Modern Linguist is a WordPress template designed with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) participants in mind.  Based partially on Chris Coyier’s beautiful WPTypo theme, Modern Linguist is an all-typographic theme created with easy reading in mind.

The theme has several pretty cool things built in. First off, it’s custom options allow integration with the NaNoWriMo.org word count API, providing dynamic and automatic word count updates pulled directly from the user’s NaNoWriMo profile. The user enters their ID number and that’s it, instant word count updates.

The options page also provides space to enter in a story synopsis and the option to display that text on the front page of the WordPress site. Read the rest of this entry »

ATTN: Those who have read/are planning to read my novel this year:

Oh some things have changed. Yes, yes they have.

When I thought about how messy the whole noveling on my blog process was last year, I made a rash decision. A decision with so little thought put into it that it is awesome. Instead of noveling my progress here, I have set up a completely new site with a completely new theme with awesome features.

All NaNoWriMo noveling will take place here: nanowrimo.thegoodmanblog.com.

Oh but that’s not all. I have built an entire WordPress template especially for National Novel Writing Month – and more specifically for my fellow WriMos that post to WordPress.

The new theme is called Modern Linguist and is based on Chris Coyier’s WPTypo theme, though with some decidedly drastic alterations. Notably, the theme has these amazing features:

• Built-in word counts pulled from the NaNoWriMo API (as soon as it’s activated for 2009, anyway)
• Clean, minimal interface. Not widgetized as to keep it focused on your novel(s)
• Choose-your-own Font Style with 8 (eight!) different typefaces
• Width optimized for online reading
• Typography based – no images in the template by default
• Optional Synopsis display on the front page
• Yearly category navigation (for easy novel separation)
• Special displays for registered/logged-in users

It’ll not only be a better experience for readers, but also for the person doing the noveling.

I’m looking at a launch date of 30 October, just in time for NaNoWriMo (which starts on the first of November). If you’re interested in using the template, let me know in the comments and I’ll make sure answer your questions and email the theme to you when it’s done!

For all of you that had an account here on my blog, that’s all been moved over to: http://nanowrimo.thegoodmanblog.com – you can login with your same credentials and should be able to read last year’s novel still. If you have issues, shoot me an email.

If any of you check out the new template, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And for those of you who have no idea what I’ve been talking about, read this post.

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month.

That eleventh month of the year when tens of thousands of normal and not-so-normal men and women sit down for hours upon hours, pouring words out onto the page or screen with hopes that someday, somehow, a publishing deal may come along and give them boatloads of money… *sigh*

Just like last year, I will once again be attempting to race my way to a 50,000 word novel in only thirty days. I made it last year and am hoping to finish this year as well. If you are going to be participating, please head over to the NaNoWriMo website and add me as a writing buddy.

Last year I had some friends interested in reading my story. I decided to post new entries to my blog and shared it with them. I’m going to do the same this year (and hopefully actually finish the story instead of just getting to 50k words).

If you’d like to read along, please register. I reserve the right to refuse membership to anyone, however. So don’t take it personally. I’ll be closing registration on 01 November. So if you want to register, do it now.

For those of you that were readers last year, you don’t need to re-register. You’ve already got an account. Just login (there’s a link in the sidebar).

NaNoWriMo is AWESOME and you should really consider doing it. Head over to NaNoWriMo.org and find out more about it.

This week has been absolutely nuts. I’m hoping I’m not heading toward burnout at work. I’m trying not to. It’s become super important for me to protect my time, otherwise I wouldn’t get anything done.

After a long day of talking to people and trying to explain to them what exactly it takes to provide them with the web stuff they are asking for, I come home and work on freelance stuff. The good part about that is that I should have a new project premiering later this week after a a couple months of work (sporadic, of course).

I have another WordPress template coming out in a couple of weeks. In fact, I completely redesigned said template because I wasn’t happy with the previous one.

Also found out at the beginning of the week I’ve got about $1300 worth of car repairs I need to take care of. Great. I need some more freelance jobs to pay for the fixes.

Couple other exciting things coming up including National Novel Writing Month in November. If you’re participating in NaNoWriMO, make sure you add me as a writing buddy!

I’ve been sick the past two days. I caught whatever illness plagued my dear wife Jessica over the weekend. It was unfortunate because I woke up Monday feeling so good. This morning I was able to get back to work but definitely did not feel awesome. I’d say that right now, at 7:09 PM I am at probably 85% on a wellness scale. Definitely recovering.

The second half of next week and first half of the following is going to be busy. First we’ll head off to Springfield, IL for our friends’ Sam and Melissa’s wedding. I am an usher and apparently that means I need to wear a tux (is that normal?). So a 2.5 hour drive and a stay in a hotel will be a mini-vacation before all of our favourite television shows come back on the following Monday while I am teaching a class (boo!). Tuesday the 22nd is my birthday (25 years!) and we’ll be going out to a fantastic dinner with friends at Dressel’s in St Louis that evening. Wednesday the 23rd Jessica is taking me out of work for a day in the city. I will probably be getting some new clothing for the winter and generally enjoying a day off with my wife.

Hopefully by then the air in Southern Illinois will have cooled down to a consistent mid-70s and it will actually feel like autumn the way it did a few weeks ago.

In two weeks’ time I should have one of my pending projects done (you can watch progress as it’s made here) and hopefully be working on a second one to be finished in October. Then it’s Jessica’s birthday, Halloween candy to pass out, and finally November shows up.

November means NaNoWriMo. And I am really excited about it this year. Mostly because I’ve had a whole year to loosely and mentally plan for it (as opposed to the -1 day I had last year when I first discovered it). I’ve got a sort-of plot ready and want to get it down on paper. You should totally do it too! If you sign up, let me know in the comments and we’ll all be writing buddies this November.

December means Christmas in California with my family and then in January we’ll be heading up to Portland with the fam for my little sister’s wedding. I guess it’s just busy all the way until 2010 comes around. Hopefully teaching this class will continue to be good as well.

How’s the end of your year shaping up?

I’ve been sort of obsessed this year with a couple of specific times in American history. The first is the 1920s-30s, and the Golden Age of Aviation. I find the style and class of those days enthralling and engrossing. Beyond that, I love the designs that happened then. I guess this could extend a bit more forward into the early 40s and the beginnings of WWII. Hence, the way this blog is designed (more in the British fashion than American, however).

I love the typestyles and rounded motifs. I love the music and the clothing and hairstyles of that era. I love the shapes airplanes took during that time and cars and travel posters. The idea of wireless radio being pretty novel and prohibition causing raids on night clubs. The glamour of the cities… Indiana Jones. It all brings out a strange sort of longing in me to be on the cusp of the new. It tends to bring out the adventurer in me… and makes me long to create… for some reason. The stories and imagery of that time serves as a muse for me.

But I am fairly positive that many of those feelings stem out of the nostalgia of it all. If I lived then, I’m sure my feelings toward the world would be much the same as the ones I have now. Hopefully not, but probably.

The other time period in American history I am currently engrossed in is the mid-1800s. Our larger cities were growing up and the the West was being settled. The Mexican-American War was fought, the California Gold Rush filled the hills and territories of the West coast with people from all over the world, and what has become a patchwork quilt was still a melting-pot with immigrants arriving to start new lives in the throws of a young nation that was ‘free’–a truly novel concept at the time.

I’ve been reading a book this past week called Heydey by Kurt Andersen that deals with these issues and it is absolutely addictive.

The story follows four different people; three of them are New York natives while the fourth is a recent English immigrant. As their lives become too confined and ordinary for their tastes, the group heads West to see what they can make of their fortunes.

I haven’t finished the novel yet but I love it so far. I always enjoyed the old cowboy stories and the legends of cowboys and Indians. Having grown up in Southern California, I heard a lot of California history in school. That included our rich Mexican history and heritage and all of the wars fought out West during the 19th century.

But I have to confess that after moving out to the Midwest for college, I kind of started to forget all of that. Or at least to not pay any attention to that time period. I never liked Westerns — though I once cruised on a boat formerly owned by John Wayne, I never enjoyed his films (except for The Quiet Man, excellent film), I always found them hokey or just kind of boring. But the stories and books were my favourite. They were just exciting to me. I still love the tales of Zorro and the old cowboy songs my grandpa used to play on the guitar.

The history of the California Gold Rush always made me happy–learning about Sutter’s Mill and then seeing the ghost towns left behind where mines were. I was lucky to have many of those nearby when I was a kid. We’d travel to Calico Ghost Town a lot and even our amusement parks were western themed.

In any case, I was inundated early on with the legends of the Old West and today those recollections create a nostalgia that makes me yearn for excitement and adventure and change.

So, what am I going to do with all of this? I’m not sure. But I think I’ve got the beginnings of my NaNoWriMo novel for this year. It’s going to have to do with a Soviet spy who wakes up in the American Midwest during the 30s. Haven’t got particulars down, but I’ve got till November.

And that is what has been interesting me lately.

Last November Jessica and I participated in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and each wrote our own 50k word novel in a month. It was absolutely crazy. And awesome. (If you want to read the trash I wrote, let me know in the comments)

Well, starting tomorrow ewe will be starting our own 100 page scripts for this year’s ScriptFrenzy event. I am half excited and half nervous to do ScriptFrenzy. I’ve never written nor attempted to write a script and am at a little bit of a loss at how this is going to work.

I’m planning to adapt this fantastic novel by Michael Cox called The Meaning of Night to the screen. I read this book in January and fell in love with the story. It’s so dark and mysterious and exciting. There is plenty of suspense, great characters, and witty dialogue. I think it would make a beautiful film.

So tomorrow we start. Sometime before LOST I guess. If you’re doing ScriptFrenzy, and you would like to, add me as a writing buddy.

If you’d like to read my script as we go along, let me know and I’ll see what I can do. I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do it like I did with NaNoWriMo. So, there’ll be a private post of the script. If you want to read it over the month, comment and let me know and I’ll create an account for you.

I won. I got to 50k words! I’m still not done with the story, but it shouldn’t be too much longer.

Thanks to everyone who’s been cheering me on and/or reading the story. It’s been super helpful having that accountability to keep writing. And I’ve done it! I’ve written a novel.

I’m excited to do this again next year too. What a great program.

I would also encourage all of you to join in next year. Check out NaNoWriMo’s website by clicking here.

I am SO close to finishing my novel. Less than 5,000 words to go.

I’m excited to finish!!!