New friends and old

Sometimes I have so much fun I really don't know how I contain myself. Take yesterday for example. I managed to finish getting my snowthrower a tune-up and 'shocked' my brand new well. The tune-up only took as long as changing a spark plug, because everything else had been done the day before. The well on the other hand took hours. Not so long actually putting the bleach in it, but to flush it out of the system was time consuming. I still refuse to wash a load of clothes with any color in them. Then last night while the boy played in the tub I managed to get another 500 words down in a story/book. I don't know where this one is heading. It depends on how many subplots I can throw at it. I think I could throw a lot at it, it is making them stick that is the problem.

I  noticed Aaron describing his linear way of thinking being more conducive to short story writing than novel writing earlier this week. I have the same problem. For 15 years of my writing I never thought past the short story. I didn't have to. I had a story, I told it, I was done with it. Now I want to move on, not completely away from the short story. I like them. They are like childhood friends. You never really want to say goodbye to them.

Sadly, while I was trying to introduce myself to the novel I seem to have lost touch with my old friend the short story. He doesn't stop by to play anymore it seems. What is really pissing me off is that my new friend, the novel, doesn't want to come over to play right now either.

Maybe when it is warmer we can all get together and have a barbecue, have a few beers.

I wonder what poetry is doing this time of the year?

you make me feel super happy

Natalie Sin has given me something to blog about today.

 

Because of this I must now choose two supporters to share this with. They must be strong and able and willing to pass it on. They must have stuck with me through the thick and the thin (and some of my posts are very thin, translucent sometimes). So I will do this through scientific analogy and careful rendering of statistical information- Ink a bink, a bottle of ink, the cap flew off and I choose: 

Cate Gardener and Danielle Ferries. 

I want to thank everyone who reads this blog, because, I know, you really don't have to. 

Now, on to other points of interest. The dam seems to have broken. At least it did yesterday. I had the house to myself for a couple of hours while they started to dig my new well yesterday. I took the opportunity to put on my second pot of coffee for the day, move the computer into my writing desk and pound out 1500 words in Moonbow. I feel so freaking accomplished. I don't know how good those 1500 words are but they sure felt good to get out of the system. I hope I can continue with an 800 word day today. Speaking of that- I had better get started. The house is quiet for now. Have a great day.

The need for speed

Yesterday afternoon, after sporting a sinus headache most of the day (I can thank my daughter for giving me the cold. 'Thanks kiddo.') I decided to write a short story. I didn't know how long when I started it. I didn't know where it was going. I just knew I had to write the story based on this image in my head. It wasn't even a complete image.

I managed to hash out he story in 450 words in the first draft (you gotta love flash stories) and my final draft was 525 words or so. I have read it now 8 times and I think it is good enough to send out. Probably not perfect, but what is. Still, I liked it. It spoke to me.

Also managed to get 500 or so words written in the novella yesterday morning. Not much, but it is still trolling along on the sea to almost finished. It won't be this week though. Still too much to say in it and not enough hours in the day. Especially if I keep getting interrupted by the short story/ flash fiction bug.

POV seems to be a big topic right now in blogdom. Multiple POV's and even character's that are a different sex than what you are used to writing (should Mr. King really write from the POV of a woman, or better yet a little girl? I've got my own opinions on that one that I will keep to myself.). Interesting topics with no good, hard and fast answers. Something to think about when you are working on your own story today.

happy Thursday. While you are at it, reach out and give a hobo a hug. It will make him feel good.

And if I'm elected. . .

I've decided one thing about this election, okay several things, but one main thing. NO MATTER WHO WINS I WILL STILL BE A WRITER IN THE MORNING. There I have said it. I promise I will continue to write whatever comes to my convoluted little mind by whatever means necessary, be it keyboard, chalk, spraypaint or pencil. By any means necessary.

I am really looking forward to the news tomorrow, that is after the smoke has cleared (i.e. the gloating of the winning party) for the 2012 election to start with the campaigning of yet another bureaucrat that I don't care about and don't believe anything they say in front of a camera.

God bless the 24 hour news cycle.

I was just thinking. . .

How great is it being a writer? I mean, really? We get to spend every day that we want, making virtually no money, writing.

We get to come up with fantastic worlds that may confuse or mystify our readers, if we have any. We can create whole languages that may remain in obscurity for all of eternity only to confound an archeological crew ten-thousand years from now, wondering what kind of history was being represented and where all these vampires and zombies came from and went to. I come to think, and I want to believe, that in the future our words are going to be taken as seriously as the story of Atlantis. Three sentences in a text that will have treasure hunters looking for things that never existed but on the page and in our minds.

How great is it to be a writer?

I must admit

Okay, I know a few of you might think that I am a horror writer. It is true, I do like horror. I read every 'scary' book I could get my hands on as a child (this worried my mother, and I don't know what my father thought of it). King, Clegg, Koonzt (the early stuff), Bloch, the list could go on. But I have to admit it, there can be no more denying it.

I am not a horror writer. I don't really call myself a speculative fiction writer although I was ecstatic to come in as an honorable mention in the Return to Luna Anthology (I am sure they butchered my name when they read the honorable mentions but that is okay.) I am a writer, pure and simple. I have had pieces published that I called westerns but got put into literary journals (The Life, Cerulean Rain issue 1), and experimental pieces that could have taken place on any street you've been down (Life in Vignettes, Literary Chaos print issue #1).

I've written two books. One an adult thriller that will probably never see the light of day unless I rewrite it from a different point of view. I am working on a children's novel that I am re-writing from a different characters perspective (that's a load of fun, let me tell you).

I guess I don't want to be pigeonholed. I like to write whatever my mind comes up with and I want to be able to run with it. Heck I even have a children's picture book out for consideration with Tricycle press.

Does this make me a bad writer? Good grief I hope not. I hope that it makes me a better writer.

I'm an uncle again

I just received word that my sister has given birth to a girl, Lannah. I am excited but I will have to wait to meet her for three weeks. Just the way it goes.

It was fun to read everyone's first lines. It was a fun project, although I did have to dig through the filing cabinet to find them all. It becomes hard when I only started writing again last July and I have written two books in that time, although they are rough drafts and have a third novel half finished sitting in a file where it will probably die a slow death. Yes, I must admit that I didn't have time in the ten years from getting a degree in fiction writing (yes they do offer that at some places) to do much else than jot ideas down and file them away, getting to do little more with them than let them grow or die in the plain manila folder they were relegated to. But now that I have kids and naptime avails me I have had much more time to sit and relax, be contemplative and grow the ideas that once were mere seeds of words on scraps of paper.

I have to take the kid to the doctor now, hopefully he can figure out why my kid is only letting me sleep a couple of hours a night.

Another week in the life

I feel guilty. I haven't written in almost a week and this week doesn't look much better. My wife is home on vacation, and in between jobs right now and I have a hard time doing anything at the computer with her around. I can live with that distraction though.

Got a really nice rejection this weekend. I didn't feel bad about it. They are a startup magazine and how was I to know that it wasn't the type of story they were looking for. Although the editor did say he liked it. He could have just been being nice.

Have been working around the house like a madman. Hanging doors, weeding the garden (I really don't know how they got that tall, I swear I just pulled them all out not that long ago!), finishing the columns for my porch, ect. Someday my house will be finished and then I will be bored.

Have to go now, the van we just bought needs to go into the shop for an electrical issue on the locks.