Writing Again

I am not going to finish my Auctioneer first draft by the end of May.  Not even going to come close.  But, I do have a good reason.  I hurt my shoulder and was unable to write for two weeks.  I began to write again a few days ago, a couple hundred words a day, and put down a thousand yesterday.  I'm paying for it today - I can barely turn my head.  But it felt so good to write, I'll try to get another few hundred words down today. 

My writing was nothing out of the ordinary, but the setting was.  I write on my laptop in the same chair every day,  but I'm unable to do that right now because the chair hurts my shoulder and neck.  So I wrote on the living room couch with the seat reclined, in sort of an awkward position that only hurt a little bit.  Instead of playing the cd player that sits near the chair in my office, I used Michelle's ipod (and Hello Kitty headphones) and listened to The Beatle's White Album.  Maybe I'll do the same thing again today.  I may need to buy my own headphones.

The new goal, knowing that I will have to work slower in the forseeable future, is to finish "The Auctioneer" by the end of June and have "Mowa Lettahs From Maine" finished and available as an ebook by the end of July.  I had planned on having my next novel, "Bobby's House" available as an ebook by July but now I'm shooting for August.  So it should be a fun, busy summer.

Safety Glasses and Smores

Sam likes to put on safety glasses and pretend he is either working in a lab building robots or fighting crime.  I think he watches too much Phineas and Ferb.  The other night he fell asleep with his safety glasses on.  Maybe he felt sleep would be dangerous on that particular night.

We had our first backyard campfire tonight.  We made smores, it was great.   A little bit of thunder rumbling in the distance, but it wouldn't be Maine if the weather didn't change every 5 minutes.

I haven't written all weekend and I'm feeling both antsy and guilty about it.  So tonight I'm going to write a little, if for no other reason than to say I did.  Who knows, I may get on a roll and bang out the best 2,000 words yet. 

George Harrison, and Nook vs. Kindle

I'm wondering how many Kindles are sold compared to Nooks.  My book sales on Kindle are much higher than on the Nook, the ratio is about 20 to 1.  Can Kindle sales be that much higher than those of the Nook?  Most people I know own a Kindle but I do know a couple of Nook owners.  There must be some way I can look this up, instead of just staring into space and hoping the answer will smack me in the head.

My writing went really well today.  Only about 1,000 words but I really like what I wrote.  When I write something that makes me laugh out loud as I'm writing it, I know it's good.  I'm up over 50,000 words and I'd like it to end up at around 100,000.  As impossible as it seems, I am still shooting to have the first draft finished by the end of May. 

I watched "George Harrison: Living In The Material World" yesterday.  It is a Martin Scorcese film.  I was quite disappointed.  For a three hour film, I didn't learn much about George Harrison that I didn't already know from watching "The Beatles Anthology".  I did enjoy the interviews with people like Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Tom Petty, and Eric Clapton, and the interviews with his wife were good, but I would have liked to learn more from and about his son.

Rejection and Bob Dylan

I received a note from an editor last week, telling me that he liked my writing style.  I was pleased, until he continued on and said the magazine would not be using my story.  He ended by again telling me that he really enjoyed my writing and hoped that I would revise my story or submit something else before the deadline for the coming issue.  It's always nice to receive a positive note from an editor, of course, and I guess it does make the rejection easier.  But it seems kind of like having a pretty girl say she finds you really nice and funny but would rather be just remain friends.  I'm assuming here, of course, because that sort of thing has definitely never happened to me.

I'm listening to Bob Dylan right now.  I'm not a fan of Dylan.  I'm a fan of many of the artists he influenced, and I'm a fan of the remakes of his songs by some of those artists.   Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" is the first one to come to mind.  I'm a huge fan of his former backing band, The Band.  But Dylan, no.  So I'm listening and trying to figure out what make him so hugely popular and influential.  So far, I'm drawing a blank.

The Avengers and The Hunger Games

  I didn't do any writing today.  This is the first day in at least 3 or 4 weeks that I don't write at all, so I probably could use a break.  My goal is to finish the first draft of "The Auctioneer" by the end of May, so I'd better get moving on it this week.  Instead of writing this morning  I went to a vinyl record fair and bought about 20 or 25 records for $45.  Only the bargain bins for me!  But I did get some really good deals, I think.  Bought  a few sealed LP's, stuff like Julian Lennon, nothing valuable. 

Tonight Seth and I saw The Avengers.  It was good, but too much action.  I know that is supposed to be the point of an action film, but I like a little story.  Not "aliens invade earth, war ensues".  I guess the reliance on special effects in movies really bothers me.  Having said that, I did like it a lot.  There was plenty of humor, too.  Normally a movie over 2 hours long will drag a little, but The Avengers was interesting the entire time. 

Not so for the Hunger Games books.  I finished reading the third one, "Mockingjay", last night.  They are difficult books to describe.  There is little to no description - she walks into an area, you have no idea if it is the size of a bedroom or a stadium.  And the characters have no depth - when somebody dies, it's difficult to care.   I know I am in the minority, because so many people love the Hunger Games books.  The books are very bleak and bare, which may be what people like about them.  They do somehow hook you, I'll say that.   And I thought Mockingjay to be the best of the series.  This isn't much of a review, is it?  Let me put it this way:  It may be the only book I've read where I liked the movie better.  And it is certainly the only book that was less descriptive than the movie.

Writing & Rocky 2 Too

I wrote almost 2,000 words of The Auctioneer today.  I came up with something unbelievable - this really weird, kind of horrifying painting went up for auction, and some wacko bid over a hundred million dollars for it!  You can make up the most ridiculous things when writing fiction.

Okay, it wasn't anything that exciting, but I did end up going in a different direction than the one I'd planned with the story.  Sometimes I wish I could plot out a story and know where it's going, but I'm the type of writer that lets the characters dictate the story.  It's kind of like walking a tightrope without a net.  Except that there is almost no chance of me falling and being splattered all over the ground.  So maybe it is nothing like walking a tightrope without a net, but it is exciting.  I imagine writers who plot, who know each step of what will happen in the story, must become quite bored after awhile.  On the other hand, they probably finish their stories much faster than I do.

My son Seth and I watched Rocky 2 tonight.  I was planning on doing a little more writing after, but instead I ended up sitting on the couch, drinking a Shipyard beer.  Seth was so pumped up from the movie that he went out and ran a mile at 9:15 at night.  The folly of youth.

Nutrition Book

Had Ramen Noodles for dinner tonight.  Then Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.  Then a Shipyard Blue Fin Stout.  I'm thinking about writing a nutrition book.  Not sure what I would title it.  "Do The Opposite of This", maybe.  Or "How To Put On That Extra Layer of Fat Before Winter".

I'm applying for a Maine Writer's Grant.  They want 20 pages of my writing.  I thought of sending the first 20 pages of "Lettahs From Maine", but I didn't think they would get it.  I decided to just send three of my published short stories.  It was difficult to chose the best three, so I just choose the ones that combined for close to twenty pages.

Fox-C

Character names are a problem for me.  Sometimes I get stuck on a certain letter - all my characters names will begin with the letter M, for instance.  I spend so much of my writing time thinking up character names.  One of my friends said that he had his daughter think up names for characters in a book he is planning to write.  He told me the names she came up with, and they are much better than my usual.  Outdone by an 8-year-old.  What I sometimes do is look on the shelf at some of my albums and combine the names of band members - Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, for instance, would become Steven Perry.  I wonder what I'd get with a U2 album, with Bono and The Edge - The Bono, maybe?  Yeah, stupid.

A dog named Foxy lives down the street from us.  As Samuel and I were walking by yesterday, he said, "You know, she does look like a fox.  But I don't know why they put the letter C at the end of her name."