UWT 26 – Experience Something Small
Inspiration and motivation can be found everywhere. You don’t even have to be looking for it, but if you are looking, sometimes the motivation is easier to find. It gets even easier if you have some idea of what you’re looking for.
I want you to do something for me. Get down on your hands and knees and look around. Don’t just look, but move your hands around. Perhaps you even want to gather what you find into a little pile for closer inspection. Just get yourself down there and take a look. It’s your floor. You don’t need gloves on to perform this exercise. What did you find?
On my floor it’s a combination of dog hair, people hair, a small dust bunny, some dirt, dried spots of water or something (I’m not sure what) but I also have hard wood floors. These things are common enough and float around all the time. If I work my way around the floor, I’m liable to run into at least one ant (I hate ants) and at least one spider. I’m sure I’ll find other bugs if I spend enough time down there, but my knees are old and don’t get around as easily as they used to.
You can perform this same exercise in the rest of your house, but how much fun is that? Go outside. Let’s get our hands dirty a little. You’ve got a patch of grass don’t you? Even if it looks dead or even if it is dead, go a diggin’. There’s always a great collection of bugs to be found if you look hard enough. Anthills are everywhere. What else can you find on the ground outside? What trash is there? Do you pick it up or movie it aside? Perhaps now would be a good time to go get those gloves. Is the trash fresh or has it been well weathered? Do you see foot prints? Can you make out the broken blades of grass? Are some blades partially eaten? Perhaps a clump has been dug up and the roots exposed. Are weeds starting to take over or are they the main covering for the ground? Perhaps you’re looking in your flowerbed and can identify the budding plants or sprouts.
Let’s get even smaller. Now that you’re outside on your hands and knees look closer at the ground, the plants, the bugs. How are they interacting with their environment? Is there a social community down there? Perhaps some piece of trash is more than just an obstacle, it’s a complete road block for some bugs. Move things around, change up the environment. Don’t just leave things they way they were. Look at that spot from different angles. If you have one, get a magnifying glass. Look even closer and see what separates one section of dirt from another. See how the plants interact.
Are you dizzy yet? Usually when I look at something tiny for a length of time it’ll mess with my head. I get a different perspective though. Even though I hate ants, I still will watch them even when feeding them a solution of boric acid and sugar mixed with enough water to make a watery paste. I’ll watch the ants drink and their abdomens swell with the bluish goo. I’ll see where they’re coming from, where they’re going, they’ll stop and tap antenna and continue on their way. I know they’re taking the bait back to their nest and I find that fascinating. How quickly I’ll have a small path of ants transformed into a mass of little soldiers all eating away.
But it’s not all about bugs and weeks. You can do this with anything. Look closer at your furniture. Really, look closer at the fabric of your couch. How does the light reflect when you brush the fabric one direction and then the other. Can you see the texture of the paint on your wall if you look close enough. What about the grain of the wood of your chairs, your floor, your banister, the texture of your carpet or rug. Look closely at a painting on your wall, or the ink of a pen on paper, the fabric of your curtains. If you look close enough, you can make out a lot more than just what your eyes are seeing.
What will this accomplish? It’ll get you thinking of things more than just what you initially grasp. As a kid I used to spend time with tiny cars and running over bugs, piling up dirt, mixing things together with my miniature world and seeing how things blended together. As a kid I wouldn’t even know what I was doing and I’d be staring close at something with my eyes crossed trying to get a better look at what it was. I loved looking at money and seeing all the different grains, patterns, colors.
Take something you have experienced and drop it into your writing. It doesn’t have to be the tiniest thing you find, but perhaps your character is sweeping the floor and a bug skitters out of the way. What kind of bug was it? What did you see on your floor? Or outside? Did something make you jump? Wrinkle your nose in disgust? Move faster than you expected? Perhaps you’re not even sure what it was that you saw but it acted like a bug, but was really something completely different.
Maybe you can even take it a step further. Look at the movie, The Incredible Shrinking Man. His entire world became the small and microscopic. Those little things out of the way. Even looking at more current movies like A Bug’s Life and Antz, or shows like Rescue Rangers. Everything tiny has a purpose and meaning beyond it’s ordinary, mundane purpose. Work it into a story and see where you can go with it. Put things together in a way that might not make sense at first, but will make sense one you have the idea more fully formed.
Don’t take the smallest thing you can see for granted. It’s there. If you get down there and look, it’s there. Why?
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Non-Dairy Creamer
Yesterday was a good day. I’m nearly complete with My Teacher is a Werewolf. I’m in the wrap up part of the story and I plan on introducing a little something that’ll carry over into the next story.I do intend to continue with the series. These characters are just too much fun to give up on now. The pacing is right, the flow is right, the interactions are fun. The entire thing just works.
I had made a comment to my favorite daughter last night while I was writing about the werewolf. I told her I just made one of the characters tell the werewolf “Imma pop a cap in your ass.” My favorite daughter, ever the witty one, came back with “You’re writing ‘My Teacher is a Donkey’?” Oddly enough it took me a moment to get that one, but oh did I laugh. I’m raising this one right. 🙂
I made her breakfast this morning and a little butter from the spatula dribbled down the side of the pan and snapped, crackled, and popped. As it caught fire my brain went from oh, it’s non-dairy butter and it burns. That’s sort of like non-dairy creamer that burns. That reminds me of a time in high school…
My friend and I were at Denny’s. At the time I didn’t drink coffee (I only did for a short time in the Navy). We both had lighters, but didn’t smoke (I didn’t start that until I was in the Navy and quit 6 years later). We had issues with lighting things on fire. Small things we could watch burn. We even turned lighters into rockets by lighting one end on fire.
We cleaned out the packs of sugar and non-dairy creamer. Not sure to this day why we did that. I know we used to do sugar shots (something my favorite daughter now does). As for the non-dairy creamer, well, I think we took them just to take them.
Later that day we were setting empty sugar packets on fire. We melted a pile of sugar. We lit a pack of non-dairy creamer on fire. All of this was very non-exciting, but made us giggle. Until that fateful moment when my friend put some non-dairy creamer in his hand and tried to lite it on fire. In his hand. Yeah, we weren’t the brightest tools in the shed. Of course he burned his hand and when he felt pain, he threw the non-dairy creamer.
If you know anything about non-dairy creamer and fire you can imagine the result. It wasn’t a lot, but the small, crackly fireball was cool enough that we went through all the packets of non-dairy creamer very quickly and needed to get more.
Over the next week we collected many-a-packet from Denny’s and were usually not to be found without a few. One day my friend had a lot in his pocket and we both had a non-class that we could get by without going to. He emptied all the packets into my hands and I went to the second floor. He stood at the bottom and lit his lighter. I very slowly allowed the non-dairy creamer to fall between my hands. Very slowly. I kept my eye on everything. I wanted to make sure it fell at an even rate. This was going to be…
DUDE!
I looked down and saw the column of fire climbing quickly toward me. Being a sensible kid, I threw the remaining non-dairy creamer into the air to make sure it didn’t get on me.
Side note, this was in the day before cameras in schools and inefficient fire systems.
I hit the deck as the billowing mass of non-dairy creamer erupted into a giant fireball. I could only watch and laugh nervously as it rolled across the ceiling. My friend, wise as he was, ran up the stairs. He and I did our best to look nonchalant as we double-timed it to the class we should have been in. We were only in there for five or ten minutes before the bell rang and everyone poured into the hallway. It was difficult not to laugh as people exclaimed about the disgusting smell in the hall and wondered what had happened in the science class. It may have only been the two of us that noticed the large black stain on the ceiling.
I’ve known about non-dairy creamer since the 80s. So it was surprising when I watched the mythbusters episode where the created a non-dairy creamer cannon. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard during an episode. Sure they’re always filled with laughs (square wheels, 55 gallon drum rockets, well almost everything they do on the show), but this one struck home with me because I’d been there. Done that. Just not nearly as large as they did. Here’s the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRw4ZRqmxOc.
It’s funny how something so mundane can get your brain running in an entirely different direction. Today I was going to blog about ducks. Perhaps I’ll do that tomorrow.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: A little rain and some exciting news
I hate to be a tease, but I got some exciting news last night. Not just one piece, but two pieces. I can’t share either of them until they come to fruition, but rest assured that once I know for sure that I can talk about either one, you’ll be the first to know.
I went on a magazine subscribing spree. I figure for two bucks a month, these magazines were well worth it. I picked up Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Apex. I might get Popular Science, but I’m not sure yet. If you like short fiction, pick up a subscription or two. If you know of any others that I might be interested in, please let me know. I passed on Analog and Asimov’s. I had subscriptions to them before, but the fiction was too explainy and difficult to get through. Maybe at some point in the future if I can keep up on a good reading schedule I’ll circle back around and pick up subscriptions to those as well.
Speaking of a reading schedule. As I had said before I’m subscribed to a LOT of blogs. These average over 200 posts per day. I don’t read them all as many either don’t interest me, are duplicates, or the summary is enough and I don’t read the entire blog. I’ve been reading on my tablet every day multiple times per day rather than play angry birds as much as I did. I know I need to consume more reading material to produce more reading material. To me it just makes sense and it seems to be working so I’ve set myself a new goal. To read 10% of a given book a day. That means every 10 days I should be able to complete a novel. I also picked up the magazines so I can look at what they’re publishing and hopefully I’ll be able to produce something for them to publish.
What I’ve noticed is that writing is easier when I’m reading more. So I’ll be keeping at it. I like laying down and reading for a little bit before I go to bed. I like reading when I first wake up. It gets words flowing through my brain and I’m learning to read faster and faster on my tablet. At first I was having difficulty. Silly me. Now that I read in portrait instead of landscape it’s far easier to read. I’m still messing with the font size to try and get it right. All in all I’m loving reading on the tablet more than I had before and far and away better than having an actual book in my hands. I will try to review all that I read. We’ll see how that goes.
I broke 160,000 words on the year. I’m very happy with this word count but now that I feel like I’m writing faster I want to see how far ahead of my goal I can get. I’ll be taking a couple of vacations during the summer and I’ll need those days off to be accounted for when I get to the end.
Speaking of writing, I’d better get at it. I fixed a couple issues with some code I was writing so my mind is relaxed. The rain came so the crushing pressure in my head is gone. I just need a little food and I’ll get onto that writing stuff that I’m enjoying so much.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Some times the smallest thing can throw you off.
Yesterday was the one day a week I go into the office. I’ve said before that I love my job. The rest of the days the past couple of weeks have been long days. Either up early or up late trying to get an issue resolved with work.
Being that I went into the office yesterday I packed everything up and went in. That means I put my laptop, my tablet, mouse, mouse pad, secudeid, everything. I pack it all into my computer bag and head off to work early in the morning.
Yesterday went well except I still hadn’t corrected the issue I’d been working on. Frustrated I packed up from the office, headed out to get my favorite daughter from school, and went home to log back on and do some more work before I took her to volleyball practice (more on that in a minute).
All the way home something nagged at me. I’d forgotten something. I knew I had forgotten something but I could not figure out just what it was. I thought long and hard, but it just kept escaping me. You know that feeling.
I picked up my favorite daughter, got home, and set up my laptop. I plugged it in and placed the secureid in its spot. I powered on, plugged it in. Set down the mouse pad. Reached in to where my mouse should be. Didn’t find it. Looked into the bag. Didn’t see it. Dug around. It wasn’t there. It just wasn’t there. I did not have my mouse.
Now my mouse isn’t anything special. Well, not really. It’s got a few more extra thumb buttons and I have those programmed for specific tasks. There’s Back and Forward for the browser, but I also have alt+tab programmed in as well as CTRL+F5. This helps me type code and two mouse clicks and I can refresh a web page quickly. I’m used to it. It’s habit for me. I love my mouse. There are a couple other things programmed in the mouse as well.
So I found a mouse we had gotten for my favorite daughter when up in Oregon last year. It’s acrylic with a June Bug in it. It’s got two buttons and a scroll wheel. It’s a mouse. It’s not MY mouse though. My mouse is a laser mouse, this one is an optical mouse. My mouse is cordless. This one has a cord. My mouse is black. This one has a literal bug in it and glows red and yellow or green or blue depending on where it’s in the rotation.
What I’m getting at is I’m used to my mouse and how it acts. So far since plugging this thing in I’ve wanted to throw it across the room, wrap it in duct tape, beat it on the table. It’s distracting because of the flashing colors. It’s distracting because of the bug. Those things I can handle. The buttons are connected with a single piece of plastic that wiggles all over the place. The roller is so sensitive that it I roll too hard it clicks. Being an optical mouse on a mouse pad specifically designed for a laser mouse means it hops, skips, and jumps around the screen at whatever speed it wants.
Yes, I want my mouse back. I almost drove into the office to get mine. I almost went to Office Depot to get a new one. I figured this is a good lesson for me to not forget my mouse in the office anymore. So I sit and I struggle and I fight with this mouse. I’ll grumble about it until I have my own mouse back.
So my favorite daughter’s ankle is doing well. She can walk mostly normal now. She’s still got a slight limp. I didn’t think she was going to go to practice last night giving me a free night to either work on my problem from work or to get in some much needed writing time to finish off My Teacher is a Werewolf (I’m building to the confrontation scene!). In many ways I’m glad she decided to go. She was there to help the coach and cheer the other girls on. I could tell it pained her to not practice with the rest of the team. Even though I didn’t get to do what I wanted to do, I’m very happy I took her to practice. It’s not always about me. 🙂
Speaking about me. I did manage to get that issue resolved with a hybrid solution. Just one solution didn’t work so I mixed a couple together and that appears to be working. I will be doing a lot of testing tomorrow. But for now, I’m going to see how many words I can get written in a short amount of time.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: I’m a klutz.
My hope is that my favorite daughter isn’t a klutz like her father is. Today I have a sunburn (well, that’s not klutzy, that’s just stupidity) a big toe that I’m pretty sure is broken, a stabbed finger from opening packages from Black and Decker, a cardboard cut down my arm from moving boxes from Black and Decker (and hot holding it tightly enough that is slipped down my arm, and who knows what else I’m forgetting.
As a kid I was always hurt at some point or another. This is one of the reasons I avoid many things life has to offer. Like performing sports. I’ve taken more than one baseball to the face with failure to field correctly. I’m confident that I could injure myself during a game of badminton. OH NO! A SHUTTLECOCK! I even had my share of injuries during track and field where all I had to was run in a large oval. Back then tracks weren’t specialized rubber compounds, they were asphalt and hurt like the Dickens.
The reason I worry about this? My favorite daughter spent yesterday at home from school because it was too painful for her to walk on her sprained ankle. The swelling has gone down and last night she was able to limp around with minimal pain, but still, she is my kid. Who knows what’ll happen next.
I have a large number of scars from my childhood. Being a curious child I like to see what would happen when I, oh I don’t know, would take a lighter and light a broken nylon rope on fire from an old swing set. Then I’d be stupid enough not to move my hand out of the way as flaming, dripping nylon targeted my hand. Yes, still have those reminders. Or the time we got a riding lawn mower stuck in a large bush (don’t ask) and I had to push the gas pedal by hand as we struggled to get it down again. Of course my hand slipped and stuck to the muffler just above the gas pedal.
As I’ve said before, I grew up in the sticks. I’m amazed that I’ve never broken any major bones given the number of other injuries I suffered. Nails through the feet. Heck yeah. Barbed wire to the shins. Check. Falling off of animals as they walked (horses, donkeys, other kids). More often than I’d like to admit. Opening something (door, window, bottle of soda). Well, you get the point.
I’m not sure if it was just carelessness or if I truly attracted accidents. There didn’t even need to be anything around and I would trip over my own two feet. I’m surprised that my mother allowed me to go swimming in the lake where I swallowed my own body weight in water over the years. Yeah. I’m sure I”m immune to anything water can dish out.
I just hope my favorite daughter heals quickly. I also hope this isn’t going to be a trend. This is her most serious injury thus far and she’s been playing volleyball pretty intensely. With three practices a week and two tournaments a month, there have been a lot of chances for things to go awry. Perhaps I’m just overly sensitive because she was home all day, sitting in front of me, reading a book. My fingers ached as I kept waiting for her to get a paper cut.
No wonder I work with computers and love ebooks so much. Speaking of working…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Book Review: The Book of Cthulu – edited by Ross Lockheart
Edited by @lossrockheart
Find the title on Amazon where you can also read a full description of the book and about the editor.
I read the kindle version of this book even though I had picked up a copy at WFC2011. I had the pleasure of meeting Ross Lockheart there and he tolerated my presence at his booth multiple times. I was given a copy of this e-book and I was not paid for this review. The opinions expressed are my own.
I don’t usually read horror, but I’ve read a lot of H.P. Craft and Stephen King over there years and I also enjoy Scott Sigler and Paul E. Cooley. I have always preferred horror that creeps me out instead of being over the top blood baths. If you want to entertain me, scare me. Don’t just try to make me jump.
I’m a sucker when it comes to reading a Lovecraft inspired stories because normally they’ll make you think hard about the horror. There is a lot of fiction out there allegedly inspired by Lovecraft and much of it is not good, sad to say. It takes a lot of reading to find those true gems.
With The Book of Cthulu, Ross has done that work for me. He’s taken the best of the past and added a couple new tales, combining them into a tome that when dropped could waken the old gods. This thing is huge and filled cover to cover with scary, creepy goodness that will have you itching your skin, clawing at the walls, and begging to be released from the mortal coil. Once you delve into the book, you’re thrown into a maelstrom of stories that runs the gamut of classic tales that you might have seen before or, if you’re like me, missed when they came around the first time.
Once inside you’re taken away from the normal day-to-day and swept across the globe with horror tales that will have the hair on the back of your neck standing on end, force you to look out the window from several feet away, and not wanting to open that closet door. Ross has done a wonderful job getting the best of the best together in one collection.
But wait, there’s more. I only recently noticed that there will be a second collection! Oh Ross, how I hate you as I have already pre-ordered my copy and will be along on a second journey back into the mind of Lovecraft. The Book of Cthulu II comes out in October!
Daily Update: Movies for me.
I haven’t been to the movies since my trip up to San Francisco. It’s not that I don’t like movies or that there’s nothing for me to go and see. There are a large number of movies I’d love to go see. There just seems to be a large number of them that are in 3D.
For me, 3D adds nothing to the experience. If anything it makes it worse for me. I have a weird astigmatism in one eye and I cannot see movies in 3D. I can see a little of the depth, but for the most part it’s grainy, blurry, and none of the effects POP off the screen like they do for some people. Top off that the tickets are $5-$10 higher than a normal ticket for a worse viewing experience, I’m at even more of a loss.
So I wait for a lot of movies to come out on rental and watch them through Pay Per view on my television that has a great screen, wonderful sound, and I can watch when I’m ready to watch. I can read during the slow parts if I like. I can pause it and go take a break, come back when I’m ready. Eat whatever I want to eat. Going to the movies has become extremely expensive. I remember way back when I was a boy going to the movies was less than $10 for the family. Now it’s over $100 for a couple if you want to get snacks, drinks, or what not.
The sad part is that I miss some movies until way after the fact. I’ll intend to go and see them, think of the cost, and not go at all. Instead I’ll decide to wait until they come out for rental and by the time that happens I’ve forgotten about them entirely. Many movies I might not even hear about because when I record something with my DVR I skip commercials. Unless it’s been posted on a blog, I’ll miss it entirely.
Now comes the hard part, the ‘bang for my buck’. Movies just don’t have it any more. I keep seeing movies and will continue, but I’ve drastically slowed the pace at which I watch movies. Some might catch my attention and I”ll intend to go see it, but I always think about how many movies I’ve seen that really suck because there’s no characterization, little plot, plot holes, terrible acting. At some point movies just went the wrong direction and don’t seem to want to come back. I don’t mind corny or campy, but I don’t care for over the top stupid.
I’ve said it before, maybe I’m just becoming too much of a cynic. Perhaps I expect more for the high costs of making movies and the higher prices they demand we pay. If you’re going to tout excellence, give me excellence. Eye candy will only get a movie so far. After that it has to offer something more.
Speaking of ‘bang for my buck’, I’ve been reading more. I’ll be posting some reviews in the coming days. Keep an eye out for them. There are a lot of good books out there and almost any of them will be under $10. A significant at $2.99 and under if you’ve gone digital as I have. If you have an awesome book you’ve read and think I’d like it, tell me about it. If I like it, I’ll review it. 🙂 I’m not going to dedicate this blog to book reviews, but there will be more in the future. I’ll try not to be as sporadic as I have been.
I’ve got reading, writing, and work to do. So…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Wow! What a weekend.
Yesterday I thought I might be able to sleep in. My favorite daughter is still full of surprises. She informed the wife and I that she’d planned a beach party and her friends would be arriving at our house at 10am. Gee. Swell.
So it was up early, make sure the house was in descent order, and her friends showed up. The wife had gone to the store to get eating supplies and beverages.
We were going to go to Silver Strand where we normally go to the beach. Unfortunately the beach was closed for a large event. I’m not sure who it was, but there were a lot of RVs, busses, and a giant inflatable. It looked like it was going to be a good time.
Instead we went to Coronado Beach. I’d only ever been there once. I think. Not many people were out. The forecast said it would be cloudy. I neglected sunscreen because the sun only poked its head out for a short time. We had sandwiches (minus as much sand as possible) and the girls all played volleyball. I read, and watched them play. When the marine layer over took the sun completely and the wind went from gentle to HOLY CARP THAT’S COLD we decided to head back to the house. We got the girl’s come pizza and my favorite daughter thought it would be fun to play Karaoke on the Wii. We stopped at target to pick up a copy.
At target the girls all piled out of the Tahoe and I went to go park. What did I see in the parking lot? The WIENER MOBILE! That’s right, the Oscar Mayer wiener was parked in front of the grocery store next door. I went over and sent a text to the wife to have the kids come over when they were done.
They came out of target and we all took pictures with the giant wiener. The girls all got wiener whistles.
We dropped the girls off at the house and we went out to dinner with The Millicans. We went to the Viejas outlet and had sushi.l After dinner the wives wanted to go to the candy store in the outlet. As a joke The Millican and I said we were going to go to the big boy candy store. The Black and Decker outlet.
Funny thing, we went in and the store was having a 50% off going out of business sale. We started looking at all the prices and the deep cuts on everything in the store and thought about what we’d like to get. The wives came back from the candy store and found the two of us looking at everything. They joined in the madness and we hauled everything back to the truck and went home.
The next morning the girls heated up some pizza in the microwave for breakfast. I opened up the new toaster over and heated up myself a piece. I’m going to love that and for $30 the price couldn’t be better.
My favorite daughter had practice so I had dropped her off. Because we’d gotten thrown out of the store because they were closing we went back to the Black and Decker store. We spent a lot of time buying stuff and loading that all up into the Tahoe and The Millians and we went to play at viejas. We went from slot machine to slot machine and after a lot of play we were all up and happy about that.
My favorite daughter limped out of practice. We were at the casino and this was the first practice I missed. We were having a good time and now I feel bad that she had gotten hurt. She sprained her ankle and might miss a practice or two. She’s not in bad shape. Some soreness, some swelling, some limping. She’ll be fine. My baby is growing up and I won’t always be there to help her. I know I need to learn to let go but it’s not always as easy as it sounds.
Back at the Millicans’ house, his daughter’s boyfriend loves to play with car stereos. Well, the tahoe’s stereo has trouble. It doesn’t always work. It’s a pain to try and tune into a station and since we’ve had it the speaker in the driver’s side door hasn’t worked. After about an hour and a half trying to figure out how to disassemble the dashboard and door panel, we had the antenna fixed and the speaker out. After buying new door speakers and installing them, the tahoe is all happy once again.
There’s a DVD player in the Tahoe. They don’t work at the moment either. That’s a job for another time.
Little writing happened this weekend, but I’m alright with that. I’ll be jumping in hard and heavy tomorrow. Work will be hectic, but a good hectic. Not a crazy busy get 1000 things done, but busy enough with testing and tweaking. It’ll be a good week. I can tell.
Right now I am spent. As you’ve just read, long weekend filled with so much. I’m going to go to bed now.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: a good day.
Yesterday was a long work day. I spent the week fighting with an export to excel function that worked for smaller results but bombed when trying to export a very large data set. Not only that but I had to submit an expense report and that took a lot of back and forth to make sure I had everything filled out properly. Even so I managed to get a lot of work done and a number of smaller requests as well.
Then my favorite daughter had to go help with running a boys volleyball tournament at the school. So I dropped her off and got some dinner. The wife and I stayed home and watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
I know what to expect with these movies and it live up. Some fun parts, some funny lines, some great stunts, and lots of guns. That was about it with a plot. Albeit not much but it was there and it was a fun movie. Some day I need to go back and watch MI:III.
I’ve been reading a lot more than I had been. I’m subscribes to about 100 blobs and that took up a big chunk of my reading time. So I got back to reading fast and furious. I’m currently 1/3 of the way through Mike Stackpole’s In Hero Years I’m dead. I’d bought this book some time ago and I am going through it quickly. Fun, fast-paced book that I will review once I finish it.
Now that I’m reading more I noticed something. My writing session last night was about 40 minutes and before I knew it I’d knocked out 1400 words. If it hadn’t been so late and I needed to get up early I would have kept going. That session got me about 3 or 4 scenes from the end of my teacher is a werewolf.
I am in a writing groove lately. It feels good when I sit and start to bash out words. I think reading more is helping. I’ve always read a lot of words, but reading fiction again is helping me pick up the pace of my writing. I think that’s what I’ve been missing to really crank out the words. I know it’s late, but I’m about to crank out some more words.
Until tomorrow!
Woo woo!
Daily Update: It’s the little things.
I’ve always heard bigger is better. To an extend I subscribe to that concept. But big things can come in small packages.
Take for instance two little things that can in the mail. One yesterday and one today. Both made me extremely happy. The first was a 32GB USB drive. It’s actually smaller in size than the 4GB I was using, but it’s bigger where it counts. Of course I’m only using a very small portion of its capacity, but I’ll figure out what to do with it.
The other little item I got is even smaller. It’s a 32GB Micro SD. I have a xoom tablet that I use for everything these days except for writing. I had filled up a 16GB micro sd card and have made some music and video purchase I wanted to include on the card. It’s, obviously, the same size as the 16GB in physical dimensions, but with twice the capacity.
Now why did I buy myself a couple little things? I felt like I deserved it. Why did I deserve it? Because I hit my one third mark. I’m now 150,000 words into my 2012 goal. I bribed myself with a couple little gifts for hitting a goal. A little less than half of those words are new fiction, the rest would be blog posts.I can’t remember the last time I’d written this many words in a year and I’m just getting started. I’ve got big plans and here’s what I’m planning.
I’m going to finish up My Teacher is a Werewolf. I’m only about half way with that one, but should be able to knock it out quickly. I need to record the next episode of Golden West. That story is really shaping up. Left off on a couple good cliffhangers. Then I’ll be starting Of Gnomes and Dwarves. As much as I hate to do it, To Fall From the Sky just isn’t going where I want, it’s not keeping my interest right now, and it’s slowing me down. I need to get into a work that’ll excite me again and get me fired up to sit and write.
Speaking of getting fired up, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. I’m going to do the complete read through/edit of Jack Kane and the Statue of Liberty. I won’t count that 100% toward my word goal, but I will count the edits/rewrites as 1/4 word for each word edited. So I need to edit at least 5000 words per day to hit my writing goal. I think I can manage that. Once those edits are done, I’ll fire that over to Mike who’ll give it his once over and then it’s off to Beta Readers.
Only then will I begin Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I love everything about those books. I know that I love them more than they deserve as the writing is utter crap. I’ve done some reads of the start. It’s bloated, very slow in parts, even slower in the beginning, but has a great story to be told. I won’t be changing the story much, but I will change how it was written, paced, and make it a stronger story. I started it over 20 years ago. I think I’ve gotten a little better at this writing stuff.
Once I finish with that, I’m going to write the sequel to V&A Shipping. No, I haven’t gotten the first picked up by a publisher yet. I had told myself long ago not to write any sequels until I’d gotten the first in a series published. But I’ve got a wonderful idea for the sequel and it’s just begging to be told. If you liked the first, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the second.
My plan, after those two, is to write the sequel to Astel. Again, this is a sequel that’s been banging on the side of my head for years and needs to be written. I put out Astel over a year ago and many people have asked where the next book it. It’ll be there soon enough.
That’s what I’ve got scheduled for the near future. I’m not going to try and plan too far out. I might sneak in another My Teacher is a… depending on how the second is received. My Teacher is a Zombie has gotten good reviews by those who’ve read it, but sadly sales aren’t there. I know I need to do a lot more about this self promotion stuff, but I feel I need a bigger body of work for people to pick and choose from.
I still have a couple short stories out there that I’m waiting on edits for. I have covers. They’re awesome! Once I get the edits, the ebook will be assembled and BANG! Out there.
But right now I’m just spending a lot of time talking about writing instead of actually writing. So…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 