Progress Report

Dated 11th September

Remember, today is the anniversary of an event that changed the world. That’s all I’m going to say on that subject.

I've made fair progress this week on my novel. Not excellent, not really even good, but fair. I seem to have found the point at which I become disenchanted with a project. It's come a little earlier in this project than it sometimes does but a little later than with some other projects. In order to try to combat the desire to move onto a new project, I have decided to take the advice of the gentlemen on the Writing Excuses podcast and focus on specific scenes that I know are coming up in the future. What this will do, hopefully, is allow me to work on different aspects of the project rather than plodding through from Chapter 1 through the end.

I've also been kicking around the idea of purchasing some character development software. Ideally, it would be something that would assist me more in being able to quickly add flesh to a character than in actually creating my character for me. I'm sure there are some writers out there who think that using this kind of tool might in some way detract from actually writing, might make a writer lazy. In some ways, I feel there might be validity to that. I for one am nothing if not lazy. However, as with any and every job I have ever had, the maxim is that one should work smarter, not harder. Therefore, any tool that assists me in doing my work in a more intelligent manner--and enables me to do said work flat on my back as I am doing right now--is to be added to my collection posthaste. All kidding aside however, tools that increase my productivity are invaluable, since I feel like the slightest thing can negatively impact whether I feel like doing anything at all.

In the interest of another project that I have set up for myself, my Delving the Roots project, I have downloaded an e-book reader to my BlackBerry. As soon as I can work out some authentication issues on the eReader website, I will begin reading such classics as 1001 Arabian Nights, War of the Worlds, Dracula, and several other free classics that are available on that particular site.

That's about all I have tonight. Perhaps they'll finally get my Internet back in functional order in the next day or so and then I can post all of these blogs.

CL