Books and Community

Published on Jul 18, 2014
It has been a long two months and sadly my site again has become neglected with updates. Though I have been working behind the scenes more these last few weeks updating code and preparing for some new things in the coming year. Though as I take some time now to write down my thoughts two months is a long time to be away from the one thing that brings me calm besides my family, by that I mean 'writing'. The tragedy often is that sites made by those that develop sites for a living are the first ones to get neglected. Seems that the same truth holds up for any profession, which reminds me of an old neighbor who so happened to be a gardener. He did some extremely intricate and beautiful work but his own house appeared as if no one had lived there for years. My own site for a solid two months I poured my heart and soul into making it relevant, modern, and beautiful all at the same time so I definitely don't want weeds to start growing around the edges. Well, let me get back on topic of what I have been doing these last two months. First, I have been working on some children's books for my daughter about two dogs who seem to get into trouble with every turn they make. I wrote a post about it a while back if you are interested in more about [Madison and Tucker](http://www.justinhough.com/writing-the-journey/madison-and-tucker), though the details I am keeping back until I get the first few done. My wife has agreed to do the illustrations and if you have seen any of her work you might get as excited as I have to see what will come out and you can see here Etsy shop, [LeeLee and SumSum](https://www.etsy.com/shop/leeleeandsumsum). ## The Plan Writing those books for my daughter however spawned another idea about building a writing community. A place where writers could collaborate with friends, colleagues, and other writers about pieces they are working on. In college I grew tremendously by the friendships I built around my writing classes becasue you can only go so far if you are the only one reading your stories. And sure there may be sites that help you write blogs easily or store your writing to share, but that's not the same as real-time interaction with your writing in a place where others can contribute. For a few years I have competed in [NaNoWriMo](http://nanowrimo.org/) (National Novel Writing Month) and it is great for accomplishing a goal, but what if we as writers could take that one step further and put the same passion into our writing every day of the year and set your own goals / challenges along the way. Thus I started building an immersive experience that was simple and intutive to use, which wouldn't complicate the writing experience, but compliment it. I'm an avid user of [Scrivener](http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php) and [Evernote](Evernote) as I write so I believe and use tools that aren't complicated but get out the way to allow a writer to achieve the important goal which is writing. ## A Community for Writers The community idea has been one thing that I have struggled to find amongst all the other social networks which are disjointed and not very well connected into a seamless experience to bring writers together in collaboration. Considering that this tool will be entirely web based the only thing you need is a web browser and that is where I want to keep it. Set challenges for yourself or compete in predefined challenges similar to NaNoWriMo. While I am still in the wireframe and design phase I'm still keeping the emphasis on the writing experience first and building out from there (think Gmail for writers). This whole project still has a long way to go though I plan to start making some good progress soon. Stay tuned for more.
Justin Hough author picture
Justin Hough

Chief Development Officer at Hounder. He is a Christian, husband, father, writer, developer, designer, and a digital carpenter crafting amazing web experience. Also, created the Centurion Framework many moons ago.