A Place To Dump My Thoughts
I mentioned back before the fast that I had “won” NaNoWriMo again in November and I promised a victory lap of sorts. Since I never did that, I am doing it now. I wrote over 50,000 words in November on my fantasy novel currently titled Apocalypse. We’ll see if the name sticks with all the changes and developments that occurred in the last 50,000 words added to the draft.
Continue reading “A Long Delayed Victory Lap”
I wrote my post-fast wrap-up a couple of days ago. Since then I have been dipping my toe into news of the horrid pile of feces our political system has become under the new administration. The Harris-Biden Biden-Harris administration is well on their way to raising prices for gas, erasing the gains made by the previous administration is many areas, and, to top the irony cake with some extra ironic frosting, doing the very things that the previous administration wanted to do AND taking credit for it as their own idea. As I said in my previous post…life continues.
Est. Reading Time: 2 minutesTomorrow begins 21 consecutive days of posts on my blog. This endeavor is part of my annual fast. I was successful in this last year, so I hope I will be again. I have determined all of the topics I am going to write on, but not the order.
I am limiting my main topics to three items this year – faith, music, and writing. I will rotate through these topics, starting with faith on day one, then moving to writing on day two, then music on day three, then back to faith on day four until the 21 days are ended. In addition, I am also attempting to journal every day for 21 days during this time, which will be private and not available for public consumption, unless my journal entry wanders across one of my planned post topics. I hope to do 300-500 words for each journal entry, but I am going to be flexible on this, as I am more concerned with the blog posts.
Other items of my fast include refraining from visiting news sites, social media, and similar websites that tend to take up a lot of my time. I hope the time I gain from avoiding these sites is adequate to give me enough time to write my post every day and make an entry in my journal. I am using Notion to write my journal, and sometime after the fast is over, I will write an article on my experience using it. (Note to self – put this on my publication calendar)
Abstaining from the sites mentioned above will leave me somewhat ignorant of current events, which at this point is probably a good thing. The world, our country, and many other aspects of life are in a total mess right now anyway. I know I won’t totally avoid some information and events, but the more I can leave out of my daily thoughts, the better.
Following this course over the next 21 days will leave little time for writing in my fantasy novel, but I hope the time away will help me move forward once I start back at it. I have some daunting tasks ahead of me, including continuing to world build, develop characters, tie together my narrative and make sure that the story moves along and makes sense. I have 100,000 words written in my first draft and I expect to do at least 50,000 more to come close to completing the book. I hope and pray that I can stick with this project starting in February. I really need to finish a book.
I encourage you to drop by the for next 21 days as I post each day. Each entry will be written, edited and posted on the corresponding day, so they may post late in the evening, but I hope to always finish before midnight, so that each day has a post. It will be challenging, fun and interesting for me, and I hope it is for you also, dear reader.
Featured Image: Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash
Est. Reading Time: 2 minutesA new era is about to begin, at least in reference to this website. With 2020 now thankfully in the pages of history, I have decided on some radical changes to this site and my web presence.
First, and most importantly for those who actually read this and aren’t here just to spam the comment section, the address of this site is changing. The winsome “quietly passing by me” address is going away in favor of something leaner, quicker to type, and more…representative.
The new address will be QPB.one. That’s right, six little letters (and a period) will get you to the site. Way back when I first picked the “quietly passing by me” address, it was an opportunity to go on the cheap for my web domain. I cost a mere $0.99 for that domain the first year. Of course, it was twenty times as much when I renewed, but it had grown on me, so I kept it.
I liked the domain, it was quirky and fun, but I’ve recently been making changes in other parts of my digital life, so it was time for it to go. It will no longer get you to this page as of February 2021. The domain will probably disappear for a time, maybe to be picked up by some other blogger and author. Who knows?
I was going to go simple and just get the address “QPB.me”…until I saw the price. Apparently, that is a premium domain and the initial cost was $1000. Yep, you read that right, one thousand dollars. Being the budget conscious blogger that I am, I decided not just no, but #$%@ no. This led me to other potential TLDs (top level domains – i.e. .com, .org, etc.) and I came across the .one TLD. Cool. Now my quirky address could be nonspecific. Huh?
My previous address suggested that things or people “quietly passed by me”, but now with the nonspecific “one”, things could be passing by me OR they could be passing by the reader. I still wanted the much shorter “QPB” and guess what? It was available and at a bargain. I am now saving over $10 on domain costs a year, and that wasn’t an introductory price. It will cost the same next year when I renew. Cool.
Second, I am retiring the Security Is site and wrapping the one article I published there into the soon to be renamed QPB site. I have enough WordPress sites to maintain as it is and there is no real reason to put security stuff on its own site. I now have moved that article, added an InfoSec category to my category list, and will begin to use tags to more specifically denote what topics are being covered in a post. So you will see that the KINDLY article I moved here has been categorized as InfoSec and Technology, with a tag of “Social Engineering”. This should reduce my workload and make it easier for you to find my articles, because if you thought typing quietlypassingby.me was long, I’m sure you felt typing securityis.quietlypassingby.me was excruciating.
That’s it for now. Look for an article about my NaNoWriMo victory back in November in the next few days. I hope…
Featured Image: Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash
Est. Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s October 30th as I begin to write this and if you’ve read many of the articles here on my site, you know what is coming next…National Novel Writing Month otherwise known as NaNoWriMo.
Yes, the mad dash by thousands of people to put 50,000 words into a book in 30 days is back!
I was VERY hesitant to participate this year. I was the Municipal Liaison for two years for my area and I was seriously considering not even writing, much less taking on ML responsibilities in this time of COVID-19. I had long let the opportunity to ML pass me by back in late spring. I didn’t even start to consider writing until this week. It’s all the result of a NaNoWriMo email, so I completely blame them for this.
I saw the email. I thought about what it took to write those 50,000 words every November. It was hard work. It was early mornings, which I hate. It was late nights, which make me hate the mornings even more. It was weekends planted in front of the computer making up for the words I didn’t write during the week. It was writer’s block at the worst time. It was working around (and in addition to) everything else I’m supposed to care about in these crazy times. Masks. Social distancing. Washing hands. Disinfecting. Presidential elections. Violent riots. Peaceful protests. Disinformation. Blatant lies. Social bubbles. Zoom meetings. The list could go on forever.
I considered what I could write about in the midst of all this. I didn’t want to do any kind of contemporary action thriller novel, as I felt compelled to consider this stupid virus as a contributing factor in the narrative. I’m so DONE with this virus. I’m in a vulnerable population and I’m to the point that I can barely care about it. So anything contemporary was out.
Science fiction was an option, but my head is currently filled with too many conflicting storylines. I took advantage of a trial for the Peacock streaming service to watch their rendition of Brave New World. Good stuff. Nothing like the book past a couple of characters, settings and plot devices, but really good stuff. I may do a reaction (NOT a review) post later…after November.
I also dug into the vaults of my TV series collection and I’m rewatching Revolution from back in 2012 and PaInkiller Jane from even further back in 2007. Both of these series were cut way too short. Not as bad as Firefly which I also watched again recently, but still, too short. Revolution was one of the most well-written, interconnected storylines EVER. Just sayin’, connecting all the dots on this show was akin to figuring out Lost, which I don’t think was ever accomplished, even by its own writers…
The thought of writing about people with hidden, “super” abilities caught my attention (and my fascination, thankfully) and I finally decided to try and complete my 2017 NaNoWriMo project Apocalypse. Fifty thousand words is just scratching the surface of this story. I may do another 50,000 this November and still not be close to done. I have a glimmer of understanding as to why George R. R. Martin has such a hard time finishing his fantasy books. There’s so much story to tell. Nothing can be assumed. These are totally different realms from our world and the ideas clamor to escape the mind of the author. I get it, in my own limited way.
So, here I go again, trekking toward 50,000 words in a mere 30 days. My project is officially/unofficially named Apocalypse Part 2 and I will post my word count updates, my highs, and my lows here as the month progresses.