I felt like being a DJ the other day...

so I threw together a playlist for the imaginary goth/industrial club in my mind. Despite the fact that it doesn't contain a lot of new music (outside of A23) and has one definite no-no (Lady Gaga...oh, well, I'm allowed one bit of randomness), I don't think it's half bad.

Clan of Xymox Obsession

Soil & Eclipse Thief of Always

Depeche Mode A Pain That I'm Used to

Lady Gaga Pokerface

Unheilig Fang Mich Auf

Covenant Call the Ships to Port

Rosetta Stone Adrenaline (extended)

Fictional Blue Lights

Bigod 20 On the Run

Pinworm Acetone

VNV Nation Legion

Skinny Puppy Inquisition (extended)

Battery The Betrayel (megamix)

Thrill Kill Kult The Days of Swine and Roses

Sister of Mercy Nine While Nine

Snake River Conscpiracy Lovesong

London After Midnight Kiss

Juno Reactor God is God

Garbage #1 Crush

Die Form Rain of Blood

NIN Reptile

Mesh Trust You

Apoptygma Berzerk Love Never Dies

Wolfsheim Heroin, She Said

Depeche Mode Lie to Me

Assemblage 23 Collapse

Beborn Beton Another World

Heavy Water Factory Vampire (tasture mix)

SITD Snuff Machinery

Stromkern Night Riders

Delerium Euphoria (Firefly)

Rob D Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino mix)

Love & Rockets Haunted When the Minutes Drag

The Cure Lullaby

Rob Zombie Living Dead Girl

Wumpscut Hang Him Higher

KMFDM Anarchy

Razed in Black Oh My Goth!

Project Pitchfork Timekiller

Megaherz Du Oder Ich

Stabbing Westward Save Yourself

Depeche Mode John the Revelator

Massive Attack Inertia Creeps

Switchblade Symphony Wallflower

Siouxsie & the Banshees Into the Light

Informatik Entropy

Suicide Commando The Reformation

VNV Nation Chrome

Imperative Reaction Drown

Funker Vogt A Dream

She Wants Revenge I Don't Wanna Fall in Love

Covenant Bullet

Diary of Dreams Butterfly:Dance!

Dead Can Dance Yulungu

Concrete Blonde Bloodletting (the Vampire Song)

Assemblage 23 Spark

Bigod 20 Like A Prayer

Fluke Atom Bomb

Unit 187 Dead Dog (punter mix)

Hocico Forgotten Tears (suicide commando mix)

Das Ich Destillat (VNV nation mix)

Numb Blood

Wolfsheim The Sparrows & the Nightingales

Skinny Puppy Testure (12" mix)

Snog Hey, Christian God

Hey, Son, the Novel's Done! (Mostly)

I finished writing the novel project out by hand last night. I'm not sure if I'm 100% happy with the ending, but we'll see. My word count in Nanowrimo is bound to stay unchanged for a few days while I type the rest of my handwritten draft in (the last I checked, as soon as you've submitted 50,000 words you can't add any more, so I plan to get the rest typed in and then submit it).

The final word count for "Red" should be somewhere in the 60-65K range, and while this particular novel doesn't lend itself well to a sequel, the bizarre setting has tremendous potential, and I could definitely see myself setting another story there in the future.

This has been a very fun writing exercise, and unquestionably the most fun I've had writing in a long, long time. I'll keep making minor tweaks as I finish up the typed draft and look at doing a more serious revision in the coming weeks. (The goal here will be to make sure a revision gets done...I've historically been pretty bad about following through on that.)

As ever, thanks to Lib and the kids for putting up with me during this whole enjoyable ordeal -- as always, I couldn't have ground out tens of thousands of words without your support! =)

Novel Progress

Up to about 18,000 words...strange that my little widget hasn't updated like it's supposed to. I'm very excited about this project!

NanoWrimo, Day One -- Success!!!!

Daylight savings gave me some extra time to write this morning...and boy, did I write. I hadn't even done a word count till a short time ago.

This is a good start, since it'll be much tougher for me to update during the week.

Here's the brief novel description posted to the Nanowrimo site:

In the blasted wastelands of a doomed future, a young woman has embarked on a deadly mission. Her quest will take her through the foulest depths of a world crippled by corrupt magic and dark creatures, where mankind struggles against the undying forces that brought about the end of the world.

Her mission is simple: to end the ongoing war between human and vampire, by whatever means necessary.

This woman's name is Red, and she is being hunted.

Hunted by the vampires who are afraid she won't reach her destination.

And hunted by the humans, who are afraid she will.

Nanowrimo Beckons

It's almost time for Nanowrimo -- which means I need to make a decision on the novel-to-be!

If you've ever considered writing a novel; if you already write novels and need an excuse to write another one; or if you're just really desperate for something to do this November, sign up! You'll be glad you did. :)

Tales from a Fast Year (Or, the "WTF 2009 LOL Story")

Is it just me, or has 2009 just sort of screamed past us? It's been sort of like a drive-by shooting of a year.

It's been a busy and eventful year, highlighted (in more ways than one) by my dear wife's online yarn shop, Liberty's Yarn. The amount of work she's put into her product, marketing and store is downright humbling, sometimes, but (at least from my perspective, which is primarily that of spectator and wrangler of wary children who might keep Lib from getting work done) it seems to have paid off for her, as she has strong online presence, a steady flow of business and she had a great showing at the Sock Summit down in Portland this past summer.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, I took an actual vacation this year, hanging out with the kids for a few days in Portland while Lib peddled her quality wares. Portland is a beautiful town, and it was nice to spend some time down there and see the sights (especially the Oregon Zoo...holy crap that place is awesome!).

Aside from that, other highlights for the year thus far include:

* Starting up a new D&D campaign.

* Working.

* Getting numerous rejection letters from publishing houses and editors, which has led to...

* Struggling with what I want to do with my writing, and deciding (finally) to get some of the 2,000+ pages I've written in the past few years revised and out there for publication, even if that means self-publishing and/or e-publishing (two options I was not terribly excited about before).

* Working.

* Trying to keep the kids on track.

* Trying to help Lib out with the business in whatever small ways I can (which usually just amounts to me entertaining the kids and doing the dishes).

* Trying to stay sane.

* Getting into a good exercise retinue (which 16 mile-a-day bike commutes doing the week).

* Working. Did I mention that one already?

We're also to be blessed with my brother-in-law Koul coming to visit us, starting tomorrow. We haven't seen every one's favorite dry ice and duct tape fanatic in a while, so it'll be fun to have him.

As we come in to the final stretch of the rest of the year, we've got Holiday Hell (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas), our 9th Wedding Anniversary, my 3rd "Novel in November" outing, a new season of NBA basketball, a lot of knitting and D&D and, of course, work. Is it any wonder I haven't had the time or (more accurately) the energy to blog?

Well, I'd best get back to 2009...don't want to miss another second!

Time to Start Blogging Again....

I've been living exclusively on Facebook since the Mesozoic Era, but with Nanowrimo rapidly approaching and a renewed drive to get "Darker Sunset" published, I decided it's time to jump back onto the Blogwagon. (You know..."Hi, I'm Steve and I'm a Blogoholic"...'Hi, Steve'...that sort of thing...)

I'll be revisiting the look of the blog page here pretty soon, as well as trying to post some regular updates on what has become for me a veritable cornucopia of writing projects: publishing "Darker Sunset: Hunters & Thieves", getting the hand-written drafts of books 2-6 in the series typed; revising "Razor" and "something black..."; and thinking ahead to my next Nanowrimo project, an as-yet-unnamed sequel to "something black...".

So...stay tuned, there's more to come!