Progress Report for BlackBox Enterprises – Keep Chuggin Along
I am writing this on the 17th of November because life hit me hard. This was three weeks ago, and it was a phenomenal week in terms of writing. I was like a crazy person; no one could interrupt me as I pushed forward at ludicrous speed. That continued into the following week (I will be posting up a little more on that soon). Pots of tea, bags of coffee, and friendships were gobbled up in my insane time frame. My goal was to finish BlackBox Enterprises by November 14th, 2014; I failed. My new deadline for the first draft is the 30th of November.
Read MoreTwo Five in the Morning Nights Later
It has been a rough start to the book. I chose a weekend with events on every night and every day. Yet, I told myself I wouldn’t let myself say, “I can start tomorrow”. So, I ended up getting home at 10:00 PM one day and 11:00 PM the next. On those two days, I dismissed myself from festivities to outline chapters in my notebook (I was physically there, but I was mentally in my own world). While people are slamming beers into their gullet, I was drinking coffee and water with lime. I wanted to participate, because I love my friends. But I knew, I knew I had to continue to working later that evening and it would be better for me to prepare. So I did, and I found myself in a trance like state until five in the morning on Friday and Saturday. Today, luckily, I have been able to focus on my work in the morning before I had plans. After those engagements, I got home and was able to finish up what I wanted to finish up (time for bed). However today did have its weird points; I ate a three day old burrito with brown guacamole on it… because my threshold for “normal” goes out the window when I am working on a manuscript. For those that were with me today, I apologize and suggest you just breath through your mouth.
BlackBox Enterprises Progress
Word Count: 8904
Chapters Written: 5
Often we Forget Life is a Megillah
I’ve been writing for awhile now, I believe it was two years ago that I really buckled down and began working with the intent of becoming published. It was a rough road full of poor grammar and absurdity. But, all of those trials, tribulations, and practice have honed my craft. If you had asked where I would be in two years, I would have said “Published”! As I quickly learned, life is a megillah and the odds of being published are rare. So, what is the purpose of this post? To remind humanity.
But first, As some know, I am getting my MBA… a master’s in business and not fine arts. Why? Well it is simply my exit strategy. I told myself I would spend the two and a half years back in school to push my writing career into reality. So, while I study business during the day, I write and read throughout the night. I have been burning the candle on both ends, and I am exhausted. But time is fundamental in our growth as human beings. I knew this, and I quickly realized my first book would have to be rewritten, heavily edited, or scrapped. It will be heavily edited, but I don’t have the time for that project at this juncture. Now I didn’t invite you here to hear my pity party, I wanted to point out something that humans fail to see: Life is a Megillah.
Read MoreWhat’s Up Doc?
It has been a long time since I gave any updates on my work. There are a few reasons/excuses for that. First, I am back in my MBA program and busy working on getting my degree. Second, I have been spending an absorbent amount of time outlining and preparing the fourth manuscript: BlackBox Enterprises (this is a working title as all of my manuscripts are). I am starting BlackBox Enterprises on Friday.
Short stories continue to flow and get submitted to magazines. I am hoping, in about two months, I will be able to share these with all of you. So far, I have only heard back from two source (one was a competition and the other a magazine). I am hoping more responses from magazines will come through (rejection or acceptance, either works) so I can begin my website redesign. I also reached out to an author to see if he would mind mentoring me. Hopefully a professional will be able to show me the faults others have missed, and in doing so, help me tighten up my work.
Also, there are currently attacks against my web host. These attacks are called DDOS, distributed denial of service, and have made my website go down multiple times throughout the week. For reference, these attacks are not hacking attempts. The goal of the person perpetrating them is to deny service to my host’s web services. This means, they are just taking a ton of computers and asking the servers frivolous questions in order to lock them up. Do not worry, these attacks can last five minutes or months. My host has already dealt with the bulk of the attack but there are some residual effects.
Before I bounce back to outlining, I want to mention that the new site redesign it going well. I am modifying the menu so it is easier for mobile users. There will be a new landing site for the short stories, a page for my old work, and a flash fiction page. This will make it easier to navigate. What this will do is simple, it will make the site more accessible by categorizing the bulk of my work. Furthermore, the menu will shrink from offering all the short stories to only offering the three pages. All of these modifications are happening because I produced too much work for the current layout. I will be using an under construction sign when I decide to make these modifications.
Read MoreA Little Diatribe from Uncle Theodore
Open source software projects bring an amazing feeling of community to anyone who works on the project. You see these projects everywhere, tons of people spending tons of their time for no profit. How wonderful! They all just work for a common good, to make a tool they all use better. Do these programmers want money? Of course, but not on this project. This project is special to them, and that makes them produce without any care. They do it in their off hours, and many do it because of their passion for the project. But, what if your open source product doesn’t have a zealous following?
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