Day Fifty Nine - One week, two birthdays, less words done as a result Required 162250, Achieved 158322

And this is what we find when there's a day job, two not day jobs, and four conventions to organise, one of which is the largest RPG convention in england.

Don't get me wrong readers, I am serious with this challenge, but I cannot let down those that I have promised to already, so as much as I want to be completely on top of things here, there are times when family and employment will come first, hence the word count above, which is significantly less than I would have hoped for at this time.

Still, the world goes on, my brother reached 38, we all went out and ate too much (Any place that serves puddings for one that weigh more than a pound should be outlawed....), and a good time was had by all.

Hopefully the weekend will not be as fun filled as it was last weekend

This is John Dodd in the socialist republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, wherever you are.

Day Fifty Eight - Sometimes good to write something different. Required 159500, Achieved 156235

Like entering short story competitions for Zombie stories...

900 words of random fiction done in an hour on a whim

So, improving on the wordcount, now only a day behind again rather than the two I was yesterday, so pleased with the days work, and I should be caught up tomorrow in time for the hell shifts again...

Another Chapter of the shift this evening, and the plot thickens some more

This is John Dodd in the socialist republic of South Yorkshire and goodnight England, wherever you are...

Day Fifty Seven - And in the aftermath of the party - Required 156750, Achieved 151719

Which to be honest is Three Nanowrimo's in two months, I can live with that, even if I have to be doing more to catch up.

The party was excellent, played Cards against Humanity a few times, drunk more alcohol than I have in a month (which to be fair was only four shots, but still...) and caught up with good friends.

So, another update for World War Wolf as new concerns are raised and a senior pack member makes a choice that will affect everyone for the rest of the story.

This is John Dodd in the socialist republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, wherever you are...

Day Fifty Six - back on catch up tomorrow after birthday party tonight Required - 154000 Achieved - 148272

Don't anybody think that I'm giving up, I'm just doing very little writing today because when a friend close enough to be my brother has a party, I have to go :)

Normal Service resumed tomorrow, but a big update on the Shift this evening.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Fifty Five - Enthusiasm in random places

Sunday/Monday appear to be my dead spots for writing, but being asked to redraft something got me another few thousand words out of the keyboards which was good.

Not much to say, update tomorrow will either be very early or very late as I'm going to a good friends to celebrate his birthday (late).

So, one more for World War Wolf, strong language from the outset, and something big on the Shift tomorrow :)

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Fifty Four - On the subject of dark things within stories, Required 148500 Achieved 145749

One days worth and one word behind, which is better than where I was last week, I've accepted that there's always going to be some fallout on the weekends, which is to be expected when you're out of the house for fourteen to fifteen hours on the day.

Still, some of the stories are really starting to write themselves, the shift comes back to the workplace tonight, and stay tuned for two days time when something....big....hits the wall.

World War Wolf, I have a quandry, it's getting darker, and it's likely to be getting more and more dark before the end of it.  The question is at what point do I stop putting it on the web for everyone to read and can someone tell me how to put an adult feature on this?

So, Deliberately, Purposefully (and a bonus point for anyone who gets the film reference.)

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Fifty three - Long shifts again - Required 145750, Achieved 143492

And long shifts again...

Note to self: If doing this again next year, find a different day job...

Although there was a refreshing diversion on the way home when the boy came to meet me at work and proceeded to try and beat me home...

All there is to it really, got some more done, but it's been a very long day, I'm sure you can all sympathise :)

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, wherever you are.

Day Fifty Two - A good week so far and a boost to a friend. Required wordcount 143000, Achieved wordcount 142444

Pleased with the week, had a bad start and ended up some 5k behind where I should have been and I've managed to make that up even with all the other things going on to just less than 500 words down.

Nearly one hundred and fifty thousand words in less than two months, so roughly 1.5 times nano two months running and it'll be more than the end of the month.  The various doubts I was having at the beginning of this are starting to disappear.

And it's been a productive week, there's been a lot of things done, a lot more organised, and I'm hopeful for the future, as always, if anyone wants to be included on the daily story updates from this blog, just let me know and I'll add you in to the daily mailout.

In other news, Paco Jaen, a friend of mine down in Brighton, has started a kickstarter for an online magazine involving games and food, two things very close to my heart.  I do hope it succeeds, so I'm putting it on here to try and increase the publicity, which is not something I do very often, but I do believe this warrants it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gmsmagazine/a-g-m-s-magazine-webshow-dice-and-slice-season-one

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Fifty One - So many things, so little time Required 140250 Achieved 138500

Half the day spent organising one convention, the other quarter organising another, and the rest of it writing, it's been a very productive day, but I'm tired now.

In the matter of Sciatica versus Dodd, Deep Heat is your ally...

That said, I've got one more day off before the heavy shifts start again, taking up reasonably long walks again, which will eat into the writing time, but will mean I still have a leg that functions...

So there's things to be done, but I'm pleased with todays works

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Fifty - Onwards Holmes, the game is afoot! Required 137500, Achieved 135072

Well, I feel better about today than I did about yesterday, got a lot of writing done and had a number of interesting conversations (that ate up another few hours of the day), so it's been a very productive day on a number of levels and I feel that I'm likely to catch up totally on the word count by tomorrow providing I don't get phone-mobbed again :)

Today though, is about the subject of games and computers, particularly having games on the computer when you're supposed to be writing...

We all know that you need to take a break once in a while or things just lose momentum, there are some days when you write like it's your last day on earth and the words just fly out there, there's other days when you write like you've eaten a dictionary and all the words are coming out of....well, you get the idea.  But in the meantime, what do you do when you want to take a break?  Playing a regular game (anything FPS, Skyrim and other such things) means you run the risk of losing half or more of the day to it because you've got caught up in it, so what to do?

I found something a while ago (damn you kickstarter, source of all my demons...) called Sunless sea http://sunlessseagame.com/ that had a fascinating premise and looked really really interesting, so I backed it and then looked a little further to find what inspired it, finding myself at the door of Fallen London http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/signup which is a browser based game that doesn't let you have too many actions at any given time (one every ten minutes to be precise) so you can't spend the whole day on it unless you want to throw loads of money at it, and I'm not going to do that.  It's an interesting game where you play an escaped prisoner who is looking to better themselves in a London both like and unlike ours.

As a result, I've got a perfectly good distraction every hour or so for five minutes and then back to the writing.

I should point out I'm not in the employ of Failbetter games and nor am I getting anything from them, but since taking on this challenge, I realise how much of a thing it is to provide something for free to people every day, and for that I thank them.

So

This is Rocket Heeled Jack in the Labyrinth of Tigers and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Forty Nine - And that's my Friday.... Required 134750, Achieved 130560

Tuesdays are always good, because i'm not tired in the evening as I'm not going to the day job in the morning.  Result being that I got quite a bit done this evening and it was flowing well without any blocks (although when you put it like that, it does sound a bit like a plumbers day job....)

So, more updates to follow tomorrow morning and on from there, but in the meantime

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are.

Day Forty Eight - My have I got some catching up to do tomorrow.... Required 132000, Achieved 128228

Because away from the challenge, it's been a very busy few days, and that's not a bad thing, but it is when you're giving your attention to something so much that you can't type without typing what you're talking about....

More updates on that later, for now, another chapter of Shift, with more World War to follow tomorrow

Thoughts from the world as well, I've got another story I've been working on and I'm thinking about putting it out here, but I don't know if keeping up with three stories is too much to work on at the same time, particularly when they're all evolving works of fiction....

Thoughts?

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Forty Seven - Stay Healthy... Required 129250, Achieved 126976

The thought occurs that if I included all the opinion and update pieces I do, the word count would be thousands higher :)

Not a bad day today, got a break in the middle of the day which was very gratefully used, but I have noted something that in the spirit of helping all the other writers out there, I'm going to share with everyone.

Stay healthy...

I have to sit down for twelve hours at a time, two days a week, and the upshot of that is that it causes a reasonably amount of damage to your legs because absolutely everything settles.

And let me tell you all, whatever word count you get from sitting down at the table for twelve hours...

It's not worth it...

It's worth far more to come back to the table every day and write more, rather than have to spend time getting sciatica seen to, and that's where this leads. I work out most days, free weights for the most part, and I believe with my whole heart that that's why I'm still typing this amount of words every day (and yes, I hear you say, even when I'm nearly a day behind...).  So it's important to keep up with these things, and I'm not preaching, because in the category under buff and chiselled, there is not a picture of me, but it's important to keep the body working so the mind has a good vehicle to drive around.

Another Chapter of World War Wolf today, little darker than usual, but it's about time the story went that way...

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Forty Six - Love long shifts.... Required 126500, Achieved 124323

But actually not...

12 hours, nearly 900 calls, not even time to get a tea break, let alone a lunch break, and knacked when I finally got home due to being stuck on the Relentless shift, which is ironically how I came up with the idea of the Shift in the first place, so...

Got a new story being figured out now, but for now it's an update on the Shift

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Forty Five - A valentines day spent quiet Required 123750, Achieved 123599

So, because Jude had to work most of the day and Marks got his new job, I spent most of the day writing, couple of phone calls for Expo, few more calls to America, and lots and lots of writing as can be seen from the count, which is somewhere near back on track now...

So, cheerful now, and there's a few more things to do before the evening ends, but sitting in the front room with my lovely wife, and my snoring son (got to love him, he's been asleep since ten minutes ago, whole week of stupidly early shifts finally catching up on him.), I feel no requirement to complete them before the end of the day :)

Also started on a new story, will probably want some feedback on that some time soon.

The rest of the chapter of World War Wolf today and a slight twist in the story...

Tomorrow is another day

So...

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are.

In the quiet words of William Shatner. There.....is not.....enough.....time.... Required 121000, Achieved 118760

Sometimes you don't get the breaks, sometimes things like life have to take precedence, valentines day tomorrow and while I have the best girl in the world and she'd be happy with a smile and tea and toast in bed, it's making the effort in all things that make them better, so couple of hours on making that so this morning, then two more meetings about conventions (I should do this for a living....), two calls to america, writers group meeting in the evening and the upshot of all of it?

Not as much writing done as I would like, barely half of what I needed for today and that's it

So, slightly down and the weekend approaches fast, however, I have the whole day to myself tomorrow before taking my girl out for a meal in the evening, and if I'm honest, 5k should not be a problem with the buildup that I've done today (and more about that tomorrow.)

Very small update on WWW, first time there's been a single side of the story and the other one will be up early tomorrow morning when I finish it, with my apologies.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Forty Three, of storms and rebuilding things Required 118250, Achieved 117552

Hope everyones not getting the wind as bad as we are up here, been out in a field some of the night putting blocks on top of a barn fence so it doesn't blow away in the night.  We're not the worst hit by a long way, but when a sold built barn starts shaking, you've got to wonder somewhat.

Beyond that, not much to report, Mark made it to work and back in his new car by himself with no problems, even going to far as to go down the M62 at 16:00 despite counsel to the opposite, still, these are lessons that have to be learned, and he'll not make that mistake again.

Update on the Shift today, hopefully a much larger update tomorrow, but I've had a lot of non publish projects recently that I can't share, but I still need to do them and I still want to have something every day for people here.

So...

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, wherever you are...

Day Forty Two - and so my son now drives... Required 115500, Achieved 115001

Doing fairly well at it too, been a few years since he passed, but with one thing and another, its not been possible for him to get a car.  Now it is, and it shouldn't take him long to figure out the rest of it.

But it's been a long day and I have to be up at 0500 to make sure he gets out and away safely.

Quick update on WWW, longer updates to follow over the course of the coming three days when I have real time to get writing done.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Forty One, I must be on a pitch with all these curveballs flying around - Required 112750 Achieved 111354

Mark got another job today, which is great, the problem is that he needs to be in work, thirty miles distant from here...

At six in the morning...

So I'm up at five and driving to get him there for six and me to my work for Seven....

All the joy

So I'm on a flyer tomorrow morning, if the updates don't make any sense, it's because I was typing while I was asleep...

Small shift update today, major events about to unfold there though

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Forty - Love those long shifts... Required 110000, Achieved 109538

However, because it's a sunday, I got a lunch break, so the day wasn't a total bust, and as I can always type better when I'm watching Pacific Rim, the evening has been very productive...

Single chapter of WWW this evening, more to follow tomorrow.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, wherever you are...

Day Thirty Nine - Got to love those long shifts... Required 107250, Achieved 105724

Hard day on the day job today, got no time for lunch and so I'm a little behind

But I'm hopeful :)

Another chapter of the Shift, thanks to all those that provided feedback on the previous chapter, it really helps that with other peoples perspectives.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Thirty Eight - Goodbyes and Never ending jobs... Required 104500, Achieved 104529

Pat's funeral this morning, no boiler working when I got home, all the work in the world in my not day job, and still to keep up with things.

Safe to say it's been a rough couple of weeks.

Still, no negative feedback on yesterdays post, so I can only presume that I got something right about it, either that or people are writing huge amounts of feedback and I haven't got it yet...

Heavy shifts the next two days, expect smaller updates, but for now a swift update on WWW, not as much as I would have liked, but enough to break wordcount on the day.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Thirty Seven - The Hundred thousand broken and the question of intimacies answered... Required 101750, Achieved 102925

So I've gone one particular way with the matter of Jenny and Leo in the shift, I remember the books I read as a child, particularly those with well defined action scenes, most of which also had well defined scenes when it came to more intimate activities.

Now while I'm not much for describing things in clinical detail, I do think that if you're going to lavish detail on things, then you should do it for everything, so this is what I'm doing, parental advisory sticker on the top and if my regular readers think that it's a bit strong, for gods sake tell me and I'll know what to do next time :)

So, feeling a bit like a naughty schoolboy who's been writing things he's only heard about in legend...

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Thirty Six - Almost... Required 99000, Achieved 99551

Been a day of phone calls today, one to Philadelphia in the states about arranging things for Gencon, two to southern england about Expo, and then one on the west coast of america to discuss the organisation of conventions with the man who does what I do for Expo, only he does it for Gencon Indy.

It's good to know that there's a lot of similarities between the conventions, and that they have the same problems and bonuses that we do, only bigger.

In all, it's been a good day, got a lot done, and although I didn't quite make the 100k, I couldn't justify the extra half hour writing to make a target I know I'll smash tomorrow...

So, one more chapter on WWW, Shift to follow tomorrow and possibly something else.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, wherever you are.

Day Thirty Five - Work smarter, not harder... Required 96250, Achieved 95425

Last few weeks, I've been doing all the sums manually on the wordcounts, not thinking too much about the enormity of what I'm trying to do, which means that at the end of every day, I've been pulling out the calculator and adding everything up individually...

Moron...

We live in an age of computers, why not just make a spreadsheet to keep track of these things and save yourself ten minutes of adding up every day...

Which led me to thinking about the use of computers every day in writing, it's far easier to use a word processing program than a typewriter and lord knows, the variety of tools at our disposal are far more now than they ever were twenty, thirty years ago.  Which leads to the question...

Does not having to work as hard make us more creative?

Discuss?

Few more chapters of the Shift for today, more WWW to follow tomorrow and a possibility of something a little shorter I've been giving some thought...

Hopeful to break 100k tomorrow, but it's a busy day

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Thirty Four - Of intimacies.... Target - 93500 Achieved - 93046

To describe, or not to describe, therein lies the question...

I suspect I have an answer, look for the upcoming chapter of the shift and my thoughts on the matter will be apparent.

The chapter of the Shift today is not all the writing I've done, but it's all that I can put up tonight for your reading, the count is included above to give you some idea.

Opinions on the matter of intimacy in stories?

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day Thirty Three - You've got to keep perspective sometimes... 90750 target, 91170 wrote

The problem inherent with working massive shifts over the weekend is that invariably they affect the wordcount that you're going to get out, which is always going to make the sunday word count look like things have gone bad, which isn't the case at all, it just means there's some catching up to do in the meantime...

So I'm going to do wordcounts on a daily basis from now on, that way people know when there's been a good day and when it's been less than good.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, wherever you are...

Day Thirty Two - Of the beginnings of stories

When I had the idea for World War Wolf, it was a single line, delivered from a creature to a person, and from that was spawned the whole scenario.  The line is the final line of the chapter that I'm putting up today, which I shall not repeat here because it will spoil the chapter somewhat, but it was a single throwaway line that developed into a whole bunch of other things, like many ideas that writers have.

The key I find is to be willing to catch the idea when it lands and plant it, occasionally give it some sun, a little water perhaps, and then in time it may sprout and become something more than the seed it was originally...

Either that, or it's late, I'm tired, and rambling like some moonshine addled hippy...

Single chapter of World War Wolf today, there's more writing been done, but I can't share it just yet, so my apologies.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...