Daily Update: I got to play poker last night
Last night was another fun night. I don’t normally do things without the wife and my favorite daughter so doing something two nights in a row (Tobias Buckell’s book signing the previous evening) is quite odd for me.
It was a charity poker tournament held at the Viejas Casino. The buy in is a tax deduction and goes to some much needed causes. There are still prizes, but it’s not about the prize, it’s about having a good time and playing poker.
I’m not sure how many we started with, but once again it was over the 200 person limit as my friend Curt (late as usual) would up in the overflow room (as usual). Our friend, Todd, invited us the first time four years ago and last night was the 6th annual. Each year it’s a lot of fun to play poker with a lot of really bad poker players (I’ll get to that in a little bit).
We started out the evening smack talking. Well, ok, Todd, a couple of his friends, and I started out the evening smack talking. Curt showed up late and got stuck in the registration line. While some of us ate dinner waiting for the event to start, Curt hit the slots and won back his entry fee before the event even started. The man is the luckiest person I know with his luck level reaching that of Gladstone Gander proportions. No, seriously.
After dinner and much smack talk and a “last longer” bet made, we all headed into the Dreamcatcher Lounge. Filled with laughs, loud conversation, unusually quiet background music (class rock) and the sound of chips being placed into neat little stacks.
I found my table and because we were all in line together and they forgot to shuffle the seat cards, four of us wound up on the same table. There was much smack talking to be had. We also had a gentleman named Frank at our table. A very loud, boisterous person with a bounty on his head. Each “Posse” member (two at each table) had a $25 bounty on their head. My friend Todd, who won last year’s tournament, had a $75 bounty on his head.
I found myself in a hand early with 5-6 of diamonds. Not a great hand, but hey. Two diamonds and a 6 hit the flop. Smack talking with one of Todd’s friends ensued. The turn brought a 5. I now had 2 pair and a flu draw. Nice hand. The river brought another 5. I had a full house. Much smack talking continued, but little betting. Lucky for me as Todd’s friend had pocket 6s. His 6s over 5s beat my 5s over 6s.
Here’s where things got a little weird at our table. I knew our dealer wasn’t shuffling well. I kept getting the same junk hands, but she also raised the blind levels on us by her watch and when the MC announced the blind levels were increasing. So in less than an hour we were at 400/800blinds which is pretty high.
Right before our table broke the table folded to me in the small blind. I looked down at Q-2 spades and decided I’ll pick up the Big Blind (800) and was quite surprised when she called me. She had A-3. I managed to pick up a couple of twos and made three of a kind to double up before our table broke.
Going to my new table the blinds were 200/400. Color me confused. One of my other table mates said when he got to his table it was 100/200 which is where they should have been at. I know this was a charity event, but I felt a little slighted on the time I should have been playing and I had lost a good amount of chips because of the high blinds. But hey, it’s charity and I had a good time. If it had been a real event, I’d have been upset.
I noticed that shortly after our table breaking and getting our new seat assignments, one of Todd’s friends had busted. Talking with him later, he took a bad beat getting Aces cracked.
My new table was a little quieter and after a few hands of mostly folding, I figured pretty conservative. Before the break I was on the button and decided, with K-Q, that I’d steal the blinds. The table had folded to me and I shoved as soon as the action got to me. The small blind looked down and called. The big blinds I’m not even sure if he looked, but called right away.
Now my bet wasn’t small. It was 3200 to call into a fairly small pot. Based on earlier play I had expected them to just fold so getting two callers was surprising.
Back to the action. The flop came A 8 8. I missed and I figured one of them had an Ace, the other maybe a pair. The small blinds shoves all in and the big blind instantly calls. Wow. One of them must have an 8 and the other an Ace, maybe?
Remember, this is a charity tournament. People don’t play poker like regular people. They don’t have to have a hand to play or even good cards. They’ll play everything and just hope for the best.
The cards all turned up. My K-Q I thought was dead. The small blind had K-9. Wait, what? Did I see that right? Sure enough. K-9 called my all in and shoved all in on a missed flop into a ‘dry’ side pot. The big blind turned over Q-J. I stood up, blinked a few times, and said out loud “really?” I mean, I was in good shape. Not just good shape, but I was looking to triple up. I was going to be in good shape. All I’d have to do was avoid a J or a 9 to lose and avoid a K to split the pot. The turn was a 3. Good for me as my two high cards still played. Then I let out a groan as a J hit the river. I shook my head and threw up my hands. I congratulated the person on his amazing call. He said something to the effect of “I don’t even know what I’m doing. I just keep winning.” I wished him luck and went to share my bad beat story.
Nearly all of us lost to a bad beat. Todd knocked out one of his friends. Todd with KK, his friend with AK. All the chips were going in the pot on that one, but mostly it was more experienced players taking bad beats from players who either really didn’t care and were just shoving chips around having a good time or taking bad beats to people who had either no idea how to play or knew enough and were just getting lucky.
There were drawings, there was food (I’d eaten already though), and then there were slots. Todd had to get up early for a flight so he left shortly after he busted. Curt and I stayed and watched it get to the final table and for the final drawing. The person who lost “on the bubble” (one before payouts) won the last raffle drawing of the night.
Curt, you remember I was talking about how lucky he is?, decided we should play some slots (or maybe it was my idea, I forget) and we sat, played, talked. I watched my money disappear into the machine and much spinning of fake reels and down down while I watched him hit bonus, bonus, bonus, cash out, bonus, bonus. I grumbled a lot. I did move to a different machine that ‘felt lucky’ and won back some of what I’d lost.
Some of the people started getting weird in the casino. For example I stood next to Curt while he was hitting a bonus on a machine (again) and some older lady walking by leaned in close to me nearly putting her head on my chest and sighed LOUDLY! Curt turned around and as “what was that?” I pointed to the lady. She sat at another machine and started at us for a bit.
Another girl sat down at a machine and gave Curt some advice on the bonus game. It was difficult to tell if she was just giving information, trying to flirt, or trying to pick up a ‘date’. After that bonus round it was time to head on home. By head home I mean into the parking lot to our cars and talk for another half hour before getting sprinkled on and finally heading back home.
I got in somewhere around 1:45am. Changed, kissed my favorite daughter on the forehead, kissed my sleeping wife, and went to bed. I smelled like my mom’s bar (smoking is allowed at Viejas) and woke up to that smell. Despite gum after my dinner (I was so tired I didn’t brush before bed) my mouth tasted like my clothes smelled. I’m sure I snored quite well last night also and I had some strange chase dreams I can’t really remember this morning other than when I woke up, I was AWAKE! Perhaps it was from all the oxygen they pump into the casino. Who knows.
Todd, Curt and I will be making plans to go play in a regular tournament. One with a more even playing fields, less wild players, and a better blind structure. I’ll post when that happens.
I didn’t hit my writing goal yesterday, but I’ll pick up the slack today. Just you wait and see.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: I Met an Author
Yesterday was a fun day. I got to head over to the Mysterious Galaxy bookstore and buy a new book. What book? So glad you asked.
I picked up Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell.
I don’t frequent book stores as much as I would like. I was never really a fan of the big chains for a couple of reasons. Mainly they sold a lot of books I wasn’t interested in and when I had a question or would look for a suggestion the staff had other interests in books I wanted to purchase. They also sold coffee and being that I don’t like coffee and really don’t care for the smell of coffee, it made my shopping experience less than desirable.
That being said, I love Mysterious Galaxy. I’ve been there a few times and each time the staff is pleasant, funny, and they make the entire experience enjoyable for me. They know their way around speculative fiction and have an amazing selection of book. I even saw a copy of Scott Sigler’s The All Pro on a shelf where I sat. If you live in San Diego, or Redondo Beach then Mysterious Galaxy is where you want to shop. Heck, even go online and you can pick up some signed editions. I’m sure Tobias left a few of Arctic Rising there.
On to Tobias. I’ve seen his picture online. I follow him on facebook, twitter, his blog (I’m not stalking him, really). So I had an idea what he looked like and when I got into the store he was wearing a hat and I didn’t recognize him. I would have greeted him straightaway if I had. I felt a little silly, but hats throw me off.
Tobias filled us in on his writing endeavors and spoke about his health issues setting him back and having trouble getting anything out over the past three years. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I loved his first three books (Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and Sly Mongoose) so I was anxious for a new book from him. Hearing he was going in a new direction was fine with me as I enjoy his writing. He mentioned the Executioness a couple of times. I have this on my tablet, but have not read it yet.
His new book, Arctic Rising is being sold as an Eco Thriller. He talked about how he had been doing research and keeping notes and saving articles to use in a book and when his agent (he talked extensively about his relationship with his agent and the direction of his career) asked if he’d like to try something new, he looked at his research and jumped at the opportunity.
Sadly he got started and his health took a turn. In those three years, much of what he’d been writing about with the book was coming to be. When he was writing the book it was considered New Future Sci Fi. He was pleased in some ways to be right, and leery at the same time. Made me anxious to jump into the book.
I bought the hard cover so I’ll be reading the book at home and I will post a review once I’m done with it. Just in hearing him talk about the book and reading the excerpt, I’m sure I’ll be happy once I dive in.
Enough about Tobias. This is a blog about me, right?
Even though I went to his signing I was still able to hit my word count for yesterday. I’ve made it a personal goal to try and get caught up and average 2000 words during Lent not just hit 2000 words per day. It’ll be a challenge, but I’m finding that I’m good with a challenge. I’m only 3000 words behind that actual goal (probably less) and I’m already seven days ahead of my annual goal (I can take a vacation now WOO WOO)
But in all seriousness, I’m hitting a writing flow these days. I’ve been writing daily since the 1st of January. I haven’t missed a day. It was a bumpy start, but I’ve stuck to blogging daily which has really helped when it comes to sitting down and writing fiction. I just sit, start typing, and in a couple of minutes I’m typing again. It’s also helping me keep up with my typing skills.
I mean, I can touch type, sure. I have a bad habit of looking at my fingers as they’re typing out the words instead of looking at the screen to see what I’m actually typing. A few minutes every day of typing and bang. I’m back to touch typing again. It’s only take two months and it’s like I’ve rediscovered writing.
If you’re a writer, or you want to be a writer, I put this challenge to you. Write every day for two months. No excuse. No requirements. Set a word goal (200,500,1000) something low and obtainable. Don’t overreach. This is like working out. You can’t expect to be running after a couple of days. Build up and keep it going.
Speaking of running, I need to get walking again. My favorite daughter is even bugging me about that. But first, the day job.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Working hard or hardly working?
Have you ever sat down to work (or just to get started on something) and BANG! Everything you planned on doing is right out the door before you even touch the keyboard?
Yeah, I’m having one of those days. Seems that each time I touch the keyboard something else is jumping in to say HELLO! and interrupt what I was planning on doing. Once I collect my thoughts and get going there’s another one. Some days I feel like I need to disconnect from the rest of the world just to get something done and I can see why many writers do that during their writing time.
Alas, this is my actual job getting in the way of me getting other parts of my job done. It all needs to be done, but there are parts I need to do, calls I need to be on, and then there’s the coding I’d rather be doing. I really like programming and when something gets in the way of that I have a tendency to get even less done because it takes time to get into the right frame of mind.
Anyway, I had planned on getting this blog post out first thing this morning, but early morinng issues caught me and haven’t let go. I’m taking a late lunch and hopefully I’ll get a little coding in before I call it a day and start typing words. Such is the life of a programmer.
Sorry, just needed to vent a little bit. I’ve got some Golden Earring – Twilight Zone turned up and a writing candle lit.
I hope you enjoyed last week’s little jaunt into my life. It’s been a fun trip and I know I have many stories to tell from those days. I wasn’t always all work and no play. Wait, I’m still not. I’ve just gotten older, not more mature, mind you. Hopefully I’ve gotten a little more responsible with age.
I had a lot of recollections while I wrote all that up. One thing I noticed is that I’m really bad about keeping in contact with people and oddly, I think those same people are just as bad in keeping in contact with me as well. Out of all my Navy buddies, I’ve only heard from two over the years who’ve tracked me down and only one friend from school who also tracked me down. I’ve always kept in touch with Sean and Jeff over the years and we’ve all gone our own ways as time has gone on. Even though all three of us still live in Southern California, we haven’t all gotten together in a very long time.
I think I’ll add that as one of my goals for this year. To get the band back together for at least one night. My friend Jeff plays in a Black Sabbath tribute band in L.A. and he’s playing all the time. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a date he’s playing, pick up Sean on the way to LA, and go hang out and have a good time with lots of loud music. You heard it here. Keep me to it!
I hit my writing goal for yesterday. Not just hit it, but passed it and kept going for a little while. I managed 2500 words even with everything we did yesterday. I feel great about that. It means I’m not going to let a little thing like not having enough time keep me from hitting my writing goals. We’ll see what today brings me.
Well, that was Lunch. I should go write some code now.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Hey! It’s Sunday!
Fist, an update on the Lost Boy.
Some people have asked and I think it’s great that people are following along and reading this blog. The boy who’d been lost had returned home after the 3 day long party. Yes, he got sucked in to going to a party. That night the boy, Diego, made all the kids (all younger than him) take out their batteries and sim cards and the boy’s parents destroyed those items. The following morning when the police went to Diego’s house to ask about the boy, the parents refused to allow the police in due to no warrant. There were a lot of boys there.
That Sunday morning (at around 2AM) the police found the boy at a bus stop with a woman under the influence (of what they were unsure) but the boy appeared to be unharmed and not under the influence of anything. The boy was crying saying that he needed to help get the woman home. The police took both of them home.
The parents were very happy to have him return, but he wouldn’t say anything about who/what/where/why. Apparently there were death threats made for anyone who talked about the party.
The parents made the boy go through the entire neighbor hood to collect the “missing” signs they’d hung up and apologize to everyone who had a sign. Then he had to sit down on Facebook and send everyone a thank you and an apology for what had happened. Then he had to call the school, talk to the principal, the teachers, and everyone who helped with searching for him.
As far as I know, he still hasn’t spoken about what happened at that party and no charges have been brought against the parents.
I didn’t hit my 2000 word writing goal yesterday. Went to a friends house for a BBQ. Had some awesome food. Ate until I couldn’t eat no more. Slept in a little bit today. Going to try and knock out a bunch of words today. I was going to write more on my adventure to try and fill in some holes, but going back and re-reading, I think I’ve covered it pretty well from my time after high school until now. I’ll be having fun adding some memories into some of my stories. I added one in My Teacher is a Zombie and my favorite daughter got a good laugh out of it.
Right now I need to take my favorite daughter to her volleyball lesson. today I may very likely sit in the truck and write so I can get caught up on my word count today.
Oh, if you didn’t check it out, I have a guest blog post over at Dan Dan the Art Man’s blog about TV memories. Oh the joys of childhood television watching. Check it out. I hope you like it.
I’m going to get at my writing.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Filled with Woo!
I’m a patient person. I’m really good at waiting. I really am. It doesn’t bother me when a waiter or waitress is slow or behind. I can wait. I’m usually never in a hurry. I don’t mind taking my time. I keep telling myself that the wait will be worth it.
I have several works out and some have been out since the end of November. I’m waiting. I have to look at it as longer is better. If the work were to be rejected outright I’d have heard something by now, right? So I have to assume that the longer, in this case, is better. I just need to be patient and keep plowing forward with other works. I need to keep submitting anything I’ve got finished and see what happens. I cannot allow myself to dwell on works I’m waiting on because the waiting will kill me. Just a little more time. People are busy. I understand.
On that note, I’ve begun working on the next episode of Golden West. The story is going to take a slightly different direction. I like where it’s going and the story will be stronger in the end. The first Action Pack episode is getting great reviews from those who’ve listened to it. That has made the three of us involved quite happy and hopefully we can keep it going strong. I know my second episode is building up to be quite interesting.
My Teacher is a Zombie is getting some editing done to it. I’ll be bugging Dan Dan the Art Man once again for a cover on that one. Once I get the second Episode of Golden West out of the way I’ll be doing my Teacher is a Werewolf. The characters were so much fun I need to keep those ones going. I’m having a lot of fun just writing. Even To Fall From the Sky is coming along nicely. I had an epiphany while writing the other day and WOW! I now have an even more powerful ending in mind that will take the story in the same direction, but just make it a more powerful ending.
Writing 2000 words a day during Lent is helping me really work out some writing issues I’ve had in the past. It’s great hitting a flow where words just seem to fall out of my head. Still not as fast as I would like, but I know with time I’ll get there. I can type fast, I can write fast, I just need to keep at it and both will get faster. There are so many stories in my brain that I need to write, it’s just a matter of making the time to write them all.
Stories like How I Got to Where I Am today. Let’s continue, shall we?
After submitting Of Gnomes and Dwarves: Book 1 to multiple agents and editors, I got disheartened. It’s tough to take rejection and everything I got was a form letter. The only plus side was my work was going quite well and I was learning how to program. My father had sat me down at the age of 12 and handed me a book on how to program in BASIC on a TRS-80 (maybe I was 13). I took another programming class in 10th grade and I loved programming. Why I switched and went into electronics I’ll never know.
So when I started doing web pages full time for my job, I was in heaven. I love designing for he web and I’ve been doing it as my job full time since 2001. Mostly I do back end work with getting things tied to databases and developing working interfaces, but lately I’ve been doing a lot more front end work. The field changes so quickly.
I think when it comes to writing that’s what I love about programming and creative writing. They’re both similar in the fact they require a certain amount of creativity, planning, and dedication to sit for hours alone and just type. Be it code frameworks or plot outlines, I find creativity in both endeavors.
As for my writing, I hit a slump after a lot of rejections. I took about a year or more off from writing. When I came back to it, I read several books on writing. Alright, closer to 30, but I was reading as much as possible. I took a challenge from one book and decided to write as many short stories as possible and in one year I wrote over 100 short stories. Of those 100 I submitted nearly half as I knew half were really bad. Of those 50 or so I submitted I had 10 publications. This was when online fiction was just starting out and there were no real strong ebooks. Half were online and half were anthology and smaller magazines. I was excited. I got back into writing fiction with V&A Shipping as a NaNoWriMo novel. I got the entire book written during that November and I felt great. I wrote Astel, Billy Barbarian, I even started three other novels that I didn’t finish, but I had strong starts to.
Then I lost my grandfather. That took the wind out of my sails. A year later when I started writing again my mother lost her husband. He’d never really been my dad, but I loved him all the same. I had difficulty getting back into writing, but I’d been playing around in the podcasting community for a while. I decided to podcast V&A Shipping. As I was recording the episodes I started writing again. Then I lost my dad.
It was a difficult one, two, three. But when I lost my dad I kept on podcasting and did Billy Barbarian and a number of short stories. What finally got me out of my writing funk, after trying to write and only getting a couple rough starts going, was Mike Plested suggesting that we do a collaborative work together. Bring out Jack Kane.
Sure it took he and I over a year to write, but that was due to many stops and starts. Finishing that book lit something in my brain and suddenly I decided that I needed to stop puttering around with my craft and get serious. I needed to treat my writing like it was a part time job. That’s what I’ve done since mid-December and this year I intended to keep a string of words flowing out and have not missed a day.
I started with writing this blog daily. That’s helped more than you can imagine. Then I decided that I needed to do more than just blog, but I needed to write daily. Not just write daily, but keep track of how much I was writing each day and to keep that word output in front of me so I could keep tabs on myself. And not just keep tabs. I needed to PUSH myself to do more. To do better. To perform at a level I’ve never performed at.
I’m not going to reach publication with works sitting in a drawer and hoping for the best. I’m not going to get published sitting back and waiting to get discovered. I always knew that, but keep myself from doing what needed to be done. Guess what, I’m writing more than I ever have. If this year turns out like I hope, I’ll produce as many words in 2012 as I have my entire time writing. That will tell me that I am capable of writing more fiction. yes, I’ve been blogging a lot, but once I get rolling, I need to keep rolling.
Look out world, 2012 is the year for Murdock to announce that I’ve arrived! Just you watch. This blog will chronicle all I am doing and all I’ve done. Some I cannot talk about yet, but as soon as I can, you’ll see. You’ll see.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Unorthodox Writing Tips 18: Ritualistic Writing
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve read more than one blog post (I think four) about writing rituals. I found this odd that all of these websites were separate. I would link to them all, but things go by and I’d have to go look them up. That’s a distraction and will stop me from achieving my writing goals. Sorry, I just feel you and I are both better served if I get words out rather than spend time looking things up on the internet.
There was a fairly common theme to all the writing ritual posts. It went in great detail describing either one person’s writing ritual or the rituals of multiple people. Some were interesting. Others were very to the point (I sit, I write, I get back up until I’m ready to write some more). I read them all and thought one thing was missing.
How do you form a writing ritual?
None of the posts really explained how or why someone would need a ritual to get them into the writing mood. Reading this was almost like the worst writing advice I’d ever read. How do you write 50,000 words in a week? Rent a hotel room and write 10,000 words a day.
Huh?
Sure, reading about other rituals is interesting, but I didn’t look at it as writing advice. It was mostly just telling us what others do to prepare to write.
I’ve had several rituals over the years. How did I form them? I think that’s the most important question. If you want to be able to sit and write, the shorter the ritual the better, right? You don’t want to spend half of your valuable writing time getting ready to write or even distract you from writing all together.
I used to sit down and before I would write, I would cut up a couple of oranges. After eating them I’d need to wash my hands with lavender soap (it’s what we had available). Then I’d sit and write.
At the time I wasn’t thinking of a writing ritual. It was just what I did. I did this for several weeks and it just became more of a habit. And I like oranges. Even orange juice worked for getting my creative juices flowing. Sometimes I’d light a candle or burn some incense. Just the act of lighting them would kick my brain into gear. When I stopped doing that, I fell into a slump. Well, I was in a slump and I never performed those tasks.
What I did when I got back into writing, I found my incense tray and incense. I found my candles. Right now I lit the candle, and I felt the need to sit at the computer and write. This old habit has stuck with me.
It’s basic psychology. It’s like Pavlov’s dogs. They would hear a bell before they ate. Soon they associated the bell with food and would salivate without the presence of food. You can use this same psychology on yourself. Ring a bell, light a candle, eat a chocolate, have a beverage. Then sit and write. Work on creating an association with something that you can easily relate to not only writing, but creativity. Something quick, simple, but effective.
Sitting in a chair isn’t always enough. This little candle sitting next to me draws my attention and inspires me. I cannot explain why it works, but it’s what I used as a writing tool. Something to tell me brain it was time to sit and write. You can do the same. Find that little something and start putting it together with writing. Use it each time you sit and write for it to be effective. Soon you’ll have a need to write. Perhaps it’s singing along with a favorite song, a special shirt, walking outside and feeling the sun on your face, laying on the floor and looking at the ceiling. It can be anything, but for the most effective results, make it something short and simple.
For me, smells are highly effective in kicking ye olde brain into gear. For you it might be a visual queue, a painting, the background on your desktop, a picture your six year old drew for you. Don’t let your imagination be limited to what you use as s writing queue, ritual, habit, whatever you want to call it. Do the same thing for several writing sessions and soon you’re find it easier and easier to sit and write.
Do you have a ritual that works for you? How did you form it? Was it intentional or accidental? How effective is it? Do you have different more than one ritual? Does one work more effectively than another? I’d love to hear what you do.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Writing, Working, Editing, I’ve got a heaadache
I’ve got a headache today. It’s not supposed to rain this weekend. There’s no low pressure system overhead. I’ve taken my sinus medicine so I’m not congested.
I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. I will hit my 2000 words today. I didn’t yesterday. But I do want to keep at it. I’ve got a writing streak going since the beginning of the year. I’m happy about that. About half of what I’ve written has been blog posts and half has been new fiction. Being that I’m at nearly 80,000 words for the year, I can honestly say I’m quite proud of that for two months work.
Not only am I proud of how much I’ve written, but I can honestly say that it’s some of my best work. Sure we all grow as writers, but I’ve had a lot of starts and stops along the way. It feel good to get back on the horse and really start putting out words. I’ve got a lot of projects going on all at the same time with my writing and keeping them all going is a challenge.
I’ve taken a queue from my work.
With my work I create detailed plans on what it’ll take to get a project coded and deployed. I write up timelines, do costs analysis. There’s a lot more than just sitting and typing code. Keeping track of where you’re at is critical. I’ve applied this to my writing with my word count spread sheet and I find I output a lot more words by keeping close tabs on what I write.
To that end, it’s not always about creating new fiction. There’s editing to consider. I just submitted a story and after the first draft, I let it sit for a couple of days, I had some inspired thoughts, and did some rewriting. It was around 4500 words when done and I cut down nearly 400 and added back in almost 600. I did not count any of these words. I probably should have, but hey, it’s my system. Either way, I’m quite proud with how the story turned out.
On the work front, I’ve also been quite busy. I’ve got a large project, a couple of people I’m managing to help with the project, extra duties added to my workload beyond the project, deadlines, meetings, assistance.
Between work and writing, it’s a lot to take in. Combine the fact that my Favorite Daughter has he volleyball… well, you get the point. There’s a lot going on and only so many hours in the day.
I’ll do an Unorthodox Writing Tips, probably next week, about time management or something to that effect. As I had said at the beginning of the year, I’m going to treat my writing like a part time job and commit to getting words out there. It hasn’t been easy and I’ve had to be flexible, but I’m getting it done.
I think that’s what’s led to my current headache, so I’ll take a couple aspirin and call it good.
Ok, so I left you hanging yesterday. I’m good like that. I’m glad you’re following along.
While going to ITT I met a lot of people. One of my classmates introduced me to a friend of his. She was nice, but I was busy and not really interested. We did wind up going out a few times, then a few more times. I started telling her my book ideas. She was enthralled. I let her read Of Gnomes and Dwarves (the comic version) and she loved it.
She wasn’t going to ITT, but to another school and she needed to type up something that someone else had written. Being that she had my hand written binder (and the only copy of my work at the time) she typed it up for me over the course of two or three weeks. I was quite surprised. It made me quite happy to see my nearly illegible words typed up.
Once I completed ITT (graduating with honors) and I wasn’t working and going to school, I was able to dedicate some time to a relationship. ITT went from 6pm-10pm. I worked from midnight-8am. It made out schedules incompatible. Once I was done with ITT, we moved in together and I got a normal day job. I went to work for Qualcomm.
Let me just state this for the record. If I were an engineer, I probably would have been happy with electronics. Being that I was a troubleshooter on products that got returned, I was bored out of my mind. The most fun I had was with a 5 page pamphlet entitled HTML 1.0. Netscape was awesome, writing HTML code great fun. I really got into designing webpages for my Of Gnomes and Dwarves characters. My friend Sean even got a job working at Qualcomm under a different position and it was great fun working together.
I eventually bought a PC. I wanted to do web design for a living. Heh, didn’t we all during the mid 90s? Well, that didn’t go.
I wound up getting a job with ATT (PacBell at the time, then SBC, now ATT). I left Qualcomm with little thought. I’m not sure how the cell phone division did after I left, because I was moving onward and upward.
In that same year I got married, we had my favorite daughter. Life was awesome! I even decided to pick up those comic scripts I had started and translated them into a book. It had taken years, but I finally had a 60,000 word novel. It was a lot of data dumping, a lot of telling, a lot of bad grammar. It wasn’t very good, but I still to this day love the story and characters.
I had some friends read it. I got a lot of suggestions and made a lot of edits over the next couple of years. Then I moved into a new team. For that team I had to go away for training. I had been thinking about working on the second book which I had scripted and decided I would work on it a little bit while away on my training. I didn’t have anything else to do, I’d be away from home. Why not?
After that week I was wiped out. I had gotten up at 5am each day and started writing. I would take a shower at the last minute and rush to the training. I had a floppy disk with the file on it and would write in class during the hour lunch and during the breaks. I would go eat a quick diner and I’d be back in the hotel room writing some more. It was writing bliss like I’d never know and have never known again. After that week I had a SECOND 60,000 word novel.
It took me about a month to write the third in little snippets of time here and there and I now had three 60,000 word novels. All that time I’d spent agonizing over making the first novel perfect helped me write far better books the second and third time. I had gotten better and dialogue, showing not telling, no more data dumps of information. The characters really took on a life of their own.
I submitted the first book to many agents and publishers, but that’s a story for tomorrow.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Action Pack Podcast is live!
Last night the Action Pack Podcast went live. The three of us involved with this endeavor are quite excited. The concept is serialized fiction spread out over a year. Each story will end on a cliffhanger and a new episode will come out each month. There will also be print editions available over at Flying Island Press. You can pick up the podcast at Action Pack Podcast. Stop by and let me know what you think.
My fellow authors, Mike Plested and Scott Roche, are also helping generate noise (buzz?) about the podcast. Stop on over at their sites and see what they’re all about. All three of us are quite busy podcasters and writers. Don’t forget to check out Dan Dan the Art Man, the man responsible for our artwork!
As for writing, it was another productive day. Got another 2000 words out. It nice when I hit a flow and can roll with it. Hopefully I can keep this pace up during Lent and carry it on beyond. I’m already 4 days ahead of my yearly writing schedule. This is important because the last thing I want to do is fall behind again. I was able to get caught up and now ahead. I see no reason to stop now.
I finished a short story and sat on it for a couple of days. I had three or four ‘ah-ha’ moments and those went into the revisions. I’m now waiting for a response and requested edits (edits will always be requested, I’d be surprised if they weren’t). I’m quite happy with how the story turned out. I can’t want to see how it does once it makes it out into the wild.
Now more about how I got to where I am today.
After spending nearly five years as a starving musician, I decided that being in a band just wasn’t in the cards. It was a good run, but unfortunately I could not motivate the guys beyond small clubs and it was all on my to do any promotion, book gigs, etc. Combine that with the lead singer wanting to be the only creative force in the band, and I felt stifled. I had creative ideas that I needed to get out.
I did not explain this in earlier updates, but this was when I really had to take a look at what I wanted to do with my life. In high school, I played D&D. Sean and I both played and continued to play as adults. I loved the game. I had decided to write a book based on our characters. Yes, one of ‘those’ books. There were many stops and starts during high school, in the Navy, even while I was in a band. I just could not get the story going.
After leaving the band, I had a great idea for the story. Yes, the characters were still based on the D&D characters, but everything D&D was out of it. Well, to some extent. There were still monsters and random encounters, but I had decided to make it more of a story and less of an adventure. I had to get them to meet in a way that made sense. I had to have a story that I could tell.
Well, suffice to say it sucked. I trashed it again.
Then I met a comic book artist. He was just getting started and he was GREAT! I had gone back to school at ITT Tech to get a degree and I wrote pages at night. He agreed to pencil the work. I got cranking on the script. I was excited. I was going to write a COMIC BOOK! WOO WOO!
The guy was really good. He went on to write Warrior Nun Arela, moved on to be an intern with Jim Lee (I got to go to the studio and meet his entire crew, that was awesome) and eventually moved on to Marvel and last I heard he was doing Catwoman for DC. He’s done well and I’m glad he did. I don’t know that doing a little independent comic with me would have helped him that much. Check out Pete Woods as he’s done great things in the field of comics.
So after this period of time, I kept on writing Of Gnomes and Dwarves as a comic. I had decided that the first run would be 15 issues telling one storyline and then I’d move on to the next storyline. I wrote 48 or 49 issues before i ran out of steam and could not find another artist. I tried submitting my work, but it was rough and I go no interest.
I dove back into school. It was very easy for me because it was basically a rehash of my Navy ‘C’ school. Getting ‘A’s was as easy as staying awake in class. My comic had been shelved, but I was still happy to talk about it to anyone and everyone who would hear about it. They all thought I was nuts, but that it was cool that I’d written something even if it wasn’t published.
I got to work on 8080s and 8088s and we even upgraded an 8088 to a 286. This was at a time when a 386 was cutting edge. If you don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry. These were IBM computers and the PC was just starting to take hold. It was before the computer explosion of the mid-90s. These things weren’t cheap, but they were getting there.
Then I met the woman who would become my wife. More on that, tomorrow.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Three Months Left to Submit
It’s not time to panic… yet, but there are only three (3) months left to submit your article or essay to us for consideration. We tell you this because we would HATE to miss publishing your wisdom in the dark arts of Mad Science because you missed a silly little deadline.
But, that is exactly what will happen if you are late. Cause, we’ve got to be fair (yes, an odd concept for a villain, but honor among thieves and all that) to all those people who do meet the submission deadline.
Time flies when you are having fun, so STOP having fun and write something for us!
You have your orders. Good luck!
Action Pack Podcast: S01E01
The first episode of the Action Pack Podcast had dropped. Head on over to Action Pack Podcast to subscribe, or download from here
J.R. Murdock 