On Autumn

What's your favorite season? Mine is definitely Autumn ( Fall, if you really must). I was sitting in our screened porch yesterday looking up at the trees; Ida knocked about a month's worth of leaves off as she rolled by last week. I don't mind that, and we needed the rain. Anyway, I was looking at the sky through a tracery of branches and leaves. It was simply stunning. The russets and golds and browns catching the sunlight; touches of red from the dogwood berries; the drab greens of the leaves that have yet to give up the ghost entirely; the silver gray of the branches against the brilliant blue sky. A spectacular sight.

You'd have no problem telling that Autumn is my favorite season if you glanced into my closet. Those are the predominant shades there. If I glanced in your closet would I be able to guess your favorite season? Have you stocked up on the yellows and lavenders and violets and bright, fresh greens of Spring? Or are you a sand and ochre and orange and pale blue person who loves Summer. Or maybe I'd find grays and whites and blacks with splashes of red of a winter lover.

What IS your favorite season?

Is there Viagra for writers yet?

For the longest time now I have been -- suffering is not the right word but I don't know a better one -- from what I can only describe as writing impotence. I have the desire to write. I have the drive to write. Ideas are humming and scenes keep playing themselves out in my head. But I can't seem to get the mechanics to work for me. I haven't even been able to blog and that's not exactly the most difficult thing in the world, now is it?. It's been driving me crazy. I've thought about it. I've tried ignoring it. And now I think I know why. Frustration.

When I first decided to write a book in 2006 the words leapt from my fingers, and yes, most of them were complete dross and everyone knows what happened to that story, but nonetheless it was huge fun and hard work and a joy. And at the same time I was happy and fulfilled at work too. Not overly busy, but that was because I had the systems I supported (payroll as it happens and you know how people do like to be paid on time) tied down so tight they squeaked. I was the only DBA supporting them and, as such, I needed to be sure I didn't get caught wrong-footed or called in the middle of the night unless it was an emergency that could not be foreseen. Things changed and I acquired a team of really nice, hard-working guys in India and I shared the workload that was increasing to a point where I couldn't handle it by myself and life was good and busy and I rewrote the original book and was happy and fulfilled. Even when I was editing the second attempt, even though I hate editing with a passion, it was fine.

I picked up other assignments. More work, on the road, busy, busy, busy. Setting up new systems so that they would perform well into the future, helping clients in the short term when they needed additional hands to bring a project to go-live. And then I was assigned to the client I am currently supporting. I love them... well most of them... like family. Great people who work hard and have fun and are a pleasure to work with most of the time.
But.
But their boss, the Director of IT, is so completely inept it makes my skin crawl. He doe NOT want to hear bad news. Does not want to know what can go wrong and how it can be averted. Does not want to hear that things are not and have not been done correctly, and most definitely does not want anything done to correct those past errors. He even pays people to fix the issues they have created and pays them over and over and over again as they mess things up even more. It drives me to distraction and my frustration level is off the charts and getting worse.

That is what is killing my writing. I recognised it over the weekend. I sat for a long time on the screen porch and just stared at the trees and though about what was different now compared to three years ago. And there it was.Frustration at work. There are some frustrations going on in my personal life too that I should have blogged about but haven't. I will. Now that I've written this I think... I hope... that I've broken the barrier. I don't think I'll be able to get back to Project Tevan today nor even tomorrow, but if I'm blogging there's a very good chance that I'll be able to pick up the story again and run with it.

So pass me a glass of water; I need to swallow my little blue pill and get on with what needs to be done.

Mything in Action

You can read the title of this post in lots of ways…

Missing in Action -- as anyone who had taken a look at my word count for the past few weeks -- no, make that months -- knows, that interpretation describes where I've been.

Or

Missing inaction -- which describes how I'm feeling about the amount of stuff that has been keeping my busy. Considering the alternative, it's not such a bad thing.

Or

Mything in Action -- and that's what I'm going to blog about today.

As a fantasy writer ( yes, okay, it's a phrase that has more than one meaning, and both can be applied to me) I get to invent histories and religions and myths as I please. It's loads of fun. It's also a wonderful excuse to wander off into the realm of research for an hour or two. Sometimes I do it deliberately and sometimes it's just happy happenstance as it was this time. My interest was piqued by something I saw on TV, it might have been the Discovery Channel, and then again in might not. It was a program about reading the Bible, the Book of Exodus to be precise, as if it described a military campaign. I was fascinated by the ideas put forward, and one in particular stood out for me as I have long thought it to be only partly true.

We tend to hold onto our beliefs even when we know that they are inaccurate. A case in point would be that microwave ovens heat food from the inside out. Anyone who ever used a microwave knows full well that it is nonsense and has empirical evidence to back up the fact every time they heat just about everything that gets put in the "zapper". If food heated from the inside out then it would be hotter in the middle, right? And it isn't. That's why it has to be stirred and/or left to stand. Even someone as intelligent as the spouse holds to this misbegotten idea. It drives me nuts!

My own piece of illogic concerns night vision. Until now, I have not really understood that if you look at a bright light when you are surrounded by darkness you are effectively blind for a good long time afterwards. I've experienced it. I just didn't register it. In this program the presenter expostulated that Moses led his people away from the pursuing Egyptians by following a column of smoke during the day which I could easily accept; a torch on a pole can be made to give off a good amount of smoke under the right conditions. By night they followed a column of fire. It was the bit about the column of fire that got my attention. After all, if the Children of Israel could see the column of fire, then so could the Egyptians. Or so I thought until now. This guy said that if Moses had torches placed behind their encampment at night, the Egyptians wouldn't be able to see if the Israelites were escaping, nor would they be able to see properly in the dark for up to thirty minutes afterwards. The result being that the Israelites got away. Excuse my mangled retelling of the tale, I'm trying to make a point, not get into a religious discussion.

So last night I was able to test the theory out in a more modern setting. I had to babysit a backup that kicks off at 1:00 a.m. and finishes at about 2:00 a.m. It's been hiccoughing lately and I wanted to find out exactly what it was choking on. So after I'd finished playing about with it, I returned to bed but I didn't try to go to sleep as I usually do. I kept trying to see the various things in the bedroom that I know are there. It took nearly forty minutes before I could really see everything! I'd have bet real money that I would be able to see everything just fine after five. What a great plot point! Or even TWO great plot points. The realization that a long held belief is untrue, and using the newly accepted fact to escape or create a trap or whatever. Lovely.

All this led to another (potentially) great scene today for Project Tevan. I was helping the spouse trench for some new drainage pipe we're laying in the yard this morning and I thought, as you do, Ooohhh! If this was filled with flammable liquid and set on fire at night it would be splendid cover for Varda to make her escape. Not quite sure what/who she's going to escape from, but I have an idea about that too. Now I just need to get her from her current predicament to the next one and then she can end up with a flaming trench and running for her life yet again. This may be written in the first person but I can tell you right now, I wouldn't trade places with her for ANYTHING!

Pooped

I've been playing the yard all weekend, gardening. Great fun, but very tiring; we have a large yard. I put in a herd of day lilies and a lavendar hedge anchored at both ends with rosemary. It should smell wonderful when it gets going. That is if the deer don't decide that they like their corn flavored with a few herbs. Although you can't see any of my efforts, you can take a peek at the garden if you go to deercam and you may even see some of the deer. I gave up with bedding plants a couple of years ago. The deer consider them a lovely salad. They last abouut two days before they sucum so now I put them in pots on the deck. Of course, teh squirrels seem to think I've hidden treasure -- or may nuts -- in the pots. We did manage a good show of pansiesover the winter even so.

So what has this to do with writing you ask. And by now you have already guessed that it's my excuse for not getting a single word done this weekend. Tomorrow, tomorrow there's always tomorrow, and yes, it is only a day away. I'm awestruck by the number of words some of the buddies are putting in. And I'm really excited for you all. I have been working on Project Tevan while I've been digging and pulling weeds. If only someone would invent a way to move the words from my head onto paper or into the computer. The Pulse is great but my hands are really too tired to write anything down. I tried Dragon Naturally Speaking, but it doesn't work for me. Great idea but I hate the sound of my own voice.

And now I have to go and make pizza, which I should have done yesterday but left it too late. Write on, everyone, I will join you soon.

The Kindness of Strangers

I'm back on the road again. It was really lovely being at home for most of December, but needs must when the Devil drives. Can anyone explain that to me? It has to be one of the most convoluted saying we have. I digress. I'm in the frozen North -- well to be honest it's Ohio which probably doesn't quite qualify for the the "frozen" appellation, but it's a lot further North than Charlotte, NC and a darn sight colder too. Anyway to get back to the point again... I picked up my rental car in Dayton (travel tip -- it's a lot cheaper to fly to Dayton than to Columbus) and drove to Columbus yesterday, and overnight it snowed. Not a huge amount, just an inch or so, enough to cover the car with a good layer.
At 7:30 a.m. I stepped out of the hotel.
I said Good Morning to a man and a woman who were standing out in the cold smoking. Addicts must get their fix apparently. My car was right next to theirs, and they'd already cleaned theirs off. I unlocked my door, started the engine and began looking for the scraper that should have been on the back seat and what do you know? It wasn't there. Cursing beneath my breath, I clambered out of the car and began to wipe the snow from the windows with my gloved hand.
"You haven't got a scraper then?" The man said to me.
Brilliant piece of observation I thought. "No. the rental car company must have forgotten to put it in." I quipped back, sharp as the Easterly breeze that was blowing new flakes in my face.
"Min," the man said, "Get the scraper out and clean up the car for her."
And Min -- I have to assume that the woman's name was Min -- immediately opened the trunk of their car, pulled out a scraper and did just that. While I chatted with the man she cleaned every window, and did a far better job of it than I would have.
"Min," the man said,"Don't forget the hood." He then proceeded to tell me that in Connecticut it's an offense to drive a car with snow on the hood.
I thanked them both, especially Min, and as I drove off I thought This is going to be a good day.
And it was.

Crazy days -- crazy nights

Phew! I'm grabbing a few moments to post in the madness that has become my life this week. What day is it? Oh yes. Friday and it's the ninth day of the New Year. I've been beyond busy. Busy is a vaction! Good gravy, people, I just checked my cell phone usage for the month -- that's all nine days of it and I've used over 700 minutes already! And that doesn't even begin to show the hours I've put in when I'm NOT talking on the phone! It's totally ridiculous. And needless to say, I haven't been writing for the last few days. Simply can't find the time. I could have written a few words instead of this (which I'm doing while I apply a patch to one of our instances -- mulitasking is something I do naturally, so that's how busy I've been) but I figured I needed to make by excuses publicly.
The story continues to bubble, the Pulse is glaring balefully at me. I nver knew that an inanimate object could make me feel so guilty.

Labor Day

Did you have a good holiday weekend? I did. A bit shorter than I intended, as work unexpectedly stole all of Saturday but even though my own projects are behind because of it, I'm happy with the progress I've made. Not, I hasten to add, my writing projects. I've been remodeling our second bathroom. The tear out is done. All the shopping is complete. Well... I expect there'll be some things I've forgotten, but the big-ticket items are all in the garage. I'm not replacing the cabinets, they're a hideous color but in good shape so I'm painting them and all the prep work is done. If things go the way I plan (please don't laugh) I'll get them primed this week and ready for two top coats next Saturday. The spouse is going to install the new light fixtures, the bath, vanity top and faucets. We're having a plumber come in to do the pipe work for the bath though. And I'll tile the back-splash. It should look lovely when it's done.

And what has this to do with writing? Not much, I confess, except that Varda took pity on me on Saturday and started whispering in my ear, telling me all about this lovely scene. I know we're supposed to keep the "candy bar" scenes as a reward for slogging through the scenes that don't want to flow. But I decided to reward myself for the slog of writing that darned query letter for A Shadowed Flame. I love the scene. It's about a quarter done and is great fun to write. I need to get the rest of the story plotted out, but this one's a turning point.

My word count numbers have been abysmal this month. I can't count rewriting the two hundred or so words in the query letter that have been re-cast at least fifty times. Ben, wise man that he is, says it just a business letter. Hmmm. That may be so, Ben, but if it sucks no one's going to even bother to ask for a partial. And yes, I know that the likelihood of even getting that far is remote, but I have to give it my best shot. And so far I'm nowhere near the target. Onward, woman, and stop all this navel gazing. It's getting you nowhere.

Okay, I'm rambling. Enough. If you made it this far, thank you for listening.

When is free really free?

I just heard that the *free* airline tickets I received for attending a travel promo are actually going to cost me somewhere region of $450. I suppose it all depends on your definition of free, doesn't it? But we're going to use them to go to San Fran for ten days in September anyway. Home! Wonderful. I can't wait. (The more observant of you will have noticed that my birthplace wasn't anywhere close to California. But home is where the heart is.)

A quick update on Project Tevan. I am working on it. Really. It slowed to a crawl for a while back there, but the words are beginning to flow again. I love the way it's working out. I have a vague idea of where it's going, but I'm not going to push it.

And I've signed up for Holly's Think Sideways course. I hummed and ha'd about it. Thought about the time it was going to take. And decided. "To hell with it. I want to do it,so why not?"

I think I'm going to have to finally admit that I simply can't fit all that I'd like to into the span of a single day. I keep meaning to post stuff on here, but it doesn't happen.

Project Tevan is moving along. I still haven't come up with a "real" name for it. That doesn't surprise me. It took me the better part of eighteen months to come up with A Shadowed Flame, talking of which... I STILL haven't started to query agents. I'm not sure why either. I'm procrastinating, and I'm world class at that. Time to get my rear-end in gear and commit.

The first of the new crop of fawns started to show up this week. I wasn't here to see them, of course, but the spouse called me to let me know he'd seen two. So far they haven't made their appearance on Deercam, and in fact we haven't seen any deer all day. I suspect that they don't much care for the 4th of July celebrations. No doubt they'll be back a the trough again soon. The way to a deer's heart is definitely through it's stomach!

It's the cheese

I've just spent a nail-chewingly frustrating day fixing a problem for my client. I will admit right here and now that it was my own fault, but that doesn't make it any easier to take. Essentially I've wasted pretty much the whole of a precious Saturday.

I did manage to get out to do some grocery shopping. And wonder of wonders! Costco have started stocking my favorite cheese again. White Stilton with Apricots. You need to understand that I eat a lot of cheese. It's my very favorite thing and this particular cheese is beyond good. It's fantastic. I'll take a piece of this cheese over chocolate any day. Well, most days. If I had chocolate this evening I'd eat it for sure.

I don't know if I'll get any words written tonight. I'll try but having spent the best part of the day in my office I've hardly spoke three words to the spouse all day, so I need to spend some quality time watching the moving wallpaper this evening. I'll be able to make up for it tomorrow if I don't, but that's not the point is it? Oh well, flog me if you must.

Time, gentlemen... PLEASE!

Okay. I cannot believe how long it's been since I posted anything here. I knew I'd been letting it slip, but then there are only 24 hours in a day which is totally inadequate as anyone can tell you. And whose idea was it to only have twelve months in a year? The absolute minimum should be thirteen, and I can make an excellent case for fourteen if asked. Time is playing some very strange tricks on me of late. It's slipping away like water through a sieve.

I've been fighting with my inner editor of weeks. I've struggled to get on track with Project Tevan even though the story is howling at me to get going. Finally I made it past the sticking point, and I'm getting in the zone. For the time being I'm not typing it, I'm scribbling in my little spiral-bound notebook, in my teeny, tiny writing in pencil. And the words are flowing like warm honey. It's really wonderful. I'm going to have to put them into Liquid Story Binder soon and I'm NOT going to edit them. That's what revision is for.

Tagged

Errr... okay. Adrienne tagged me, so I have to divulge 8 little known facts about myself. Ummm. Well... here goes

1) I hate, detest, abhor and loathe cold weather -- but I love looking at snow flakes.

2) I used to breed Old English Sheepdogs -- they're totally daft creatures but incredibly loving.

3) I don't like cooking -- but I love to bake, especially bread and pizza ... oh yes, and I like to make jam too, and marmalade and chutney.

4) I adore knitting, the more complex, the better -- but as we live in NC I have no excuse to knit anymore.

5) I joke incessantly when I watch movies -- it drives the spouse nuts but he puts up with it. Fortunately I don't actually go to movie theaters and inflict my humor on anyone else.

6) I would really, really , really like to ban all cell phones, pagers, PDAs, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry and any other kind of berry devices from being used in public -- but I keep my cell phone with me at all times... and I do mean All times.

7) I have a dreadful time pairing names with faces -- but I can remember all kinds of useless facts.

8) I can, metaphorically speaking, put both my feet in my mouth at the same time with the greatest of aplomb and not realize what I've said could be misconstrued -- but I take great delight in making puns and playing word games.

Phew! Let's see, who shall I tag now? Yep. Nancy... your it.

What happened to the weekend?

Life, being what it is, has interrupted my careful planning for this weekend. Instead of doing my weekend chores on Friday and spending the whole weekend curled up with a good book -- to whit, A Shadowed Flame -- (I think it's a good book anyway), I had to work on Friday and a fair chunk of Saturday too. And on top of that an unexpected gig came up in Ohio, which means I have to fly out at lunchtime today.

Ah me. Don't misunderstand. Work is good. No. Work is great when I consider the alternative. But I have to get my read through done. So I've printed the whole thing out, all 432 Dark Courier (font size 12) double-spaced pages of it, and I'll stuff it into my carry-on which will make it almost impossible to wrestle into the overhead bin. That shouldn't be a problem, so long as they don't change the aircraft on me. Right now it's scheduled as an Embraier. The overhead bins won't take a normal carry-on so they take them on the jetway and stow them, then return them to the jetway on landing. I don't check my bag unless I'm forced to. But if I end up getting delayed or have yet another change in plans (it happens occasionally) I'll be busted.

Okay. I'll stop whinging now. I just want to let everyone know why I'm slipping behind with my revision. I will get it done this week, if I have to stay up all night every night to do it. I'm sending it out to the beta readers next weekend, and nothing short of a natural disaster of massive proportions is going to stop me.

MIA

Now this is strange. During the week I put a new post on here. I swear I posted it. I even check it to see that it was okay. But it's not here now.

And that's not all. The comments I made on other peoples blogs are missing too.

Am I suggering from delusions? Did my posts get eaten by the Internet termites? Have aliens secretly abducted me and placed false memories in my swiss-cheese brain? I have no idea but those are all strong contenders for what happened.

It wouldn't be so bad if I had a copy of the post that's MIA. I'm anal about backing things up, which is why I STRONGLY enourage you to go to Mozy's website and sign up for their backup service. 2 GB for free is a bargain in anyone's book. I use the paid version because of the huge amount of stuff I keep on my laptop that I just can't be without in the event of a disk crash or other emergency. But in this case, like a complete twit, I deleted the document BEFORE the backup took place. So it's lost to the world for all time.

How sad.

Blogging

I reluctantly started blogging five months ago, on November 18th to be exact. My reason for not wanting to join the hoards of people communicating this way was simple. I make my living around computers, I write on a computer (mostly) and when I'm not doing either of those things I want to be as far away from technology as possible in this overly-wired age.

And I didn't have anything to say.

But now, not only do I blog... albeit not as frequenly as I should... but I also a run website for my fellow Word Counters. And I love it. I'm learning new skills, none of which are in the least bit useful in my day-job, and I'm getting a huge kick out of seeing other writers make progess on their works-in-progess (or process if you prefer). And it's all thanks to the wonderful world of blogging.

And I still don't have anything to say.

At last, something to watch on TV

This post was inspired by Theadra's missive on the final death throes of Jericho. I don't watch much TV. I'm not saying the TV isn't on in our house; it is. I just don't watch the screen much. There's nothing but a boring parade of the same old same old. So I have to ask you... are you tired of watching fifteen different versions of CSI? Bored with endless, mindless sit-coms? If you can get it, try watching BBC America on Wednesday night for a change. One of the best programs on TV is on there -- MI5. And soon, April 6th I believe, it will be joined by my favoirite, the incredible Wire in the Blood. Not for the fainthearted I'll admit, it's a chilling look at the world through the eyes of a criminal psychologist. There's usually no graphic violence... but the pictures in your mind are far more graphic than anything they need to show. Superb.

Spring has sprung

Slightly new look for spring. I get bored easily. And distracted too. Back to the revision.

Where has the time gone?

Oh man! It can't be a week since I posted, it simply CAN'T! Things are totally out of control for me. At work I've been completing eight knowledge assessments. Yes. Eight. Totally nuts, but that's what I've have to do. And now that those are done I have half a week's worth of catchup to do.
On the ASF front I've been chewing my way through the revisions. By no means done with those yet, and Friday is looming large. I still have ALL my crit for my crit partner to do. I will get that done but it'll be tight this week. Maybe next week will be calmer. Do I hear hollow laughter in the background? Yes, I thought so. Never mind. I'm going to try to put some interesting things in here soon. Otherwise why would anyone want to read it? Thing is, when I'm staring at myself in the mirror, brushing my teeth, I can think of all kinds of fun stuff to say. When I actually get around to putting it "on paper" (so to speak), it's all gone. Ah me.

Books and...

Check out the soon-to-be-opened bookstore Books and... at http://books-and.com/ ( I ought to embed the link but time is against me) Doesn't that sound just great? I'm going to be keeping an eye on Robert's progess with his new venture. I've already promised to go to the store's opening. It a shame that Eden is about 130 miles from me, or I'd be dropping in there to browse on a regular basis. Way to go Robert! I wish you all the luck in the world with this.

Eclipse That.

Did you see it? The lunar eclipse last night. Our weather man said that there'd be rain -- wrong! It was a beautiful night. The eclipse was awsome, I love watching them. This is the fourth one I've seen I think. It just sets the creative juices flowing. I don't think I want to include it in ASF, that would need another re-write, but I'm definately going to use the observations I made last night in my next project.