This is not a blog post

Well, it worked. I finished that draft of my book before the end of October. While I was plowing through it, I imagined that I'd be here on November 1, crowing about it. But here we are 1.75 months beyond November 1 and I haven't said a word.

See, there are four ways I got it done:

1. I just got really, really sick of not having it done.

2. I enlisted the encouragement and nagging of friends.

3. With the help of one of those friends I created powerful incentives for myself—things I wanted to do very much that I could do only if I met my goal.

4. I stayed off my blog, my Facebook page, Twitter, and every other "internet presence" I have. (The teasers for the graphic-novel installments below are auto-posted by Mark Badger; I don't even have to look at them.)

The last of those tools was so helpful than once I was free to come back to my blog and strut, I didn't want to. I wanted to keep my focus going into the rewrite. Now, hardly a week goes by that I don't hear or read someone telling me that a writer these days needs to be running a regular blog and keeping a lively presence on all the social media. Maybe that'll make sense when I have a book about to come out and not a book doing everything it can think of not to get written. But when I look around, most of the writers I admire for their productivity and quality don't keep up much of an "internet presence." I just looked at Michael Chabon's website: a caricature of his latest book's cover, a skeletal appearances calendar, a few goofy pictures, and three uncollected essays, complete with typos. Why does he have no blog, no news, no discussion? Why does he have no Facebook page or Twitter account? Because the little fucker's getting his work done, that's why.

That's why I'm not posting today. And why I'll be back soon to tell you more about why I'm not posting then either.