Welcome back!

I was able to sit down and hammer out Chapter 3. Most of it had been written before so I just needed to tweak a few things. No major changes were necessary. It’s looking good. I’m getting on a roll.

I also updated many of my blogs over the last couple days.

There are many new post on my Anglophile Blog - Anglotopia. Check ‘em out.

I also wrote a really long, in depth piece for Austerity Blog about How to Get Survive the New Depression we’re facing.

I also wrote up some entries for Ennui Blog about the best way to build blog backlinks by commenting and why you should avoid using iWeb to build websites.

I also wrote several entries for Dunesblog this week. One article is about the NWI Times’s Handling of the recent flooding in Northwest Indiana and another about Fun Fall Things to do in the Dunelands.

I also set up a Dragon*Con Photo Series on my Photoblog, check it out.

It’s Thursday and I’ve pretty much made it through my to-do list for this week. I’m very pleased. I hope I can keep this production rolling.

I was able to sit down and hammer out Chapter 2 today. I rewrote a lot of what was there and took out that I needed to save for use later. It’s going well so far. I have a good handle on the voice. It was smart to just restart from the beginning.

I also did a shit ton of brainstorming and came up with some golden ideas for new chapters to help beef up the overall story. I’m excited about this book for the first time in a year. I hope I can keep this up.

I love having my new office. It creates a perfect environment to create. It’s large so I can walk around and think. I can go to the bookshelf and pick up a book and look for inspiration. I can play music as loud as I like. I’m also making great use of my whiteboard to outline ideas. This new process works greatly.

Things are going well. I hope they continue to go so well.

After days of fiddling and pondering, I’ve managed to sit down a rewrite the first chapter of my novel. I pretty much gutted it from before, simplifying it and make it quicker to read.

I’m pretty happy with it so far. It’s small progress, but I’m slowly getting back into the groove. Tomorrow, I’ll approach Chapter 2, which won’t need much changing but needs to be heavily tweaked.

It feels good to be doing this again.

In other developments, I’ve finally developed the Projects page and the Blogs page. That way if anyone is interested in what I currently have going on, they can take a look.

I doubt anyone cares but I want to track my progress somewhere and maybe build an audience along the way.

I haven’t worked on my novel in nearly a year, for various reasons I won’t bore anyone with. It’s time to get back on the horse, get this thing written and find an agent.

Nothing will happen unless I actually sit down and do it.

So, I’ve taken the advice from my friend Chad and have decided to just start the book all over, from scratch - though I may use elements of what came before.

I’ve spent the last week re-conceptualizing the book, hammering out new outlines, writing various snippets of text to use later and altering mechanical things like voice and tense.

I’m almost done with this phase and will sit down and start writing significant amounts of text soon.

The goal is to finish the book by the time my wife and I go to England in March. I want to have a finished book for my wife to read on the airplane.

Watch me succeed or fail, if you wish. I hope you at least get entertained or learn a thing or two about writing.

This is my third novel, for those that care. I’ve been through this all before…