Random Life Updates

Lots of different things going on so I felt it was time to do a little update.

Health

Well, the cold is just about gone. Can’t seem to shake the cough but it’s a lot less than it was.  Ankle is healing up slowly.  Over the weekend, I tried to do a lot of little projects around the house which necessitated several trips up and down the stairs.  I started out all right, but as time went on, it became more and more difficult to get up those stairs – especially with a cat zipping past me with every trip.

The act of stretching my ankle as I stepped up or down was what got me.  9 out of 10 times it would be fine, but then that 10th time would come around and I would feel it all the way through my calf so, ankle? Not quite there yet.  Hopefully soon.

Writing

My main project is the same I’ve talked about before; a novel titled (for now) Sam Kane.

The tale of a young woman who gets sucked into a world of magic she didn’t even know existed and struggles to balance her ‘normal’ life and family troubles with this new life where she has to go up against Wizards, Werewolves and all sorts of other nasty things.

A while ago, I ripped it apart.  I was frustrated with some corners that I cut to ‘get the story done’ for the 1st draft, so to speak.  Going back through it, I decided those shortcuts needed to go away.  Then I decided that a character I liked didn’t really fit after all, so I removed him entirely.  This meant reworking a couple of pivotal scenes from someone elses point of view which turned out better in the long run anyway because it just made more sense and helped to move the story along without bogging me or the reader down with inconsequential non-characters (which he sort of became).

On Twitter, I mentioned this and said something like, “A novel is like a tapestry; pull one string out and the whole thing can fall apart.”

With that in mind, I sat down with a pad of paper and, as I was editing, I made notes of any strings that were left dangling (we would also call these ‘plot points’).  Turns out, there were a few.  I still haven’t cleaned all of those up to my own satisfaction.  Yet.  I will.  I have a list now!

I also ended up reordering certain parts of the book.  Certain chapters really needed to happen in a different sequence in order to fall into my original vision: A very rough week in the life of our hero.

So, I keep plodding along.  I now think of it as ‘days’ and not really chapters (though there are chapters) and days 1-3 are complete.  4-7 are the ones I’m still working with.  it’s no coincidence that these are also the most heart wrenching for our hero.  She really gets put through the ringer.

Side projects still come up – I think they have to in order to keep us sane.  I don’t know about other writers, but I always find myself thinking of new things to write and if I don’t get them out of my head, at least as a story idea and not a full fledged story, I’ll either lose them altogether or will drive myself nuts with the desire to work on them.  So I put them ‘on paper’ where I can come back to them later.  Or, if it’s something quick, I write it up.  Either way works well for me.

Life

Life is good.  House is good, though I’m not sure about one house.  I’m on a culdesac now and the people straight across from me are strange.  Cars come and go all day, sometimes they get pulled into the garage where they stay for some time and get worked on.  They almost always have 7 or 8 cars and 1 box truck parked around the house and teenagers coming and going all hours of the day and night.

Yesterday, I think one of them actually shot at my house with a pellet or bb gun.

No idea what’s going on there but I’m watching em.  We’ll see…

Began a new podcast last week: The Functional Nerds.  Right now, that’s me and John Anealio from Scifisongs.blogspot.com but we’ve talked about adding some other people into the mix, which should prove quite fun.

I still haven’t decided if this is going to be the only podcast or if I’ll continue with the atfmb podcast.

Ok, I think that’s enough for now.  Thanks for reading.

~P