I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I’m a geek, I’m vegan, I fucking love Amanda Palmer and the ukulele, I feel sorry for people who “don’t like to read”, I’m a writer and a dreamer. I love long rambling text posts that nobody will probably ever read.

Like many thousands of other people I participated in NaNoWriMo this year with the lofty goal of writing 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. I’m proud to say that I am a winner this year having hit 50,000 words on November 27th. This is my first NaNo win and my third attempt. I guess the third time is actually the charm sometimes. I guess it’s a cliche for a reason

I’m still haven’t quite come to terms with the fact that I’ve written something this long. Last year’s attempt never made it to the 45k mark and I did work on it some throughout the year. I think this year worked much better for me for a few reasons.

1) I had a good idea where I wanted the story to end up before I started writing. It kept my driving forward in a way that writing by the seat of my pants never could.

2) I made very good use of the local NaNo community in Tucson. I went to multiple write-ins every week. I posted on the forums, and in the Tucson NaNo Facebook group, despite my hatred for FB.

3) I used the attendance of write-ins as an incentive. I would not go to a write-in unless I made at least 75% of my writing goal for the day. It meant that write-ins were just fun social time for me and helped me meet and get to know some great people.

4) I refused to let myself settle for less words than my goal. I took two days off from NaNo, but they were on purpose. I also made sure that I was ahead of the goal count to so that I wasn’t getting behind by not writing.

So, those are the ways I managed to bang out more words on one story in a month than I’ve ever written before. Now the question is, can I keep it going? I’ve set a goal for myself to write 1300 words per day which rounds out to about 40,000 words a month depending on its length. That should hopefully allow me to finish up this novel (50k isn’t nearly the end) and move on to something else with the beginning of the new year.

What this all means is that I’m now officially putting on my big boy writer pants and going after my dreams of being a published author. I think 30 sounds like a good age to get a contract signed, don’t you?

Our differing viewpoints on tech and gadgets fascinates me. There are endless options in the world of technology and to some extent they define our personalities. I’d love to hear from you folks about how you and your partners differ. Does it cause strife or bring you closer together? If you’re single does someone’s opinion on technology factor into your decision to pursue a relationship?

That NaNoWriMo was the starting point for my return to the world of writing. I hadn’t written anything to speak of since about the 6th grade, though I had done some pretty extensive roleplaying and character building. The camaraderie and encouragement I found on Twitter that November was nothing short of life changing.

As anyone can tell you that’s faced down NaNoWriMo it’s quite a daunting task. Many times I was reminded of a great Stephen King quote.

“Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”

I don’t think I could have found the courage to keep going if it weren’t for #amwriting and my wife, who constantly reminded me that writing is what I want to do with my life. It was a simple matter of prioritization and writing needed to come first. Once I put writing on the top of my list I began to arrange the rest of my life. Now, instead of working a 9-5 job and scratching out a bit of writing when life allows I’m traveling full time with my wife and working on my writing for hours every day.

I won’t go as far as to say that I wouldn’t be here without #amwriting, but I will say that it was one of the first steps on a very long journey. I don’t know if I’ve every properly thanked the people of #amwriting, Johanna in particular, properly, but I hope this post will serve. Thank you.

This post is part of a blog party to celebrate #amwriting’s second birthday. Happy birthday!

To continue the celebration, head over to L.S. Taylor’s blog and read her happy birthday post.

Of course there’s a lot more to it than that. Writing a novel is a complex process and it takes a lot more than a little seed from a song to get those creative juices flowing. It takes a whole bunch of songs! To that end I give you a few of the songs that keep me in the mode for writing my little necromancy tale. I put this playlist together on Spotify (free accounts available by signing up with Klout.com) based on things that were on the Pandora station I often listen to while writing this novel. It’s a work in progress, but I’m sure you can see a theme. If you have any ideas for things that would fit in there, I’d appreciate the suggestions.

The links below take you to the songs on Spotify. If you sign up with that link above you can play all of these songs and about 10 million others for free! (I’m not even getting paid for this. I just love the service so far.)

Death Cab for Cutie – I Will Follow You into the Dark
The Cranberries – Zombie
Tegan And Sara – Walking With A Ghost
Dave Matthews – Gravedigger – Acoustic
John Lennon – Imagine
Glee Cast – Blackbird (Glee Cast Version)
Jack Johnson – Breakdown
Donavon Frankenreiter – Free
Metric – Help I’m Alive
Michael Andrews – Mad World
Evanescence – My Immortal – Band Version
Death Cab for Cutie – Someday You Will Be Loved
Death Cab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body
The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
Tegan And Sara – Where Does The Good Go
Nine Inch Nails – Hurt (Quiet)
David Bowie – Space Oddity
Phantom Planet – Raise The Dead
Phantom Planet – Demon Daughters

So, here’s a bit about my novel and what I say in response to the inevitable question about my inspiration.

Me: My novel is about a young woman who accidentally slips into the netherworld after the murder of someone close to her. When she makes it out of the netherworld she’s thrown into a world of mystics and necromancers at war. The mystics claim to be fighting on the side of right and Jenna mostly agrees, but she has made a vow to bring her loved one back to the world of the living and necromancy is the only way to do that. She has to make a choice and the lives and souls of her and her loved one hang in the balance.

Interrogator: Wow, that’s a crazy story. Where did you get the inspiration for something like that?

Me: Well, for me it all started with a little song: I Will Follow You into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie.

Interrogator: Wow, that’s really a lot to get from a song. How do you do it?

Me: Alchemy.

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So, that’s one way to answer that almost unanswerable question. Give it a shot and see how it works for you. I use music a lot for inspiration. Tomorrow I’ll post the playlist I listen to while writing my novel. It of course includes “I Will Follow You into the Dark” and other tracks that make me think of necromancy and lost love.

If you’re a writer, how do you answer the question about your inspiration? Hit up the comments and if you use music, stop back tomorrow and we can compare playlists.

The House of Hearts 100 Follower Giveaway

In the last two weeks I’ve managed to work my way into three different limited release web applications. Turntable.fm and Spotify are both music related services and Google+ is Google’s new social network which it is pitting against Facebook. With three such intriguing services to try out it’s been hard to get much work done, but at least I have some great things to share with all of you. Here’s a little bit about each service and what I think of them.

Spotify is a streaming music service that is very similar to services such as Rhapsody, Rdio, and to a lesser extent, Pandora.  It’s been available in Europe since 2008 and just landed in the US a couple of days ago. You download a simple client program that serves as your music player and a portal to search for music. When you find a song you like you can play it immediately, add it to a playlist for later playing, or click to share it with friends on Facebook and Twitter. There are 3 tiers of service: Free, Unlimited, and Premium.

Free: Ad supported and will have limits on hours of music played and the number of plays of each song in the future, though it doesn’t seem to right now. I read that this will be evaluated and probably go into effect after 6 months.  These accounts are also restricted right now. You can sign up for an invite on their website or do like I did and log onto Klout.com. As I just now found out, if five of you go there through that link I’ll be able to try out the premium service. Awesome unintended perk of researching this blog post!

Unlimited: $4.99/month. Removes the currently nonexistent time limits on streaming and also removes the mildly annoying audio and graphical ads. You also get a bump in music quality.

Premium: $9.99/month. You get the perks of the Unlimited version plus the ability to use the mobile app for streaming. You can use this feature on up to 3 devices including Android devices, iOS devices like the iPhone/iPad, and several others.

My thoughts: I’ve been playing with Spotify nonstop for the last couple of days and I’m finding it hard to have any real gripes. The music catalog is HUGE! I’ve yet to find anything that it doesn’t have (except when I spelled something wrong, it’s not very forgiving in that respect). And I’ve tried some pretty obscure stuff. There have been a couple of hiccups with some songs not playing or resuming after ads play, but restarting the program seems to fix that. I’m already itching to try out the premium version so I can try it out on my phone. Pandora is great for discovering new music and I won’t give it up, but if I go premium I think I will be using it a lot less. If you love music there’s no reason you shouldn’t at least check it out.

Turntable.fm is a new site where you can share music with people in a group setting. Music is played by DJs at a virtual DJ table in the front of each Turntable room. The coolest part is that if there are less than five people at the DJ table you can click the open seat and become a DJ yourself! On the right hand side of the interface you can pick the songs you want to play when you are at the DJ table and also chat with other people in the room with the box at the bottom. If you like the song that is playing in the room you can click a button at the bottom that says “Awesome” and your avatar will bob its head with the music. The DJ who selected it will also get a point that appears on their profile and helps them unlock new avatars. There is also a “Lame” button. If enough people click the lame button the track will be skipped. You need to be friends with someone on Facebook who is already on Turntable to get in right away, or you can request an invite on the main page.

My thoughts: I love Turntable. I frequent a room that was inspired by the Twitter hashtag #LOFNOTC (Losers Of Friday Night On Their Computers). The hashtag was started by the glorious Amanda Palmer (@amandapalmer), so she pops in every now and then. It’s a great room and I suggest you check it out this Friday. There is also #LOSNOTC for Saturdays and tons of other rooms to check out. Whether you are too shy to DJ or love the limelight, it’s a great place to hang out and hear new music and old favorites.

Google+ or Google Plus, is Google’s first serious leap into social networking. It is similar enough to Facebook that anyone who uses that service should be at home on Google+. You can share links, videos, and photos, as well as make text posts. There is a mobile app for Android phones and the mobile site works well on other devices. It’s currently available by invite. You can sign up for an invite on the Google+ site, or beg one of your friends who is already in to send you one.

My thoughts: If you read my previous post you already know I like Google+.To me Google+ beats Facebook in almost every aspect. I find it simpler and more intuitive to use. I think the +1 button is better than “like” on Facebook because it doesn’t automatically share. That’s what the share button is for. By far the coolest feature though, comes with the Android App. The app can automagically upload all of the photos you take directly to a private album on Google+ for you to share at your leisure. If you find Facebook to be annoying or lacking I highly suggest you give Google+ a try.

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Are you on any of these services already? What do you think of them? Are there any other betas that I should be trying to get in on? Let me know in the comments.

By far the coolest feature so far is the automatic mobile upload. I downloaded the app for my phone and OPTED IN to have the pictures that I take on my phone automatically uploaded to Google+ (to a private album only viewable to me) and snapped a picture. It was on the website and ready for sharing in under a minute. Bam! That simple. Here it is.

I’ll probably write more about Google+ as I learn more about it. For now let’s just say that if it keeps being awesome I won’t be hanging around Facebook nearly so much. Basically it just needs to NOT add in annoying games and it wins.

I will still be working toward hitting my goal of weighing 160 by the end of the year. I will probably even do better since I won’t have stress about blog posts and a weekly weigh in holding me back. Some may think this means I’m just copping out, but that’s fine. I know myself and can already feel the weight being lifted from my shoulders. (LOL. No pun intended. Caught that on a second read through.) I may still post my progress occasionally because I will be happy with myself, but regular weigh-ins and such are out.

I’m also hoping that not having the stress of trying to post about weight loss all the time will help me to post more frequently about things that interest me. I want this blog to be updated at least 3 times a week and I think this is actually a step in that direction.

So, if anyone out there wants and update on the weight loss thing, you can always leave me a comment or email me. Until then I return you to your regularly scheduled program already in progress.