For the past few months I've been toying with ideas for a novel and I've finally started to sit down and actually write.  My goal is to complete it and a non-fiction management book by Memorial Day.

The management book is for geek promoted to the dark side and what it takes to succeed.  It cover some of the crap people in upper management try to pull and some strategies for dealing with said crap. 

Over the course of my career I've worked with some rather outstanding people and learned tons along the way.   The book is an attempt to bring it all together into a useful but fun book.

The novel features an ATF agent and a group that consider themselves to be patriots.  The bad guys ain't all bad and the good guys, though mostly good, find it hard staying on the right side of the line.  

I've been struggling with organizing everything, characters, scenes etc etc.  Word processors are great for business writing but are woefully inadequate for larger projects.  Luckily one of the independent authors I've enjoyed reading, Ed James, wrote about the tool, Scrivener, that he uses.  It certainly has boosted my productivity and in just a few short days has become an indispensable tool.