J.R. Murdock

Hey Crew,

Great day today. Took the puppies for a morning walk (and my knees complained all day, dang it. Did the day job, went to the weekly writer’s meeting, my favorite daughter got an award from school…

That’s more interesting than anything I’ll say. 🙂

She was one of 20 students out of the 500 new students who started in the past year, to get an excellence award based on their academic progress and the work they’ve done on projects. How can she not be My Favorite Daughter?

She’s awesome. #justsaying

Back around to me. Getting done with Almost-Super Heroes 2 last night felt great. I rode that high and after a number of home-related events, got to working on V&A Shipping 3.

I’m excited to be back in this series. I love the characters. June, Joey, Vic, Dexter, Argmon, all the pesky AIs, and robots. Random crew members that Vic picks up from time-to-time. It’s great fun. I haven’t even gotten to Sheriff B.T. Justice and Junior. I can’t wait to get into their heads once more.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the characters in ASH and GRPC. Those characters are great in their own right. V&A Shipping was the second series of books I ever started writing. Of Gnomes and Dwarves being the first. It was the first book I brought to life by podcasting it. These voices are personal to me. Each character. Everything they do. It’s weird to think I have a history with all of them.

Then I start to think what I’ve done and what I’m doing. It can be a little overwhelming. I’m writing 3 different series. I’ll be adding a fourth once I get 4 books in each series done. I’ll be doing fifteen books. Each series has its own cast. Not small casts either. Each has dozens of characters even if there are only a few POV characters. Nevertheless, there’s a lot to keep straight.

How? How does someone keep all these characters from getting all mixed up?

Honestly, for me, it’s simple. I’ve read more than one book at a time (and comics). I didn’t get the characters mixed up. I watched more than one TV show over a period of time. Didn’t bother me in the slightest and I’d remember the characters. Why would writing be any different? I guess  I’ve got a spot inside my head for each character and each voice, each personality. Little tics and quirks. Things that make every character special.

To me, that’s the fun of writing. Exploring a story from a different way of thinking than my own. It makes it more challenging. Exciting. I enjoy sitting down to write and making worlds come to life.

If it weren’t fun, I’d find something else to occupy my time. Really, it’d be that simple. I wouldn’t torture myself doing something I wasn’t enjoying.

Right now, I’m off to enjoy some sleep. It’s been a LONG day. Tomorrow is another LONG day.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

This will be the last really short post. I promise.

First book of the year is complete!

Tonight, finally, hit ‘the end’ on Almost-Super Heroes 2. The book, currently, weighs in around 100,000 words (100,068 to be exact). I’m sure there will be some that will hit the cutting room floor as part of what I wrote was me finding my way to the story. I’ll weigh the pros and cons of each chapter before taking the ax out.

But it’s done. I’m excited tomorrow to be jumping into V&A Shipping 3. I’ve had that first chapter nagging my brain for a month now and I’m pretty sure that’s a large part of what was slowing me down on ASH2. Now that I’ve gotten one task out of the way, it’s time to tackle another.

I had wanted to be done with ASH2 and V&A 3 prior to NaNoWriMo, but hey, I’m still going to try and write 3 more books before the end of the year. I discovered one step, turning off the darn TV.

It’s a big step and I’m still finding myself itchy and reaching for the remote, but the more I stay away, the more words I’ll get done. The country will solve the problems without me. Doesn’t mean I won’t stay informed and won’t vote. Those are things that are very important to me.

So it writing. And I can do something about my writing right now. I can’t fix the country until it’s time to vote.

On that note, 4am will get here too early. I’m off to bed.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Another long, tiring day. Up too late the night before. Up too early this morning. I’m going to change that by going to bed as soon as I write this short post (sorry, short yet again).

I did, however, take a nap in the middle of the day. I’m not used to that, but I was so drained, I didn’t have a choice.

I only got, roughly, 500 words in. I had hoped to be done with ASH2. This is the final chapter I’m in and probably 1500 words from ‘the end’. I WILL get this done tomorrow. I won’t confront my writing group without a completed book on Wednesday 🙂

This one is taking way too long for me to finish. I know what. I understand what happened. I plan to make corrections for V&A3 which I’m VERY excited to jump into as soon as I can ASH2 completed.

I hope to have a better progress report for you tomorrow.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Another later night (for me) and another short post. Longer posts will resume tomorrow.

Got nearly 750 words done today despite a busy day. I’m one chapter away from ‘the end’ and I’ll knock that out in the morning. I was going to try and do it tonight but, 1) I’m tired and 2) I need to get up at 4am. So best for me to go to bed and hit it first thing in the morning and I’ll start on V&A 3 in the evening.

We had a great time at my niece’s 1st birthday party. Always a wonderful time spent with family. She is a very happy little baby and so much fun. We had gotten her a little wooden stroller for her dolls and she was holding onto it and cruising all over the party hall. So adorable.

We had a little excitement seeing the SpaceX launch up in the sky over San Diego. if you follow me on any social media, I got a great picture of it.

My eyes are burning from being open too long. I’m off to bed. More tomorrow.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Short blog post tonight. As I said, going to be a busy weekend.

I did, however, get nearly 2000 words done today. If all goes right, I’ll be done with ASH2 tomorrow before we need to go to the birthday party. So it was a good day.

Need to get up early (but not too early) tomorrow.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

As I said yesterday, going to be a long day and unless I got my writing done early, probably wouldn’t get much done. Well, I didn’t get much done. Just shy of 500 words and I’m falling asleep at the keyboard. Tomorrow will be a better day.

That said, had a great time at the movies with three of my nephews. We went to see Venom.

Let me start by saying I’m a big Spider-Man fan. I collected comics for years. I’d read the Secret Wars series when it first came out and loved the black costume. I started collecting again shortly before issue 300 came out (the first appearance of Venom). I had my copy autographed by McFarlane before he went off to create Spawn (which I also collected). So needless to say, I have a bit of history with Venom before and after McFarlane.

That said, I was nervous going into Venom knowing that Sony owned the rights. They’ve done awful things with the Spider-Man franchise. They should have kept going forward but kept going back to the start. It was frustrating.

Well, I think they had some help with this movie. If you’re a fan of Venom, you’ll not many timeline differences. But hey, this is a movie and only partially related to the comics. I get that. So I enjoyed it for what it was. A new series with new characters.

There was no Spider-Man in the movie. This is totally dedicated to Venom and unrelated to the anything Spider-Man (for now I’m assuming). They also set it up nicely for the sequel and holy wow! If you go see it, hang around for the mid-credit scene. I’m eager to see the next in this series.

Anyway, I’m off to bed. Another busy weekend.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Another day, another 600 words. It wasn’t my fault this time. Honest.

Was up at 4am waking up the Mrs. so she could get to her workout. I had actually overslept and this time she woke me up. Whoops.

Did my morning reading. Spent the entire workday on conference calls. Didn’t get one thing done I had planned to do. It’s okay, tomorrow is another day.

Workout, dinner, dishes, and then!

We needed to go to the stores. Sunday we have a birthday party to go to for one of our nieces (she’s turning 1 and oh so cute).

So that kept me away from the writing computer longer than I had thought. We talked for a while after. Finally sat down for one short writing session and I’ll be up early again tomorrow.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not good writing first thing in the morning (normally). But I may need to in if I’m to keep my streak alive of writing every day. Why?

Tomorrow I’m taking 3 of my nephews (no, not Huey, Duey, and Louie) to see Venom. That will eat up my entire evening, but be a whole lot of fun.

Saturday, the Mrs. and I have plans to go do some walking (hopefully my knee will hold out) and go to an Oktoberfest somewhere.

Sunday is the aforementioned birthday party. I will probably be able to get some writing in before we go to the party, but I don’t count on it.

As I said, I’ll be trying to get my writing done in the mornings over the next 3 days.

I’m so close to the end of this story and I can’t wait. I’d LOVE to get it completed before Monday and start on V&A3 first thing Mondy. That’s my plan and my hope. We shall see what the weekend brings.

For now, I’m off to bed. Another early day tomorrow.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Another uneventful day. Writing reports, did a couple trainings Workout. Went to the store to get stuff we needed. Dinner, dishes, Weekly writerly meetup (those are always fun). And I thought I was going to write straight after the meeting. The goods news, I didn’t watch the news tonight. The bad news, I got distracted by other stuff, practiced bass for about an hour, and then I sat down to write.

I knocked out another 500 words. I’m in the height of the battle. Not sure what’s keeping me from sitting and getting to the end. I think it’s because I already know what’ll happen and right now, the end of this book feels like work. I’m already thinking about V&A3 and what’ll happen in that book. I’m excited to jump into that one, but with ASH2 running long, I’m being dragged down.

I need to sit, and power through to the end in one sitting. I’m less than 5000 words from the end. I know I can do that in a day if I just sit, and do it.

I’ll grumble and complain about it later. 🙂

For now, I’m off to bed. Need to get up crazy early tomorrow.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Another regular day. Work, workout, dinner, dishes, got sucked into watching the news because of a 13,000 word report that came out. Dang it! I can’t wait for this endless newscycle to end. I honestly tried to avoid the news all day, but this was something I couldn’t ignore and needed to know more about what it all meant. if you’re following the news, you know of what I speak. If you’re not, it’s just more of a mess than it was before.

I did, however, get 1000 words knocked out. Going to try for a few more after writing this. I’m in the endgame of this book. I had a lot to set up for the 3rd and 4th books so when I’d done the big re-read and edit of what I had so far, I planned much of what’s happening now. All the tension has ratched up and things are going boom. Right past what I’d scheduled and planned. Which is good for the story. It’ll weigh in around 100,000 words and, as I said, this story is setting up a lot of heavy lifting not only in this story, but in the V&A Shipping story I’ll be writing next.

I’ll probably write for a touch longer after I post this. I’m not sure because I feel I’m repeating myself and forgetting what I typed a paragraph before (looks up, yeah, I’m repeating myself). Was up at 4am so it’s tough to keep my eyes open and remain focused. Thankfully tomorrow won’t be a 4am (or 5am) kind of day. Did a few training courses for work as well as a bunch of coding, so my brain is drifting. These things tend to happen.

I think I’ll hit the sack and get a good night’s sleep.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Still kicking myself over missing a day,  but I’ll get over it. Better to have a streak of writing every day than blogging every day.

So, speaking of streaks, I’m taking a short break from writing at the moment. Thought I’d get the blog post done. Nearly 1000 words in the first session. Hope to get another 1000 done before I hit the sack. I should have gotten more writing done today, but I was having fun doing my bass practice and avoiding the news as best I could. So instead of watching the news, I practiced bass for a couple of hours while the Mrs. and My Favorite Daughter went shopping.

A quick look back at September. I wrote every day in September and knocked out 37,000 words. A majority of people would be delighted with that result. I’m happy with those numbers, but I know I can do better.

I was hoping for a couple things out of September that didn’t happen. One was to write at least 2000 words a day. I wanted to get to 60,000 words. That didn’t happen. I also wanted to finish writing Almost-super Heroes 2. That didn’t happen, BUT!

I did write nearly 40,000 words. That’s good. I also passed the 90,000-word mark in ASH2 and I’m coming up to the ending now. It’ll come in around 100,000 words and I’m excited where it’ll leave off heading into book 3, which I will do after V&A3 and GRPC3.

I am, however, gaining speed. The first half of September was around 15,000 words, the second half just over 20,000 words (you can do the math 🙂 ). So I’m getting better about 1) Sitting down every day to write, and 2) Writing more words when I do sit down.

Today I did the two-step process for converting my print books from CreateSpace to KDP Print. It was easier than I expected and far faster as well. I’ve sold few print books so this wasn’t a big concern for me. It will make it easier to upload books to KDP now and they’ll be ready for print without all the extra formatting. I’m thankful for that.

In other news, My Favorite Daughter has gotten an award from school that a teacher or staff put her in for. She has no idea what it is, and it will be presented during a ceremony the entire school is required to attend. Based on the email, there are several awards to be given out and she’ll find out what hers is when she goes. Hopefully, I’ll be able to attend with the Mrs. and we’ll take many pictures.

I’m off to write as many words as I can before bed.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!