Things we learn about storytelling from watching Indy J movies:
1. You can kill the cute monkey if it's an evil Nazi monkey.
Any others?
1. You can kill the cute monkey if it's an evil Nazi monkey.
Any others?
- Mood:
multi-tasking
Day count: 2,910
Week count: n/a
Total count: 23,584
Crazy Viking Action: Hrafnling summons the dead. With disorientation, dilated pupils, and hallucinations! That's what happens when you use the devil's cherries to make magic.
Favorite words: At any other moment I would have said nothing, accepting his words. But there, with death so close to us, within the memory of the honesty of decay and my three night vigil, I found humility.
Angst: Noisy, mean, annoying neighbors!
Hope/Notes: Crossed the 100 page mark, and as arbitrary and meaningless as that is, it's still nifty. Next up: visit to Uppsala! Sledding on frozen rivers!
I wrote all morning out on the front porch, accompanied by Beethoven, the Medieval Baebes, and a gentle breeze. Grendel chilled with a bone (crunch crunch) and occasionally snipped at the blue jays arguing in the tree over my head. It would have been perfect if not for the hour which I spent listening to our neighbors abuse each other. Fun times! Now, I'm off to run errands, cook, clean, and have lunch with my little bro Travis.
Week count: n/a
Total count: 23,584
Crazy Viking Action: Hrafnling summons the dead. With disorientation, dilated pupils, and hallucinations! That's what happens when you use the devil's cherries to make magic.
Favorite words: At any other moment I would have said nothing, accepting his words. But there, with death so close to us, within the memory of the honesty of decay and my three night vigil, I found humility.
Angst: Noisy, mean, annoying neighbors!
Hope/Notes: Crossed the 100 page mark, and as arbitrary and meaningless as that is, it's still nifty. Next up: visit to Uppsala! Sledding on frozen rivers!
I wrote all morning out on the front porch, accompanied by Beethoven, the Medieval Baebes, and a gentle breeze. Grendel chilled with a bone (crunch crunch) and occasionally snipped at the blue jays arguing in the tree over my head. It would have been perfect if not for the hour which I spent listening to our neighbors abuse each other. Fun times! Now, I'm off to run errands, cook, clean, and have lunch with my little bro Travis.
I finally decided to put the stuff I'd been hoarding from the Hippy Camp (Bombed Back to the Stone Age) in my display case, and I'm in the top 10 in four out of the five items (Handful of Pine Needles, Handful of Nuts and Berries, Dreadlock Whips, and Stone Frisbees), with a top twenty in the fifth (Sabre Teeth). Woohoo!
- 13:20 DaFont.com Finally Updated: I have to go make sweet, sweet font love now - www.dafont.com a2a_l.. tinyurl.com/6cmj58 #
- 15:05 Got to call 911 for my wife thanks to Mister Crazy Pants With A Snow Shovel Attacking Cars. I just called to request blank DVDs. Eesh. #
- 16:20 The Art of Pain at the Music Box Theatre:
THE ART OF PAIN Sneak Preview (Look upon it ye mortals and .. tinyurl.com/6a8wsk # - 18:20 Are You On LiveJournal.com?: Just a reminder to those on LiveJournal - you can get my blog feed super-.. tinyurl.com/54qf6g #
- 21:54 It gives me a warm fuzzy when my webhost (a) doesn't really read my support request and (b) sends a dismissive, poorly-worded response. YAY! #
- 01:15 Say what you will about the movie Silent Hill; the creature design & choreography extras on the DVD are artistically/creatively spellbinding #
- 01:32 Stained, faded receipt from 2007 says "PLACE FACE ON DASH" and 'til I realize it's a parking receipt, I'm thinking "Do WHAT??" #
I know this is really nerdy and weird, but sometimes The Ghost Whisperer scares the crap out of me. Does anyone else watch this show? I love Jennifer Love Hewitt a lot, which is why I started watching, but now I love the show itself too. I love to watch it at, like, three in the morning. Seriously, it scares me. It's awesome.
- Music:Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty - Stop Dragging My Heart Around
Some mornings, like this one, I find myself with far too much about which I wish to "blog." To write, I mean. I dread the day that "blog," as a verb, enters the dictionaries. Of course, that may have already happened, and I just didn't notice, in which case the dread is retroactive. Anyway, yeah, too many things. Yesterday, I wrote 1,049 words on Chapter One of The Red Tree. The last section of Chapter One has become problematic. It does not seem to want to end, and I need to find its conclusion today. I still have Sirenia Digest #30 to get out next week, and I'd hoped to have three or four days to do a vignette for #31 before I abandon work on the 22nd (resuming work once my office is reassembled in Providence).
After the writing, there was packing, packing, packing. The last of the books in my office went into boxes. I am now working in a mostly book-free room, which is about as unnatural as it gets. Ah, but before the packing, after Spooky got home from the vet with Hubero (whose fine, of course), we needed more packing supplies, and so I made the sojourn with her into Big-Box Hell off Ponce. Actually, we went to PetSmart first, to get Mr. H. a good, solid plastic-and-metal carrier for the long trip to Rhode Island. We saw an utterly delightful Black-headed caique (Pionites melanocephalus). We have these spells where we want a smart, smart bird, but, fortunately, these spells pass. Anyway, after PetSmart, it was Staples, where we had to get packing tape, bubblewrap, biodegradable packing peanuts, air in a can, and wipes with which to clean Mac screens. Those stores, all those people, they drive me nuts. Anyway, Spooky went back out to get Dusty's BBQ for dinner. And then we watched two episodes of Millennium, "Luminary" and "The Mikado." And speaking of that second episode...
I did not actually see Gregory Hoblit's recent release, Untraceable, but, near as I can tell from having had to sit through the trailer a few dozen times, it's a pretty blatant rip-off of Micheal R. Perry's teleplay for "The Mikado." I just checked IMDb to be absolutely certain that Perry was not given story credit. He was not. Untraceable is credited to Robert Fyvolent, Mark Brinker (screenplay and story), and Allison Burnett (screenplay). I would be willing to bet there's a lawsuit here, and a cut-and-dried case of plagiarism, if the matter were brought to the attention the the WGA. But, anyway, there was a bit I wanted to quote (from "Luminary"):
We are meant to be here. We step from one piece of holy ground to the next under stars that ask, "Imagine, for one second, you could drop in on a past life. What would you like to find yourself doing there? What would charm you? Make you proud?" Ask yourself that. And the question what to do in this life becomes so simple it's terrifying. Just to do that thing that would charm you. It would make you say: "Yes, it's the real me." Do that, and you're alive.
After Millennium, I slipped into Second Life for the first genuine rp I've done in days. Thank you Pontifex and Omega. Oh, and since most of my now-very-limited SL time is being spent in New Babbage, behind the cut is a screencap of Artemesia Paine and the Professor in the vacant room above Miss Paine's pie shop (and I really need to ask![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
blu_muse to show me how to take good SL screencaps).
( The Professor's Return )
What else? After Second Life, Spooky read me a bit more of House of Leaves, and then I read myself a bit more of the Osborn biography, and finally got to sleep around 2:30 ayem. And that, kiddos, was yesterday.
Looking back over the comments to yesterday's entry about the silly Yahoo list, "The Good, the Bad, and the Slimy: 20 Great Movie Creatures," I have resolved to make a list of my own. But it will have a well-defined set of criteria for inclusion, which I will state at the outset. It may take me several days to compile the list. I may not get it up until early June, after the move. It will include fifty creatures, not twenty. Oh, and a few people were confused by the term "Pull of the Recent." It was coined in 1979 by University of Chicago paleontologist David Raup*, and it states, simply, that "the level of biodiversity is inflated in younger fossil deposits because sampling of the modern world is so much more complete than in the geologic past." That is, the farther one goes back in the fossil record, the rarer fossils become, since they have had a greater period of time to be destroyed by various geological processes (erosion, metamorphism, orogenic events, volcanism, plate tectonics, etc.). Also, Raup posits a collecting bias favouring more recent strata. This generally creates an overall fossil record that, in terms of biodiversity, looks a bit like an inverted pyramid**. Which is also what the list on Yahoo looked like, with 50% of its sample coming from films made since 2002 (though it also included creatures from as far back as 1933 and 1939). And before anyone asks, today's icon shows much of Europe, north and central Africa, the Middle East, and western India during the Eocene Epoch, some 55.8 ± 0.2 — 33.9 ± 0.1 million years ago.
*Raup, D. M. 1979. "Size of the Permo-Triassic bottleneck and its evolutionary implications." Science Vol. 206.
** It should be noted that a number of more recent studies indicate that the "pull of the recent" may be less an artefact of the fossil record than an actual increasing rate of biodiversity over geologic time. See, for example, David Jablonski et al., "The Impact of the Pull of the Recent on the History of Marine Diversity" Science (Vol. 300. no. 5,622; 16 May 2003). For now, though, I stand by Raup.
After the writing, there was packing, packing, packing. The last of the books in my office went into boxes. I am now working in a mostly book-free room, which is about as unnatural as it gets. Ah, but before the packing, after Spooky got home from the vet with Hubero (whose fine, of course), we needed more packing supplies, and so I made the sojourn with her into Big-Box Hell off Ponce. Actually, we went to PetSmart first, to get Mr. H. a good, solid plastic-and-metal carrier for the long trip to Rhode Island. We saw an utterly delightful Black-headed caique (Pionites melanocephalus). We have these spells where we want a smart, smart bird, but, fortunately, these spells pass. Anyway, after PetSmart, it was Staples, where we had to get packing tape, bubblewrap, biodegradable packing peanuts, air in a can, and wipes with which to clean Mac screens. Those stores, all those people, they drive me nuts. Anyway, Spooky went back out to get Dusty's BBQ for dinner. And then we watched two episodes of Millennium, "Luminary" and "The Mikado." And speaking of that second episode...
I did not actually see Gregory Hoblit's recent release, Untraceable, but, near as I can tell from having had to sit through the trailer a few dozen times, it's a pretty blatant rip-off of Micheal R. Perry's teleplay for "The Mikado." I just checked IMDb to be absolutely certain that Perry was not given story credit. He was not. Untraceable is credited to Robert Fyvolent, Mark Brinker (screenplay and story), and Allison Burnett (screenplay). I would be willing to bet there's a lawsuit here, and a cut-and-dried case of plagiarism, if the matter were brought to the attention the the WGA. But, anyway, there was a bit I wanted to quote (from "Luminary"):
We are meant to be here. We step from one piece of holy ground to the next under stars that ask, "Imagine, for one second, you could drop in on a past life. What would you like to find yourself doing there? What would charm you? Make you proud?" Ask yourself that. And the question what to do in this life becomes so simple it's terrifying. Just to do that thing that would charm you. It would make you say: "Yes, it's the real me." Do that, and you're alive.
After Millennium, I slipped into Second Life for the first genuine rp I've done in days. Thank you Pontifex and Omega. Oh, and since most of my now-very-limited SL time is being spent in New Babbage, behind the cut is a screencap of Artemesia Paine and the Professor in the vacant room above Miss Paine's pie shop (and I really need to ask
blu_muse to show me how to take good SL screencaps).What else? After Second Life, Spooky read me a bit more of House of Leaves, and then I read myself a bit more of the Osborn biography, and finally got to sleep around 2:30 ayem. And that, kiddos, was yesterday.
Looking back over the comments to yesterday's entry about the silly Yahoo list, "The Good, the Bad, and the Slimy: 20 Great Movie Creatures," I have resolved to make a list of my own. But it will have a well-defined set of criteria for inclusion, which I will state at the outset. It may take me several days to compile the list. I may not get it up until early June, after the move. It will include fifty creatures, not twenty. Oh, and a few people were confused by the term "Pull of the Recent." It was coined in 1979 by University of Chicago paleontologist David Raup*, and it states, simply, that "the level of biodiversity is inflated in younger fossil deposits because sampling of the modern world is so much more complete than in the geologic past." That is, the farther one goes back in the fossil record, the rarer fossils become, since they have had a greater period of time to be destroyed by various geological processes (erosion, metamorphism, orogenic events, volcanism, plate tectonics, etc.). Also, Raup posits a collecting bias favouring more recent strata. This generally creates an overall fossil record that, in terms of biodiversity, looks a bit like an inverted pyramid**. Which is also what the list on Yahoo looked like, with 50% of its sample coming from films made since 2002 (though it also included creatures from as far back as 1933 and 1939). And before anyone asks, today's icon shows much of Europe, north and central Africa, the Middle East, and western India during the Eocene Epoch, some 55.8 ± 0.2 — 33.9 ± 0.1 million years ago.
*Raup, D. M. 1979. "Size of the Permo-Triassic bottleneck and its evolutionary implications." Science Vol. 206.
** It should be noted that a number of more recent studies indicate that the "pull of the recent" may be less an artefact of the fossil record than an actual increasing rate of biodiversity over geologic time. See, for example, David Jablonski et al., "The Impact of the Pull of the Recent on the History of Marine Diversity" Science (Vol. 300. no. 5,622; 16 May 2003). For now, though, I stand by Raup.
- Location:Arctica
- Mood:
a bit groggy - Music:VNV Nation, "Legion"
"God speaks through odd prophets in this schizophrenic tale...[whose]...underlying themes of faith, martyrdom, madness and loss are richly, sometimes achingly portrayed." - Publishers Weekly
Not bad for a first novel. I'm pleased and thing that any PW review is cool! There are some first novel problems in Scarecrow Gods, like most first novels, but it was still loved enough to win an award. And the use of the word "achingly" is a nice finish. Lucky for me, my books after SG are narratively more tidy.
From Publishers Weekly:
Scarecrow Gods
Weston Ochse. Delirium Books, $16.95 paper (298p) ISBN 978-1-929653-95-9
God speaks through odd prophets in this schizophrenic tale, which won Ochse a 2005 first novel Stoker Award. Hideously disfigured Maxom Phinxs, known as the "Maggot Man" for his disgusting job at a chicken processing plant, learned a trick as a POW in Vietnam: he can astrally project, abandoning his ravaged body to soar and spy. He shares this ability with troubled young Danny, whose family was shattered when his sister ran away from home. The two join brilliant homeless man Billy Bones and a defrocked monk calling himself John the New Baptist to confront insanity and evil on an alternate plane called the "Land of Inside-Out." Stereotype-heavy and prone to strange time shifts, endless dream sequences and awkwardly placed flashbacks, the tale is narratively untidy, but the underlying themes of faith, martyrdom, madness and loss are richly, sometimes achingly portrayed.
Not bad for a first novel. I'm pleased and thing that any PW review is cool! There are some first novel problems in Scarecrow Gods, like most first novels, but it was still loved enough to win an award. And the use of the word "achingly" is a nice finish. Lucky for me, my books after SG are narratively more tidy.
- Location:Nuevo Rancho Lake
- Mood:
amused - Music:the_child reciting Norse myth to lasirenadolce
I'm reading five books right now. Not including the research, which aren't the kind I want to sit down and enjoy and get straight through.
One of them is an elegantly written novel called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Here is a passage I read yesterday:
I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.
It isn't that I am not reading five good books. At least two of them are excellent (including The Thirteenth Tale - I can hardly find things to complain about. Yet I am not pushing aside all other things to involve myself in their pacings. There is something missing, and I can only think that it is me that is different, not the words, not the writing and magic of books. I still feel the excitement of books, that thrill when a fresh, never cracked cover awaits my exploration. I close my eyes in the bowels of the university library, like a boulder standing against the raging rapids that are the words tucked into the pages, shelves, stacks surrounding me, wanting them to beat against me and wear me down until I am merely a pebble lining their stream.
Words have become my life, and perhaps it is so simple as my own selfishness. I need the words to be working for me, I need to be analyzing, contextualizing, ordering, creating patterns and chains of imagery and meaning.
I used to read while I walked to school.
I used to read while I waited for my classmates to finish their work.
I used to read after the lights were turned out.
In the car, at the doctor's office, in line at Disney World. I read everywhere because I could not get enough.
Now I read best in small bits like that - for ten minutes at lunch, right before bed, during commercial breaks - of all times. Not because I can't stop reading, not because I need every moment to be devoted to reading - but because those passing moments are all I can stand.
If I have a chunk of time now, that I would have devoted to reading, I write. It's good that I write. I don't want to drive this passion away. But I'm only now realizing what my sacrifice was.
Not an eye.
When I woke up from nightmares of blindness: in high school, in grade school, in college - it's always been my nightmare - when I shuddered to imagine it, my first thought was always what if I couldn't read ever again?
I'm not blind. But as far as reading goes, I might as well be.
Odin says: Did you think it would be easy?
One of them is an elegantly written novel called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Here is a passage I read yesterday:
I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.
It isn't that I am not reading five good books. At least two of them are excellent (including The Thirteenth Tale - I can hardly find things to complain about. Yet I am not pushing aside all other things to involve myself in their pacings. There is something missing, and I can only think that it is me that is different, not the words, not the writing and magic of books. I still feel the excitement of books, that thrill when a fresh, never cracked cover awaits my exploration. I close my eyes in the bowels of the university library, like a boulder standing against the raging rapids that are the words tucked into the pages, shelves, stacks surrounding me, wanting them to beat against me and wear me down until I am merely a pebble lining their stream.
Words have become my life, and perhaps it is so simple as my own selfishness. I need the words to be working for me, I need to be analyzing, contextualizing, ordering, creating patterns and chains of imagery and meaning.
I used to read while I walked to school.
I used to read while I waited for my classmates to finish their work.
I used to read after the lights were turned out.
In the car, at the doctor's office, in line at Disney World. I read everywhere because I could not get enough.
Now I read best in small bits like that - for ten minutes at lunch, right before bed, during commercial breaks - of all times. Not because I can't stop reading, not because I need every moment to be devoted to reading - but because those passing moments are all I can stand.
If I have a chunk of time now, that I would have devoted to reading, I write. It's good that I write. I don't want to drive this passion away. But I'm only now realizing what my sacrifice was.
Not an eye.
When I woke up from nightmares of blindness: in high school, in grade school, in college - it's always been my nightmare - when I shuddered to imagine it, my first thought was always what if I couldn't read ever again?
I'm not blind. But as far as reading goes, I might as well be.
Odin says: Did you think it would be easy?
ninjahijinx is a super artist (who does fabulous clothing, great pirates and awesome comics). Anyway, today and tomorrow, ninjahijinx is having a free icon day! You ask for an icon, you get one!found via
haikujaguar.Due to some strange acoustics, the grackle outside my bedroom window sounds like it's inside my closet. The felines are passing-confused. I am drinking coffee, pondering a plot twist, and resisting the urge to go down to the 9th Avenue International Food Festival and nearby flea markets. However, should any New Yorkers be reading this and want to encourage me in dereliction of my duties...
A reminder: Brenda Novak's charity auction is still going on. You still have the chance to bid for the right to have your name (or the name of a loved one) used as a character in HARD MAGIC Bidding is here. Last bid was $155, which is about half of the winning bid last time I did one of these for the Emergency Medical Fund for SFWA! And this one you can put on your credit card, and get points as well as a tax deduction!
And for those of you with a proposal in your hard drive but no idea if it's any good, Best Agent Evah Jennifer Jackson has a one day auction (starting in about 10 hours or so) for Evaluation of a Proposal and Drinks (it says at RWA but she's willing to adapt it to other conferences as well). Speaking as someone who has had both crit sessions and drinks with Jenn a few times now, it's well worth a bid!
And now I must go shoot that grackle, because it is So. Damn. Annoying.
A reminder: Brenda Novak's charity auction is still going on. You still have the chance to bid for the right to have your name (or the name of a loved one) used as a character in HARD MAGIC Bidding is here. Last bid was $155, which is about half of the winning bid last time I did one of these for the Emergency Medical Fund for SFWA! And this one you can put on your credit card, and get points as well as a tax deduction!
And for those of you with a proposal in your hard drive but no idea if it's any good, Best Agent Evah Jennifer Jackson has a one day auction (starting in about 10 hours or so) for Evaluation of a Proposal and Drinks (it says at RWA but she's willing to adapt it to other conferences as well). Speaking as someone who has had both crit sessions and drinks with Jenn a few times now, it's well worth a bid!
And now I must go shoot that grackle, because it is So. Damn. Annoying.
- Mood: workin'
I had a buddy make a set of prayer beads for me a few years ago, I have since misplaced the damned things and can't find them, not to worry, I will replace them. Hematite beads maybe about 12mm will work with silver skull Decades, an anhk will serve as the cross. How much would this cost me? i don't know. Two months ago, I was at a Bead show and I really should have bought some beads that caught my eye, but then, I was looking for beads for a coronet. There is not immediate need to have these prayer beads soon, but they would be a nice focus when I am meditating on life's issues ( smile)
Achbar
Achbar
amusedninjahijinx is not just a super artist (who does fabulous clothing, great pirates and awesome comics), but a sweet one too (we had an email exchange that, had it continued, would have dissolved into rainbows and unicorns, I tell you true). Anyway, today and tomorrow, ninjahijinx is having a free icon day! You ask for an icon, you get one!Please, go by and take advantage of this spifftacular offer. If I wasn't by now so completely associated with my haikujaguar icon, having used nothing else for years, you'd better believe I'd be all over this one. :)
Edit: Squee, they're being posted in the replies as they're finished! Keep that page open and reload it for free entertainment! :D
Stardancer Home.
- Mood:whoot, loot!
roughhouser has a fantastic group of friends. We went to a birthday party (Taurus birthdays) with a bunch of them yesterday. As soon as we arrived, slaptyback placed a boffer sword in Fang's hands and proceeded to instruct him how to defend with it. Fang spent the entire party fighting with one opponent after another, grinning like a jack-o-lantern all the while. I think that was the best party Fang has ever been to. He was engaged and amused the entire time, he learned a bunch of tricks, and the men were all willing to duel with him for hours.I have some very cute pictures of Fang and Houser sword fighting. I'll post some soon.
My son does have gamer in his blood - he could do worse than getting his geek out by running around in the woods and sword fighting. It's athletic, he'll need some good costuming and there are women who play too. Much better than video games.
Fang and the ninja double-teamed me and trapped me in a tree. I didn't fend them off successfully - ok, I got creamed - but at least I'm not one of those boring soccer moms!
- Location:home
- Music:clock ticking
9:30 p -- Meg goes to sleep.
10:00 p -- I try to put a sleeping Rob in his crib. He wakes up.
10:15 p --moorewr, who is feeling the pain of a sinus headache, goes to bed.
10:45 p -- I try to put a sleeping Rob in his crib. He wakes up.
12:00 m -- Finally Robert is asleep enough to stay down once put down. I start working.
2:00 a -- I decide I can't work any longer, so go to sleep myself.
3:30 a -- Robert decides he can't sleep any longer, so wakes up and howls for nursies. I change him and take him to bed with me.
5:30 a -- More nursies. When Rob falls asleep, I try to transfer him to his crib. He wakes up.
7:30 a -- More nursies, a change of diaper.
8:00 a -- Though I am haggard and exhausted, Robert is bright and cheery, so I get up.
8:20 a -- Summoned by his happy squeals, Meg gets up.
It is 8:30. We are all awake except Daddy. ::sigh::
=-=-=-=-=
I have got to go and get more baby foods today. We started Rob on solids this week, and when I got the solids pattern established for foods he liked (at evening meals) he went to sleep at 10 pm and only woke once to nurse. He hates the rice cereal, but he liked carrots. Yesterday, he didn't really want to eat the sweet potato, so he didn't get his solids, with the results shown above.
I think banana will go over well. And maybe oatmeal. Also, it's time to get a food mill...
10:00 p -- I try to put a sleeping Rob in his crib. He wakes up.
10:15 p --
moorewr, who is feeling the pain of a sinus headache, goes to bed.10:45 p -- I try to put a sleeping Rob in his crib. He wakes up.
12:00 m -- Finally Robert is asleep enough to stay down once put down. I start working.
2:00 a -- I decide I can't work any longer, so go to sleep myself.
3:30 a -- Robert decides he can't sleep any longer, so wakes up and howls for nursies. I change him and take him to bed with me.
5:30 a -- More nursies. When Rob falls asleep, I try to transfer him to his crib. He wakes up.
7:30 a -- More nursies, a change of diaper.
8:00 a -- Though I am haggard and exhausted, Robert is bright and cheery, so I get up.
8:20 a -- Summoned by his happy squeals, Meg gets up.
It is 8:30. We are all awake except Daddy. ::sigh::
=-=-=-=-=
I have got to go and get more baby foods today. We started Rob on solids this week, and when I got the solids pattern established for foods he liked (at evening meals) he went to sleep at 10 pm and only woke once to nurse. He hates the rice cereal, but he liked carrots. Yesterday, he didn't really want to eat the sweet potato, so he didn't get his solids, with the results shown above.
I think banana will go over well. And maybe oatmeal. Also, it's time to get a food mill...
I'm using a new browser, something called Flock; it's built on the mozilla base but it's designed to work well with social networks.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I had to give a presentation the other night to a local writers’ guild regarding goal setting as it relates to writing. Now I rarely, if ever, use notes when presenting anything. I know the topic I’m going to speak on, keep a few key points on the subject in my head, then just spout away. I enjoy doing it this way because it gives me the opportunity to feed off the crowd’s energy, change course and tone depending on the body language I see or the comments and questions some folks make. That said, that night was no exception . . . but something odd happened along the way . . .
I started off talking about goals in general, stating things like, “If your goal is to write a book, maybe the first question you should ask yourself is, why? Why do you want to write a book? Just to say you’ve written one? So you can prove something to yourself or your family? Or is your objective to get published? Either reason will require a finished manuscript, but the goals that need to be established to accomplish either might be different due to the established deadline you set for yourself. For example, when do you want the book completed? In a year? Five years? Does a time line even matter to you? If it doesn’t, chances are you’re really not all that serious about writing a book. Without a timeline, vis-à-vis deadline, that doggone book will never get written because you’ll always be able to find an excuse for not writing. Things like, the laundry needs to get done—(although ‘laundry’ at that moment consists of one blouse and a pair of skivvies)—the lawn needs to be mowed . . .twice—that closet’s been cluttered way too long . . .”
Anyway, while I’m yammering away, I see sparks of enlightenment flash in the attendees’ eyes. This goal setting thing is making sense to them. They’re taking notes, smiling, nodding . . . Suddenly something dawns on me, and I ask, “How many of you want to write a book because you want to get published?”
95% of the group raised a hand. Poor babies.
Seeing that, I felt a surge of moral obligation to get them down to the nub of things so they’d be prepared for the inevitable. We talked about the challenges that might be awaiting them…publishers and their antiquated business practices, elusive agents, picky editors, fickle readers, self-marketing, meeting REAL deadlines, the day job most have to maintain along with writing and why, the critics, the reviewers (often not one in the same, but both able to knock your feet out from under you.), the stalkers, the nay-sayers, etc. With all that said, the nub came down to the original question….WHY do you want to write a book? Most of them, still smiling, nodding, even more pumped up than before, answered, “Because I can’t not write one.” Sigh…..
As writers, how many times have we heard that answer from other writers? Knowing what we know, the struggles, the constant, ever-changing challenges that come with this profession, we still write. Like a one-member nomad tribe, we keep plodding through that desert with a skin-bag half-filled with water. We keep pushing on regardless of illness, injury, insults, or ill-payment. To me, the real nub of it all is this…..writers are just a strange lot, and it’s to that end, I’m left to quote Dickens’ infamous Tiny Tim, “God bless us every one!”
Please enjoy jwz mixtape 031.
In anticipation of the impending return of The Venture Bros, this one opens with some Steroid Maximus. And then, it kinda goes where it went. If you're like me (which I recommend) you're imagining Christopher Walken tapdancing through the whole of side A.
- Music:as noted
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