I still find time to write, somehow

Sometimes it is amazing how the best laid plans can get thrown into the woodchipper like so many mob snitches. I have been plugging away on a new book, 8K in 5 days. Not a record but still respectable. It has gotten in the way of my meager reading time. I was all set and prepared to finish reading The Lightening Thief on Friday or Saturday and here it is Tuesday and I still have another 50 or so pages to go. I need to finish so I can read Barry Napier's newest chapbook.

In the meantime I am chipping away at my massive to do list around the house. Massive is kind of an understatement. I noticed my wife had put her to do list down on a piece of paper and I thought that it looked like a good idea. Visualize the situation. It can't be that bad. How many projects can I have going on around the house? Oh, yeah. It is bad. Many of these projects are quite involved and will take days to finish. This coming from a man who is happy to have an hour of uninterrupted work time.

I may see you all this December, after I get caught up. Who knows, I may have the time to jot a piece of flash fiction down in that time. Maybe. Now, I am going to try to finish reading a book and then I can build a table top for my patio. (seriously).

Friday post

Don't you love the title of this post. So original. So thought provoking.

Really, I have been up to amazingly little this week. I have gotten some words down, but not very many. I have worked on reading some friends stories, but I haven't made it through them (and not because I don't like them. Quite the contrary, they are actually some of the best work I have read from these people.). I have tried to work on re-writes of my own stories and haven't made it past the first chapter.

Some weeks are like that. I will get over it. Maybe today will be more productive. How is your week going?

Sorry, been busy

I have actually been busy lately. I have been putting up trim in the house, helping the wife scrape paint :P, bottling beer, doing a very few edits, playing with the children, going to the zoo, going to an art museum to see original Little Golden Book art (very cool), cleaning house, and living my life. See, I have had very little time to blog about it. I have been able to keep up on everyone else while I do all of this.

Today, I have more things to do around the house. Some trim I stained last night needs to be lacquered and after that I have a ceiling to sand so I can texture and paint that room. After that I might try to get to a little bit of editing. Either that or I might try to edit first and then try to get some work done around the house. I think that might work. Needless to say, I will not be starting any new stories until this housework is done. I hope it doesn't take very long. I am starting to miss the writing to be honest about it. As you read this and I put it down the action of the typing is almost hypnotic and lulling me into a short story.

Have a good Monday. I will try to be better about posts this week. I don't have anything else to do.

Update: Because Carrie asked and I had almost forgotten about it, My back is much better. After repeated trips to the chiropractor we managed to keep my hips from popping out of place and allowing me to walk again. I still don't know what I did to get that way.

Friday, its Friday

The title of this post was meant to be sing-song style, not unlike Debbie Reynold's in Singin' In the Rain singing, "Sunset and Camdon!" If you haven't seen that movie in a while you are missing out. Best musical ever! At least in my humble opinion.

But I digress. I did manage to finish the 3rd and I hope final rewrite of my MG book, Big Chief's Gold. That is still a working title so don't be alarmed that it stinks on ice. Now I have endless edits before I start to farm it out to agents and possible publishers. Should be an interesting experiment. I did enjoy writing it. How else can you explain rewriting the same story 3 times, from different points of view or characters. I wouldn't do that with just any story. Most I would have given up on long before that happened.

So what happens today. First I need to go to the lumberyard and pick up more drywall so I can finish that bedroom I started two months ago (it is looking really good. I just have the closet and part of the walls to hang and then I finish and paint the walls, trim it out and call it done.) It should be the quietest room in the house, because I have taken the time to soundproof it with mucho insulation. this afternoon I need to clean the house. So I think It is safe to say that my writing is done for the week. Stick a fork in it and hope it all comes back to me on Monday.

Until Monday, have a great weekend. And now for you viewing pleasure a scene from Singin' in the Rain, Donald O'Conner in Make 'em Laugh. I don't know how old he was when he did this scene but it had to be hard on him.

Short day

Today is going to be abbreviated for me. I won't be able to get much, if anything done, on my current projects. To that I am taking a page from Brian Keene's playbook and have started working more than one project in the same sitting. I can see where he is coming from. I have a problem where the first couple of pages of an ongoing manuscript go great and then it seems like a lot of time is spent looking at the curtain in front of me. Using Keene's method (and I will admit is not for everyone. I don't even know if it is for me.) I can juggle two projects at the same time, when one slows to a crawl I switch gears and get a couple of hundred words down on the other project.

So far it works pretty well. Something tells me I am going to have a problem later on with characters that weren't written in to one story popping in for a visit. I didn't say it was a perfect idea.

Today, instead of writing, and if it doesn't rain, I will be spending my time planting flowers, cleaning the garage and maybe hanging more drywall. On the top of my list is tightening a water line under my dishwasher without snapping it and making a bigger mess. I thought I would have taken care of that earlier but I grabbed a handful of wrenches and none of them were the proper size. If this is any indication of how the rest of my day will go I am going back to bed.

Have a happy Wednesday!

Time

Hi, I'm Jamie and, um, I'm a writer. It has been three days since I have put any words, creatively, on paper.

Hi Jamie.

I find it amazing how fast life catches up to you. This weekend I spent a good chunk of it framing a new bedroom in the basement of my house (No reason in particular but it will be nice to have a spare bedroom for guests). Yesterday, I went out for supplies to work on it further. Today, I am going to work on a re-write, although I have a nice (pronounced nasty) little story for Knost's Christmas Horror Antho going in my head. I am happy it has a word count of 1-3 K, although I might feel different after I get started on it (can I tell my story in approximately 12 pages?)

I am actually looking forward to posting my March in Review tomorrow. It has been a much better March than last year, when I had only 3 rejections and no acceptances. Although last year in March I wrote many more short stories. I can compare tomorrow, when the official tallies are in. It could happen. I could get some news in the ol' inbox today.

Happy writing/ re-writing.

Nine

I have a new story today at 52 Stitches called Nine. If you haven't already, check it out, if you have Thank you.

I managed to get no writing done yesterday, today is looking no better. There is good news to come from this, however. My house is almost done. It has been years in the making and I managed to get a good chunk of trim up around the windows and doors yesterday and install a stairwell, properly this time. Today will involve the staining and finishing of more trim and if I feel ambitious I will take on my plumbing once again. I don't think I will feel that ambitious.

For now I am sitting here waiting for the boy to wake, and while it is time I could be using to write I need to re-format a story to send to another market after I got a very nice rejection letter from Shimmer yesterday. I also need to look at a story for a friend, but I want to be able to give it my full attention.

Busy week

It looks like I am going to get a lot done this week and very little of it will be writing. I hope to get a couple of hundred words knocked out today before my boy wakes up (although he had me up half the night so he might sleep until noon) I just removed a story from consideration from Coyote Wild because they seem to have gone into hibernation of some sort. I looked the story over and sent it off to Midnight Echoes. Felicity said they were offering quick responses but I have a feeling that her stories get sent to the top of that marketplace and don't linger in the slush for very long.

In other news I said I was going to get a lot done this week and I should probably expand on that. My house isn't finished. I have drywall to hang, stairs I need to re-tread and put risers on. Trim to install and I would like to frame up a bedroom in the basement but I don't know if I will get to that. There is also some wiring to do but I really don't want to start that until all of my framing is done. My wife is home this afternoon (we hope) and this weekend on call so we can't do anything anyway so I just as well work on the house. That and the temps are supposed to be well above freezing so I can set my saws up outside and not make the mess inside (that is the theory).

Well, I have taken up enough time here. I am off to knock out the chapter I am working on and try to get into the next one. I thought up a couple of tangents that could potentially draw this story into novel length. It will also bring in a supernatural element to the story. I look forward to seeing where this road takes me.

Happy Wednesday everybody.

Much needed day from home

Yesterday I took the day off from being at home. It was a pleasant vacation from the surrounding that I seem to have fused with since being a stay-at-home father. I used to get out more. Of course I used to write less. I felt yesterday was a good opportunity to get out. I had a friend who wanted me to look at a plumbing issue he has in a house he rents (I keep trying to get him to involve his landlord but he refuses to do that for some reason) . I thought 'what the hell. He just wants to tear a wall apart. I can do that.' So I did. I managed to have the offending piece of wall out of there in in under ten minutes and the rest of the time we talked guns and went out for pizza with my boy. It was a welcome break.

Today that means I need to double down and get at least chap 7 down and possibly get a start on 8 as well. A wet edge as the term has been floated around this week. While I needed the break I look just as forward to getting back to routine. (Aren't we all creatures of habit?)

I have now heard back from 3 of 4 editors that I was looking for this week. Just one to go and I have until Sunday to hear from him. (If I do not it will not be the end of the world but it sure will screw up my record for the week.) I still stand with 1 acceptance and 3 rejections, 1 being from Clarkesworld which wasn't on my original list, for the week.

Time to get going. Kid to wash, story to write, house to vacuum, and dishes to do.

As I gaze into my crystal ball . . .

I am going to make my predictions about which markets I will hear from next. By next I mean the next two weeks. That is all the further my psychic ability goes. My last ones were pretty spot on. I had a couple that took longer than I thought but overall I did pretty good. Unfortunately all the responses were negative so I don't know if I want to put a lot of credence in this. So without further ado:
My next three responses from editors:
1. Winter Solstice- this one has been out to Time and Space for long enough. This was a story that got an honorable mention in the Return to Luna antho but didn't make the final cut. I should hear back soon.

2. Open graves- Boston Review. Really. I am right on their average so any day now I should hear back from them. (Can they throw a new guy a bone, please)

I actually have a few others that I should hear back from any time now but I am not going to go out on a limb and say it is in the next two weeks. Three maybe. But two? I don't know.

Now for the fun part of today. I get to replace a drafty window in my kitchen that is at least 80 years old if not older. Should be a good time and I should make a horrid mess doing it. My wife will probably not want to speak to me after she sees the carnage inflicted.

I will get right on that after my next 1000 words in my re-write. (Still on schedule to get 15000 words done before NaNo.)

In case I don't make another entry before November 1. Good luck to all involved in the month of November and the 50,000 word dash that ensues. If you want to include me as a writing buddy I am jeyberg74.

Off to a roaring start

It is officially six days into October, and although the day is not yet over I really don't expect anything in my mailbox today. Yesterday I did receive my first rejection of the month. It was nice polite and to the point. It was also from Hobart for my story Open Graves which, despite its title, is a literary piece with absolutely nothing supernatural about it. I still like the story and will continue to try to find a nice home for it.

Now despite what I told myself about reading My Side of the Mountain I am reading a Robert Bloch pulp about a one eyed private eye trying to solve a murder in Hollywood from Hard Case Crime. Can't remember the name of the story but if I were to walk across my house and look on my nightstand I could tell you.

Hope everyone's weekend went well. Mine did, got a lot of stuff done around the house, installing lights and trim around windows. Changing oil. All good stuff. not any writing though. That should change today.