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Daily Update: I’m not Jake
To those that know me online, I’m J.R. Murdock. To those that know me in the real world, I’m Jay. I’m not Jake though I’ve been called James, Jim, Jake, John, Jason… Think of a name that starts with J and I’ve been called it.
Does it surprise me when people get my name confused? No. People get used to hearing a full name and when they get one letter, it’s easy to extrapolate and add on letters you think you heard that aren’t really there.
What’s funny is when someone is on a podcast talking about you and they start calling you someone else’s name, then asks you about it after the fact. It’s even funnier when you’re working on a colaborative effort with someone for a few weeks.
Yes, my good friend Scott Roche was on the Dead Robots Society podcast and… well, let’s just say I’m not Jake. He got a little confused and mixed me up with Jake Bible (a fellow author and worth your time to read). Hop on over to the DRS Podcast (not always work safe) and check it out. Scott had some great things to say and he’s doing 52 weeks of Indie where he’s giving away a book a week and one winner will ‘win them all’.
Got a lot of writing done yesterday. I’m not quite on track with my yearly writing goal, but I’m getting caught up. One of the things I forgot about when writing a lot is that I come up with more ideas than I can possibly write. I have another fun idea and should I find the time I’ll start getting it out there. I know I have a lot of projects, but this one could be fun to work in there.
Speaking of getting it out there. I’m slow. I know this. Kance Encounter is coming. My favorite daughter has practice again tonight and I’ll be working on that while I wait for her. Got edits back from Scott and Mike on my Action Pack Story now title Golden West. As soon as I have the cover art in my hot little hands from Dan Dan the Art Man I’ll get my page up over there. The podcast is coming together nicely and it’s interesting working on a collaborative effort in this manner. I’m not working alone on two of my multiple projects which is making keeping on track a little easier.
Speaking of making it easier…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Still Provided Daily!
I’ve written daily for some time and I’ve continued to watch the number of subscribers to this blog drop. Am I annoying? Should I keep going? Should I stop questioning myself and just keep at it? Should I stop asking questions I don’t have the answer to? Are my dogs trying to communicate with me at a subconscious level I don’t yet understand?
I’ve read Scott Roche’s story for the Action Pack Podcast. I can’t wait to get the audio. It’s gonna be fun. I haven’t listened to Mike Plested’s audio yet, but I will be doing that tonight. At some point during the week I’ll be recording my audio. Then I’ll be bugging another friend of mine about the rest of the music so I can get the podcast assembled.
Then I need to write a piece for Dan Dan the Art Man (I haven’t forgotten about that). I also need to write my piece for my secret project. My Teacher is a Zombie is coming along nicely. Had fun writing last night’s scene and the next scenes will be loads of fun to do. I also need to get working on Second Kance. I need to do edits, I need to write. I need to get off my duff, don’t I?
Yes, yes I do. I wrote a couple thousand words last night. I’ll be doing another couple thousand tonight. I should be able to get myself back on track with my overall writing goal for the year and for this month. I just need to keep hitting keys on the keyboard in the right order and I’ll get there. It’s a magical feeling seeing some of my writing projects take shape.
Tonight my favorite daughter has a voluntary practice. I’ll go and I’ll write in the truck during the first half and go in for the second half. When I’m actually sitting and writing I can get out over 1000 words an hour. It’s just a matter of sitting and actually typing out the words.
I just realized that I hadn’t put out an Unorthodox Writing Tips. I’ll get that out tonight as well. I guess with so much writing to actually get done, I should get on some of it, eh?
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Getting the wind knocked out of your sails.
So I’ve been a writing fool the past couple of days. I’ve been watching my word count go up quickly and it was making me very happy. I keep everything in a spread sheet with formulas and totals for days/weeks/months/etc. I’ve got a graph to show how the work is going daily and all that. Looking at the report makes me happy because I can see where my word count is going.
Then I noticed an error. Thankfully I found it only 10 days into February. It kinda took me back when I found it and it made me sad for a moment, but i quickly got over it.
According to my word count I was about 3000-4000 words ahead of schedule for my annual word count goal. Well, this mistake was adding February’s word counts to January’s word counts and padded my numbers. A lot. After fixing the formula my word count dropped by 10,000 words (thereabout). That was quite a goal, but I’m only a couple thousand behind now and I can write to get caught up. I don’t have the padding I did, but I have a lot of words I need to write so getting caught up won’t be as difficult as it could be. It just means I need to write a little extra each day and actually get back to writing daily without fail.
Okay, got that out of my system.
Kance Encounter was suppose to be released at the end of January. Sorry it’s late. I will be putting it out soon and I’m already working on the sequel. Both will be coming out this month so keep an eye out for them. I just got the edits back (email failed me and it had gotten lost the first time). Now that I have those I’ll be going through Kance Encounter and getting it out as soon as possible.
The Action Pack Podcast is on track. I should be getting audio from Mike Plested and Scott Roche over the weekend. I’ll be recording and bugging my friend for the musical parts once again. We’re hoping to get a promo ready (Mike is writing that up) and I’ll be writing up the intro to the actual podcast. Since we all have these HUGE egos, we decided not to pick which will go first and instead we’ll rotate which story goes first and we’ll also rotate introductory duties. Next week should see some updates to the Action Pack Podcast website. Keep an eye out for that.
I’ve gotten a writing assignment. Research has been accomplished. I will be getting my rear in gear and knocking out some words. Once I can announce more about this work, I shall. Stay Tuned.
Speaking of writing, I’ve got much work to do before I can start putting words down. So…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: I was annoyed, but now I’m happy
I spent too much time last night trying to figure out why I couldn’t play music like I should be able to. I use my Xoom tablet for almost everything and I had Winamp installed and the latest Xoom update made the generic music player become the Google Music player. Ok, that’s fine.
However when I went to play a song, I noticed that winamp skipped a couple before it played a song. I didn’t think anything of it for the first couple of days until I opened the Music player and it wouldn’t play anything.
See, I like winamp, but the Music Player would allow me to select an album an play only that album in order. I wanted to listen to Pink Floyd – The Wall. For some reason winamp doesn’t think I should be able to do this without creating a playlist.
So I tried to figure out why the Google music player wasn’t playing, got really frustrated, and went back to winamp to play Weird Al – Hardware Store (love this song) and as I’m scrolling through the songs in winamp I noticed that there were three, four, and in some cases FIVE copies of each and every song. Huh?
I have (or had) all my music on the micro SD card. That’s the only place I’ve ever put songs. At some point all the songs got copied over onto the Xoom’s main memory. Ok, fine. That’d account for two, but all the rest? They were pretty much dead songs and I had no way to remove them except to navigate one by one in winamp and remove the offending songs. I uninstalled winamp and reinstalled it thinking that would cure the problem. Well, no. It didn’t
I installed MixZing. At first, yes, it also had the same issue. All songs were listed multiple times even after deleting the duplicate music folder. Color me confused, but MixZing has an awesome feature that allowed me to say “HERE’S MY MUSIC! RIGHT THERE! ONLY THERE!” and I selected only the SD card music folder and magically I have only one of each song again. Color me a happy boy.
I still need to play with it and discover if I can play an album instead of just shuffling the songs, but at this point I think it’s pretty cool. It also downloads and displays cover art which I also think is pretty cool. I’ll keep you updated if I ever figure out what happened. I think Winamp or Google Music created the duplicate folder and/or some bizarre playlist that goofed things up. I’ll have to look deeper into it, but for now I’m a happy music listener.
In other news, Mike Plested and I have begun the plotting of Jack Kane book 2 (title pending) and we had a conversation last night. We had each other laughing which is a good sign. Hopefully we can make others laugh as well. We’re currently doing our plotting in google docs and ‘tagging’ each other as we add a line/paragraph for a given scene and we’ll keep going back and forth until we have an outline. To help with continuity we’ll be doing one chapter at a time and, again, play tag. It’ll be an interesting experience.
I’ve got to run. I’ll ramble more tomorrow.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Yeah, I’ve been whiny the past couple of days.
I’m kind of over that at the moment. The whining I mean. Posting on this blog is a way to clear my head. Get the cobwebs out. Get my motor running. Get my fingers typing. Get my brain in the writing mode. To get all that bad stuff put aside and just get words flowing.
Sorry if I’ve dumped on you the past couple of days. It’s been a bad week. Yesterday I so wanted to take a nap and stay up late writing. Today I so wanted to get up early and start writing.
The best laid plans…
At any rate, the day is still young. I’m rested, refreshed, ready to rock and roll. I cranked out an episode of Unorthodox Writing Tips for Mike Plested to use on Get published. I had several okay ideas, and all fell flat and I deleted them all about half way through. When it comes to ideas, I can be like that. It either got to resonate with me, or it’s out. I threw out several because they were either weak, or sounded authoritative and mean.
I did say the say was still young, right? It is. As soon as I have dinner here in a few minutes I’ll be back into To Fall From the Sky. I had it end at a certain point, and having slept on it, I’ve decided that point was dumb and I’ll be deleting the last few hundred words or so until I get it back on track. I had a guy show up with a gun at the wrong moment and it was also the wrong guy. I need to put him in the right spot then it’ll have impact. Where I put it, it’s just confusing and really makes no sense. I think I was tired.
I hear the oven screaming my name telling me my food is ready. I better head down there before it burns. I’m excited. I have all night. WOO WOO!
Until Tomorrow!
DOUBLE WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Plowing through.
With the news of having a blown head gasket on sputtering truck and the expense of having to get it repaired coupled with the amount of money I’ve already put into the truck just to keep it going was a one-two I wasn’t prepared for. I let it get the better of me, but I let go long enough last night to knock out about 1500 words. It was difficult with everything gnawing away on my brain, but I wrote. I feel good about what I did write and I’m thinking I need to make some modifications. Not quite sure just yet.
To go along with sputter truck, I have pain in my legs I had through I was past. It took a few days, but shin splints are what I have now. What I had experienced before wasn’t like this. that pain was muscle pain from not working my legs in some time. The pain I have now is deep intense pain in the bone. It hurts to go up and down the stairs and I need to take a break from my walking until this pain subsides. I’ll also stop jogging until I get my legs in better shape to handle the stress. This was a case of too fast too soon. This is a little frustrating as I was so excited about jogging. Everything else about it felt good and I enjoyed getting out there. But for now, it’s resting my lower legs until the pain subsides.
I do still have my free weights so I’ll be doing something about my overall fitness. I also plan on starting 100 push-up and 200 sit-ups once again. I know I can’t just sit still anymore and expect my body to be alright.
Plotting for the Jack Kane sequel has begun. My writing partner, Mike Plested, and I plotted not only one, but three subsequent novels to take place in the Jack Kane universe. We could probably plan out a dozen, so for now 3 and 4 are just notations whereas we began delving deeper into what book 2 will be about. I can tell you this, I think 2 will be even more fun than 1. Speaking of book 1, I have it assembled in Scriviner for Windows. Hopefully this makes editing easier.
Mike and I also net with Scott Roche so I could give the two of them a hard time about not having their Action Pack works ready for next month. Of course they still have a lot of time, I just feel the need to give them crap about not being further along. Artwork and music are being prepared. The website is live, but in dire need of modifications. Hopefully in the next week or two that will happen. Excitement levels are still high for all of us, so look for good things.
Speaking of good things, I’d better get back at it.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: I actually ran!
No, really. I walked up the hill, then ran on the flat and downhill parts. Okay, okay. I walked up the hill and started a light jog, but I was still moving much faster than walking. I didn’t think I was going to start, but as I walked, I just had this urge to start going faster than a brisk walking pace.
A funny thing happened.
Now let me explain something. As I’ve been saying, shin splints have haunted me and my walking. It has for years. I was working out on an elliptical which was nice because it was non-impact training. The new shoes and a shorter stride have helped alleviate the pain of shin splints. But when I run I don’t run heel-toe, heel-toe. My cross-country/track coach in high school had us run on our toes.
So I’ve been told that I look a little funny when I run. I’ve also been told I have Barney Rubble legs (short and stumpy). But hey, when I start jogging, I’m running on my toes and not heel-toe so the pain in my shins is lessened greatly. This was almost as awesome as doing 12 minute miles yesterday. Down from 17 minute miles just a couple of weeks ago.
I’ll be jogging/walking/jogging/walking from now on. I’m going to try and extend my jogging periods and shorten my walking periods. When I can get below 10 minute miles, I’ll reverse my direction. Wait, what? See, currently I go up one big hill, then a LONG, slow downhill. Once I get into better shape I’ll do the LONG uphill with a short, steep downhill. Just to mix things up. There are even different routes I can take that’ll provide more hills, again, just to mix things up.
On the writing front:
I mentioned the Action Pack yesterday. Well I also spoke with Dan Dan the Art Man and he had already agreed to do my cover for my Action Pack story. I’ve now convinced him through my magical ways to do the cover art for both Mike Plested and Scott Roche as well as providing us with a banner and logo for the Action Pack! I mean, how cool is that? Dan is filled with awesome and every time I see him produce something I’m amazed. Dan, if you’re reading this, we promise not to abuse you. Too much.
Yesterday My Favorite Daughter had a late volleyball practice (her first tournament is Sunday). It went until 9PM. Didn’t get into a sitting position until 10PM to start writing and banged out exactly 800 words. It’s always strange to end on a specific number. No practice for her tonight or tomorrow so I should be able to bang out a couple thousand a day. I hope. I’m really enjoying the direction To Fall From the Sky is taking. I had something bad happen to the protagonist, and I used the antagonist’s POV to explain what had gone wrong. I’m not even a third of the way through and I can already see where this is going. I’m going to have a blast once I get into the final parts of this book. Heck, I’m having fun now just thinking about it.
I’ll be posting more updates tomorrow and keep you apprised of what is happening with the Action Pack. We’re currently shooting for the first episode to drop at the end of February, so keep your eyes peeled. Oh, and I also have my first short getting itself ready for release at the end of this month. Dan Dan the Art Man is also doing the cover for that. It’s going to be amazing!
I’m rambling, aren’t I? Ok. Get out of here. I’ve got words to write.
Until Tomorrow
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Good Things are in the Works
I’m a fan of dessert. My motto: Life is short, eat dessert first.
So when I took my daughter to 7-11 the other day, I looked up at the Rancho Bakery and Deli next door and decided to walk in. Why? Hey, I’m curious. It’s what I do. I see a new place, I need to go see what’s inside.
Side note: There is a sweet shop next door to the bakery (Pistachio Sweets) that hasn’t opened yet. It’s been months and it’s driving me nuts.
Back to the story. So I dragged my daughter into the bakery. They had fresh produce, some great looking cheeses (I also love cheese) and lots of dairy goods and meats. Then there was the baklava section. Now, I’ve seen baklava before. I’ve eaten it many times. I really like it. This didn’t look like baklava.
I introduced myself to the store owner.
He gave me a sample.
Oh! I mean. Oh! Yes Yes OH GOD YES!
So I bought a small container to take home. I wanted to buy a lot more, but I also didn’t want it to go bad. Apparently the bakery is a middle-eastern bakery. He explained to me the history of baklava and that in the middle-east there are over 150 different kinds of baklava. The display they had there had a couple dozen (I’ll take a picture of that when I go back.) It all looked great!
We got three different varieties. All of them were delicious. It was only $5 so I know I’ll be going back. I’ll also be posting the experience as an Unorthodox Writing Tip this weekend with more details.
On the walking front. Took the day off yesterday. Will resume today. The Kid (she wants me to start calling her My Favorite Daughter) has Volleyball practice tonight. I’ll be cheering her and her team on. WOO!
On the writing front. I got a lot written yesterday. Currently I have my short story completed for the end of this month. I have my story ready for the Action Pack (I’ll explain about that in a moment). Although it’s going up slowly, the yearly word count meter is creeping up. I’ve written over 15000 words so far this month. I’ll be writing a lot more. 2012 is shaping up to be great year. I’m so excited.
So the Action Pack. Last night Scott Roche, Mike Plested, and I all sat down to discuss the jokingly named Action Pack Podcast. The name was thrown out based on an 80s TV show. Our concept: 3 stories in one podcast. Each month will bring a piece of each story continuing on throughout the year and concluding a storyline at the end of the year. That would be one season and if all goes well, we’d do a second season.
We talked about artwork, music, content, the blog, the url. The Action Pack Podcast grew on us quickly and we’ll be getting a blog out there soon. It’s going to be a lot of fun and I hope you’ll join us. I’ll be posting more on this as time goes by leading up to the release of the first episode. Like I said, I’m pretty excited.
I need to go make use of that excitement.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: It’s like walking on air
Well, ok. So maybe it’s not like walking on air, but I’ve got to tell you, my new shoes are awesome. I took the kid to volleyball practice yesterday at her school and we were about 45 minutes early so we started walking around the track; a very nice rubberized track. About twenty minutes in there was a little soreness in my shins, but nothing like what I’d been experiencing. It’s pain that I know will go away with daily walks.
After 20 minutes or so, we realized that no one else had shown up for her practice. Whoops. So after checking with my phone that the practice was at a different school, we packed up and headed over there. She made it on time, thankfully, and I did another 20 minutes of walking before heading over to watch her practice. The kid is getting really good at this volleyball stuff. I’m a proud papa.
So I did a full walk today on the route I’ve been doing. I’m still taking smaller strides (something the kid gave me a hard time about yesterday) and these appear to also be helping with the pain. I’m still frustrated because I’m not really working up a sweat. I know it’ll take time before my legs catch up with the rest of my body. I also know I’m so out of shape that anything at this point will help. I’m definitely not going to give up this time.
The wife is also going to get into the walking with me. We both need it. It’ll be nice to have company on my walks.
On the writing front. I’m blogging daily, if you didn’t notice. I haven’t been writing fiction daily. I missed the past two days, but I’m going to make up for it today. I’ll be in the truck writing while the kid is at practice. I should be able to do a couple thousand words while she’s in there. I’m about to start on the monthly short story for January that I’ll release at the end of the month. Pretty excited about getting that one going. I need to bug Scott Roche and see how he’s doing.
When I spoke with Mike Plested we talked about our collaborative works. I’ve got the first piece of Gold Rush (working title) ready to go. I just need to do a little editing and record it. This, of course, put the pressure on my writing partner to get his piece recorded. Pressure is a good thing, no? Deadlines help push you into getting something done. Well, most of the time.
Anyway, it’s time to drag the kid off to practice. Time to get a good chunk of writing done. Later tonight I’ll post my weekly numbers for walking and writing. They’re not overly impressive, but they’re numbers nonetheless. Hopefully they’ll both go up as the weeks go on.
Until tomorrow
WOO WOO!
2011 year in review.
The year started out with wanting to complete my work with co-author, Mike Plested. In early February, Mike suggested that we attend WFC2011. Throughout the year Mike and I worked on and off with our Jack Kane novel. Sadly it progressed far slower than either of us would have liked. We made headway, albeit slowly. By the WFC2011 came upon us we wanted to be completed with it. Due to personal reasons on both our parts it did not get completed.
It wasn’t until early December that we actually completed the work. We discovered a process that worked for both of us. What I discovered for myself was that I needed to 1) write down what I actually wanted to accomplish and 2) communicate those goals to those closest to me. I accomplished little actual writing in 2011. Total I was able to write about 45000-50000 words.
That’s not a lot. I’m capable of so much more.
So what is my plan going forward? Writing and communicating my goals. Are you ready? I’m feeling very ambitious. I mean, really ambitious. Here’s what I’m planning for 2012.
1) Write at least 450,000 words
2) Write, edit, publish 1 short story of at least 10,000 words in a series each month for pay.
3) Publish one free short story a month
4) Get any finished novels in front of a publisher.
5) Write, edit, record 2000-3000 short for cliffhanger podcast and produce ebook novella at the end of 2012
6) co-host a podcast and/or submit a podcast segment to another podcast
Now, that’s pretty ambitious. I know. I mean, that’s a lot of words, isn’t it? Well, yes and no. This word count will include blog posts. I plan on writing one a day during 2012. I plan on keeping up with Unorthodox Writing Tips. I’ll be doing guest posts wherever they’ll have me. I’ll also be doing more shorts.
But mostly I’ll be working on novels during 2012. I want to finish three that I have in progress and rewrite two that I’ve already done. All of these will fall in the 80-90 word range. So even though I’ve set lofty goals, I still think I can accomplish them.
Why? Well, I can write quickly. I type fast and I’ve started doing some methods that have helped me sit and work faster. I’ll be sharing those as we go. I’ll post a weekly update of my daily word counts broken down by blog post, short story, and/or novel. I’ll be able to do that because I’m also tracking my word count. Something I’ve never done. I’ve had 15,000 word days before. Will I be able to do that again? Well, I can only hope. I know I can, it’s just a matter of conviction.
One of the first things I did was write down my goals. I set out a plan of how to accomplish each goal. One of those was communication. Not only with you, but with my wife and daughter. I’ll need to set aside time each and every night to write. Not only will I need to set time aside, I’ll need to actually write! Not play angry birds, not surf twitter or facebook, but write. Sure I’ll have to spend some time promoting my work and communicating with other authors, but I need to dedicate time to writing each day in order to hit my goal.
If I don’t hit my goal, I know it won’t be the end of the world, but using this as a road map I’ll be able to get myself far closer to where I want to be. I’ve said this before, but I no longer want to treat my writing like a hobby. I must treat it as a part time job if I am ever to be successful. Another thing that will help me reach my goals is to make my progress public. Yes, putting myself out there for others to see what I’m doing and how I’m doing it.
2012 is the year I finally get myself into gear, get my buns moving, get my fingers flying, and do what I’ve always wanted to do; be a published author. Are you ready? Are you excited? Are you curious? I know I am. So as I look forward to the New Year I must sit back and yell! WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 