A Writer's Insanity

Progress on Aria

2009-06-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

Well, how 'bout that? I'm about 90 pages into Avatar's Aria and feedback form the Sonata test readers continue to dribble in. Of course I was hoping they'd all read the book in a week and I've have this big pile of review all full of glowing praise and begging for the next book. Yeah, right. It hasn't been overly negative, but I still have some work. Regardless, I can see the end of the tunnel and hope the last of them finishes up so I can integrate the best of their comments and have this ready for the printers.

On an interesting sideline, I've been bantering around the idea of a stand alone book. A Libertarian 'tome' if you will, about the after effects of an socio/economic collapse of the USA, and a Libertarian enclave that sets about to rebuild the nation in the image the Founding Fathers created. If I can get around to it, it might be timely. The only problem is can I get it out before I have to excersise option #3 (for those of you that read my other blog, lol).

Later!

Mark

FINISHED!

2009-03-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

I finished the 3rd edit of Avatar's Sonata!!! Damn! What a beast. I managed to avoid a complete rewrite and I think it came together pretty good. The bad part if it puts Overture to bed as part of the series. Sonata will be pitched as the first book in the series.

So I just dropped $60 at Staples for three hard copies for my test readers. I have to buy at least two more (I think), but I'm putting it off for now. The final version ended up being just over 200,000 words. The test print is 191 pages (modified manuscript), the print version would be closer to 400 pages. By way of reference, Overture was 163,000 words. So this is about 20% bigger. There are other significant changes, but none of it is worth getting into.

About sixteen years ago I wrote my first 'novel' sized work. It was very influential to my development as a writer. To that point I'd believed that novel sized works were beyond me and only wrote short stories. Now, I've finished about ten novels, four of more than 100,000 words. It is a major realization that I have plenty to write about. It is a major disappointment that I lack the time and means to polish my skills through classes, and just the time to write much more.

So I'm deep into Avatar's Aria changing the beginning and altering the outline to reflect what I've done in finishing Sonata. I'm solidly convinced now this is a four book series, and that in itself is exciting. Can I keep it up for four books? I'm sure I can. Might take a decade to write it all, but what the hell.

In the mean time I'm starting a contemporary novel concerning a sociological collapse resulting in the creation of a Libertarian society, and the aftermath of that move. I only have a concept now, but I might dedicate some extra time to it because it feels very timely with our current government spending money like a drunken sailor.

"Writers write!" - R. A. Heinlein.

Almost Finished!

2009-01-26T18:51:00.000-08:00

Been a while, been seriously busy! I'm like eight freaking pages from the first edit of Sonata (original volume two, now volume one). This has been real hard for me, both finishing a hard read through, and deciding the Avatars Overture will cease to be in the cannon, only to be known to the few who bought a copy, and through disjointed flashbacks in the new chronology. Just about everything that happens in Overture did happen, but I just realized it's mostly backstory, and best told in a few thousands words of the current books, mostly journal entries. I may introduce Mindy as a voice from the past (ghost like) character as my real protagonist (Minu Alma) moves through life.

Regardless, the edit should be done in about a week, and then the manuscript goes to Staples to print test copies, and I sit back to wait and hear what the test readers have to say. Eight lucky (brave) souls have volunteered to read and critique Avatars Sonata...I'm not going to wait for the results, but get right back to working on Avatars Aria that is about 1/3 done and was put on hold while I finished editing Sonata.

Well, back to work!

Waiting, and editing

2008-11-23T17:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I had no idea I'd waited so long to post to my old blog. All I can claim is electoral dysfunction, it effects the higher brain functions.

When last we met my little microfarm had gotten a shipment of 18 cute little baby ducks! They grew up into even cuter young adult ducks, then the coyotes ate 14 of them. Yeah, frustrating. We've tried to ace a few of the bastards and they replied by eating two of our turkeys (we got five, still have three). We also got 26 chickens. Luckily or us, they're smart and fast enough we still have 24 of them. Mainly we need a big pond for the ducks, or lots of expensive fencing. Well, thus far its coyotes and feral cats 16, us 0. The only good side is its us 3, possum 0. Joy's ganked three of them so far, she's quite a dead eye.

Anyway the writing goes well. Avatar's Aria is about 50% finished, and likewise I'm halfway through editing Avatar's Sonata. I have 5 test readers set up and once the primary edit is finished I'll print up some copies and mail them out!

I've had a few new ideas, but just noting them down for now. As much as I'd like to tackle something unique, it wouldn't be smart just now. Avatar is too complicated an overarching plot. I'm struggling right now with a balance between number of characters and turning into a Jordan novel. Near the end of book two I have about 20 standing common characters, with twice that many notables. Too many? LOL!

I'll try to post some more soon. Hoping to be done with this Sonata edit by the end of the week, especially since I have a five day weekend coming!

Ducks, Chickens, Isolation, and writing.

2008-07-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well, our KCs are getting bigger by the day. At more than a month old now, they are well on their way to becoming adults. When I left for Nashville on Monday, they only had baby fluff on their necks and sides. Suprisingly, it looks like the wings are the last thing to develop? Go figure. Here they are so far.
On Arrival, a box of quack. Frighteningly cute baby quackers. 2 days old.

Here they are a few weeks older, moving outside and here chasing a green pepper. Funny stuff.

And here, almost all grown up. The one on the left is a drake, we think. The sites all say they have yellow legs, but since they're related to Mallards they should have green heads and beaks too. Not all the yellow legged guys have greenish beeks...hmm. Anyway, you can see their feathers are comming along great!

We built them an improvised pond last weekend. Some scrap wood, a few T Posts, some plastic (more on that), a lot of sweat, and bingo.
Of course they couldn't make heads or tails of it for a while, but they'd been fighting over and trying to swim in a bucket for two weeks, so it didn't take them long to realize this was WATER! They had a great time, for about 24hrs. As God is my witness, I didn't know ducks had adamantium claws. They shredded the 4mil plastic liner like wolverine on a pack of ninjas. One day later it was empty. Joy got a couple cheap hard side kiddie pools while we contemplate a heavy rubber liner.

Patrick and I did 100% of the primary construction, Joy pitched in finishing the chicken wire surround to avoid escapes. Here she is telling me to put the f*cking camera down and quit screwing around (Patrick looking confused and hot in the backgroung). She loves having her picture taken!

Meanwhile, our Amaurana chicks have shown up. Like the ducks (ordered 15, got 18), we got 26 instead of 25. I think they ship a couple extra for casualties. But (knock on wood), we have yet to loose a single chick or duckling. I give Joy 100% well deserving credit for that. One of the chicks got sick and she nursed it through.

Here they are.

And Natureboy checks them out. Having some livestock and a dog has helped him a lot in handling and dealing with animals. He's still scared of bugs, but we'll take it a step at a time.

The second picture is only a little over a week later. The chicks were a lot different than ducks. They get wing feathers first (sufvival bonus?), and learn to jump. We had escapes from the brooder at two weeks, something that never happened at all with the ducks. They're also faster, and a little more easily scared. I added a roost to one side, and they won't go near it for days.

Well, with all that excitement, the Patrick went off to camp for a week. He gets back tomorrow. Joy is fit to be tied missing/worrying about him. But I suspect we're both right in thinking he doesn't even remember he has parents. It's a Kentucky state wilderness camp, and looks like a lot of fun.

Here he and his best friend Hamilton are heading off to adventure. Can't wait to talk to him tomorrow afternoon! Sucks that I don't get home this weekend.

On the writing front, another coworker finished Overture and raved about it. He wants to screen Sonata for me. So I'm trying to finish Aria, that way I'm sure Sonata is safe to complete editing and give to my test readers (now numbering about 6). The writers group I joined here is proving interesting, as is the gaming group I am playing with. Once a week for the gaming, once a month for the writing. Sometimes wish it was the other way around, but the gamers are good guys, low on the drama, high on the ROLE playing. I can handle this for another 9 months...I hope.

More Quackers

2008-06-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Well, we spent a very energetic and not entirely fun weekend trying to work and in my part, learning just how painful something can be. I was in the car coming back from Nashville for all of an hour when a somewhat familiar pain started up in my lower left back. Captain Kidneystone was back, and this time he was pissed. By the time I got to Springfield I was almost doubled over with pain. I'd almost not gone home that weekend to save money, probably just as well that I did. After trying everything to aleviate the pain for several hours, I eventually succumbed the superior intelligence of my wife and just after midnight she hauled my sorry ass down to the local mini-hospital in Lebanon (see Jericho for reference, not much bigger). Well, the cat scanned me and dopped me up with morphine! Fun stuff that, I was so wasted apparently I said some things that Joy will be laughing about for years to come. Its partly my lack of resistance to that drug, and partly relief from the pain. The CAT confirmed, big ass stone in kidney and little one lodged in tube. Ouch! So I got a bottle of happy drugs and went home.

Saturday was kind of a loss, with me trying to recover and all. But Sunday we finally got out and went on our first scavenger run. We went around Springfield and tried to lay hands on every used skid that both wasn't nailed down, and was in a logical 'garbage' location. In the process we scored a couple dozen 5 gallon food grade buckets that will come in handy! Anyway, with those skids, some nails, and part of a huge tarp we had left from one of our many moves, we made an outdoor brooder. Our little quakers were starting to become little stinkers, and it was time for the move. Plus they're trying to forage real hard and we wanted to expose them to the out of doors soon. Here's a picture of our half day of back breaking effort.

Say hi to Joy in the picture; hot, sweaty, and annoyed as always in having her picture taken. You can see the gate to the duck paddock int he foreground. Between the paddock and the brooder, we spend maybe $75, and except for the $3.00 for nails, the brooder was free of from stuff we already had. The fence is about $16.00 a roll (36"x50') from Lowes, almost $12.00 cheaper than Tractor Supply (can't figure that one out). We used a few T polls, the green thing with the white top, at $4.00 each, and a few lighter yellow electric fence polls at about $1.00 each. The gate there is, you guess it, another pallet just covered in chickenwire. This is likely all temporary brooder space, so why spend any real money. The ducks live here for a few weeks while the chickens show up and take over the old (and much in need of cleaning) brooder. In a few weeks, we'll make another paddock and move the ducks into it, an the chicks will then move in here. We hope to get a few layers from ducks and chickens, so this might well be our permanent brooder half-way house. Who knows.

Here's another pic of the brooder, this one with wife and boy.

And here is the little quackers, now much bigger, checking out their new digs.

I always knew ducks were omnivorous, a lot like chickens, but I didn't know they were agressive insectavours. They actively chase and eat insects. We bought a couple little cups of meal worms, and they loved them. The area that this paddock was cut from used to be heavily overgrown with brush, and is likely swarming with bugs. They'll love it.

The funniest part (aside from me on morphine), was when Joy brought the quackers up from the garage. I didn't have my camera out but it was hilarious. She had them all (18 of them) in a ten gallon plastic tote. A bucket-o-duck. Needless to say they were compeltely freaking out and crapping all over the place. Damn, what a mess. Of course, being ducks, once the water was in there they proceeded to get it everywhere whilst they proceeded to give themselves baths. I think a small pond is going to be a must for these guys...

Cool Site

2008-06-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Check this out, my honey found it...

http://wordle.net

You can make these awesome word clouds of stuff. Joy made this one...

I made this one...

Joe's Apartment - Part II

2008-06-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

Yeah, great movie. Thousands of roaches in a dance numbers, helping out their good friend Joe. My roaches don't dance, and they don't help. What they do s take over the friggin place and crawl up my arm in the middle of the night. AAARRGGHH! I've lived with them in the past to one degree or another, but never like this. These bitches are a biblical plague. That cheapass apartment right next to my office in Nashville was a real good deal. Now I know why.
The owners nuked it, and they thought that was kinda fun. I put out bait traps and got a good body count, but either reinforcements arrived from the low income crowd next door, or they decided that baits were more like a tasty sauce. Added some spray, same results. I chased one bastard around the bathroom for five minutes a couple days ago. Spray, run, spray, run, screw it SMASH, ewww.
Well, stopped on the way back from my Nashville Writers Meetup and considered nuclear options. A triple bomb pack I would set off tomorrow morning when leaving for work, have the whole weekend to work. Then I spotted something. Boric Acid sold as a pesticide. Boric Acid? The same stuff made from borax? You gotta bekidding me. Sure, why not. Bought a bottle for a couple dollars and brought it home. It looks like talcum powder, has kind of a bitter smell. I started sprinkling it along the walls, behind the fridge, all over the friggin place. WTF? Better than chemicals.
Well, went into the kitchen to nuke some dinner, and hello, freaking out roaches. A couple on the floor were doing a fair impression of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. The stuff was killing them, and quickly. Not like some chemicals, but still working. So I hopped on the net and found out they've been using this to kill ants, roache and silver fish for like 200 years. Name a pesticide that goes on killing roaches for two centuries. Right, there isn't one. This stuff gets them three ways. They like to eat it, and it jacks up their digestive system. They resperate it, and it cloags their air holes. And when they walk through it, the stuff jacks up the waxy links between their chitton joints, basically making them leak to death. Damn! A bunch of web sites rave about it. I'm shelving the chemical warfare for a few days, lets see how this works.

Little Quackers!

2008-06-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

I know the blog is about writing, but it's also about me! One of our (wife and I) dreams has always been to have that mini-farm, or at least a few acres and some animals? Got it! Today our first livestock arrived! I ordered 15 Kaki Campbell ducks from a hatchery on the net, and here they are!

We ordered 15 and they sent 18! My wife Joy decided on them by herself, and I found them on the net while in Nashville. When we talked about it a few weeks ago, we both suggested the same breed. It was pretty funny really. They are a rare breed known for their meat and egg laying. KCs have been known to out produce Leghorn chickens, the main commercial bird, at more than 200 eggs per layer a year. Now that is a bit less than the Leghorns, but you have to remember that duck eggs are 20% larger, so there you go. They're living in our home made brooder now, drinking and eating. They haven't been introdcued to our new puppy, Harley, yet. Here's the intrepid hound too.
The KCs are straight run, so we should get about 10 males and 8 females. Depending on how it ends up, some will end up making eggs and more ducks. The rest will try the freezer on for size. Well, in a couple weeks we get another 25 family members in the form of Amaraucana chickens, also straight run. Hmmm, chicken and duck! We've decided to wait on sheep and goats until next year. It's probably gonna run a couple $1000 to fence the property. For now, the weeds win. Can you say ticks and thistles? Pass on that job. The chickens come just before the 4th of July! Patrick and my wife are going to be in a parade, so I'm taking a half day. More then.

Star Wars for MEN

2008-06-13T12:06:00.000-07:00

Was trolling the net at lunch and came across this. I know a lot of you have indegestion after the Star Wars trilogy and all, but considering the Clone Wars series coming out and that Lucas had minimal hands-on with it (especially dialogue, thank the Gods), this was particular interesting, and easy on the eyes...

http://starwars.yahoo.com/photos/hot-trooper

Just imagine if Luke met her in a dark side passage in the deathstar? Hmm, lets see, bitchy-slightly pudgy-no bra wearing sorta sister, versus Stormtrooper hotness? Yeah, sorry aliance, I'm gonna be a little busy. Besides, I hear Obi-wan is actually a lying douchebag.

Later.

The Big Apple

2008-06-12T18:55:00.001-07:00

Well, went to NYC for a week for a conference, and they let us go early enough to do some site seeing. Took my boys stuffed rabbit up to the Empire State Building. Here is a pic or two. I'll tell you what, it is an amazing town, but I honestly don't think they could pay me enough to live there. What a freaking madhouse. Took us three hours to drive 12 miles. I never thought I'd see traffic worse than Seattle. Turns out, I was wrong!

Sic semper tyrannus!

Rabbit chillin on the 100th floor.

Damn, that's a long way down! Don't drop me, please!

A Viking, oh yeah! Sound the Feasting Horn!

2008-06-10T17:34:00.000-07:00

In the continued tradition of copying/following up on quizs Oz has taken, here is one I liked. What kind of Viking are you? Anyone who knows me won't be surprised, it's basically an Aries Viking...

Your Score: Lawspeaker

You scored 41% leadership, 29% spirituality, 25% violence and 25% intelligence!
LEADER - SPIRITUAL - VIOLENT - EDUCATED Judge, jury and executioner; you are the lawspeaker. You know the ancient lore of your people back and forward, and you can remember every charted detail of your peoples' history back to the days when Odin created your world from the dead body of a giant. You preside over the Althing, which is the meeting of tribes and kings, and make sure nobody gets out of line. You are merely a freeman outside the Althing, but within the sacred boundaries of the frithgard, you are higher than the mightiest king of the north. And if anybody messes with you, you've got the gods themselves on your side. Wisest of the wise, you are untouchable.

Here's the link if your interested...

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/9724741004972087450/Viking-Age-Persona

OH CRAP!

2008-06-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

Check this out...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080608/ap_on_re_us/nevada_earthquakes

You can't grow up in the Pacific Northwest without earthquakes and volcanic eruptions being in the back of your mind. Assholes from Seattle love to lay claim to Mt. Raineer, but the truth is you can almost never see it from Seattle. Gowing up in a piss-ant town called Milton just a few miles from Tacoma, I could literaly see the massive cindercone volcano out our kitchen window. In junior high I first studied what a real explosive eruption can do, and as a freshman in high school we watched in horror and Mr. St. Hellens blew itself to hell and killed a few dozen people. Shoveling snow is a rare enough thing, but nothing compared to shoveling ash from your driveway!

Anyway, as the years went by and I became a science fiction writer, I studied in deeper and deeper detail what exactly was possible from an eruption. I moved away from the spector of Mt. Raineer long before most people living in its shadow came to realize they were living under a death sentence. Should Raineer go with even a fraction of the power of St. Hellens, more than fifty thousand would likely die.

I can't remember when exactly I learned about what Yellowstone really was. I think it was after I moved back to the Seattle area and my wife and I were considering relocating to Montana and visited the park. I knew what a caldera was, but never realized how massive of a one Yellowstone was made from. At least once in its past it had erupted with enough force to cause an extinction level event, and every time it did erupt it was devastating. Worse, it was not at the end of an activity period, but alive and well.

So anyway, when I saw this story I felt an icy chill run down my spine. If (or rather, when) that caldera goes boom, you can kiss life as you know it goodbye. Discovery (or History?) did a docudrama on the events around just that event, and they were chillingly kind of the possible outcome. We stand back and watch with fascinated horror and the destruction wrought (mostly on other lands) by massive typhoons, but the Yellowstone Caldera has the potential to make this nation a third world country, and bitch slap the rest of the world in the process. Global warming? Please don't waste my time with that BS.

I find the coverage interesting, and very subdued. This is the southern edge of the caldera, why are there no mention of true epicenters? Why not much from the USGS? I bet there are a few hundred people losing sleep over this? I have an old friend in the Pentagon, I only hear from him in very scary times. Both Iraq wars, just after 9/11, during a very tense 48hrs back in 1990... I am watching my yahoo email carefully and hoping I don't hear from him, and never more grateful I live in a geologically stable region with ancient techtonic mountains, and well above sea level.

Marik

THE GREAT RETURN!

2008-06-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

I finally figured out how to get into my blog again!! This time (at least) it wasn't my fault. During the great migration between blogger to google ownership, me emails changed and I lost my password. Well, sitting here in my job in Nashville I had a moment of lucidity (rare at best) and suddenly remembered it. So, I'm back!

It might take an hour to explain what has happened, so I'll take a little less. About a year ago my wife (Joy, or Knitnick to those who know her) had a incident at work. Suffice it to say a little shit was running around the library being disruptive and she stopped her and asked her to not run. Well, welfare momma and recent parolee dady started talked lawyers, there were threats, and angst, and much hand wringning and teeth gnashing. In the end we looked at each other and said "what the fuck are we doing in a big city?!"

A decade ago when we got married/handfasted, we dreamed about a nice house on some acres int he country. A few animals, a kid or two, a dog, and PEACE! Not to mention the freedom that goes with it. Somewhere along the line we sold out for the burbs, then moved into the fracking city itself! After her incident, we prayed a lot and threw everything we had (mojo and money wise) into making it a reality. It was almost exactly a year, and she got the job offer to be Director of the Washington County library in Kentucky.

You might think this is a big job, it isn't. It's big for her, and us, but the entire county has a population of eleven thousand. DFW was around eleven MILLION. Her library branch in Ft. Worth had more visitors in a month than we have population in the whole county. So she took a little pay cut and off we went.

The next step was harder. My job/career is heavily dependant on population density or port of entry. There aren't a lot of customs brokers in Springfield Kentucky. Well, none really. I spent all the time before her starting looking furiously for work, and bombed. Our choices were three options.
1) She gives up the job and we stay.
2) She goes and I stay in DFW until I get a job.
3) We go anyway.

Option one was tossed in the shitcan so fast it never even realized it was alive. Option two was alive and kicking up to two weeks before the move. Then I had one of them moments that pagans will tell you about. Where you give up outcome and just go with it. I put in my notice and for the first time in ten years I was unemployed.

Moving to Springfield went well, most of our stuff went into storage, and Joy started her job (and Patrick school). I played home-pappa and looked for a job. Since before leaving DFW I had a trail on three positions through a recruiter, but none of them less than 100 miles from Springfield. Just after arriving I had a bite in Louisville (50 miles away), and eventually an offer, but finally passed on it. $39k was a $6k a year cut in salary. Soon afterward my current employer offered me $50k a year, in Nashville. 170 miles from Springfield. Good money, bad location. I took it.

The job is a good one. Quite a bit of travel, none of the angst and screaming rush of brokerage, a company credit card, 7 hour work days, 17 paid holidays, 20 vacation days in first year. Yum. The distance isn't so great. I started with a room-mate situation, but the last time I did that it left a bad taste in my mouth (not too much personal there Oz), so I've since bailed on that for a studio apartment at $400 a month. Pretty cheap, except there are a few thousand small roommates that just won't go away (see Joe's Apartment for reference).

Life is tollerable for now. I had a breif bit of horrible depression just after getting here, and came within a few days of quitting. But now we've just closed on our new house and things are improving. My lease here is only a year, and the experience is invaluable. I drive home Friday night (about three hour drive), and back monday morning. It's kinda becoming a wierd time warp commute. I think the older you get, the more you find you can tolerate.

Right now I only write a little and count days until my lease is up. The new mortgage (2nd property) is kinda big, but the house is awesome. Remember that house in the country and land? Check. Animals? Just ordered our first chicks and goslings. Check. Kids? Got one, and he's the best ever. Check. Dogs? We're working on that. Poultry first, at this point.

Life goes on...

I'll try to upload some images soon...or link to Knitnick's flikr!

Marik

Okay, here are those pics!

Friends?!

2007-11-07T19:26:00.000-08:00

The trouble with friends, is they are good at pointing out your short comings!

Sorry it's been so long, I've been busy.

Football season just ended. Patrick's team, the Dolphins, finished one better than last year at 3-5. Touble is that wasn't good enough this year to make the playoffs. They had to play a game with their fellow last place team for the final position in the playoffs and lost 22-6. He grew so much this year (his second) at tackle football, I had a hard time not crying when they lost. This year through the blood, sweat, and tears, I saw the first glimpses of the man he would one day become. I have never been more proud. He played tight end on offense, occasionaly middle linebacker or lineman on defense. I'll try to post a picture or two later.

We have decided to move back to the midwest. Too many factors went into this decision to easily list here, but suffice it to say the price/availability/location of property and proximity to family for Joy are the two biggest. Looks like we will call the Louisville area home in about three months. My intention is to buy a house and never move again, come hell or high water.

Seven random/weird facts. Wow, that might be a challenge.

1) I was a virgin until 31 years old. Not quite a 40 year old virgin, but still a late bloomer.

2) My wiccan priestess was my first lover.

3) For the majority of my life I was a pathological liar (see number 1 as a possible carcinogen)

4) The only two things on my five "Things to do before you die" are get a pilots license, or travel overseas.

5) I am adopted and now that my adoptive parents are gone I've been searching for my birth parents (without luck so far).

6) My favorite art is sculpture, in particular Roman.

7) I'm a political junkie and am greatly excited by this coming election. Few people realize that almost no one alive today has seen a presidential election where no incumbant of VP of the incumbant has run for office! (Support Fred Thompson for President!)

PAY DIRT!

2007-05-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things of writing is being in a rut and/or just unable to make an element of a story congeal into words. For two years I've been struggling with the primary concept of the Chosen Chronicles over arching plotline. What exactly was I trying to get it? Where was it leading? How in the hell did things get to where they were?

In the course of writing the first book, really a prequel (don't ask me, that's just how its working out), I ended up seeding it with a number of interesting people and events that as I wrote the first draft to book two I became increasingly convinced would end up being unfulfiled paradoxes or Kerensky's (what the hell is that? you have to be a recovered Battletech dweeb to get that one). Why had I put them there? To be honest, I didn't have the slightest idea then, and still didn't after I finished writing the second book and started laying the outline for a third book. This is just a trilogy about humanity kicking alien ass, was what I was telling myself.

So with book two finished I went back to reference book one while writing three. There was at least one element that needed to be closed (the prologue and epilogue, for you astute readers). I always knew what I wanted to do with this little paradox, but as I looked at it and the first draft of book two it came to me that I'd made a huge mistake. It was a good story, but not a real meal. More like a hamburger and fries (diet pepsi please, easy on the ice) as apposed to the 14 ounce merinated serlion with the salt rubbed baked potato and sauteed mushrooms on the side I really wanted to sink my teeth into. WTF happened? Don't ask me, maybe another writer can explain it. I tend to think of it as zombie writing.

Now trance writing is the ideal and where I get the most work done. I find two places the best to induce a trance state. Lunch at work, my head full of a million bullshit issues and other needly crap, emercing myself in the music of words, headphones in place, Dennis Miller or Michael Savage blabbering in my ears, and the words pour out in usually cognisant explosions of plot and color. The other time is late at night, usually after my normal bed time, and I get in 'a zone'. Just ask my wife who looks up bleary eyed at 4:30am wondering why her husband just stumbled into the bedroom, shaking his head and mumbling to himself. Yeah, that's the zone. Trance writing at its best.

Zombie writing is similar, but unproductive. It results from forcing myself two write without an ANSWER! Don't worry, if you write it will come to you. Sometimes zombie state will induce trance state, but not usually. In this case the zombie never went away, it gave birth the Chronicles of the Chosen Book II, Dawn of the Living Avatar. Shit.

So a month ago I pulled the plug on it, copied the file into the scrap bin of the general file for the Chosen Chronicles, and started over. All I kept was the beginning elements, SOME of the characters, and a basic concept of where it wanted to go.

I was about 30k words into it the other day, occasional trance writing making it work well, but the previous attempt went the same too until I hit the plot wall and it collapsed into complete zombie zone. But this time something different happened. As the protagonist entered the later stages of her begining development where she is forced by situation to take leadership and struggle with her sexuality (whether she wanted to or not), I had a chance to have lunch with my wife and son. I sat there blathering that I didn't know how to move the overarching plotline along to an ended i had envisioned. How did species A get involved with species B. Why didn't anyone know species B was actually species X? And wtf is with the monks? Well, from the mouth of babes, she up and says; ..................

Holy fucking shit! It was one of those moments she is so good at creating in my stories and it all suddenly came together. So I go and start writing it all down so i remember, and that turned into another all night writing session (4k words just to explain the plotline!) BLAM! I guess it just takes another perspective, but I also don't think it is that simple. I've had lots of people suggest ways through problems like this, they never really work out. Something about Joy knows me so well that she didn't take it in a wierd direction, but just pointed out where it SHOULD go. What can I tell you, but it was a bingo.

After writing down the details I went online to do some research. I was just hoping at the least to find a few querky things to make it somehow historicaly probable. Didn't find that, instead I found some historical/religious references that fit so well it was like an episode of the X Files. I litteraly sat here with my jaw hanging open in disbelief. Was art imitating life agian, as it seems to so often happen? Maybe I'd heard some of it before and unconciously copied it. Who knows?

Regardless of the destination, the trip was worth the cab fair. I've been lost in the wilderness of the plot jungle for a while, but I'm back now. Continuous trances are coming with east, and I suspect the rewrite will be done in a few weeks now. I feel like I gave birth! Maybe it was just the kidney stones last week? Well, this too shall pass.

Small Moves, Big Ideas, Bigger Changes

2007-04-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

So much for once a month! Sorry about that.

Well, we're moved into the new apartment and back from our trip of southern texas. You can ever realize just how big this state is untilyou spend a week driving around it. 1500 miles and ever left the state,and we only saw one quarter of it. Damn.

We spend three days camping in this little out of the way state campgroundcalled Seminole Valley. There is a natural river shelter there along thisbranch leading to the Rio Grande. Indians lived there thousands of years agoand did cave paintings. There were subsitance living, tough times. Anywayit was about 30 miles from even the small city of Del Rio and gives a simplyawesome night sky. We saw the milky way for the first time since a trip to california before our son was born or we were married. It wasn't as knock-down intense as that view from near Salt Lake, but still enough to make uscome to a few conclusions.
1) We're tired of the rat-race.
2) We miss the stars.
3) We really miss the stars.
4) Did I mention that we miss the stars?

So I did some self reflection and ran our numbers. After a short phone callto a national talk show I decided we could do it. I offered Joy the chanceto move out of the city and make a go of small town living. Once the leasehere is up we're moving about 50 miles north to Denton county, a much morerural county were land can still be had for less than $5,000 an acre. Joyhas several options she's considering ranging from her working part time andopening a craft store, two still working full time but at a school librarywhich would give her summers off to craft, love the boy, and live life a little more slowly.
As for writing (which accidentaly is what the damn blog is about), I'm still plugging along on book two. Since I started the general re-write itis going much better than I hoped. I'm into the trials and running a side-by-side plot line this time between the protagonist and her father. Imight use that well worn element of daddy dying as the child gains power.
I'm continuing to collect a file full of story ideas I might use some day. Had a really good one yesterday that combines elements of Enders Game,Forge of God, The Rolling Stones, Red Planet (Heinlein), and Berserker. Idon't know if it's 100% unique, but what is these days?

Forty-three in three days? Sigh.

A Time to Move - Again

2007-01-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

Well, here we go again. We're moving this weekend, but our intentions is this is the next-to-last time. We're close to deciding that Texas is home for good. There is so much to love about this state. The climate is nothing short of spectacular. Mild winters, and even the height of summer is very tolerable. The best part is the spring and fall in which for about 6 months out of the year the weather is between 70 and 90 degrees and sun, sun, sun! Now you leave North Texas (DFW area) and things change no mater what way you move. Southern Texas (Houston, San Antonio, etc) you get humidity of which we have little, West Texas (El Paso) and you say howdy to a summer of 110 plus weather and snowy winters. The altitude and climate off the gulf combine to make it very temperate and low humidity. Basically everything Indy isn't.

Anyway we've decided to go to Big Bend in March instead of the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater. That trip will be saved for more like September when we won't freeze our collective asses off. You can still get down to almost zero on March around the canyon, and in a tent camper you cease to have fun below freezing.

So, as I mentioned we're moving, but only a little ways. We're moving from North Arlington, to Grand Prairie. Grand distance total, about two miles. The new apartment is much more like a townhouse because we have a garage. So we loose the storage unit, break even on the square footage (about 1200), and pick up a patio once more. Something that I have to agree with my wife that I miss. Its nice to chill out on the patio in a not too uncommonly nice winter evening. The other advantages is that we stay in the same school district for Patrick, so we keep our free daycare and no school change. I think it looks like we loose less than $200 from the budget, so its hard to complain. As long as the house stays rented in Indiana, or sold (even better), we're fine. I'm starting to warm to the idea of keeping the Indy house as a permanent investment property. As long as we keep it down to a slow hemmorage of a couple hundred a month or less, at the least it becomes a nice cash reserve when retirement rolls around. The realestate estimaters say it will be worth about $175,000 in 25 years when the house is paid off, but there is little chance I'm working until I'm 67. I'll either be retired or dead by time time I'm 60 (18 years from now). I'm banking on the former. We still have our plan for a camp ground business in 5 years, but 10 might be more practical. At that point Patrick will be off to college. 52 isn't too old to start a new career/business, is it? Might be a nice working retirement and we should be able to have between 100 and 200 thousand but away. Add the house in Indy sale, maybe another 40k in the bank, we could have upwards of 250k to invest. Call it 150 in business expenses (buy or build), and a hundred in operating capital to see through the first two years. Not too shabby.

I don't know if I mentioned but I started my birth parents search about two weeks ago? A company called Givenright located in the Seattle area where I was born. I've considered it for about twenty years, but only really began to consider after my adoptive parents both passed (mother died in 95, father in 2000). They always said it was fine if I looked, but I never felt right doing it while they were alive. Anyway I paid the starting fee and turned them loose. So far no results, but the group of files where my records should exist are in dissaray at the county. There was a fire at some point, and they cannot find my original birth certificate likely as a result of the fire or a missfiling. I've said aloud that it doesn't mater, but inside I'm beginning to realize I hope I find them. Having no living parents is not as easy as it sounded. 42 is too young to have no living direct family. There is my adoptive sister, but she is a lot older than me (seven years) and we never had that deep connection of some siblings. I find myself hoping for some connection with these birth parents. I don't know, but I never felt that deep love for my adoptive parents that some seem to have and it makes it difficult dealing with my wife and her family. Plus I really want my mother/father to know they have a beautiful, healthy, smart and happy grandson here in Texas! I'll post more on this when I hear from the search people. I want to email them every day, but I don't because I know with as little as I paid they need to just be left alone to do their thing.

Scattered

2007-01-04T10:32:00.000-08:00

My mind has not been terribly with me these last few weeks. I've got a good hold on the new direction I want Chosen II to go, but can't quite seem to generate the energy to consistently work on in. I'm sure this is at least partly the fault of Eve Online. I've stayed away from MMORPG every since I screwed up and let me Ultima Online account die (a good thing), but decided lately that some sort of online game would be a good distraction. Tried City of Villians and quickly discovered it was a complete waste of time. Decided there was no way in hell I'd join the global geek community on WOW, so I found Eve Online. This game is everything an SF game should be. Since Oz is such a major brownshirt, he'd probably dig this game. Tens of thousands of planets, only one massive server (the only MMORP to use a supercomputer), and hundreds of skills. The only thing it is missing to many of the MMORP crowd is a personal touch. You spend all your time in a ship and only ever see your characters face on the character sheet.
I've been playing a couple months and have varied between complete enjoyment and indifference. Suffice it to say I've like it enough to get two accounts so I could have to different types of characters. You can have three characters for each account, but you can only develope one at a time. One guy in the online corporation I belong to has six.
Anyway, there are two things that keep me coming back.
1) the utterly freeform play aspect. There are mission available and such, but you don't have to do any of them. There is money to be made by killing rats (npc pirates), kill pirates (pc pirates) for sometimes huge bountys, mining and refining, exploring, you name it. Fascinatingly libertarian world. There are even PCs running a weekly lottery.
2) player based economy. SWG could only dream of this level of player based economy. The system only provides base bpo (blue print originals), asteroids for raw materials, and rats to kill for some bounty money. Every other item and ship is researched, built, and sold by players!
Anyway, it's a huge waste of time but I'm hooked for now. Most nights its only a few minutes to log on and change skill development, but lately i've fallen in with a group that is trying to move into what is called 0.0 space, or the deadliest of the PVP (player versus player) zones. I've gotten a reputation as a devil-may-care type so I'm tasked with the exploration. I do have the knack of escaping and talking myself out of nasty situations, so what the hell. Anway, if you're interested, you can check it out at eve-online.com. The game is actually almost four years old and continues to grow. Client download is free, as is a two week trial account (the first taste is always free).
On the home front Patrick went back to school after 'winter break' finally. He was developing an attitude anyway. I love the hell out of that boy, but I dread the onset of hair and yelling. Joy continues to hate her job. She's in a zone of acceptance, but we've lately considered an option that might involve her being able to leave that sort of work for another. All I'm going to say is that it would involve a surgical procedure.
We bought a new trailer last weekend! We fell in love with our old pop-up trailer in Indiana. I got it for like $200 and rebuilt it myself (Joy helped with the canvas, of course), and was bummed when we left it behind in the move to Texas. Well, I got a super x-mas bonus from my job ($1500!!!! almost fell over) and found a similarly priced trailer in Austin. What better present for the family than camping fun?
So we went through a minor drama that ended up in my Wrangler having a trailer hitch and the turn signals no longer working (don't ask). The plan had been for Joy's Cherokee to be the primary towing vehicle, but she has a customized bumper and Uhaul got cold feet.
Anyway, we went down on Sunday last to check it out and was quite impressed. It's a 1996 Skamper pop-up. Its in excellent shape compared to our old one, but obviously a ten year old RV. We could camp in it now if we wanted to (a big improvement, it took me two months to make the old one usable). There are only three little areas of maintenance. A small hole in the canvas in the front, a broken door lock, and a missing hatch over the front storage compartment. All told its about two hours work on the weekend. Now I can't wait to go camping when the weather improves, which down here is about a month. Usually by mid February the weather is in the 60's to low 70's. Whoot!
Well, that's all that's going on. My new years resolution was to spend a little less time online, and a little more typing.

Sea World

2006-12-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

Once a month was not my goal! I mean, really!

So we went to Sea World in San Antonio a couple weeks ago. I love Texas, the weather was in the 70s and simply gorgeous! We saw the Alamo, hit the riverwalk for a bit (X-mas tree lighting was that day, so we had to run for it or be burned at the stake), and spent the night at a nice hotel. This is the second Sea World I've been to, and it's definetely smaller than the one in Orlando, but nicer in many ways. They run during the winter on weekends only, but open for the entire week for thanksgiving and x-mas, so we hit the turkey day weekend. We caught two shows (Dolphin and ORCA ) and saw a lot of other attractions. Patrick got to feed the dolphins, and of course LOVED that.

Sea World is a class act, and I highly recomend it over any other theme park. Screw disney or six flags, Sea World is a renowned conservation organization that spends big bucks helping our cetacean cousins. We liked it so much we bought season passes!

I'm chugging away on a complete re-write of book two of the Chronicles of the Chosen. Didn't make too much progress because I got caught up reading Eragon prior to the release next week. I think I'll actually have some early chapters to post soon, for my miniscule but dedicated fan base!

Time to take a breath!

2006-11-06T12:51:00.000-08:00

Well, football season is over. My son's team, the Dolphins, didn't make it past the first round of the playoffs. However, considering this was the first year they played (expansion team) and that they won their last two games of regular season with a blow up, that ain't too shaby. All the kids grew and became brothers in arms. My son, Patrick, did better than I could have possibly hoped for. Up to the day he was issued his uniform, he had only agreed to play under protest. By the time he started practicing he thought it was pretty cool, now that it's over it's tied as his favorite sport right next to soccer! (we'll work no that last one over time).

He's learned so much I can't describe it all, and I'm beginning to see the glimmers of what one day will be a man. To see an eight year old get put in the dirt time and time again by a kid fifty pounds his senior and come back for more, he's shown more backbone and character than most adults. I feel this has taught him life lessons that will stay with him for the rest of his life. I'll have some pics up soon, I shot about 20 rolls of film for the second half of the season.

On another note, I took the poll of the week club from Oz's web site. With the election tomorrow, of course that is the aim of the poll.

You are a
Social Liberal
(70% permissive)

and an...
Economic Conservative
(83% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Libertarian


	http://is1.okcupid.com/graphics/politics_you.gif">


	http://is1.okcupid.com/graphics/politics_you.gif">

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

On the subject of voting, if your a liberal, don't forget to vote on Wednesday. If your a conservative or a liberatarian, the election is tomorrow. If you really don't know when or where to vote, do us all a favor, and DON'T VOTE!

As you will notice, the images don't match the actual percentages. I am solidly in the libertarian zone. Maybe my html guru of a wife can fix this mess!

I'm Back!

2006-10-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

Well, the freaking brokers test is over. I actually think I might have passed (please, someone burn a few thousand candles for me). If I do it could be a life changing event for us. I've got eight years experience, management, senior auditor, compliance, oh boy. Jobs just like mine, WITH the brokers license, draw over 50k, even out in the sticks. I could well add 20k to my bottom line if we stay in big D.

We went to the State Fair of Texas on Friday (that's right, they

don't call it the Texas State Fair, don't ask, it's a Texas thing). We had a blast. So much so that a couple hundred of my presidential friends stayed behind. Here is the one and only Big Tex.

Patrick rode his first 'grown up' rides. Not too many, he was a little freaked out by the ones that flip and invert too much, but still, he's growing so fast.

I'll be posting more in a few weeks. Football season is almost over. As the special teams coach over overseen a couple fiascos, but not too many. There were a few league rules I was unaware of that cost us a touch down or two. Luckily, we were being generally murdered anyway. The kids have all come a long way, especially Patrick. The little man of my life that used to ball when he had a splinter now gets leveled by a kid twice his size and comes back for more. I'm afraid if I was any more proud of him I'd explode.

Oh, what planet am I? A big fat gasbag with rings. Hmm...

You Are From Saturn

You're steady, organizes, and determined to achieve your dreams.You tend to play it conservative, going by the rules (at least the practical ones).You'll likely reach the top. And when you do, you'll be honorable and responsible.Focus on happiness. Don't let your goals distract you from fun!Don't be too set in your ways, and you'll be more of a success than you ever dreamed of.

What Planet Are You From?

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

2006-08-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

So now that we're back from vacation and in cruise mode, I decide I've got far too much f*cking time on my hands. I'm studying for the Brokers Test in October, and what do I do but open my yap at the signup for Patrick's football program. What will it cost me, a few hours a week? he he he. He's in the big leagues now. Mid City Peewee football, junior league. They're tackle. Fourteen teams in his division alone with between 17 and 25 kids per team. There is also a flag division, and senior. You think basketball is big in Indiana? Try football in Texas. Anyway, they practice four days a weeks (mon, tues, thur, fri) and play a game every saturday, until the end of october. Practices are two hours. Crap! Of course the head coach was thrilled and after hearing about my modest highschool ball and college attempt I became special teams coach. Brother! Oh, and of course I'm working on three novels. I've been stalled on the Chosen Chronicles for a while. Just gave an autographed hard back of EPI to one of Patrick's friends mothers. She read it in one day, and then raved to me for half an hour..... So I guess I better stop screwing around and finish EPII? Lord's Prayer is turning into a porno novel, so I might as well dust of Chosen for a few weeks while the boner goes down, and the vampires in Crimson Star sharpen their fangs.

Of course, I took Oz's newest quiz. I ain't no freaking Yoda!

Which Star Wars Character (Episodes 1-6) Are You?

You are Anakin! You have some tough times in your past, present, and future, and sometimes you are torn between good and evil, but whatever happens, you always seem to be the backbone to your family and group!
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Back to Work, Sort Of!

2006-08-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

Well, we're back from New Orleans and Indy. It was nice seeing a couple old friends. Ran into Oz ( lordoz.blogspot.com ), Mike and Daisy at a steak place in Indy. I really wish more of the old group had been there, but I think the Lady was trying to remind me to let go of that part of my life. I left there with a very bitter sweet taste in my mouth.

Saw my new neice on my wife's side of the family, Lillian Dailey. I'll post pictures later. After that stay we drove through to New Orleans and spent a couple days in a two hundred year old place called the Place D Armes right in the middle of the French Quarters. What can I say except New Orleans is a ghost town. Katrina kicked it's ass, and I don't think it'll be back any time soon. Miles upon miles of residences and business on the east side of the city are still trashed. I didn't even know a Six Flags was there, because it isn't. You can see the roller coasters and stuff, but the sign looks like a leftover from a nuclear weapons test. Houses with their roofs missing, a few FEMA portable trailers, that's about it.

The French Quarter escaped largely undamaged, but the business' suffered the worst. At least half of them are gone. A few new ones have opened, but they mostly sell shit and I think they are taking advantage of the cheap rents. On that subject there were these condos at the end of St. Anne street (where our hotel was), right by the Mississippi river. The two bed, two bath jobs went for over $2000 a month before Katrina. They can be had for under $800 now. Ouch.

But we had a good time and I felt great about spending our tourist money there. We had some good creole food, got a few sourvenirs, and left with good memories (pictures in a few days).

We got back within an hour of the planned time and I returned to a shitload of unfinished work. And now after busting my ass for a week, my boss sent me a rude and threatening message on Friday. Nice. I'm looking for work again. I've been supposed to have a review for weeks. I'm thinking about having a resignation letter in hand when I go into it. Fuck it, I'm tired of my abusive boss. He really doesn't abuse me too much, but he's constantly berating employees in front of everyone, and is basically a pink triangle drama queen.

On the writing front things are going great! I continue to dabble on Crimson Star, and have taken off like a rocket on my 5th re-write of The Lord's Prayer. I started working on it in New Orleans and have over 18,000 words in the can. About 15%. Not too shabby. This particular nightmare of a novel started about fifteen years ago (maybe more) and has seen several incarnations. The first was action adventure and involved my game group characters. This 5th and hopefully final version is kind of a spiritual/sexual sci-fi space opera. Oh boy, what a ride. If I succeed I'm not going to make any friends of the Christians. Call it kind of Passion of the Christ meets Stranger in a Strange Land filmed during 2001: A Space Odyssey.

My wife (she who must be obeyed) has finally succeeded in daring me to write a political blog. You can find it under inconcievabletirades.blogspot.com (sorry if spelling is wrong). I'll add a link later. It might not be to the liking of my liberal fans. I am after all a libertarian, conservative, constitutionalist pagan. Well, I'm not in any popularity contests.

One for the road

2006-07-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, I won't do a bunch of these, but this one is great. I know a lot of you hate conservatives, especially Rush Limbaugh. I don't listen to him much because he might be correct a lot, but he tends to be a self promoting, hypocritical blowhard. But one thing he's always had right, is that the 'anti-hooters', 'anti-Playboy' anti-men looking at and enjoying womens bodies/womens' rights movement was created by ugly women to get more access to men. Take a look at this picture and tell me he's completely wrong.

Liberal, pissed off, and proud of it. I think she's just hasn't gotten over Kerry/Edwards (Scarry Empywords) horrible defeat! Have a beer, and chill out. A little makeup probably wouldn't hurt either. Or at least an hour or two in a tanning salon?!

Yeah, I'm a STAR WARS fan!

2006-07-29T17:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, this one says it all.

My money is on the one with the purple lightsaber. Must have been on loan from Mace Windu!

2006-07-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

Soccer is over. My team "The Falcons" (go figure) finished their season 1-8. What can I say, they're eight, and I'm a middle aged fat guy that never played soccer in his life! Here is a pic of the team.

They are from left to right; Saul, Lenny, Ishan, Sean, Fabiola, Coach, Patrick (my boy), Steven, Orlando, and Antuan. A great group of kids that learned a lot, grew some, and hopefully learned that you don't always have to win to have fun.

The image was taken with a $100 digital video camera I got at wal-mart (sorry Oz, they had it cheaper, and your sales people are jerks). I have a video, but can't post it because I can't figure out how! Once Joy explains this confusing bit of tech, I'll get it up. More pictures from the post game party to follow later!

The Story Moves Along

2006-07-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Crimson Star, as I've titled it, is moving along well. I've asked Joy for a quick once over so she can help me make a plot decision (exactly how and why does a 16 year old girl leave on a dangerous mission into an alien filled galaxy?). This is one of those things that can drive a serious sci-fi fan absolutely nuts. Good story, plausable plot hook, enganging characters. Then they do things that would NEVER happen for any reason. Anyway, having been a 16 year old girl once before, she can hopefully provide some insight. If things progress well, I might post the first half dozen chapters for my faithful fans (both of them) to read.

My Primary Motivator

2006-07-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

Oz is a great motivator. Figure I need to go along with his personality test thing. They are interesting. I wonder how long before he drags out the myers briggs?

You Have Low Self Esteem 40% of the Time

Generally, you feel pretty darn great about who you are, even when you mess up or fail.Occasionally, a huge setback will make you question yourself, but you pick yourself up quickly.

How is Your Self Esteem?

I'm 8% worse that him. Sounds about right, he's a lot thinner than me (scary, I know).

Your Inner Child Is Sad

You're a very sensitive soul.You haven't grown that thick skin that most adults have.Easily hurt, you tend to retreat to your comfort zone.You don't let many people in - unless you've trusted them for a long time.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Yeah, this is accurate. Oz shouldn't feel to bad, my inner child has been going to college for over a decade. Between me and Atkins I'm trying to finally make the bastard graduate and move out of my basement!

Figures

2006-07-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

Of course, my wife is friggin Einstein. There is no justice in the world.

You're kidding, right?

2006-07-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

Took a little personality test left by the Lord Oz. He's Abraham Lincoln (does that mean Oz is about the screw up the country again?), any guesses who I am?!

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

OMFG!

Travelin' Man!

2006-07-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

We're getting ready for our trip to Indy at the beginning of August, so that should be a hoot. Nothing like a few hours staring at a newborn human (decidedly a scary experience unless it is your own critter) and going 'oooh!' and 'ahhh!'. On the up side, I'll get to meet with a bunch of my old freinds I haven't seen in a coons age. Oz, Weasel, Black Eagle, and maybe even Ray!

In the writing world I'm chugging along on several projects, and started another one. My wife, she who is buried hip deep in sex and blood, has convinced me there might be a marked for SF/Vamp. I've titled the project Crimson Star (no books by this title, some fan wanabe stuff though) and it basically involves a decimated humanity interdicted by a galactic civilization because we went where no man was supposed to go and brough back vampirism. The disease kills every being that catches it except for humans (lucky us). Humans it just makes into homicidal, blood thirsty, sex craved lunatics. Kinda like a visit to the democratic national convention. It looks like an interesting project and if the looks of some of the trash with a hot vampire chick on the cover is any indication, I might be able to find some traction out there for getting it in print.

Growing Pains

2006-07-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not a week, but it's also not a half a year!

Patrick, our son, is growing like MAD! He's 51 inches tall, 4' 3"!!!! He's only eleven inches shorter than Joy, and twenty inches shy of my modest 5' 10". How the hell did that happen? Plus he starts 3rd grade in just a few weeks. I know, I know, it is such a cliche to say 'where did the years go', but it is also a truism to say the years fly by the older you get. Joy and I have been together nine years now (we conceived Patrick about nine years ago in July some time). Have they all been wonderful? No, but none of them have been horrible either. I can honestly say most have been good, some have been great, and this year so far is freaking fantastic. We simply love Texas, we might be putting down roots for good. The market for my chosen profession is great, and for her it's as good as it gets without moving out east (ugh!).

I think we could do a lot worse than the Lone Star State. The only thing that drives me crazy is my own imagination. I left the Pacific Northwest for a lot of reasons, but one of them was that living in the shadow of rainier was not a wise thing to do (look up decade volcano on the internet sometime). Indiana is as boring as a tofu pizza, but it is also as safe as one. Texas is another story. This really is tornado alley, and worse, we're only about 400 feet above sea level. If the gulf of Mexico or the southern Atlantic ocean took a medium size rock, we'd have a front row seat at the ultimate surfer ride in history. But like I said, that's just my paranoia.

On a better note, I've been living Atkins again for the last month or so and as usual it's working like charm. Six months have always been the make or break for me. But this time we actually have the money to eat better than cheap-crap meats and stuff. Maybe 3rd time is the charm?

My motivation? Besides being as big as a VW Beetle, it would be the theme of this post. I want to sit holding my wife's hand and ball right along with her as my son says "I do," no matter if it is fifteen years from now, or thirty (seventy two?! I hope it's not that long!).

I am writing, just kinda flopping around for now. I'll post more on that next time.

The Monster Stirs

2006-06-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

All right, I'll admit it right off, I was shamed into this entry. My best (oldest) friend, Oz (http://lordoz.blogspot.com/), kept harassing me in every email that I needed to update my blog, so here it is.

A shitload has happened since last update. We've all moved to Texas, and moved again from Irving to Arlington. Joy had of course landed a great job, and we both bought new cars. The only thing I haven't been doing is writing. Avatar finally pissed me off enough that I shelved the two versions of book II I've finished or partially finished. I'm not too worried. I know where I want it to go, I just don't have the 'whatever' to finish it at this point.

I started a re-write of The Lord's Prayer. This one is either going to be my Opus, or my Oopus. I first wrote this back in the late 80's as kind of a sci-fi action film with a thin layer of religion. It has evolved into the opposite. I must have written about half a million words on this and still don't have so much as a synopsis I would dare send to a publisher! I know there is a major novel in here that might actually rise to the level of literature! The only question is do I have enough brain cells left to make it come out in a coherent enough manner. Maybe I'll work on Avatar at the same time, I don't know. Life just feels a little disjointed right now.

I'm going to settle to commit to updating this damn blog once a week and go from there. Friends, stay tuned. This could get interesting!

Self Loathing

2005-11-30T17:18:00.000-08:00

I have made no progress at all. Given up working on the damned ending because it just won't come. I even started working on a couple new short stories hoping to kick loose the ideas I need, but to no avail. My trip back home last week went well, and I made some progress packing, but not nearly enough. Joy is obviously overwhelmed with the move looming and her final semester of school dragging her down. She hasn't had any time at all to pack and while I'm seriously dissapointed, I can't blame her a bit. I can only pray she gets some traction in those last few days after school finishes and before I get there on dec 14th.
To make thinkgs even worse is that I've managed to gain back every pound I struggled to lose last year, and then a few more. Loathing sets in.
I want to move onto a new major writing project so bad I can taste it, but I know if I do I will be walking away from an oath I made myself to finish the Avatar Chronicles before moving on. Shit.

Sluggish Times

2005-08-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

Finally making some progress again. But just like before, as the end loomes, I find myself making regrets of how I got there. This book is proving very difficult, not just because it's the first sequel I've written, but also because there is so much I want to happen, but I'm largely clueless how to get there in a concise and satisfying way for the readers. I'm probably going to just end it where I want to, and go back to a re-write again.

On another note, I've diverted my frustration by writing a novella tentatively titled Aftermath. Its about a person similar to me, stranded a thousand miles from his family when a rogue comet causes an accidental nuclear exchange. I've always loved the cold war era mens adventure and this is kind of a modern revisting to those.

I'm finally going home to Indiana this weekend to visit my family. I don't know who I miss more, my wife or my son. I guess its equal parts of sadness, but in a few days I get to be whole again.

Settled, but unsettled

2005-07-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm in Texas. Got the job, and after a whirlwind of insanity (fits the theme anyway) here I am. Good raise, more responsibility and a company that I think will value and reward me more than the old one.

In the writing department, I expereinced a strange phenomenon. After I got the job my creativity just dried up. I got here and found out it was going to be morethan a week before I started the new job. Plenty of time to write? Nope, still no creativity. Just sat, read a few books and waited. I was a little worried especially since I was almost finished with Aria. But I started the new job on Monday and the wierdest thing happened. That very day at lunch I was back to writing. Wierd, or what? Kinda puts a crimp in my "win the lottery and quit to write full time" fantasy.

Well, at least I'm working again (and writing). Aria is behind schedule, but at least there is progress. More to follow.

Too Much Happening

2005-06-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

Just been too damn busy to post. I'm about 90% finished with Avatar's Aria, that's the good news. The bad news (really good news) is that I may have a new job in Texas and that is going to play hell on the book schedule. I'll know more by tomorrow (hopefully) and I'll updata then!

The Nasty Part Begins

2005-05-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm not done doing my first edit, but me real editor (the incredible, sexy, and capable Joy Wandrey), starts editing next week. I'm on page 300 of 405 at this point, so it's not like I'll be two pages ahead of her, but my fear is having to go back and make major corrections early in the book after she's edited. I'm busy adding some much needed long term plot elements and polishing the continuity, so the likelyhood of having to re-edit early bits is essential.

One of the most interesting things I've done is adding a new (old) character to book 2. Most will remember Kadru, the somewhat mysterious Indian (not native american) woman who helped finance the Followers of the Avatar cult before earth's demise. She survives and comes to Bellatrix, mysteriously healed of her illness. Well she was not only healed, but given incredible longevity. She is still alive more than 100 years after earth. I've inserted a running sidestory that follows her and will ultimately be linked into the very end of the series. Everyone probably realized she was significant, as was Mindy obviously. But as this new book opens you will learn she is much more important than anyone thought before.

Now 3/4 of the way through the book I've reached the part that requires the most work. It doesn't end the way I want, so I'm having to make major changes. Both in the basic story structure, and how the "Chosen" develope as a galactic force to be reckoned with.

I've also abandoned my attempts to prune this below 180k works. It was a foly of the highest order. In fact Joy suggested "screw it, just write the damned thing", so that's what I'm doing. It looks like this one will be over 200k words. Some won't like that, but I guess it can't be helped. The story is demanding the space. The good/bad news is that means this will be a three book series.

1 - Avatar's Overture
2 - Avatar's Aria
3 - Avatar's Requiem

I've decided to dump Anthem as a title. It works, but it is just to ubiquitous. This is a very military book, obviously per the theme "anthem", but much more happens than military. Aria fits much better.

Aria - Term for a song either independent or part of a larger work.

This book takes place at the sunset of the Avatar Empire. Its rather like the moment the Visigoth's invaded Rome. The beginning of the end. This of course leads us to the meaning of Requiem as a title (not that I think it really needs describing).

Requiem (n.) A mass said or sung for the repose of a departed soul.
Requiem (n.) Any grand musical composition, performed in honor of a deceased person.
Requiem (n.) Rest; quiet; peace.

A lot of double meanings, but they obviously have a comon theme.

Kinda funny, but I'm not really a music fan. The theme just came to me after chosing Overture as the first one. I chose Overture purely because it was the opening shot, the beginning, almost a deal to be offered. I'm not even sure when the idea of using the other musical titles came to me, but it was a good piece of inspiration.

I often write cinematicaly. I will sit back while working on a scene and imagine it as a movie. I usually even have certain actors and actresses cast in my head. Anyway, as the scene plays out I then write what my mind imagines. Many people have told me my scenes are very cinematic in nature. Go fugure. Anyway, lately as I run scenes in that mess of grey noodles I call a brain I will have music playing. Often Tchaikovsky or Bethoven. I've felt a cool sci-fi story told to power classical can really make the hairs stand up on the back of your head. Check out the new Battlestar Galactica if you don't agree. I'm still waiting for that scene, probably the money shot in book three, that will be worthy of Carmina Burana.

Anyway, the muse call to me, and I must answer. If I don't write I'll be forced to use a power drill to get the words out!

Star Wars

2005-04-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

I hate to admit it, but my editing is falling off. I'm fighting it but the hype for EPIII:RotS is getting to me. I admit it, I'm an unrepentent starwars geek, have been since I saw EPIV:aNH in 1977. Hey, what can I say? I doubt I'd be a profesional writer now if not for equal parts Robert Heinlein and George Lucas. I'll keep at it, but it's getting hard. They posted all the TV teasers on Starwars.com, damn his black heart.

Word Creep Contines

2005-04-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

Well into the edit of book 2, Avatar's Anthem, and I'm still experiencing word creep. I started at 175,000 words with the intention of skinning it down to more like 150k. So much for that plan, I'm over 185,000 now. The simple problem is I'm finding much more to add, than needs to be removed. Hrumph! I guess I just need to stop worrying about it.
The coup by my main character has been successfully put down and further development of the technology of the Avatar's and the alien races is coming well. This is going to be a rich and diverse universe when I'm done. One race when from a simple anthrapamorphic snake to a much more complex slithering nightmare that would be perfectly at home in an HP Lovecraft novel! Well, gotta get to editing. I'm passing the halfway point tonight, and I feel the muse rustling in some dark corner of my torture brain.

Flying like the f*cking wind!

2005-04-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm really kicking ass now. I got about 3/4 of the way through book three and had a couple of rapid fire revelations.

1) This is a four book series, not three.
2) My main character was attemption a coup.
3) Because of events in book three, book two needed major surgery.

So, I stopped book three and began concept work for lengthening the series to four books. Not as hard as it might seem, I'd originaly conceived of four book back in the beginning anyway.
I put down the coup, sorry but it wasn't bloodless.
Rewriting of book two is well underway!

This shouldn't effect the anticipated publishing date for book 2 (Fall 2005), but it might effect books 3 and 4 (especially since I didn't really consider book 4 to be a reality until a short time ago). However the major rewrite of two was now essential to build for book 4. Here are the new titles.

Book I - Avatar's Overture
Book II - Avatar's Anthem (unchanged)
Book III - Avatar's Aria (new title with deep meaning to the series)
Book IV - Avatar's Requiem (original title for 3, now 4)

I've considered the possibility of a book 5 some day if anyone cares to be interested. It would be Opus of the Avatars and detail the story of the Original Race of Avatars. I considered calling it Rise and Fall of the Avatars but that is far too ubiquitous of a title, and greatly overused of late.

A big part of this rewrite for book two was really predicated on the fact that I have developed a considerable amount of color and detail during originally writing the book, and in working on three, and realized that I simply must go back and work some of this in from the beginning. In addition I'm making changes to pacing that will fit the longer series. And finally I've decided (as a result of requests for "edited" content from book one) to up the sexual content by an order of magnatude. Will this survive the editor? Probably not all of it. I freely admit that this primary rewrite is more porno in places than sci-fi, but I tend to write from the gut (or groin in this case) and then take a chisel to it later. Those familiar with book one might be surprised to find out the bath tub scene and the honeymoon scene were considerably longer in the manuscript form.
So anyway, one of my intentions in this rewrite was to also skin this down a tad. After first draft book two was a hefty 175,000 words. Compare this to the final manuscript of book one at 159,000 words. To many this isn't a problem, but new authors don't do too well with books that weight more than a laptop computer. So I planned to slim down book two. At this point I've failed horribly. It's grown by 10,000 words, and I'm only about a third of the way through. If this trend continues it will come in at nearly 200,000 words, just short of my unpublished manuscript "Aries" at 250,000 words. A real beast of a novel the likes of Atlas Shruged.
I'm hoping to find places to cut later. I do have a tendancy to be too verbose (this is the part where my wife shakes her head and laughs hystericaly). I've got through some of the biggest adds so far, and unfortunately this was where I hoped to thin it down the most too.

I'll try to get posts in more often as I really dig into this book. This really does help me jell some of my feelings, and it'll be fun to look back some day if I hit it big and see this as a time capsule of my work in the early days. Did I just say that? Crap, I've been writing for 30 years, and I just called this the early days. Heaven help me.

TTFN.

Back to work!

2005-02-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

Good news, I'm writing again! A couple chapters into editing Volume 2 of the Chronicles of the Chosen. Not really writting, I guess, but working at least. It's taking almost as much creative energy as out right writing would. Because of changes to the end of this book and the beginning of Volume 3, the beginning of this one is getting a major face-lift. Oh, and I finished the ending of the trilogy (in my head at least). This is good news because once this editing has reached the point where I can safely move onto finishing volume 3 I now know what I'm going to write about!

Crap

2005-01-27T07:52:00.000-08:00

Still not really writing. Grrrr. It's not distractions, really, more like a low ebb in the creative forces. I've had a few ideas growing in the back of my brain, and it's encouraging. Mostly I just need patience right now.

A "busy" vacation

2005-01-11T01:19:00.000-08:00

Well, we went to Chicago and it was rather wild. Train trip took two hours longer than planned so we lost our chance to go to the science and industry museum. Just about every thing we did cost twice what we planned. Went to the Field Museum on Sunday, then Medieval Times after that. We all had a blast and I managed to finish the show without passing out from lack of oxygen (ashtma and glycerin fog don't mix well, especially when you add alergies to horses). Our expedition to Ikea took twice as long and cost twice as much money but I'm sitting here on a new desk, and we have a cool new bureau thingamabob for the kitchen.
Vacation is over, I'm running out of excuses to get back and start writing...

Quiet time

2005-01-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

It's a quiet time in this writers life, sorta. After peak at my mundane job as a customs broker (extra points to anyone who knows what kind of job that is) for FedEx Trade Networks, we were supposed to slow down. Sure, right, like that's ever going to happen. As team leader (read: assistant manager) I'm supposed to set a good example, but since my wife and I decided on a little weeken adventure coming up to Chicago I'm having a hard time concentrating. I'm down to two night side employees while another is in training for three weeks, and another is on vacation, so I'm again wearing two hats. Anyway, peak for us is from about mid november through last weak. I've been working my ass off at work and as a result my writing has suffered. Suffered? Shit, I haven't written a word in a week. Book three of Chronicles of the Chosen is stalled and worse, The Other Side of Tomorrow (the book I started to get my mind off Chosen) is also stalled. Crap. Hopefully a couple days of blowing money in Chi-town will kick it all loose.

2005-01-02T19:59:00.000-08:00

My Mug
It's me, don't be scared

My Home, My Mind, My Insanity

2005-01-02T19:40:00.000-08:00

I hope to post here on a regular basis on that which drives my sanity, or at least helps me keep it; Writing. I've considered myself a writer since about 12 years old. It only took me 28 years to get my first book published (Avatar's Oveture, available on Amazon.com, bn.com, and many more). Maybe this blog will give me an outlet for my mental malfunctions and further drive my writing? I can only hope.