Stuff

My in-laws are coming into town tomorrow, so we have to get the house clean so they don't know that we live like savages amidst towering piles of toys and laundry. Fortunately, our weekly house cleaner is coming in today to help out, which means I have to clean the house to get ready for her. Sigh.

Today is Thursday, which means one more day of therapy for Rowan this week. I guess it does me good to get out of the house, but I'm sure all that coffee I'm sucking down at Starbucks will probably stunt my growth. Although now I'm hearing that coffee might actually make you fat. Great, just what I need. Something else to make me fat...and keep me awake at the same time. Sigh.

Still haven't got much writing done. Little spurts here and there, but it's only three days into the strict GFCF diet so it hasn't been enough time for that to take effect even if that turns out to be the problem. I still have at least another week of that, or more, before it could have a chance to show if that's the cause of my recent writers block. Sigh.

On the bright side, I took a melatonin last night and managed to get a full ten hours of sleep. I tried for eleven but my body said "no more." For some reason I really wanted more sleep even though I wasn't sleepy. How does that work? What ever happened to waking up refreshed in the morning? That does happen, right? Anybody? Sigh.

Adding to the Misery

So I went to bed early last night.

It was going to be good. I went to bed at seven thirty last night, intending to wake up at six thirty with a glorious eleven hours of sleep under my belt. Alas, it didn't happen. I woke up at twelve thirty, unable to get back to sleep. The whole reason I had gone to bed early was that I have been staying up late and only getting only four or five hours of sleep a night. Sigh, this little messup didn't help matters any.

Tonight, I'll try some melatonin. It's hard enough staying away from both the gluten and the casein without having to complicate life by being half dead from lack of sleep. I wonder if my caffeine consumption has something to do with that? Pretty much, if it's a liquid going down my throat...it has caffeine in it. I'm not sure if I could function without it...whether it is coffee, tea, or diet Dr. Pepper.

Dammit, a man has to have some vices! I have given all my others up, and caffeine is all I have left. I don't drink, I don't smoke...heck, I don't even ogle the pretty girls anymore. Without my caffeine...what's the point?

Sigh, day two of GFCF goes well so far. I've managed to strictly avoid all the bad stuff. Maybe a few more days of this and I'll feel a difference. Add a little sleep on top of that, and I'll be ahead once more. I'll be sure and pack a container of sugar in my laptop case for my visit to Starbucks today. When I just stand there tearing open one little packet of sugar after another, people start to stare. And it's a slow way to do things anyways.

Ah well, it's about time for the kids buses to come. Time to get moving.

Scouting, Dieting, and Writing

Behold, our new Cub Scout. He's pretty proud, and I'm proud of him.

I think Cub Scouts will be good thing for Sheridan, even if it kills Karla and I...which it might considering all the things they want us to do. I swear, nobody told me that having kids meant having to keep up with so much paperwork and activities. Now suddenly we have teachers and scoutmasters and therapists making demands on our time and braincycles. Everybody wants parental involvement nowadays...it's not like the good old days where you payed your taxes and dumped your kid at the door of the nearest public school :P

I could have just stuck with cats, but noooooooo...

I seem to be fighting a bit of writer's block, so I'm taking an extreme measure. I'm going to go strict GFCF for a little while. I usually avoid the gluten, but I do cheat from time to time, and I haven't been sweating cross contamination at all. And since I didn't quite test a firm positive for casien intolerance, I've not really worried about milk products lately. Yet the fact remains it was when I went on a strict GFCF diet two and a half years ago that I suddenly started writing. I decided to test and see if I need to clean things out a little so I'm going to go back on it. Just for two or three weeks, to see if it makes a difference with the writing.

My first year I wrote one publishable novel and twelve publishable short stories. This year I have definitely fallen off that pace. I've got one half of a novel done, six short stories (well, in all fairness three are novelettes which equal 1 1/2 short stories), and a couple of flash fictions. Not so good. I need to figure out what's up with that. The main thing is that I haven't been productive at all lately.

Time to figure out why and get back to work.

The Things We Talk About on Writer's Night Out.

My weekly Writers' Night out at Denny's with Cherri Galbiati ended up going on until three o'clock in the morning. We were simply so full of wit and wisdom (or ourselves) that we just couldn't stop talking. Much about our profession was discussed, as we tried to chart courses through the new and fast changing field of writing. I know it sounds like we talk about it a lot, and we do, but it's important because the things that were right for a writer to do just a year ago, no longer are.

And the same thing holds true for publishers. The field has changed and they need to adapt to the new forces at play...not just for survival but so they and their authors can continue to work together. For instance, lets take short stories as an example.

This is an area I'm more familiar with since I write a lot of them. A model that made perfect sense for a publisher and writer a couple of years ago was for the writer to grant a publisher exclusive rights to a short story for a five year period when they submitted it for publication in an anthology. Both sides entered into the contract in good faith, and nobody felt put at a disadvantage due to the arrangement. Now with the new market, it makes absolutely no sense for a writer to enter such an arrangement. It's not that the publisher just became a bad guy, they didn't, it's just that putting a short story into a multi-author anthology for five years and forfeiting all rights to it is pretty much the same as throwing it down a well. Unless you are a new author trying to get a few credits to your resume, it makes no sense.

Now there are already some signs of adaptation going on out there. I have seen some publishers start with the model of having exclusive rights to the story for only a year, while keeping the right to use it in their anthology longer. This is more of a win-win situation for both. Some publishers now merely ask that the writer doesn't market the story elsewhere until the anthology is out, and to be sure and include a blurb where the story was originally published. Even this has it's advantages as the story can now be out there acting as an advertisement for the anthology. I always include a note about the original anthology a story appeared in, whether required to or not. I think that's just good manners.

Publishers aren't the bad guys....at least not the ones I've dealt with...they just have their environment changing on them just like us writer's do. And they're trying to figure it out the best they can. Since they are human, they are responding in the various ways human's do. Some try to make the old models work because they are comfortable and they know their way around them, others decide to dip their toes into the new waters, and others go take a flying leap into the waves and try to miss the rocks.

Sunday Follies

My good friend and fellow author, Cherri Galbiati now has her new novel available on Amazon.com. It's called Impact for Murder and it's a convoluted tale of the beleaguered wife of a small town Police Chief who takes in boarders during a hurricane while also contending with disappearing women and bodies turning up where they shouldn't be. If you enjoy murder mystery "cozies," then this one is for you.

On another note, the Dallas Cowboys will be playing the Houston Texans today. This will give them a chance of some slight redemption, or really dig a hole for themselves and the rest of their season. I used to be unhappy that their bye came so early this season, but not now. They need to reboot their season in the worst way possible. They have been playing flat, uninspired football and it needs to stop.

I'm currently writing on a short story or novelette called The Mushroom Man. I'm honestly not sure where I'm going with it, or if I'll even finish it, but I needed to get back to writing something...anything.  Sometimes those ideas that seem so brilliant late at night in bed are kind of weak in the cold glare of daylight. It doesn't matter, I still need to get to writing. It's just with the girl going to therapy for half days three times a week, and now the boy in Cub Scouts, I'm running out of good, quality writing time. Mondays and Fridays are now the only two days I have six hours of uninterrupted time...and remember, I'm not a morning person and usually don't start doing any really decent writing till after ten.

Ugh. I'm a night owl who can't be a night owl anymore. That's my real problem.

Saturday at the Scout Meetup

I took the kiddos to Sheridan's Cub Scout get together.

Rowan was initially very bored and threatened mutiny, but I found a novel way to entertain her. I handed her my little voice recorder that my wife got me for my writing. The little booger figured it out in about three seconds flat and the rest is history.


Sheridan had a blast. Keeping him focused was a challenge at times, but overall he did well.

CMT and Self Esteem

It's Friday, the last weekday of Charcot Marie Tooth Awareness Week.

I figured I would finish off the week on the topic of self esteem, since that's something I can possibly help other CMT sufferers out with. Self esteem can be a major issue with a person who has this disease, even if they are as blessed with talent and looks as...well, my wife ain't known as The Luckiest Woman on The Planet for nothing. Anyways, I've had this thing or stuff for eight years now, and if there is one thing I have learned it's not to let it define you.

Having CMT is a condition, not an identity.

Yes, it will change your life. Yes, it will reduce your options. No, it isn't who you are. That is still up to you. You may have to work harder at it, and you may have to be more creative about it, but you can still define yourself and not just be "the guy with CMT." Thanks to Charcot Marie Tooth, I am now Nate the Author. (I'm not really Nate the Supermodel...I confess the above image may have been retouched a tad.) Thanks to Charcot Marie Tooth, I am now a far wiser man than I was before. Thanks to Charcot Marie Tooth, I can write characters with a lot more depth and understanding than I could have imagined before.

So CMT can be a condition that can affect your options, but it's not who you are. That is still up to you. If you have to make a compromise here or there to get there, that's just part of the journey. In the end, the destination is your own identity.

PS: That hat makes me look goooooooood!

The Veil

Since this is Charcot Marie Tooth Awareness Week, I've been trying to make a post about it every day. Todays post is going to be about the absolute worst days. The worst of the worst.

These are days where I way ten thousand pounds, and I'm so wiped out it's like there is a veil between me and the rest of the world. All I want to do is sleep, or sit stupidly in a chair and stare at nothing. The world has to make an effort to get through that veil to reach me...and vice versa, but I'm sapped of energy to make the effort. Even driving is a huge effort on my part.

Fortunately, these days don't come often....but they worry me when they do. Or more accurately, they worry me  after they do since I don't have the energy to worry about them at the time. It's not fair to the people who live with me...and it's not fair to me because I'm losing out of valuable time with them too. I think of my grandfather after days like those, and how unresponsive he became in his final years, and I wonder if that was what it was like for him.

 It's just not fair period...but nobody ever promised life to be fair. Sometimes it's best to simply lose that word from your vocabulary, because all it will do is make you miserable.

On another note, I have another book to mail to a reviewer. Let's see if I can do it this time without any wallets left at home and comedic looks of bewilderment while the line waits impatiently behind me. That would be nice.

I wish I had something else to write, but since I'm not actually writing much this week I don't really have much to write about. I need to get back to writing soon. Tomorrow, both kids spend all day at school so that will be a good time to start. It's time to crawl back on that horse...or bicycle....or pogo stick or whatever.

The Pratfall

Since this is Charcot Marie Tooth Awareness Month, I thought I might as well dedicate at least one post to contributing something to my fellow sufferers. I'm sure what I'm about to talk about is old hat to anybody out there who has had CMT for any length of time, but it's a topic we all have to deal with.

It regards thickening our skins.

Because part of having Charcot Marie Tooth is living with the reality that we are going to fall down. And sometimes it is going to be in public...and sometimes it is going to be spectacular. (for instance the time I took a tumble in Walmart and sent the three year old cruising down the aisle while sitting in the cart I had been pushing. She loved it). Then comes the part that my fellow CMT sufferers know so well.

The looks.

Most are concerned. Some are shocked. Some are amused. Then they see my braces while I'm struggling to get up and they almost all default to the look of "Oh, that poor man!" Then they look embarrassed, or embarrassed for me, or they simply look away. It's a process I've seen far too many times for comfort. But I know it will most likely happen again. And that's where thickening your skin comes in.

You can't blame people for not knowing how to properly react to a situation that they aren't familiar with. If you do you're just going to end up bitter at the world for not catering to your special disability. And that is going to hurt nobody but you. So you learn that with this disability comes the responsibility to educate, or at least make people feel more comfortable when something like that happens. My usual response after a tumble is to do an immediate assessment of whether or not I'm hurt, and if I'm not I try to laugh it off and put the people around me at ease. In the end, I'm just a guy and I fell down.

Everybody is different though, and they have to find their way to their own answers. I just hope mine have helped somebody out there.

On another note, my week off from writing continues. I think it might be working, as I'm starting to have ideas for stories bubbling up...especially when I wake up at night. I've had one idea that would make a good Tales of Nur story, and even obliquely involve a young Cargill on the Upperways of Khrem. Another that  could be either a Tales of Nur story or a Shades story, and perhaps one that could be just a pure Shades story. Who knows, I might actually throw another short story up in a months time.

But I also have novel work to do, as I have put that off long enough as well. I have started having a few inquiries about a sequel to The Ways of Khrem from a couple of readers, so I need to start plotting in that direction. There are just a lot of ways that novel can go. I already have one possible prologue done and one story started on it. Once I get a clearer idea of where I want to go with it, the progress will pick up. I wrote the first draft of the last one in two months time. It's just a matter of getting a sense of the overall story.