Category Archives: Uncategorized

Build A Playlist

So I just had a goofy idea. I’m gonna build a playlist with your help. It’s gonna be weird. I’ll pick a song and then tag someone. That person picks a song based on the last song picked (by the person that tagged them). It can be a similar style, a word association, whatever. The reason you choose the song is your own. That person then picks someone and so on until we hit twenty. Refer them back to this post and have them leave a comment with their choice. When it gets to fifteen, I’ll put the playlist together in Grooveshark and display it here for all to see.

Let’s see if this works.

I’m going to pick “White Wedding” by Billy Idol and I tag Zack Ricks.

Searching For Bill Hatcher

I’m taking a tip from my good buddy Rhodester. He was looking for his wife’s Dad and thanks to a blog post and some SEO-fu, they found him.

I don’t know much about SEO. That may explain why I’m still somewhat obscure on the internets. I do know that I’ve been looking for one of my best mates from High School off and on for years, ever since I first stepped foot on the electronic highways. William Hubert Hatcher, Billy to his friends and likely just plain Bill now, was one of the terrible trio that was made up of him, myself and John “Bear” Payne aka Pinakidion. We play D&D long into the night as often as we could and we were geeks to the core.

Bill, like me, moved around quite a bit as a lad. I think as an adult he was probably in the military. I’ve searched the usual places; websites dedicated to alumni, Facebook, twitter, and I’ve Googled and emailed a number of men. It doesn’t help that there’s apparently a famous photog named Bill Hatcher (that ain’t him) and someone who owns a vineyard named Bill Hatcher (that also ain’t him). I’ve no idea what he’s doing these days, obviously, but if I had to guess I’d say it involves computers, guns, or attractive wimmens. It might also involve music as Billy had the voice of an angel.

So if you know a William Huber Hatcher that attended Manteo Middle and High School in the 80’s, point him this way. If you are him, then what are you doing, EMAIL ME!

Movember/NaNoWriMo Wrap Up

Well I’m gonna call the month of November an 85% success.

Pros – I crossed the finish line at about 8:45pm Tuesday night. That is to say I write over fifty thousand words. I don’t think they were fifty thousand crappy words. I’m pretty sure it makes for a coherent yarn and I like large chunks of it. It needs work (and it needs to be finished), but what do you expect? If you want to beta read it once I’ve finished and made one edit run through let me know.

I grew a frickin’ awesome trucker ‘stache and will be maintaining it either through December or until Leigh complains. After that we’ll see.

The snowflake method, or as much of it as I used, worked pretty well. The story deviated somewhat from the outlining I did, but the over all arc has stayed the same. I think it was a HUGE help in keeping me on track. If I had actually done all the steps it might have helped even more. Next time I use it (perhaps as early as February, I want to write two novels a year starting in 2011), I will use all the steps.

Cons – I raised no money for either Movember or the Office of Letters and Light. I did donate some money to the latter cause personally. If you want to rectify that, I think you still can.

I didn’t finish the story. This was actually part of my personal goal for the month. I wanted to not just cross the finish line, but to have a completed 1st/0th draft.

Overall I’m not too bummed about either of those things. Money was raised by some. Life will go on. I will finish the story. I plan on it being done this time next week.

It’s a solid B earned in the face of migraines, strep throat, colds, work, Thanksgiving, family time, the threat that was “The Walking Dead” and a host of other things. You can see my word count breakdown here:

NaNoWriMo gets a lot of heat from people in the writing community and I understand some of it. This may well be my last one since I plan on doubling my output and November just isn’t the best month. Or I may pull a Brand Gamblin and participate unofficially so I can cheer on my friends and compete with my adversaries.

If you did it then you’ve learned some things, one of which may be that you just don’t need a special occasion to write a novel. I know I don’t.