Daily Update: This weather is killing my nose
Ever since our trip to Palm Desert the arid conditions from there leading back to here has had a dramatic effect on my nose. Normally I’m a sneezy, slobbery mess. Instead my nose is so dry I’ve had a couple nose bleeds and it’s itchy and painful at times. It’s really quite a bother.
Aside from that, everything is going great. Well, one of the dogs has Kennel Cough. Other than THAT, everything is going great.
We’re in full vacation swing now. My favorite daughter has something planned for pretty much each and every day left of her summer vacation. That leads us up to Volleyball tryouts and then practice begins before school starts.
Our AC went out. Not the AC unit but the blower on the central system. Had a guy come and he’s working on that while I’m eating my lunch. He also fixed the water dispenser/ice maker on the fridge. It wasn’t getting any water or making any ice. That will all change now and we can stop going through bottled water like it’s going out of style. Hopefully he’ll have the blower fixed in short order as well. Fortunately we had it for the hottest days and it’s cooler and breezier today.
I got some more writing done yesterday. I still need to knock out a lot of words before I’ll be caught up to where I’d like to be. It’s so great to look at my goal and see that I’m only 150,000 away from hitting it. I still need to figure out what prize I’m going to give myself when I hit that eventual goal. I’ll keep you posted on that.
The Millican and I played some online poker again. The wife and my favorite daughter were getting their hair done so he and I hit the computers and tried to outdo one another. Remember, it’s only play money. I’m currently at around $140K and he’s up around $150K. It’s a battle! Who can get to a million first! We’ll just have to wait and see.
My writing partner is still on holiday. The slacker. I think he gets back on the 23rd. I leave on the 26th. So I need to make sure I have my action pack episode recorded and ready to go. Then I need to pester Scott Roche to get his latest episode so I can assemble it all next week and Mr. Plestd can get it uploaded for the 1st. That will put us back on track. It’ll be nice to have that project back where it belongs.
I recently submitted a story to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM). I love their submission process. You send them a story as an attached RTF via email (formatted to their liking) and they reply back with a number. That number you then take to their website and you see where you fall in the queue. You can follow your stories progress and see how it advances. They’re usually very fast with turn around time. Hopefully this latest story will take a bit longer to return to me. This would be a great market to break into. It’s not the big time, but for short stories, it’s damn close.
There is a lot to do, food to eat, ducks to download pictures of, work to get back to.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Weekly Rant: You’re just not that important.
The other day I had an epiphany. No, really. I have these from time to time. What came to my mind as another person bumped into me at the grocery store right after someone bumped me with their cart (neither apologized) was that I wasn’t that important to these people. I was so insignificant that I didn’t even deserve an apology for them running into me. And you know what, you’re not that important either.
I had to think hard about this. Who is the most important person I know? I know a lot of people and many of them are considered important, but if something happened to that important person, I would still carry on. If something happened to me! Hey, I’m the most important person I know. If something happens to me then I’m in trouble. So the most important person in my life is me.
This may sound selfish, but hey, it’s my life and yes, I’m concerned about it.
But I also consider myself a considerate person. I care about others and try to look out for other people. I apologize when I run into someone and I always try to make sure that I excuse myself when I get in someone else’s way. Many times this ‘excuse me’ when passing between a shopper and the products on the aisle goes unnoticed and that’s because…you guessed it, I’m not that important to the person I just passed in front of. Odds are they didn’t even hear what I said because I’m so unimportant to them that my words may have been a smelly breeze.
Some people take their own self importance to new levels where you might consider them rude, arrogant, self serving. Take driving for example. How often have you been in traffic and you’re in a long line for the exit ramp. You saw a long way off and got over in time to make your exit. But there are those people who insist on cutting in at the last minute. Why? Because their time is more valuable than yours, that’s why. They’re much more important than you are and where they need to get to is that much more important.
When I start to look at things from another’s perspective, it all starts to make sense. People aren’t jerks on purpose, they just think they are the most important person in that place in time. Those people that bump into you are the store? They didn’t even see you because you are that unimportant to them. What they’re there for is far more important than anything you could possible be there for and you’d best just stay out of their way.
There are also people who might be the nicest people you know. They might go to the store and they become so focused on what they need to get that they don’t even think about the other people around them. Odds are they don’t even see you. You might as well be a tree in their way because you aren’t what they need. How often have you bumped into a person I the store and didn’t even see that it was a friend from high school that you haven’t seen in 10 years? You probably passed by that person a dozen times in that same store and never even noticed them. This means you too suffer from I’m-more-important-than-you-itis.
Like I said, it affects everyone now and again. It affects some more often than others. Some don’t even know they have this condition and will insist they’re not trying to be rude, or inconsiderate, or inattentive.
Does this excuse this behavior? In my mind, no. I understand that living in a large city like San Diego you’re exposed to people on a constant basis and 99.9% of those people live lives that you know nothing about. That doesn’t make them any less important in this world than you. Oh, I know from time to time you’re in too big of a rush to care if you just cut someone off on the freeway, but it’s little actions like these that lead to bigger actions by the important person that you just cut off. Then you wonder why this person is so upset. You are, after all, in a hurry. You have somewhere to go, don’t you? They’re just in your way. They’re slowing you down. They not as important as you are.
Like I said, I’m as guilty as anyone of being one of these people from time to time, but I do make an effort to not be ‘that guy’ and be a little more considerate, a little more patient, a little more understanding. But there are times when enough is enough and one too many ‘important’ people will bump me and I’ll feel the need to say something. The last time this happened I turned and said ‘excuse me’ in a loud, rude tone and the little girl who could barely push the shopping cart looked at me, turn, and hugged momma. Yeah. I got an evil eye from mom. Made me feel so much less important.
So take with you that I understand that you’re the most important person in your life. Just take a moment when another person cuts you off, bumps into you, ignores you at a stop sign, that they are the more important person to them and where they need to go and what they need to do is the most important thing they could possibly be doing. If you take with you this understanding, what that person does will irk you just a little less.
Now go! And be un-important in the most important way you can!
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Because I’m a writer
Yesterday I wrote. I wrote because I love to write. I wrote in little bursts here and there and knocked out a couple thousand words. I didn’t have much free time as my favorite niece and nephew were here and my favorite daughter took them to the pool. They had great fun.
The wife took the Millican’s youngest daughter shopping for ‘stuff’ that they assembled for her Quincera. They cleared the table (where I have my laptop) and went to work assembling. We ate pasta, I took my favorite niece and nephew home, and we just sat and talked with the Millicans for a few hours. We talked about our previous trip to Oregon and our upcoming trip to Oregon.
The Millican’s mom lives in Oregon so we will drive up there, stay with her for a week, and drive back. There will be a stop in San Francisco either on the way up or the way back. I forget which. The Millican’s youngest son plays lacrosse and he’ll be up there playing. We should be able to catch a game. Hopefully I can get some clam chowder on the bay again.
I’m attempting to get over 60,000 words ahead of schedule before we go. That’ll be tough, but I think I can manage it. I need to write a couple thousand words a day and I hit that yesterday. I need to hit it again today. Preferable surpass it. I know I’ll have a lot of little obstacles in the way. Currently I’m only 45,000 words ahead of schedule. This means I’m good for a vacation, but I’d like to be even further ahead of that schedule. I’ve let a commitment slide and I don’t like that feeling. I need to get caught up and hopefully ahead of schedule.
My writing partner, Mike Plested, has been on Holiday. We have a couple of projects going and once he’s back, I’m out. So it’ll be a few weeks before he and I are back on track with all we have going on. We had a good head of steam going (steampunk pun intended) before I went out to Palm Desert and we just didn’t get back on track before he went and ran away. Ah well, summers are like that.
Today, I think, will see more progress on my writing. Or so I hope. I’m a hopeful kind of person. I should have some free time this evening and hopefully more free time later in the week to knock out a large number of words. I’m nearly done with the next episode of Golden West and I will jump right into the following episode before I dip my head back into Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I’ll also take care of my recording of both those episodes so I’ll be one month ahead and will try not to slip again this year.
With Of Gnomes and Dwarves, I’m just getting to the middle of the book. For many people, this is the slog before the storm. For me, this is where things are all coming together and will suddenly be exploding in all different directions. I’ve got the group assembled, they’re about to join another group. The war is brewing. Oh yeah, I’m having fun with this one. I really can’t wait to get back into it.
I’m still giving serious consideration to self-publishing Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I really think I’ve got a solid story that will do well once out into the wild. I’m going to start, when I get back from Oregon, looking at where good places are to do a blog tour, where I can get a great cover for it, I’ll look at doing the internal layout. I’ll need chapter graphics. I really want to do this book right when I release it. I’ll post the details as I work them out.
There’s a lot to do and more duck pictures to download.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Movie Review: The Hunger Games
I watched the Hunger Games this weekend. This movie has met with much acclaim and greeted by excited fans everywhere. People have been so excited to see this book get made into a movie. I’m glad they were excited. It’s usually a good thing when fans get excited about a book being made into a movie. Even if I did have a couple of issues with the book, I wanted to see the movie as well.
As a Viewer: I had recently read this book so I was excited to see how it translated to the big screen. There were several scenes in the book that I particularly though would look great on the big screen. They could do so many things. Sadly, my imagination is beyond what the filmmakers decided to run with. Some of the characters were far more over the top than they needed to be and others just didn’t live up to expectation. This isn’t a terrible thing, but for me it got the movie off to a bad start.
A lot of the beginning of the book was chopped up into bites that didn’t fit well together. I didn’t have a good feeling about any of the characters. I think this is because in the book a lot of what Katniss feels is all internalized and not vocalized. So it didn’t surprise me much, just made the start of the movie choppy at best. Now that I think about it, the whole film was choppy and not fully explained well during the telling of the story. I can see where they’re setting up for a sequel with some added scenes that were not in the book (those with the president and behind the scenes with the filming of the Hunger Games show). Those to me were jarring as I know they weren’t in the book.
But this is a movie. I enjoyed it for what it was: a poor translation of the book.
As a Writer: This movie stunk on ice. Maybe my expectations are too high these days, but the Hunger Games was a short enough book they could have told a more cohesive story. They eliminated a large number of things that made Katniss tick as a character. From her sister’s cat to Peter proclaiming his love for her and her astonishment that it wasn’t just an act for him as well. There was a lot left out from the book that made this movie clunky. If you hadn’t read the book I could see several spots (key spots) where you’d not fully understand the story. So much of the back story of the characters was glossed over that their motivations were only vaguely understood.
I also didn’t think it was as visually appealing as we could do in this day and age. From the effects to the costumes to the characters they missed the mark on several spots with this movie.
Yes, I’m getting cynical in my old age, but with the special effects we have available to us they could have done better with this one. For me, this movie was a swing and a miss.
Recommendation: Either don’t read the book and watch the movie or watch the movie and don’t read the book. This movie is a classic case of getting close, but missing both the mark and the point of the book. If you only watch the movie you’ll be confused about several key points .Perhaps if you watch the movie first then read the book you’ll like both. I’ve often found that when I read a book first the movie doesn’t live up to expectations. Overall I found the movie disappointing.
Daily Update: Sometimes there’s just a lot going on.
This weekend was a prime example of a lot of life happening all at one time.
Friday we went to a play. Art to Die For. Our friends the Farins were in the play. Well, Dad and his two daughters. They’ve done several performances at their church and this, in all the ones I’ve seen, was the funniest by far. The kids are getting really good and hit all their lines perfectly. One person in the play had several bit roles. He stole each scene he was in with a narcoleptic character, a sheik, a frenchman, and three or four other characters. There was audience participation, appetizers served by the cast (in characters) and, this time, no over the top religious theme. Being at a church they usually have a very religious theme/moral to the play. This one had a much lighter message.
Saturday we got up early, walked, got ready and went to Inflatable World. What? You’ve never been to Inflatable World? I’m sure it’s not just a local thing, but it’s a place here in San Diego where they have a number of inflatable slides/games. It’s $15 to get in and you can stay as long as you like and slide as many slides as you like. It was for, let me see if I can get this right, the wife’s niece’s fiance’s youngest son. I’m not sure how that makes him related to me, but he likes to be tossed in the air and swung around like a little monkey so that’s fine by me. Of course once you start to swing one kid in a circle a line forms and soon the kids thought I was one of the attractions. I swung kids until I saw one that I was pretty sure wasn’t part of the birthday party and decided it was a good time to stop.
Needless to say a lot of sun and fun (and a couple of beers) will wear you out. We went back home and the wife and my favorite daughter started to watch TV for a little bit. They both fell asleep. I played a large, online (free) poker tournament. I think I mentioned this already so I won’t go into greater detail. In summary, I got 17th out of a field of 600 players. It felt good to get that far just because you have so many random players in a free tournament like that.
Sunday was a lazy day. My brain has been hurting, I’ve had trouble waking up, I have just have no energy at all. So I took some downtime. The wife and my favorite daughter went and did some shopping with the Millican’s wife and youngest daughter. Me? I watched the Big Drop for One Drop. This was a $1,000,000 buy in tournament. I wanted to compare what they cut out of the 7+ hours of video I had watched earlier in the week. The entire event was broadcast live so I saw the entire final table. It was great to see how some hands were played and I learned a lot. When you look at the condensed version they really cut out a lot of good hands. I’d like to see more final tables where you get to see every hand play out, but that’d be a lot of poker to watch.
I will be watching the 2012 WSOP (World Series of Poker) this year. I didn’t watch last year except for the final table of the main event. There are a lot of other events and I plan to record and watch them all. I love me some poker.
Sunday I also watched The Hunger Games. I’ll be writing a review for that. My initial reaction, if you didn’t read the book, there are a number of confusing part. Overall it gets a ‘meh’ from me. I’ll explain in greater detail.
Then the wife, my favorite daughter, and the Millican’s wife and youngest daughter got back to the Millicans house and I went over there. We talked, we ate, The Millican and I played a little online poker, and finally we came home. I should have taken more naps this weekend, but at least today my brain feels like it’s firing on all cylinders once again. I’m liking it. I hope it’ll hold up all week. It’s going to be yet another long week. I can just tell already.
Sputtery Truck update: So the last three times I’ve driven Sputtery Truck (with great trepidation) the gauges all stayed where they were supposed to. No dings, bings, dongs, gongs, chimes, or other indications of sputteritis. Hopefully it’ll stay that way. I’ll be getting the brakes checked out before our big trip up to Oregon. More on that later.
I’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time to get it done.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: So Hungry
I watched the Hunger Games today. Review will follow. I also player a touch of online poker (play money, not real money). I didn’t write today. But i’m well reseted mentally and physically. I’m planning on a good surge of words next week. It won’t be nearly as a demanding week as the past three weeks have been.
I itching to write some fiction.
And post some duck pictures.
And post some writing prompts.
And….well…do more than I have these past few days.
Until Tomorrow!
Woo Woo!
Daily Update: So Much to do
Today was another busy busy day. Yesterday we did stuff until just after midnight. Tonight is just winding down. Well, OK, it wound down after a few hours and a couple beers into a kid’s birthday party. But it was a fun day.
I was too tired and my brain too frazzled to write earlier. I think it was a combination of the sun, the beer, and being crazy tired. The wife and my favorite daughter took a nap and I decided to play some online poker.
Yes, playing online for money is still banned, so I was playing a ‘play’ money game. 5200 buy in. Those usually get some of the more serious players. I play on poker stars as maus99 if you ever see me on there.
It was a good game tonight. Started out with 600 players. I dodged a few bullets like hold JJ and raising pre flop and three people pushed all in. That wasn’t an easy fold. I would have lost the hand. I would have won some other multi way all in action, but folded hands like 88 and 99 a few time to much bigger stacks pushing their weight around. I took several shots, doubled p here and other and hung on.
When it got down to around 30 players I was the big stack with 150,000 chips. More than 3 times the person in second place. These were the three next hands.
I got AA and raised. Three callers. Flopped a set of As and bet. One caller, fold, fold, all in, I called. Person had QJ. Board was AK2. I laughed until he hit a 10 on the river. No biggie, it was only 22,000. Next hand I had 55. Same person called my raise. Flop was 56k? The person shoved. I thought and finally called. He had 78 and hit his straight. That 44000 hurt, but I was still in first. Next had I had 77. Same person called again. Flop was 710A with two hearts. I shoved not wanting this person to draw out again. He called…again. with Q5 hearts and riveted a flush.
Sigh.
I was down to around 20000 after that. No mire big hands. Ran tight until 17th place and it was over. Ah well. It was fun while it lasted.
Tomorrow I will have a clearer head and get some writing done.
Until tomorrow!
Woo Woo!
Daily Update: Friday the 13th
Today is friday the thirteenth. Anyone got a black cat? Maybe a ladder I can walk under?
I have never been the superstitious type. Sure I have had some unexplained moments in my life but those have only ever served to creep me.out, not make me believe more in the super natural.
Well…that’s not exactly true. There is a case with my mom that I feel I need to go into greater detail with.
But not today. There are many things to do and places to go.
Until Tomorrow!
Woo Woo!
Unorthodox Writing Tips 37 – Getting Back on the Horse
I had a vacation. I also had a few days off before my vacation actually started where I was busy getting ready for my vacation. I also quite busy with work once I got back from vacation. All that meant I had precious little time to actually sit and write words. I wrote my daily blog posts, but I didn’t get any fiction written. That means that I have a long streak with no fiction writing.
Unfortunately that means I need to get myself back into the fiction writing mode. My fingers aren’t used to typing fast for long periods and I’m also not used to thinking ahead of where my fingers are typing. This is an interesting way of typing where my mind will actually be several words ahead of where my fingers are at so I’m always pushing forward. It’s just the difficulty of getting my brain back into that gear and now that I’ve had a number of days without doing this task, I need to get back on track.
How do I do that?
I’m so glad you asked.
I sit and write. No, seriously. It’s that simple. I keep saying that this writing stuff is as simple as just sitting and writing. I sat down and wrote a blog post. Those come easy for me and require little thought. I can just type and go for it. I then wrote a movie review, then a book review, then another book review. With each of these they 1) added to my annual word count and 2) got me back into typing fast and getting ready to jump back into my fiction.
The story had already been written so I know what’s going to happen. I just need to sit and let the action happen. The words will come out fast and furious. It’s all about practice and there’s nothing better than just sitting and doing. For me it doesn’t matter if I haven’t written for 5 days, 20 days, or 3 years. If I don’t sit and write I know it’ll only be that much harder tomorrow. Each day I let slip is a day that I’m not practicing and a day that I need to work at getting better again. It’s not like riding a bike. You don’t ride a bike for years and you can just hop back on and go. With writing you need to be actively thinking ahead and knowing what you’re going to write so when you get there it’ll flow along better. Sure you can write a lot in one sitting, but if you’re not writing on a consistent basis, it’s that much harder to get to the end.
At least for me it is.
I’m sure there are some people that can write brilliantly by writing once a month and cranking out 5000 or 10000 words in a sitting. I write a couple thousand words a day (on average, in fact of this writing I’m averaging only 1447 words per day due to a slow start and vacations) and I’ve written over 280000 words so far this year. That means if you write 10000 words a month you’ll have 120,000 words. Slow and steady is getting me up to my goal and beyond what I could do with burst writing. I used to burst write. I’d write a lot over a couple of days, then nothing for a couple weeks, then a lot over a couple of days. I’d get about 100,000 words done and I’d be fine with that. I’m no longer content with just writing what I now consider such a small amount. I want to, NAY! I need to write more than that. This is what’s driving me to write as much as I am. To prove that I can do it and to keep doing it over an extended period of time.
Remember, I’m doing this as a part time job meaning that I need to spend time as often as possible and write. Writing a little bit each day is serving me better than writing a lot only a few times a year. It’s also helping me get better because I’m at it daily and not just poking away a block here and a block there.
Back to my point, being that I haven’t really stopped writing something on a daily basis I was able to sit down and get back at it a little faster than I used to. Back when I burst write it might take me a couple of days of looking at the screen before I found the motivation to write. Now I have the motivations at my finger tips and can just sit and go. It feels great. It really took a long time to make this a habit of sitting down daily and writing. They say that it takes at least six months of doing something before it becomes a fully formed habit. I’m over that six month mark and I see no signs of stopping.
Hopefully I won’t fall off the horse often. Vacations will do that, but I know now that I can sit and write after I get back. My fiction is there waiting for me. The characters are calling me. I can hear their voices inside my head begging me to get them through their adventure. I’d better heed their call.
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Running out of Gas
I’m sitting here trying to think of what to write for my daily update. Some days this is a piece of cake and snap, bang, done. It’s out there and I didn’t even need to think about it. Then there are days like yesterday and today where I have to think really hard about what I’m going to day and until I actually dig in, nothing comes out. It’s not really writer’s block in the fact that I can sit here and type words, but I’m just dipping into the bottom of the barrel and not finding anything worth posting about.
Oh, sure, I’ve got a lot to say, a lot of things on my mind. There’s a lot going on. It’s just a matter of trying to get everything together into coherent thought and onto the page. I can sit here for minutes looking at the screen, surfing youtube videos, listening to music, reading blog posts. I did a lot of that last night. Watched some poker videos. I watched the live (well, it was recorded) one drop event. The first half anyway. It’s over 7 hours of video showing how each hand plays out.
Then I get to thinking I miss poker. I played a couple play money tournaments last night. Wasn’t as much fun as I thought it was going to be, but after my win on Friday I keep thinking how much I miss poker.
And ComiCon is in town this week. It started last night. Several big names whose blogs I follow are in town. I won’t be getting to see them, but I’ll follow along virtually and see all that’s happening. Just to name a few, Brandon Sanderson, John Scalzi, Wil Wheaton, Mark Evanier, George R. R. Martin. There’s going to be a lot going on this year and I’ll be missing out.
It’s by choice though. We had a couple family vacations already planned and adding in comic con to the cost and time off just wasn’t in the budget. I’ve been to ComiCon several times and each time it’s only gotten bigger. Even though I live in San Diego I would have stayed at a hotel downtown to walk in rather than try to drive in each day. Perhaps next year, but this year it’s just not in the cards.
Last year I did manage to go meet with a couple deadpanites (visit jackmangan.com if you’re wondering what that’s all about) and we had a great lunch, some wonderful conversations, and many jokes about my big truck. Yes, that would be Sputtery Truck as I call him nowadays.
So I’m going to keep today’s post shorter than usual. Oh, wait. Am I? Pfft.
See what I mean, it’s just a matter of sitting down and letting the fingers do the work. Speaking of work, my lunch break is over. I’d better get back at it.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 