NaPoWriMo 2014: Now That Script Frenzy's Dead... Poems!

Two years ago, NaNoWriMo discontinued their April scriptwriting spinoff Script Frenzy and replaced it with an April CampNaNo. As I'm not writing another new novel until next NaNo in November or I finish editing Chaos Angel Spanner book 1, whichever comes first, I've decided to do the next best thing until it became the best thing: NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month. Basically, you write a poem a day for 30 days, or just 30 poems this month. Considering my typical FAWM song output (28 songs this year, 14 of them in just the last two days), that should be easy. And my NaPoWriMo will be happening right here in this blog! Brace yourselves!

Good Riddance 2013, Hello 2014; or, Resolution Time Again

I didn't post here most of last year, not even songs for FAWM (because I never recorded any). Reason is, I spent most of my time on the epic final edit of Spanner. And this is supposed to be my main blog.

2014 will be different. Naturally, I have my resolutions. The obvious ones:

1. Finish the final edit of Spanner Book 1.
2. Practice my singing and my instruments for FAWM, not just this year's but next year's too.
3. Pick a non-Spanner NaNoWriMo novel to edit and get published.

The ones I've been seriously procrastinating regardless of year:

4. Start drawing again so I can finally learn how to draw comics;
5. Start taking photographs again (conveniently, digital cameras better than mine are cheaper than ever);
6. Keep at my workout program (just resuming it's not enough);
7. Improve my French, German, and Japanese;
8. Learn Python, Perl, and even C;
9. Clean house (and stop using the epic Spanner edit to avoid it); and
10. Resume regular posting to what's supposed to be my main blog, starting now.

2013 was a tough year: my mother's long recovery from surgery, the death of a cousin who was almost a brother to me when we were kids, the birth of my nephew and my brother's near-withdrawal from the family, my unhealthy obsession with a certain epic edit that even nearly ruined my health and prevented my 8th consecutive NaNo win (which I pulled off despite myself). 2014, on the other hand, will be the year I become a published professional author at last. I'll get back to posting about novels, comics, TV series, and the like as well. And of course I'll post drawings.

I've had my drink to the new year. The next step is to plunge into it. Here goes...

Figuring Out 2011

The new year is, as everybody knows, the most convenient time to set out new goals. For me, this year's set will be a bit different from the usual resolutions I've carried over from year to year.

This year, my goals are:

1. To finish the five volumes of the serial novel I'm currently writing and serializing online, Chaos Angel Spanner, edit them, and get them published starting in ebook form. Currently, I'm approaching the end of Book 1 and the beginning of Book 2. (Note: it contains large amounts of political, social, and sexual incorrectness, so it's definitely not for everybody, least of all the squeamish.)
2. To become good at playing one instrument. This year, I want to get back to playing the guitar. I'd better start in January, because Febrary Album Writing Month is just one month away.
3. To become fairly fluent in one language that is not English. I've been struggling with French since I was 10, so that's the one I pick this year.
4. To get back into good physical condition and get my body looking as good as my pretty face. That will take some prodding, and not just by my mother (who usually takes me to the gym with her). It will probably also require some changes in my diet.
5. To read at least one book a week, and post my impressions here.
6. To take at least one photograph a day starting today, and do a complete Project 365.
7. To draw at least one picture a day and get my drawing skills at least back up to where they were in the mid''00s, when I pretty much stopped after discovering NaNoWriMo in 2006.

Classes I'll be taking this year:

1. Web design. So far, the introductory class has introduced some tags (specifically tables) and CSS (starting with boxes and layouts) that I never learned even though I've been working with webpages and HTML on and off since the mid-1990s.
2. Photography. A photographer friend is holding classes, and I'm taking them. The intermediate class will require that I get a tripod.

I hope to achieve all these goals this year. Previous years, I've been distracted from all my goals. This year, I believe I can pull them off.

Here goes...

My Fifth NaNoWriMo Victory!

It's official: I've just won my fifth consecutive NaNoWriMo! You can see my word count in the NaNo word count widget to the left. Come to think of it, I should have inserted the widget into the sidebars of this blog and my project blog. I realized this when I put another counter widget in that place. Next year, I'll know better.

Next comes NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month). My goal: finish Spanner book 1 or write 50,000 words, whichever is more. I haven't written much since I won NaNo about a week ago (I reached 50,000 words on the 22nd and the word count validator bot made it official on the 25th), so this counts as another good excuse to get writing again. This will be my fourth FiMo, but I'll be going for my first win — significantly, writing a novel other than my '07 NaNo novel, Bad Company. I'll post my progress toward completion on the project blog.

A NaNo winner who wants his novel published can't rest on his laurels. I'll get back to writing soon.

In Which I Break My Media Silence, Post-AugNoWriMo

After I failed to win AugNoWriMo earlier this year, I spent nearly a month almost completely offline. Or at least avoiding my social media accounts except maybe an occasional visit to Twitter, and not blogging at all about anything. And now NaNoWriMo approaches, and I find myself in a sort of non-WriMo Panic Time. So here I am.

I have an explanation for my absence. Occasionally I find something that really obsesses me. This time around, it was something called the TV Tropes Wiki. I was always the kind of kid who got lost in encyclopedias, and I've gotten lost in Wikipedia numerous times. I got lost in TV Tropes for two full months, not writing any actually story words but merely listing (in a now massive Microsoft Word document) all the tropes (read: memes) that fit Spanner. I've got enough of an understanding of both the tropes and TV Tropes that it'll no longer distract me from writing my book.

Which reminds me: I need to update my NaNo profile now...

My Agenda for the First Week of January 2009

I have something of an ambitious agenda for the first week of 2009. First of all, I intend to write a whole lot. More information on that in the project blog (right here, to be exact). Once the first 30,000 words are out of the way, I intend to retool all three of my blogs, set up at least one new account (where, I'll say later), and start the initial work on my new homepage and project website.

What do I plan to do this New Year's weekend? Besides writing Bad Company, I want to get my blogs reorganized and properly customized. The political links that are still on this blog, I'll move to my opinion blog (which I also want to find the best name for), and I'll find other links I think better complement this particular blog. I'll make major changes in the blogrolls for each blog. I'll do the rest of the customization that got left behind when I abandoned my blogs back when I burned out on writing in August. I'll probably even change my template for this blog, and maybe even the project blog as well.

The other Web-related project I have in the works this weekend is my new project website. It will have the same name as my project blog — Spanner's World — and the project blog will be the associated blog. Eventually, I may even set up a "Spanner's World" forum for my projects, opening them up to public comment. The project page will be for my projects, of course, within the fictional universe that centers on my manga project Spanner and such side projects as Bad Company and its sequel Black Science.

So that's my plan for the first week of 2009. Now all I have to do is to keep myself to it...

My Internet-Related Goals for June 2008

Last entry, I made the decision that just as I set my project-related goals for this month, I should set some blog- and website-related goals too. So these are:

1. To build up the links and blogroll section of my project blog, Spanner's World, so that it's adequate for my purposes.
2. To find out how to put subject indexes and tag clouds in my blogs.
3. To learn how to promote my blogs on the Web and blog search engines and using other Internet promotion tools.
4. To resume learning HTML so I can start designing my website.

These goals shouldn't be tough like some of my writing and drawing goals. It's mostly a matter of learning and finding out so I can do it.

I'm a public person now, even if I don't yet have much of a public. I have an Internet presence, and this month's goals are intended to enhance it. The Outside View is supposed to be my soapbox, though it isn't yet. And, even after almost a decade, I don't have my website designed or online yet. I'm getting back to doing all this, starting this month. In addition to my writing and drawing, I need to maintain and improve my public presence on the Internet. Ultimately, I intend to post the first issue of Spanner online on September 9 — which, not coincidentally, is main character Shira's 9th birthday (she is 14 when the story begins).

I've got my work cut out for me. Now all I have to do is do it.