Added 1073 words to the counter. Damn. Not quite halfway. Hell, it's barely a quarter of my monthly 10k. And I'm in the process of buying a house, so that's kinda getting in the way. But still, progress is progress.

I didn't mention this, but yesterday, I added the next two chapters to Bounds of Freedom. And today, I wrote 301 words (not a lot, I know, but it's some), and I posted a podcast. In awesome news, this marks the sixth consecutive monthly-released episode. Good for me.

Wrote 1255 words today. Word count: UPDATE!

Oh, and don't worry about all the badness on some pages on the site right now; I'm working on it. Just a couple CSS changes that affected the site globally.

Final word count for February: 10897. I did a little bit of extra writing on Friday after my update, and y'all are gonna benefit from that. That's right, you're my beneficiaries! So in January I was 900 words under 10k, and in February I was 900 words OVER 10k. All in all (and taking into account the many thousands of words OVER 10k I wrote in December), I'm keeping up w/ my 10k-words-a-month-in-2011 goal. Kudos to me!

So, I finished a chapter a while back, and I'm finishing up w/ another chapter this week (probably), and I still haven't posted anything to the Bounds of Freedom page. My bad. I've been busy, and it actually requires a bit of time and effort to convert the document to an HTML page. If I could only pick one of two options -- out of WRITING a chapter and POSTING a chapter -- I'm going to write. And I'm sure you'd "all" agree with me. (I say "all" because nobody actually reads these damn updates, but I'm going to keep writing them, because it makes me feel like someone does.)

4524 more. That's been spread over the last several days, and I don't know if I'll be able to finish what I was working on (that on which I was working) before the end of the month, so I figure this is a good enough stopping point, just in case. And Chapter 2 will probably NOT be added by the end of the week (today), but there's a good chance I'll get to it on Monday.

2173 words today. Check the progress. Also, I finished a chapter, which means Chapter 2 will be added to the feed, soon. Probably by the end of the week.

Added some-thousands-of-words to the word count. Well, at the very least, I'll have something written for the month of February.

Good crap! It's already the 17th! I haven't written ANYTHING yet! Well, I might do the same as I did last month, and get nearly there. Or I'll do the same as I did in December and write 13,000 words in a couple days. The future (much like February's words) remains unwritten.

The present, however, contains podcast updates! Check it out. It's a good one. I promise.

I didn't quite get to 10k words in January, but I was damn close. Within a few (9 is a few!) hundred. I'm nearly halfway done w/ another chapter, which means that I'll probably get chapter 2 posted in a couple weeks. Congratulate me!

Otherwise, it's a new month, and that means it's time to throw another episode of the podcast into the feed. Look forward to that, soon.

And, finally, the posting of the first chapter of Bounds of Freedom! Yay!

And a blog post...

EDIT: And, later, over 4k words. AND the completion of another chapter. That means BoF#01 is being added to the site! It'll come in a couple of days.

Well, two weeks instead of just one. Bi-weekly, then. I'm bi-weekly updating...wait, scratch that. I'm bisexually...crud. There's no way to back out of this one. MOVING ON!!

Added some words, so yeah. I'm not there yet, but I'm close. Well, I'm far away. But I've got 6 more days, and 7k+ more words. I got this.

Also, wanting to mention I got two things ready to go: an episode of Thoughts From... and a blog post. I'll probably throw them in tomorrow, but right now, I gotta go to class. Thanks!

Woo! No 3-month break between updates! Sorry for the update yesterday. Or, rather, the lack of update. I've been posting every Monday for the last several weeks, and it just kills me that I missed one. First day of class, and all that.

Well, if you're keeping track, you'll notice that the "Current word count" at the top of the page has gone up. Yes, I've done some writing. 11% of my monthly goal to be, well, approximate. A few more of those, and I'll finish the current chapter, and post the first chapter to the Bounds of Freedom page. So you can definitely look forward to that by the end of the month.

3 updates in 3 days. I'm probably going to take a 6 month break after this, as per my normal behaviour. Anyway, posted to the blog. No, no writing in Bounds of Freedom just yet. Check back tomorrow, maybe.

I posted an episode to Thoughts From... You should go listen to it. RIGHT NOW!! Oh, and I haven't written anything this month yet, but you can tell that just by looking at my word counter up above. Yay, convenience!

55844. That's my word count as of 01 January 2011 (Twenty Eleven. Say it with me, people. TWENTY ELEVEN!! Those who want to live in the f---ing future are welcome to join me). As per my promise, it will increase to at least 65844 by the 31st. I'm thinking of adding a permenant word-counter to the update section so "anyone" who wants can just load up my home page, and it can be the first thing you see. As a matter of fact, yes, here it goes! To the top of the page!

Also, once I finish w/ the current chapter (I'm only a hundred words into it, so it'll be more-or-less 8,000 words in the future), I'll post the first chapter into the Bounds of Freedom section of the site. I'm so excited! It's happening! It's actually happening! It's terrible and horrifying unpolished, but hey, it's something that I've actually written, and it's "publicly" available!

Update on my new laptop: Ubuntu is a bear. Well, in this case, it's a meerkat. But in either case, I can't get the wireless to work. The OS won't recognize my wireless adapter, and I've tried a handful of suggestions that the internet told me would work. *Sigh* I think the idea of open source operating systems is great, but it's such a hassle just to get the stupid things to work. With M$, you can just find the driver online and download it, install it w/ two or three mouse-clicks, and you're golden. With Linux, you have to search, and search, and search, and search, and try a half-dozen different tweaks that all involve messing around in the command prompt, only one of which may actually work (the other five will break your computer). So that's my Linux rant. The distros are all getting better (I've heard) so maybe someday soon it will actually be a viable alternative to the Winders. We can only hope.

Oh, and once again, I was too lazy to actually write a proper blog post. I'll probably do something tonight after I get home from work. Maybe I'll post another Thoughts From...

I don't have anything to add. This week was pretty full of things other than writing. I created/adjusted the Bounds of Freedom (my first "widely" released story) page of the site, and am getting ready to throw the first chapter onto it, but other than that, I have mostly been working and getting ready for Christmas. The only reason I'm updating is because I promised I would provide weekly updates to the site. I'll provide another update next week, but since I'm going down to St. George, Utah w/ my family tomorrow, I probably won't have any more information then, either. But I did get my 10k words for December (and then some!) so I don't feel too bad about it. I'm going to be adding chapters to the page monthly, and at 10k words a month, I'll probably be writing the chapters even faster than I post them (I want each chapter to be around 7k or 8k words). Aren't YOU lucky!

Anyway, I got several books, several gift cards (to Barnes and Noble and iTunes which will be used for more books!) a couple CD's, Metroid: Other M (which, so far, is absolutely awesome; I can't recommend it yet because I've only played it for about an hour, but I am well pleased with it thus far), three shirts, a pair of jeans, and a new laptop. I'm really excited for the laptop, because I wanna try out Chromium, or maybe install Ubuntu and begin/continue my Linux education. Maybe I'll have more news in a week...

I know, I know. I provide too many updates to this site. You know, like I actually care about it, or something.

Anyway, I've added a menu to the top of every page on the site to make navigation that much easier. It took me a bit of trial-and-error in manipulating the CSS for the site to get it to work like I wanted, and then some more tweaking to get it to look good. I'm pleased with the final result, but if you have any ideas or suggestions, please send them to writer@leavingnormality.com. I look forward to hearing from you, soon.

Also, I just want to let you know that there will be a blog-post next week, possibly even a podcast! Wow! I'm CRAZY with the updates!

Updated the podcast w/ another Bad Movie Review ReCast. Don't worry, I only have two or three episodes left. Unless you like them, in which case I say: Hurry! I only have two or three episodes left! "What am I hurrying for?" you ask, incredulously. Or, "For what am I hurrying?" you ask, grammatically correctly. Well, to send me emails, of course! Saying that you've enjoyed the old episodes, and wish for The Bad Movie Review to be a regular in the Thoughts From... lineup. I'd have to change the name of the podcast, sure, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Jerk.

But I digress. the point is that the podcast has been updated, I've got four more episodes in the chamber (two of which are ReCasts) (woah, I just realized what I strange weapon I apparently use to release podcasts; it has four objects in the chamber. FOUR! I can't even imagine the shape of the barrel) so you can look forward to regular releases for a while.

Also, in addition to cresting 10k words for December, I kept writing, and hit 50k words total! I had to add in an extra chapter to cover the earlier entrance of a newly-promoted main character (the original conception had him as just a side character, and not showing up until chapter, like, seven or eight) and I'm probably going to revise it before "release" because the chapter in question is about twice as long as I would like it to be, but still. Fifty-thousand words! That's, like, 25% of the novel (the first novel; this story is going to take two 200,000 word novels to tell in full), so that's super-good.

Tune in next week, for the next exciting episode: What I Did Over Christmas, or What? I Did-Over. CHRISTMAS!!

So here's an update, pure and simple. Nothing added to the site (yet; I've got two or three episodes of Thoughts From... ready to go. I just need to un-lazy for a few minutes to post them), but I wanted to let you know that the gauntlet I presented in my blog/podcast has been thrown down. So I'm doing 10k-words/month until June 2011 when I'll do 50k. And the reason for this update: I've already done 7500 for December. As I promised, weekly updates here. I'll get out a blog post of my most recent powering-through writer's block some time within the next couple weeks. Riveting stuff, truly worthy of global accolades. Where the hell are you, global accolades?!

Holy crap, now two updates within the same WEEK!! It's like I actually CARE about the website, or something!

Anyway, I decided a week or so ago that I didn't like the webmaster@leavingnormality.com email address, so I'm changing it. If you (whoever the hell "YOU" is/are) still want to send mail to that address, I'm going to get it. But the email address to which I would prefer most correspondence to be sent is writer@leavingnormality.com. Since I started this website specifically as a place to put all the things I've written -- and, by association, my blog posts -- I first and foremost identify myself as a writer. But I also started the podcast, and while it's perfectly acceptable to send comments/questions/concerns about Thoughts From... to writer@leavingnormality.com, if you want an address that is more podcast-specific, you can send messages to driver@leavingnormality.com. Just a little customization to make your experience here outside of normality a little more...comfortable.

Also, if you've been watching the feed for the podcast, you'd have noticed that episode 5 was out of order. For some reason, it wasn't getting a release-date applied to it. Lame. But after re-adjusting and re-uploading the XML to the website seven or eight times, it finally seems to be back in sequence. Hope it doesn't happen again.

Two updates within the same month?! Huzzah! And guess what? I have another episode recorded, and ready to go! I figure I'll give it another week and release just before Thanksgiving. Something for you to be thankful for, no?

No news from the Western front (my writing). I've been sent a lot of emails -- I would assume -- but none of them have reached me. So no, you don't get 10,000 words for November. The challenge will still stand, however, even until June. Caveat: if I receive the request-for-commitment towards the end of the month, you don't get 10k words for the month. The number of words written will be appropriately proportionate to the number of days left in the month (i.e. 322-357 words a day, depending on the month).