From weird to productive

Today is my flex day, and I started off with no idea how it was going to go.

I’ve had 1.1 hours of comp time on the books for a couple of years now, so I decided to simply waste it and come home early last night. It was one of the best things I ever did. For some reason, I was wiped out going into the afternoon.

When I got home, I crawled into bed, freezing, and slept for over two hours. Old What’s Her Face even played ball with the dogs, and I didn’t stir. She said they tried bringing me their toys and I never woke up. She had to shake me to come to supper.

I wound up sleeping around eleven hours last night, and only woke up when Otto decided he was hungry. For whatever reason, I feel great today.

I wasn’t feeling particularly creative, but I wrote anyway. That’s what I have to do with sporadic times available to me. I snuck back in. Meaning I backed up a couple of chapters to do some light edits and get back into it.

Percy was in the process of blowing crap up, and that made it easier. I didn’t plan it that way, but it was a fortunate accident.

I finished the adventure part, then moved into the assessment phase. There’s really only a couple of things left to do before book one is finished.

This will leave me with a decision to make. I could write another Hat story, but I already have one in the can. It’s probably a better move to write something completely different. It would be a bit more grim than I’ve written lately, and a stand alone tale.

The word count came to almost exactly 2000 today, so I’m pretty pleased with it.

In other news, my peach tree is in full bloom. Earlier this week it would have made a great picture covered with snow and ice, but the overcast skies didn’t make for good photography. I snapped a quick one, then updated my background. I also changed my header for a different look. It’s Springtime now, so it was time to give the old blog a facelift.

I took this cool photo

I had a lunch meeting today. I usually don’t see the sun this time of year, because of how my commute is timed. Aside from the window in my office, it’s usually the darkness for me.

However, as I left the building, there is this decorative pond which is also a drainage site for the building. It froze, then the water level dropped. I thought it looked like a topographic map, others in my office thought it looked like an agate.

It was worthy of a photo, so I snapped one.

It was so cool, I cropped one side, then used as blog wallpaper. The stones are kind of cool in it, too. What do you think?

Chipping away at things

I allowed myself to sleep in this morning. I think I could have lasted another hour, except for my wild alarm clock. There was a duck quacking right outside my window. It's kind of funny when you think about it. I still got to sleep in, but it is what it is. What do you think possessed him to come in my yard and act like that? I expect this out of the tiny birds, but waterfowl should be better behaved.

When I got up, my daughter was already downstairs. Saturday is usually my best writing day, but this Saturday was going to have to be a compromise.

I managed to get my wallpaper changed for May. It is a little bit cramped on my iPad, but it looks great on the Mac. I'm going to assume it looks great on PCs and laptops. I'm sure it never looks good on phones, but I can't help that.

I assembled next week's Lisa Burton Radio post, and it promises to be a fun one. I also spent some time working on future posts in this arena, and it looks like I'll be able to keep it going for a while.

I checked my sales page, and it looks like a few more sales recently, and a few pages read. The sales are mostly due to the Wild Concept sale, but there are a few Experimental Notebooks, and Playgrounds mixed in. The pages read are mostly The Playground.

I received a couple of invitations, and need to ponder them. I love challenging assignments, so I'll have to see what I can come up with here. I have about a third of one in mind, and maybe my Muse will show up and inspire me for the rest.

I found a great new 5 star review for Experimental Notebook. The reviewer said, “Mr. Boyack must be a strange man. I like the way he thinks.”

You know, I probably am a strange man, because this quote gives me great pleasure. I've been cracking up about it since last night. Besides that, 5 stars is awesome! Reviews have been really hard to get lately, so I'm thrilled.

I played around a bit more with my art app. I'm getting a big kick out of messing with the blog banner. I have a bunch of ideas, but not a lot of talent. We'll all find out together if I can pull it off.

I spent some time surfing around for stuff to use in Lisa's artwork. It seems like I have more ideas than money to get the art made. This round is so I can stockpile stuff to use on the blog, Facebook, etc. I have other ideas for specific book promotions. I consider this to be research, but it isn't totally unpleasant. There are a lot of retro pinup models online these days. It kind of makes me want another antique car. I used to have one I took to car shows in the last century.

Other than that, I haven't been very productive. The new issue of Heavy Metal arrived the other day, but I haven't taken the wrapper off yet. My wife wants to take me for beer and pizza tonight, so that's good. I know it's her plan to trick me into shopping for shirts at the mall. I need some new short sleeve shirts, and beer is always good. I'm going to go along with her nefarious plan, and not tell her I'm onto her.

Hope you guys are having a great weekend.

A few random musings

I’m not completely ready to let go of Halloween. A few days ago I updated my wallpaper with a mad science motif. No apologies. I did my backgrounds by whatever month it was for a year. I’m going to go with things I like for now.

I gave the blog a bit of a facelift. I reduced the size of my book links. I may have taken them too far down. I thought they were starting to overwhelm the page. Let me know what you think. I may take them back up a notch.

I also added the link to the free Kindle apps. People don’t need to own a Kindle to read ebooks. They probably already own a suitable device. I encourage every independent author out there to do this. Let’s make it easy for our consumers to read our books.

I’m still toying with the idea of a new theme. I’d like to find one that would accommodate my linked book covers with a slider or rotating gallery. I found one called itheme, but the image orientation is horizontal, and I need vertical. I’m open to suggestions if you have any. (This is a free WordPress blog, and I’d like to keep it that way.)

Here’s the random musing part of this post. Why hasn’t anyone created computers, phones, iPads, Kindles, and Nooks that we can focus? See, the thing is that I wear glasses. When I’m using my iPad, like now, nobody else is using it, just me. Why can’t some creative soul allow me to focus the screen so I can take these Damned glasses off for an hour or two?

Chime in on my modifications or if you know of a theme I should check out.

Another month bites the dust

The thunderstorms of June are gone now. Oh sure, there could be a stray one here or there. July is all about heat here in Idaho. The morning weather is predicting over 100° for Wednesday.

We’ll probably have to water our hanging baskets morning and night if they aren’t going to dry up completely.

It won’t be long before fire season takes a foothold. I decided the background for July should indicate the summer heat. It would have been easy enough to put up some fireworks for the Fourth of July. That just seems like the easy way out.

Enjoy the parched western desert from Death Valley as my July background.

The Monthly Makeover

We ran down the street to Sully’s Irish Pub tonight. The work week is over, and it was time for some food that’s bad for us. I added a couple frosty mugs of Smithwick’s and all is right with the world.

I decided to give the old blog it’s monthly makeover. Last month was mayflies. It would have been easy to load junebugs as my June background. It just felt too easy.

June has always been the month of summer thunderstorms. I decided to go with a cool lightning photo. I hope you guys like it.

I have some neat things going on for the blog this weekend. I have to post my writing process blog tour tomorrow. The blog update was just a little taste.

Now it’s time for Westly to rescue Buttercup, Inigo Montoya to avenge his father, and me to check out your blogs.

Blog Changes for April, and some Writing Fun

It’s a new month. Well, somewhere in the world it probably is. I have to write these where I find time.

This always starts with a new wallpaper, or background. It’s too easy to choose April flowers, or even Easter eggs & bunnies. I’m going with April Fools Day.

I also deleted my blogroll from the right hand column. This is the place where everyone posts a list of blogs they enjoy. I had some good ones, but they aren’t getting a lot of love. I check my stats, and I don’t see where anyone is clicking on them. I’m not wasting any more real estate on them.

Sometimes you just have to change things up.

I used a photograph of The Fool from an old Tarot deck I own. Readers and writers may appreciate him. There are a series of special cards in the Tarot. I think these are called the Major Arcana cards.

The fool is the first one of the cards in a sequence. Together they tell a story of the fool’s journey. When our novice starts out, he is bright eyed, bold, and well – foolish.

Those of you who study the writing monomyth, the hero’s journey, screenwriting beats, or even fairy tale structure may want to take a look. The tarot is another such journey that can help with your stories. The cards represent development from fool to a godlike being. There are many people he meets along his journey.

It isn’t the same as the other structures, but it can make for an interesting tale. You wouldn’t even have to buy a book. This stuff is all over the internet. Check it out.

Maybe I’m too subtle

I see blog readers from Vietnam, Canada, India, and more. In the US we have a major holiday called Thanksgiving. The Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving, but it’s a different day.

The holiday involves a major feast where turkey is the main course. I wanted to reflect the seasons on my blog, but I might be too subtle. The background image is of wild turkey tracks in the snow.

I’m really excited to have international readers and followers. This explanation is so they can be in on my subtitle holiday reference too.