It's alive, it's alive... it's ALLLIIIIIVVVEEEE!

It has been a shockingly long time since I've updated the blog, but that's not always a bad thing. Silence can be productive and I have been busy working on a number of writing projects:

• I "won" NaNoWriMo 2016 by writing 50,733 words in November of 2016. That wasn't enough to finish the project, however, and it is still growing slowly in my mind and across pages. I'm getting close to being finished, but it'll probably be a few months before I can truly call it done, given the additional writing, editting, and other tasks needed to get it to where I can share it. I'll definitely post more here as I get closer.
• I also finished another project with my writing buddy Terry Taylor Hobbs. Like my project for NaNoWriMo 2016, it still needs some polish before getting out into the world, but I think it's pretty close. Again, I'll share more when we're ready, so drop by again if you're interested in learning more.
• I should probably have something to report for NaNoWriMo 2017, but I sat this year out, joking with friends and family that I was instead trying the "NaNoHellNo" challenge. The goal was to finish up some of my older projects, such as putting a final edit on my NaNoWriMo 2015 project (working title "Revolution"), finalizing NaNoWriMo 2017 ("Tree Line"), and working on my co-writing project with Terry. I didn't make much progress with any of those tasks, but spent a huge chunk of December working on that co-writing project, so it was time well spent.
• Despite all of the articles praising plain text and Markdown as the "one true way" for writing, I've slowly come to love Scrivener. It's certainly not as quick or easy as text, but it has its charms, especially the iOS version. I've built some templates that I might share here, so be on the lookout for new posts in the coming weeks.

I think that's it for now. When I look at what I've been doing the last year, it actually feels like a lot, so I'm hoping 2018 can be a productive year for me.

Thanks for reading and checking back in!