New Look

Is this easier on the eyes than the last design? I'll never be a pro at webdesign, but I'm trying to make this blog look at least somewhat decent. I like this new format, but we'll see how it ages. I was really starting to hate the last design there at the end. I'm a fan of the color green, but I may have gone a bit overboard...

My goal is to one day make this blog look like a newspaper. You know, those flimsy, cream-colored things your mother used to buy out of a box in front of a grocery store? I know there aren't many around these days and those that are tend to be used to line the puppy's crate. I've always liked the clean lines and straight-forward, in-your-face professionalism the best newspapers had. A box for everything and everything in its box, knowhatah meen?

I just checked my stats for the first time ever, and I want to share my amazement that there actually seems to be a few people wandering on to this blog every once in a great while. Hello, strangers! Drop a comment somewhere and keep a lonely geek and writer company for a little while! I'm going to make more of an effort to keep this blog updated and interesting, and I'd love feedback as to whether I'm going a good job or not.

Also, maybe I should go back and edit some of the more retarded things I've said on here... there are plenty to chose from.

I have to blame Jeff Vandermeer for this decision (gawd, his blog is always full of the weirdest, most delightful shit), so if you need to blame someone for my continuing desire to post my blatherings on the interwebs take it to him. I've been sampling his book on living as a professional writer and he's lit a fire under my ass.

Booklife has given me a few ideas of what I can do to get my writing life together, starting with actually making room for myself to write. After all, that is numero uno in how one becomes a writer, yes? I'm starting with a few simple goals to motivate myself.

• First, I will write one short story every month.
  
• My goal is to reach between 750 and 1000 words per sitting, and this number will go up as I gain speed and endurance. I'm already pushing the upper limit of this goal most times I sit down to write, and twice last week I stayed strong through over 1500 words in a sitting. I'm going to try for another mega-session tonight.
  
• I will write at least three times a week, possibly more once I get a better grasp on what my schedule will need to become for me to meet my goals.
• Any and all editing will not be considered as a writing session. Maybe later, when I'm more comfortable with my level of productivity, but at this initial stage I'm worried that I'll use "oh, but I did some editing" as an excuse not to sit down and write. I'm old enough to know the way my brain works.
• I'll work on something Fairway related at least once a week. I'm more concerned at this point with writing short stories, but I'm not going to let this novel sit on the back burner forever. I want to go somewhere with these characters, even if I'm not entirely sure where.
  

Fairway is still so much a work-in-progress that I'm sort of embarrassed to bring it up, but I haven't given up on it completely, oh no. I've been indulging in my bad habit of deleting things after I write them because they don't make me happy. Starting today I will not continue this habit, and may I do penance for a thousand years if I ever hit "delete" again. No more deletion, only revision. This I swear.

I'm almost finished with a horror story that I started fiddling with at the end of last month. I think with one more significant push I can end the story and get on with revising a few things I can already see have gone wrong. This is the first real effort I've put into fiction writing in some time, and I'm so excited and relieved that I'm relearning how to tap into this energy. I'm already looking forward to putting together the pieces for next month's story.

Between Vandermeer's guidance and Damon Knight's advice, I just might find my motivation to do what I've been talking about doing for years.