09.29.06
So Anyway,…
09.27.06
Who’s Driving This Bus Anyway?
It’s bad when a muse has to do both jobs. So here it is. A Post. My first by the way. ~GC
09.25.06
Hmm, I Don’t Think So.
Well, I had a really creative and entertaining post to put up here, but after I read it again I thought “No, it’s not as good as I thought it was.”
Suffice it to say that it was about ageing, wrinkles, smiling, and the Seven Dwarves. Oh, and it was a parody of T S Eliot’s The Naming of Cats. Too bad my poetry is so awful. Otherwise you would have had a really good time with it. Just use your imagination.
09.20.06
Rivers of Conversation
I’ve had several conversations over the last few days that left me thinking “Hmm?”
They’ve been telephone conversations, e-mail conversations, and blog conversations, and all of them, every one, has started off in one direction and wound up going somewhere completely unexpected. The odd thing when considering these conversations is that when I go back and think about how they flowed, everything makes sense.
But if I were to tell you for instance that mentioning a business trip to Detroit, led to discussions about dancing like Grover from Sesame Street and is likely to get me a g-string as a Christmas present, you’d think I was making something up. It’s a little frightening to contemplate, but it’s true.
Sometimes I wonder if things like this happen simply because I’ve surrounded myself with creative people and everybody is just running where their thoughts take them.
Regardless, it’s fun to just sit on that inflatable tube and see where the current goes.
09.19.06
Ahoy, Me Hearty!
Today, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
I kid you not. According to Wikipedia, the “holiday” was started by two Americans, John Baur (”Ol’ Chum Bucket”) and Mark Summers (”Cap’n Slappy”), as an inside joke. In 2002, they told columnist Dave Barry about it, and it took off from there.
I looked it up in Chase’s. It’s listed.
So, give chase t’ yer Jack o’ Cups an’ make ‘em say “Arr!”
09.18.06
Ow.
Not to bore you with my physical ailments, but I hurt today.
It’s not like I did anything over the weekend. It’s just me getting old and pieces falling off. Normally, I don’t complain about my aches and pains. I mean I hurt every morning. That’s just the way of it. But normally, once I get moving, things, well, they just sort of work themselves out. But not this morning.
In particular, I want to tell you about my right ankle. It’s nothing new. It’s been a pain (literally) since my freshman year in college. I have a tendon that pops back and forth from one side of my ankle bone to the other. It’s much more comfortable on the other. Normally, all I have to do is tense my ankle by lifting my toes up and then wiggle my foot back and forth until it pops and stays where I want it. Today, it won’t stay where I want it.
It hurts like hell to walk with it in the wrong position and so far I’ve had to do that for half the day.
There’s not really anything you can do to help (unless you’re a surgeon), so I’m not real sure why I’m telling you this, except for the fact that it’s about the only thing I can think of, especially when I’m walking. And I don’t even think about it in a poor-me way. It’s more in a crap-I’m-getting-old way.
09.15.06
Well, Now I’ve Done It
I’ve joined a small critique group.
This is going to be very helpful, yet there is a possible problem, too. You see, my most active manuscript is Second Chances, but it’s not yet ready for public consumption. Even the private helpful kind like a critique group would provide. This means that I will most likely post scenes from Sea of Dreams, which is further along. Which also means that once the critique has caught up to my progress, I’ll need to start paying more attention to Sea of Dreams than I do now. Which in turn means that I will have less time for Second Chances.
But the good news is something will always be getting worked on.
09.13.06
1096
That’s my chess rating. 1096! Or rather, that was my chess rating before I lost my last game and it went down again. That’s a Class E player. The frustrating thing is that I consitently test out around 1450, a Class C player. On paper, knowing there is mate in four, or avoid mate, etc. I do well. But when it comes time to play the game, I usually have at least one major mistake that I can’t recover from unless the person I’m playing is rated below 1000 or so. I’ve beaten 1300’s and 1400’s when I play well. I just can’t play well consistently. When I first started playing for ratings, I lost my first five games in a row and wound up with a rating in the 800’s. My next milestone is to break 1100, and I was almost there. One more win would have done it. Now that I’ve dropped again (and this time to someone with a lower rating meaning I was expected to win and since I didn’t I lost a lot of points) I need to win probably three matches in a row in order to get back where I was.
Arrgh! And no, not in a pirate way either.
09.11.06
Out of Whack
Okay, so most of you know that Sunday is usually Starbuck’s Sunday, and that I normally spend five or six hours sitting, writing, and drinking coffee. Well, I didn’t do that yesterday. I’d received a call Friday from a friend. Her best friend’s fiance had “gotten physical” and her friend needed to get out… like right away. I was supposed to help her move furniture yesterday (the ex-fiance was in jail and not to be released until this morning).
So, no problem, some things are more important than Starbuck’s Sunday.
So I sat around Sunday morning, playing chess against the computer because I didn’t want to start writing and then have to stop writing when it was time to help move. Except I never heard from my friend or her friend. WTF! By three o’clock in the afternoon I’m impatient as all get out. This is going to kill my whole friggin’ day. Finally, I can’t stand it any longer and call my friend… no answer.
Five o’clock, still no call, no answer.
By seven I’m thinking if they don’t call soon, I’m not going to be able to help. I’ve got to go in to work early and there is no way I can be moving furniture after midnight and still be able to open up at the library in the morning.
Finally, around 9pm I get a call. Best friend is not moving out after all. I’m not kidding. I’m still sitting here shaking my head. Ex-fiance is not even ex- anymore.
Ladies, if dude hits you, it’s not a mistake. He might regret it later and be sorry about it, but when he was looking for something to hit, he picked you. And if he’s done it once… well, hell… you know the rest. I find this frustrating to no end. I wish there was some consolation, but yesterday was a complete and utter waste of time.
09.08.06
Search Phrases - The Best of the Best
Well, the blog has been here long enough to be found by folks out there doing searches. Some of the search phrases are pretty understandable… writing method… it was a dark and stormy night… authors that I link to in the sidebar… etc. A few were just plain odd. Some were downright frightening.
1. female sports reporters - not so bad; I can live with it.
2. She thought, “I like him” use quotation marks? - Uh, okay. Not sure why you came here, but the answer is No. It was a thought. No quotation marks.
3. Swimsuit woman’s disguise men photo - Yowzers! Of course this came from Yahoo Japan. Is that a cliche?
4. s18corinda - Huh?
That’s it for the interesting ones through the life of the blog. I’ll update you as we get more in.
09.07.06
Writing on the Road
I thought that vacation would be an ideal time to write. I was wrong. There is a major difference between vacationing with family and vacationing with an artist. When LM and I went on a trip, it was usually in the mountains. We’d hike to a scenic area, set up camp, and then do little one hour hikes to explore. After finding a nice place, she’d dig out her canvas and paints or drawing pencils and I would pull out a notebook and pen. And then we’d sit and work for hours. We wouldn’t even talk much.
You can’t do that with family.
The entire trip, I only had one five hour stretch where I was able to write. I went to Barnes & Noble, drank coffee, and tried to get on paper as much of the bits of dialog as I could. I jumped around the story a lot, just going with the snatches that I could remember of my conversations with Gabby. I put a lot on paper that day, but it was all over the place and things are badly organized. The only other time I pulled out my notebook was for a dialog idea (not even the actual dialog) in the manuscript that I didn’t take with me.
I have no regrets about the vacation… I needed to see family again as it had been years between visits… but next time I will not have the expectations of writing success that I had this time around.
09.06.06
Welcome Back to the Real World
I did almost everything I wanted to while on vacation plus a few things I didn’t expect. I didn’t get as much writing done as I wanted but it’s hard to get in the mode when you’re surrounded by family and you’re used to living alone.
And of course my desk is piled higher than I’ve ever seen it, so it will probably be the end of the week before I’m caught up.
That’s it for now. I’ll post something more meaningful tomorrow.
09.05.06
Inspiration
Blues. Banjo. Mandolin. Lyric.
“Listen, listen, my son, my son, I can’t tell you twice, what I can’t tell you once.”
