I’ve watched in amazement as good friends ran alongside the ever-moving iPhone train, grappled with the rushing behemoth, then jumped on board.  Ever since, I’ve continued to see more and more flaws and failures in the iPhone and bundled/add-on applications.

Now it seems that Apple can decide to disable applications you purchased legally through their Apple Store.  One minute it works, the next, poof.  I’ve read stories about legitimate apps appearing, then disappearing (then reappearing, then re-disappearing) from the Apple Store.  I’ve read about MobileMe, and even how Jobs himself isn’t impressed with how Apple has handled this product.

All I know is, I’m happy to have grabbed my Palm Centro for $99 when I did.  Otherwise I might have heard the siren song - big touchscreen, elegant phone, beautiful colors, neato features.  I can see the appeal, but for all the hassle?  Not worth it for me.

I know that they’re not really related, but I opened my just-finished novel and “copied” the last two words into this post’s “Title” space so that you can at least share the joy of those two words with me - even though the ones you see are only the electronic cousins of the ones I typed earlier this evening.

Typing “The End” has never felt as sweet as when I completed the 52,455 words I wrote for my NaNoWriMo novel this year. It ended the first novel I’ve ever written, and the longest body of work I’ve ever tackled - easily longer than every story or poem I’ve written in my life combined, and then some.  The entire novel is 55,408 words after I integrated a short story I wrote a couple of years ago.  I even had time to edit it and make it fit appropriately.

I can call myself a novelist now, and I will be. I printed the final copy of the first draft of “The Secret to Escape” and fanned the pages, looking at all the words. It’s a great feeling. THANK YOU to everyone who wrote with encouragement. I hope to post a sample chapter or scene at some point in the future. For now, I’m going to back away from it slowly and try to ignore it while my wife reads it, then tackle it again for the rewrite sometime in December.

Just when I thought everything was rocking along and I was assured (from the book about NaNo and many testimonials) that Week 3 would be a mad rush of creative juice that I would be wise to utilize to up my word count, instead, I fell behind, caught up, then fell behind again. All has not been lost, however.

Read the rest…

I’ve crossed a milestone that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. As of 3:00pm today, I’m officially “over the hump” on my NaNo word count at a smooth 25,021 words. This puts me ahead of schedule, and I’m still not done for today. I’m finally getting to flesh out some back story that I’ve been mulling over for since Day 1. I’m excited to get it done and complete “Part One” of the novel. It will finally let my brain focus on how this thing starts to turn and zoom toward the finish line. Yay!

Update, 10:30pm: I’ll be away from the Internet for the next couple of glorious days, so this is my final word count update until Sunday night! Until further notice, I’m at 14,457.

It’s Day One of Week Two of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). So far, so good. As of this post I have written 12,922 in my NaNoWriMo novel, and I’m still slightly ahead of schedule. Tuesday was a bad day. Wednesday made up for most of it, but I cut a chunk out of my lead that I wanted to hold onto for a while.

Se la vie.

Read the rest…

It’s day three of NaNoWriMo, and while the NaNo web site seems to have cratered under the unexpected turnout, so far, my novel has not. I can’t log into my author profile to update my official word count, but anyone who cares will be looking here anyway, so I’m happy to report that I’m currently at 6,575 words, 1,574 ahead of schedule.

Important update: I sent out an email to people on my mailing list that contained a link to the wrong author profile on NaNo. I had mistakenly created a new profile this year, thinking my old one was gone. It wasn’t, but I sent the wrong link anyway. Therefore, my correct NaNo author profile is HERE.

I’m excited to report that, I’ve got characters, a plot, some twists and a few “scenes-in-waiting” on my “Idea Pad,” so things are rocking along nicely and I haven’t become hopelessly stuck. In fact, some key plot elements that I was worried about have already started working themselves out all my themselves.

So far, so good! Thanks to everyone for the kind emails of support.

I know it’s one day before NaNo starts, but I just had to know some things: First, what am I writing about and second, can I write that much in a day?

I discovered that I’m going to be writing about a woman named Allison, but I’m not sure what I’ll be writing about. I know more about her now, but not a lot. She promised that things will get weird, though, which made me smile. I did so want a weird novel.

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I’ve given myself a radical assignment with an ultimatum attached. Since this portion of the post will appear on the main page, I’ll sanitize it a bit: Poo or get off the pot.

NaNoWriMo - the yearly “contest” to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days - starts in three days. Because of the way my life is arranged at the moment, there’s no good reason why I can’t allocate the time next month to write the required 1,667 words per day, every day. So I figure, if I don’t take this perfect opportunity to crank out a novel on a 30-day deadline, I should cease pretending that I’m a writer and just stop.

Read the rest…