So here we are, on week number two at my new job. New jobs, to me, are both exciting and terrifying. I absolutely HATE not knowing what the hell I'm doing (though really you'd think I'd be used to that by now) but at the same time there's something quite...relaxing in being able to shrug and say "Hm. I dunno, I'm the new guy." And then go find some other poor bastard to do whatever crazy job it is that needs to be done. Luckily so far it hasn't been too terribly difficult, a lot of similarities to the old job; including many of the same people- an advantage to staying within the industry. Good teachers help a great deal too (thanks, Matt!). The new place is quite a bit more PROfessional though. Meetings with charts and stuff? Pro. The old place was more fly by the seat of your pants- which always made it quite exciting. Miss that to a degree. Hoping that I can bring some of that professionalism into my fun job, aka writing and publishing, but still bring the enthusiasm and excitement of not knowing what's going to happen next that I learned from the old job.
Legacy is moving along, Mike is hard at work on page 15 for Legacy #1 and it's looking great so far, really hoping that my writing does it justice. Very excited as we're coming to the last few pages of the book- I cut it back down to a 20 page story but I plan on having it be 24 pages- 4 pages of extras! What kind of extras? Well I can't reveal EVERYTHING just yet, gotta save SOMETHING for down the road, but expect to see some sweet bonus art from both Legacy artist Mike Campeau as well as a gentleman by the name of Darren Calvert. If you've been following the September17 Productions Facebook page you'll have seen his name mentioned before. If you haven't, seriously, get to it! Darren has been working on some character designs for both Legacy and future projects which will be coming to light as we roll into 2013. These two guys do some seriously great work, and are both fantastic people to work with. And Canadian! That's right, it's an all Canadian project, so far! It'd be really cool if I could keep it that way, nothing against anyone else, but it'd be neat, I think, to highlight some Canadian talent. I'm sure the They Stand On Guard blog would agree with me on that. Another great Canadian dude runs that, make sure to check it out! theystandonguard.blogspot.com/
In writing news, I kind of slacked off, ok I completely slacked off, in the last few weeks leading into the job change, but the script for Legacy #4 will be in to the lovely Shannon, Editor Supreme, by this week's due date and #5 will be done in a MUCH more timely fashion. Or else. So I have been told. When a pregnant redhead says that to you- make sure you do it. You do NOT want to find out what the "or else" is. Trust me on this.
Next month is NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month. The goal, in case the name didn't give it away, is to write a novel in a month. Yep, that's right, 50,000 words or more in 30 days or less. I participated in my first one last year and made it pretty much halfway. Not too shabby considering I was working two jobs at the time and it was my first shot at it. It really showed me how much discipline is required to set aside the time to write on a regular basis and, with a couple recent exceptions, I've managed to carry on the lessons I learned from it. Innocents Lost, the first Steven Kincaid mystery novel, was last year's project and for this year I may revisit that character in a different story. Or not. I've narrowed it down to four ideas and by the end of next week I hope to have it down to one or two. A backup plan never hurts. Although at a 1700 word per day pace you REALLY don't want to scrap something and try to play catch up. Perhaps I'll write a brief synopsis for each and have people vote on the S17 Facebook page? That's be pretty cool, I think. I'll be keeping everyone appraised as I pick away at it.
Well that's pretty much it for now, catch you all next time!
Andrew
