IWSG: NaNo Fail :(

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and time for another round of Insecure Writer's Support Group posts. The IWSG was started by Alex J. Cavanaugh, sci-fi writer and blogger extraordinaire. You should definitely pay his blog a visit, if you haven't already. For more information about the group itself, you can also visit www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com

Right. In case you haven't guessed it already from the title of my post, I took the bull by the horns this past November... and I was trampled silly. So I guess my insecurity for the month centers around my failure to win my first ever NaNo. But things are so hectic at work right now, that I haven't even had time to ponder over it.

In retrospect, writing 50,000 words in one month, whilst grinding it out at my day job, was a bit over ambitious and optimistic. I work Mondays through Saturdays effectively, but I figured if I was able to write full turbo every Sunday in November, maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to win the challenge. Well, now I know better.

I haven't even tallied my actual total for the month. That's how hectic things are. I almost even forgot that today was the first Wednesday of the month. Now I am hastily typing this post, stealing looks over my shoulder and hoping that my boss doesn't come strolling my way. The bane of being a slave to the corporate world.

But like I said in a previous post, NaNo isn't all about winning. It's about getting that much closer to having a complete novel. So I am going to cherish the words I did manage to get down this past month. All 20,000 or so of them. And why not!? After all, they were good words (well, mostly). Plus it sure beats kicking myself over the words I didn't write. :)

IWSG: Slow and Steady

Yep. I'm back. It's been, what, eight months since I last posted as part of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Wow. Time really does fly when you're... slaving it out in a 9-5. I never meant to stay away that long. But I'm here now, and at least I'm writing again, all thanks to an earlier commitment to take part in this year's NaNoWriMo.

But first things first... The Insecure Writer's Support Group was started by Alex J. Cavanaugh, a sci-fi writer and blogger extraordinaire. The purpose of the group is to allow members to share with one another their various challenges and triumphs. The group posts every first Wednesday of the month.

Right. My insecurity for the month centers around the 50,000 words I'm supposed to be writing. So far, I've written somewhere south of 5,000 words. Haven't even tallied my daily totals. Needless to say, I'm yet to get back into the groove, even though we're almost one week into NaNoWriMo. But of course, there's still plenty of time to catch up.

Or is there? I better get back to writing.

NaNoWriMo 2013

That's right, folks. I've decided to take the plunge. Come day after tomorrow, I'll be joining more than 150,000 writers around the world. Together, we'll be striving to attain a shared goal: to write a novel in the span of one month.

NaNoWriMo (for those who don't know) is short for National Novel Writing Month. It is a creative writing project, wherein participants are expected to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. The project takes place annually, and I have considered taking part ever since I first heard about it a few years ago. So after much deliberation, not to mention a much-needed shove in the right direction from my significant other, I'll be procrastinating no more.

How I'm going to manage to write 50,000 words in-between the 9-5 and GTA V sessions is beyond me. But NaNoWriMo isn't all about winning. It's about getting words on paper. Besides, the only thing worse than failing to win is not trying at all.

Anyone else doing NaNo this year?

"Guess Who's Back?"

And, no, it isn't Slim Shady, even though I await the arrival of the Marshall Matters LP 2 with considerable interest. It's been a while, I admit, and I feel quite ashamed that I don't have any progress worth reporting, at least as far as my writing is concerned.

I set some hefty goals at the start of the year, but I feel no closer to achieving any of them. NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, which seems like a perfect opportunity for me to catch up on my word count. But between the 9-5 and freelance projects, I am beyond strapped for spare time.

But enough about me and my writerly woes. A lot has happened since I was gone. A certain blogging buddy of mine got engaged. The Ninja Captain released the third and final book in his space opera series. We've been graced with a summer of blockbuster movies like World War Z, Man of Steel and Pacific Rim, not to mention great music from the likes of Daft Punk. And I'm sure all that is just the tip of the iceberg.

So, guys, what did I miss?

Apologies

It's been a while, so I really don't know how to begin this post. I've been away mostly because I went over to the dark side recently accepted a 9-to-5 job. It's nothing fancy, but the job description sort of aligned with where I was with my writing, namely at that point where I intended to make a greater effort at leveraging social media to find my audience.

The problem now though is that the initial workload has been a little crazy, with countless deadlines to meet. Hopefully things would settle down sometime in the foreseeable future. But until then, all plans to finish my W.I.P. have been put on the back burner. I still have every intention to finish it before the year runs out, so good luck to me.

In my brief hiatus, I not only managed to miss my third straight IWSG posting (sorry, Alex), but my email address got hacked yet again. All the contacts in my address book were spammed as a result. Even my blog wasn't spared, and the spammy link found its way into one of my posts through the Mail-to-Blogger e-mail address I'd set up for posting via e-mail. I have since taken down said post. I've also been forced to change my password for the umpteenth time now.

Sorry to any who happened to witness the spammy post before I got the chance to take it down. I sincerely hope it won't happen again.

Reflections on the 2013 A-Z Challenge

Another shiny survivor's badge can only mean one thing: that we've come to the end of another Blogging from A-Z Challenge. Throughout the month of April, I'd been blogging my way through the alphabet, as I highlighted 26 speculative fiction books. And just like last year, participants are expected to give their thoughts and feelings in a reflections post.

I was so burned out by the time I clicked publish on my Z post that I didn't even realize the IWSG was posting the day after. So sorry, Alex. I promise to do better next month. My original plan was to schedule all my A-Z posts beforehand, so I would have more time to visit other blogs. But I ended up scheduling them on a daily basis instead. I still managed to visit a few blogs though, and I've made some new blogging buddies too.

The major difference between this year and last year was the fact that I wrote and scheduled all my posts on an actual computer, as opposed to a smartphone. This had a tremendous impact on the quality of my posts, and the speed with which they were written. I was able to nail the formatting down to my satisfaction, rather than have to leave everything to chance. I was also able to embed Youtube videos, something I could never do with Mail-to-Blogger.

It's been an interesting 26 days, but what really crowned my joy was having the friends I made during the last Challenge along for the ride once again. You know who you are. Thanks, guys, for making the 2013 Challenge every bit as enjoyable as the previous one.

The Zombie Survival Guide

Disclaimer: The following post is nothing more than an excuse to talk about the upcoming movie, World War Z.

Today is the last day of the 2013 Blogging from A-Z Challenge. Throughout the month of April, I featured some of my favorite speculative fiction books, as I ran through the 26 letters of the alphabet. By so doing, I have also discovered quite a few books I wouldn't have read otherwise. These books have covered the full spectrum of the genres under the speculative fiction umbrella, namely science fiction, fantasy and horror. The last book I'll be featuring is one that crosses the line between these genres and non-fiction.

The Zombie Survival Guide is precisely what it claims to be: a practical handbook on how to survive in the event of a zombie apocalypse. It was written by Max Brooks, and published in 2003. Its pages are filled with what should be considered best practices in the wake of such a threat. Mr. Brooks lends the whole thing some credibility by ending with a chronological account of zombie encounters, hinting at the inevitability of an impending zombie outbreak.

Following the publication and success of The Zombie Survival Guide, Mr. Brooks wrote a follow-up novel entitled World War Z. It was released in 2006, and it traces the events surrounding a ten-year global war with the undead. Unlike its predecessor, it was written with a much darker tone, but still manages to retain the former's humorous nature. In other words, even if you don't believe in zombies and such, these books are still worth checking out for their underlying humor alone.

The last decent zombie movie from a major Hollywood studio (that I can think of) was Warm Bodies. So you can imagine my excitement when I first saw the preview for World War Z. The Brad Pitt produced movie is currently due for a midsummer release, and it stars none other than Brad Pitt himself. I think it is only natural for fans of the genre to celebrate its coming release, if only because it could bring to the genre the mass appeal that would ensure that more movies like this get made.

And just in case you haven't seen it yet, I'll leave you with the awesome trailer that's got others like me clamoring with excitement.