Need more coffee

This morning marked the first words I have written since Friday. Since it is only Tuesday I don't think that is too bad. I really only missed one day because I don't usually write on weekends anyway. It was fun, then I hit a point where the story just got stuck for me. I know where it is going but I am still unclear the best route to get there so I started on a short story I have been thinking about for the last week. I have no clue how I am going to market this story. None.

I hate it when that happens. I also hate when I don't know how long it is going to be. I am thinking in the 3-4K range but I can see it turning into a 7-8K piece as well. I know it is going to take a lot of editing to get it into publishable shape and then it will take a pretty niche market, but I could be wrong. Let us just say for now that it deals with a portion of the seven deadly sins, a preacher, and the stock market. And no, Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt will not be showing up in this story.

This is only the second short story I have worked on this year. How is this fine summer day treating you?

mixed blessings

The bad news, when your son wakes you at 4:30 in the am is that it is darn early. The good news, when you finally get him back to bed at 5:30 is that it is too late to go back to bed, especially if the dog is sleeping in your spot and he gets very growly if you move him. Since I don't like to be bitten first thing in the morning it was a great morning to write. I managed about a page and a half of new material before the dog came into the office, lay under the desk and started snoring loud enough to shake the windows. I had ten minutes left of good bed time before the alarm went off. I took it. I didn't sleep, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

I managed to get another seven pages written after that. It was great, although the quality of the pages is still suspect, and then the kids woke up and the daily routine started. It was the only real writing I have gotten done all week but it pushed me over the 20K mark.

How was your week? Is it just me or is it hard to believe that this is the last weekend in June?

Doing no wrong

I am beginning to wonder if Pixar can make a bad movie. We took the kids to see Toy Story 3 yesterday and it was great. Quite possibly the best in the series. I was thinking about writers who can do no wrong. The only commercial writer who hasn't disappointed me yet (with more than one book out) is J.K. Rowling. Tom Piccerilli is close, but I thought Shadow Season, while a very good book, read a little slow for the genre it was written in.

Of course, Stephen King, a master in his own right has put out some real stinkers over the years and don't get me started on Dean Koontz and John Saul.

What about you? Are there any writers out there who are bulletproof in your estimation?

Well, they are getting closer

While borders fired a warning shot in the e-reader market with their $149 KOBO reader, Barnes and Noble may have just sunk the ship with the non- 3G Nook for $149 (the 3G version now sells for 199). This gives readers the option of a fully featured reader at a price that will make Sony wince. I wonder who the next player to drop the price will be and by how much. with the still unfortunately named Ipad blowing the market wide open at $499 (but it is so much more than a reader, it is a status symbol) the readers that do less could hardly compete at the $259 level. After all, if you are spending that much, why not spend a little more and get it all.

Now I feel the market is starting to get serious about getting the general public into these devices and once they hit the $99 dollar mark I think they may have a must have device that every reader will have. I will have to admit that at $149 it is very tempting to put off the purchase of the deer gun I have my eyes on to buy one. If my TBR pile was shorter my order would have been in this morning.

So, Who's next?

Last post of the week

I know. It is only Thursday but I have a busy three days coming up. Doctors appointment tomorrow to see if my cholesterol meds are working or if I should give up and start eating bacon and eggs again, and after that I get to go to an antique walk, which is just awesome. They actually fill in an entire town with antiques and you just walk through buying stuff. Good times. On Saturday, my lovely wife and I get to go out, without the kids, and we may even take in a movie. Which leaves Sunday which is Father's day and I will probably end up working around the house.

In the meantime, the children cooperated this morning and gave me enough time to put about 1300 words on paper and push my manuscript over 18K. This made me happy. :)I really have to get a working title on it other than Book, which is how it is listed in my files. Everything else I come up with sounds so generic and book is as good as any of them, so for now Book it is. I have never had so many subplots that are viable to a story to try to fit into a manuscript. It is rather exciting.

Well, so much for the alone time. One child is now up. Sorry to bore you with the minutia of my life. Have a great rest of the week. :)

Not enough coffee in the world

I am sitting here at the computer, trying to pour enough caffeine down my gullet to get me awake and actually work on my wip today. I just can't seem to get motivated. I have read the news, the blogs, tripped the light fantastic on facebook and now am sitting here with a bunch of words that appear to be in some semblance of order and I can't add to them. I will- eventually, but it is going to take some time today.

Dang, is that coffee cup empty again? I had better do something about that. Have a great Wednesday.

monday post, again

I am working on a story, book actually, just trying to get the words saved before they are lost in the Swiss cheese that has become my mind. I have been getting away from the norm for me (working in silence, which just doesn't happen in this house anymore) and have been working instead on the fringe (spare moments here and there). It has been an interesting experience. It has been an experience out of necessity than choice and I will take it. If I couldn't adapt then I wouldn't be writing at all.

My still unnamed book is at 16K so far with no work done on it in the last week.

In other news, the grass is growing in the newly renovated part of my yard and if the rain ever lets up I will be able to mow it and take some nice pictures of the work my wife and I have done to it. In the meantime, here a pic from my vacation of me and the kiddo's.

I am back

I know. It has been nine days since my last post. I had no internet for most of the week and so I am just now getting caught up on bloggy things. I haven't been ignoring you, I haven't been around. I have been perusing the museums in Chicago, Illinois while their hockey team won the Stanley cup. I have some pretty good pictures I will try to post later. I got no writing done. I did manage to get some reading done because while I have found out I can't type worth a darn on a netbook size computer I can read in a less than quiet hotel room. I will get back to the writing tomorrow, and wouldn't you know it, I have another story idea to jot down (and remain forever undecipherable) in my idea journal.

Here are some things I learned this week while on vacation with the family. We CAN get along in a single room without good television for five days. My kids are less afraid of standing on a glass deck 1350 feet above the city than most adults. T-Rex's had a very narrow jaw. That is all. I am sure I will come up with more later but that is all for now. Have a good rest of the weekend.

Captain Obvious here and it is Friday

Some weeks seem to blow by and drag at the same time. This was one of those weeks. I have been happily plugging away at my still unnamed manuscript and am dangerously close to 15K. It is going well. That is the part of the week that is going at Indy car speed.

The rest of the week has kind of drug on. My daughter is now out of school and that is going fairly smoothly. We have gotten lots of projects done around the house even though I am still not done with that table top. It is in the shop in pieces next to the porch swing I did get put together. Now I just need to hang the swing.

I am hoping that the rest of June is as productive as this first week. Have a good weekend. :)

Rotating characters

I think the reason I am liking this newest WiP I am working on is the number of characters in it. It isn't an overwhelming number but they each have their own storylines that link together, for better and worse. I have never tried anything quite like this and I am really enjoying the process. Usually I can have a story rotate around 2 or maybe three characters and call it good. This one is really focused on 4 characters and a cast of many more. I will be curious to see how it all ends up for them and if it will be readable when I am done. I don't even have a good working title for this story yet.

As it stands at the end of this writing day I am up to 12,845 words in this manuscript. Time to go make an Alfredo sauce with shrimp for dinner and separate the children before I give up and let them use knives to settle it for good. I got my bets on the girl. She has longer arms.

I feel like singing Alice Cooper for some reason

Today is the last day of school for my daughter. After this she will be in the second grade and I will be in charge of two kids for all summer. It should be interesting.At least we get to go on vacation next week, take in a few museums. Hopefully we don't end up killing each other being cooped up in a tiny room with each other for a week.

In other news. I still haven't heard from any editors so my standings for May stood at one lonely little rejection way back on the 4th. I really liked that short story. it was a rejection on a re-write request so I felt pretty good to get that far with it. That is pretty impressive considering I have seven stories out right now. and three books. I am sure it will catch up to me in June. Trust me, if anything changes on that front I will let you know.

I only managed a couple of hundred words this weekend and am planning on getting my 1K a day ramped up here in a minute (because this doesn't count). I have several new plot twists and the story stands at about 11K so far. I was slow last week and had a lot going on although I still managed to write every day during the school week. It felt good and I am really liking the characters so far. Some of them are real dirtbags, but they are my dirtbags.

I had better get on it. Enjoy your first day of June. I am going to. :)