Kenn Ghannon: Blog

I thought I'd give a little update.

Basically, I took the majority of the summer off. I spent it with family and friends, moved a daughter to a new apartment, spent time lounging around and so forth. I wrote when I felt the urge - but it wasn't always writing on current projects and it wasn't always anything good.

For those who don't know, I go through a bit of a process when actually writing. Typically, I type off anywhere from four to twenty pages at once (sometimes even more, when I can fully concentrate). When my concentration gets broken (by the wife, an alarm telling me its time to do something or etc.), I save everything and put it away. Then, I let it percolate in my brain for a day or so.

The next time I get the urge, I come back and READ WHAT I PREVIOUSLY WROTE. I'm usually unhappy with it and spend a bit of time tweaking things, changing logical fallacies I saw through during the percolation and so on. Occasionally, I'll be so disgusted by what I wrote that I scrap it (by cut and pasting it to a different document and saving the document in case I want to revisit a theme I was focused on).

Sometimes, I just start reading from the beginning to make sure I've not really awful changes in tone.

I'm working on the sixteenth chapter of Runesward, Tome 2. I wrote about twelve pages yesterday. I hate all of them. I like the points but the way I wrote them is choppy - and it's going to bother my OCD until I re-write the thing. I absolutely like (and, more importantly, need) the points I made, I just don't like the way I wrote them. Worse, there is a definite end goal of the chapter that I didn't even START to address in those twelve pages. I could leave what I have written and start a new chapter - but this chapter doesn't move the plot along at all; it mostly clarifies why certain events occurred in the previous chapter.

Anyway, that's a small look into my mind and my processes. Tome 2 is looking to come in somewhere around between 25 and 30 chapters (just a ball park) so I have a lot of writing to do. I'll try to keep everyone much more informed without giving away any salient plot points.

-KG

... well, still old. It just feels new because it is interesting.

My family takes a few weeks of summer vacation every year. We've been doing it for over a decade now and it works for us. Some years we go to Disney World, some years we go on a cruise, most years we visit family ... but we take a few weeks. That's changed recently as my older kids have started graduating from high school and college ... but the younger ones and my wife still vacation.

I always take a laptop with me. Either a work laptop (some of my 'vacations' have been working vacations where I work some of my time in order to let my family have more vacation time) or a personal laptop - but I always take one. [Side Note: This was before I became paranoid about my job spying on what I was doing with their laptop while not at work.]

I use the laptop to play on the internet, maybe play some games ... and write. Typically, I take along a USB drive and keep what I write on the USB drive - especially when using a work laptop (which I don't do anymore) for personal stuff.

In 2006, I had the idea for a story while on vacation. It was a slightly different take on a djinn story and I was really enamored of it at the time. Over the summer of 2006 and the summer of 2007, I wrote about 250 pages (in Microsoft Word saved as both .docx and .txt files) in 6 chapters (the chapters were LOOOONG).

In late 2007, I got a new computer, new laptop - I upgraded everything. In the upheaval, I LOST the story. Completely. I lost the USB drive, I lost what was on the hard drive - I even somehow lost the copy I'd stored up in (what is now considered) the cloud. It vanished from the face of the earth.

Over the past 13 years, I've tried to re-create the story a number of times - more times than I can count, actually. I never could. The magic was gone. Either I couldn't get the story right or I couldn't find the right voice or I was trying to force things or I was too tired to try to re-create 250 pages of text. It was gone forever and while I lamented its loss, I'd come to accept it.

I'm a bit of a pack rat, especially when it comes to books and computers. When I re-built my PC, I decided to do something I've not done since our last move - clean out all of the junk. I felt the clutter around me was blocking me from actually doing work (both writing and my job). I pulled everything out of my closet - a closet which holds my Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga 1000, Amiga 2000 and one of my Amiga 500s (all of which still work, mind you, or at least did when I last pulled them out and set them up), books, magazines, wires, computer components, some old XBox stuff, and ... well ... junk.

Inside the closet were some old laptop bags which were ripped or otherwise useless but which I'd kept because ... hoarder. I tossed them in the garbage pile (which was obscenely large) and, when I'd de-junk-ified (it's a technical term, look it up) the closet, I started shoveling the garbage into plastic bags to toss.

Luckily, as I started to toss the laptop bags into the garbage bag - I decided, for some unknown, perverse reason to make sure they were empty. I found a laptop security cable I'd been searching for for years, a handheld device I used to use to give Powerpoint presentations (it has a usb dongle which attaches to a laptop and allows the handheld unit to advance slides and generally act as a mouse with a neat little laser pointer attachment), a prized calculator I'd thought I'd thrown away ages ago (but was still good with new batteries so I gave it to my son), a stupid toy we called the 'magic button' which my pre-adolescent children and I used to play with and hide from each other which only I seem to actually remember anymore ... and a usb drive.

A few days later, after I finished cleaning, I decided to see what was on the USB drive. Many files were corrupted - or, at least couldn't be opened with current software - but there, in a nice folder titled 'Wishes' was my djinn story.

I've spent the last week re-reading it when I had time after work. I've spent much of the time editing it (I can't believe I used to use the word 'that' so much - no wonder it's now a pet peeve of mine!). It's unfinished - but it's there. Along with some rudimentary notes I took about what was happening, where I was taking the story and so on.

I won't post it - not yet. However, it has now joined 'Runesward', 'Fairly CAPable' and 'Ring of Command' on my list of stories I am going to finish and post in the next two years.

Oh...and I kept one of the old laptop bags because the only reason I junked it was the new laptop was bulkier than the last and didn't fit but my current laptop does and because ... well ... hoarder. Still.

Thanks for reading,
Kenn Ghannon

Finally. I was beginning to wonder if I'd lost my technological mojo. It took longer (and more money) than I wanted, but I'm back in the world of the living - technologically speaking. My computer is up, running and appears happy and stable. Here's hoping it stays that way.

I should begin writing again. Typing on the laptop was - not as good as I'd hoped. The keyboard is so small, it just isn't conducive to getting my thoughts on the paper. I can generally type about 120 words a minute - more than I can actually think about - but I wasn't getting anywhere near that on the laptop.

As such, I should begin working on Runesward Tome 2 again. Editors, you've been warned.

I have a tale of woe.

I've torn my rotator cuff and have been in physical therapy for about a month. No big deal, really, but sitting and typing - which is what I do for most of the day for my real job (the one that pays me) - means I haven't really been up to it after work. I was puttering around some on the weekends until...

About two weeks ago (or more) my computer - which I'd just freaking built - decided to stop working. Diagnosing, replacing and etc. were a pain - it was a custom built job and I've decided it is the LAST time I custom build anything ever again - so I've not been able to write in a few weeks (I have a work laptop but I think they'd frown on me typing erotica on that device - and I'm paranoid enough to think they'd know, somehow). Good news, I've repurposed an old laptop that I found - but it isn't the same (or as easy) typing on it. I think I should have my computer fixed by the end of the weekend but I won't know for sure until it happens.

So...the story is going to be delayed. I'm hoping for the end of June - but I do have vacation coming up and, while I will definitely write a bit during vacay, I will mostly be visiting relatives in faraway lands.

So, please be (more) patient (than you've already been). I'm going to target the middle to end of July now - and hope I can give you a pleasant surprise by getting it done earlier.

Kenn Ghannon

Story Update: I have not written a single word in three weeks.

I've wanted to write. I've plotted the whole Tome 2 story. Real Life™ keeps hopping up and biting me in the keister (a technical term).

My work has changed. We're dealing with market fluctuations and changing governmental landscapes and our company's profit margin has narrowed. In response, our jobs have morphed - same job, just harder to do it for a wide variety of reasons. It means my work/life balance has skewed heavily towards the 'work' side and by the time I actually do make it to the 'life' part - I don't even want to LOOK at a computer.

Then, there's my 'man-cave'. It's a disaster of epic proportions. A decade or so ago, we moved to a state where basements basically don't exist - so we had to change our 'storage' to above our garage. As time goes on (and kids get older) space has grown very tight. In response, my wife found several boxes of my books that suddenly needed to be stored in the man-cave rather than in storage. I had no where to put them - my shelving in my man-cave is FULL. So, I did what any self-respecting woodworking hobbyist would do - I decided to build me a new shelving system to store all the detritus.

That was a year ago. I'm still not done with the shelving units because...Life­™. However, I've prioritized them because I JUST CAN'T STAND IT ANY MORE! I have my crap EVERYWHERE - on my desk, in piles on the floor...you name it. I'm not the neatest person in the world but when the clutter gets to be too much, I get a bit nuts.

Then, there's taxes. Two of my daughters are now 'grown' (one is away at college, one commutes) but I somehow got stuck doing their taxes. I honestly don't mind - but getting necessary paperwork from them is worse than pulling teeth.

I know, I know...first world problems...

Anyway, three weeks...

I know I could have written over the past three weeks. Some of the above is just excuses, I know. The problem is...I'm not happy with the chapter I wrote last and I don't know how to fix it. I'm not even positive why I don't like it. Usually, the thing will percolate and a 'way out' will present itself - not this time. I may have to leave it and move on.

Anyway, that's been my slice of heaven. I'm going to have to step it up but I think I can still make the 'late May/early June' deadline I've set myself.

I hope all of you have been more productive than me.

KG