OH GOD...MUST...KEEP...GOING...*CONTINUES TO CLIMB HUGE MOUNTAIN REPRESENTING PROJECT*

Well, my friends, summer is about to wrap up and I've made a rather disgustingly large boo-boo.


Really, I think apologizing would be useless, so I won't do it. But I'll explain my best: owing to family issues at home these past two weeks, my progress on this novel has been hindered greatly. I am quite upset with myself for letting them get in my way, but there's not much I can do. I am trying to rebound as best I can. My first blog entry in two weeks should be a start.


Unfortunately, some of the things I have promised I now know it is a little too late to start. For instance, the elusive character development which I promised. I am now turning my attention strictly to the writing. In actuality I have never really tried to MAKE characters, I just let them go in the direction they may and they usually write themselves. Right now I'm going to focus on writing not the greatest literary work of the century as I had secretly wanted this to be, but just an entertaining story. Right now I am writing as much as I can whenever I can. I write and write and write and I try to make as much progress as I can until I hit the mental block that all writers eventually hit. I guess that's why it takes Stephen King four years to write one book. Then again most of his books are the size of ancient tomes.


I do have all of my main characters, yes I do I do have that yep. There is Sheldon Wellday, a nearing-forty, handsome yet wifeless/girlfriendless dork with a slightly high-pitched voice like you hear on radio commercials nowadays. He's a tech geek. He really misses the days of Windows 3.1 and DOOM. AND WOLFENSTEIN 3-D......no wait that's me. No wait that's him. Or something.


Next is Jeff Gibson, a more mature man Wellday's age; he and Wellday have known each other since Kindergarten. However, he finds his friend more sad than funny. His voice is a droning monotone, or, rather, a bit cold sounding. He is sarcastic and sardonic. He is also a techie.


Scott Anderson is a college kid who loves soccer and vuvuzelas. Oh I went there.


Glen Dale is too quiet. He barely has any dialogue. Come to think of it he has none whatsoever. He's silently cranky and mumbles this and that about whatever. That is until later in the book when he gets...um...drunk. His sister, Julie, is the girlfriend of Mike Dobson, a thirty-something and I have no idea what he's like yet.


These characters all appear in the following excerpt, one of my favorites where Wellday is almost murdered by a falling store sign:





"...And suddenly, all at once, they heard it: a loud groaning sound from above.


It sounded as if whatever was making that sound was about to come crashing down.


It gave Wellday a bit of a bad feeling, and so he looked up.


The rest followed his gaze.


That was when the Summit Electronics Center sign fell off the building and careened to the ground missing Wellday, who fainted upon the sign's impact, by inches.





'Oh, *J*,' muttered Wellday when he realized he had woken up.


His eyes were cloudy, and he opened and shut them a few times until they cleared.


He sat up.


Crowded around him were Gibson, Anderson, Dale, Julie, and Dobson.


'Oh man...what the *BAD PLACE* happened?' a bewildered Wellday asked.


Gibson spoke.


'Well, for one thing, this here sign fell off,' he informed Wellday, pointing at the downed Summit Electronics Center sign now blocking the doors it once hung over. 'Also, you fainted.'


'Oh, *bleep*,' Wellday responded. 'How long have I been out?'


Gibson immediately answered, 'Four minutes.'


Wellday nodded.


'You feel OK?' Julie asked.



Wellday answered, 'Yeah, I'll be fine. Just a little woozy, you know.'



Wellday maneuvered onto his knees, and then, using his hands to propel himself, stood up.



Wellday was now fully awake and staring at the sign.



He noticed that it had lost much of its glamour and might laying there between the pillars, cracked, on the ground. It now looked to be exactly as it was: a sign hung by a bunch of construction workers some years before. No longer was it some sort of intimidating declaration.



Now Wellday's eyes became fixated on the sign. Human eyes often become fixated on something and for a long, long minute it becomes impossible to move them until something, something from the depths of the soul, forces a person to summon all of their will and make their eyes move. Wellday here experienced such a period.



But his mind cleared in about a second. He moved his eyes and said, 'How the *eff* are we going to move this *d**n* thing?'

Julie said, 'We're going to just have to move it ourselves. It's not like the manager left a phone number to call in case his store's sign tumbles off while he's gone.'

Dobson thought for a minute, and then wondered aloud, 'How many is it going to take to move it?'

Gibson droned, 'Most likely all of us.'

Julie sighed. 'Jeff's right, I guess,' she agreed.

Dale mumbled something about taking this place to the cleaners if I pull my back.''


There's your first excerpt, folks. Abrupt place to end it, I know, but it's long-winded as it is and what follows isn't very important.


Anyway, HOPEFULLY I can get a blog post on every day this week (at LEAST every other day) to compensate for the two weeks I have missed. I also hope to do the same for my Twitter feed. I really have to start buckling down now on this project and I have yet to write the essays for the Gutkind book or fill out the chart. Yes I am sad. Yes I am a failure at school and life in general.

Good luck with your respective projects, everyone. BTW, my book is called Blitz. :)




CENSORSHIP LEGEND:

*J* = The Good Lord's Name taken in vain. DEAR GOD, I'M SORRY. LOVE, TONY.

*BAD PLACE* = Where Satan is.

*BLEEP* = starts with an S....

*eff* = oh, figure it out for God's sake.

*d**n* = (see *eff*)

No matter how mild, I will be removing swears from excerpts. :)