9to5 (dot cc)

Hey there friends. Did you realize that I didn’t post a blog last week? You probably didn’t. That’s not your fault. I don’t blame you.

Here’s what’s been going on with me.

I’ve written this blog for just a little over 100 consecutive weeks, so for nearly 2 full years I’ve managed to churn out about 1000 words about whatever tickled my fancy every single week. That’s a lot of words. As I’ve stated a few times in the past, I’m obviously more proud of some entries than other but really, the whole “I’m going to write a blog” thing was always meant to be more of a challenge for myself than any sort of active attempt at cultivating a dedicated audience.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have turned down a dedicated audience but I’m also fully aware that I’m all over the place in terms of tone and subject. I’ve written about wrestling, monthly delivery services, movies, music, Montreal, boardgames and a host of other random topics over the last 2 years. Basically, this is a blog with a target audience of myself. Unless you’re me, you probably aren’t interested in all of the things that I’ve written about.

But at the end of the day I was like “wow, I’ve written over 100,000 words.” Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone is about 77,500 words total. Twilight is about 119,000 words total. The Hunger Games is about 99,750 words total. This averages to about 98,750 words per novel. (Source)

That means that if I was more focused and engaged I could’ve written a best selling book for teenagers over the last 2 years.

I know that’s not what it actually means, but I’m sure you get my point.

If you don’t, let me spell it out for you.

When we were in school, there was a heavy emphasis put on being well rounded. Particularly in elementary school. If I recall correctly, we had Language Arts, French and Math every day. We had Gym 2 or 3 times a day a week. We had multiple chunks of “free play” time in the form of Lunch breaks and Recess. We had Music classes twice a week and probably some other stuff too. This was all in addition to whatever time we spent playing video games and watching television after the school day was out.

Basically, our weeks were divided up into structured tasks (like Math and book reports), creative endeavours (arts and crafts, creative writing, music), organized sports and free play. As a society we decided that it’s important for our youth to cultivate all those things. And let’s be realistic, we know full well that most of us aren’t actually going to have careers as authors, musicians or pro athletes, but there’s still a pretty significant amount of time devoted to nurturing all of those different aspects of life.

What happens when we get older though? Our life typically gets broken up into just the structured tasks (our jobs) and watching television and playing video games. If you’re an active type you might spend some time in the gym which I guess could be analgous to Phys Ed.

How often in our adult life do we make the time for getting creative? With a few exceptions, not very often. You read all the time about people picking up these creative endeavours in retirement, painting, writing, wood carving or something else that is much more diverse than whatever the person was doing for a living. Why don’t we do this during our tenure in the workforce?

Really, that’s what this website is all about.

The idea way back in 2010 or whenever it was when we started thinking about this was to launch a website to house our creative sides while we toiled away at our jobs (hence the 9to5).

Where am I going with all of this?

I’m going to write a novel for teens.

Seriously.

What is going to happen to this blog?

Each and every week I’m going to ask myself an honest question and it will be the same question every week. “Did I do any work on this supposed novel” and I’m going to answer it for you so you can judge my lack of progress.

Then I’ll talk about what sort of work I did on the book, what stuff is inspiring me, and other stuff. Or, if I didn’t write anything, you will get a shameful tale of how I procrastinated and am the worst.

Won’t that be fun?

People have workout blogs all the time. Well, this will be blog about writing. A journal of failure as I ultimately fail to write a novel for teenagers with superpowers.

I’m still going to keep up with writing my reviews of my monthly Loot Crates since I really enjoy playing with my camera, and from time to time I want to write more “in depth” pieces about people and places that Montreal geeks might find interesting, so the “geek” portion of the blog won’t really die.

For the most part though, this space will transition into being about the output of my more creative writing.

So what’s first? well, before starting something I kind of want to finish something. That means that in earnest, I will be putting some serious effort into finishing Fear and Loathing After the Bomb. So stay tuned for that in the next week or two.

See you next week, I’m getting my excuses ready as we speak.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.