Thursday post

Not a lot of writing going on here. I have been feverishly working in my yard trying to get it ready to use. It should be a beautiful patio when we get it done. I think today I will put together an Adirondack chair and handle a shove a little more before I attempt to mow the second half of the yard. I would only have the mowing to do if we hadn't had to get a new well this winter.

Anyway, all of this is cutting into any creative time I may (or may not) have had so writing has been at a minimum. I have been jotting ideas in a journal, trying desperately to remember the really good idea I had the other day while driving home from Omaha but I think I have a couple of other ideas I can flesh out. Horror has taken a back seat and more literary works have come into play. I don't know how my mind works or if it does (my wife would argue for the latter) but I am getting ideas and that makes me a happy writer. I hate it when I have nothing to write about. Kind of like this post. :)

Hope everyone has a productive Thursday and thanks to every one for reading my flash piece up on 52 Stitches. I am glad you enjoyed it.

Tuesday post

I have actually sat here for five minutes trying to come up with an appropriate title for this post and that is all I have come up with. At least it is honest.

First things first. Time to pimp some stories. The Problem with Gnomes is up on 52 Stitches. It is free and it was a blast to write. Go read it if you haven't already. Fate's Hand in Mortal Affairs is now available as well in book form from Pill Hill Press in their antho, The Four Horsemen. This book was supposed to have illustrations to go with the stories but the illustrator suffered a stroke and was unable to finish so it was published without them. I wish the illustrator a speedy recovery.

In other news. My truck decided that after picking up a trailer full of paving bricks (2.5 tons to be exact) would be a good time to have the fuel pump go out on it. I can't blame the truck. It is 14 years old and has 151,000 miles on it. It probably saw all the bricks being loaded and had the mechanical version of a heart attack. I was thankful there was a very nice car dealer just up the road and from the time I called the tow truck to the time they got me back out the door was just under 3.5 hours. Not too bad considering the pump has to go into the gas tank. I think they took pity on a man with his 3 year old kid who was 2 hours from home.

I am very sore after unloading the bricks, with the help of my wife in just under an hour. My back doesn't like me very much, but it never has so why should it start now. I think I am going to go enjoy some reading at this point rather than expend more energy thinking of my own stories today.

Have a great Tuesday!

of things past

One good thing about working on many different projects the same time is if you get stuck on one you can move on to another. The problem becomes when you start on one you haven't looked at in 5 months and are trying to get to know the characters again before you change their names inadvertently or turn them blond instead of bald or - well, you get the picture.

Have a great Thursday.

Lost

No, the name of the post does not come from the television show it comes from the fact that I had several uninterrupted hours of thinking time yesterday and I didn't have a pen or recording device to write any of it down and now it is all gone.

I had subplots going and some darn fine dialog thought up and this morning it is lost in my subconscious mind. Probably forever.

Let this be a lesson to everyone out there that, while having ideas is great, remembering them is greater. GRRRRR!

nice day, for a Saturday

So here I sit, trying to figure out where to go with the words. I really don't know. I did some significant re-writing of a story this week and re-subbed it. I think it is a better story for it but time will tell if the editor feels the same. I am done with my picture book, for the time being. It was really fun to write and now I am trying to figure out if I can use the characters anywhere else. It took me a year to come up with the story they are in now so things aren't looking real good for them. I still have a couple of books I could be working on but I seem to be stuck. At least two of them I would really like to find some 4 wheel drive for and get them out of the bog and back onto dry land. So, instead, I sit here, wondering what to write and hoping I have enough time to get it down once I do think of something.

On the bright side it is a beautiful day. It isn't supposed to be too hot or too cold. I don't know about the wind but I need to work on my lawnmowers to get them ready for the jungle that is going to be waiting for them after I get them ready. Have a good Saturday and a great weekend.

Even my fingers aren't working this morning. My pinky is getting a workout on the backspace key.

I'm still here

The last week has been crazy. I no longer have a 2 year old in my house. He is now 3. My wife took 5 days off of work so we worked in the yard. I have been thinking of story lines and getting little writing done. I am going to change that today. I am sitting my butt in the chair and re-writing a story. It is at the request of a publisher so I am inclined to try. It could still be a rejection but I can live with that. One of these hours today I need to brew a pot of coffee. It is on my to do list.

Sorry if I haven't appeared in the blogs lately. I try to read them all, I just don't have time to respond to all of them this week. It has been crazy. Oh, and it is tax day in the States. If you haven't started yet, you are pretty much out of luck. ;)

WIP Wednesday, kids edition

I have been thinking of a character for the last year. It started out as an early chapter book, but that didn't work out. I have found this character is much better for the picture book format. It also took me about that long to figure out what to do with him, because good characters are sometimes hampered by the situations you can effectively put them into. Here is the beginning of an almost done picture book.

Harry the dog lived with the Pawson family It was Harry, Mr. Pawson, Mrs, Pawson and baby Pawson. Harry the dog was an escape artist. There was nothing that could keep him in. He had escaped from the house. He had escaped from the yard. He could even escape from his leash.

It was always getting him in trouble.

I would post more but it is very short to begin with. The tenative title is Harry, The Great Houndini. 

This is not my first foray into picture books. It probably won't be my last. I hope to finish it later this week and beta it with some adults (they are the target audience of children's books, believe it or not. If they don't like them, they don't buy them. Pretty simple economics. Why do you think Lego blocks are so big- they are fun for adults to play with as well.)

On a Road to Nowhere

My mind is a whirl of confusion these days. One day I will work on a very dark story. The next day I am working on a children's picture book. Somewhere in there I am jotting down ideas for a cookbook I started 15 years ago. A mess I tell you.

I hope you all get where you need to go this weekend and have a good holiday.

March in Review

March has been, by far, my most productive month this year. I couldn't tell you how many words I have written but by the stats here we go:

1 acceptance, first of the year. I didn't even know about it until Adam Whitlatch told me we shared a ToC together. Burnt Offering is up at Unheard Magazine if you care to read it. Not horror, just to warn you.

3 rejections. I could actually have more and this is just for the short stories, it doesn't include queries to agents. For some reason my email account thought it would be cool to not get me some of my messages. I am a little concerned about this but there is nothing I can do about it.

1 full read request on my MG book. I was very excited about this. It turned out to be a rejection, but a very nice rejection.

3 partial read requests. Again, all rejections.

1 new story written. More than any other month this year. It is dark, definitely dark, but not horror.

So that is it, my month in review. I hope I can continue on this path in April. We shall see. Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend.