Category Archives: Daily Update
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!
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!
Daily Update: I won a book!
Every once in a while (probably more than I know) Tor.com gives away books. Entry is usually quite simple. Email them your address, they’ll mail you a book. I’m not a lucky person so I do the steps needed and never think about it again.
Well, this time Mr. Murdock was lucky! I went here: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/broken-universe-sweepstakes, and I’ll be getting a copy of the book before it goes on sale! Yesterday I talked about waiting for stuff to show up in the mail. Well, here’s something else in the mail for me. WOO WOO! Excitement is mine.
If you haven’t already done so, Nightshade books is having a half off sale. They’ve got a TON of books out there. I met them at WFC2011 and they’ve got a great collection of books, authors, and anthologies. I mean, come on, 50% off! How often do you see that happen? Plus, if you buy four books you’ll be entered into a drawing. What are you waiting for? GO!
Ok, you can finish reading this first.
Yesterday I was on FIRE! Maybe not litereally, but I got my blog post out and I hit my word count goal (now for fiction only). I put down around 2500 words. Hopefully I’ll do the same thing again today. We’ll see how it goes. My favorite daughter wants to go see her friend run in a track meet and then she has practice. I’d like to get a little walking in again today.
Did I mention I’m walking again? Not as fast and furious as last time, but I am walking and it feels great. My brain wants to run, but I know if I do I’ll end up hurt once again. Don’t need that happening. Slow and steady until I’m ready.
The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences is dropping stories. Be sure you’re subscribed over at http://www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com/ and check amazon on occasion. I will try to drop links where I can.
Like this
http://www.cynicalwoman.com/2012/04/19/published-hanumans-gift-by-helen-e-h-madden/
And this
http://www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com/
So go buy a story, enjoy. And don’t worry, I’ll let you know when mine is out there. I’m excited to know what Tee does for a cover. He’s been doing all these covers and they all look great. I’ll just have to wait and see.
I’m waffling. I haven’t waffled in a long time. I know I want to write Of Gnomes and Dwarves. But I’d also like to do the sequel to V&A Shipping. I’m torn. I love both universes. I think I’ll be putting To Fall From the Sky in a desk drawer somewhere and revisit it later. Of course I need to finish My Teacher is a Werewolf first and get that one out there into the wilds of the world. I think I’m driving myself nuts with so many writing projects. Changing my daily goal to be a fiction goal really lit a fire under me to start producing more fiction. I want to get back into my two favorite universes and the only thing stopping me is me.
I also need to get Jack Kane over to my co-author Mike Plested. Oh, and I need to write up a guest post for him. He’s got a book coming out and I’ll post all over about that as soon as it arrives. I mean, it’s Mik Murdoch (with an h, not a k so he’s not related to me so stop asking).
This post was a very random collection of thoughts. Gee, I should write stuff down. In case you’re wondering, yes, this is how my mind works. 🙂
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: I remember…
There was a time when I was a kid oh so many years ago. I’d be reading a comic and think, I should order those x-ray glasses. Wow! 100 army men for only a dollar! That joy buzzer looks cool. And I’d get some of my lawn mowing money together, shove the order form in the mail with cash (I wasn’t a smart kid) and then I’d wait on pins and needles for the next 6 to 8 weeks before something would arrive. I loved ordering things through the mail. I even had my own Sea Monkeys. It wasn’t the having the item, it was the ordering and the waiting. The anticipation. I loved the wait wondering when it would show up and I’d have my prize. Sometimes I’d have three or four orders out at one time and I’d lose track.
I had a junk drawer in my dresser dedicated to all the little things I had ordered over the years. Some things broke after one or two uses, others died flaming deaths (green army men burn nicely, but smell horrible), other things I’d hang on to for a while before they got lost.
The joy was never in the having of the items. Sure I got my use out of the cheap, plastic toys, but it was always the looking for something else to purchase. The excitement of waiting for something to arrive in the mail. The sheer enjoyment of tearing open a package, envelope, box, to get at what lay inside. Some times I would be disappointed, but most times I was very happy with my little purchase. They never cost a lot of money, but brought me a lot of joy.
I think that’s why I love ordering things from http://dealextreme.com, http://tigerdirect.com, http://amazon.com, and http://monoprice.com. It’s not that I NEED the things I order or even that I feel they’re be of higher quality than what I already have. It’s the excitement of ordering something and waiting for it to show up. Right now I have five orders that I’m waiting to arrive. Lots of little things (a bigger thumb drive, some cables, a book, new earbuds) but each day I go to the mail and it’s filled with junk. 99% of what shows up in my mail box is trash. The rest, stuff for someone else (more trash) or the occasional bill (I have almost everything paperless).
Now I’m like most people. I think instant gratification is a wonderful thing. I could head off to Fry’s or Best Buy and pick up what I saw online and have it right now, but there are times that I enjoy the wait. Wondering when I’ll go to the mail box and find something interesting in there for me. There was a lot of junk today. Maybe tomorrow there’ll be something. I’ll just have to wait. 🙂
Where are some cool places you like to shop online?
Remember when I said that hitting my writing goal yesterday would be a challenge. Yeah. Unfortunately writing time didn’t happen at all yesterday. I worked through lunch, picked up my favorite daughter, went to visit my father-in-law to say Happy Birthday, attempted to fix his sprinkler system, took my favorite daughter to volleyball practice (and I even walked for 30 minutes) and then it was back home. I did take care of replacing a loose/bad outlet, renewing my driver’s license, ordered checks (we were down to 2 before I renewed my license) and I even took care of a couple needed phone calls.
Yeah, yesterday was crazy busy. Today, not so much. Or so I hope. We’ll see how it goes.
I’m treading new ground at work. That’s always fun versus just bashing out code. I’m actually having fun experimenting…until I hit a wall that is. I have a co-worker who will be helping me at some point today. I’m sure it’s either a silly mistake or I’m just not using the code as designed. I don’t think I’m trying to re-invent the wheel. Again, we’ll see.
I’ve bookmarked a couple anthologies that I’d love to submit to. I’ll post those once I decide to write story for them. The links to the anthologies, not the stories. I also need to write a couple calls for guest posts. I have a couple friends who are having open calls for guest posts. This should be fun. There’s a lot of writing I need to get done this afternoon. I’d better get at it.
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Well that was interesting.
Yesterday a couple of interesting things happened. If you’ve been on the web or follow those that I follow you’ll have seen the Tu-Pac holographic performance with Snoop Dogg. Now I’m not into Rap, hip-hop, Gangsta or anything like that, but seeing the video of Tu-Pac on stage years after his death fascinated me.
Then this morning Jay Lake put out his daily post talking about writing and comparing writing to learning to drive. I was going to be typing up an Unorthodox Writing Tip doing just that same. Great minds think alike I guess. I will still write up that UWT, but I will have a slightly different take on it.
Today is my father-in-law’s birthday. We’ll be heading over there and then off to my favorite daughter’s volleyball practice. Getting in my word count today will be a challenge. But it’ll be a great time. We used to live around the corner from them. Now it’s about a 20 minutes drive. It used to be that 20 minute drive to my favorite daughter’s school. Now we’re around the corner from her school, but further away from the in-laws. We’re saving a lot on gas, but there is less time at the in-laws’. My favorite daughter used to go over there every Wednesday after school to spend time with her Abuelos and her cousins.
Speaking of writing goals, I did hit my goal yesterday. I shifted my focus on my daily word count. Now my daily blog posts no longer count to my daily word goal. They will count toward my annual word count, but not the daily word count. For that I’m only going to count my fiction words. Yesterday I got in my 1200+ words and it felt great. I had been slacking on the word count numbers because I would see that I’d hit my goal and stop for the day. Last night I hit my goal and for the day I had over 2200 words, but that’s because I had a very long blog post.
I’m going to keep the word count spread sheet like this for the time being and see how it goes. This should help me focus more on fiction rather than these blog posts. I can type these up on auto drive. They’re easy to do, but I need to write more fiction. A lot more fiction. So expect to see many more words and works from me in the coming months. If I can help it, I’ll be even more productive than before.
I still have edits to do on Jack Kane, and I will be getting those hammered out as soon as I’m able. I have a couple pieces to finish and then I’ll get back into those. I’ve let them sit. Shame on me. That story needs to get cleaned up and sent out. I think it’ll do well once it gets into the real world.
Speaking of the real world…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 