I don't know what else to say... This year was absolute terror. Election month. Wrath of the Lich King month. Left 4 Dead month. New computer month. I had an unbelievable amount of distractions and I learned too late that I absolutely cannot, for the life of me, write science fiction. It hurts my brain. Fantasy ideas come so much faster, even when I'm stuck. I had only a vague idea of what I was going to write about, which is what NaNoWriMo encourages. Go with something small and see what happens... Well, it happened, alright. It turned out not at all the way I expected. I can't write science fiction and I sure as heck can't write SCARY science fiction. As it stands, I see two separate stories here that were combined into one. One was the original horror story I had planned, and the other is some story that grew out of absolute chaos. But this is what rough drafts are for, right? Pound some rough ideas into something coherent and then decide how to proceed later. I don't see this as one huge story that doesn't work, I see it as two stories with great potential!

Now I can rest... At least for a few days. I'm planning on resuming my original fantasy story in December. Not as grueling at NaNoWriMo, but hopefully something written every day. I need to get at least one thing done! One of my goals is to get a book on the shelf with my name on it... I don't care if I'm the only one who guys it, I just want to go somewhere and see it. Even Amazon would count! So that's what I'm going to try to do... The more I write, be it blog or NaNoWriMo, the more I realize that this is what I really love doing. Computers are okay. Writing? I could do that for a living real easy.

So I'm going to take this time to say: "Congratulations to me!" And: "Everyone else, don't stop! I see some of you out there are so close, but nothing's happening... Don't let the feeling that it's 'so close, yet so far' get to you. You're almost done, SO GET CRACKING! You'll hate yourself if you leave a 45,000 word transcript sit there and die, and you'll love yourself for writing that extra 5,000 words and actually reaching a goal. I ask you, what kind of choice is that? It's no choice at all! You need to finish! You can do it!"

Stay tuned to blog posts in coming days covering what I've not had time to talk about during November!

I know for sure that if I ever get depressed with Obama's latest America-killing law, I'll just fire up that clip and watch it over and over again. It's so completely true, but it's so completely funny! I have no idea how something as serious as that can be so absolutely hilarious... Leave it to Glenn Beck to pull something off like that. Apparently, lots of people are feeling the same way, because that post is quickly becoming my most popular! I'm impressed... I hope Glenn doesn't mind my stealing traffic over it. I offer an MP3 and lyrics, too, so I'm sure they're looking for those, too. Oh well... If it we weren't laughing about it, we'd all be sobbing, so I think it's a good thing to be circulating for those of us who are in for a long four years.

But even still, I can't help but notice I'm being so entirely carefree about this whole thing... It could be the end of the American life as we know it, but I'm in a mood far greater than I've been in weeks. Don't get me wrong, I'm still vastly disappointed in the friends of mine who voted for Obama and all that, but I can't help but think of this song: (Plus, I mean, Peter Heck drove this home when he played some funky vocal version of "I'm On My Way To Heaven" and repeatedly demanded that we smile. Man, I love that guy.)

This world is not my home
I'm just a-passin' through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue

The angels beckon me
From Heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home
In this world any more

No, that's not "I'm On My Way To Heaven", but it does share the same thought.

I think my incessant political blog entries have helped me with speed-writing. I can easily churn out 1,000+ words in only a few minutes if I put my mind to it and have a purpose. Man, writing is so much my thing. I should seriously pursue a career in this somehow and forget those lousy computer jobs that require a BS in Computer Science for menial tasks such as Windows and network troubleshooting. I would be a reporter, but... You all know how I feel about the media!

Anyway, I've made a category for NaNoWriMo just now... I'll be putting everything under that from now on. You know, in case you ever want to go through my NaNoWriMo ramblings? I dunno. Just deal with it.

But then I ate supper, took a shower, turned off all the lights in my room and churned through 2,044 words in about an hour or so, and then I spent more time than should be necessary trying to update my NaNoWriMo profile with a word count and synopsis and title and all the fancy things like that. Haven't got enough written to give an excerpt, which I do like to do in spite of my not letting anyone actually read the ENTIRE transcript, because I haven't gotten enough written that would make you go "hmm, that sounds interesting."

Here's a link to my profile, because I forgot to give you one last time I mentioned it, but it's always been on the side bar to your right, so it's not like you didn't know I had one unless you don't pay very close attention! The site is incredibly slow, as it likes to be during the first week or so of writing... I figure it's because, at this point, everyone's fired up and ready to do some writing, but it takes about a week for people to give up and go back to doing something less interesting. But not me!

To that handful of folks who supports what I'm doing: Wish me luck! To those people who think it's a worthless endeavor: I guess wish me failure, because I'll be able to laugh at you when I have yet another 50,000 word document filled with story that came straight from my imagination. You know, I'll probably never forget that a former friend told me NaNoWriMo was useless... And I'll probably finish every year because of it.

Thank you, for simultaneously forever ruining and forever encouraging me!

Oh yes, I'm doing it again. Why wouldn't I? I mean, sure, I had an old friend (aka: no longer a friend) tell me last year that NaNoWriMo is merely a poor excuse to pass off a paltry 50,000 words of unreadable garbage as a novel, but who am I to listen to my peers? (In fact, I'll bet this old friend is still around... Those kind of people have an interesting way of continuing to stalk you after they wreck the relationship. So I give a hearty hello to that person who's clearly jealous of the fact that we writers have an imagination capable of filling 50,000 words and more.) Anyway! This year I don't have school, so I expect it to be quite a bit easier than last time... Of course, I expect to win like I have the last two years, too! That means considerably less blog posts and gaming in coming weeks, which is always a pain. This year marks the month that Blizzard releases the new World of Warcraft expansion pack, so that's going to be a possible huge distraction. I'm usually good at prioritizing, so there will be none of that at least until I mash out my daily 2000 words in Microsoft Word in an attempt to flesh out some sort of story I won't let anyone read anyway.

Before tonight, I had a ton of ideas swirling around in my head. That's the way things are with me... Basically, I've concocted this elaborate fantasy world and I just chew on things for months and years until enough stray bits actually manage to connect. Ain't got any of this disturbing "muse" business going on, either. This is all me! The more fantasy and science fiction I read, the more little bits of information I get to add to my collection, either as a "don't do this under any circumstances" (which is usually the case) or as a "aw man, they took my idea, those creeps" (which happens surprisingly and depressingly often) or as a "wow, I really oughta use that somehow" (which happens rarely). Am I going to tell you my idea? Naaah! Why would I do that? There's only one person I bounce story ideas off of (and they bounce stories off of me) and that's done in strictest confidentiality with a fellow writer. In fact, we've gone so far as to pitch crossover stories, it's pretty cool!

Which leads me to an interesting idea we've had for a long time... A unified timeline of sorts. Basically, anything I write would take place in a single universe I'd come up with. If I write science fiction space battles in the far future? Fine! That takes place in the 28th century! Got some otherworldly medieval fantasy going on? Right on! That takes place in the 14th century, just on another planet. What that does is allow for interesting crossovers between our own different stories. If the 28th century crew of a starship wants to visit the planet we experienced in the 14th century, then that planet will be there and the crew would have to deal with similar fantasy elements. The interesting part comes when you try to explain everything with enough sense that every element could be plausible in any time frame. It's difficult at times, but that's the basis I have for coming up with stories: They all take place in the same universe and all elements of that universe must be able to fit in every genre, be it historical fiction or science fiction or fantasy. That would be pretty amazing to see in a series of novels that seemingly have no connections to each other besides the author.

So out of many, many, many ideas floating around in my head, I think I've settled on one for November... Futuristic, but borrowing key elements from the stories I wrote for the last two years. My first year was the first draft of a very young fantasy idea that I've had for years. My second year was pretty much the second draft of the same fantasy idea that had much matured over the course of the year. I can safely say that nothing has changed between 2007 and 2008, so I've decided to try a completely different story this year instead of re-re-writing an old fantasy story. (That would, however, be my flagship trilogy if I ever decided to pursue that... Oh my gosh, now you know exactly how big the story is. I've leaked too much already!)

So NaNoWriMo, here I come! Presidential elections? Glad you're over with early! Grumpy old friends who try to discourage me? Save your breath! World of Warcraft? Your sweet, sweet call of pure, unadulterated fun will fall on deaf ears! Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Peter Heck? Er... Well... I'll still listen to you. So nevermind there. But I'm fired up and ready to go! My only regret is that I don't have anyone on my NaNoWriMo buddy list this year... I removed all the people I didn't know anymore or weren't going to do it this year or have never even tried to finish. I don't have anyone to compare with. Well, then again, I guess I never really had anyone to race with since nobody ever cracked 10,000 words, but that's beside the point... Anyway. That's a quick (yeah, a 1,000 words is quick?) note for all you readers out there who might be worried about my lack of posts! (Yeah, I know, that's wishful thinking...)

I now have 50,136 words, as reported by the official NaNoWriMo robot word counters.

I'M A WINNER! Yay!

What do I do now? I study for my Linux+ exam on Friday and fail!