Independent Book Blogger Awards

The contest pits blogger against blogger in four categories, of which we (the people) get to vote and choose the winner.  The four categories are Adult Ficiton, Adult Nonfiction, Young Adult & Children’s, Publishing Industry.

Now before you jump to it and start asking “Where is Folaji.com so I can vote for it?” understand that this site is not eligible to participate in the contest for two reasons:

1. I’m not located in the USA
2. 75% of the content of this site is not devoted to “coverage of books and/or the book publishing industry…”

But even though Folaji.com is not participating doesn’t mean that you can’t join in on the fun.  Everyone gets four votes (one for each category), so take a moment to visit the contest page and vote!  Hurry, you have until April 23rd to cast your vote!

Who knows, you may just stumble upon a new, favorite blog! (well, second favorite, after this one, of course )

Now, where to start…?

First I’d like to point everyone to new updated maps that have been uploaded to the Chronicles of Netheril section of the site.  These were all provided by Ingram, and serve to compliment the weekly updates he prepares.  I do expect that this will be one of the last map updates for the Netheril adventure, the reason being the development of the new D&D adventure tool I’m working on.

The tool itself is coming along nicely, and some of you have been using the NPC page for some time now.  I’ve not heard any complaints, so I assume the page is working well and am focusing on migrating quests and locations (including maps) to the tool.  If the holiday season doesn’t keep me too bogged down, I’m expecting to have both new features up and ready in time to celebrate the arrival of 2011.  In the meantime, if you ever do find a problem with the current NPC page, be sure to let me know in a comment or by email, because if I don’t know about an issue, I can’t do anything to fix it.

In other news, Flash Imaginations are now regularly posted every Wednesday at 12pm.  I’m surprised at how many interesting pics I can take just by walking around downtown Montreal, and I’ve taken so many pictures lately that I think I may have to do something a little different in the coming weeks to get more of them on the site.  In fact, its a pretty safe bet that you’ll be seeing a Flash Imagination Contest fairly soon, so keep those eyes open.

Finally, I wanted to take a moment and discuss writing.  Specifically I wanted to talk (or write) about the short story I last mentioned in a post about 3 months ago.   The story is on its way, although it has evolved and rounded out quite a bit since a few months ago.  I believe this was caused by the decision I made to take the time and write the whole story before posting a part.  Its a lot of work, but it allows me to think things through carefully, and to rewrite certain parts of the story as I see fit.

Probably the biggest challenge I’ve faced so far regarding this project has been finding the time to write.  I spend a lot of my day at work, and when I’m not commuting between home and work, I’m walking my dog, letting her experience the urban jungle that is Montreal.  So lately I’ve been trying something new which has been working wonders: writing while I commute.

Now before you all start telling me how dangerous that is, I should mention that I take the subway to work, so its not like I’m driving down the highway at 120km/h, writing new posts as cars and trucks drive around me.  In fact, the 1-1.5 hours I would otherwise spend playing eye ping-pong with other commuters each day goes by a lot faster when I’m typing away.

Even now, as I’m writing the initial draft of this post I’m standing in a subway car, speeding towards atwater station.  Don’t believe me? Well here’s a pic of us arriving at the station:

Speeding by Atwater Station

Ok its blurry, but we were going fast, and you can’t really expect more from a cell phone camera.  My cell phone, surprisingly enough, is what I use to write on.  Although the keyboard is small, and I only use my thumbs, I find that its easier to write in this environment than any other, mostly because of lack of distractions.

Well, I’ve just reached my stop, and should get into work.  Keep an eye open for updates and contests, they’re all on the way.  And hopefully we’ll also be able to start the new year off with a new short story, written entirely while riding the Montreal subway system!

So congratulations Ingram, you win yourself a fresh new copy of the movie BattleStar Galactica – The Plan on Blu Ray!

Contest Results

As some of you were aware, there was a contest going on Folaji.com for the past two weeks (if you’re not sure what contest, read about it here).  The contest officially came to a close last night at 11h59 pm, and I’d first like to start by thanking everyone who participated.  The winner, along with the prize, will be announced on none other than Folaji.com’s second birthday, and since the purpose of the contest was for you to guess what this date was, I won’t mention just yet, so as to keep it a surprise.

Rest assured that there is a winner, so keep an eye on the site to find out if you’ve won!

Netheril Updates

Chronicles of Netheril Adventurers have been busy lately, questing in and around Loudwater.  As such, we have two new updates for the D&D adventure:

• A new Weekly Update dated July 17th and prepared by Ingram, which you can read here
• An update to the Chronicles of Netheril NPC page (with new NPC pictures)

Also of note, I’m preparing a tool that will allow updates to the Chronicle of Netheril’s NPC and Quest pages to be much faster.  The tool is still being built, so I can not say much about it just yet, but rest assured more will be divulged as development of the tool approaches completion.

New Short Story

As final news for today, I’m happy to announce that within the coming few weeks, a new short story will be posted on the site.  I’m trying something different with this story, in that I want to have finished writing it before it is published.  So far this has allowed for easier story writing and planning, and will also allow for the story’s five parts to be posted at regular intervals (which is looking like its going to be once per week).

So keep an eye out for this new story, which at current estimates, should be ready sometime in early August!

And that’s all I have to say for today.  Again, thanks to everyone who participated in the contest, and expect some interesting updates in the future.  In the meantime, I have a handful of new Flash Imaginations ready to hit the site, so expect those to show up shortly.

At that time, the site was using WordPress’ default theme (with a big red banner on the top) and had no content what so ever.  The next day, I began adding what was then the Folaji Story, which has since morphed into the Rise of the X Syndicate, an adventure set in the World of Warcraft with about a dozen chapters.

That was two years ago, and since then much has happened on the site.  New stories were posted, and a few D&D adventures were incorporated into the site.  And now, to celebrate the site’s anniversary, I’m thinking we should have a contest.

So, can you guess the exact date and time Folaji.com launched?  I’m looking for the complete date (day, month, year and time).  And to make things interesting, the person to reply in the comments with the closest date and time without going over will win a prize (kind of like The Price Is Right, but with a date…!).

I’ll give you guys two weeks to reply, which means that contest entries will be accepted up to 11h59 pm on Fiday, July 23rd.

Good luck!

(HINT: It happened after July 23rd!)

UPDATE: If you do not want to post your answer in the comments section, you can send your guess by email at contest (at) folaji (dot) com.

Original post:

Let me start by putting this straight out there: I suffer from being white and nerdy.  Maybe not to the extreme of the Weird Al Parody, but then again I am writing on an ergonomic keyboard, and I am fluent in Javascript (although not Klingon).

Needless to say I’m a gamer, and have been known to spend my nights fighting off Zergling rushes, running from a graveyard back into far away dungeons after a nasty group wipe, and even patiently clicking away, trying to comfort myself by repeating the ever so famous “just one more turn…” over and over again.

I also suffer from a crazy and sometimes hectic imagination, which I have decided to quite litteraly dump onto this website in the form of adventures.  Hope you enjoy!

Although short, I’ll admit that I find this size of story ideal for online publishing as its fast to read, all the while allowing for a good amount of character and story development.

But what if you were only allowed to use 1200 words?  What would you write about? And how would you go about writing it?

I ask these questions because I recently stumbled upon a CBC web page for the Quebec Writing Competition 2010 (or QWC for short).

Quebec Writing Competition 2010

The QWC was first started in 1999 by Montreal’s CBC Radio One and the Quebec Writers’ Federation with the goal of celebrating the best in original, unpublished stories written by Quebec’s English-language writers.  Every year or so, the competition is brought back and invites Quebec residents who write in English to submit their own original, unpublished 1200-word stories.

The deadline is may 1st, 2010, and I’m thinking of submitting something, although I don’t really know what.  At 1200 words, anything I submit will have to be the size of one large Folaji.com post, which seems very short for a story.  Then again, I guess that’s part of the challenge…!

So, what should I write about?