Category Archives: Joshua’s Nightmare Updates

To say “to hell with tonight’s goal” or not, that is the question.

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And it’s a difficult question to answer, I’ve found, because it’s the sort of mentality that leads me into my weird, non-writing funks which get me nowhere but bored.

A bored Phil is not a good sort of Phil to have around.

However, the trouble, I think, comes largely from this: I have a short story floating around in my brain from a couple weeks ago that needs some love.  I may say that’s my five pages for the night and just see what happens with “Joshua’s Nightmare” (which will get love regardless because I had what I feel are some pretty cool ideas at work).  I’ve got another short story title idea in mind and I may just make it

Also, just taking a moment to say “hi” to the new followers, because I totally didn’t expect to log on and see new followers.

First day of actual writing.

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I started work on Massive, Daunting, Unnamed Project today only to remind myself of the following things (which I suppose should have been obvious):

  • Moving from the planning stages to the actual writing stages is a giant pain when it comes to details
  • I’m *still* terrible at coming up with character names I like
  • Working retail really kicks my brain in its squishy grey-matter ass, so to speak.

Those things considered, I still managed to get a solid start going on this story (which, for the sake of brevity, will be referred to as “Joshua’s Nightmares” from now until a proper title happens into existence).  Not as much as I’d have liked to get written compared to the time I lost to the near-pneumonia nonsense of last week, but a start’s a start.

On another front, I’m starting to consider places to possibly submit “Death at Teatime” to.  I’ve spent the bulk of the summer working on it in some regard or another.  I really need to move past the whole fearing rejection bit, because it’s bound to happen again.  Doesn’t make it any easier, of course.

So tomorrow’s goal, writing-wise, is to at least get five more pages of work done on this.  Just really write and not worry about how it reads or looks.  That’s going to be after a lovely 7 to 3 shift, so we’ll see how that pans out.

And maybe a short-story to throw on here.  I definitely need to organize this thing a little better, so as to not post everything Uncategorized.

Ending this with a guilt-trip to myself: it’s time to sit down, focus, and get this thing going.

So this deserves a proper beginning.

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And I’d really like to start this blog right-proper.

My name’s Phil, and I’m a writer.  Or I’m someone who moonlights, quite convincingly, as a writer.  I’ve had misadventures into blogging and many misadventures in writing, with the tiny, unfinished graves of many a story occupying a few hard drives over the course of my life.

Ultimately, my goal is to become a published writer.  I mean, ideally I’d like to become a semi-partially-somewhat known published writer, but I’d be cool with a published work at this point.  I’m two rejections into my life as a writer, which means I need to get my ass moving.

That’s where this blog comes in.  After attending Interventioncon 2012 (the best geek culture convention on the east coast, obviously), I set the following lofty goal: that I would complete a written work of novel-length by next Interventioncon, under the threat of receiving horrifying pictures from the depths of the Internet.

I’ll chronicle my misadventures in writing, which may or may not feature original pieces (like Christmas for readers, right?  Right.  You had better have agreed) and use this as a means to hold myself accountable for making progress on Giant, Daunting Unnamed Project, which is still only in the planning stages because naming characters gives me a giant, horrible headache.

Comments featuring encouragement, snide remarks, advice, or anything more generalized are all sorts of appreciated.  Let’s see where this long, windy, and, in all likelihood, sleep-deprived road will take me.