April blog

This month I did a ton of work. I spent huge swaths of time working on this project. But not quite on the parts of the project that was originally slated to be worked on. After a long conversation with my project advisor, Joshua Cutchin, we decided since I do not have a ton of time left and I have an enormous amount of work left to do, to focus more on having a product or two for the end of the school year. Basically so I can have something to point to and say, "see, I did do stuff this year!" We decided to bring back something that I touched on earlier in the year but never really continued: lists. I have been making detailed lists of specific creature archetypes since I started working in the paranormal field. I have a formula for making them which allows me to make the detailed listing at a high quality in a short amount of time. Joshua and I decided I should start working on some of these lists concerning cases that I have collected throughout the project. This helps me solidify my ideas, organize my thoughts, and will lead to the writing of a better book. I have two that will be done before the end of the school year, and the possibility of a third before then, too. This month, I also attended the X-Filers Convention in Rhode Island. Joshua was actually there and we got to meet in person and hang out for a bit. The project was definitely the main topic of conversation but it was a good time regardless. 

I think the biggest example of some initiative being shown was concerning the shifting of focus for the project to my lists. I was the one who came to Joshua and told him that I did not think the plan of getting a manuscript done was even remotely possible. I also came up with the solution of working on the lists.
The highlight of my month was probably attending the X-Filers Convention in Rhode Island. I got to hang out with Joshua and several other close friends of mine who I have known for years. The event was small which allowed us to spend a good amount of time hanging out and chatting about different ideas and theories.
I think the main thing I learned this month is that there are way more ghost lights in the United States of America than I previously thought. Ghost lights are one of my favorite topics that I have been researching for my project and I always assumed they were few and far between, but it is looking more and more like there are tons in the country. More than I could ever accurately and satisfyingly catalog. I also got several interesting leads about other aspects of the project at the X-Filers Convention. Greg Newkirk, who runs a small occult museum with his wife, and Paul Eno, who does a radio show on the paranormal with his son, both gave me some interesting tidbits of information concerning electrical interference and road encounters, while Joshua and Timothy Renner gave a joint presentation where they suggested a link between Women in White stories and Bigfoot encounters, both of which tend to occur near roads.
A challenge I really faced was the motivation to work. A lot like last month, I have been getting a bit tired of this project and these subjects. I am still interested in aspects of them, but not nearly like I used to be. The decision to shift slightly to focus more on the lists really helped with that, I love making them and they are always rather interesting to work on. Concerning the ghost lights one, I noticed something that was not quite apparent to my original investigations: there is a distinct connection between ghost lights and railroads. Even the lights that appear along regular roads tend to have a railroad connection of time kind. Like I said, I love making these lists and I always find some interesting tidbits along the way. The Women in White list is what I am working on next and it should be extremely interesting.
The main thing I am looking forward to next month is APEX night. I have largely enjoyed the project overall, but I think I need a bit of a break from the road stuff for a bit before I actually work on writing the book itself. It will be nice to present all this stuff.

One of the books I used for the ghost lights list

March blog

I have not done a ton this month. I know last month I was saying I was going to do an incredibly high amount of work, but I got a bunch of projects dumped on me this month and I have not had much time at all to work on the project. I did get my outline done this month which was nice. It was a lot of work and was incredibly frustrating when I had to begin work on it again after basically completing it a couple of months ago. I have been doing a lot of thinking about this project and my future in the field, though. I honestly do not think I want to continue working in the paranormal field once this book is completed. I have a few things I am required to do, such as a conference next month in Rhode Island (which my project advisor will actually be at which will allow us to meet for the first time so that is awesome) and a library talk in June. But after that, I think I am done. I started the field six years ago with the expectation that it would be this amazing academic group of fascinatingly eccentric individuals. What I have found is that it is a lot more like a high school. I am already in high school, I do not want to deal with it elsewhere. All of the infighting and arguing and everything has just made me less and less interested in the subject matter as well. I also began work on the book's introduction.
I can't really think of a good example of me showing initiative. I guess I did when I sat and did a bunch of soul searching over the course of this month to figure out whether or not this really is the field for me, and I have pretty much decided it is not.
A highlight of this month relating to my work in the field, in general, was a very close friend of mine and his wife got some incredibly good news. They found out she does not have cancer. The whole Centre for Fortean Zoology was really excited and celebrated. I've been worried for a long time about it so it was good to hear the good news.
This month I learned I am sick of the paranormal field and all of its subsections. I do not care for many of the people who frequent the conferences, many of my close friends in the field have either quit or have ceased going to events altogether, and I frequently get chastised, made fun of, or simply ignored for my opinions because of my age. The cryptozoological field in particular, when I started out was incredibly supportive and now it seems like everything has changed, especially because I do not agree with many of the conventional explanations or ideas in the field. I have been losing interest and have been feeling frustrated for nearly a year now and I have not known what to do about it. I am interested in so much more than supposed mysteries that no one actually seems interested in solving. I want to write comics, I want to do journalism, I want to do so much more and I feel like the field was just holding me back at this point.
The challenge I faced was actually doing something. I have not been that interested in writing the book in a while, I just kept lying to myself about being interested and excited and wanting to do this. I have not done a ton concerning the project. I will get my hour requirements and work hard while I am doing it but what I really want to do is work on this short story that has been rumbling around in my mind for a long time. And I have. It has been a challenge to actually sit down and do the 20 hours I did get this month because every time I sat down to work I ended up working on the short story instead because I am honestly enjoying it so much more. I am interested in what I am writing about for my book, I just feel burnt out about it.
I am looking forward to the conference I am attending in Rhode Island next month. In attendance will be some of my favorite people in the field and some who I have not seen in years. I think that it will be a good goodbye to the field, at least for now.

This is my outline

February blog

This month, I took a bit of a break when it came to working on my project. Last month I put in 76 hours into the project with minimal returns due to my outline kerfuffle. So, I was feeling a little down about the project. I was 30 hours ahead of where I needed to be so I really only needed to get an additional 10 hours this month. I got 13 which is not bad at all. Instead of working every weekend for 8 plus hours, I decided to enjoy myself a bit. I did get plenty of work done this month, though. I worked more on my replacement outline and am nearly finished with it. I also did a radio show interview and got to talk extensively about my research for the book. I have not done a radio interview in close to 6 months now so I had fun doing that and realized that I do miss doing interviews, even though they tend to ask a lot of the same questions concerning my work, who I am, and how I got started. This month was also a good time to take a bit of a break because my advisor has been extremely busy with his newborns which were brought into the world at the end of last month. Things seem to be getting more settled and everything, so next month should be a bit more busy on both sides of the equation, but I think I chose a good time to take a bit of a siesta.
While this may seem anti-productive, I think I showed a lot of initiative when I decided to take a bit of a break. I was feeling frustrated and that the project was futile. I cannot produce good work when I feel like that, so I needed to take a break to recharge and get ready for the writing grind.
The highlight of my month was probably going on the Spectral Wolf Pack radio show for an interview. I met the guys on the show a few years ago at the Mothman Festival and they have been asking me to come on the show ever since, but this month was the first time I was actually able to come on, and I had a great time.
This month, I learned that it is okay to take a bit of time for your brain to recharge. I was going a little crazy with the project last month and I could not imagine doing another 100 plus hours of the project. But I took a deep breath, relaxed, and did not break myself over trying to spread myself too thin when it came to working on the project. I did a few things that I had not had much time to do since I have been working on the project and I am extremely glad I did. I am actually excited about the project again and can't wait to get cracking with the writing. I am most likely going to finish up this blog post and dive straight into finishing up my outline that has taken entirely way too long to get done, finally. I am glad I relaxed.
My main challenge this month was actually taking time to relax and breathe. I can sometimes be a workaholic when it comes to my research. I get obsessed about a specific idea and I will not stop until I get a solid understanding of the idea and I essentially figure it out. This month, I was trying to breathe some and enjoy myself and not get caught up in all the work. And I did succeed, but it was difficult. I was planning on spreading out the 10 hours I needed to stay on schedule throughout the month, but I started working on it on a Saturday morning and just did not stop until that evening. I can be a little obsessive about this stuff. I actually have been thinking about backing off when it comes to the paranormal after this project, which only makes my obsessiveness worse because I want to make this project perfect.
Like I said previously, I am looking forward to actually writing the book next month. I know I have been saying that a lot in my previous blog posts but I really am looking forward to it. I love writing and I am getting burnt out on the preparation stage.

The logo for the radio show I was on this month.

January blog

This month, and Christmas break last month, I focused on working on my outline for my book. I did a lot of work on it. I began by narrowing down the list of potential chapter subjects that I worked on in November. After I tediously went through about 50 various potential topics and narrowed them down to only about 20 topics, I began to focus on subtopics for each chapter. I listed about 10 to 15 subtopics for each and then narrowed them down to five to eight in total. From there, I dug through my case listings and began to build a list of various possible cases to support each chapter, subchapter, and the arguments within each. This was quite a bit of work and it took me a long time. I got approximately 75 some hours this month and over winter break so I put a lot of effort and time into finishing up the outline. And then something terrible happened. Something absolutely horrendous... My laptop's hard drive decided that it was a good time to die. I had to wait about a week or so with no laptop and with getting no work done. Eventually, I did get a replacement hard drive and installed it. And as I was working on transferring my backed up files I realized something. I did not have my outline backed up. It was unfortunately lost to the aether of my dead hard drive, never to be retrieved again. I panicked. Luckily, everything is okay because I have enough handwritten notes and little tidbits strewn around my Google Drive that I can rebuild my outline, it was just a lot of lost work.
I think that I really showed a lot of initiative by working extensively throughout Christmas break. I put in several eight and ten hour days in order to get my hours up and my project advanced. Before break I was behind in hours by almost 20 hours, now I am 30 hours ahead.
A highlight of my month was (even though it made my lose my outline) getting my new hard drive. My computer works so much nicer and faster now. I know it is not necessarily directly connected to my Apex project, but getting the new hard drive has made digging through PDFs of files a lot easier and faster.
This month I learned to always always always always make sure that my work is backed up. And if I think that it is, I should double check, triple check, and quadruple check just in case. And maybe check once more after that. Jokes aside, I am now doing all of my work on either external hard drives with two copies in two different places or on my personal Google Drive. I cannot believe how stupid I was by not backing up my outline. I thought I had, but I did not. I am going to make sure I am much more careful in the future. I am lucky I write a lot of my thought process down on paper before I put it on a document because if not, I would be entirely on stage one now and I would be royally screwed. I am just really lucky and glad for my tedious thought process.
For the main challenge I faced this month, I would have to say it was my lack of wanting to work after I found out my outline was gone. Believe it or not, it was not even the outline missing that was the issue. It was my frustrated giving up on the project temporarily that was the main hurdle. I eventually overcame it by forcing myself to sit down, collect my notes and my thoughts, and type out the outline slowly even though I did not want to at all. I am not quite done with the outline, I am about halfway done with it, but I am done with my frustrated procrastination when it comes to the outline. I really want to begin the actual writing of the book. I have so many cool ideas for it and I do not want to waste any more time on the outline than I have to.
Like I said previously, I am looking forward to actually writing the book next month. I know I have been saying that a lot in my previous blog posts but I really am looking forward to it. I love writing and I am getting burnt out on the preparation stage.

This is the current form of my second outline.