I am back! Really, I am!

I think I am back…to blogging. I have missed it to be honest, even though my life is changing in ways I never expected, the simple joy of writing a blog post was, and still is, important for me.

To summarize my friends, these past five months have been nothing short of brutal. For the past 15 years I have worked on the family business, one that had been going strong for almost 34 years. Suffice to say, because I don’t want to get into details about this, we have decided to close the company once and for all. This is a huge blow to me and my family. I still remember spending part of my summer vacations inside the manufacturing plant that in so many ways has become a very important part of my life, and I am not even talking about it in terms of money. This company has been with me forever, I have heard my parents talk about work all of my life and been a part of it has been a great privilege and an honor. The last couple of years have been tough for me and for my parents, but I will forever be grateful for what they were able to achieve, for giving me and sisters the means to obtain an excellent education and to have been able to spend so much time with my parents. I will treasure the 15 years I spent in the manufacturing plant forever.

With that said, it is time to move on. I am not very good at lingering over decisions. I either make them or not. I don’t want look back now, and even though the prospect of working anywhere else is daunting, to say the least, it is also a very good opportunity to start over. Not many people get that in life.

So, I am now officially on the market and looking for work!

So besides surfing the web, entering my CV into databases has been a very tedious and LONG process, I have also been busy working in my other projects, which include a translation business and, of course, my writing.

My writing has evolved into something that has a face now, a form, it is tangible enough for me to see it transforming into a novel.

The Druids grove is clearly broken into 4 stories, at least at this stage. I have finished one already, the longest one, and I am half way through the second part now. The third part is already outlined and some of it is written and the fourth is outlined only.

X is done and the whole novel idea is outlined. Children of the Sea is not outlined but I have something like 100k words worth of drafts and chapters that need some editing and love. Telluride is outlined, and only a short story is written from it, and my newest project, The Knight of Storms and the Vampire Witch is just a work in progress.

My main goal is to publish my e-book independently by the end of the year, a feat that seems to come closer and closer as I type these words. I am now writing between 5 and 10k words a day, and I will continue to do so until I get a new job or die trying (not literally :D)

The blog will be updated each Monday again!

There are a LOT of books, games and other reviews pending!

See you soon!

Grinding

Middle of the week and I have this irresistible craving of writing all day long. But I can’t write all day, I can’t read all day and I can’t play games all day. I have work and a beautiful family to take care of, so the alternative suits me just fine.

Now, the Novel is advancing at an accelerated pace. The three stories that will meld into one, eventually, are well under way. The whole structure of the world is finished; the nuances of clothing, architecture, vegetation, etc…are in place and no longer require more of my limited time. Now I am only writing and editing, writing and editing. This first book of a five part series will be available, if all goes well, around December of this year. Book two is already outlined. So I am pretty excited about this!

My short story, X, will be ready soon as well, I just need to get my reading group together and iron out the details it still has. Draft two was fairly different from draft one, but I liked the second better, its structure is much better and the pace is better as well.

Hopefully, I can send the story in May, and work on a second story shortly.

The other two projects that are still dancing in my head will have to wait for a bit. This is not bad really, because I am still making notes about characters or ideas about the story of these two projects, and I know that, at some point, they will get written.

As I grow older I begin to realize that certain things in life tend to be easier than initially thought, perception changes, yes, but drowning in a puddle is no longer an option, when real life-changing problems knock on our doors. I understand that writing, in any of its forms is an outlet I NEED in order to function right, regardless of my dreams and passion of becoming an author. This is good!

See you all later!

Renewal

Oh boy, it has been a while since my last update, two months have gone by, and to say that nothing has happened would be untrue, yet it feels like that to me.

Many things have passed me by, the holiday season, the ungrateful return to labor, the persistent writing block that attacks me every January and the blossoming of my characters in SWTOR. Also, I have not found a book to read, so I am reading 8 or nine books at the same time...a bit chaotic, the same way my head feels right now.

I will elaborate.

My wife and I love the holiday season, we love buying the Christmas tree and setting up the whole house to look like Santa's workshop. Our two kids love it also. So it was at this time, that the Beta weekends of SWTOR finally arrived, and with it a void had filled in my life but at the same time, the need to play an MMO had matured into a candid desire to just unwind from the inevitable horrors from work. The holiday season and SWTOR, who could ask for more?

December was not a good month at work, we did not have the amount work we needed to have, but it was a great month in terms of new beginnings, new clients, new and renewed hope. The last six months took a toll on me; I am tired of being tired, of being worried. But with the burden of potential doom, clarity came along, a frantic oasis of stillness that mitigated the overpowering sensation of loss. I could now breathe easier, I could sleep and rest and I could play and write and read.

Not so fast.

The playing part has been great. I have not felt the urge to play at all hours, at all times. The addiction is under control, so far. I am enjoying the game and I am taking my time to enjoy it...I will expand more on the game later. However, the writing and reading part is not going well. It seems that when I make a New Year's resolution, my real aim is to disregard anything associated with it. Thus, the elusive muse is still hiding, somewhere, inside my head and I can't seem to lure her out to the pages, where she belongs. The short story is coming along nicely, but slowly, the two novels want to burst out of me now, but when I work on them they retreat to their shadowy hiding place. I will finish the story soon, but I am afraid to set a due date, procrastination is an art form and I can perform it flawlessly. Such is life.

The writing conundrum has wrought havoc to my reading habits, and I have been unable to choose which book to read next, so I have been jumping from book to book to no avail. I am a creature of habit, I need uniformity, and I have not been able to get it so far this year, although February should be better.

The game is very good; it is a mesh of everything that is good from every MMO that came out before it, mixed with the brilliant Bioware story weaving and the immortal Star Wars series. I initially wanted to level up an Imperial Agent Sniper, and I am doing just so, but at a slower pace. The Agent is level 33, the Bounty Hunter is level 48, ready to hit 50 this week. Our guild, Soul Harvesters, has only one 50 so far, but that will change in the upcoming weeks.

So, I will try to write more, try to eat less (yes, the diet was one of many of my resolutions, along with not smoking, that so far, I have been able to maintain), try to sleep more, try to read a single book, or no more that three at a time, and be a better dad, husband, son, brother, writer, Guild Master and last, but not least, a better person.

See you all next week.

NaNoWriMo ends!

All good things must come to and end.

The National Novel Writing Month is almost over, and it saddens me deeply, because, in all honesty, it has changed my writing life.

Aspiring writers go through many challenges, most of us hold regular jobs and have to juggle between work, family and friends and the sacred little time we have left to write. We all have to go through the deep valleys of self-doubt, of over editing and the darkest place of them all: procrastination. We have to forego family outing (especially during the week) or leave our favorite games, movies, and TV series behind. Why? Well, in my case, because I have to. Writing is as essential to my life and eating and breathing, it has become an intrinsically part of my life that without it, a dull, cold and empty void would form at the very heart of my soul. Writing is an extension of who I am and who I want to be, it is to experience, through the eyes and voice of my characters, stories that simply need to burst out of my head.

As an aspiring writer, I made a conscious decision to commit to my writing in the beginning of the year, to forget about being published, or to publish myself, because I have NOTHING to publish. NaNoWriMo has changed my pre-conceived notions of what I am capable of doing and of my own resolve to, well, simply write.

For the past 20 years, an idea evolved into a story, a story evolved into a novel and now, finally, I am seeing the possibility of finishing it, of having a beginning and an end. That has become the most important aspect of my writing right now, and I intend to keep on rolling words, of creating the zero draft, the whole story from scratch, and then edit the heck out of it.

I wanted to write 90k words this month, I am 20k short, and will probably not get there; however, I am not worried about that anymore. This month I have written through blinding migraines and lackluster effort. I have written after long, tiresome days and even longer, restless nights. And I have done so being faithful to what I expect me to be in terms of being an employee, a business owner, a friend, a parent and a husband. I can't ask more out my tired soul.

So, I will keep on writing, I will keep on grinding and eventually, the results will be there, and they will be worth the wait.

Edit: I have changed the layout of the site, I hope you all like it. I will be removing links to some of my outdated work, and will remove the links to the Druid's Grove. I feel that I posted the latter with no editing or revision whatsoever, and will not post until it is fit to be up.

Thanks again!