, I’d like to invite you to come to the community website I’m hosting. www.dipsg.com is the main website of the super group, but it’s able to be much more than that. To speak the truth, I’ve been considering retooling it better to support a community outside of City of Heroes We’ll still be hosting the super group, especially while I’m still in charge, but I’d like to provide for it to be so much more in terms of gaming, interactions, and gathering. I’d like to also use it as the launching board for my writing too, to get people interested in my works involved with me and mine.

We’ll see.

jdiehl

March 25, 2009 · Posted in Projects, Website  
    

Chapter 1 AND 2 are down. Chapter 3 on the way… This is the furthest I’ve ever been. Diving deeper.

And I’m not editing at all but I’ve already got 20 editing notes for down the road.

March 16, 2009 · Posted in Projects  
    

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