A Frog, Continued

Been feeling uninspired lately.  Maybe it's because we're watching The Wire, season 4.  That show just sucks the life force right out of my body.  Don't get me wrong, it's probably the best television ever produced, but it is also soul devouring. 

I have a couple ideas floating around.  My homework is to learn how to draw gatling guns, seascapes, and manatees (dugongs more specifically).  But, despite these ideas I haven't been able to produce much over the last week. 

On the writing front things are going better.  I've had a couple revelations recently.  Writers always say, "Write what you know."  I've been ignoring that in a big way concerning one vital piece of the story.  I realized my mistake and went back and made some changes.  I'm from Minnesota, I needed to embrace that.  I'm being cryptic, but you'll see.

My Mom and Aunt are visiting Amanda and I this weekend, so I don't expect to get much work done.  Look for an excerpt to be posted by week's end. 

Here is a variant of the frog I drew earlier, click to make bigbigbig:

 

Drey's Logo

Drey's logo has a complicated beginning.  I knew I wanted to do a logo for Drey because he's shared a lot of his art with me, and we've spent long hours discussing creativity and how to stay sane.  Not to mention he's been very helpful with my writing projects as well.  He didn't ask for a logo, and I didn't offer.  That's not really how he operates.  In any case, I knew I wanted him to be near the top of the list.

At first, my brainstorming produced a picture of a spider, I didn't know where it would lead, but that's where my mind went.  Probably because Drey hates spiders and I'm a sadist.

At the same time I was sketching boxers for some reason.  I like boxing, I know I need to work on drawing humans.  So I had these two sketches, when I started working on the actual file, the boxers came first.  I drew two men fighting.  It was alright, but the second dude just didn't fit.  I stopped working on that one and started up the spider.  It wasn't working either.  Frustration ensued.  I went back to the boxers, scrapped the second dude and the spider idea, and stared at the half empty canvas.  I fiddled with a few ideas, but the one that stuck was to have my boxer fighting a squid.  20,000 leagues style.  I guess I was still on a nautical kick after Amanda's logo.

The squid was sketched, pass after pass saw it getting further and further away from reality, and closer to some hideous Lovecraftian monstrosity.

Here are the results, click to make bigbigbig:

I like the whole thing.  The monster is pretty rad, I used a gorilla's mouth as reference for how to draw a good howling mouth.  I used the same pustule technique from Amanda's octopus on Drey's monster.  I like the idea of somebody boxing a monster.  Amanda says I was unconsciously drawing myself when I drew the boxer.  Probably true, although I'm in better shape and have a beard.  Also, she thought the background colors reminded her of some country's flag.  Neither of us could think of which one it was.

No variations on this one yet, although I've got some ideas.

A Frog, suddenly

I've been working on this damned spider illustration for a couple of days now.  I got sick of looking at it, erased the whole thing, and sketched a frog instead.  I liked it, so spent some time and made a pretty little picture out of it. 

This one isn't a logo for anyone, just a frog I drew for some reason.  I've got an idea for a cool variation on it, we'll see if it coalesces. 

Frog, click to make bigbigbig:

I drew hundreds of tiny little circles to detail his skin in a different way than I normally would.  I like the effect.  Amanda isn't crazy about the orange face, but I think it fits.  He's pretty simple, no fancy techniques here. 

Next post is Drey's Logo, for real this time.

Scott's Logo

By this point, I'd decided that I was going to do a logo for any of my friends that asked.  As an added challenge I was going to ask them to give me a list of the likes/dislikes to consider while designing.

Scott was the first to jump when I offered.  I asked him what his main interests were.  He said, "Politics, model trains, buffalo steak, and golf."

Of course, those elements all flow naturally together.

My immediate though was to recreate those classic presidential profile shots, and add some sort of twist.  I knew Lincoln would be one of the presidents, but at first I thought the other would be Washington.  I actually sketched out the design with Lincoln and Washington, but decided they didn't really have an interesting dynamic between them; a modern president would be much better.  That led me to Nixon.  The first design had their tongues sticking out and touching to create a bridge that a train was rolling across, but I wasn't crazy about it.

Here is what I ultimately came up with, click to make bigbigbig:

I did the whole thing, and was somewhat satisfied by the results, but something was missing, that's when I added the barf.  All of a sudden the whole thing pulled together.

The trains took forever to draw.  I finished the green one, took stock, liked what I saw, and prepared to draw a second one.  I got a few lines into a second, different train, then realized that they were going to be small and all I really needed to do was copy the first train and modify it a bit.  Same result, half the time.

Variation number 2:

I did away with the trains, not a smart move.  This one ended up alright, but boring.  Really, I just wanted to mess around with a monochromatic design.

Variation number 3:

This one was fun.  At first I lined them both up facing the same direction, but left them blue.  I was going to mess with having different stuff coming out of their mouths, but I multiplied them a few time, liked what I saw, and kept going.  Amanda said, "make them a rainbow", so I played with some other color schemes then added the rainbow barf.  I love the name plate on this one.  I wish I could take credit for that amazing font, but all I did was manipulate the kerning and size so that the first and last names lined up, then scrunched them so they blended together.

Let me know what you think.

Next post, Drey's surprise logo.

Discouraged/Encouraged

I wish there were more hours in the day.  Here's the deal, Universe, either you inject more time between sunup and sundown, or you give me the ability to regenerate like a starfish.  That way I'll at least be able to cut off my arm and regrow another me.  If that's what it takes, I'll do it.  I've got so much stuff I want to do, and it's all awesome.  There isn't anything that I can easily eliminate to make room for something else.

I'd rather you go with the former though, and just make more time, because the other solution still requires me to spend 70% of my awake time at the office.

Until something changes I'm stuck trying to fit a minimum of one hour writing, one hour reading, one hour illustrating, and all the rest of the death-prevention stuff that I can't avoid.  All the while trying to balance being selfish with enjoying my amazing relationship (maybe that fits into the death-prevention category).

So, while I'm making great strides in the races towards visually artistic satisfaction, there is a cheetah made of Times New Roman 10pt gaining on me fast.  I wrote a good chunk on Tuesday, tweaked a bit on Wednesday, and just finished 500 words a minute ago.  But that doesn't feel like much for an entire week's worth time.

Still, that's something.  Forward progress.  I think I finished Chapter 5 today.  I'll know for sure this weekend when I read back through it.

Cheers to all those that know just what I'm feeling.

Amanda's Logo

After Luke and Jeff got their pictures, and responded positively, I felt a bit more confident about the whole endeavor.  The most important person in my life hadn't yet gotten a logo, so she was the only option for what to work on next.

I wanted to do something simple, but bold, and it needed to be a challenge.  I liked the results of my first few projects, but they didn't really push my limits.

I've never drawn an octopus before.  I spent some time looking at google images, figuring out how their anatomy works.  The sketching and rough work went well, but took a long time.  The hiccups came when I was drawing the final outlines.  I find that a variety of bold line weights can turn a mediocre drawing into a statement.  I work with detailed building drawings all day long, and line weight is one of the most important aspects of visual clarity.  In architecture, the line weights have to be extremely clear and precise to 'tell the story' of the construction.  I guess that is probably where I learned the value of strong lines.

Anyway, I did the octopus' outlines, and they didn't work at all.  Too thick, too consistent.  I had to go through each limb individually and use a few different weights, and feather the edges to get it right.  I think it made all the difference in the world.

Here is the original, click to make bigbigbig:

I'm very happy with the results.  I had a lot of fun creating the planks that her name is written on.  The little green orbs are a sort of abstract representation of the suckers lining it's tentacles.  It's amazing how just three simple layers: Wash color, shade color, and highlight can make something pop.

Amanda loved it, she loved the color of the octopus (so do I) and said, "He has sad eyes"

Here is Variation number 2:

Simple color swap.  I haven't done any crazy variations on Amanda's drawing yet.

As I write this, I realize that probably the most important element of this kind of drawing is the composition.  I spent a lot of time making sure that all the limbs were spread out and arranged in a way that complimented the structure of the drawing.  That goes for the placement of the planks as well.

Hope you like it.  Leave a comment if you're so compelled.

Next post, Scottie2Hottie's logo.

Luke's Logo

After having so much fun with Jeff's logo, I wanted to do another.  I asked my buddies if anyone else wanted a logo, and Luke piped up.  I didn't ask what he wanted, I just said, "Do you promise to use the logo I give you, no matter what it looks like?"  He agreed as long as it wasn't overly offensive.

I went with the same method that I used for Jeff's logo.  I sat for about 30 seconds and the first thing that popped into my head was, Aborigine.  I can't explain why that came to mind when I thought about Luke.  I guess he's wiry, athletic.  Something about him just says aborigine.

I knew that I wanted to draw the original image, with his name being emitted simply from the Didgeridoo, then warp the image with some variations.

Here is the original, click to make bigbigbig:

I thought his tribal paint turned out nicely.  Amanda really liked the colors of the didgeridoo.  His hands were really hard to draw.  I'm still working on hands and feet.  I think most artists are still working on hands and feet.

Here is the dark side, variation number 2:

I loved drawing this.  The colors were easy, the horns were not.  Like those damned hands, I redrew the horns a bunch of times.  They turned out as I'd hoped in the end though.  The idea was that he was playing a giant bone didgeridoo.  When I showed Luke he said, "I love it, but it's not very facebook friendly because of the giant doob."

It hadn't even occured to me that it looked like he was smoking a huge joint.  I can see it now.  In my defense, Wade said, "First thing I thought was Bone."

So I put together Variant number 3:

I changed the didgeridoo.  I messed around with the 'outer glow' effect.  It's alright I guess, I still like the bone Didg more.  I also fixed the color of the ground shadow.  I'd broken my own rule when I drew the original ground shadow.  I'd made it a shade of gray, I fixed it to be a darker shade of the background color.

One last variation, just for fun:

I did this one on a lark, just messing around.  In the end this one seems to be most people's favorite.  I like it too.

Let me know what you think.

Next post, Amanda's logo.

Jeff's Logo

After Jeff made the previously mentioned logo, he asked me to return the favor.  It had been some time since I'd last did any kind of visual art, so I wasn't sure what would come of it.  Being obliged to produce something brought out the best in me, I suppose.

I had never used a digital drawing tablet.  My knowledge of photoshop was (and still basically is) limited to arranging layers and using the brush tool.  And, like I said, it had been a long time since I illustrated anything.

When I thought of "A logo for Jeff", Grizzly Bears immediately came to mind.  The bear in general is the most awesome of animals, Jeff is a big lumbering kind of guy, and it was a simple enough concept that I wasn't jumping into waters-too-deep.

Here is the first version of the logo I sent him, click to make bigbigbig:

 Three bears, three variations, and simple text.

It turned out just as I'd hoped, which surprised me, really.  And it was easy.  That's the craziest part, I was actually satisfied with something I'd created, and it was easy.  It took an afternoon to do.  I sat in bed and watched a movie with Amanda while I did it.

While I was drawing, I realized that this new digital medium allowed for variations on a theme with just a small amount of effort on my end.

Variation number 2:

Simple idea, satisfying results.  My friend Wade said it looked like he was wearing, "revealing biking shorts"

You see what you want to see.  I see a colorful bear, Wade sees sexy biker shorts.

Variation number 3:

This one is kinda boring compared to the previous one.

And finally (so far), Variation number 4:

 

This is probably my favorite.  I had a lot of fun putting it together, and I think it suits his visual style.

Working on Jeff's crest was an eye-opener.  It forced me to explore a new medium that probably would have remained unknown to me for a long time.  All of my friends, and especially Amanda have been extremely helpful in giving me technology advice.  Thank you to everyone for being inspirational and supportive.

Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Next post, Luke's logo.

Repurposed

I'm a designer by nature and by profession.  While writing is a new and exciting passion, visual design is a warm and familiar one.

I haven't taken on an 'art' project in quite some time.  A couple years ago I bought some paint, canvas, and brushes.  That last a a few afternoons before I lost interest. 

Recently, I made the request of a graphic designer friend of mine that he should create for me a kind of logo that I can use for my social media profile pictures.  He obliged.

His name is Jeff Schwartzbauer.  He made this logo from the comment, "maybe it should have one animal eating another animal".

So, after the ball got kicked down the hill, he and I started creating these personalized pieces of art for all our friends.  What started as logos has turned into something more akin to a family crest.  My friend Drey said, "It's something I'd hang above my castle gates."

I will be uploading the 'crests' I've done so far over the next couple days, and hopefully continuing to post about creative projects on a regular basis. 

It's My Damn Blog

So, the experiment didn't go anywhere.  It's a lot to ask of people to be constantly vigilant about a project that have no vested interest in.  But that isn't why I stopped posting.  I realized that every section I wrote was in a constant state of revision, and the very first draft was nothing more than the ugliest it would ever be.  So what I was really doing was polluting people's idea of what the story would eventually be.

The truth of the matter is that some of the story just needs to be belched out and left bare and abrasive until some future bit is written that allows it to be more fully formed and brought up to snuff.  So, I'm not posting sections of the story as I write them any longer.  I am still writing, have been the whole time.  The last part of the story I posted was Chapter 3, Part 3.  I am now writing the end of Chapter 5.  If you read the story, and were hoping for more, let me know.  I still need beta readers for particularly tough problems I run into.

I will post updates on my progress, and maybe some more of the story that I feel is appropriate for this forum.

I still don't have a title.

Distractions

Man, I get distracted easily.  I purchased two new books as research material, What if the Earth had Two Moons, and Don't Know Much About Mythology.  They're both interesting so far, and giving me some good ideas.  Therein lies the problem, though, I find myself reading all these books and writing less.  This has probably been the least productive writing week since the beginning. 

Between those two books, the Breadmaker's Apprentice (which is fantastic) and The Name of the Wind, I'm full up with words and finding it difficult to make scenes coalesce on the page.  Oh well, I got a good conversation started this morning. 

I'm eagerly awaiting the end of this chapter.  It should be cool, and it will mark the end of Part 1, at which time I'll really be able to start the big edits.  Once part one is in good shape I will be contacting my novelist friend and crossing my fingers that she'll take a look at it and give me some pointers.  We'll see.

I'll post Chapter 3, part 3 today, which is a departure I'm experimenting with, trying to let the narrator break the structure up a bit. 

Song

Chapter 3, part 2 is up.  It is brief conversation between the girl and Feast as they reach the edge of the spire plateau and leave the monastery behind.

I have, in two places so far, little bits of song or poetry injected.  They are tough to write.  The first one had sound a bit lurching and ponderous because it is sung by a lonely, half-drunk man.  This second bit is Feast (having that damned song stuck in his head) recalling the chorus to himself.  I'm not at all happy with these bits at the moment, but I'm sticking with my decision not to edit myself during the initial stages.  I know that something like a bit of song or poetry can easily be returned to later and revised, or even changed entirely.  So I left the songs as I they flowed out during those writing sessions, but I'm sure they'll change and grow eventually.

I've gotta come up with a name for the girl that Feast is traveling with.  I know what I've been calling her in my head, which might work, but you never really know until you've put it on the page and see how it looks.  Any suggestions?

I've written the third part, which is just a few hundred words long, and will post it soon.

More Peril!

Chapter 3, part 1 is posted.  I wrote the last sentence, reread it once, and then posted it.  I didn't even run a spell check.

Its actually somewhat freeing. 

I loved writing this part.  I was getting tired of the gloomy confines of the monastery.  I'm really excited for the next bit of writing that will finally take us off of the spire plateau and give us a view of where we've been exploring for twenty-thousand words.

What I'm realizing is that I need to inject more action into the story.  I've been making rewrite notes as I progress.  Most of them concern two things:  Add more peril to specific scenes, and add more emotion and affection to interactions between characters.

Well, Amanda is doing her yoga, so I'd better start writing the next part.  Thanks for reading.

All caught up

So, I posted the end of chapter 2 yesterday. 

The way it worked, was that I started this blog while the second chapter was out being reviewed by my brother.  So, by the time I really got it rolling, I had two complete (but raw) chapters to post.  By posting one section a day, I was able to take about a week to get them all up and readable.  This meant I could get a little jump start on the third chapter.

Now that the blog is caught up with where I am actually writing, my plan is to post more frequent entries about the progress and process, and every few day post a newly complete section.  This means the actual story will come a little less frequently, and in smaller parts, but it will be hot off the presses and completely unedited. 

Thanks to those that have been reading so far.

What I need from YOU now, is to comment, anything that strike you.  Comment on whats works, what is funny, what is groan-worthy, what is shit, or what is flat out plagiarism.  The whole purpose of this blog (for me) is to get feedback. 

Look forward to Chapter 3.Part 1 tonight or tomorrow.  Thanks again!

Doubt

Last night I waged a little internal battle with myself.  The self-doubt grabbed hold around my brain and squeezed.  I found myself thinking, "this stupid thing isn't working".  And of course, if it doesn't work perfectly right away, it's not worth doing at all.  So I laid there in bed, fretting about how poorly things where going. 

I woke up this morning with the clear understanding that 'this is the process'.  It works, its been proven time and again.  The writing I've done up to this point is unpolished, and the pacing and structure is messy.  By the end this first bit of writing will be unrecognizable to what it is now. 

So instead of continuing work on Chapter 3, I assuaged some of my creeping doubt by going back and working on some edits.

I restructured a troublesome conversation in the second chapter, as well as simplified some architectural descriptions.  I think this helped. 

I did come to a conclusion though.  Up until this morning, the idea had been that the story would take part in something like four parts, each consisting of three or four chapters.  The first part, which I'm about 70% finished writing, was conceived of as "Feast's solitary journey to the mainland".  In outline form, this made sense.  Part 1-Introduce Feast and his situation, Part 2-introduce the other characters, etc..  But, having written quite a bit now,  spending so much time without a 'sidekick' might not work.  With that in mind, I'm thinking of reorganizing some events so that one of the secondary characters gets introduced earlier.  Any thoughts?

I will begin posting the rough edit of chapter 2 (as it currently stands) this afternoon. 

Progress

This evening I got comments back from Amanda and my brother regarding the second chapter.  Good stuff, solutions to a lot of little problems I had.  I'm going to do some editing, then start posting chapter two on Monday.

The seed

This story actually has a pretty interesting starting point.  Back in the summer of 2007 a group of friends and myself decided to create a tabletop RPG.  I was new to the whole world of role playing games.  Only a few months earlier I'd been asked to participate in a few indie RPG sessions.  They were good fun and a great creative outlet.  So when I was asked to be involved in starting a large scale ongoing campaign I jumped.

A group of around five friends and myself got together around a bonfire with a couple bottles of wine and some notepads.  We chatted about our goals for creating this world.  We discussed settings, and themes, and aesthetics.  I won't claim to be the person who first brought it up, but I do remember being a loud voice in the conversation.  The idea was, sword and sorcery, conan-like world where grit and blood abound, with the twist that the world has a finite lifespan.  We came up with several ideas, and settled tentatively on a periodic global flood that devastated the planet.  I think we all got really excited when we discovered that the floods were caused by the complicated tidal patterns of a whole mess of moons, thirty or forty of them.  Again, I can't claim it was only my idea, but I'll put my flag in it regardless.

So we had this world, and a few kernels of plot, but nothing more.  We ended the initial world building session with the assignment to create a character with a brief back story.  I went home excited, knowing exactly who I was.  The next day I wrote the following:

The Would-Be Vessel 

I am Speaker Feast of the Second Mylthaenii Waning. I am one of the few who still believes in the preservation of the old gods naming convention. My birth was witness to the second waning cycle of the minor sub-mother Mylthaenii, an event very few are fortunate enough to experience. Mylthaenii’s many faces foretell a great tapestry of history that will blanket our world for better or worse. I am told that at the moment of my birth the sub-mother wept in the sky and a thousand lands were drowned in her tears. I am Mylthaenii’s sorrow. I am the Astronomer’s Feast. I am the speaker of my people. And I am alone.
My birth stirred up great turmoil amongst the Astronomer’s of (insert name of monastic island enclave here). Children born with the mixed eyes of Great Father Je’Cheris and the idiot-sleep are beyond rare, and a sign of powerful change and destiny. Many saw these traits and marked me as the vessel re-born, an omen my people wait their whole lives to see. But sub-mother Mylthaenii marks her children as destroyers, and dealers of deeds much darker.
The political infighting, compounded by my increasingly infrequent bouts of idiot-sleep saw my expulsion from the good graces of the Great Father and Sisters. They say the signs were wrong. They say I am not, after all, the vessel re-born. They say it is another. But I know who I am. I can feel the overwhelming weight of perfect geometry weighing down on my soul. I can see a thousand lifetimes spread out behind me like a great caravan across the sea of stars. I am the Astronomer’s Feast. I am Mylthaenii’s Sorrow. I am Hesetiah’s one true child. My people burned for their disbelief. Now I have only my duties, and my destiny, and the child.
The highlands writhe with whisper’s of the coming flood. A flood the likes of which this world has not seen since the days of the men who fell. Soon a thousand children across a thousand lands will be hailed as the one. The chosen one. The one who dries the world. The vassal come to pull the ill and meager mumbling ones from the rising tide. But these false idols are born of fear and superstition. They will bring only false hope and complacency.
In a time when C’Kana marks imminent turmoil, I say Amen. 

I go back and read this now and cringe a little.  Seems pretty melodramatic to me. 

Our gaming group never met again.  The project died and we all forgot about it.  My interest in role playing died as well.  But from that project the seed of this novel was created.  For that, I owe thanks for my fellow role players.  

Almost three years later, when I decided to commit to writing a novel, I immediately thought of Feast, the would-be vessel. 

What variable changed the equation?

This isn't the first time that I've said to myself, "I should write a novel", but it's certainly the first time I've ever been even remotely successful.  I can remember a story I wrote back in my first years of college.  It was about two old men at a nursing home who had rich fantastical life stories.  The plan was that they would go back and forth telling their tales, each chapter growing more and more unbelievable.  The idea came from a short story I wrote that was published in the University literary journal, Carbon World.  When it came time to expanding it into a novel, I got a few pages in via stream of consciousness then puttered to a halt.

I'm sure that document is still floating around my computer somewhere, abandoned.

There were other times, but they all met the same fate.  I can look back now and understand that I was doing several things wrong.  First, I was grasping onto a single clever idea, rather than a character's journey.  Second, I was aiming too high for my first time out of the gates.  And third, I didn't set myself up for success.

What really changed the equation for me was a chat with my friend Karen.  She is a novelist with eight books and counting under her belt.  She probably doesn't even remember giving me any advice, but she did and this is what she said.  She told me that she did the exact same thing, knowing she had the ability, but lacking the conviction to see it through to completion.  She carried on like that until one day she read a cozy mystery and said to herself, "I could have written this".  It wasn't an epic work of profound literature.  It wasn't Ayn Rand or William Faulkner.  It was just a simple story that turned pages and put a smile on her face.  So she decided to prove it to herself.  She set out to write her own cozy mystery, reveling in the tropes and cliches rather than trying to redefine the genre.  When she came out the other side she had the first in what would become a successful mystery series four novels strong and growing.  From that genre she's branched out into a second series closer to her heart.  Each new book helps her grow as a writer and as a brand.

But, at the core of this conversation, the key was starting small.  Just prove it to myself.  I don't have to open anyone's mind up to new and wondrous ideas.  I just have to tell an entertaining story.  So with that in mind, I'm trying to prove it.

How it got to this

I've decided to write a novel.  I've always broken the world down into those who know what the act of writing is about, and those who don't.  I hate to call myself a writer, but I will, because I've never really committed myself to completing a project of any real substance.  Recently though, as my life settles down a bit, that creeping thing called unease has coiled around me.  It's insidious.  I've got nothing to complain about; I've got a beautiful woman, a job that pays well, and a nice house to go home to.  Maybe we'll call it a quarter-life crisis.  I don't really have an explanation, but I've been thirsty for a large scale creative endeavor lately.  The dissatisfaction of not engaging in those skills I claim to have has been eating away at me.

So Amanda and I sat down and created a system of helping each other accomplish our goals.  I make sure she makes it out the door to pilates twice a week, and she makes sure I'm sitting at my computer working on this novel while she's gone.  That's how it started; twice a week.  I spent a month of twice-weekly writing sessions outlining this story.  I really tried, for the first time, to think of my writing as a project that needed to be built from the foundations up.  In other words, I decided to approach it like one of my buildings (I'm an architect).  In the past I felt successful as a writer because I could open up a blank document and belch out a couple thousand words on some clever idea without much trouble.  I could look back at that snippet of prose and be proud of how well it was written.  I'd take great care to choose the right words and inject some attitude into it.  But, as I sit here now, I look back at a folder on my hard drive that is full of abandoned snippets and nothing more.  So standing back and actually planning how I'd tackle this story was a new experience.  After a month of outlining I had a mountain of ideas, characters, locations, scenes, plots, and mythology jotted down unorganized in a Google document.

I started to feel like this was really a project, something I could accomplish bit by bit as long as I was patient.  I began to dream about new ideas, writing them down first thing in the morning.  Then I decided twice a week wasn't enough.  I'm an early riser, so I started bringing my laptop into the kitchen with me at 6am, writing as the house slowly wakes instead of reading.

Another two weeks goes by.  I've got a meaty document outlining the better part of a novel.  But more importantly I had a beat-by-beat timeline of the first few scenes.  When I got to that point, I realized I had to actually commit something to paper sooner or later.  I saw Amanda out the door one evening, yoga mat thrown over her shoulder, and I sat down to a blank screen.

To my surprise, it flowed.  I wrote, "Feast awoke unchained, and this surprised him".  All the work I'd put into outlining paid off.  I wrote the entire opening scene in one sitting.  And it felt really damned good.

So what the hell is the blog about?  Well, I'm going to sound off on my writing activity each day.  Maybe just a blurb about how successful/unsuccessful the morning session was.  Maybe something larger concerning a scene I'm trying to pin down.

As I write this, I'm approximately twenty thousand words into the story.  These initial chapters are being reviewed and edited by myself and a group of close friends.  Once I'm confident with them, I'll post them here for anyone to read.  The thought is that eventually I'll start posting my progress week by week, showing my process as I go back and forth, hopefully always moving forward.

As I begin to build this blog, I'll start with some posts about the story and its inception.