I'm probably crazy for even attempting it, but I'm writing a serial YA vampire for the web called BLEEDER. My reasons for doing this are threefold.

One: To force myself to get over my stage fright of sharing my fiction with people, something I absolutely have to do if I am ever to fulfill my dream of becoming a YA novelist. Also, to tame my fear of failure - same reason. I need to learn to be brave.

Two: To give readers a flavour of the world I'm crafting. BLEEDER and THE COLD ONES trilogy are both set in the same universe, as I expect several other stories will be. It's a place where monsters are monsters and tangling with them is never a good idea. This is a free introduction to it.

Three: To introduce people to myself, or at least my writing. I'm a journalist, a poet, but most of my fiction has remained tightly under wraps, except for the occasional publication in tiny zines and chapbooks. I'm not particularly adept at short stories - probably because even when I read I prefer my narratives sprawling and epic - so this is my way of saying, "Hello, this what I write."

New chapters will be posted every Sunday at http://www.bleederbook.com and on Wattpad at http://www.wattpad.com/3024545-bleeder.

Here's the official teaser:

What if everything you knew about your life was a lie?
What if the truth was much, much worse?

Mildred “Mills” Millhatten's life changed forever the day she found out it wasn't hers at all.

Forfeited as retribution for the alleged crimes of a father she's never met, she's cast into a strange, vicious world that she didn't know existed and has little hope of understanding.

As a Bleeder – one whose lifeblood feeds the Nosferatu – her continued survival hangs ever in the balance. The creatures are keeping her alive because they believe her blood has mystical properties. Mills fears what will happen when they realize they are wrong – or are they?

If she hopes to survive and discover who she truly is, she needs an ally. She needs to befriend a bloodthirsty monster. Because she lives in their world now, and if she doesn't do something fast, she's going to die in it too.

...and I wonder if I'll ever get better. Well, there's always try, I guess.

Today is the final day of 2011. A year that, by all accounts, I'd rather forget. But a year that ultimately taught me how I don't want to live. Of course, change is the hard part.

However, I have much to be thankful for too. Particularly, more fiction writing than I have ever had to show for any one year of my life. A serial novel - the prospect of which still scares the crap out of me even though it is launching tomorrow - that wasn't yet a twinkle in my eye twelve months ago.

This is going to sound terrible, I know that, even though it was well-intentioned. But in many ways I was raised to believe that I would fail in any creative endeavour I attempted. This conditioning was supposed to channel my intelligence towards medicine or law or whatever, but all it ultimately did was mould me into a desperately creative person with failure issues to the point of neurosis. It's a little embarrassing to admit that, but it's part of the truth of who I am.

I know some of you are going to say, "but you're so confident and successful." And I say, to a point. I still have to slay the self-doubt dragon each and every day. And doing to a certain degree is a necessity for survival.

I'm been writing fiction in secret for years, and maybe that's another reason why I never finished any of the novels, because I knew I'd never have the courage to show them to anyone, so no matter how much I loved doing it, it seemed pointless.

That's the other thing this past year taught me, that I don't want to be so afraid anymore and certainly not based on something that was said to me more than a half a lifetime ago. I want to get past that, so I can live whatever life I was meant to live.

I mean this in regards to my writing and the bigger picture as well.

My only resolution is to continue this journey I'm on in 2012.

Because at the end awaits something like freedom.

Five years ago today, on a cold, rainy afternoon in Edmonton I married my lover and best friend. We've really put the "for better or worse" vow to the test this year, but when I hold his hand, I know there is absolutely no one I'd rather weather the storm with. I love you, Brent. Happy anniversary!

When I first considered changing my process for writing my novel - because, to be completely honest, the other way damn well wasn't working - I don't think I had any inking of the surprises that a rather simple change in routine and methodology would have in store for me. And thankfully all were rather good, but that doesn't mean I didn't have some apprehensions at the onset.

The rules were straightforward:

* Write for a minimum of one hour each weekday (excluding production week at Rue Morgue)

* Write the novel from beginning to end (no jumping around aside from making short notes or sketching out specific flashes of inspiration for later scenes/conversations)

* No going back and tinkering (apart from correcting major continuity errors that can be addressed quickly and succinctly - thankfully, since the whole book is vigorously outlined most of that stuff falls into this category)

* Post daily word counts to the social networks (for accountability, it's harder to quit when everyone's watching)

When first embarking on the new routine my biggest fear was writing front to back. I'd tried to write books in sequence before and it had ended terribly each and every time. BUT this time was different for one key reason: I knew the story. I had an eight-page, chapter-by-chapter comprehensive outline. When I thought back to my previous failures - got too busy, writer's block, got stuck on a plot point, got distracted by a shiny new project - most were not at play this time out. Well, except for the writer's block one, that was big fear number two.

Now you may be wondering just how I could get writer's block when I have a rock-solid outline, but the thing is, the big emotional scenes and action sequences are easy, the connective tissue is often not. For instance, the early chapters where it is all-important to set up the world that you will eventually fracture, to introduce the characters that the readers will hopefully root for and loathe, and to drop the first guarded yet delicious hints that something sinister is brewing. This kind of stuff requires finesse - at a time when your characters may not yet have fully formed personalities. (While I certainly knew who my characters were when I started writing, it wasn't until some time later that I truly understood them, and now more times than not they tell me what they should be doing/thinking/saying.)

While you may personally disagree, for me, first sentences are easy, but first chapters are hard. How many times have I reworked the first chapter of The Cold Ones since I first conceived the story a couple years ago? More than a dozen easily. Will I do it again? Maybe. But hopefully not.

This was another valuable lesson learned here. If something isn't coming out smooth, get it done as best as possible and then move along with the book. This is a first draft. The story may - hell, it will - evolve as you are telling it. Getting hung up on the minutia at this stage is helping nothing and no one. In fact, it's impeding progress. It's surprising how easy it is to keep moving forward when you no longer allow yourself to go back. (Perhaps this could also be a bigger life lesson as well??)

So how do I prevent the writer's block? Mostly via one handy little trick. At the end of each day of writing I leave myself on a cliffhanger - not necessarily a big one, could be something as simple as a line of dialogue that sets up a heated confrontation - so that when I sit down at my computer the next morning, I know immediately what happens next. I rarely stop writing at the end of chapter, or at any other place in the story that naturally gives pause.

Among the other things I've discovered along the way: I've really grown to cherish and look forward to that hour of writing each day and I miss it terribly the week my responsibilities lay elsewhere; the further I get into the story the easier it becomes to write; while I've had to revise my outline several times (once removing an entire character from the book's climax) I feel strongly that each change has only made the narrative more potent; the deeper I submerge myself in this novel, the more the plot lines for the next two books in the series continue to develop and solidify; and lastly, that the daily public word counts definitely keep me honest.

I'm at 170 pages now. Yes, that's right. Twenty pages past the rough halfway mark. And even if I never manage to sell this novel to a publisher, I still consider it one of the best things I've ever done. And I'm not even talking about the story here. The sense of fulfillment doing this has given me and the vivid return of my creativity are worth it in and of themselves.

If the series does take wing and fly. Well, it'll begin with this book, The Cold Ones. And continue with Feral and The Blood Sorceress and perhaps others. But those next two already have functional outlines. That's surprising too, and so are the different ways the stories are shaping up to intertwine - all things that weren't there yet just a month ago. Who'd have known? Certainly not me. But I'll tell you something, I'm absolutely having one helluva great time discovering.

Today I hit a milestone. One hundred new pages. One third of the way to completion. And here I am holding them (though my webcam doesn't really do the size of that stack much justice).

It feels like so much and so little at the same time. I grow each day from not only the experience of actually doing this, but from the fact that I'm doing it in a manner, which until this habit, I was wholly uncomfortable with. Writing chronologically used to be far too restrictive for me, but I've found a way to make it work and I think I'm better for it.

There are many things I already want to add, finesse, adjust in my second draft, but for now that wish list is relegated to note form. There'll be no tinkering until the work is complete. Completion is everything. It is paramount.

And if I continue at my current pace I'll be on track to wrap this puppy by the end of September, two months sooner than my previous best estimate. That kind of blows my mind. And makes me think for the umpteenth time that I should have kicked my ass into gear ages ago. But I suppose it's like that old song says, there's a time for everything.

In the coming weeks, I hope to write more here about the creation process itself. I'll reveal the best trick I've found to avoiding writer's block. Talk about that seemingly inevitable moment when your characters decide to highjack your story. Ruminate on the unexpected repercussions of creating new habits. And who knows what else. There might even be a new "It's a Dog Life" interspersed in there somewhere too.

But for now, till next time, keep writing...