31 Days of Digital Mixtapes, Day Twenty-Three: In Defense of the Written Word

31 Days of Digital Mixtapes, Day Twenty-Three:

In Defense of the Written Word

’tis the season for books right now. The Fall and Winter Major Book Releases are starting to hit bookstores, NaNoWriMo is a week away, and the 2014 World Book Night selections just got announced. All in all, it’s a great time to get inspired to do some writing. This mix is filled with songs about writing, books, and the act of writing. Hopefully, it helps ignite a passion inside you to pick up the pen (or open up the laptop lid). What other songs should be considered?

31 Days of Lessons Learned: My Wife is one Supportive Lady

31 Days of Lessons Learned:  Day Thirty One

My Wife is one Supportive Lady

Short, sweet, and to the point tonight since all of you are either in sugar comas or tired from chasing after kids in sugar comas.

I’ve been with my wife since August 24, 1997.  I was 17-years-old and about a week away from my senior year of high school.  Due to all the moving around I did in my younger years, this was my third high school in four years.

Ten years after our first date, I married her.

Five years after that, we celebrated our five year wedding anniversary.

Through our entire life together, I don’t think I’ve had a bigger cheerleader.  Even if she thinks I’m making a bad decision, if it’s important to me, she’s 100% behind me.  This support isn’t just for the little stuff either.  If I need help, support, or just a word of encouragement, I can count on her.  That’s a cool thing to know you have.  I hope all of you can find someone just as supportive because it helps when the major decisions come up.

I’m mentioning all of this because my wife realized how important my 31 Day Blog Challenge was, so she made sure I had time to write.  Hell, she even came up with the main idea.  I was going to do 31 Days of Top Ten lists.  Instead I went with Lessons Learned, which I think resulted in compelling reading.  There were a lot of lessons I didn’t get a chance to write about, so you may see this feature come back from time to time.

Now that the blog challenge is over, it’s time for my next great adventure.  This year, I’m making a return to NaNoWriMo for the first time in about eight years.  I’m rusty when it comes to creative writing, but I need a good swift kick in the pants, and the pressure of finishing in 30 days is an intense motivator.  Plus, I know that whenever I’m missing that inner motivation, my wife is one word of encouragement away.

I may have just saved the best lesson for last.  Thanks for all your support.

Thanks babe!

My Girls

Now, a little housekeeping.  Since this a stream of consciousness type blog, expect my posts in November to be focused on NaNoWriMo and Movember (I’m doing that for the first time too).  Once we get past November, anticipate a potential format change here.  I know I won’t see the type of numbers I did in October, but I’d love to have as many of you as possible stick around now that I’m done with the blog challenge.  Use the poll below to let me know what you want to hear about the most.  I’ll put that under

For now, I’m headed to bed.  A good night’s sleep right before the first day of NaNoWriMo seems like a good idea.  Thanks again for following along these last 31 days.  Hope you stick around for my next adventure.  You can bet my wife will be right by my side…that’s for sure…

31 Days of Lessons Learned: Shut up and start writing

31 Days of Lessons Learned:  Day Seven

Shut up and start writing!

My name is Dane Jackson and I’m a writer who doesn’t write.  Sure, I blog here about what’s on my mind from time to time.  I write movie reviews and features about the movie world.  I even write about social media, pop culture and the literary world.  I love doing all of these things and I want to continue doing all of them, but that writing is just distracting me from my real passion – writing fiction.

The fiction bug hit me in grade school where I would write science fiction action stories starring my two cats:  Zoot and Adventure Cat.  With a name like Adventure Cat, how could she not be a super hero?  I even wrote fake tabloid newspapers about my fellow classmates in second grade (but I stopped doing that after two issues – it got me in a bit of trouble).  My writing took a turn for the spooky once I discovered Stephen King and I guess you could say it’s all been downhill from there.

I continued writing short stories mainly through college…even took a couple creative writing classes.  My Bachelor’s Degree is a Literature, Language, and Writing Degree and I got a job working for my dream company – Borders.  I’ve been guiding myself along the path of author since I was a kid and here I sit on a Sunday night with nothing to show for it except this blog, an honorary mention for a short story I wrote, one complete NaNoWriMo manuscript, and lots of feature articles and reviews.  I’m not bitter and I’m blessed to have the opportunities that I’ve had in terms of all the bands I’ve interviewed, authors I’ve met, etc.

I’m self-sabotaging my passion.  If it’s not one excuse, it’s the other.  I’m just finding distractions to keep myself from reading and to keep myself from writing.  I’ve noticed, these excuses have increased since Borders closed, but blaming the closing of my favorite bookstore is just another excuse to add to the pile.  If I’m not using that excuse, then I’m using the excuse that the book industry is changed…

When it all boils down with it, I think I’m just scared to fail, so I’m not even trying.

That isn’t like me.

After writing this post and wallowing in my own self-pity, today’s lesson is clear – SHUT UP AND START WRITING!

borrowed from justinlang.info

5 tips and tricks for a successful NaNoWriMo

While I don’t claim to be an expert (far from it actually), I do have the experience of completing a 50,000 word novel during NaNoWriMo in my lifetime, and since today is November 1st, I thought I should offer up the tips and tricks that guided me through my novel-writing journey.

First and foremost, writing 50,000 words in 30 days looks like a daunting task. Don’t kid yourself into thinking otherwise because it is. One of the most important tips I have that you need to remember is this: Don’t let the sheer size of the task get into your head. If you’re psyched out, you’ll never finish. Trust me. Just sit down, relax, put your hands on your keyboard, and get writing.

Second, make sure you’re writing space is clear of any major distractions.  When I completed my NaNoWriMo, I sat in a room with no TV and worked on a computer where I disconnected the Internet while I wrote.  The closest I got to distraction was putting my music playlists on shuffle.

Third, what you write during NaNoWriMo will be nowhere near a final draft.  Consider it as the first draft of your first draft.  Don’t get hung up in plot holes, grammatical errors, or spelling errors.  Those things can be fixed later.  NaNoWriMo is about words, words, words.

Fourth, set a pace.  I tried to write 1500-2000 words a day.  There were days I wrote less (0 words) and days I wrote more (5000).  If the novel you’re writing is speaking to you, keep going though because you will definitely hit walls and stall throughout the month.  By writing ahead when the novel takes you with it, you’ll prepare yourself for when you stall with your writing.  If you get way behind in your word count, step back, take a break and simply recalculate your new daily word count.  My guess is that it won’t be as bad as you think, so don’t get discouraged.

Fifth, and potentially the most important, have fun.  Successfully completing your NaNoWriMo novel is a fun thing to accomplish, so don’t let it stress you out while you reach that goal.  Just remember, it’s a marathon and not a sprint.

 

Hopefully, these tips help you out on your journey.  If you have more tips for all the NaNoWriMo participants, leave them in the comments.

 

Happy writing!

October: A Month of Chills, Thrills, etc. (Call to Action with Reader Poll)

This is Halloween!

We are fast approaching my favorite month of the year – October!  Why?  Well, if you’re a horror buff like me, it’s only fitting for October to be such a wonderful month right?  It’s the only month of the year that most people are prepared (and willing) to get scared.  Because of that, I’m going to be participating in a very intense undertaking during the month of October.  For every day of the month, I will post something on this blog.  One day it could be a movie review, the next a picture of my daughter in this year’s Halloween costume.  Who knows.  You’ll just have to keep coming back each day for that day’s October offering.  My intention is to cover as much as I can in terms of things that go bump in the night as well as things that fall in line with the spirit of Halloween.  Also, with NaNoWriMo right around the corner in November, this will get me in writing shape to knock out those 50,000 words!

A post a day is a pretty daunting task, so before I get started, I was hoping to get some reader feedback.  What types of things do you want to see this month?  Take the poll, and let me know.  That way, I can gear most of my content to the highest vote getters!

Happy Horror!  (boy do I feel lame for saying that…)