Please don’t answer that. My stupidity is already well documented.

So, after putting down The Shadow Library and getting geared up for the next novel, I’ve also been planning to do NanoWriMo. Initially my plan was to do the 50,000 words NanoWriMo asks of its authors and then write the second half of my story in December.

Utilizing the remaining memories of what December as like last year I deem the chance of writing 50,000 words in December to be minimal. I think I’d be more likely to win a large cash prize of some sort. Or be savaged by a rabid wild boar.

So instead of hitting 50,000 words in November and December, I’m going to start NanoWriMo a month early and start my new novel today. I’m going to try to get a post up every few days to let you all know how it’s going.

I’m fairly sure this means I won’t be eligible to claim a win under NanoWriMo rules, but at the end of two months I’ll have another first draft to play with.

I think it’s worth it.

I wasn’t going to post anything on this, but my Grandfather, Dr Hamish Neale, died early Thursday morning. He was 95 years old and the most awesome person I have ever known.

He was 95.

I’ll always know him as Gramps, and my memories of him are sacred to me. Not a month ago he quite literally gave me the blue bird of happiness. It looks a lot like the Twitter bird. The reason I’m saying all of this is that Gramp’s life was full. He helped thousands of people, raised a family, spoiled his grand-kids and still found time to write his own poetry and study Shakespeare (he got in the odd whiskey and All Blacks game too). His life has inspired several stories, and his death has inspired another one, which I’ll start after my current work, Downside (working name) is done.

I know all writers take from the world around them for their stories, and I feel that death should be included in that. At first I felt guilt that my brain immediately spat out a story for me when I got the call to say he’d gone, but after some contemplation (and a much appreciated cuddle from my girlfriend) I realized that I have been training myself to think that way.The most comfort I could give myself during the horrible, stomach dropping feeling you get when one of those calls comes in, was to spin a tale in my mind where Gramps wasn’t gone, just changed.

We tell stories, at least in part, to shed light on the dark places in our world. Without stories we don’t know who we were, who we are or who we’ll be tomorrow. Gramps was my inspiration from yesterday, he helped make me who I am today, and tomorrow I hope I can show people how great they can be by seeing his example.

Rest in peace Gramps, thanks for all the stories… and for the bluebird.

I’ve just put up another book review of Seth Harwood’s Jack Wakes Up. Just click on those funny coloured letters with the line underneath and enjoy!

Scott Sigler, one of my favorite authors, has announced his tailgate tour. You can check it out right here. The tour is to promote his book The Rookie. What’s The Rookie? It’s American Football with aliens, humans and what can only be described as a very loose set of safety regulations.

Sticking to his tradition of general awesomeness, Sigler has posted a free podcast of The Rookie in its entirety on his site.

* With apologies to Jay Z

Carrie Heim Binas, author of one of my favorite blogs Heim Binas Fiction, saw fit to give me a Superior Scribbler award.

That’s made my whole day, thanks Carrie!

There are some rules to getting one of these…

1. Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
3. Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
4. Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit This Post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

Now, time to give some deserving others the award:

Skyla Dawn Cameron: Author, publishing ninja and the creator of “How NOT To Be A Douchebag Writer 101″

Mur Lafferty: If you aren’t reading “I Should Be Writing”…you should be. This site is the ultimate writing inspiration blog. Plus you can pick up some of Mur’s writing for free. What are you still doing here?

Pip Ballantine: Fellow Kiwi, writer and podcaster. Pip is the obscenely talented writer of Weather Child and Chasing The Bard (among many other things).

Andy Shackcloth: Not only does Andy give out great advice himself, he trawls the web to bring you the best writing advice from all over.

Girls With Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto Not a writing blog, but a webcomic. It’s not really work safe, but you should go anyway to see some of the best art AND writing on the web. Concise, clever and hilarious.

I’ve finally got the short stories page up and running righthere. If you like stories, and you like them short, then this could be the place for you.

The story that’s on there at the moment, Jack’s Echo (nothing to do with my last name, it just happens to be the main characters first name), was written for a one day story competition with a 1500 word limit. We had to include four random elements given to us on the day. I got mine in early, only to realize I’d missed one of the fairly vital instructions on the entry form.

Let this be a lesson to everyone, don’t spend six hours writing and two seconds reading the entry form.

I got it done. Just.

At midnight I got my draft done. It’s a shame about all those places in the book where I’ve typed <INSERT EPIC BATTLE HERE> but it’s done. So now what? What do you do with a first draft once it’s finished?

I’m going to ignore it for a week.

My internal editor in snarling and snapping at its bindings, trying to get to the many mistakes I know for a fact are in there, but right now I’m far to close to what I’ve written to look at it objectively.

In the mean time I’m going to enter a short story contest, tap out a plan for a zombie story I had an idea for and generally laze about. There might be beer too.

I’m not going to slack off on the blogging though, I have two posts and a review ready to go as soon as I’ve done the necessary edits.

I might even do some actual work, you never know…

By the way, if you’d like to read the first two (edited!) chapters of my book, you can find them right here.

I’m going to make it.

Just.

I set myself the goal of finishing my first, rough draft, by the end f the month and as long as I keep going on my current schedule, the rough draft will be done on the thirty first. Parts of the manuscript are pretty dire, some are outright unreadable but it will be finished, and from that I can chop out a decent first draft.

I’ll go into an explanation of rough draft, first draft and final draft next time.

That leaves the question of what to do next? I’m going to take Stephen King’s advice (in his excellent book “On Writing”) and leave in a drawer for a couple of weeks and do something else.

As one of my excellent, observant friends, R, pointed out to me, I had a rough draft up in place of chapter two.  So for those of you who have therefore  seen the rough drafts of chapters three four and five, I hope you enjoyed them.

Sorry about the typos.

I hope I would’ve noticed but the truth is it would have stayed there until someone had pointed out to me.

Learn from my mistakes, check your posts!