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 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
| It's the end the month of writing a blog post a day (or, more accurately, 30 blog posts in 30 days... some days I had to double-up (or more) to catch up). Overall, it was a surprisingly rewarding experience. Not because I think a ton of my blog entries are particularly great, but because - between this activity and NaNoWriMo - I got back into a daily writing habit for the first time in years and I really felt like I've started shaking off the rust and lethargy. I feel like I'm at the point in working out where you finally get into a groove and start to notice the first signs of not just being totally out of shape and lethargic anymore. A little more energy, a little more excitement... I really don't want to lose this momentum. It's been a long time since I've prioritized my writing and it feels good to make it a daily focus again. I might focus on a screenplay in December, and I'm definitely going to compete in "I Write in 2024" to keep active and make sure that I'm regularly putting stuff out there again. I might try to pick up a few more other activities and challenges to keep me on my toes.I'm happy with all the writing progress I've made this month and look forward to seeing what I can accomplish next month. |
| Today at work we were finally notified of what our end of year bonuses were going to be. They weren't great... but not as bad as they could have been considering the company went through layoffs, austerity measures, and two labor strikes in the past several months. Still, it's kind of a bummer to work really, really hard all year and have the bonuses be underwhelming. It's becoming a bit of a trend too... each of the past three years the job has gotten harder and the total compensation (including bonuses) has been less and less. It's a bit of a bummer, but I'm grateful to have a job with relative security, and that provides bonus compensation at all. I'm just hoping that next year is a little better and that we have better-performing projects that will result in improved financial rewards next year. One of these days, I'd love to actually be able to afford to buy a house... |
| I'll admit, I enjoy getting Spotify's end of the year "Wrapped" report, which summarizes listeners' habits for the year. With the caveat that my Spotify is also used by my family as our primary music-listening service at home, here's how my 2023 sorted out: I listened to music in 56 different genres, the five most popular of which were: Christian Contemporary, Movie Tunes, Pop, Alt Z, and Rock. The place that my musical tastes most identify with is Lynchburg, USA apparently. I played a total of 3,365 songs. The song I listened to most was "This Is How I Thank The Lord" by Mosaic MSC, which I played 76 times. The other four songs rounding out my Top 5 were: "Since You Been Gone" by Rainbow, "Psycho" by Taylor Acorn, "Every Hour" by David Leonard and Josh Baldwin, and "Surrender My Heart" by Carly Rae Jepsen. I listened for a total of 33,370 minutes this year and peaked on August 8 at 384 minutes that day. That puts me in the top 10% of all listeners on Spotify. There were 2,155 different musical artists I listened to last year, and Taylor Swift was - by far - the artists I listened to most with 6,113 minutes (almost 20% of the total amount I listened all year!). The other four artists in my Top 5 were Elevation Worship, UPPERROOM, Taylor Acorn, and Phil Wickham. Taylor Swift had 16 of my top 100 most listened-to songs of 2023. I guess we're a family of Swifties...   |
| I know I'm late to this topic but apparently Patrick Dempsey is People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" for 2023. And there's really only one correct response to the choice: That would have been an understandable choice during the early 2000s when he was playing leading man characters... or in the early late 2000s/early 2010s when he was at the height of his "McDreamy" era on GREY'S ANATOMY. But what has he done since he left that show in 2015? A whole lot of minor roles and not much else. Probably the biggest role was reprising his ENCHANTED character in the 2022 Disney+ sequel DISENCHANTED. So why now?  Were more-relevant-to-2023 handsome celebrities like Henry Cavill, Jacob Elordi, or Ryan Gosling not available?  I've always found People Magazine's choices for "Sexiest Man Alive" each year a little oddly-timed, but this one really takes the cake. Nothing against Patrick Dempsey, but it's strange to be naming him a good 10-15 years after his prime. |
While I've been noveling this month, I've been thinking a lot about my screenwriting. That tends to happen a lot (yearning to write something else while I'm in the middle of an existing project  ), but it really has been a long time since I've written a screenplay. It's been years since I've developed anything new and, after listening to a bunch of screenwriting podcasts and behind the scenes content for work, it's made me nostalgic for the times when I was focused on that medium, both writing and producing my own projects, which was my passion long before I started to become aware of the possibilities of novel writing and self-publishing.I'm considering taking the month of December to decide if I want to flesh out a new screenwriting project, maybe even a short film or something similar to produce. It's been an even longer time since I've produced a short (almost since film school), so I feel like I'm overdue for a low budget short film project that I can really immerse myself in for a bit and see where it goes. That also makes me wonder if I should resurrect "The Screenwriting Group" here on Writing.com to have a place to explore it...  |
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