Writing and Metal

I hit a nice little writing milestone this morning – my novel reached 100K! I felt pretty damn good about hitting that number, although I realize quantity doesn’t always equal quality. That’s not to say those 100K plus words are crap, I feel pretty good about most of what I’ve written thus far.

The book started in November as part of my NaNoWriMo experiment, but it was a story idea I’ve had for quite some time. Since November, I’ve been writing and plugging away on a pretty daily basis, between five to seven days a week. One thing I’ve discovered is that the days where I don’t think I’ll have much to write end up being some of the more productive sessions.

So the question remains, now that I’ve hit the 100K mark, where will it end? To be honest and optomistic, I feel I’m coming close to finishing this thing. I didn’t expect it would be quite this long when I started, the tale definitely grew in the telling. This storyline, which I thought I could flesh out in one novel, has grown into what I can now see as a duology, a number of plot points grew as I was writing. I see the end in sight on this book and I’m looking forward to giving it the first once-over when I finish it.

One thing I’ve found to be good background as I write, at least when I’m on the desktop in the “office” at home is the Music Choice channel, specifically the Heavy Metal station/channel. They play probably the best mix of metal available in my area, mainly because the well-known WSOU doesn’t come in too well at my house.

Keeping with the Metal theme, I acquired a couple of really solid albums recently, Trivium’s Ascendancy and Of One Blood from Shadows Fall. I also happened to hear Trivium’s cover of Master of Puppets, which is one of the better cover songs I’ve heard. I’ve heard a lot of good stuff on Music Choice, music I wouldn’t and likely will never hear on any of the local radio stations. I first heard Shadows Fall on Music Choice and have since become a fan of the band and really enjoyed seeing them at Ozzfest last year. I've also been visiting some Heavy Metal Web sites and forums lately (http://www.allmetalforums.com/forums, http://www.thegauntlet.com/forums/, and http://www.metal-rules.com) to find out more about the artists I've been hearing on Music Choice.