It’s hard to be a writer if one doesn’t write. I’ve known this in theory since around the time I pasted a printout of WordPerfect 5.1 codes on the inside cover of my notebook and began typing out my stories and poems during down time out to sea. But from time to time I forget that and either get stuck on writing a piece that isn’t working or that I’m not ready for yet, or get caught up in a depressive positive feedback loop (Day 1: You suck, don’t write; Day 3: You didn’t write for three days… you really can’t write; rinse, repeat) and go for days without writing anything. So far this year, I’ve done alright, squeezing out at least five hundred words a day, but often hitting a thousand or even more. But that’s not good enough for what I want to do, so I’ve decided to deliver myself a mainline shot straight to the frontal lobes and stun, shock, or otherwise confuse my body into getting another work finished and ready to send out into the world. I made that decision in a moment of pique and unfortunately wrote it down, so now I have to do it or my Muse will get mad and quite possibly make good her threats to leave my head.

Add into this mix my difficulty in writing a new story. Over a month ago I set aside one of my short Weird Westerns and started playing with an idea I had about a group of soldiers and civilian fighters holding out in the Wyoming foothills against a mass of Ogres bent on overrunning them and avenging the death of one of their own. The idea was vivid, painted with the beautiful and dangerous landscape of the Rockies and the bold and vicious colors of the Ogres and the Human soldiers, but my three attempts at the story failed after just a page or three, no matter where I tried to enter the story or how I tried to tell it. So, I decided that perhaps a novella was way to go.

And for a while, this worked. I pushed through the part that had been blocking me and got about 27 pages typed out. I liked the direction of the story and the conflict seemed to be tight enough to push the action forward. Unfortunately, the characters came alive for me. Yes, that’s normally a good thing, but this time, two of them strode into my head and started telling me everything else I had to add. And to top it off, I realized that I had rushed the beginning, and I needed more characters for people to realize about besides the two or three that are enough for a story. Quickly sketching an outline of everything I wanted to include told me that my 30-page story would easily fill 200 pages, and maybe more. I quickly titled the outline “Craptactular Crapticles” and tried to toss it into the trash, but it was too late… my Muse and the stable of writers and typers she keeps in my head had already seen it, and they liked the idea.

So here I am. And because there’s no plan in the world that can’t be made even more frustrating and brain-chilling than adding a deadline, I’ve decided to make daily posts about my progress, with a goal of being finished with the rough by 28 Feb. That’s faster than ‘NaNoWriMo’ times. Oh, and I also work for six-seven hours a day for three days on the weekend, along with a seventy-minute drive there and back. And I haven’t written a novel-length manuscript in well over a year. Yippee.

Starting Friday, I’ll be complaining writing about my new journey. I won’t be posting the entire thing because it will most likely still be shite donkey shite fossilized donkey shite unrefined at first, but I’ll share excerpts and things that come to mind while writing my Precinct Thirteen Ripoff homage to great westerns and action films like Seven Samurai, Zulu, Dawn of the Dead, and Rio Bravo. Wish me luck.

And if you’re spending the bitter cold of the winter trying to keep your brain warm, share what you’re working on, too. Misery loves company. Err, I mean, writers work well with a good support network.