Chapter 1: The Beginning

I have fought with myself a hundred different times over starting a blog. Many doubts have attached themselves to my desire, and those doubts have drug my desire from its lofty place in the sky of intentions and left it in the dirt of well insecurity. Do I really want to do a blog? Do I want to ramble along in un-edited format showing far more of myself than most will ever want to know? Do I want to gamely struggle along only to quit in frustration when the multitudes remain quite indifferent and unimpressed with my opinions?
I don't know if I want to go there, but what I do want to do is catalog a journey. If you wish to come along and share in the experience with me then I am flattered, honored, and quite frankly glad for the company. If you do not, then I wish you well. Honestly for me it is strange having anyone along for this type of ride. Authors are supposed to toil along in obscurity, hunched over a typewriter, banging out page after page. Then suddenly they step off the private jet and casually stroll to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
When I started all of this it was just a silly thought in my head, then my wife supported my dream, now others are along side and have made themselves part of this process. The process of writing a book, and not just any book mind you, a great one. One that will undoubtedly leave an impact in the minds of all who read it. I can say that not out of ignorance and pride, but reality. I have "banged out pages on my typewriter" for five years now, but only recently have I come to the realization that I have written a good book.

Why isn't it published then?

That rhetorical question is one I ask myself everyday and the answer, as sad of an answer as it is, is the fact that it is not good enough. Will it ever be? I like to think so. In the end you'll have to decide for yourself.
In the mean time however I want to explore, no reminisce. I want to backtrack down trails I've already walked and remember battles that I've almost forgot.
I plan to include some of the pointers I've picked up along the way. Not because I know how to "write", but because they are fun to talk about. You see there is something about writing that is hard to define. A feeling that it gives you, something that is hard to put your finger on. But it is there nevertheless. It's the fullness you get from taking an idea that is nothing more than vapor and giving it substance. It's a sense of accomplishment at creating something unique, as well as enjoying something exciting.
I had no idea how long of a process it is to write a book when I started. No one understands the true length of the journey that is writing a book, except for the select few that acually have. I plan to finish the journey and become one of those people. This is the story of my quest to make myself into something new. This is the science of fiction.

P.S. Part of what I want to do with this blog is give some of the practical advice I have acquired over the years of trying to figure out this thing commonly referred to as creative writing.
The first tip I can think of is one of the few things I've gotten right in this process from the very beginning. And that is this: back up your data.
Overshadowed had been on four different computers in the last five years and has survived two hard drive crashes. Through it all the only data loss I have suffered has been minimal (a few hundred words at the most). The reason I give for my success in this area is my paranoia. And I do mean paranoia. I have a paper copy (albeit an outdated one), another copy saved on CD, files saved to a zip drive, files saved to two computer hard drives, it’s also backed up on an external hard drive, on Google docs, and lastly I have a yahoo email address that I email copies of the files to as well (it is a cheap and very secure method of backing up your data). Oh yeah and my editor has a copy as well. This way I’m pretty much covered by any contingency short of the downfall of society.
As an artist I can't begin to describe how important my data is to me. The words are part of my heart, part of my life and something that passes through my mind everyday. I have written close to 200,000 words for this book and I'm not about to have to do it again. So in closing, auto-save, if you don’t have auto-save than Ctrl + S every few minutes, and back up everything.

And most importantly, thanks for your time.