Year half over and I have accomplished all of nothing

Egads! The year is half over, and I feel like I have accomplished nothing so far this year.

But if I am being fair to myself, and not being super-critical of myself, I must admit that at least, I am making progress---it is just none of it is actually visible.

The project that I am currently working on is a rather nonsensical one that was inspired by a comment from Nick Farrell back in October. He complained that Necronomicon rip-offs sell better than regular occult books. And being curious, I went and looked. He might be right.

So when Novemeber rolled around, and I thought about doing National Novel Writing Month for the millionth time, I decided that a Necronomicon rip-off was a suitable project...because I am poor, and would love to get my hands on some of that sweet, sweet Necro-RipOff money.

Unfortunately, the project was more complicated than I thought it would be (something to do with being an actual occultist who decided that a dollop of actual occult lore would be just the secret ingredient needed), and I had a problem with my meds.

And by problem with my meds, I mean that the insurance decided that some of my meds were not covered and they needed an act of Congress to get them approved. So I ended up spending two months without the anti-drepressant...which, well, just turned me back into the constantly blocked and panicky writer that gets nothing done because they would make more money working in fast food, but so does not want to. The quickest way for me to be blocked is for me to look for big money projects; it causes me to second guess everything that I do (and hello writer's block!).

Once I got back on the pills, it took time for them to re-stabilize me. So I lost about a four month block of time. I managed to do some work on the first Harmic Barrows story, but I ran into some plot problems, and the sneaky fear that perhaps I was copying too much stuff from other people. There is nothing like watching movies and realizing how much they inspired your current work to make one question one's ability to write.

So doubt over whether I should even bother to finish the first Harmic story was killing me.

Fortunately, I read an article about how someone gamed the Amazon best-seller system by picking super niche of niche categories, and had the urge to do the same myself. (One of the categories was Secret Societies--Freemasonry...hey, that could be one of mine!) And my mind stabilized, thanks to the yummy drugs.

So the last couple of months have been chewed up by a project designed solely to allow me to try to create a Amazon best-seller in a super niche category where three whole sales will make me a best-selling auther (hey, it could happen). In all fairness to myself, the project should have only taken a month at most, but I keep adding stuff to it (and I have notes for several other related projects--egads!).

Now, before anyone whines and says that I am cheating, I would like to point out that I am doing this little project (it is only going to be ten thousand words when finished) under a completely brand new pen-name, so it is not like it is going to help me sell books under my regular pen-name (that should make my critics happy).

So anyways, the year is half over, and I have accomplished nothing. Or something, depending upon whether or not, working on a nonsensical project is actually an accomplishment.

Yay me!!!

A hint of things to come!

As for the second half of this year, well, one knows that one's career path is a strange one when one starts reading tentacle erotica and calls it market research. Oh yeah! Tentacle erotica is coming!!!