95!

Whooooo! I have defeated Process Five! I finished Three Kingdoms early this morning and shipped it off to find its way in the world. It's story number 95. I just ran a search of this blog for Process Five. On April 20th, 2006 I mentioned I was about to begin the second draft of Process Five. On May 13th, 2006 I wrote that I expected it to be story number 52 and that I'd probably have it finished the following week. On September 24th of 2008 I declared war on the story and stated that I'd conquer it in two weeks. Oh, past me, you are so easy to laugh at!

But now it's dead like a movie monster (at the end of the movie) and I can get on with my life. Yay!

Here's a fantastic quote from Alan Moore that Lou Anders posted in his Watchmen review. If you're a creator, copy this and hold it close to your heart always:

It is much more exciting and thus creatively energizing if you are attempting something where you are uncertain of its outcome, where you don’t know if it will work or not. And this is only the beginning. Eventually, increasingly confident of your talents to make a workable story out of most anything, you will come to regard being merely unsure of a work’s outcome as far too facile an approach. Instead, you may graduate to only attempting works which you privately suspect to be impossible. This is no bad thing, and if rigorously applied would weed out a great many dull and repetitive creators from the world while at the same time increasing the world’s relatively meager cache of genuine unexpected marvels. - Alan Moore

I swear this is not an Alan Moore fansite even though I've mentioned him in three of the last four posts. I'll stop for a while.

Alan Moore.