J.R. Murdock

Hey Crew,

Ah, lazy day today. I needed one of these. Was still up early, but the Mrs. and I spent it watching TV, ordering food, and spending it, mostly, at home.

I did get the oil changed and got a haircut. So I did leave the house for a little bit. 🙂

Also filled out my mail-in ballot and helped the Mrs. with hers. I’ll be taking notes and walking my favorite daughter through all the props and how to read up on the candidates so she can make educated choices instead of picking at random.

Voting is a right and a responsibility. It’s not easy and many props are written to be confusing intentionally. That’s why I’ll help her (and her boyfriend) learn how to read the ballot material and how to look up additional information (who’s for, who’s against, and why).

My Favorite Daughter and I also watched You may be the killer. It’s a fun watch if you’ve ever seen a horror movie that involves the killing of camp counselors. It hits pretty much every horror trope out there. Lots of fun.

Spent some time doing a little bass practice. It’s rather strange. The more I practice the songs I’m working on, the better I’m getting at them. Still, need to do more work on Punk Rock Girl, but I’m getting there. So many fun songs to learn.

I had intended to write more than I did today. As I said, it was a lazy day and it felt good to kick back and relax for a change. Got around a thousand words down and I felt good about those words. Helped set up the entire book and I may need to cycle back through these chapters once I get deeper into the book to make sure that setup still works. So much fun.

One of my favorite TV shows is back on. Gold Rush. The Mrs. and I started watching back on the first season and I really enjoyed it and stuck with it. Part of that show was the inspiration for GRPC. If you think about it, Gold Rush, Prospectors (on the Weather Channel of all channels), Pacific Rim, and Real Steel were what sparked the creation of GRPC. Giant Robots, fighting, mining, it’s all there. If you ever wonder where I get my inspiration, I ask you, where wouldn’t I get my inspiration? It’s all about how you see the world. 🙂

Right now, I’m going to look at the world from the back of my eyelids.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

WHew. Long freaking day. Up at 4am with the Mrs as she went off to her work out. Puddles around the house for an hour and read for a bit. Sat down to work early as I knew I had a lot to get done today.

Need to get the files I’d been working on pushed into production. Once that was complete O had a conference call to get to, but it had been cancelled. The Vendor we work with had sent a cancellation that the main developer we were working with had passed away. His came as quite a shock as we had a call with him yesterday and today, he was gone. He wasn’t sick. No sign of health issues. So I’m unsure what happened to him.

It was one of those days for reflection. Am I living the life I want in the way I want? Am I making the most of my time?

So, I took care of a number of things around the house and got a few hundred words written before My Favorite Daughter got home to announce we needed a new member of the family. I said no. She begged and pleaded. I said no. Mommy got home and said let’s talk about this. Next thing I know, we’re getting a new addition to the Murdock Family Household. A teacup Yorkshire Terrier she’s going to name Coda. She has been wanting one and threatening to steal every one she sees since she was 7 or 8. So, of course dad broke down. She is, after all, about to turn 21.

(Sigh)

Then, I’m the I forgot all about it news, we had plans with friends to go down to the Midway carrier to hang out on the flight deck and watch Too Gun. Awesome movie. We had a lot of fun. I haven’t seen that movie in years. Was great to see it again with a LOT of other people in giant inflatable screens.

No other words, besides this blog post. Hoping for a productive weekend.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

I’m not going to forget to hit Publish twice tonight. WordPress is weird and likes to make sure you really want to publish before you hit the publish button. I should have known better, but hey, I was sleepy. it happens.

Moderately busy day today with the day job. The Mrs. didn’t get up at 4am so slept in a bit until around 6am when my brain suddenly said “HEY! WHY AREN’T YOU WIDE WIDE AWAKE RIGHT NOW!” and I got up as if something was wrong and realize I didn’t need to be awake, but there was no turning back so I logged into work.

Got a lot accomplished with some reports I’m building and I’ll get those uploaded to production tomorrow. Will be nice to have those off my plate. Will also do a couple trainings tomorrow.

I keep talking about ‘training’ with regards to work. It never occurred to me to actually explain what I’m doing.

The company I work for is doing a lot gearing up for a 2020 transformation. Internally, there are hundreds of trainings and dozens of tracks employees are able to take. All for free. So you can pick an area of interest, like Big Data, or Software Defined Networking, and take all the training that’s offered. Why is this important?

The company moves. Therefore some jobs that are important today aren’t so important tomorrow and they’ll do what’s called surplussing of those employees that aren’t needed in areas the company isn’t going to focus on anymore. This hit me twice in my career so far, and both times I landed another posistion. The current position I have is because I’m a developer and I took a lot of data security related courses. It pays to stay ahead of the curve.

That said, I don’t ever want to be in a position where that might happen again. Even though I’m in a group that’s considered a 2020 group and we have a multi-billion dollar project we’re working on, I want to make sure if there’s ever a shift, I’m ready to shift. If not, hey, it’s free training and fascinating to learn.

Moving on, had a dentist appointment in the afternoon. Went to my father-in-law’s with My Favorite Daughter so I could take care of my sister-in-law’s dog. He’s got a terrible ear infection and it needs regular cleaning, though it is getting much better with medicine and drops to help fight off the infection.

Went took the back roads back home and stopped off to see the Mrs. at work, got some EverBowl and SubWay for dinner, came home, did a little bass practice, then did some writing. Got about another 1000 words tonight. More will happen tomorrow.

So far this week, I’ve watched 0 hours of news. I think I’m going to keep this trend up. I’m feeling better, more positive, and am getting a lot more done. I need to get books written and if I don’t write them, no one else will.

I’m off to bed. Hit the button twice, Jay.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

***Note I wrote this up last night, but was tired and forgot to hit the publish button twice for it to actually publish.

Hey Crew,

Good day today. Back on track with V&A Shipping 3. Got another 1000 words knocked out today. Not as much as I would have liked, but I’ll pick up steam quickly on this one. Needed to re-read what I’d written the day before to make sure that deleting the first few thousand words was the correct course. It was.

The first part I’d written was choppy and the characters weren’t feeling right for me. That means I wasn’t allowing them to do their thing. That’s a problem in my humble opinion and the reason I started over. I lost a week of productivity, but given I’d not written nearly as much as I can, I didn’t feel bad about letting those words go. Something you need to do that.

We had our weekly writerly meet up. Those are always a good time had by all. The only thing I wish we could do is get everyone on the same volume as one person will be very low and will get talked over constantly because one or more people didn’t hear them. There’s also a bit of a delay which is the curse of the internet. I’m confident if everyone were in the same room in person, it’d be a totally different experience. We try to make sure everyone contributes and give everyone a chance to talk. If you’re a creative person, having a little support group that not only cheers you on, but hold you accountable, is a good thing.

One of the things I need to get to work on, covers. I had intended to start releasing books in September, but as you can tell, September has come and gone with no new book covers. I need to speak to My Favorite Daughter about that. She’s back in school and did have other projects outside of school to work on (doing a logo for a friend that started his own business and everything around that logo like business cards, flyers, signage, etc.). Once I have covers in my hot, little hands, I’ll be dropping books monthly.

I wanted to have all 15 ready to go even tough I’ve not written all the books just yet, to make sure all the covers are themed correctly. I didn’t want to drop the books and then change covers mid-stream or all new covers when this storyline runs its course. But that’s me.

Anyway, don’t have to get up super early tomorrow. Get to sleep in a little. I like that. Need to get my brain reset and ready for the day. Lots of work, lots of training, just plain lots that needs to get done and these old bones are tired.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Sometimes you need to take a step backward to take a step forward.

CTRL+A, Del

Drop back 10 and punt.

Today I deleted everything I’d written so far in V&A 3. Sadly, it wasn’t much and even though I re-did nearly all of chapter 1 again, I’m still a net loss of words on the day.

Am I sad?

Oh, heavens no.

No idea why I was disappointed with what I’d written the first time, but the second time, I’m happier. Perhaps I wasn’t in the headspace of the characters as quickly as I thought I would be after jumping from ASH2 into V&A3. I lost track of one character by the time I started chapter 2 and… it just wasn’t going well at all.

So, I started over. I kept the beats of chapter 1, just not the words. I already knew how the story was going to start, and so it did. Just not cleanly or as I would have liked.

Now, it does.

You can’t be afraid to delete words (or copy them out of one file into a ‘trash’ file. Sometimes the art won’t happen. Painters paint over bad paintings. Digital artists will redraw the same line a dozen times to get it right (Check out Drawfee https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoal_hpPIPAnWlG-kWHLheA to see real-time artists, it’s funny, but you can see what I’m talking about).

That’s what I did here. Yes, I lost a week’s productivity, but the story will be better for it. There’s no sense in getting hung up on something when I know it’s wrong. This is V&A Shipping. It’s my first podcast novel. It’s my most read and listened to work. It needs to be right. People will notice if the characters aren’t speaking the way they should or reacting the way they should. Heck, I noticed right away. And, I fixed it. 🙂

Tomorrow, I’ll write more words and be back on track. Probably hitting a better stride than I did in the first week on this book. I knew it wasn’t right and the impromptu trip to Ensenada didn’t help my headspace with regards to the story.

With a clearer head, I will make it happens.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

My apologies for a short post tonight. Still a bit tired from the drive back from Ensenada and doing a number of small things yesterday. Couldn’t get the old brain kickstarted today. I will do better tomorrow.

I did get a few hundred words written. On that, I’ll also do better tomorrow. But progress is progress and I’m happy that I’m getting even a little done every day. It’s a few words closer than I was at the start of the day.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Wow, am I tired. A good tired, though. I’m about to go to bed and sleep hard. Tomorrow will be back to the regular early schedule.

So this weekend we spent south of the border down in Ensenada. Great fun going down there. My father-in-law has a house down there and we go down there semi-regularly. It’s quiet. There are lots of great places to eat, and it is so inexpensive. It’s not too far of a drive (actual driving is about an hour and there’s always wait times at the border and wait times at the toll booths). Still, a nice drive. We got down there before the rains started so that was a plus.

While there, I experimented with writing on my phone since I’d brought my thumb drive with my writing on it, yet forgot my writing computer. I’m glad I just started V&A3 so I wasn’t too deep in the book. I still know where Chapter 1 is going. After that, it’s all up in the air. We’ll find out together what happened to B.T. Justice since they last met. We’ll get to find out what adventure awaits the crew. I know they’ll be leaving the galaxy on a delivery that will take them to a nearby cluster. I’ve got many plans for what’ll happen to them, but not sure exactly when things will occur, or even if what I have planned will occur. Again, we’ll find out together.

As for the writing on my phone. Hated it. Didn’t like it at all. I got around 750 words written over the two days. I did that tonight also without really trying. I would do more, but my brain is screaming sleep!

I’m going to listen to it and get to bed early.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

No blog word for tonight. Typing on the phone is hard, but I got a few hundred words in last night and today again. We are off to dinner so here are a few pictures of the view and the sunset.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Short post tonight. Why? I’m nowhere near my writing computer. It’s an hour and a half away. No, I’m not in Disneyland, though my Favorite Daughter was last night.

We took an impromptu trip down to Ensenada. So I’m typing this up on my phone

I still plan to try and write even though I forgot the computer. I won’t rack up big numbers because I’m used to typing on a real keyboard and not this phone keypad thing.

Just typing up this post is painful. Ah well. Keeping the writing streak alive. I’m off to write a couple hundred words at least 🙂

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Hey Crew,

Wow, I’d forgotten just how much I enjoy the banter with the crew of the SS Acid Rat. It’s so easy and flows as if I’d never left the bunch behind. Already the crew is arguing as they’re trying to get off their home base to keep from being blown up with it.

I am, however, having to circle back into V&A2 to pick up descriptions of a couple of characters and to remember a little bit of what happened at the end of book 2. Besides that, it’s flowing well. I need to be able to type faster than normal because this one is starting out with a bang. 🙂

I’m writing into the dark on this book. Somewhat. I have a very vague idea what I want to happen, but very vague. Beyond that, this entire book is a mystery for me. As I’d said before, I think that’s what made getting to the end of Almost-Super Heroes 2 so difficult and so painful. It’s not that I didn’t like the characters. It’s that I already knew the ending and was just trying to get there. Yes, I had a couple of surprises along the way. I just knew where the end was at and wrote to it.

This one? As I said, I know a couple basic events.  That’s about it. ASH2 set up VA3 nicely with a lot of backstory that’ll be important in VA3, but you won’t need to read ASH2 for VA3 to make sense.

Perhaps I should explain.

V&A Shipping and Giant Robot Planetary Competition are two different series in the same universe that takes place in the far, distant future. Almost-Super Heroes takes place in present day. Roughly a decade after Joey left the planet and became the Stowaway in V&A1. So all three are in the same universe.

My plan is to write all three series as a set you can read alone. Each book will tell a full story with some threads that carry to the next book. Not truly episodic. You’d still need to read them in order, but each series can be read without knowledge of the others.

If you choose to read all the books in each series, you’ll get a much bigger picture of the universe as a whole. Lots of little hints dropped across each book that will tie everything together.

And if you’re following along, once I get through the 4th book in each series (12 books total), I will be writing a Military Sci-Fi Trilogy. Yes, all 12 books will lead up to an Epic war on a scale I’m not 100% certain of yet. I won’t know until I write all the other books. I don’t want to plan too far ahead because if I do, I’ll get bored and stop writing. I’d rather not know what’s going to happen until I write into it. Keeps it exciting for me as well and I tend to write faster when I’m excited.

Long story short, I’m having fun and hope this book flies from my fingers to the page. I’d love to get it done so I can jump into GRPC3 also. I’m having fun writing again. That’s the biggest takeaway from today. Tomorrow, there’ll be more words.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!