A Dark and Stormy Blog

Here We Go Again

2012-02-18T01:14:00.001-06:00

Here is something a lot of people may not know about being a writer.

When you write a book, you are going to read it over and over and over again. You are going to read it so many times you're going to end up hating the author. Then there will come that wonderful day you get the thing done, and then you format it, and get it a cover, and then you get it approved by the printer, and then they send you a proof...

...and then you find more mistakes.

So you sit down with the book in one hand, yellow marker in the other, and read the damned thing yet again. And you wonder what you had been smoking when you wrote the thing in the first place and somehow made such stupid mistakes that escaped attention till now.

Ugh!

But I've done it. The book was read through...line by line...and yellow marks were made. Then the manuscripts...both for the paperback and for the ebook...were corrected one page at a time. And now the manuscript has been uploaded to Createspace for review again, to make sure it meets their guidelines. I should hear back from them in a day or two and if it clears...which it should...then I order another proof. Then it will be another week of waiting for that proof to arrive in the mail. Then, if it passes muster... which it should... I tell Createspace to publish.

Then I'll be entering uncharted territory again and will have to learn what happens next. While that's going on, I'll get the ebook ready so I can upload it once the paperback is out. Then, assuming I haven't completely broken the internet beyond repair by this time, I should be done.

I hope so, anyways. I think it's a really good book... but I really don't want to read it again.

So Close, Yet So Far...

2012-02-16T07:28:00.000-06:00

So my author's proof for Shades arrived in the mail from Createspace yesterday afternoon.

It felt like Christmas in February when I saw that package on my front porch. All other things on my daily to do list got pushed back as I hustled the box into the house and tore it open. And there it was...my book.

The cover had come out even better than I expected (thank you Justyn Perry), and the formatting had worked as intended. To say I was delighted would be a woeful understatement. I was ecstatic.

But then trouble loomed in Paradise.

I sat down to read through my book, and started spotting errors. It seems that a couple of stories weren't edited as thoroughly as others, which I guess can be a hazard in an anthology.Don't get me wrong, there wasn't a whole lot of them. But what was interesting was how much those errors stood out once the manuscript was in book form as opposed to being on screen or printer paper. So...

It's back to work.

That's what proofs are for, after all. My job today is to break out the yellow marker and read through the entire book. Then once I find all the errors, I will fix the manuscript and upload it again. This book is going to have my name on it, and it isn't going to reach the market until I'm comfortable with the level of quality inside. It's almost there, but it's just not quite done yet.

Oh well, it's all part of the process. Soon, folks....

Soon.

LOL! at me....

2012-02-13T13:35:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I'm just too linear of a thinker.

I should go ahead an get that ebook file ready, but because I planned on doing that after approving the print book, I'm just not mentally at that place yet. It would take about thirty minutes, and common sense says to go ahead and get it done, but nooooooo....

Same thing with starting a new project or getting to work on Dead Stop. There really is no reason I can't...but I'm still in the Shades mindset because it isn't "done" yet. Oh well, it's just a few more days, and I can change gears.

I hope.

Woohoo! Approved! Time to Hurry Up and Wait...

2012-02-10T06:46:00.001-06:00

So, here is the final full cover for the Shades anthology.

I'm almost done.

This morning I received an email informing me that Createspace approved my manuscript and cover! Woohoo!

Now I have finally reached the stage where I order a proof for review. I have already done so, and hopefully I will be holding the first copy of my book in my hands in about ten days. If that copy meets my approval, then I think all that is left to do is to let them know they can put it up for sale, and then for me to get to work on uploading the ebook.

So now I sit in sort of a limbo. I suppose I can go ahead and incorporate the very last edits from the book manuscript into the ebook manuscript, but that will take about thirty minutes. After that, it's "hurry up and wait". Ten days of not being able to do much of anything.

I suppose I could start thinking about picking up the Dead Stop manuscript and figuring out how to go forward with it, but I'm still really focused on Shades and I probably will be until it's published. Argh! This is going to be a long ten days!

Cover Art Candidate #2

2012-02-07T00:01:00.002-06:00

Well folks, here is the second cover candidate for the Shades anthology.

This time I used a template to make sure the graphics were positioned correctly. Now the words intended to appear on the spine should actually appear on the spine. Now nothing should get chopped off in the trimming process. And now the back box is shorter to allow room for the barcode box to fit in it's place. So as far as positioning goes, this should be it..

The blurb has been rewritten as well. Hopefully it's an improvement over the last one. Everybody out there be sure and let me know what you think.

I'm getting there. I'm closing in on that magic, but gut wrenching, moment where I upload everything to be published. I just want to make sure it's right.

UPDATE: Change the last line of the first paragraph to read "These are the ghosts that haunt our niightmares." or "These are the ghosts that nightmares are made of."

Cover Art Candidate

2012-02-03T22:58:00.002-06:00

Picture above is the current candidate for the cover of the upcoming Shades anthology. Click the picture for a larger view. Please everybody, let me know what you think. I'm still at the stage I can change things, if I need to.

I think the first sentence of the blurb may be problematic.

Notes to Self

2012-02-02T10:31:00.000-06:00

Once manuscripts are completed, they should immediately be copied and the files labeled "for print publishing" and "for ebook publishing". Preparing your manuscript for one, then tearing out all the formatting you did for that and preparing it for the other is a huge hassle.

Grass seed that has been stored in the garage for a year is probably not going to sprout. It didn't this time.

The laundry still hasn't done itself. It probably won't. Might try having the kids do it. Not optimistic on that one.

Cats barf. They just do. It's their hobby or something. Remember to buy more baby wipes. They are the handiest item invented in the past half century.

Back to work.

Where Things Are

2012-01-31T08:12:00.001-06:00

Just a little update.

Things progress merrily along. I'm working on converting the manuscript into a .pdf file that I can upload to Createspace and turn into a book. I'm doing this while I'm learning on the job, but I am learning. A lot of what I've learned is how to use Word 2007 in ways I never had before. Such as learning how to start page numbers at a given page on a manuscript, or how to make a title page, or how to make headers, etc. I'm currently waiting to see if I can get some information on a couple of fonts from the man who designed my cover before going forward with headers.

But as it stands, I will hopefully be able to upload a .pdf to Createspace in the next few days. This time I will be trying to publish the physical book first, then I will immediately move to the ebook. There are two reasons for that. One, if I already have a physical book being sold on Amazon.com, then Amazon DTP will automatically try to link the ebook to it when they publish that. Second, I'm going to have to learn some new things to publish this ebook the way I want it, or maybe even have to pay to have it formatted for me, so I just wasn't ready to put out the ebook yet. I want it to have a clickable Table of Contents, and I currently don't know how to do that. It may be over my head.

So that's where things stand for now. Things are getting done.

Snippet from Legacy of Flies

2012-01-27T07:36:00.003-06:00

This is a snippet from Legacy of Flies, the last story finished for the Shades anthology. The setting is three women meeting on the side balcony of an enormous plantation style mansion overlooking a park and ritzy neighborhood. Jacqueline, a distinguished, elderly woman has just finished relating the dark history of the house to a young woman named Janie, who just discovered she is now part of the family by reason of an illicit affair of her grandmother's.

Jacqueline now rested an elbow on the railing and turned to face Janie full on.

“So,” she summed up. “That’s the story. This is the first time since that original gap that the house has sat empty, and the results have been too alarming to take as mere coincidence. Superstition or not, the family has decided that no further chances should be taken and Magnolia Rise must be occupied at once. Since Diane has abdicated her role as an heir, we were forced to cast our net much wider than normal.”

“And so here I am,” Janie finished.

“And so here you are.”

Janie studied the older woman, hunting for any hint of deception.

Nothing.

She glanced over at the table where the blonde had been watching the pair of them. Rosaline smiled back at her with an elegant shrug and ate another truffle.

My god, they’re serious!

Janie looked down at her feet, thinking furiously.

They’re actually willing to hand over a hundred and forty million dollars just because I share a bit of genetics with some unbelievable asshole who died a century ago! There has to be some kind of mass guilt complex at work here, or something. They don’t feel they’ve earned their wealth, or they can’t stomach its origin, so they’ve created this family curse that they have to appease in order to live with themselves while spending it. Only now they’ve run out of “legitimate” heirs. But they’ve bought so much into their own story over all this time that they’re willing to bring in an outsider just to fulfill its demands.

And so here I am.

Janie took a deep breath, and raised her eyes to meet the elder woman’s again.

“Okay,” she exhaled, “What do you need me to do.”

“Very little,” Jacqueline answered. “To fulfill the requirements of your inheritance, you will simply need to exit the east gate and follow the footpath to a small bridge across the creek and on into the park on the other side. Then proceed to that large live oak tree in the clearing.”

“The hanging tree.”

“Yes…the hanging tree. Then you need to spend the rest of the afternoon beneath it’s branches.”

Basically, Janie thought to herself, sending the sacrifice to the family demon’s alter. This whole thing is so Freudian it hurts.

“Basically,” she answered aloud, “making Puscasu aware I exist and that I’m moving in so he’ll know who to haunt and to let things return to normal.”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“And then,” Rosaline drawled while picking up another truffle, “you come back up here to your new house and tell these workmen where you want your new big screen TV’s installed. I recommend talking to the assistant foreman. He is scrumptious!”

The senior Danford woman cast an exasperated glance at the blonde before continuing.

“As she said, you come back to your new home. I have the papers here. You may sign them now if you wish. The transaction becomes valid once I affirm you spent the required time under the tree.”

Jacqueline led her back to the table, where she opened the folder and offered Janie a pen that had been clipped inside. The silver instrument gleamed in the afternoon sun.

“So this is it,” Janie stared at the pen.

“This is it,” Jacqueline echoed. “Now you choose. You may either go back down to your car and return to the life you know, with all the good and bad things that entails. Or you sign on the line and take the path out the east gate to a life that will be very different. It’s now or never.”

“Well then…there’s certainly no pressure in that.”

“I’m afraid that’s the way it has to be,” the older woman replied. “Whatever choice you make here is final. There is no going back.”

Which means you already have another bastard or two lined up in case I didn’t work out. Lady, you’re husband must have been a real piece of work.

Janie stared at the pen a few seconds more then took it in hand.

She tried to ignore the two women leaning forward as she bent over the folder. The contract was surprisingly short, a mere four pages of paper, and very straightforward. Upon signing the document, and then Jacqueline signing to certify she had spent a satisfactory amount of time under the tree, she would receive the property of Magnolia Rise along with all operating accounts and trust funds associated with it…totaling $142, 532, 206 and thirty five cents.

“And thirty five cents…” she choked out.

“Accountants,” Rosaline popped yet another truffle in her mouth. “Gotta luv’em.”

“Oh well,” Janie quipped in a voice far lighter than she felt as she scribbled her name on the indicated line. “I guess it’s like the old saying goes…go big or go home.”

“That’s my motto!” the blonde laughed from across the table. “Welcome to the family!”

“Indeed,” Jacqueline scooped up the folder and tucked it under her arm. “Congratulations, you will soon be a wealthy young woman. I’ll have the chef make something special in celebration. Tonight, you shall dine as one of us.”

Her voice sounded slightly strange, and Janie couldn’t tell if the woman said that last part with reassurance or pity.

Booya!!! They're Done!!

2012-01-24T16:13:00.004-06:00

This morning I finished the rough draft of "Legacy of Flies", the eighth and final ghost story needed for my Shades anthology. It weighs in at 12, 631 words, a novelette like most of the other stories in the collection. These eight stories should result in a decent sized book that has about seventy thousand words once finished. (edit; a quick word count obtained by adding the different manuscripts reveals a count of 69,457. That could change as time goes on.) I still need to write an introduction, but that's only a few paragraphs and doesn't really count. The point is I now have all eight ghost stories I needed to make this anthology what I wanted it to be.

The stories are... (in no particular order)

Storm Chase,
A Memory of Me,
Death and White Satin,
An Echo of Blood and Mirrors,
Legacy of Flies,
A Singularity of Purpose,
Dance of the Ancients,
and
A Long, Cold Forever of a Night.

All exist in different stages of refinement, but all are written. Yet a lot of work remains.

Now begins the editing. I intend to go through the tales, story by story, and edit each one with a highly critical eye. I will need to review the stories for flow, and also figure out the order in which they should appear in the anthology. I pretty much want "A Long, Cold Forever of a Night" to be the last one, but other than that the order is open to whatever works best.

Then, once I have the introduction written and the stories edited, arranged in order, and all put together in one manuscript, I'll need to decide how I will format it for publication. Do I attempt to format it for the kindle myself? I've done a couple of single short stories, but this would be a much bigger project and I also want a couple of bells and whistles like a clickable table of contents...things that are currently beyond my skills. I will also have to decide if I want to go through Createspace and make a physical copy of the book. I would kind of like one of those...which means I'll have a lot more to learn.

So that's where things are now. An important milestone has been reached, but I still have a long way to go.

But the adventure is in the journey :)

Climactic Pauses

2012-01-22T14:49:00.000-06:00

I think I've started to notice that part of my struggles with writing come from something I'm now going to call "the climactic struggle". It seems that the nearer and nearer to the climax of a story I get, the slower and slower I write.

I'm currently working on the last story of the Shades anthology, and I'm now at the point where the protagonist struggles to survive her encounter with the above pictured menace. And I'm now at the point where I'm literally writing "sentence by sentence". Every sentence, every word, is being measured and weighed...and often deleted and restarted. Last night, I worked for four hours to complete just one double spaced page of writing.

I think it's because of the emotion of the situation. The climax is the emotional highpoint of the story, and that's where I start getting very cautious.and critical...maybe overmuch. But if a story is going to work, the emotion desired has to be achieved. Whether it's fear, joy, sadness, or laughter...the story has to deliver.or both the reader and the writer have wasted their time.

Come to think of it, the climax is kind of like the package that the hook promises to deliver. You use a hook to draw your reader into the story, and the climax is the highpoint that convinces the reader that a further relationship with the writer is worthwhile....

...hmmm.

Okay, I'm heading into metaphors I think I'll just leave alone.

Anyways, hopefully sometime this coming week I'll be announcing that the rough draft of Legacy of Flies is finished and I'll have be ready to write my introduction and move on the the next phase.

Go me :)

Thews and Stuff

2012-01-16T20:37:00.003-06:00

So my laptop is still languishing at Geek Squad, and I don't expect it back until Friday or next week. So what is a writer, who can't really use a pen or pencil, to do?

What I did was buy a collection of collection of ninety-nine Robert E. Howard stories.

I have been reading them for a week now, and I'm a little over halfway through them. I have met Conan the Barbarian, King Kull, a couple of hard nosed detectives, and a rather lovable gorilla of a sailor/boxer named Steve Costigan.

And thews....lots and lots of muscles and thews.

Iron thews. Knotted thews. Massive thews. Bull necks. Huge shoulders. You get the idea. I find it odd how a man who had such a wide range of prose and setting, could get into a bit of a rut when it comes to the attributes of his main characters. Because Howard could actually write...and rather well. His imagery and prose was very polished, and conveyed a powerful sense of setting and atmosphere. It's just that after about forty stories, I've pretty much met his main character before...with the exception of the boxer Costigan, who still had plenty of thews but an entirely different voice than the others. Even his detectives are pretty much Conan in a cheap suit.

Sadly, Howard was also a man of his times and there are places (especially in the stories set in his present day) where the writing crosses the line from understandable political incorrectness due to his times to outright racism. I despise much of political correctness, but I was getting uncomfortable with some of this. So there is that. But he was a good writer.

So I will continue with my reading till my laptop gets back, for if nothing else the works of a good writer can often inspire new stories from a different writer. That's what I'm hoping for.

Disaster Report

2012-01-10T17:10:00.000-06:00

My laptop...my window to the internet and my writing machine...went kerflooey. About a week earlier, my wife's computer crashed harder than Evel Knieval jumping canyons. So suddenly, our 21st century lives have screeched to a stop, and the only way I can even access the internet is to get down on the floor and use the children's computer at their little desk.

Yes, this officially sucks.

Anyways, my writing is on hold until the geniuses at Geek Squad can repair my laptop. So far they have settled for shaking their heads dolefully and shipping it off to parts unknown. Sigh. Yeah, it's that bad. Thank God for Dropbox.

I have downloaded a Robert E. Howard collection to my kindle, and I guess I'll just read that until my laptop returns. I was about eighty percent through the last story for that ghost story anthology. Hell, of a time to have to take a vacation.

Oh well, back to Conan.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000-06:00

So 2011 is one for the books, and 2012 beckons with all it's possibilities.

2011 was a frustrating year for me, writing wise. I only wrote and published one piece in 2011, which was The Mushroom Man....and that got pulled along with the rest of the Shades stories as I have started to approach the finish of the Shades anthology. So publication wise, 2011 was a bust.

That doesn't mean that nothing got done, though. Actually, I wrote a large portion of a novel titled Dead Stop, and have written four never before seen stories for the upcoming Shades anthology. I'm currently working on the fifth. And I even got about twenty thousand words written on Argiope. So words got written, it's just that the vast majority of them never saw publication.

Hopefully, 2012 will be different.

When I finish the last story, now titled "Legacy of Flies", I will start the publication process. And that is going to be the defining experience of this year. I have a lot to learn when it comes to publishing. I have seen some good self published works, but I have also seen some very amateurish attempts as well. So I definitely want to see to it I fall in the former catagory. That means lots of work, but I guess I already knew that.

I want this to be right.

2012 will be a year of changes as well. I will continue with the way I run this blog now, only updating when I actually have something to say. It works better that way. I will still consider the possibility of starting over with a new blog as well. Something more focused on just writing. Nothing is set in stone yet, but it seems to me that a lot of the personal stuff in this blog could just as well be put on facebook.

So there it is in a nutshell. Things have been slower than I wanted, but it looks like they will be picking up this coming year. I have a few other projects in mind as well. Photography, cover art, etc, so things will be busy.

I hope all of you have a great New Years out there and find ways to stay busy as well.

Happy New Years :)

Sometimes You Have To Start With The Ghost

2011-12-22T19:25:00.005-06:00

So December has been a bit of an exercise in despair writing wise.

I backed up my deadline to allow me to finish writing "The Dance of the Ancients", but I had also discovered that a story I intended to put in the anthology didn't really count as a ghost story. So there I sat, still a story short. I wracked my brains for a new story, but everything I came up with either seemed trite, forced, or to be blunt...it plain sucked.

It just wasn't working.

Then I remembered how I came up with the story for "A Long Cold Forever of a Night". I started with my ghost, or in that case the photo of the ghost on the cover of the anthology, then built my story around her. So I got out my photo editor, went to old photos from the dust bowl because I knew they would be in the public domain, and started making ghosts. I figured that since it worked once, it was worth trying again. And sure enough, after playing around a little while I finally struck paydirt.

The one in the picture above is the one that inspired a story.

He doesn't have a name yet, but he has a story...now I just have to write it. I still need to work out details such as names of people and places, and a few plot elements, but I already have the general arc of the story in mind. And since this story just hit me about an hour ago, I guess I'm going to count it as a Christmas present from my muse. The lazy little bimbo will now probably take a vacation for the rest of the year, knowing her.

But the important thing is I have story...

...I just have to write it.

The Wall

2011-12-14T06:50:00.001-06:00

Seven ghost stories have been written, only one remains until I can pronounce the anthology complete and go into full editing and publishing mode.

So naturally my muse has jumped a bus to Cancun....

This is a problem I have started to notice, and wonder if its just coincidence...just me...or a problem that other writers run into. I'm going to call it the "Almost Finished Paralysis".

I get a project about eighty percent done, and then suddenly it gets difficult to impossible. I have a ninety thousand word novel at about seventy thousand words. I have another novel that should be about a hundred and twenty thousand words at about ninety thousand words. And now I have an eight story anthology at seven stories...and just like the two novels I suddenly find myself running into all kinds of resistance.

Do any of you other writers out there ever face this phenomenon?

This is really irritating!

Snippet from Dance of the Ancients

2011-12-06T12:24:00.007-06:00

Here is a snippet from the second draft of my latest story, tentatively titled "Dance of the Ancients." The setting is at night, on a wooded hill doomed to disappear under the rising waters of the new lake surrounding it.This gives me seven stories appropriate for the anthology. Only one more to go!

Killing the trooper must have caused Luther to work up an appetite.

The half nude body hung impaled on a jagged, broken off branch that protruded about three feet from the trunk of the tree. Carl tried to imagine how the madman had done this, especially since the branch sat about seven feet up the trunk. And the effort required to drive even a sharp object like the thick branch through the man’s back so it came out his chest must have been impressive. At least it meant the man had already been dead when Luther started tearing bites out of his legs…there were large chunks missing from the thighs, and he had stripped them to the bone from the knees down. But that bothered Carl in its own way as well.

It took a savage to consume another human being…but eating him raw?

The sheriff started to think Luther Cole must have been more animal than man by the time he died.

He turned his attention back to the tree, where his other deputy now glared up at the corpse with folded arms. His cigarette clenched in his teeth, Les Patterson glowered at the body as if personally offended by it.

“Hey, Les?” the sheriff queried. “Was he a friend of yours?”

“Huh?” the deputy jerked himself out of his scowling reverie and looked at the sheriff. “Oh…no…that’s not the problem.”

“So what is?”

Les looked back up at the body for a second, then down at the trooper’s pistol he retrieved from the ground nearby. He had opened the cylinder earlier and declared all the bullets spent.

“I guess I just don’t like it when things don’t make sense. And what I’m seeing ain’t making sense to me.”

“How?” Carl frowned at the deputy. “It’s pretty straightforward. Luther and the trooper trade shots. Luther finishes off the trooper, hangs him up and…has a snack. Then the crazy fart has a lucid moment and realizes he can’t just kill an officer without the rest of us coming for him. So he hobbles back up to his cabin and hangs himself. End of story. Case closed. Ain’t nothing to do now but pick up the bodies and try to get home before dinner gets too cold.”

Carl offered the last sentence in a hopeful tone…not at all liking the downcast look of his senior deputy.

“It didn’t happen that way,” Les replied softly.

“What do you mean? What’s the matter?”

“Well, first of all,” the deputy shone his own flashlight on the corpse, “look at this body. Does this guy look like he’s been dead longer than Luther? We know the trooper came out here yesterday afternoon. We know he and Luther traded shots. And we know Luther hung himself sometime later…probably before sunset. But this guy looks like he died sometime last night. Several hours after Luther was already dead.”

“Okay,” Carl sighed, “What do you make of this then?”

“Well,” the deputy rubbed the back of his neck. “You can see how the this guy took a lot of birdshot to the face. That pretty much explains the lousy aiming on his part. He may have even been half or mostly blind. And if he and Luther go separate ways after trading shots, he might have been unable to find his way back to his boat in that shape. Top it off with him not knowing Luther was injured or dead, and he may have been hiding or stumbling around down here till dark.”

“Alright,” the sheriff nodded, “that makes sense, but it don’t mean Luther didn’t kill him. I know this body looks fresher, but maybe it’s because the chest has been punctured which would do a lot to reduce the bloating. And with his legs like they are, the body bled out instead of filling up with blood. So it looks fresher but it really isn’t.”

“I guess,” Les sighed. He couldn’t have looked more doubtful.

“C’mon, Les. It had to be that way. We’ve been all over this island and there ain’t nobody else here. Now why don’t you relax, and help me figure out a way to get the poor bastard down.”

Life Outside of Writing

2011-12-01T19:04:00.001-06:00

While I have been productive as of late, being a househusband and a Dad demand much of a my time and attention as well. Of course, it occurs to me that kiddos may be trainable....

Not bad, eh?

Of course with my luck, I'll get the girl trained all right and proper and some nosey jerk of a handsome prince will show up and cart her off to his castle. How is that fair? I do all the training and HE gets his floors scrubbed!

Oh well, I'm going to make a major push at writing over the upcoming weekend and we'll see how that works out. And while I'm at it, maybe I can teach the girl to do laundry :D

Waffles R Us

2011-11-30T23:19:00.000-06:00

So, I'm going to waffle on my deadline.

I had set Dec 1st as the deadline to get stories in on the Shades series. As it turns out, I have written three in the past month and a half, and I'm working on a fourth one. With that kind of progress happening, I can back up the deadline.

Besides, I now have a real vision of the way I want the anthology to be, and I'm even starting to contemplate the forward for it. I want it to be nothing but ghost stories. Good ghost stories. So I'm going to to take the extra time to get that done. The bonus to that, is each non ghost story that gets bumped out of this anthology, counts as a head start on the final count of stories in the next non-ghost story anthology. So that's a win too.

Anyways. I'm working hard and making progress. So I'm happy.

Snippet from A Singularity of Purpose

2011-11-28T06:48:00.004-06:00

A snippet from the first draft of the story I completed this weekend. Only two more to go.

“Great,” he grumbled and threw aside the covers.

Russell kicked his way through the pile of dirty clothes on his floor and eased open his door. The sound of his mother snoring filtered through the door next to his. He felt his way down the dark hallway of the long trailer house, trying not to stumble in the blackness. At least the living room turned out to be navigable, due to the moonlight flooding in through the sliding glass door.

He skirted the scruffy lounge chair and made his way across the room to the kitchen. The teen fumbled around the end of the bar then grabbed the duct taped handle of the fridge. Pulling the door open revealed him to be in luck…sort of. One lone Coke sat behind the bottle of ketchup on the bottom shelf of the door.

Russell considered his options, knowing full well the can of soda hadn’t found its way into such an obscure position by accident. His mom had most likely secreted it there to use as a cold, effort free substitute for coffee when she woke up. If he took it, he would most likely hear about it in the morning.

Not like that was anything new.

“Oh well,” he shrugged and grabbed the can, “it’s just more noise to wake up to.”

He popped the top and took a long thirsty slug before closing the door and turning away. It took a second for his eyes to readjust to the dark again after the light from the refrigerator. It left a red square afterimage in the center of his vision that faded as he made his way back around the bar and into the living room. He stopped to let his night vision return to full, glancing over at the sliding glass door and out into the moonlit world beyond…and choked on the soda he was drinking.

Mavis sat on the back porch, staring in at him with dead white eyes.

Russel’s own eyes widened in disbelief as they took in the ghastly sight. He stumbled back against the wall, trying to breath after inhaling the fiery mix of citric acid and carbonated water. He blinked, thinking the vision to be a lurking remnant of the forgotten nightmare of earlier, but it remained.

It was Mavis…

…and he was deader than ever.

Rigor mortis had given the hideous creature a snarl that no living canine could hope to match. The animal’s fur now stood out in the type of stiff spikes only dead or the sickest of animals possessed, but that sense of smallness Russell had noted before was gone. If anything, the grisly dog looked larger than ever.

And meaner.

With its permanent snarl set beneath those white, staring eyes, it appeared the spectral beast was grinning in at him through the door…and not in a friendly way.

Russell fought for air, desperately wanting nothing more than to get out of the sight the ghastly dog. Recovering a trace of self control, he slid along the wall of the living room in the direction of his bedroom.

The dead animal’s head turned with a mechanical slowness as it tracked him, it’s white eyes fixed on his face with hungry intensity. The death-mask of a grin gleamed in the bright moonlight. It seemed hard to believe Mavis had that many teeth when he lived, but now his jaws appeared to bristle with them.

Russell gabbled something incoherent, then dashed for the hallway.

He plunged into the blackness with relief and felt his way down the walls with frantic sweeps of his free hand. For some silly reason he took care not to spill his Coke. His fingers closed around the doorknob to his bedroom, and he pushed his way into the room in a gasping rush before slamming the door shut and putting his back against it.

“I didn’t see that!” he wheezed, “I did not see that! Mavis is dead, and dead is dead!”

The boy clenched his eyes shut and put the soda can against his forehead. He couldn’t have possible seen what he just thought sat on the other side of that glass door. It had to have been some kind of hallucination or holdover from a dream. People didn’t come back from the dead, and neither did dogs.

And thinking back on it, the scene did have a certain sense of unreality to it. The bright moonlight flooding in, the white eyes that almost glowed, the way the dead dog seemed to almost dominate the entire picture as if magnified…it did seem like a dream.

Russell inhaled deeply and started to collect himself.

“Nightmare,” the boy breathed. “It was just a part of a nightmare. Yeah, that was it. I wasn’t really awake yet. I couldn’t have been. Oh man, that was some messed up shit.”

Hammering the Keys.

2011-11-26T17:30:00.000-06:00

I'm going to pull a marathon writing session this weekend. The idea is to try and finish the ghost story I'm currently working on, and maybe even the one I shelved earlier this week. I've just come up with a good ending to the current one, so that bodes well. Things always flow faster when I have a solid picture of the destination. The other one still is hazy on the ending part, which was slowing me down so I jumped to writing the current one.

But even if I finish them both, I suddenly face an unforeseen problem. Or at least unforeseen because I didn't stop and take strict account of what I had written.

I had forgotten that one of the ghost stories I had already intended to include in the Shades anthology wasn't really a ghost story. It was something else that happened to come across as a supernatural phenomenom to the main character until she figured it out at the end. So my ratio of 6 ghosts stories to 2 non ghost stories is actually 5-3. Even if I finish both of these this weekend, there will still be a black sheep, so to speak.

I'm going to have to think hard on this. I want to get something published soon. But on the other hand, I really wanted this anthology to be nothing but ghost stories. I'm even starting to conceptualize the foreward to it, on the basis that it will be all ghost stories. So at the moment my solution is to try and finish the stories I'm working on, and trying to go to the well one last time.

If I can finish the rough drafts to the two I have this weekend, that will give me three days until my self imposed deadline to try and come up with one more. But it has to be good. This anthology will have my name on it, so no filler crap posing as fiction. Oh well, I'll just work my tail off and see what I've got on Dec 1st.

I can do this.

Crunch Time

2011-11-21T20:41:00.001-06:00

Alas, poor Muse. I knew him Horatio...

Okay, actually just the reverse is true. After my muse taking an unwelcome holiday for the summer and most of the fall, it has returned. It's been giving partial responses, but that still counts as inspiration.

And with a self imposed deadline approaching, those flickers of inspiration are good things.

I have nine days left, before I "put to bed" the final story selection of Shades. I have six ghost stories, two monster stories...and I'm hoping to replace one or both of those monster stories with ghost stories as well. I now have three idea for stories, that appeal.to me. But the deadline looms. And now I have the kids home all week for their Thanksgiving break as well.

So this is going to be tough.

But I'm going to plow ahead and stick to my deadline. I think I can do this, and if necessary can still go with what I've got...the 6-2 ratio. It's time to get something done.

I'm really thinking of writing a foreward and afterward to this collection as well. It will be some observations on ghost stories in general, and on what I was trying to do with the stories in this anthology. We shall see. For now, I need to just focus on writing while trying to also do what needs to be done to get through Thanksgiving.

Wish me luck :P

Snippet from An Echo of Blood and Mirrors

2011-11-11T17:53:00.000-06:00

And now the ghost story ratio for the upcoming Shades anthology rises to 6-2. I've decided to set a deadline of Dec 1st, and I'll start the process of publishing with whatever I've got then. That gives me time to maybe replace one of those last two monster stories with another ghost story between now and then. Who knows, maybe I'll really surprise myself and replace them both!
So on with the snippet...

Anyways, we go into the shop classroom and shut the door. There is no shop in third period, so we had the place to ourselves.

“What are we doing in here?” Laura asked. Her head appeared to be on a swivel as she looked from corner to corner of the darkened room. All the machines had tarps over them, and she was acting like they might be hiding something.

“We’re gonna take the side door out back of the school,” I said, and walked across the dusty floor to the outside door. “Just listen here until you hear the PE class go past on their way to the locker rooms. They do that about ten minutes before the bell, so we’ll have plenty of time to make a run for the walk-in gate in the back fence before class lets out and there won’t be any people to see us.”

She actually looks all impressed again, and I got to admit I’m feeling pretty good about myself. I know she probably wasn’t no straight laced angel or nothing…hell, who really is…but she just didn’t have anything like the experience I had at this kind of thing. She’s up there on her end up the totem pole where you have to be pretty good, and I’m down on my end where you can master this stuff.

“So,” I lean against a desk, and actually fight the urge to pull my hand free of hers. “What’s up?”

She didn’t answer right away, still looking around the room.

“Hey,” I tried to get her to focus, “there ain’t nobody in here but us. So you want to tell me about it?”

“I already did,” she said, “I skipped out of the nurse’s office and they’re going to be looking for me. I need to get home to get something.”

At this point she lets go of my hand and pulls out her cell phone. She hit a number then stands there rocking back and forth with the thing against her ear.

“C’mon Barry, pick up!”

Yeah, she’s standing their leaning on me and calling Barry Price. I started to feel like a huge sucker, and it kind of made me mad. I’m the one going out on a limb for her, and she’s calling her pretty boy-toy. How’s that for gratitude? I’m starting to wonder if she hasn’t just cooked up a bunch of drama to get some attention from Barry. So I’m kind of pissed, and feeling stupid, and really thinking about turning around and going back to class and just telling Mr. Gregor I got lost on the way to the bathroom or something.

“Hey, look,” I stand up, “Just listen at the door, and you can make your own way to the gate once it’s time. It’ll be easy.”

“Corvin! No!” She grabs me and starts acting like she’s going to freak out again. “Don’t leave me here alone!”

“Hey, if this is just so you can set up a date with Barry that’s your business. You don’t need me for that.”

“No!” she squawks, “It’s nothing like that! I’m in real trouble here!”

“How? From sneaking out of the nurses office? Big deal! That’ll earn you one ‘bad girl’ and a dirty look. Look, I’m the one getting my ass in trouble here when I don’t show back up to class. So either you tell me what’s going on here or I’m gone.”

She just looks at me all wild for a second, and I can tell she don’t want to say what’s going on. I sort of felt bad, but at the same time I don’t like being anybody’s sucker…especially some chick who thinks she can just walk all over guys because she’s hot. The minute you let them go down that road, they stop respecting you

So I start heading for the door again.

“Corvin!” she starts crying. “I’m being haunted! Lamar Tarlington is after me!”

Yeah, that’s right. That's what she said. And I looked at her the same way you’re looking at me right now.

“What? Wait,” I shook my head, “you mean the guy in that story from our field trip last week? The one who cut off those kids heads?”

“Yes! Him! When I looked out the window in English class, I saw him standing there and looking in at me! And he had this huge knife or machete thing! I know this sounds crazy but I think Barry may have done something really stupid and now I’ve got the Necromancer after me!”

Ghosts and Novelettes

2011-11-06T02:23:00.001-06:00

I've been downloading and reading a lot of ghost story anthologies for the dual purpose of researching the genre, and to get inspiration for my own work. What I've discovered so far, after going through a couple of collections, is that most ghost stories aren't really very scary.

Now a lot of that is due to presentation. It seems like a lot of ghost stories are told from this detached "just the facts ma'am" point of view, as if that adds some kind of authenticity to the story. Many of the older ones do this, especially the turn of the century ones from authors like Ambrose Bierce and Algernon Blackwell. They are interesting reads, just not much in the way of suspense.

And most modern horror short stories aren't ghost stories at all. So that left a bit of a hole in my research effort.

I wonder if part of that is due to the ghost needing to be a character in the modern story. Short stories nowadays have to be five thousand words or less usually, which makes a big problem for the writer when it comes to character development. A giant snake or mutant rat doesn't need much of a back story to be scary, since their very existence is supposed to be the scary part. But a ghost without a backstory just doesn't work very well...and back story eats into that precious word count.

This is one of the reasons that the Shades anthology will be indie when I publish it. Several of the stories are eight, ten, or even twelve thousand words long.. They need to be, for the ghost to have both character and impact AND for me to build a scene with suspense. So they are novelettes, which is a fancy word for the aforementioned seven-thousand to seventeen-thousand word story. I'm hoping the new indie market will see a resurgance of that form, since I think it allows the brief experience of the short story combined with the more in depth experience of the novella. Novelettes just fell out of fashion a long time ago because they took up too much space in pulp magazines.

Anyways, I'm still hunting for one more story for the Shades anthology. I've got "A Long, Cold Forever of a Night" out being read by proofreaders, then once I hear back from all of them I'll start the polishing work on it. Then it's back to hunting that one last story. Here's hoping I come up with something good soon.

Tis the Season...to Gut a Pumpkin

2011-10-30T23:17:00.000-05:00

Karla and the kids get in the spirit of the season....

Sheridan and Rowan each designed their own Jack o Lantern, and the knifework was left to Mom.

Bedtime Stories

2011-10-27T20:41:00.000-05:00

Check this out...

Rowan shows off her reading skills. She is autistic, six years old, and two months into first grade. Some of what she is saying is hard to understand, but she is reading the words correctly. Sometimes she insists on somebody else reading a sentence or two, but she is quite capable of reading the book herself. She has really been coming on lately, and we're so proud of her.

Look Ma! I Published Something!

2011-10-26T17:33:00.000-05:00

Today, LL Dreamspell announced the release of their latest horror anthology "Dreamspell Nightmares II."
I set a personal best in this anthology, by getting three different stories accepted for it. And I feel they are three of my better short stories.

The first story is "Closing Time". It tells the tale of Erin, who discovers that some stalkers are tougher to shake than others...especially the dead kind.

The second is "Rite of Passage". Some people feel this is one of my more frightening works, and it received high marks at the writer's workshop at Apollocon where I had it critiqued. This is actually an earlier work of mine focused on mood and setting, along with back story.

The third is "Under a Racer's Moon," which is a bit of a layered work...and also has a touch of humor thrown in to balance things. Two young men are out looking for excitement, and find it in a big way when they find themselves in a race with a spectral De Soto.

Anyways, it feels good to see this come out and I hope everybody enjoys it!

Nate

Holy Crap! I Turned 50 Today!

2011-10-24T07:46:00.000-05:00

Lovely. There are now full grown oak trees younger than me.

Bah! I don't care!

*shakes cane at world*

Everybody, get off my lawn!

Snippet from A Long, Cold Forever of a Night

2011-10-20T00:38:00.003-05:00

The first draft of this story is done, so I now feel safe in posting a snippet from it.

So what became known in the area as the Big Ice Storm Wreck ended in eight hospitalizations and one burial.

Except it didn’t end there.

On a rainy August night later that year, Les Patterson pulled sixteen year old Phyllis Cordell from the wreckage of a two car collision at the junction. She was the only survivor, and badly hurt herself, but what grabbed everybody’s attention was her hysterical insistence that Melissa Meyers, her face half blackened with frostbite, had stood at the edge of the road and stared at her while she hung upside down in her dead boyfriend’s car.

Two years after that, it was Delroy Coffey himself who was pulled from the wreckage of his totaled pickup after a single vehicle accident that killed his sister and her boyfriend. He screamed that Melissa Meyers had appeared in the intersection, once again with a face half black, directly ahead of him and caused the crash. Since he also boasted a blood alcohol level that would have staggered a horse, and the number of times his vehicle rolled suggested he had been going well north of eighty miles per hour, the judge wasn’t impressed with his claims of a supernatural cause of the accident and sentenced him to seven years in the state pen.

But now the crossroads two miles east of Pritchard Hill started to get an evil reputation, and locals began finding alternate routes home if returning to Pritchard Hill at night. Two other fatal accidents happened at the crossing over the next five years, but no survivors lived to tell if a grey clad girl with half a face had been the cause. Then came one of the more infamous incidents of Junction 402…if for no other reason than it was recorded on audiotape.

A three o’clock on a brittle February morning, Deputy Kelly Gunther called in over his radio to the Sheriff’s office. Recently divorced, the young deputy had been depressed but everybody thought he had lately been on the mend. Apparently they were wrong, for in the wee hours on Feb. 12, 1986, the radio dispatcher received the following message…

“Hey, Millie…this is Kelly. It looks like I’m done. Vanessa’s gone. The kids are gone. And now I’m parked here at Junction 402 and you won’t believe who is standing in the middle of the intersection staring right at me. You know what? I’m just going to go ahead and give her a freebie...see if it’s any better on the other side. Tell the Sheriff I said, ‘Sorry for the mess.’ Adios.”

Both the Sheriff and the Police Chief of Pritchard Hill were at the scene within five minutes, but Kelly Gunther was dead. The found him lying next to his squad car, parked by the highway sign. He had gotten out, closed his door, and fired a single bullet into his head with his service revolver. The intersection was empty.

And so it went.

As ghosts go, Melissa Meyers was seldom seen and widely scoffed at…at least in public. But Junction 402 had a higher than normal fatality rate, and when a survivor occasionally made it through those crashes, nobody was surprised if that person reported the sight of a gray clad young woman with whitish blond hair and a damaged face. They would snort and blame it on shock or hysterics, but I think they would have only been surprised if no claim of her presence had been made.

By this time, Carol and I had already married, left town, scraped our way through college, then moved to a small East Texas town to raise our three Siamese cats. We had discovered early on that Carol couldn’t have kids, and adjusted accordingly. We proclaimed ourselves lucky in that we would both most likely have been awful parents, and got on with getting on with life.

Two young, upwardly mobile professionals, we dallied through the eighties then settled into the nineties like a comfortable couch. Once a month we drove down to Houston to meet up with friends from college, eat steaks and tell old tales of campus life. Lately, we had noticed that the get-togethers were getting shorter and smaller; as more of us had babysitters to get back to and others had moved on to pursue careers out of state.

Our youth was falling further behind us, and an era was ending. Truthfully, it had already ended but at that time we were still hanging on. We knew there wouldn’t be many more get-togethers to attend, so Carol and I didn’t want to miss even one.

Which is how we ended up at a lonely, four-way crossing in the middle of the night with the deadliest phantom in the history of Cole County.

A Step in the Right Direction

2011-10-14T11:49:00.000-05:00

Today, I just finished the very rough draft of the 10,000 word novelette, "A Long, Cold Forever of a Night." It is a ghost story, and features the young lady on the cover of the anthology. As I stated earlier, I hate it when a horror anthology has a really cool cover that ends up not having anything to do with any of the stories within. So I felt it would be slightly hypocritical of me to have this really cool cover that was made for me, and then not have this haunt show up in the book.

The story is still very, very rough but I think it's solid. I'm going to put it on the shelf for a few days and pursue a different project before returning and editing this with a fresh pair of eyes. I also wrote it because I wanted the stories in the Shades anthology to be more about ghosts than anything else, and currently its an even split between 4 ghost stories and 4 stories of other types of horror. Now I just changed that split to 5-3. I would like to make it 6-2, or even 7-1, but we shall just have to wait and see if I can do it.

Anyways, it feels good getting it done. I have been needing a confidence builder, what with all the struggling I've been doing on novels lately, and this helps. I needed to finish something.

So that's that. There is still a lot to do, but I feel better about my odds of doing it.

Blog Announcement

2011-10-07T06:41:00.000-05:00

As of now, the regular schedule of A Dark and Stormy Blog will be discontinued. For the near future, there will only be updates and announcements on here when I actually have something to announce.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. What it means is that I am now focusing even more of my energies into becoming a writer again. I have come to the conclusion that a writer is someone who finishes manuscripts and gets them out there to be read...and I haven't done that since publishing The Mushroom Man last February. The only thing I have actually been getting published is this blog. I have allowed myself to get hung up on several different projects, and it's time to focus all my energies on finishing things.

The other bright side is that there will be no more "forced content" for a while, just stuff that I feel is actually worth posting. So we shall see what we shall see.

I hope everybody has a good weekend. I will be out in the wilds of Kingwood, having a Cub Scout campout with the boy...so if you guys never hear from me again it may have nothing to do with me writing at all.

Aloha...

Ghost Stories and Eight Year Olds

2011-10-05T08:12:00.001-05:00

The above book cover is my current background on my computer screen, since it is one of the projects I'm working on. Lately, I have been working with my laptop hooked to my big screen TV so it was only a matter of time until my eight year old son, Sheridan, took notice and commented.

"Hey, Dad? Who's the weird lady on your computer?"
"She's a ghost, son. She's going to be in one of the stories I'm writing."
"Is that story done?"
"Almost."
"So, what's the story about?"
*I give him a slightly sanitized version that's was also made more accessible to the eight year old understanding of the world*
"Oh," he looked at the screen thoughtfully, "I guess that's cool. But you need to make her really scary."
"Really scary? Okay, kiddo...what would make her really scary?"
He studied the picture judiciously for a moment longer.
"Give her a rocket launcher. That oughta do it."

Yeah. So this is the wisdom I get when sharing my work at home. Just thought I would offer that snapshot in the home life of a writer.

(on a side note. It has always annoyed me in horror anthologies when there would be some super cool scene or character on the cover that turned out not to have a single thing to do with any of the stories within. So I felt duty bound to try and give the ghost girl on the cover a story of her own)

Anyways, work continues to proceed at a snails pace but it proceeds. Not a good week for writing though because of all the chores that need doing. I gotta get ready for the exterminator today. Maybe do some more laundry as well.

I'm doing more reading nowadays with my new Kindle DX, so that's one improvement. I'm reading lots of ghost stories to see how I might do things different... short of a rocket launcher.

Happy humpday!

Maintenance Day

2011-10-03T10:20:00.001-05:00

Karla is off today, so we are taking advantage of the extra pair of hands to get some things done around the house. Rooms are being cleaned, and laundry is getting done. Appts are being made for prescriptions and for exterminators. Things are getting taken care of.

So I will return to writing tomorrow. I'm just taking a ten oclock break to recover from the exertion before jumping back in for another hour. Then I think the two of us will go out and eat...something we almost never get to do since the kids came along.

So stuff is getting done, and there's not much to report. Sometimes, that's just the way things go.

Happy Monday!

CMT Awareness Month Post

2011-09-30T09:55:00.005-05:00

Well, it's nearing the end of CMT Awareness Month and I realize I have never made a post about it. I almost chose not to, but in the end a strange sense of obligation compelled me...so here goes.

CMT (Charcot Marie Tooth) is not a very big part of my self image. Even though I've been wrestling with the symptoms of it for nine years now (wow, it's been that long?) I have never really identified with it. The truth is, even after all this time I still don't have CMT in most of my dreams. So I very seldom write about it, even though it's something I'm always compensating for.

Now that doesn't mean I don't think about it, or that it doesn't intrude into my life on a daily (or often hourly) basis. It does, and it's often the source of frustration, anger, resignation, or just plain old tiredness. But it's always been a thing apart from me...not who I am. Sure, I have to make concessions to it, and I hate it, (except for that nifty handicapped parking license plate. That thing rules) but the fact remains that to me it's usually been something I've viewed as an external event. It's just not who I am...so it never really occurs to me to join organizations for people with CMT, or take part in events having to do with raising CMT awareness. I have never really identified myself as part of a group.

And that probably means I'm dealing with a super-sized case of denial.

I wonder why? I'm not embarrassed by it. Actually, I tend to wear shorts that leave my braces openly visible simply because it helps keep my legs from sweating inside the plastic molds, and it also acts as an easy visual cue for other people to understand, without asking, why I may need a little extra room or time to maneuver through an aisle in the supermarket or mall. Hell, I'm paralyzed from the knees down so the fact that I can walk with little more than a pair of plastic braces the same size as my socks is hardly something I'm embarrassed about. So I don't think ego is involved.

If there is anywhere it drives me crazy, it's in two areas. One is not being able to do things with my kids that other Dad's do with theirs. I remember being at the zoo with my son when he was four and he saw another kid riding on his Dad's shoulders. He wanted to do the same, and I couldn't...and realized I never would. Ouch. I don't know how to describe how that felt, other than to say you never ever want to feel it.

The other area is attempting simple tasks that I have had a lifetime to get used to the idea of doing. Now that I'm fighting it in my hands, I have had to concede the husbandly role of Household Jar Opener to Karla. Okay, there may be a teensy bit of ego involved in that one. But other than that, it's mainly just infuriating little things like discovering that things you used to do without thinking (like opening your gas cap on your car) now needs to be planned ahead for. (such as realizing that a tool might need to be procured against that day the fingers will no longer unscrew that cap).

So thats my Charcot Marie Tooth post for the year.

I've got it, but so far it's not who I am. That's not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. Identifying with it more might actually let me be a little more forgiving of myself when I fail at things, but that's just not where I am yet. I know it could be a lot worse. Some people have to put up with everything I am, and have to deal with pain on top of it. Fortunately, pain was never a very big part of this for me. (except when I have one of my spectacular crashes to the floor...dragging dishes, furniture, and kids down along with me. Trust me, even the Hindenburg didn't do it better.).

Anyways, that's the way it is. I'm a husband...I'm a father...I'm an author...and on the side I struggle with CMT.

:)

2011-09-28T06:29:00.000-05:00

Little Ideas Grow to Bigger Stories

2011-09-26T08:24:00.001-05:00

Progress is happening on my novels. It's slow, but it's happening.

It's funny, somebody read a short story of mine called Picking Dewberries and commented on my use of spiders. The truth is I've written about eighteen to twenty short stories, and spiders figured in exactly one of them...BUT...that's the story that I took as an idea to base a novel off of. When I wrote Picking Dewberries...which can be found in the Dreamspell Nightmares Anthology (the paperback is on sale right now for $2.83)...I realized that the story created a problem and wondered how to resolve it. If these creatures existed, HOW did they continue to exist? From that musing arose the story of Argiope, which in many ways is the continuation of Picking Dewberries. As a matter of fact, I'm using Picking Dewberries as the placeholder prologue until I finish the story and can go back and create a distinctive prologue for the novel itself.

The other novel I'm working on is Dead Stop...and again it finds some of it's origin on one of my short stories. Sometime later this year, Dreamspell Nightmares 2 will be released and it features three more short stories of mine...three of my better ones actually. One of those is called Under A Racer's Moon and is the story of two young men in a race against something otherworldy. It's one of my favorite stories. And the two main characters in this story are where I drew the inspiration for the two leading men of Dead Stop. Harley and Deke of Dead Stop owe much of their character to Hocker and Eddie from the Short Story.

So my short stories kind of becomes resources I can look at for bigger projects. I wonder if other writer's do that? In my case, the short story exists because it encapsulates a fairly basic scene or idea that I had. If you have ever read Storm Chase, the first story in Wind and Dark Waters, you will notice a distinct pattern of behavior in the movement of Charlotte March that occurs again with Moonstone Maddy in The Ways of Khrem. Short stories seem to be my testing grounds.

Sadly, it's been a while since I wrote a short story because I'm now gritting my teeth and trying to get a novel or two out the door. But I look forward to being able to play with ideas again.

Ugh

2011-09-23T08:37:00.002-05:00

I had a post for this Friday, but I stopped myself from posting it at the last minute for fear I might jinx myself. Being a writer sure seems to bring out what appears to be superstition in a person...but I don't think it is really superstition. I think it's just a process I don't understand very well yet. But until I do, I guess I better settle for respecting it instead.

So no jinxing myself.

Anyway, I'll just settle for saying that work on the novel proceeds at an acceptable rate. It's still got a lot of work ahead, but there is hope.

One of these days, I'm going to have to figure this stuff out so it isn't "superstition" anymore.

Progress on Many Fronts

2011-09-21T00:46:00.000-05:00

First of all, the Cowboys won.

It was quite a game, and they pulled it out in the end due to the efforts of mainly one guy. Their usually goofy quarterback who left the game with cracked ribs and a punctured lung, only to return later and take charge of the game. And the thing is, I barely recognized him on the sideline shots. The normally goofy (when winning) or mopey (when losing) guy was replaced by a focused, determined man who seemed to have nothing in common with the quarterback that I knew. His entire affect was different, and you could see him talking with the receivers on the sidelines and explaining to them what he wanted to do. He was just an entirely different guy. I hope we can keep him and lose the cracked ribs.

On another front, the writing continues to proceed. I actually cracked the two thousand word mark yesterday, which is something I don't think I've done since before last summer some time. The scene is almost finished, and it ain't half bad for a first draft. I managed to include a nice grisly decapitation since I figured that fans of zombie stories would be disappointed if there weren't at least one of those in the story. Now I'm looking for a slightly more metaphorical way to bump off the other person in the scene and then I can start the final part of the book where the rugged survivors begin their escape. Yay!

Anyways, it's humpday and the week has been going well. I'm starting to get real optimistic about this book I'm writing, and I had to fight to keep from breaking my rule about posting snippets. I sort of feel the need to show what I've been doing... but I've learned better. No matter sabotaging myself. I won't post any more snippets until I have a finished first draft in hand.

But it's looking good :)

Reading and Writing

2011-09-19T00:09:00.000-05:00

I'm currently reading Raymond Chandler's, The Big Sleep. As a fan of Hemingways spare style, especially regarding dialogue, it's interesting to see how somebody who is so absolutely opposite of that is also a great writer. I do like Chandlers emphasis on setting, something I believe in putting effort into. There are just some places it doesn't pay to be too "spare."

My new kindle is a godsend, especially while I'm waiting that hour in line to pick up the kids from school. That may very well become my favorite time of the day. An hour of nothing but sitting, reading, and listening to music on my cd player. Seriously, that's not too bad.

I did some good writing on Dead Stop, but I have to go back and fix the scene I just wrote. It was silly of me, but I forgot that there had been a victim earlier in story in the place the scene takes place, so there should have been a body right in the middle of the whole thing. I'll have to go back now and figure out how to fit it in, and how it changes things. Oh well, things are going slowly but they are going.

Alas, the housework is also going "slowly" so I'm going to have to start trying to catch up on it as well.

Work, work, work.

Happy Monday!

Plowing Through

2011-09-16T08:34:00.001-05:00

Writing has been slow this week, but it has been happening.

Apparently my muse has decided to take on the role of a mule. One that has to be bribed, cajoled, threatened, and flogged just to keep a slow plodding pace as it plows the back forty. It's being ornery, but I'm managing to get it started again after each frequent balk. Writing is getting done. Just not a great deal of it at any one time.

At the same time I'm getting some useful reading in. I'm currently reading Stephen King's "On Writing." I reasoned that a guy as successful as he was might have a clue what he was talking about. As it turns out, the book is a delight, and it's encouraging to realize how much I have in common with him. Now if I can just extend those commonalities to include wild success in the field of writing, I'll be happy. As it is though, the book is very helpful and I recommend it to anybody who writes.

Anyways, hopefully today I will finish the scene in Dead Stop that I've been plodding through all week. Two of my protagonists have entered the dangerous side of a truckstop, where a zombie lurks somewhere in the dark, in an effort to close the doors and keep the others out. It's kind of interesting how the scene is turning out different than I originally plotted it. Maybe Stephen King has point in his disdain for plotting. Hmmm....

On another note, I went to my son's open house at his school last and met his two charming, lovely young teachers. And as I talked with these wonderful ladies, it occurred to me how much the world has changed. My third grade teacher was a blue-haired old battleaxe with a glare that could stop a T-rex in mid charge. When she snapped for everybody to be quiet, nature went into a hush for a half mile around her. The rumor amongst (is that still a word?) my classmates was that she kept extra kids in her basement that she beat every morning, just to warm up for the day.

Ah the good old days....

Oh well, the weekend is here. Have fun everybody.

Nate Joins the 21st Century

2011-09-14T08:35:00.000-05:00

So, after years of shaking my cane at the world and yelling at it to "get off my lawn!", I have finally surrendered and drug my creaky old frame into the new enlightenment. Well, actually I just bought a Kindle but we'll stretch that metaphor for all it's worth.

Now my car doesn't have to turn into a library while I wait an hour every day in line to pick up the kids. Now books will be cheaper. Now I can preview my own manuscripts on the reader they are designed to be published on and tell if they need better formatting or not. Now...

Oh hell, now I can just read books more conveniently.

Anyways, my writing is proceeding at a slow but workmanlike pace. It IS getting done at the moment which feels pretty good. I have to give part of the credit to Stephen Kings little book "On Writing." It's sort of inspirational to read the life story of a true master of writing in his own words and realize that he isn't really that different from the rest of us...other than making millions of dollars at what he does, of course. But he did start with humble beginnings and wrote his way out of them. And his advice is actually pretty useful and easy to understand.

Anyways. I'm running late on my writing and it's time to start. (I run late on a lot of things)

Happy Humpday!

Work Week

2011-09-11T23:40:00.000-05:00

Well, the NFL is finally back! The Cowboys played the Jets and lost a heartbreaker in the last thirty seconds of the game. Sigh. I probably should be happy since I thought Dallas might get blown out before the game started.

Anyways....

I'm struggling with a scene in Dead Stop and it has been giving me real trouble. So my goal this week is to put everything on the back burner and try to get through this scene. It's an important scene because it not only results in the bumping off of two characters, it also sets up a situation that allows another character to figure out the nature of the creatures trying to kill them. So it's a critical scene that I can't just delete. It just isn't writing itself very well.

So that's my thing this week. That's my goal. Once I'm past this scene the writing should pick up.

Things

2011-09-09T08:07:00.000-05:00

I think I realize what has been giving me problems writing the past two days. I think I have written myself into a corner, and have been confusing my inability to go forward with a minor case of writers block. The truth is, the problem may be with the scene itself and I'm going to go back to it's beginning and try rewriting another way and see if that helps.

I actually "feel" like writing, which is why I think the above might be the case.

One of the things that has helped has been reading a couple of Stephen King books that I bought a long time ago and had never gotten in to......"Bag of Bones" and "Hearts in Atlantis." Both are different than his earlier works that I used to love, so I had put them aside. Now I decided to read them, and it was literally inspiring to read writing that good. Even if the stories themselves aren't as focused as his earlier works like "The Shining" or "Christine", now that I read him with the eye of another writer I can begin to appreciate how good his writing really is. I'm gonna have to get copies of all his older stuff and go through them again.

Which brings me to the best part...

I bought myself a new Kindle DX.

Yeppers! I've now got one of my own so my wife and I can both curl up and read our fancy new ereaders after throwing the kids in bed. Even better, I get an hour a day waiting to pick up the kids from school that will now be devoted to reading as well. Woohoo! Stephen King, Earnest Hemingway, and others....here I come!

Oh, and I bought Stephen King's book "On Writing" which should hopefully arrive today. lol! It's like Christmas in September! Minus the snow and with forest fires added in...

On another front, the fires are out in our neighborhood so now I simply wait and hope for the best for my family and others who are dealing with the big fires up in Montgomery county. We really need some rain.

So My Neighborhood Hasn't Burned Down... Yet

2011-09-07T08:06:00.002-05:00

We had a fire start yesterday morning in the wooded area that runs along the back of our subdivsion. Needless to say, this sort of dominated the days itinerary as the time I had intended to budget towards writing got used for evacuation preparations instead. Clothes were packed, plans were laid, cat carriers were readied, and events were monitored.

And then a whole lot of nothing.

Well, nothing if you consider listening all day to news reports of the state burning down around your ears to be nothing. But it appeared that the fire in our neighborhood was brought under control in good order. It flared up again in the evening, but the firetrucks returned and once again put things right.

Now we wait and see.

I don't see any smoke in the air, but my eyes, nose, and throat are badly irritated. It's like having a bad case of allergies. I can also still detect the smell of smoke in the atmosphere as well. So things are better, but I don't think we are out of trouble yet. Oh well, at least I have the kids packed up and ready to move out on a moments notice if things go south for any reason.

And maybe I'll get some writing done.

Back Story

2011-09-05T01:12:00.001-05:00

I'm in a pretty good mood.

I sent the first fifty thousand words of Dead Stop off to a proofreader, just to get some feedback to help me get a little boost towards my effort to finish this draft. It got a positive reaction. She seems to think it's worth finishing, which is always a good thing.

Now if I can just get the next thirty or forty thousand words to live up to the first.

So now the season has come to get that second wind and get cracking. I'll go ahead and enjoy labor day with the family, but starting Tuesday I focus on cranking out the verbage. It's about to get serious. Summer is over and the kids are back in school. No more excuses.

It's time to write.

I also have to accept that for one hour a day, I shall be waiting in a car line of parents in order to pick up the kids from school. I handled this last week by reading Stephen King's Bag of Bones. I guess I'm going to get my reading in as well this year, so I think it's about time to get myself a Kindle like my wife has. It makes more sense than starting a library in my car.

So lots of reading and writing.

It's about time.

D. Nathan Hilliard ... Super Genius.

2011-09-02T07:33:00.001-05:00

So I was sitting out in front of the kids school at 6:45 this morning. I clung to my cup of coffee like a shipwreck survivor hangs on to a life preserver, praying to the gods of java to make my brain start functioning. And this time, much to my surprise...they listened. As I sat there nursing my coffee and staring out the windshield at the dim pre-dawn world, a true stroke of genius hit me.

Night classes for elementary kids!

Think about it!

Kids hate going to bed, so they would love this. And we wouldn't have to get up at obscene times in the morning just to torture the little darlings by dragging them out of bed. Who doesn't feel guilty yanking an innocent child out of his slumber? Heck, growing kids need their sleep! And while the kids were at school, we could do important things like go out and have dinner and catch movies that the kids don't want to see. It would improve the economy of restaurants and Hollywood overnight!

So I offer this stroke of genius humbly, with no thought of Nobel prizes or any of the other awards it so richly deserves. I'm simply content if I can just go to bed knowing I've made the world a better place.

I guess I just roll that way :)

It Would Be Good To Be The King

2011-08-31T10:07:00.001-05:00

It would be good to be the king, because there is so much I would change. For instance, if people have to show up at five thirty in the morning to get a decent spot in line at a drivers license office that opens at eight oclock...then there is obviously a problem and it needs to be addressed. This is a daily occurrence here in Houston. And then, I would order all photo takers to take five pictures and let the applicant decide for themselves which looks the least mentally retarded and have that on their drivers license. Is that asking too much?

Oh, and a note to the teenage girl surfing the internet and listening to tunes on her ipad while the rest of us stewed in line...we all hate you. But you knew that, didn't you. And you probably enjoyed every second of it. (I know I would)

I would also have the drivers license dept send you TWO copies of your drivers license. Just so if you ever lose your wallet (like I did), your entire world doesn't come to a screeching halt as you start the process of jumping through hoops to put your identity back together again. Lets face it, a backup license isn't unreasonable.

So...there's that.

Anyways, the muse is still flirting but not given me anything substantial yet. I'm hoping to hear back from my proofreader in a day or two, and then I'll get back to novel writing. Until then...happy humpday, folks.

Good Morning, Monday!

2011-08-29T07:45:00.000-05:00

The kids are off to school and another glorious Monday begins.

My muse has been paying teasing little visits over the weekend. She's been giving me just the hint of ideas and then flitting away before any of them develop into anything substantial. It's been pretty maddening, but after a summer of no inspiration whatsoever it's an improvement. At least it means there is still hope.

I have both of my incomplete novels out being read at the moment, just to get some feedback. I need to get a sense of what impression they give, and what their strong and weak points are before continuing. Sometimes you just have to take a project and get a second opinion on whether or not it's worth continuing to pursue. Until then, I think I might let my muse toy with me and see if I can wrangle a short story out of her.

On another front. I stuck to a low carb diet this summer and lost a total of 24 pounds since mid June. I was feeling pretty good about myself, but fell off of it this last week. Now I will probably pack on fifty over the course of the next three days just because that's the way my life works.

Sigh.

Oh well, Happy Monday folks!

My Muse Peeks In

2011-08-26T07:45:00.002-05:00

So I have started writing again.

With the kids gone for a few hours each day, I'm getting a little time alone and I'm trying to put it to good use. I have been sitting in front of my laptop, and forcing myself to write. The words are coming...slowly...but they are coming. I just kept referring back to the outline I made for the chapter in question and put words on paper.

Then late last night it happened....

My muse showed up.

She has been in hiding pretty much all summer, and I was beginning to wonder if she still exists. Apparently she does, but she's still pretty pissed about the whole "kids home all day for the summer" thing. She only showed up for a minute. Just long enough to look over my shoulder at what I was doing and proclaim it to be "Plodding, Uninspired Crap That's Being Told From The Wrong Characters Perspective" before stalking off to sulk some more.

But she's still out there.

I hope she forgives me soon.

Uhhhhh,,,,,

2011-08-24T11:30:00.000-05:00

The children are off enjoying their first day of school.

I'm sitting here staring at my laptop and trying to figure out what to do. The silence is a little unnerving.

Now I guess I better start hunting my muse. I wonder where she has been hiding all summer. Maybe I can tempt her out of hiding with a can of tuna or a cookie. What do muses eat?

Happy Birthday, Rowan...and Aloha poor Blog

2011-08-22T13:55:00.000-05:00

And for the third time, this blog celebrates Rowans birthday. The first was here and the second was here. She is growing like a weed, and starting to come along in other ways as well. She is starting to use sentences, and can already read far ahead of even her unchallenged peers. So time is moving on and life along with it.

And that probably means this is a good time to discuss this blog.

It originally started out as a writing blog, then morphed into a personal blog because I originally labored under the illusion that I was supposed to update it every day. I did this for two years but the strain of continually coming up with material took its toll. Not to mention, I discovered that many readers didn't like a blog that updated every day and wandered on.

Also, since it was no longer just a writing blog, the theme had become mixed and ended up confusing people. People who came here interested in my works, were not interested in seeing daily pics and videos of kids they didn't know. At the same time, I was trying to figure out how to cater to two different audiences and ended up not doing a good job of either.

So it's time for a change.

I'm going to continue with this blog a while longer, but I will be planning a future blog that will be my "author's blog." It will be exclusively about writing or thoughts that relate to writing. This blog may remain as my "personal" blog...but it will not be updated as often either. This is all just preliminary and subject to change, but that is the direction things are heading.

Preparing to Toil Forward

2011-08-19T00:18:00.000-05:00

So, soon the kids will be back in school and I will have much of my productive time back. My mind will not be scrambled by the words "Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! "

Sometimes I hear it in my sleep.

Anyways. I will have some decisions to make soon as well. I'm working on one story for the Shades compilation, and if it's any good it will go in. Then it will be a matter of formatting it and deciding whether to try and format it myself or hire a pro. There is also the decision of Createspace vs just Kindle DTP. Do I want a physical copy of the book to exist? I've got a pretty good cover for it. And I'll have to get a copyright as well. Sigh.

Work on Dead Stop proceeds slowly, but it does proceed. I'm having to literally outline each chapter before I write it, but it seems the best way to move forward with confidence. I might try that with Argiope. I know it's just a pipe dream, but wouldn't it be awesome if I could get the Shades Anthology, Dead Space, and Argiope all done by New Years?

Oh well, I've also got some marketing decisions to make as well. I may need to start a new "authors blog" that is devoted totally to writing, and make this my personal blog. It might be a good idea to separate my facebook account as well. I think the mishmash has caused confusion.

Oh well, lots to think about...and I've got a lot to learn.

This weekend is Rowan's sixth birthday, so my next update will be devoted to her.

Reading Break

2011-08-17T00:43:00.000-05:00

While I'm debating which way to take a scene I'm currently working on in my zombie novel, I decided to take a break and do some reading. I fished out a book I bought on sale from Barnes and Noble almost a year ago, and had put aside for later. I figured now counted as later.

The book is called The Cases That Haunt Us by John Douglas. He was a psychological detective with the FBI and uses those skills to evaluate famous cases like Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, and the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping. He does a great job of 'demythologizing' them (especially Zodiac) and reducing them down to the little people they most likely were. It's a fascinating read. It doesn't shy away from the gore, but it doesn't dwell on it either. The focus is more on who and what the criminal was and how Mr. Douglas arrived at his conclusions.

Since The Ways of Khrem is both fantasy and mystery, I thought it would be useful reading to help come up with a sequel. In poor Cargill's case, he's trying to seperate the works of psychopaths from that of monsters, but this kind of thing would still be useful. I would also like to try my hand at the mystery genre itself one day so it could be useful for that too. Anyways, it passes for what I call research as I decide how to go forward on my projects.

And soon...oh yes, very soon...the kids will be back in school and I can buckle down and make a run at getting some things done. This summer has been maddening due to my nonproductivity, but hopefully that will all end soon.

Soon.

Vacation is Over

2011-08-14T23:49:00.001-05:00

So we are back from Galveston...and the aquarium wouldn't let us bring the shark cage home with us. Sigh.

It was actually a good time for everybody. We went to Moody Gardens and did all the pyramids...twice. We did the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit...twice. We saw 3D Imax movies...several times. And we walked The Strand and I blew up my diet in a candy store. We also went to a water park...twice...where Karla chased kids around the pools while I read my Terry Pratchett book since I can't go in the water.

So I guess everybody came home a winner, and now we're all recuperating.

I still could have really used that shark cage though.

Quick Vacation Snippet

2011-08-08T19:23:00.000-05:00

So far vacation is going along well. We took a family picture, although I probably should have had my coffee first...

Sheridan practiced waiting for trains at the train museum.

We discovered an old fashioned candy store and ice cream parlor.

The diet that I have been sticking to this summer suffered a quick and grisly death...

And I found an internet hotspot where I could do this quick update. We're having fun, and it's going well. It's a great way to do the closing days of summer.

The Importance of Seeing It

2011-08-03T02:49:00.000-05:00

One of the hangups that slowed me down while writing Argiope is that I had this cool idea for an ending...and so I wrote towards that ending. Then one day when I was having a particularly "visual" day, I sat back and visualized some scenes in different stories I was working on. And that was where I discovered I had a problem.

The ending that I had thought was so cool, simply wouldn't work. Not even close. The idea was cool as an idea, but when I actually sat down and went through the effort of picturing it clearly in my head, it was utterly unworkable. I discovered a couple of other scenes like that too. Some were impossible, others were just silly. Needless to say, this drug things to a halt for a long time.

So one thing that I've learned that helps the writing flow, is to take time once in a while to sit down and carefully visualize each step of a scene in your head. Really try to see it. I've discovered some times it comes easy, and sometimes the scene takes a lot of effort to bring forward. And if it takes too much effort, there may be cause to suspect the scene may really have a problem.

And the best part is that you can do this kind of visualizing when writing itself isn't an option. It just takes a little concentration...and the absence of screaming children (but we won't go there). So that is my hint to other writers. See the scene.

On another note, I will be leaving Friday for our family vacation in Galveston so I don't know when or if this blog will be getting updated between now and the fourteenth. I will try, but things are what they are.

So happy writing out there, and SEE THE SCENE!

Speaking of Projects in the Works

2011-07-31T21:30:00.000-05:00

I just received the above cover art from Justyn Perry, an editor and cover artist who happens to be a friend of my wife. I have to confess it is a quantum leap...hell, several quantum leaps... over any cover I have ever made myself. I see I'm going to have to really step up my game if I ever intend to do another cover of my own. Until then, I might be better off leaving it to the pros.

This will be an anthology of eight stories, five of which were formerly sold as singles on Amazon.com, with three more added. The singles will soon be removed from sale. Since the anthology itself will likely be .99 cents, there isn't any reason to charge somebody that price for a single story. I am currently debating the eighth story, and once I have either selected or written that one I will take the next step of making a manuscript and finding a formatter who is proficient with kindle formatting. I am trying to up my standards, and once again, the idea of having it professionally done has it's merits. Of course, it will all depend on what it costs.

Still, if it's going to have my name on it then it behooves me to put the best product possible in front of the reader. When you're a writer, reputation matters....a lot.

So that's where things stand on that project. I'm hoping to have that out this fall, with Dead Stop out later in the winter... *crosses fingers, knocks on wood, and most likely spits in wind*

Anyways, Friday is when our annual family vacation to Galveston begins so I will once again be busy with all sorts of domestic chores that aren't writing. One would think that kids get more mobile as they get older, but the truth is just the opposite. The little bundle of joy that could once be toted along with a single bag and a stroller now requires a clothes duffel bag of his or her own and a veritable torrent of encouragement and threats to get moving. Sigh, I can't wait till they're teenagers so they can be reasoned with.

So it's a big week for me...preparing for the next big week for everybody else.

Ta!

Sometimes Things Evolve

2011-07-29T20:44:00.002-05:00

When I finish working on the scene I'm writing tonight, Dead Stop will cross the fifty thousand word threshold. It wasn't originally envisioned that way.

Dead Stop was originally envisioned to be a quick forty to fifty thousand word zombie novella about one night at a truckstop when the dead decide to drop in for a bite. The premise was extremely simple, kill a bunch of people in bloody fashion and see if the others could get out alive. But of course with me, nothing ever works out that simple.

First the characters came alive. Then certain questions arose like...what if some of the characters were related to these zombies? Or, what if some people were just badly injured and had to be cared for? Then this weird sense of intellectual honesty demanded I go and research corpses, decomposition, and embalming so that I could make the most authentic zombies possible. And since the story is told from several characters points of view, they had to each have their own personality and 'story' so they would stand out. I've even looked up a couple of native Spanish speakers in order to make one of the waitresses a tad more authentic.

So now I'm at fifty thousand words and approximately sixty five to seventy percent through the story that wasn't supposed to be this long in the first place.

But it's a rocking story...and it's going to get finished. It's just going to be a full novel when it's done.

It's premise is still the same. The time it covers is still the same...one night. It's just...

...evolved.

One day I will start a simple project and keep it that way. I will! Really! I hope...

And no, that isn't the final cover art. It's just a placeholder till I can either come up with something better or contract for it.

Midweek Update

2011-07-27T11:35:00.003-05:00

AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

That is all....

As July Winds Down

2011-07-25T12:49:00.001-05:00

So the summer goes on, and life along with it.

I picked up the boy from his cousins house, and after a week of quiet productivity things have now returned to their noisy normal around here. Writing has pretty much ground to a halt again, as the boy isn't just content telling me every achievement he as accomplished with his computer games or legos...he has to ask questions to make sure I'm listening.

But, it's good to have him back.

And it's good to know the muse is still out there...just waiting to get a chance to get back to work. Argiope is now at 88,000 words and Dead Stop is now at 48,000 words.

Maybe, just maybe, I might get two novels out by this Christmas. Now that would rock.

So I Lost My Wallet

2011-07-22T12:54:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's gone.

So now the replacement process begins. The drivers license...which requires a birth certificate. Getting a birth certificate requires other ID i don't have, so the wife has to do that. Getting the new debit card, which they would prefer I had a driver's license to show them...but in this case I got lucky and got away with showing them the police report which had the license number on it. Still had to answer ten thousand questions though.

Then there will be the kiddos prescription card. And my medicare card. And my library card (Hey, I read you know!) And other assorted lesser cards and papers which I kept with me.

And while I go through this, it occurs to me that there is something wrong with a system that can leave you so incapacitated when you lose one item that is only slightly larger than a deck of cards. One item that you take with you everywhere you go...constantly taking it out of your pocket and putting it back in. It's ridiculous! There needs to be some way you can back up your information so when something like this happens it isn't so devastating to your normal functioning in the world.

For crying out loud, it's the 21st century!

Sigh, so that's where I am. I hope everybody else out there is doing better.

Late Post

2011-07-21T01:45:00.000-05:00

The eight year old is spending the week at his cousins house, so it's just me and his sister. The sudden quiet that has enveloped the play has been sort of disorienting, and at first I didn't know what to do. Then it hit me...

"Hey! I know!" I exclaimed to absolutely nobody, "I'm a writer. Maybe I ought to write something!"

Impressed with my astonishing onset of logic, I decided to give it a try...and to my surprise I actually did some writing. As a matter of fact, I'm kind of pleased with the amount of writing I got done. I can't show any snippets, because as we all now know that has the effect of sabotaging my work. But I actually managed to slog through half an important scene in Dead Stop AND Argiope has now jumped from eighty thousand words to eighty eight thousand words. The latter is looking to be about a hundred and thirty thousand word novel though, so we'll see how that goes.

Wow.

On the downer side, it appears I have lost my wallet. I'm going to check one last place it might be tomorrow morning, and then I guess I'll have to get a police report. Then it's the long slow process of replacing licenses, credit cards, debit cards, library cards, insurance cards, etc...

Bleh.

So thats my week. I hope everybody else is doing good.

Weekend Adaptations

2011-07-17T22:33:00.001-05:00

I got new braces for my legs in May. I really liked them, but the left one kept making my left foot sore. I didn't worry to much about it, as I expected there to be a breaking in period. Well, after six or seven weeks it was still making my foot hurt, and then it got bad enough that I had to hobble home from a dinner date with my wife on Friday night. So I finally tried to figure out what was going on.

Wearing an extra sock on that foot had helped some, but it still gave me trouble from time to time. Then I resorted to wearing ace bandages on that foot, but it turned out further measures were still needed. Well, Friday night it got to the point that I dug out my old plastic braces and tried the left one on to see if that made a difference. Although my foot was already badly sore by now, I could tell immediately that the old brace wasn't hurting it.

So I took the old brace off and held it side by side to the new one. Sure enough, they were shaped different. The old one made allowances for a protruding bone in my foot, while the new ones were cut just below that so that when I put weight on my feet it forced that bone down on the edge of the brace. So now I'll have to figure out if they can take another mold of my foot and put a new footpiece on that brace without breaking the bank. Until then, I'm wearing one old brace and one new one.

At least I finally found the problem.

I've been kind of itching to write again. I don't have solid ideas yet, but I'm starting to feel just the barest tickle of my muse. It's been a while. The problem is that it's still most likely goimg to have to wait until the kids are back in school. But it's still heartening to know that feeling is there.

Oh well, onwards and upwards!

Frustration

2011-07-15T11:21:00.001-05:00

This summer is becoming something of a "summer of discovery" on the matter of writing and several other things. At the moment, I'm going to focus on the writing part.

One of the things I'm having the most difficulty with right now is my lack of perceived production. In 2009 and 2010 I wrote one novel and seventeen or eighteen short stories, not to mention maintained a daily blog at the time as well. My fingers seemed to be constantly flying over the keyboard, and the ideas and scenes fell like rain from heaven into my running imagination.

Now things are different. This summer I have both children home with me all day, and it is almost impossible to maintain a writing frame of mind for a few minutes before it is disrupted by a demand for food, entertainment, or some other form of attention. And of course, when you are trying to focus on something and it is constantly interrupted, the blood pressure begins to rise.

So I pretty much gave up for a while, in order to preserve my sanity. I still write a little here and there, and some progress has been made, but to a guy with the former pace of production I had it is pretty aggravating. I currently have one novel at 80,000 words and another at 40,000 words. I'm kind of jumping back and forth between them, to see if that will freshen the muse a little bit. It did result in me finding out how to integrate and keep one potention scene in Argiope. That scene is now in the book, and it works.

So things ARE getting done, but a lot of it is cerebral at the moment.

Also, I discovered a weak point of mine when it comes to writing and I'm now focusing on that as well. Unlike short stories and novellas, a novel tends to have a different form of pacing. It doesn't just stay at the same high pace a short story can. It eventually runs into a place where the pace slows down for a while and the characters regroup. I came to realize I was stalled at that spot in both stories. So now I'm going to do a little reading to see how other writers actually handle that, and then find a way to make that a strong point for me as well.

So that's where I am.

I also have several non writing projects going on this summer, and they are taking some of my mental cpu cycles as well. I adopted them to help me maintain that sense of progress while still doing right by the kids, and it seems to be working.

Happy Weekend, folks.

Bah! Technology! It's Plotting Against Us!

2011-07-12T23:37:00.000-05:00

So I had taken little fifteen second clips during the course of our weekend in Galveston in order to splice them together and make a youtube video. That was going to be the feature of my Weds blog, but it wasn't to be.

First, Windows Moviemaker doesn't like MP4's. Then I discovered that my old version of Corel Video Editor considers the format invalid as well. Then I discovered that since I had changed the names of the video files, that my video camera wouldn't splice them together itself. So it looks like everybody is going to get spared the horror of a mini-vacation movie for now.

Bah!

Oh well, I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

But just wait...next month we will go on a full vacation and by that time I will have figured out what went wrong and then...oh yes, and then...there will be vacation video goodness for the masses!

BWAAAHAHAHA!!!!

Sigh.

I'm Tired

2011-07-11T01:31:00.003-05:00

We did a trial run of our vacation this past weekend, and took the kids to Galveston and the Moody Gardens pyramids and water park. It was very informative and I will be sure and adapt what I learned so I will be ready come vacation in August.

I learned I will need to better pad my left foot so the new brace doesn't hurt it.
I learned that while Rowan has come a long way, letting her walk without holding her hand is just asking to see her disappear in the distance.
I learned that eating low carb and gluten free can be difficult at water parks.
I learned that Days Inn in Galveston has decent rooms but their bathtubs are going to kill somebody. (we won't be staying there during vacation though)
I learned I will need to bring my own Stevia and Zevia with me since I now consider aspartame to be evil.

I know I'm tired, and the kiddos will be up bright and early in the morning and expecting me to entertain them.

Sorry for the short post folks.

Rowan Makes New Friends

2011-07-08T14:21:00.000-05:00

Rowan had no therapy scheduled at Learning Lane this week, so I thought it might be nice to let her go where Sheridan and I always go while she's in school. So I packed up some lunch and drinks and it was off to North Shore Park to meet the ducks.

Rowan was delighted.

She got a thrill out of tossing popcorn to the ducks.

But she felt the process was inefficient and decided to take matters into her own hands. Needless to say, the ducks were very impressed with her solution to the problem.

On another note, I have not given up on writing...but I am going very slow. I am just overwhelmed with the house and kids this summer, and can't devote much time or thought processes to it. I'm currently outlining my way forward on some projects. I'm really just creeping along, but stuff IS getting done.

And on that note, the dryer just buzzed and announced it's time to move all the different loads of laundry down to their next station. Sigh, my Man Card is as good as revoked.

Bye.

Independence Day Fun

2011-07-06T00:22:00.000-05:00

So we went to my patents house for the Fourth of July. Across the street from their house, there is a small park where they have a children's parade every year. My kids have been doing this since they were babies. So once again they made the circuit of the park, in the best red, white, and blue I could find for them on short notice. (Yes, I know. The fourth comes every year so I should be prepared, but it's still short notice for me)

There were also some cool old cars there, primarily Studebakers, and I was sure to get a good photo of each one in case I ever wrote another story set in those times. They could also be useful for cover art.

About halfway through the parade, Rowan announced she had walked far enough. As far as she was concerned, her patriotism could best be demonstrated from the comforts of a chair.

Her brother and cousin made it through the parade, but wasted little time in getting back across the street to defend their country against the digital menaces that could be found in online computer games. So they were happy too.

All in all, it was a good time. I got to see the whole family together, and that made the whole thing worth it as far as I was concerned. Now I'm back home, and the second third of summer begins. Karla works six days this week, so the kids and I are left to their own devices. I wonder if they will ever get tired of hot dogs, chips, and microwave popcorn for lunch? So far, they seem to enthusiastically support Dad's lunch time skills.

Ah well, it's bedtime. Good night.

The Arboretum Adventure Continues

2011-06-30T23:13:00.000-05:00

With Rowan having the second of her two scheduled long days at Learning Lane, Sheridan and I returned to Mercer's Arboretum. This time we came in a more exploratory mood, and struck out for the far end of the park. On the way, Sheridan made commentary and offered names for the sights.

Although it's hard to tell without clicking on and blowing up the picture, the above structure is actually a fountain. Sheridan loved it and called it The Third Gate of the Heavens. I have no idea where he pulled that name from.

Then further back in the park, we crossed what he concluded was a decidedly creepy gully. The place did have a certain feel to it. It made me think of a gully mentioned in Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine.

Finally we arrived near the back part of the park, where they have a pond and a "tea house". At this point I was seriously lagging, and Sheridan had to curb his youthful enthusiasm for venturing onwards in order to give the old man a break. It worked out for him though, because he got to see a swimming turtle. And we did go on to the tea house after a breather.

So, it's been an eventful week, with one more day yet to go. I bought them a Slip'n'Slide and some kind of hopscotch game you hook up to a water hose, so I figure tomorrow will be featuring the back yard and a lot of water. I shudder to think of our water bill this month.

More Dad Stuff

2011-06-28T23:24:00.001-05:00

Rowan's session at Learning Lane was going to be an extra hour long today, so we had three hours to kill instead of two. I decided to take advantage of that by taking Sheridan to a more distant destination than normal, and this time we spent our time at Mercer's Arboretum. There weren't any ducks, but there were other things to fascinate the young mind and draw his attention.

As a matter of fact, we hit jackpot in the first fifteen minutes. While I stopped to do some filming on another project, an armadillo wandered by.

Then later, as we were going by a fish pond, and employee came out to feed the fish. The lady was very nice, and put some food down so Sheridan could feed the fish (and the turtle) himself. He loved every second of it.

A nearby colony of ants caught wind of this activity and started raiding the pile of food themselves. Sheridan got almost all of the food out to the fish, but the last few pieces were seized by the ants. Sheridan and I observed as the struggled to get their ill gotten gains home, and he had a couple of observations about ants.

And then it was time to get Rowan.

She had her own idea of how to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

After a long session at school, she couldn't think of a better way to unwind than to go to her favorite summer hangout...the pool in the back yard. That's a contented little girl finishing off her day right.

Banzai!!!!!!

Coming Soon

2011-06-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

I'm doing a short break of my three post a week routine to announce I just sent the corrected proof for my stories back to LL Dreamspell tonight for the Dreamspell Nightmares 2 anthology.

I have three stories in this upcoming anthology, and I'm really proud of all three of them. All three are ghost stories, but they each have their own character and feel.

I'll be sure an announce it when the anthology is released :)

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled three days a week...

Ow

2011-06-26T23:34:00.000-05:00

I have a headache, and my children are loud.

That pretty much sums up my existence. The children have been sent to bed, but the echoes of their screaming rampages...err, I mean playing...still echo throughout my skull. Phineas Gage's spike has nothing on mine at the moment. So I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

The family is doing fine (other than me and my enormous Head of Doom) and we look forward to getting through the last week of June. Amazingly, one third of the summer has already pretty much slipped by and I have not carried out a single one of the bloodcurdling threats I have issued in the direction of the children when they get obnoxious. I think they are more clever than I give them credit for.

I think they have figured out an invisible line called Daddy's Threshold, and they intuitively know to stay just under it. That way they get the satisfaction of keeping Daddy's blood pressure at a high pitch, but keep the risk of dire consequences to themselves at a reasonable level. Their plan must be to incapacitate me slowly, so that I'm still around to loan them car keys when I'm older, but too weak to resist.

Oh well, that's my life for now. Happy Monday!

(Ow...even exclamation points hurt)

Call of the Wild

2011-06-24T01:56:00.000-05:00

So I have been taking Sheridan to the park while Rowan is in therapy, and been trying to make the most of our time. I taught him that the above black bird was a grackle, and that it could be distinguished from crows because it has yellow eyes while a crow has black ones. The Mallard in the background, and the female Mallard below will be the object of next weeks lesson. I'm taking pictures and running to the internet to help me identify these birds so I can point them out and teach them to the boy.

Above is one of Sheridan's favorite ducks. It is called a Muscovy duck. At first glance it has a somewhat vulture appearance, but it certainly got friendly when Sheridan broke out the french fries the first time he fed them. He was practically hand feeding the thing.

But low and behold...a Black Vulture dropped in to pay a visit, much to the Mallard family's dismay, so Sheridan got to see some carrion bird action after all. It wasn't a Turkey Vulture, which would have looked more like a Muscovy Duck than this fellow, but it was cool.

Now I have absolutely no idea what breed of goose or waterfowl the below pictured bird is. I have scoured the intarwebs to no avail, so if anybody out there recognizes these things please give me a heads up.

Anyways, I'm learning too.

And Sheridan is learning that ducks can get a little too friendly when you wave a popcorn bag in front of them.

But once he climbed safely atop the bench, the festivities resumed.

Needless to say, his audience was most appreciative. He was Mr. Popularity, at least for a while. And if we keep visiting this park we're going to end up with a bunch of twenty pound ducks with Type 2 diabetes huffing and puffing around. So not only am I not getting enough writing done, but I've got a pending plague of duck obesity on my conscience.

It ain't easy folks.

The Issue

2011-06-22T21:22:00.000-05:00

I have simply run out of hours in the day.

With both kids home, and me making a committed effort to engage them and keep them busy, I seem to have run out of time for other things.

I've been researching ducks so I can teach Sheridan the different ducks he sees at the park, and other activities designed to help keep an attention deficit kid engaged in the world around him, instead of disappearing into a Wii game. And then there is the complication of the five year old autistic kid needing her own forms of engagement, and trying to do that without the eight year old disrupting it.

I have lots of projects for both of them, but they require my participation so that has pretty much become my life right now. Everything else is getting kind of crowded out, as even my couple of quiet hours between the time they go to bed and the time I do is now dominated by me researching ways and means of dealing with each kiddo in the best way to suit there needs.

Not to mention, there have been several nights I just threw in the towel and went to bed at the same time they did because I was exhausted.

So writing and blogging and related things has been crowded off into a corner by these little guys, and it looks like there isn't going to be a lot I can do about that till school starts again. Oh well, I will do my best.

Anyways, that's what's up.

Father's Day

2011-06-20T10:22:00.002-05:00

Father's Day rolled around, and do you know what my wonderful wife did? She told me she would be taking care of the kids all day, and booted me out of the house under strict orders to do whatever I wanted. So I thought about it...and this is what I did.

I went to the lake.

I got me a couple of large bottled waters, and just plopped my butt on the pictured bench above. And there I sat for the rest of the day...just watching the lake.

I watched a large bird...either a heron or a crane...do pretty much the same thing I did. He stood there at least two hours, looking out across the waters.

And there were ducks. A myriad of ducks of many different breeds. I wished I had a bird watchers book with me so I could have identified the ducks.

And I looked across the lake and gazed at the large houses on the far shore.

Many of them were grand structures, like personal palaces built by people who live on the far shores of other things than just a lake.

I don't envy them...but their houses are nice.

So I sat there on a bench, and watched the lake go through the day. I saw people come and fish, and others paddle by in little canoes. Squirrels dropped by for a little playtime and chased each other around the little pavilion I occupied before heading off to their next activity of the day. And I realized something....

You don't really see a lake until you sit down and watch it. It doesn't exist in a snapshot, but as a living thing in motion. You have to take the time to watch it breathe.You have to see it go through it's day to see it for what it is...and even that is nothing but a bigger snapshot.

Overall, I had a great Father's Day...despite acquiring a significant sunburn...and wouldn't have done it any other way.

Another Day in June

2011-06-16T23:39:00.006-05:00

The sun scorched playground

Today only happens once

Where is everybody?

No peers to be found

He stalks the Ducks of Summer

Alas, no French fries

Dad makes some chili,

the balm for summer blahs

Extra cheese helps too

Suburban moonrise

Nightbirds duel against frog song

A distant horn sounds

Every day of summer is a snapshot of young eternity. We carry them with us into adulthood and occasionally unfold them in quiet moments. We thought they would never end, and now they are so far gone it almost hurts to recall them. And this summer when I watch my kids journey through their own youthful eternities, I just want to bottle it for them and put it away on a shelf so it will be there for them when they are old.

Sometimes I wish the world was big again.

Diving Deeper into Summer

2011-06-15T00:30:00.002-05:00

As we head deeper into June, the kids are starting to adapt to their new surplus of time at home...and I'm starting to adapt to them. Sheridan has been busy splitting his time between the backyard pool, the Wii, the computer, and watching DVDs and cartoons...while if Rowan had her way she would probably just set up a mailbox by the pool and move in.

She doesn't care if he's out there to play with her or not. She is just enamored of being in the water and playing with it.

Also, another benefit of having Dad being the one home to take care of them is the fact that I'm the one who makes summer lunches...such as the one pictured below.

Hey, sausage on a stick and popcorn qualifies as nutrition, and the kids are convinced I'm an enlightened adult when it comes to menus. They sang my praises while the stuff was cooking.

And I'm still actually getting a little writing in. Not a lot...nowhere near my old pace when things were moving...but still enough progress to make a difference. At least enough that I can honestly say the project I'm working on is moving forward. It's just being done in snatches here and there, and I'm sure that will show during the editing. But that's okay. Progress is progress.

And the time with the kiddos is worth it.

It may be cutting into my writing time, but I'm beginning to think that keeping busy and doing things with them is stimulating the old creative cells. I'm starting to notice things while I'm out with them, and looking at those things with an eye towards using them as elements in future stories. For instance, I was at McDonald's with Sheridan while Rowan was with her therapists, and I noticed this woman in another booth keep making the same gesture with her hand while talking. It occurred to me that I ought to experiment with adding personalized gestures to certain characters...just to make them a little more human and distinct. So this might actually end up helping in the long run. We shall see.

Until then, enjoy this clip of a very quiet little girl enjoying her summer in a backyard pool...no pesky brothers required.

Wet Weekend for the Kiddos

2011-06-12T23:45:00.000-05:00

Saturday was the Raingutter Regatta for Sheridan's Cub Scout troop. They got to build little boats, and then play on the inflatable waterslides until race time arrived. Siblings were welcome, much to Rowan's delight.

Sheridan and Rowan both got to be in a race. Neither brought home any trophies but they both had such a great time that Karla and I thought that it was now hot enough for more water activities to take place. So we went to Target and bought them a swimming pool and some water soakers.

Needless to say, the combination was a big hit with the kiddos, and it gives us an opportunity to start spreading some water around our bone dry back yard. The kiddos had a great time, and played till almost bedtime.

The next morning, they hopped up bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to hop back into the pool. I slept in and their bleary eyed Mom sent them out to have fun.

And they did.

But instead of spreading that good old H20 ought amongst the yard, somebody got it in their little head to bring the yard into the pool instead. Yes, this is what I walk out to see when I got up. Notice the pure sparkling water now...

So, action was taken...and the kids enjoyed that too.

Oh, and I actually got some writing done...but 'nuff said on that.

Have a great Monday!

The World as It Is

2011-06-09T23:02:00.000-05:00

So Friday is here and the first week of summer home with the kids has passed. I guess we all survived it pretty well, but it’s going to get tougher for me from here. That’s actually good news in a way, because the reason it’s going to get tougher is that Karla got some steady work at a vet clinic so I won’t have her home as much to help me with the kids…but on the other hand we don’t have to eat our shoes.

Yay, Karla!

I didn’t even have any idea how you are supposed to cook shoes.

Meh, they probably have gluten in them anyways…

So there’s that.

On another front, I have been reading and cogitating, with just a little writing thrown in here and there. I really kind of think I ought to write one or two more short stories to add to a future horror anthology I intend to put out, but I’ve just been in a mellow mood lately and can’t think of anything horrible…other than eating shoes, and who wants to read a story about that?

So, I’m just in kind of what I hope is a pregnant pause in short story writing. At least until I can start thinking of horrible things again. I kind of think they will come.

We’ll see.

Anyways, my strategy is simply not to worry about it and focus on the world in front of me for a while. My son is going to do his Raingutter Regata in Cub Scouts this weekend and that should be a lot of fun. It’s just little homemade boats racing each other in a “gutter” of sorts. I’ll soak that in and enjoy life as it happens…after all, it only happens once…and I’m sure the writing will take care of itself.

Things are okay J

So It's Wednesday

2011-06-08T12:52:00.000-05:00

And I slept in.

There really hasn't been much to report. Just me watching the kids. I've got a feeling the rest of the summer is going to be a lot like this.

My needle has been running pretty close to the E on my personal fuel tank, and since I don't feel sick I suspect it's only my CMT acting up. If that's the case I'll just have to be patient and ride it out.

So here I sit with nothing to say.

Bleh.

Does "Bleh." count?

Probably not.

So the garbage men picked up my trash today...just like they always do on Weds so I guess that doesn't really count as news either.

Yeah, foks. It's that bad.

I'm even starting to miss the raccoon.

Sigh. It ain't easy being me.

I hope all of your humpdays out there are going better.

Bleh!

Summer is Here

2011-06-05T22:59:00.000-05:00

So, the kids got to enjoy the first weekend of summer.

They started by getting up at the ridiculous time of seven in the morning and wanting to be fed. It doesn't matter that they have to be drug unconscious from their beds at this time on a school day. Nosiree! Now it's summer and they can get up any old time they want to...and they want to get up at the crack of dawn! What do you want to be bet this phenomenon lasts right up until the last of August before it comes to a screeching halt.

Then they spent a rousing day in front of the computers, the TV, and then playing the Wii on the TV. Somehow I remember the summer days of my youth being a little different.

Oh well, on another front, my yard got watered.

Yep, that is authentic H2O falling from the sky...something we haven't seen around these parts in several months. We have been fighting just to keep whats left of the grass in our front yard alive, and our back yard is now pretty much bare dirt. So this is something of a blessing. I'm hoping to see a lot more of it (without a hurricane attached if possible, please).

Surprisingly enough, both kids are sleeping right through it. I went and checked my bedroom, expecting to find to little forms huddled under the blanket in our bed, but they stayed put in their own rooms. I guess it comes from getting up so early.

So the first weekend is over, and I'm not sure how I'm going to differentiate it between the rest of the week since nothing much changes. I'll still have the kids, and the housework to do. I wonder how I'll keep track of the days, now that I don't have the school bus dropping by to let me know it's a weekday? Pretty soon they are all going to be the same.

Oh boy... I guess everything IS zen.

It's The Last Day of School

2011-06-03T07:21:00.001-05:00

...and now I have the kids home for the whole summer...

Middling

2011-05-31T23:24:00.000-05:00

Not a lot to report this week.

Just doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a whole lot of nothing. I've been a little under the weather, so the house started to get away from me a little bit. It's not bad, but it needs to be caught and corralled before things get worse. So my Weds is already sort of planned...mainly catching up.

I really wish I had more to report, but since I have sworn off reporting on anything writing related until I have a draft in hand I really have to reach to find things to blog about. I'm a writer (theoretically) so much of my activity centers around that. But while I have been playing around with some things, and making a little progress here and there, I really don't dare talk about it...so I won't...therefore please disregard this paragraph and pretend I didn't say anything.

There.

On a happier note, my son Sheridan finished the school year by making straight A's in all classes all year long. He then aced all the tests at the end of the year to see how much he had mastered his subjects, so the school decided that next year they will put him in the gifted and talented program for all his classes. Cool! I am so very proud of him!

So my secret plan of having my kids support me in my old age has taken a giant leap forward.

Oh well, until that glorious day arrives, I suppose it's still up to me to see that this house doesn't sink into a quagmire of laundry, dishes, and discarded toys...so I better get to bed so I can start catching up on the house tomorrow. G'nite!

Drive In Fun.

2011-05-29T21:43:00.001-05:00

The school year has only one week left in it. Soon it won't be just me and my feline fan club hanging around the house. Soon, I will be infested with munchkins...and I will be expected to feed and entertain them as well. The cats have already informed me that I'm on my own in this project, and that they will be hiding in nearby, out of reach places and only coming out for food and water. I guess I'll see them again in September.

Oh well, summer has officially begun anyways. Karla and I took the kids to the drive-in to see Kung Fu Panda 2 and Thor, and my sisters family accompanied us. We have been to the drive in enough now to know how to do it right.

Yep, to heck with sitting in a car. Spread that blanket, get those folding chairs, and grab a couple of big portable radios for the sound and you are set for quality movie watching. The wind was a bit of a factor, and the kids were starting to get cold by the end of the first movie so we DID end up watching Thor from the comfort of our cars. Still, it's a good way to do things.

And if you have never been to the drive-in, here is a slow pan of the one we were at (the Showboat, near Tomball) to give you an idea of what they are all about these days. This was taken from a vantage near the front screen. The rear screen also has a playground.

As you can see, Saturday night at the drive-in is plenty busy. We got there a good hour before the show started and the line of cars already stretched out onto the highway. So Sunday night might be the better idea for future shows.

And it does look like a good summer for movies.

Life This Week

2011-05-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

It's been a week of stuff...

Rowan decided my car was disgracefully dirty and announced it needed to be washed when I picked her up from school. So we did.

Sheridan graduated to Bear Scout, and made us all proud.

The summer is almost upon us, and I find my mind turning to formulating plans on keeping them busy this summer. They will be staying home with me, instead of going to various summer camps and schools, and so my plate is going to be full. I'm going to have to be creative to keep them from going stir crazy in this house. Only one more week of school left.

Tick...tick...tick...tick...

The Manly Art of Something Something

2011-05-24T23:03:00.004-05:00

See, here is me reporting on a completed project.

I have been on a bit of a crusade to lower the clutter inventory in my house and garage. Due to my CMT (and the fact I'm old and fat) I have been going at a bit of a relaxed pace, but I have still made quite a bit of progress.

During one such illustrious foray to reduce the clutter in the garage, I came across an old table fountain. It was a sad sight. The bowl was limed and calcinated pretty badly, and the metal candle stand was covered in rust. Plugging the pump into the nearby wall socket produced nothing. So naturally I headed for the trashcan with it.

But my fair wife caught me, and insisted that she treasured it above all things and that it should somehow be saved.

So the fountain was spared.

Now this is the part where I knew exactly what was going to happen unless I did something different. The fountain would be tucked away in some remote spot of the garage, out of sight, where it would continue it's dismal course to becoming a lump of rust and lime.

"Nay!" said I, "Not this time! I have set out to improve yonder garage, and by thunder I shall! If this relic of table decor is to be spared, then it shall be restored to both form and function at once or consigned to the rubbish as is only right! No longer shall it litter my garage in rusty indolence!"

So I girded my loins and set course for Lowes and Home Depot where I picked up a wire brush, spray paint, some dishwasher de-limer, and a small 70 gallon per hour pump. Then I set to work. It actually ended up taking two days, but the bowl was cleansed, the stand restored, and the new pump inserted. Now it sits grandly on the end table by the couch, gurgling happily away in it's restored glory...and my garage is one piece of junk cleaner.

So it's win-win, and my man card gets extra points. Go me!

(on a side note...it's actually a 70-130 GPH pump thats turned all the way down. I've been tempted to turn it up for improved gurgling action but fear this might turn into a Tim the Toolman moment involving launched candle holders and spraying water...so I haven't. Sometimes it's best just to take your victories and not push things.)

.

A Walk in the Arboretum

2011-05-22T21:47:00.000-05:00

Some sun dappled bricks

A May scented breeze drifts through

I will take this path

The heavy bee drones
Toiling in a spring playground
The flowers don’t care

I sit by the pool
The fountain’s song delights me
A flute would sound nice

A still garden pond

The song of a frog nearby

Twilight comes early

Gestating

2011-05-20T08:32:00.000-05:00

So I'm just sitting back and letting ideas come.

I'm making no concrete decisions at this time, but simply letting concepts for future projects come to me. I'm kind of mulling each one over, and refusing to get too excited about any of them at this time. Most of them are kind of trivial, half baked ideas anyways, but they are being dutifully recorded for future consideration. But for the most part I'm just taking things easy on the creative front and seeing what happens.

I've been playing with my camera lately. I've had a few ideas concerning that as well, but I'm going to apply the same new philosophy towards these as I'm now using on my writing...I'll ,mention something once I have a finished project to show. I'm hoping this reboots the creative dumps I'm in at the moment, and I think it will...but it will take some time before the results are visible.

That kind of leaves this blog in a bit of limbo, so I'm debating what to do with it now. I might go to a weekly format over the summer. I might just go the route of other writers and only post when I have something to announce. I don't know. I guess it will come to me. I'm not really happy with the quality of posts I had been making over the past few months anyways.

Anyways, nothing is for certain right now. I'm just musing out loud. I've can do that because I've got ten more days until school lets out and I lose all musing time.

Happy Weekend. Enjoy the rain!

Blogging With Fear

2011-05-18T07:33:00.001-05:00

So, what do I blog about?

After discovering how much blogging has been sabotaging my works in progress, I can't take a chance on blogging about any of those. Heck, even blogging about writing has me nervous in a general sort of way. At the moment, there hasn't been a lot of writing going on anyways...and perhaps that has me a little superstitious.

So for now, my motto is . . . "Deeds, Not Words."

Yeah, yeah, I know....it's been done. But it's about to be done again. So I will have to limit my blogging to finished projects and non-writing related things for a while. At least this way when I post something writing related, you guys will know that it's at a stage that it's guaranteed to reach your hands if you ever want it. No more teases and false promises.

I just wonder what I will blog about until I get some projects to an acceptable level of completion?

Rowan's Picnic

2011-05-15T20:06:00.000-05:00

Sheridan had a Cub Scout event at a wolf sanctuary, and attendance by siblings was discouraged. So Karla took Sheridan and I stayed home with Rowan. Karla packed a "picnic lunch" for the two of them that morning, but Rowan heard the word "picnic" and thought that was what we were all doing. Needless to say, she wasn't thrilled to see Mommy and brother head out the door while she got left behind with Dad.

I was informed we were having our own picnic...

...so we did.

Everything is Zen

2011-05-13T11:59:00.000-05:00

So I’m still kind of reeling from the discovery that blogging about my writing may have actually been sabotaging my writing. A more in depth review of my blog revealed that by announcing a project, or posting a snippet from it, before I had a rough draft in hand resulted in a far higher than fifty percent likelihood the story would never be finished.

Yikes!

As a matter of fact, the only two exceptions to that rule were “The World in Strips,” and “The Mushroom Man.” And I’m not sure The World in Strips should count since what I posted was just a bit of “stream of thought” writing I did that morning, and wasn’t even a real project until I decided to turn it into one later. As far as Mushroom Man goes…I posted a snippet, and then ended up shelving it for months before reclaiming it later and having it go a completely different way than originally intended.

So, I think it behooves me to study those results and draw conclusions from them for future use. There seems to be some kind of principle at work here. It’s like prematurely sharing a project somehow takes its momentum away. So the first decision that is obviously called for here is to not discuss any new projects until I have them in rough draft form. At that point, prior experience suggests it is safe to discuss the project. Whatever it is that is about blogging that is screwing up my writing, doesn’t seem to interfere with the editing and rewriting process.

Anyways, my zen is all screwed up at the moment and I’m not hardly writing at all. I’m kind of focused in other directions at the moment, and I’m allowing that to happen to see if I can undo the damage I’ve done to the momentum of my current project. Hopefully, it will be like Mushroom Man, and I can reclaim it after a short time.

Anyways, that’s what’s going on at the moment. Happy Weekend, folks.

The Perils of Blogging

2011-05-10T23:05:00.000-05:00

A recent birthday of sorts recently passed. I started posting on this blog just a little over two years ago. I really had no idea what I was doing, and initially I had this lofty idea of talking about “things” regarding writing. This kind of shows in my very first post…which is me ruminating over “what is scary.”

As time went by I adapted to blogging and I started talking about a lot of different things. Sometimes I would announce a recent success in selling a story, at other times I would announce a recent success at capturing raccoons in my attic. It all worked in it’s own way. But at the same time, problems started to creep into the system.

The first problem that started to give me trouble (that I was aware of) is the fact that I had set a pace of publishing at least one post a day. This is actually a phenomenal rate compared to most blogs. At first it wasn’t too much trouble, and the fact that my life can get pretty weird meant I had plenty to report. But over time I started having to spend more and more time coming up with something to say. The blog started taking on a life of it’s own that ate up my time for other things as I struggled to come up with that daily post. So I finally accepted reality and cut down to updating it three times a week. This is still a fast rate compared to many, so I don’t feel to bad about that.

The other problem I have started to notice is more insidious.

When I first started blogging, I had already written my first novel. I later edited and rewrote the whole thing from top to bottom, but the story was done. All the reporting I did on The Ways of Khrem was essentially in regards to a finished story. And at first, I really only reported on other stories once they were done as well. Then at some point, I changed strategy. I started posting snippets of projects under construction. Snippets from stories such as Argiope, Dagguerotype, and The Flight of the Lark were all posted as I came up with them. All were stories I was excited about…and all sit unfinished, shelved or dead.

I’m beginning to realize that there is a danger in sharing an idea and a project while you are doing it. It takes something out of it. It takes something out of the impetus to write. Somehow it actually starts to take the steam out of the project. Looking back, I had more success when I simply posted snippets after the rough draft was finished. So I’m not sure what is going on here, other than I seem to have stumbled onto something.

It bears thinking about.

Another Zombie Snippet

2011-05-09T07:33:00.000-05:00

Marisa inspected the repaired section of eyeliner with a critical eye that would have done any makeup artist proud.

Not that there had been much wrong with it in the first place.

The damage had been minor, although she did prefer her makeup to be flawless. But she now suspected Stacey had used the tiny smudge for her own nefarious purposes. For one thing, the little minx knew quite well the art of applying makeup was like a zen exercise to Marisa, who found the concentration of the process to be calming, and the tall waitress now harbored no doubt that it been brought up for just that purpose.

And like most of Stacey’s little schemes…it worked.

“Okay, you stinker,” she chuckled, “You win this one, but don’t think I will forget this.”

She straightened and stepped back to survey the rest of herself in the bathroom mirror. Her black hair still lay thick and almost straight from its earlier brushing, with just that perfect hint of wave to frame her face without looking the least bit styled. Her uniform hugged her long form without being tight enough to be tacky, and she wore the little waist apron at the perfect level to both accent her figure and have the desired effect on the length of torso.

Marisa favored her reflection with a smile so catlike in satisfaction one would almost expect her to purr.

This would do.

This would do just fine.

Mr. Harley Whathisname was now officially the luckiest redneck on the planet.

The young woman popped a hair brush from her apron, deciding that a few more strokes might be in order. Marisa would be damned if she was going to appear to hurry back out there just to be available for this escapade. Appearances mattered. Girls of her caliber were worth waiting for, and it never hurt to drive that point home early. Besides, it would serve her conniving little friend right to have to watch the whole restaurant for a few more minutes.

“Hmph! The place is dead anyways,” she smirked. “And one should always do at least a hundred strokes.”

She was only into the third stroke when she paused and frowned at the bathroom wall.

What was that?

She thought she had heard something…a yell, or some kind of commotion.

The fan in the women’s bathroom was loud, and the fact that the restrooms were on the store side of the truckstop building meant there was a brick firewall between them and the restaurant side. Still, however faint, she felt pretty sure she had heard something. And that something hadn’t sounded good.

Her brow furrowed with both curiosity and concern, she moved towards the back wall of the restroom and away from the noisy ceiling fan.. As she did, the faint noises of thumping and the metallic thud like the back door being kicked reached her ears. What the hell was going on over there? The waitress tilted her head in confusion at the faint din.

Then a second later, the unmistakable sound of a scream pierced the thick wall.

Marisa stood up straight and whirled towards the door. The brush fell forgotten from her hand as she hurried towards the exit.

That had been Stacey, and she sounded like she was in trouble…bad trouble.

Her mind raced as she moved. If Stacey were in some kind of struggle at the back door, then she must have gone outside after Tomas instead of Benny. Which was probably another reason she distracted her with the eyeliner ruse, to keep Benny in the kitchen and yet spare Tomas a well deserved ass shredding at the same time. Only she must have run into some kind of trouble while out there…and Marisa had a good idea what that trouble was.

“Libby,” she snarled and fished her car keys out of her pocket as she moved. Her fist closed around the ring, leaving a key protruding like a metal spike between each finger.

Apparently the hooker had decided to take their little feud to a new, more violent level and chose to go after Stacey when she saw the opportunity. The smaller girl, out in the parking lot alone, must have made a target that Libby just couldn’t resist. Well, if that was the case then Marisa intended to dish out an education that sorry whore would never forget on the subject of what happened when she messed with her friends.

“You should have come after me first, puta,” she growled as her hand reached for the bathroom door, “because then I would have gone a lot easier on you. Now I’m going to wreck your ass!”

The bathrooms faced each other across a short hall in the back of the store side of the truck stop, with the employees entrance at the back of the hall. The only problem was the employees door could only be opened from the other side without a key, so when the waitresses had to use the restrooms they had to return to their stations by walking through the store and coming in the front door of the diner.

Only a minute longer, amiga. I’ll be right there.

Then, as her fingers closed around the handle…

…all hell broke loose on the other side of the door.

So, My Dryer Went Kaput...

2011-05-06T22:24:00.002-05:00

The last couple of days I have been very focused and productive. Oddly enough, it hasn't been in what you might think. I have been working very hard on getting caught up with the housework, and taking care of some household matters that have been allowed to slide for far too long around here.

One of those things was the laundry.

As somebody who grew up poor on a farm, and married to somebody else who grew up poor on a farm, I have a few habits that I'm just now learning aren't really conducive to modern suburban life in the 21st century. Such as the fact that we never throw anything away. We hang on to things long past the time we are no longer using them, and they accumulate over time. For instance...clothes.

Over time, as I got older and fatter, I occasionally bought new shirts and shorts to accommodate my new, curvier shape. Naturally, I hung on to my older clothes because I was confident that my new weight was a temporary condition and that soon I would need those smaller sizes again. Au contraire! As it turned out, after another year or two of good living, I now needed even bigger sizes, and those former upgrades joined their older brothers in the "someday" side of the closet rail. Then I had to buy more hangers. Then there were more clothes. And then I realized the other day that I simply could not cram any more clothes on the long rail of my walk-in closet.

Yeah.

And as I sat there and mused on that situation, I could see how the same thing was happening around the house in other areas. So I got busy. Old clothes of mine that I haven't worn in years were bagged and are now sitting in the garage awaiting a trip to the Goodwill. The kids closet, and their wildly overflowing toybox that still has toys from when they were babies, has also been noticed.

Then I got all the laundry together from all our rooms that I had let kind of get away from me, and I started washing clothes. Load followed load, followed load, followed load... And after a day and a half of solid laundry work, I was only two loads away from being completely done. And of course that's when my dryer died. At first I thought it might be a breaker, but no dice. I have one dead dryer. Oh well, I'll adapt. If I have to, I'll just find a laundromat and get some quarters for that. I will not be thwarted.

So at the moment, I'm being more of a househusband than a writer, but that's okay. Stuff is getting done. And some writing has gotten done as well. So that's been my week. I hope everybody out there has had a good one too.

See ya Monday!

Adding in Gerald

2011-05-04T01:25:00.000-05:00

“You see, Holly.” Gerald gestured out the window of the Textro diner after a flash of lightning, “it’s going to rain. Those idiots at the game are going to get soaked while we can enjoy the weather from in here.”

“I suppose,” Holly sighed and picked up the menu. She really didn’t feel like going into this. Disagreeing with him would only make him get defensive and loud…and his nasal voice carried enough as it was.

“You suppose?” The plump redhead waved his hand in exasperation. “Come on, Holly. I know this is your home state and you feel obligated to defend its honor and all that, but at least you’re a city girl…this is knuckle dragger territory.”

Holly kept her face blank and started perusing the menu. As a suburbanite from South Houston she did qualify as a city girl but she had still looked forward to spending a long weekend home from the University of Texas in Austin, getting together with her old high school friends and cheering on her Bulldogs against the hated Pirates.

But it wasn’t to be.

At the last minute, Gerald had showed an uncharacteristic interest in her origins and insisted on accompanying her on this get together. She had initially been taken aback since the little dilettante seldom liked travelling outside his circle of coffee shop friends, or wandering far from an internet connection. Then on second thought a flare of hope had occurred along with the idea that maybe he was finally starting to take a healthier interest in her as a person.

Just maybe her long suffering patience was beginning to help her get through the wealthy little nerd’s shell of narcissism and awful social skills.

She should have known better.

Gerald had insisted on taking his BMW as opposed to her old Toyota Scion, which should have been her first clue that trouble brewed. Usually he preferred her to drive, especially if they were going to unfamiliar territory for him, but this time insisted that he needed to road test “the beamer” since it was fresh back from an overhaul and detailing. Then he had fussed about the dust and dirt from driving the three hours over rural highways, that he insisted only the most desperate of Neanderthals would ever dream of living along, then insisted on stopping at a carwash before meeting her friends. By that time, she had already begun to smell the disaster coming.

Sure enough, what she had hoped would be an occasion to show off her boyfriend on his best behavior had turned into a debacle that would result in apologetic emails on her part later.

He had strutted around in his little suede beret and didn’t miss a chance to flaunt his car, expensive cell phone, and pretty much act a general ass…and all the while probably thinking they were impressed. Then, when they had caravanned to Masonfield to watch the football game, he had checked the weather on the radio and rebelled at the thought he might get caught out on some “grubby, three mule school’s bleachers in the middle of a typhoon.”

So now her friends were likely huddled under tarps and having a great time at the game, while she sat here listening to Gerald congratulate himself on how smart he was. She couldn’t decide if the fact that it never occurred to him to consult with her on this decision was more irritating or depressing. She had grown used to that in Austin, and honestly didn’t care since most of the different things Gerald did there had about equal appeal to her. But this was supposed to have been her weekend…

Her weekend.

But he was connected, and his father was a lot more connected, and when your major is theater one of the first things you learned was who you knew mattered. And she honestly liked his father. Connor Plimpton was thoughtful, generous, and treated her nicely. He even once said she deserved a medal for her patience with his self-absorbed son. Holly liked to think that one day, with patience and understanding, she would be able to bring out some of Connors qualities in Gerald. She knew they had to be in there somewhere.

It would just take time to reach him.

Until then, she would console herself with the decent roles she was getting via Connor’s influence in the theater department. Not leading roles, of course, but still enough stage time to build a list of credits for her resume. It was still up to her to master the roles given and do them credit, Holly took care never to forget that and worked hard to take advantage of her opportunities. This helped negate any residual guilt she felt over the advantages she had received, and it gave her a greater sense of control over her own situation…

…and next time she decided to come visit her old friends, she would just leave Gerald an email after she left. He would panic, and suspect she was seeing somebody else, but that was old territory for her and she knew how to let that little tempest blow over. For now, her only wish was to get him back to Austin to the crowd who knew him, before he caused her any more grief or embarrassment.

Which was impossible, naturally…

“Hey Senora!” Gerald waved his little beret at the tall Hispanic waitress as she walked by. “Uno momento, por favor.”

Holly fought the urge to slide under the table in abject humiliation, as the young woman stopped and fixed them both with a blank stare. Oh yes, she definitely intended to get out of here as soon as possible.

Going Quiet

2011-05-02T00:41:00.000-05:00

I'm about to "go quiet" for a little while.

I'll be off the internet for all but the most basic functions (email, blog) for the next week or two. I'm going to focus as exclusively as possible on getting things done during that time, with as little distraction as possible. So I'm going to shrink my world down to writing and taking care of the house. That means although I won't be making much noise, hopefully a lot will actually be getting done.

Hmmmm...makes me kind of ponder the nature of silence.

It's the things left unsaid that often matter the most...and sometimes silence is the most powerful forms of replies (although in my case it might simply mean I wasn't paying attention). But it does sort of hearken back tot he old action vs words conundrum. Words without deeds and all that.

Of course I'm a writer so words matter a lot.. But I think in writing the same principle still holds true. Sometimes it's the things left unsaid that allow the reader to build the more powerful image, or gives them the longer lasting impression. That's always a choice a writer should face with care...what not to say. Try to make sure the words don't get in the way of the story.

Anyways, so there will be no facebook for Nate for a little while. He's going to be going where the words don't intrude, and and silence is the sound of things that matter getting done.

Ta!

Happy Birthday, Sheridan!

2011-04-29T01:06:00.000-05:00

Eight years ago today, Sheridan came into this world.

He arrived almost three months early, at the astonishing weight of two pounds and six ounces. He was so tiny that other newborns I saw being carried in the hospital looked huge by comparison. Karla and I were probably some of the most scared and worried parents on the planet.

But he made it.

And he grew.

And he thrived.

And that thin tiny cry he uttered eight years ago has been replaced with a high volume, non-stop torrent of chatter and "kapows" and "bangs" and god knows what all kung fu and space opera noises the young human mouth can make. But he's healthy, and happy, and his heart is in the right place. He's a good kid, with a fast and agile mind that makes him think bringing home straight A report cards is child's play. I couldn't be a happier or prouder father

Over the years I've watched his passions morph from Cars...to Wall-E...and now to Star Wars. Where he once sat enraptured in front of the TV by the exploits of Dora the Explorer, he now punches the air along with the characters of Dragon Ball Z. As a three year old he used to sit in my lap and ride the rollercoasters with me that I built on the computer with Roller Coaster Tycoon 3...nowadays he builds his own on that same computer. Things change...but they're changing in good ways.

He's getting taller, and louder, and faster, and I love every second of it. Eight is a good year, and I hope he has a great one.

Happy Birthday, son. I love you.

Humpday Productivity

2011-04-27T00:18:00.000-05:00

So Gerald Plimpton and his dismal girlfriend Holly will be joining the cast of Dead Stop. What I will do, is simply continue writing the story with them in it, and go back and insert them in a couple of earlier scenes later. They really don't do anything up until this point anyways.

I have also looked at some potential cover art for the Shades collection I will be putting together soon. I am waiting till I get the rights back on another story next month, so I can add it to the collection. And I'm also working on a short story on the side that might make it in there too. As it is, I will soon be pulling down and unpublishing the individual Shades story from Amazon.com.

Mainly, my productivity the last couple of days has been an archeological enterprise centered around chiseling down through the layers of clutter to see what remains of the house I remember living in years ago...before the kids showed up. My son's birthday party is this weekend and we are having guests, which means I needed to clear out room for them to occupy once they arrive. I've actually made good headway, with the help of my lovely assistant Karla.

Today, I will go get my car inspected and the tags updated. So more is getting done. This week seems to be mainly getting caught up with stuff that I've been slacking off with...like driving around with expired stickers and inspection tags for a month. So I've been really good the past two days, just not doing a whole lot of writing. I imagine my writing will be spotty between now and the party, and then I intend to accelerate and try to finish this story by the end of May. Yay!

Anyways, that's my news for now. Happy Humpday, folks!

Jerk Substitution Alert

2011-04-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

I am taking a pause, for a maximum of 24 hours, to consider whether or not to introduce a new character into Dead Stop, while I'm at a place that I can do it without too much complication.

I had noticed that pretty much all the characters in this story were fairly decent folks (Well, except for one but she is killed off almost immediately). Here I was, bumping off people left and right, in horribly gruesome ways, and none of them were really awful people. It just seemed to me that I ought to consider the possibility of including at least one complete asshole into my list of victims.

So I've been pondering it...and I have a guy who might fit into the scenario rather well. Actually, he would even add something to one scene in particular...where he could carry a role that I couldn't really see any of the characters I currently had doing very well. This guy would be a young, pasty faced psuedo-intellectual, who looks down on the other people in the truckstop while being absolutely useless and cowardly... and feeling victimized when this is pointed out...you know, the type of guy whose life revolves around winning arguments on the internet. This would also be the guy screaming that the people wounded by zombies need to be locked up or thrown outside. Create some internal tension in the group.

I think I'll give him one of those little tufts of chin whiskers and a poly sci major. I might also include a sullen and long suffering girlfriend.

Anyways, it's just an idea and I will set a time limit of 24 hours to consider it. If I don't have a way to comfortably insert him into the tale by then, I will discard the idea and move on with the story I have. I want to move on with this story. I'll use the time considering tomorrow to get some other chores done, and then Monday evening write a couple of quick chapter drafts with him in it just to see if it will work. I would need to go back and insert him into a couple of earlier scenes, but since he would hardly be talking to any of the locals before the zombie attack, that shouldn't be too difficult. He would mainly be background in the early part of the story.

I'll need to come up with a good "jerk" name. Phillip? Chip? (anybody named chip has to be a jerk, but I think more of a preppy jerk) Donald? Manfred? Hmmmm....any idea for true jerk names out there?

Oh well, thats what's up with Dead Stop.

I have survived the three day weekend home with the kids (after successfully scraping all the peanut butter of the couch Friday morning), and they had a lovely Easter. Rowan was very talkative and actually wished people Happy Easter. Sheridan had a good time playing games at his cousins house, and we all enjoyed a good family get together.

So it was a good weekend. Now it's time to get back to work.

TTFN!

Happy Easter and Stuff!

2011-04-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

So, I crossed the thirty thousand word threshold on Dead Stop tonight. Not bad for a story I only started on March 27th. I would dearly love to keep this rate of production up, but I'm not sure if that is going to be possible over the course of this weekend. It's a three day weekend for the kids, and somebody went and had a holiday at the end of it.

Sigh.

Anyways, writing around kids is just something I'm going to have to work on as the summer approaches. I'll have them both home all day over the summer, so it's going to behoove me to come up with some strategies to cope with that.

One of those is going to have to be writing times set aside for that and nothing else. Since the kids go to bed at 8:30, I'm thinking between the hours of nine and midnight will have to become scheduled writing times when I'll just have to have the discipline not to let my activities wander to other things. Being more focused will help make up for shorter writing times...a little bit.

Lowering expectations and choosing projects tailored to my time limitations will also go a long way towards preventing me from pulling my hair out. Dedicating the summer to nothing but short stories might be a good idea. That way I can feel like I'm getting more done while I'm actually putting out less word count. It sounds like a practical solution that will head off some bad feelings.

It's helpful to remember that thirty thousand words I've done over the past twenty four days would equal four or five of my usual short stories. So I have been productive. I just need to finish something so I can publish. Publishing is good. Publishing makes Nate happy. It's nearly the end of April and all I've published this year is one short story. So that needs to change.

Hopefully summer will provide that change.