Playing Catch-up

I've written three entries that I have yet to post here. I'll paste them below.

From August 22

A Couple of Days

For the past two days, I have been distracted from writing by several things, but mostly I've been feverishly reading Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover. Sometimes I get pulled into a book or something other than my responsibility to myself and to my faithful reader(s). It's the nature of being me, I suppose. At any rate, I don't have a ton of progress to report (Friday's subject) because of time spent otherwise; discussing the SCA with a coworker, doing my real job, or reading that book. On that subject; read Heroes Die. It's gory, coarse, vulgar, and any number of other things that might very well offend or disgust. It's also a powerfully written, insightfully gritty look at life, liberty, and love.

Anyway, Friday's subject is covered. Not a ton of progress. First drafts of the Prologue and Chapter One are done and I have started on Chapter Two. A couple of ideas have presented themselves to be turned over in my head, and I plan to pick back up tomorrow. I have come up with a working title for the book, and will gladly let anyone who would like to volunteer do some preliminary proofing and editing.

No real news or exciting happenings aside form my youngest daughter's ninth birthday, which I got to be out of town for. I really, really hate the time away that making a living costs me. I like the work I do, though, so there's a tiny bit of offset there. And that little news brief is Saturday's subject.

Now I'm caught up.

CL

From August 23

Stream of Consciousness.

For those of you unaware, stream of consciousness is basically an interior monologue that just meanders where it will. In the past, my streams usually begin with an observation of my surroundings and flow from there. Syntax will not be observed. Here goes.

My window is covered by several layers of garbage bag in this mancamp where I'm waiting for my coworker to show up so we can go take our tech van to get it fixed and really, why am I talking about work when I really just want to forget the place exists at all and write pretty prose and make enough money off of it to just not starve and maybe even become a success but it isn't easy to write some days and other days it is and hopefully exercises like this one will help but right now I really want to take a drink of my coke and I'm sure my wife will ask why I'm drinking coke at 4 in the morning but it's because I bought it last night and just didn't drink it yet but now it's sitting to the right of my screen and teasing me but I want to get a few more thoughts down before I give up but really I'm not having any thoughts other than the running commentary here and how I just want to stop this and grab my coke so I am.

Not much to say, in case you didn't guess.

CL

And from August 28

It's Been Five Days

The last time I wrote was August 23, at least in this blog. That gives me a bit of catching up to do. As of right now, I'm dictating this blog entry to my computer. The software that I'm using, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, is actually quite easy to use and very accurate. Obviously, there will be some formatting that I need to get used to in order to effectively use it, as well as all the different nuances between actually typing and just dictating something to be typed. That aside, I'm actually pretty excited to get things moving in my novel again.

Well, on with the scheduled stuff that I have missed.

August 23 was a free-write. What that means is that I pretty much have a whole week of catching up to do. On Monday's topic of home and family -- well, I just learned something about dictating. I've never actually bit my tongue while I was writing before. It's a new experience. My goodness, that was a good one, I'm actually bleeding pretty badly. Anyway, Monday's topic. The kids started a new school year. My youngest, Simon, is in first grade this year. It's kind of frightening. My oldest son, Chris, has finally started learning to play guitar as I had hoped he would some years ago. My second boy, Braden, will once again play French horn this year in band. My oldest girl, Lydia, has been one of the lucky ones selected to play saxophone in band. All of them have been in piano lessons all year. Music, as you can plainly see, is pretty important in my family. Tuesday's topic is plans. Let's just say that my dictating this blog entry is the fulfillment of part of my week's plans. Also, I just want to get back to work on my novel. Wednesday's topic, general musings, is going to be skipped. As of Thursday, I had finished reading Heroes Die. I think I probably already told you that. I have since begun reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. It's a little slow moving but still quite good.

Today being Friday, I should give you a progress report. Here it is: Jack Diddley Bupkiss. The reason for the lapse in my writing has been that I have made a transition from night shift to day shift, and that I have been traveling and getting ready for days off. Still that's no excuse.

Hopefully talk to you tomorrow.

CL

I'm just going to go ahead and skip the next few posts and get current as of today. It's Wednesday, so that means that today's subject is "off the subject".

Today I discovered that my new BlackBerry phone's camera has the same pixel count as the hand-me-down camera that I have been using. What that means is that I can finally throw that hunk of trash away. I have always hated that camera. It was a freebie, so I can't complain too much, but still... At any rate, I am so far quite pleased with the new phone. It does lots of things that I'm not really even sure that I need, but they sure are cool. My brother- and sister-in-law are both iPhone people. They can't understand why I would buy a BlackBerry versus an iPhone. The reasons are simple really. Firstly, our carrier of preference is Verizon. Verizon does not carry the iPhone. Secondly, with rebates, our new touchscreen fancy-schmancy Uber phones are free. You really can't beat free. Well, that's enough for now. I need to try to spend a little bit of time writing my novel tonight. Working day shift is going to seriously hamper my writing effort if I'm not diligent. If I don't manage to get any writing done in the next couple of days, you can blame the new Blackberry for that. It seems to consume most of my attention trying to get it set up the way that I like it.

CL