writing

April 15, 2008

Journal Entry

Amazingly enough, there has been more going on in my life than just the mess with the Tulsa house. I’m not sure how I keep up with it all, but I do.

I’m making slow but steady progress on Sleeping Kings: Golden Age. The characters are at 50 Penn Place now, which means I’m into the climax of the story. The whole second half of the book is handwritten so far — I haven’t started transcribing any of it — but I’m nearing completion of the draft and then I’ll start typing.

I quit playing WoW about a month and a half ago. My account officially ended on the first of April, but I was done playing at the beginning of March. I’m anxious for a new MMO for me to waste massive portions of my life on, but it’s just not here yet. WoW can’t hold my attention anymore, thuogh.

I started programming a game, and that’s been pretty fun. I also started reading again. In the last week I’ve finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, Everything Bad is Good for You by some neuroscientist dude, Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies by the grammar lady, Born Standing Up by Steve Martin, and the first three books of the Myth series by Robert Asprin.

I’ve done some work around the house, too. It’s frustrating to me going up to Tulsa over and over again and putting in all the effort for a house we don’t even live in. We can’t afford to redo a bathroom or put in new carpets, but I’ve been motivated to fix some little things that have been nagging. I worked on our garage door opener (loose wire), finally replaced the bulbs in our garage overhead light (fluorescent, and they’d been dead for over a year), started getting our lawn treated to kill off bugs and weeds, and swapped out our broken kitchen sink faucet for one that will actually work (and, as it happens, is really nice). I’m going to take a shot at fixing the bathtub faucet again, even though last time I tried was a miserable, devastating failure. Who knows? Maybe this time it’ll turn out better.

There’s not a lot to report on the baby front. She’s making more use of her words, but not really talking yet. She nods when she means yes, and if you hold up two objects (books, toys, pairs of pajamas, whatever) she can pick which one she wants. She got four molars at once (well, “is getting”), and that’s a little bit brutal on everyone living in the house, but once it’s done she can stop chewing all her food at the front of her mouth, and that should be better for everyone.

We refinanced our mortgage on the Oklahoma City house, and caught some good breaks on that. It’ll definitely help us out financially, especially with everything going on in Tulsa.

Oh. I’m still going to the gym regularly. I guess I wasn’t blogging in January when we started, but we joined a gym January 20th, and I’m going three days a week ever since. I’ve missed more than a handful, but I’m pretty well set in my routine. I’ve only lost 9 pounds at best, but I’m definitely seeing improvements in my endurance and strength training, so hopefully I’ll see more weight loss in the coming months.

I think that gets you all caught up. I haven’t blogged any since November, but not a lot has happened, either. So there you go.

November 30, 2007

National Novel Writing Month

I finished. Sleeping Kings: The Shepherd is done. I’m submitting it to my Ideal Reader and to my Medical Consultant for review of the rough draft and then I intend to do a full rewrite in the January-March timeframe, and it will be available for anyone who is curious about the ongoing story started with Josh’s story.

It has been an ordeal. I am amazed at the work done by my sister and my dad, who both won as well. This has been just about my favorite November, and I love November.

Thanks for everybody who supported and encouraged. That’s pretty much everybody.

November 29, 2007

One hundred and three thousand, one hundred sixty-nine.

And I still have two more days. And four more chapters to write.

November 16, 2007

National Novel Writing Month

Last night, I won National Novel Writing Month.

That means that I passed 50,000 words before the end of the month. It’s not a race. Everybody who manages that is said to have “won.” Heather and Dad both seem to be in an excellent position to make it through, too.

I’m not cheering as much as I maybe could, because yesterday morning, knowing that I was approaching 50,000, I checked on my outline and what I had left to write, and it looks like the novel I’m working on is going to need right at 100,000 words. So, really, I’m only half done. The project guidelines don’t require you to finish the book, just to hit the requisite word count, but I really want to get this novel done this month.

So, yeah, now instead of coasting to the end of the month, I’m going to be trying to produce twice the daily word count that I have Heather and Dad working on (and that in itself is a grueling pace). It’ll be a lot of work, but the novel is turning out a lot better than I expected it to, so it will probably be worth it.

Anyway, yeah, I’m doing a double NaNoWriMo this year. Wish me luck.

November 7, 2007

Journal Entry

Okay, I said I would make posts if anything big happened.

How is 25,000 words, for something big? Eh? Huh? Bwa-hah!

That’s right, I’ve got 25,000 words done on my National Novel Writing Month. The goal for that project is 50,000 words in one month. My goal for this particular novel is about 70,000 words. So I’m either 1/3 or 1/2 done with my month’s goal, and it’s only the 7th. No matter how you cut it, that’s awesome.

Gwyn and Dad and Heather are all doing it with me, and they’re doing an incredible job. I’m so impressed with everyone! We went to Little Rock last weekend to visit my parents, and Dad and I spent several hours every day writing together. He was having such a good time, and it was awesome to get to see his excitement. I’m enjoying playing the coaching role, too. Every other day I have a long talk with Heather or Dad, and I’m always putting together emails with general advice for everyone.

So, yeah, I’m having a good time.

On Friday, I’m having friends over for dinner and a movie, and Saturday, seems like Josh will be taking me to the OU game. That’s awesome. It’s making up to be an awesome November.

Hope everyone’s doing well. I’m off to write a couple more pages.

October 23, 2007

Journal Entry

Wednesday, October 17th
Last Wednesday I got sick.

Well, on my drive home from work, I got a call from K– asking if I could help him try something out on D–‘s 360 (which was temporarily sheltering at my house) when I got home. I did, and the long and the short of it is that he and I spent all evening playing Halo 3 over the network. That was a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, the minute I walked in the door T– asked if she could just order pizza for dinner, and I met that suggestion with enthusiastic agreement, but as the night wore on she kept second-guessing herself and thinking something else might be tastier than pizza. I never disagreed, and in the end she so-kindly offered to go pick up some Braums for us both, and left me home with a sleeping AB, which also let me keep killing alien scum with K–.

She brought me a burger deal and a medium chocolate malt, and it was all (of course) delicious. She stole some of my fries, but by the time I was done I didn’t much mind because I could tell I’d had way too much malt, anyway. I felt over full, and kinda queasy, and that didn’t go away as T– and I watched Heroes (or something of the sort). I stretched out on the floor, and as soon as the show was over, I went to bed.

Thursday, October 18th
That’s weird, see, because it was relatively early and I didn’t have to be up on time Thursday, because I had a doctor’s appointment. Still, I felt sick, so I went to bed early assuming it would pass and I’d feel fine by the time I woke up. Somehow, though, I didn’t. I woke up feeling worse than I had the night before. I was queasy, and my stomach hurt.

I got dressed around 8:30, and headed up to my doctor’s office at 9:30. The appointment was just a follow-up to my annual exam that I got a month ago. He wanted to discuss my labs (fantastic), and see how the blood pressure medication was going (really good). It was definitely a positive review, but while I was there I mentioned the nausea and he noticed (and commented) that I was feverish, so he went ahead and prescribed a nausea medication for me, along with my BP refills.

The day just got worse from there. I spent the next eight hours in bed or in the bathroom. Around 6:30 I finally felt up to going out in the living room to lie on the couch for a couple hours, and I watched some of our Thursday night sitcoms with T–, then went back to bed by 9:30.

Friday, October 19th
Friday, I was back at work. I still felt a little off, but nothing like Thursday had been. I made it through the day at work, then went home to watch some TV with T–. I also did some of my homework for the week, and I worked on some music stuff on my computer while T– was pushing AB in the backyard. Just a general sort of busy afternoon/evening, while we waited for T–‘s parents to show up.

D– and K– and N– went out to Kang’s for sushi and karaoke for the night. They wanted me to come along. I kinda wish I could have, because I like spending time with all three of those people, but I don’t like doing either of those other two things, so it wasn’t too bad. We talked with T–‘s parents for a couple hours, then everyone went to bed.

Oh! I also got a new game running sometime in there, and started playing Portal. It’s awesome. I highly recommend it.

Saturday, October 20th
Saturday was supposed to be a Fall Festival at the park across the street from our house, and T– had big plans for it, but when we finally got everyone ready to go and drove over there, we saw the sign indicating that the Festival was, in fact, next weekend. No good. So we went garage saling instead. We ended up splitting up, and John and I went down to the south end of town to check out a hobby shop while T– and her mom went to the mall to buy some shoes.

Just as we got to the hobby shop, I got a call from Dad about his writing project. He’d hit his first big speedbump, and he was worrying about the implications of it. Luckily, the only reason he’s hitting it now (instead of this time next month) is because I’d predicted that sort of thing could happen, and I set him an assignment to help him track it down now. That worked out even better than I expected.

Anyway, we talked for over half an hour, about writing and the writing process and what to expect. I loved that. I’m really excited about next month, and all the opportunities it implies, for connecting with Dad and Heather, on things we haven’t really had in common in the past.

More than that, I’m excited about Dad and Heather and Gwyn all finally getting their novels finished. That is going to be awesome.

After the call, though, we headed back to the house to pick up D–, and took him with us over to K– and N–‘s to watch the OU game. It was a tense one, but we pulled it off. I don’t need that level of drama, though. Ugh.

After that, we came back home and had enchiladas for supper, and then watched Evan Almighty. Frankly, better than I thought it would be. I think I said the same thing about Bruce Almighty, now that I think about it. Same reaction, really.

Sunday, October 21st
On Sunday, after church we went to Texas Roadhouse, because T–‘s parents wanted to take me out for a birthday lunch. It was delicious, nevermind them making me get up on a saddle on a sawhorse so they could shout “Yeehaw” by way of “Happy Birthday.” Forget about that. It was nothing. The steak…the steak was amazing.

Then I went over to K– and N–‘s a little late in the afternoon (after seeing off T–‘s parents), to watch the Cowboys game. Not quite as bad as the OU game, but not a lot better, either. It was fun getting to see Adrian Peterson on the field, but when we got a real lead on the Vikings they had to pull him (for reasons made clear in an article I read last week), and then we just cleaned up. I’m not a fan of the trailing-for-the-whole-first-half strategy, even if we are usually pretty good about winning-out-in-the-fourth.

Anyway, we won, and T– came over and K– bought us some always-excellent barbecue from Steve’s Rib, and you just can’t beat an evening like that. T– and I went home and talked about doing our homework, and watched some TV instead.

Monday, October 22nd
Yesterday was back to work, and my big deal for the day was coming up with a plan to restart the Remnant project as a web game. B– made the mistake of asking me about that project, and I talked at him for like two hours. But, yeah, if you’re interested feel free to ask. For now, suffice it to say that you can expect me to spend a lot of time in the near future complaining about having too many projects to work on. The Shepherd and Oberon’s Dreams were already going to make that happen, but adding in a Sims version of an MMO that’s web-playable isn’t going to help the situation any.

I got home from work, checked the mail, sat down on the couch, and then B– called and asked if we could come over. T– was jumping up and down, she was so excited about the opportunity. So we went over to their place last night (they just got rid of the in-laws yesterday afternoon), and spent some time with the new parents giving our advice and (as aforementioned) regaling half of them on the nuances of a web interface for a highly-automated role-playing game.

We also had pizza, and ostensibly watched MNF, although we really only saw the kickoff. We had a great time, though. It was nice to get the invite, and great to see them.

Afterward, we came home and talked about doing our homework, but watched some TV instead.

October 17, 2007

Journal Entry

Tuesday, October 16th
Yesterday was a good day.

November is rapidly approaching, and I’m coaching three or four folks in preparation for the terrifying marathon that is National Novel Writing Month. These are all people who have told me (often) that they want to write a book, but have never been able to get it done. National Novel Writing Month is a great project to get that done, but it’s also a really brutal way to write your first book. The sheer amount of writing per day is just…unbelievable. Unreasonable, certainly.

So, anyway, I’m taking people who think they want to write, and daring them to participate in an event that will scare them off it forever. To try to avoid that, I’ve set up this whole regimen of intensive pre-writing work that will help smooth the transition. I hope.

But, yeah, I’d meant all along to be doing my own assignments, to provide as samples for them to go off (Table of Contents, short synopsis, character descriptions, long synopsis, that sort of thing), but I never actually got around to sharing those with them. Yesterday, I decided enough was enough and sat down to type all that stuff up in one place, so that I could share it out. I’d done everything but the two synopses, and the long synopsis isn’t due until Friday of this week, so that wasn’t really that bad.

Anyway, I sat down with the intent of doing just the short synopsis on The Shepherd, my next Sleeping Kings novel, and it just, all on its own, turned into the long synopsis. And what I mean by “short” (according to the assignment) is “1-page” and what I mean by long (according to actual, living history) is “12-pages.” So, yeah, I wrote out the whole plot for The Shepherd yesterday, when I had no clue that I’d figured out that much of the story.

It’s good, too. That’s the part that really surprised me. I decided nearly a year ago what would happen in Sarah’s story, but I didn’t know exactly how, or in what order. When I sat down to jot down some ideas yesterday, everything just fell into place. That’s one of my favorite things about writing, when that happens. And then, when I was done, I read back through it and fell in love with the story. It’s got its weak spots, and I’m going to have to do a ton of research (after November, for the rewrite) for accuracy’s sake, but it’s a really good story.

And…that still really gets my blood pumping. I was really on a kind of high, all evening yesterday. As soon as I got home, I found T– in the back yard, and told her all about it. D– came over, and I told him about it. T– and I went to our marriage class last night, and I told K– and N– all about it. I’m sure everybody else is bored sick of it now, but I’m still in a good mood over it. I can’t wait to get started.

Oh! After class, K– and N– came over to our place, and we all watched The Transformers on D–‘s HD-DVD player. So awesome. That is just such a fun movie. It was a blast, and I think we were all satisfied with the decisions made, that kept us up a little too late on a week night. It was fun.

October 1, 2007

Journal Entry

Wild weekend. I’ve said before, and I’ll stand by it. I’m doing too much on a weekend to keep my blog updated. I don’t really apologize for that. Problem is, if I let Wednesday and Thursday slip, then that easily becomes a weeklong backlog.

Err…not that any of you really care. I’m just explaining that to me, probably.

Friday, September 28th
I called Thursday’s relaxing evening a calm before the storm. I was being silly, but Friday really did end up being a hell of a thing. Well…as much of a hell as you can get, spending ten hours motionless in front of a TV.

Halo 3! That’s what I’m getting at. K– got his free 360 back when, and this is really the first game any of us have been excited about for it. And, really, most of the excitement was K–‘s. Sort of like the Harry Potter finale, I didn’t much care about Halo 3, in spite of the fact that we’ve all had some really good times playing the Halo franchise over the last five or six years. Those times even got a starring role in the early parts of Josh’s Story, actually.

But, yeah, I thought it’d be fun, but I wasn’t that thrilled. K–, on the other hand, has been bouncing up and down on his toes in the throes of his excitement, for at least a month now. And, eventually, that got infectious, so when he started talking about having an all-night Halo 3 party Friday night (it was released on Tuesday), that actually sounded like a lot of fun.

We got B– and E– involved (E– is a magnificent bastard when it comes to Halo multiplayer), and D– showed up for a while, and we shipped the wives off to a night of cropping photos, and K– even got some of those gamer chairs just for the occasion. Sweet. Pizza and soda and alcohol finished off the rest of the required supplies, and we settled in to play.

I actually showed up around 6:30 Friday afternoon. K– ordered the pizzas around 7:00, and got enough to share with B– and E–, who showed up shortly after. We ate and talked with them for a while, then played while they watched for a bit to give them a feel for the game, then they left and K– and I settled in to seriously cover some ground.

We’d heard that the game had about 6-10 hours of gameplay in the main campaign, and it was our goal to make it through it. Now, we’re not as young as we used to be, but hey, we’d have the whole weekend to recover, right? So he bought about six gallons of the limited edition, marketing hype Mt. Dew Halo 3 Game Fuel (just Mt. Dew with extra caffeine and some ginseng), and I brought over some Sugar Free Redbull (and about a gallon of Vodka) and we started out the night with Vodka Game Fuels (or Rocket Fuels, as B– was calling ’em), and ended the night with Redbull Game Fuels, when we got to that 1:00/2:00 zone where we couldn’t afford alcohol if we wanted to stay awake. But, yeah, all around we were just gulping down the toxic chemicals.

We won, though, and that makes it all worth it. Around 4:00 AM, we finished the story, watched the credits, and then decided to play some multiplayer instead of going to bed. That kept us up until about 6:00, when we finished a first-to-25-kills game of infinite rocket launchers. Then we went to bed.

Umm…remember I mentioned a couple posts ago about my high blood pressure? Well, I’ve been entirely off the caffeine for three weeks now. Then, in one night, I drank all of it. So, even though I crashed in the incredibly comfortable guest bed around 6:00, I didn’t get to sleep. I was too busy ODing on caffeine. My heart was pounding, I could feel my pulse in my head, and there was no way I was going to fall asleep.

So, I dunno, there’s some moral to the story there. I finally fell asleep around 7:30, then woke up at 11:30 to head home. Oh, I guess that makes this Saturday.

Saturday, September 29th
So, yeah, I got home around noon, had lunch with T– and played with AB, and learned that our reduced cable lineup wasn’t going to be showing the OU game. (Oh, if I’d known then….)

T– had had a pretty long night with AB waking up (more on that later), and so she suggested I take the baby over to K– and N–‘s to watch the game with them, and leave her with an afternoon to nap and watch movies. So D– came by and picked me up, and we went over to watch the Sooners get humiliated by Colorado, and that was no fun.

Then we dropped the baby off with T–, and D– and I went up to Best Buy because he wanted to buy a new TV. Cool, cool. That took more than an hour, though, and kinda pushed our dinner plans back until they became lunch plans on Sunday. Well worth it, though. He got a very cool TV, and we were even lucky enough to have E– swing by with the van to help us get it to his place (so he didn’t have to wait three days for delivery). Sweet.

After that, I went back to the house to watch some TV with T–, but I faded fast, and ended up in bed around 9:30. I slept.

Sunday, September 30th
So. Sunday morning I woke up for church, helped T– get AB ready, and then discovered during the sermon that I had finished my story and didn’t really have a new one to work on. Instead, I finally wrote out AB’s dedication poem that T– asked me to start working on a while back.

I didn’t quite finish it, and wasn’t ready to show it off yet, but when I got out to the car, T– asked me what I’d been working on. For humorous effect (and not at all to actually deceive my wife, I want to make that clear), I told her that I’d been working on a poem about how cool the Cowboys are. For your classical entertainment, I’ll provide a copy of the verse I recited off-hand:

Romo, Tony Romo,
He’s no homo
No matter what Dan says.

This year, maybe this year,
Watch without fear,
As we make all the plays.

Playoffs, in the playoffs,
Without a loss.
Superbowl starts today.

Man, I’m good. Okay, I didn’t do all of that off-the-cuff, but I got a chunk of it, and T– thought it was so funny that she asked me to finish it. All of the sudden I’m Alexander Pope up in this piece.

Anyway, I was actually working on the dedication, which I’ll likely post here once it’s done. I’m happy with it, so far.

Lunch was Texas Roadhouse, which really hit the spot. Then we came back to our place to watch the Cowboys tear the Rams to pieces, which was fun. It’s looking like a good year, even with the injuries.

After that, K– and N– went to the song service at church, and T– took a nap while I worked on my homework for the marriage seminar. Then we all went up to Poblano’s for dinner, because T– said she needed some margarita and everyone suddenly caught the bug. That was fun, and most delicious, and N– had a “Buy One Entree, Get the Second Free” coupon, so it was even reasonably priced (until you count the margaritas).

Then everybody headed home, and T– and I watched some TV, then headed to bed pretty early.

September 26, 2007

Journal Entry

Today, I finished typing up a long backlog of longhand “Royal Holiday” pages. It feels good to have that done. I’ve got about a dozen pages left in the story, before I get to the end. I’m looking forward to finishing.

We’d made some tentative plans to have dinner with K– and N– and D– tonight — something we often do on Wednesdays — but N– ended up with an appointment for a haircut around 5:00. T– was generous enough to skip her plans for the evening, so we were all able to get together for dinner at Friday’s at 6:30.

That was fun, and the food was good. T– and I shared the old Jack Daniels Tower (now it’s just the Sampler, and doesn’t come on a tower, but it’s the same things). Delicious. Everyone else got desserts, too, and we got to try some, which was good enough for me.

Afterward, we came home and played with AB for a while, then D– and I ran up to Barnes and Noble to look around. He found a book he wanted, and bought AB a cloth book for her to play with and chew on. He’d been wanting to get her something of the sort for a while now, and while we were looking we found a “My First Photo Album,” which even has places to put pictures. It was too perfect. She’s going to love it.

Anyway, after that he went home, and I worked on my homework for class. I read two chapters from the book, and now it’s time for bed.