December has to be my favorite month of the year for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, productivity hasn’t traditionally been one of them. I’m looking to change that this month, though I’ll have to do so in baby steps.
Last month I made a pact with myself to make sure that the blog here was updated at least three times a week, and I actually managed to pull it off! Excuse me while I pat myself on the back. It wasn’t easy, but I made time for it and used the meager amounts of willpower and discipline I had on hand to make it so.
This month I’ll be trying to do the same — update the blog here on jakebe.com at least three times a week. I’ve been invited to be a regular contributor over at [adjective][species] as well, and I couldn’t be more excited to do it. They have a really great crew over there, writing fascinating articles about the lifestyle and trends of the furry fandom, and I’ll be doing my best to maintain the high standard of essays they’ve cultivated there so far. I meant to have a post up there by now, but the holidays kind of blindsided me. I’ll be trying to make up for the slow start with consistent posts about the stories we tell ourselves (and to other people) and how we can use that to make our lives and the fandom better. It sounds so New Age-y when I put it that way, but I really believe in the idea and will be working to cultivate and spread that message.
In the meantime, I have a TON of writing from friends and fellow writers to catch up on, so I’ll be trying to do that. A couple of folks have sent me things they’ve been working on over NaNoWriMo, and I’m eager to dive into that and find out how to help shape the story into something leaner. There have been other stories friends have sent me and I’ve taken way too long to read and respond to that, so I’ll be trying to put a focus on that.
The Pathfinder game is back in full swing — we’ve played two sessions in the past month, and there’ll be one more before the end of the year. I’d like to make sure the gang goes out with a bang (figuratively speaking, of course), so I’ll be working on that over the next two weeks. There’ll be a bit of a hiatus after that, and hopefully I can use that time to solidify NPCs, mold encounters and straighten out the over-arcing plot that will carry the adventurers through the next set of games. One of the great things about running a tabletop role-playing game is being able to take a step back and look at the super-structure of the story, making sure every chapter/session gets folks a little farther towards the next signpost.
Between blogging, setting up the RPG and catching up on reading I think that should carry me through the end of the year. I will, of course, keep trying to get to my short stories as I can but I’m not expecting to progress much there. This will be a pretty busy month for me all around, and I’m trying to make allowances for that.
Over to you guys — what are your writing plans for this month? How did you do with NaNoWriMo, if you participated? I want to take the time to give a special shout-out to Sylvan Scott, who finished the last book of his Fandom series this year with a 90,000-word-plus novel. Way to go, man! I’m…not sure if there’s a website out there for it yet, but here’s his Smashwords site. There are a lot of free stories there, so it doesn’t cost anything to sample his work!
From the Desk of Jakebe T. Rabbit 