J.R. Murdock

Today will see me back on track. I was going to write last night, but two things prevented me. Well, three really. One was my favorite daughter. Two was my favorite nephew. Three was Spiderman.

Yes, that web-head prevented me from writing last night. The kids were in the house all day watching TV and playing video games. I figured I’d gt them out of the house for a little bit. So I ran my errand that truly put a slice of my life behind me and took those two to the movies. The wife wasn’t in the mood for Spiderman so it was the kids and I. At least until I sent a text to the Millican and he joined us. I will be doing a review on the movie soon. Just as I’ll be doing reviews on the books I’ve read lately.

But like the title says, back on track. I’ll be spending as much time as I can getting back on track. Although I’ve been doing daily writing with my blog posts, I haven’t been writing fiction daily. Vacation did that for me. I’m still way far ahead of my annual goal so I’m not worried yet. I do need to get further ahead before my next vacation hits at the end of this month. After that work will be ramping up and I’ll have another major project to work on so I need to take advantage of a light work day where (at the end) my brain will be clear and I’ll be ready to rock and roll.

As I’ve said before I haven’t stopped plotting and planning in my brain. This will help so when I actually sit and do my daily writing it’ll go that much faster. I’ve already had entire conversations with the characters in my head, seen where they’re going. I know what they’re going to do. I don’t have any surprises in store at this point. At least not for me. That’s the joy of plotting even if it’s only in my head. I’m frustrated that I haven’t written as much as I would have liked, but still, I’ve made progress.

There are a lot of words ahead of me before I hit my annual goal and they’re not going to write themselves. So…

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Yesterday was more of a celebration of freedom yesterday for me. As I have mentioned (and been very vague about) I have a been dealing with a personal matter that has no w been resolved. I’m quite happy about this. It’s a burden off my mind and a lot of stress that will now go away.

Now I will be able to deal with Sputtery Truck which seems to have a failing oil pump. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. That’s kinda how life works, right?

Even so, I can still get back to writing as much as I possibly can. I’ve allowed things to back up through vacation and personal issues and now that those are past me, it’s time to press on. The good thing about the vacation; I was able to get some reading done. That helped prime the pump for wanting to get back into writing and gave me some ideas and directions for the stories I’m working on. I have many reviews that I need to write up, but those will have to wait for the time being. I do want to do them while the stories are still fresh in my mind. I’d hate to let my thoughts slip from my mind.

Speaking of my mind… wait, what was I thinking about? Ducks? Writing? Reading? Hmmm.. I’ll figure it out sooner or later.

Last night here in San Diego we had fireworks. Sadly 5 minutes before 9PM (when the fire works were to start) a whole bunch of brilliant flames shot up from the bay. It was amazing and brilliant and really cool to watch. Then at 9PM the fireworks started and somehow there was no finale. The radio station that sponsored the fireworks this year announced their apology that the finale was set off prior to the actual start of the fireworks. I’m hoping someone recorded then and will edit them to they way they’re supposed to be.

We watched them from my father-in-law’s house. No, he does live on the bay, but he re-did his patio cover and put a deck on top of it. So from up there the entire family gathered and we could see all the firework locations at one time. Some were a little further away and not as brilliant, but it was still amazing to watch. Instead of trying to fight traffic to a certain location, I think this will become our 4th of July tradition. We were able to watch baseball, talk, eat, drink, and relax before the show so it was really nice.

For now I need to get some work done, run an errand later today, and then it’s all about the writing. And Ducks!

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Too much on my mind. I’m still tired from vacation. My mother-in-law is a little under the weather. The wife is sick. My favorite daughter had to go to the doctor because she’s sick. I’m just tired and glad I’m not sick. I also have a personal issue to deal with this week that’s hanging over my head.

Plus I have a bundle of writing that I’d love to get done but just haven’t had those free minutes here or there to take care of them. It’s frustrating. I want to write, but just am unable.

Not want, NEED! I have things waiting for me to get them done. I need to do some recording. All that fun stuff. Once this week is over I should start having free time once again until the end of the month when I take another vacation up North this time to Oregon. I need to try and crank out as many words as possible between now and then. This week just isn’t cooperating. I’ll see if I can do some words tomorrow but I’m not holding my breath.

Stress and lack of time. That’s what’s happening to me this week. I’d love to tell you more about it, but like I said, there just isn’t time. I don’t even have time to download pictures of ducks. Dang!

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Am I having trouble getting back into my writing because of writer’s block? Pfft, please. I’m stressing out because I just plain don’t have time right now to write. As I mentioned I’m busy taking care of a personal issue that will be resolved this week. Once it’s done I’ll be free (hopefully) of personal issues for a while. I’m hopeful, but sputtery truck is having other ideas.

We took Sputtery Truck to Palm Desert and now it’s having an oil pressure issue. It stays level for the most part, but will drop when the truck idles after running for 30-40 minutes. This is new and might be as simple as an oil pump, or it might be Satan trying to take over my vehicle and make me pay for something I did wrong in another life. I’m guessing the first. On the plus side the check engine light has been off for the past couple of tank fills so it’s possible that might have run its course.

So on while on vacation I didn’t do much in the way of posting. Well, I posted, but I didn’t really post much due to being so freaking tired and crazily busy. We did so much while on vacation. We had a total of 7 rooms (6 studios and a two bedroom). The studios ran from Saturday to Saturday. The Two bedroom ran from Sunday to Sunday. So we drove out Saturday morning and came back the following Sunday. A total of 8 days in Palm Desert. The coolest day was around 101, the warmest around 107. We really had a great time spending it with the wife’s family. The kids loved playing in the pool and going and seeing the sights. Each day we’d spend at least a little time in the pool (we visited all three at the resort) and we tried to get out and do something every day.

We went up the tram to 8516 feet and looked back down on Palm Springs and Palm Desert. This is where I had my little tumble. Yes, I fell on my ass. I fell HARD! I saw stars. I blacked out for a moment. I tried to get up because I didn’t want the little ones to see I’d fallen and gotten hurt. I fell back down. I had trouble getting up. My nephew, the one pushing the table I was pulling, tried to help me up and that was not easy. I’d lost feeling in my leg for a minute and couldn’t put any weight on it. Then I got that severe pain nausea and putting my head between my legs didn’t really help. I still have the pain when I sit wrong or twist wrong. I’m sure it’ll go away. The Millican said the stars and blacking out is due to a concussion. I feel like a sports star now. Except I just fell down. On my butt. Hmm.

Another thing we did several times while on this vacation was play spoons. If you’ve never plays spoons you’re missing out a fun game. You only need three things. A deck of cards, a table full of people, and one less spoon than you have people. You deal out the cards until they’re gone. Everyone should have 5 or 6 cards when you’re done (doesn’t need to be even). The spoons go in the middle of the table (a round table works best, but any table will work). Then someone yells ‘GO’. This is when you get to look at your cards. You need to move quickly. Passing one card to your right, picking up one from your left. The goal is to get four of a kind. Once you have four of a kind you grab a spoon. OR! If you see someone grab a spoon, you grab a spoon. The one person without a spoon is the loser and gets a rousing dose of pointing and laughing at how slow and clumsy they are. Yes, everyone will get laughed at one or more times. There are a couple spoon strategies. One is to keep track of your cards and work for the four of a kind so you get your spoon first. Bragging rights are always fun. Another is to watch the spoons and just keep the cards rotating. Your watchful eye will almost always ensure you get a spoon. Another strategy is to fake getting a spoon in the hopes of getting someone else to grab a spoon and point and laugh at tricking them. Spoon grabbing can be sneaky (to see how long people keep playing until they realize a spoon is gone) or lashing out and yelling something like “PAZAH!” or something equally moronic.

Drinking is encouraged while playing spoons.

We also took a trip out to Palm Canyon. We’d (the wife, my favorite daughter, and I) been to Palm Canyon, the resort, many times but in late July or August. It’s so hot they actually close the canyon to visitors. This time we got to go in. It is great back in there and not too spendy. We took snacks and sandwiches and lots of water and watermelon. We had planned on spending as much time out there. The kids were having a great time in the pool so we figured they’d have fun playing in hot sand. Well.. Ok…we hoped for water.

We got lucky and the guides pointed us to a natural pool up the Andreas Canyon. There was a small stream and a nice little depression. At its deepest it was waist deep and got down to shin high. It was perfect for the kids. The played, chased bugs, swam, ate, chased lizards. I got to see a hawk (or another bird of prey) eating something up on a cliff. It was on the cliff, not me. I also didn’t get in the water because I was still healing from my earlier fall and didn’t want to fall on my keister again. Instead I played with rocks and built up the dam and others joined into the fun.

As a kid I used to build dams anywhere I could so this was a lot of fun, but we couldn’t stay there all day. We’d gotten there earlier enough but when we walked away from the shade of the palms and the coolness of the water we got the full blast of hot air. Wow, I didn’t think it was that much cooler but it was at least twenty to thirty degrees cooler by the water.

The family left on the 7th day and the Millicans arrived the night before. With the two bedroom we had ample room for everyone and it was great fun having them out. We spent some time at the pool, time napping (there were many naps while out at Palm Canyon) and ate much and finally went to play at one of the local casinos. It was the Morongo Casino. No, you didn’t read that wrong. The Casino is called MORON! GO! And we went and lost a bit of money. It was a rather sketchy casino. We saw a person carrying their girlfriend (we assumed) who was holding her nose as if she’d been hit. They were being followed by security. I saw two guys talking up a couple of girls in extremely short skirts and got bored and walked off. Gee, I wonder what their profession was. The guys looked astonished their negotiations failed. We also saw three people in three different places in handcuffs. Yeah, it lived up to its name. It was fun to be out with the Millicans, but next time we’ll find a better casino to attend.

Finally there was time to come home. We cleaned, packed, and hit the road. We had breakfast at Burgers and Beer. Oh hell yeah! If I wasn’t driving I totally would have had another beer for breakfast, but being that we were driving home I had to pass on a beer. I did have enough throughout the week. We took the back way through the mountains and just enjoyed the trip home.

I also read a lot during the week. I finished a number of works that I will review in the coming days. Next week will see the start of a new weekly update where I’ll speak my mind on a given topic. Have a topic for me? Send it along. I’ll also begin with my daily writing prompts as well as my daily duck. That’s right, you’ll see more from me. Got a picture (or more) of ducks, send them on over. Seen the ducks in the news? Send them on over. Got a great story about ducks? Send them on over. This won’t always be about me. It’ll be a lot of fun. If you have a writing prompt send those over as well? If you send me either I’ll be sure to send link them back to you. You don’t have to have a blog or be an author to participate. This is just for fun.

I need to get at some actual writing.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

I’m not just saying that. Last week was vacation. It was relaxing. I did a LOT of things I hadn’t done in Palm Desert before and many things I’d done before. Some time tomorrow I will write it up. For now my brain is much. I’ve got the computer set back up (I had packed it up when we cleaned the house before we left on vacation.) It feels like meeting an old friend.

My daily updates I did on either my cell phone of my tablet. I wasn’t really a fan of either. They worked better for reading as I pounded through two and a half books and a few short stories. Lots of reading happened and it felt great. Been a while since I cracked a book and got through it so quickly. I’ll be writing book reviews for everything I read.

We didn’t see any movies. We did see a lot of sights and it’ll be fun to write about them. Not as much fun as actually being there, but fun to recall them and see what I do recall about the events after they all happened.

This week will be hell week. It’s 4th of July in the states and I have Wednesday off, but Monday night and Tuesday night I have a LOT I need to take care of. It will be up very early for the day job, work my ass off trying to get caught up with everything that happened while I was out, and working off on getting a personal issue resolved before Wednesday or on Wednesday. Fortunately once this issues is over, it’s over. It’s been hanging over my head and it’ll be nice to see if gone.

I also need to record and assemble the next episode of the Action Pack Podcast. Yes, it’s my fault it’ll be late again. But once I have my personal issue resolved, it’ll be full steam ahead until my vacation at the end of July. Yes, another week off. Hopefully I can get a crazy amount ahead of my word count again. That’ll be nice to be as far ahead of the game as I was.

Then I need to meet with my writing partner, Mr. Plested, and we have a secret project we really need to get working on. I have a website to redesign for my aunt. I have to get My Teacher is a Werewolf out into the wild. I need to get Moving at the Speed of Thought out into the wild. I need to get a lot of writing done.

July is shaping up to be a crazy busy month and it’s only the first! I love it! I’m as relaxed as I’m going to get and I’m ready to sit and do some typing! I also need to get my daily duck posts going. Get my weekly article going. Get my daily writing prompt going. Record a couple more Unorthodox Writing Tips for Mr. Plested.

Yeah, I’ve got my work cut out for me. I’d better get at it. Or go to bed and get at it tomorrow. I think that’s a better idea.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!