Thinking

I’m starting to feel old…well not really. I’m just noticing things that hint at that more often. For example, those drop down menus on websites that you have to select the year you were born from. I use to never have to search or scroll to find my year. Now I do. And always farther down too.

I’ll be watching a news broadcast, and see someone my age. I’ll be reading an article or book and see a photo of the author; and realize they are my age too. But to me they look older, much older.

I use to think that I didn’t see myself as other people do, and I’m right in a way I suppose. I have been told that I don’t look my age let alone feel it. I apparently look younger, by about ten years.

It could be the weight loss. It could be the new glasses. It COULD be the fashion advice my wife imparts to me which I now more easily accept. (I finally disposed of those like new green jeans that I bought back in my early 20′s.) It could be any number of things. Which, I don’t really know. And quite frankly it doesn’t really matter. You’
re only as old as you feel.

Updates

I hope you’re still patiently checking this site, dear reader.

Update: At one point in this blogs life I had posted about my endeavours to lose weight. I believe I had posted that I was currently around 215-220lb. To much for someone of my stature. I’m pleased to say that as of this morning I am now below 200lb & very determined to keep losing. It’s another 30-40lbs to go, but seeing that I’ve reached this point, (which I attribute to my wife for the most part. She’s inspired me very much in this area.) I intend to keep moving in the right direction.

In another update, my story attempt is still progressing, but not as fast as I had intended. But I’m sticking with it as best I can for the moment, and will continue to do so. To be fair my novel attempt is still a work in progress, but I did finish up 2 other short stories in the meantime. I’m hoping to polish these up and submit them to a few magazines in the near future. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Take Care!

Amazon endeavour

I don’t know why but I’m feeling rather crumby today. I should be over the moon. I just finished up my first e-book last night and it is now listed on Amazon.com

It’s a collection of five short stories I’ve written. And I’m quite pleased with getting it out there finally. I did have the stories posted on my other web page, but took them off a while ago when I decided to attempt this endeavour. It took a bit to get it all together, but now it’s out there for the world to read. I hope to compile another volume in the near future. I have a couple more short stories pretty much ready to go & tons of ideas for more. I just need to get them all out on paper to make the next collection. And I’m also still working on my novel. Anyways that’s my news for now. Maybe telling you all this will brighten my day.

A voice from the past…

Well, I bet you all thought I’d fallen off the edge of the earth; but no, I am still here. However, I’ve been focusing on other things/projects for the last while, or at least attempting too. So this little side note in my life has slipped by the wayside for now. I may pick up with it more after a while, but for now posts will be sparse and few, as you can tell. Do keep checking in now and then. I will eventually get into a better routine and have something to say more often. And if you know me in person you know this is the better way for you to hear me.

TTYL!

Hi ho, Hi ho, it’s off to work I go

Every day when I leave for work I ask myself a very, very important and profound question…Did I put my pants on?

It’s crazy I know. Of course I put my pants on! I would really have to be slipping to have forgotten that! But it always comes to mind. And I don’t know why.

I suppose it could be that every now and then I have a dream about going somewhere important and forgetting my pants. Heck! I had dreams like that all through out my high school experience! And never once did I forget.

And speaking about high school and dreams; I still dream about going back to school. Just dream, as in sleeping, not really going back to school. The funny thing is in my dream I have to go back and complete my final year to graduate, and it’s an ongoing dream. (And I already did graduate by the way.) In my dream I’m back again for yet another attempt. It’s not a dream that repeats itself, but one that seems to be a continuation of the last one. I’m back for my second try, then my third, forth, etc, etc. And this is not all in the same dream. They can span days, months, or even years. It’s been almost (*gasp*) twenty years since I graduated. You’d think I stop having school on the brain. And it’s not like anything earth shattering ever happened to me while there. The only plausible reason I can come up with for this reoccurrence is that I finished up half a year early and then didn’t go to the graduation ceremony. Maybe in the recesses of my mind it doesn’t feel like I completed the year, even though I did, just early. Regardless I hope I can shake these re-occurring high school dreams eventually…I’m getting tired of having to go back to class!

ZZZZzzzzzzzz…..

March already!

Well, I would say you are due for an update, whoever you are, dear reader. Or should I be presumptuous and say ‘readers’? I believe I have now surpassed 1000 visits, but I can’t help but think that a lot of those are me checking out how the site looks!

The writing is still coming along and I am on track for the year, although I would like to be ahead, but I will take what I can at the moment. I am up to 13% complete, which does put me finishing up in December. I’m hoping after I finish some needed work around the house it will be easier to take time to write and I’ll get more done.

On a side note I have found that my idea is being used elsewhere in the writing world as well. One site I receive a newsletter from on writing just suggested the same thing I am doing, writing a little bit each day. Kinda nice to know the professional do this too. Makes me feel like I might know a thing or two about what I’m attempting to do.

Type, type, type…

A spending we will go!!

Gift certificates and gift cards are great things. My wife and I have been able to put these to good use this month. This week we went on a shopping spree (online) for clothes for our little buddy and a few pleasantries for us, (books & DVD’s). Total cost of said items –about $126. Actual cost to us after redeeming our cards/certificates…$4. Now that is fun!! I’m hoping to be able to do this more often, especially with the book/DVD store. Our secret; a reputable online survey site that rewards you with points that can be redeemed a number of ways, one of which is gift cards. Between the two of us we can bank a fair number of points and redeem them. A nice way to be paid for our opinions and time.

My writing attempt is going better than I thought. I have a formula set up in Excel to calculate my word count to date. I had thought I was below my needed amount per day, and I seemed to keep falling behind, (I was missing a day now and then) but then I realized I was only including the word count for January, but the day total for both January and February! Since I added in my word count from both months, I am again above my needed total and currently on track for completion in October. I will update the tracking on the right in the near future, but just to let you know, I have completed 10% of my needed total. I will definitely need to re-write what I have so far, but that is expected. And that can/will be fun!

Stay tuned!!

Update to Create

My lack of posting is not due to a lack of writing. Well maybe a little. I have slipped a bit on frequency through no fault of my own. I am at my limit at the moment of 330 words per day. But that will change, and soon. I’m hoping to increase it back up to 800 per day, but I have to take drastic measures…. I have to get up even earlier. Right now I shoot for 6am, but it’s not working out. I still don’t seem to have enough time. So I think I need to push it back another half hour. Yep, 5:30am. Not pleasant, at least for me, but I think I can then squeeze in a good half hour of just writing. Of course this will mean that I likely will not write in the evening, but get to bed at a decent hour. I’ll see how it goes and if it works, and I’m not too tired, I’ll keep with it. I do find that my creativity seems a little more fluid in the mornings. Hopefully that will carry through, at 5:30am.

Yawn…..

ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…. Best Seller!…zzzzzzzzzz….Masterpiece….zzzzzzzzzzzz………..Must read…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…….Oprah’s Book Club…zzzzzz…..Booker prize…zzzz…..Classic…..

Snow, snow, and more snow.

I missed a day again! But in my defence I did spend a large portion of the evening clearing out the driveway from all the snow. If it’s light and fluffy I can power through it in under an hour. Last night, it was almost 2 full hours before I was finished. Yeah, it ‘was’ a lot! I’m hoping to get some writing in tonight, and a bit, if possible on the weekend. I’m not far off from my goal for the month, and considering I only started in the middle of January I consider it pretty good. If I can get in that sort of writing in half a month, just imagine what I can do with a full month. And then consider if I can write twice a day! Needless to say it makes me excited and motivated to keep plugging away.

I imagine your wondering too if you’ll get to read what I’ve written and I imagine at some point I ‘may’ post something here for your perusal. I say may because if I polish this work enough, and I intended to polish the ‘heck’ out of it, I’m hoping to get it published. And if that is my goal, and it is, publishers frown on printing something that already available for free online. And if, or rather when, I have this story published I’m sure I will be able to link a preview of the first chapter or so. So hold tight and be patient, it will be at least a year or two before you’ll be able to read anything from my efforts. Yes a long time I know, but I have allowed a year to write all this out and then there is editing, and re-editing. Then it’s a new adventure for me again as I have to figure out what is the best way to go about getting this work out there to you. An agent? Directly to the publisher? Or; self-publishing? Each has it’s own pros and cons, costs and benefits. Which one to chose is still up in the air and a long ways off. But I think it’s good to research these things well in advance and not just make a snap decision when the time comes. Any suggestions from you, dear reader, would be welcome.

Plugging away.

More Progress

Today is a mess outside. Freezing rain and snow. And ‘extremely’ slow here at work. I’m hoping for a ‘snow day’. We’ll see.

I have managed to bring my word average up from last nights efforts. I’m now up to early June for my completion date. Still not as good as April, but I may be able to improve it even more if I can have a few more writing sessions like I did last night. I almost made it to 900 words for the day, (my best effort so far is 2205 in a day) nearly three times what is required. And the story scene was flowing nicely after hitting a few rough patches. Now I can move on to the next portion, and I may have a traveling companion for the main character that I wasn’t expecting. It’s funny how a story goes sometimes. You have an idea at first, an outline so to speak, but as you write more things or ideas come to mind and they work so well you adjust your original plans. I think this may be the case here. I guess we’ll just have to type and see.

Word.