Just Rambling

Since it was payday, Old What’s Her Face and I had date night Friday. We decided to try a new place. It’s fancy and they did a good job on the building. It was the mirror opposite of the burger joint we visited two weeks ago.

If you remember, I finished a burger the size of my head and thought I was going to die. Friday I ordered grilled ahi. It was supposed to come with black rice, spinach, corn salsa, and avocado.

The tuna was sliced and spread across the bed containing everything else. If you reassembled it, it would be about 3” x 3” and 3/4 inch thick. The black rice looked really cool, but tasted like dirt. No seasonings of any kind. There were two spinach leaves, a spoonful of corn, and I swear to God, one piece of avocado about the size of a sugar cube.

I mentioned this last time, but restaurants seem to find those extremes these days. Way too much, or not enough. The tuna was great, I’ll give them that much. For the price of my ahi, I could have bought three burgers the size of my head.

We’ve been watching some shows on the premium services. I watched a Netflix vampire movie this evening. Why does a skinny female vampire lift a huge man off his feet with one hand, but later in the film struggle to drag a wounded ally away before the sun rises?

Also, why does every damned vampire story seem to have a character named Victor or Viktor? Pay attention and you’ll notice it, too.

I introduced an alien woman in my WIP and named her Taisiya. I found it in a naming list and thought it was cool. Try actually spelling it the same way twice when it comes up every third page or so.

My WIP also has a character named Auburn. Do you know how many damned times I’ve typed out Amber? I finally did a word search to fix them all to this point.

I caught a couple of times where I wanted the Snakeworks, but wrote out the Skunkworks instead. Have to dodge that one, because it’s a real place. Word search to the rescue again.

I really try to take this stuff seriously and bring new things to the table. I worry about low-hanging fruit and try to shake things up. If I ever write a vampire named Victor, just shoot me.

We checked out the first couple episodes of Endgame. Truthfully, I watched it for Morena Baccarin. Old What’s Her Face probably had a different reason. Honestly, it’s really fun. It’s so complicated I can’t see it having a long run, but I’m going to stick with it.

Managed a tiny bit of writing today, and my damned crew still hasn’t left the Snakeworks. I never intended to get a lot done today, but there are a couple-three interesting things that happened there. Percy and Buffer are disabled veterans. She has a prosthetic arm, and his is only a finger. They are very close, so I had them wake up together after a drunken debacle.

Percy is a genetically engineered Space Chimp, and she’s a human. I wrote it such that nothing happened, but it changes their dynamic. I’m going to try getting some mileage out of the term, “Mostly Human.” Genetically, he’s close. Physically, she’s referring to her missing arm. Buffer’s really hung up about the stump of her arm.

Hope I can do something creative with it. Maybe they can have a discussion where it comes up, then he can buy her a necklace that say’s “Mostly Human,” or something. I’m still dwelling on it. Hope I can make it good.

I have a Sunday regular thing where I call my parents. It’s just Mom now, but I call her every Sunday. Maybe after that I can finally send my fictional crew back to space.

Hope all of you are having a great weekend. Leave me some comments. What do you think about character names, off-beat lovers, Morena Baccarin (Loved her since V).? Anything, really.

Sometimes you get rained out

I don’t know why I started this with an old baseball reference, but there you have it. I didn’t accomplish a whole lot this weekend.

I finished the MS for The Midnight Rambler, but it needs something I just can’t put my finger on. I came to that conclusion because it’s shorter than other stories about Lizzie and the hat. Another 4000 words would give it a similar length. I made an editing pass and deleted even more words.

This one has a lot of loose ends to wrap up. I did this with short sections, using either section breaks or artwork panels. (This is the series with silly graphics included.) The end feels like chunk, chunk, chunk. I need a better idea of how to wrap this one, and it might even add a few words if I’m lucky. Time might bring me a few better answers.

I read a couple of short novels and posted reviews across all three platforms. I enjoyed this part of my weekend.

Old What’s Her Face and I made a trip to Home Depot, then used a Christmas gift card to go to dinner. Date night was fun, but I ate way too much. Restaurants seem to either deliver postage stamp sized entrees, or pile the plate to overflowing.

No idea what to do over the holiday tomorrow. I want to work on Midnight Rambler, but know it should rest for a bit. I could jump back to my unnamed space opera. If I do this, it will probably involve reading what I already have to make sure I set the next stage.

It was a fairly unproductive weekend, and I don’t really care. Wish I had more news to deliver to everyone. The last couple of years have been kind of brutal, and if my personal life slows down a little, that’s okay.

I hope all of you had great weekends, whether you were relaxing or trying to be productive. I’m going to take 2022 as it comes.

I need to get more accomplished

I’m in a phase where I need to get Lanternfish ready to publish. If everything goes according to plan, that will be in November. I’m also pushing Good Liniment for sometime this winter.

In the mean time, I need to write about nine blog posts. I have two of them. I also need a good topic for Story Empire. I feel like I’m getting close to an idea, but it needs more work.

Reading and writing have to go out the window this weekend. As soon as I finish all that, I need to be thinking about some way of promoting Lanternfish and how that’s going to look.

November seems like a long ways away, but it will be here before I know it.

Old What’s Her Face and I had date night early this evening. We went to the fair and ate food that’s bad for us. It isn’t as hot as most years, but involves a lot of walking to even get out of the parking lot. I took a few photos and can share those.

Pumpkins seem like they’re off a couple of hundred pounds this year. I still like to see them. I’m an Autumn kind of guy and it makes me look forward to the season.

This one is a different variety. They’re flatter and have deeper grooves in them. I really need to look up the name. This is because I have a character who has something like this for a head in a future story. Not a main character, but it’s nice to be accurate whenever possible.

This one is also a pumpkin. I have no reason to share it other than it’s weird enough that some of you might be interested. Looks like it’s covered with peanut shells.

Lots of cute floppy bunnies.

Many varieties of chickens.

And one golden pheasant.

Basically we each grabbed a prickly pear lemonade to walk around with, scoped out the food vendors, then walked through the exhibits. We didn’t even look for the pigs and such this year.

I ate a(n) gyro as big as my head, and we split a bag of churros. That’s about it. The concerts are lousy this year, and we aren’t carnival age any more.

Gyro poses an interesting question. Since it’s pronounced eero, I prefer to put “an” before it. Since it’s spelled with a consonant, it looks like it should be an “a.” It’s a blog post, so who cares. I’ll be careful not to put them in any of my fiction.

Rambles from the real world

I get a three day weekend once more. This is the end of my fun shift, then I get a short weekend in the middle before it starts all over again. This weekend wasn’t earmarked for writing, but it could still happen. Monday is probably my best chance.

Our daughter came overnight, and I wanted to spend any available time with her. She didn’t get to come on her birthday, so Old What’s Her Face wanted to take her out. Even this wound up being a compromise. She had to go home this afternoon to work Sunday.

When you write a series about a twenty-something female, it’s nice to compare notes with my daughter. She helps with some of Lizzie’s outfits, and knows some things I wouldn’t even think of. I’m good with monsters, freaky things, and even old-school music. When it comes to wrap dresses, nail art, and some of those things I appreciate the help.

We settled for lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. We’re both so full, it will serve as dinner and lunch. Still ordered dessert to go, so that will suffice this evening. I had mine early, maybe I won’t have heartburn all night by doing that.

Saw a cool whale-tale Porsche in the mall parking lot. This one had custom paint. It was pink, but so dark it was nearly purple. Doesn’t mean anything, really, I just thought it was cool. It was obviously well loved.

Came home and caught the Derby. There might have been some future book research involved, but not to the extent that I failed to enjoy the event. He never stood a chance, but I liked the name of one horse, Soup & Sandwich. He actually started strong, but finished dead last. He was also a pretty blue roan. Also, lots of pretty girls in hats. That could play into a future story after I give it some thought.

As far as accomplishing anything, after our daughter left, I wrote one blog tour post. This one involves Lisa visiting someone and handing out a poster. I don’t have the poster yet, but feel like I am a step ahead. I don’t even have a blurb yet, so I’ll have to tag that onto any posts I get written after the fact.

We had an awesome thunderstorm this afternoon. Lots of lightning and a downpour the likes of something we haven’t seen in a year. The dogs were hilarious, running out in the rain to bark, then racing inside because it was raining so hard.

Sundays usually aren’t good writing days. I call my parents, mess with bulldogs and other important things. There should be time to pre-write more blog tour posts. That will be my goal.

When it comes to Monday, I’m off, will have the house to myself, might score some quality writing time then.

Hope all of you are having great weekends. I am.

Wrapping up the weekend

We did some random things this weekend without completely going out in public.

Saturday became a writing day, too. I managed about 2800 words on the day, so it was better than Friday. I think I need to start skipping ahead on the warfare and have an idea how to accomplish that. Wednesday is my flex day, so I might give it a shot. This story has a lot to accomplish beyond the war.

We managed some takeout from Wingers on Saturday night. Made for leftovers tonight. Nothing too special, but I always liked their sticky wings.

During Wingers, we watched Mortal Combat. It was exactly as advertised. Brutal, action packed, not angling for an Academy Award.

Speaking of the awards, Old What’s Her Face insisted on watching the red carpet show. She does not want to watch the actual awards, but the fashion seemed to make her happy. While it was on, I hooked up a few more hoses and puttered about that way.

I watched a few episodes of a new show called Shadow and Bone on Netflix. I’m still not sure I like it. That seems to be how Netflix things work. By the time it wraps, I usually put them in the win column.

It’s just basic life around here. Happy to have worked on my story. We rented a movie and hung out.

Consider this an extra

I admit to getting fairly lax about updating Entertaining Stories in the last year. Let’s face it, 2020 didn’t leave us much to talk about. Everything that happened in my life happened in yours, too.

As we step into 2020 things are trying to improve. The goal of this blog has always been writing related, so let’s start there.

Yesterday I found some writing time. This is the regrouping phase of the big Lanternfish battle. A lot happened, and nobody knows all of it. Visitors showed up in the aftermath and helped spell some of it out. James spent a bit of time looking in on his wounded, and with the visitors’ help, they set some new goals.

He managed to overlook his missing son. I still need to address this from his POV somehow. I sent Mule and Yoshiko on an ill-advised quest to recover Mule’s knife. This is the haunted knife from Giapon with a mind of its own. When I ended, they were following a trail of murder and mayhem across the battlefield. I didn’t do too much, and only added enough to get started next time. Whatever it came to didn’t match the huge word count of Friday.

After that, Old What’s Her Face and I decided to go someplace to eat. It’s payday weekend, so it’s nice to have a slice of our former lives. It didn’t amount to anything fancy, but it’s Lobsterfest at Red Lobster. We had a nice dinner, then went home.

After supper, we watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier as far as they’ve been released. It’s interesting so far. Secondary characters trying to carry a story and it’s functional.

We also managed to watch Kong vs Godzilla on Friday night, and I really liked it. Could have done without all that hollow Earth crap, but I liked the film. Adventure galore, but they swung and missed on the traditional messages. Godzilla was always about an environmental warning, and Kong had this tragic emotional thing going on. They tried with some kind of high-tech weapon and a tiny deaf girl, but it just didn’t work. Let’s face it, it’s geared toward them beating the crap out of each other and it accomplishes that.

Somewhere in the midst of everything else, I managed to edit one chapter of Lunar Boogie. I should be doing more, but there it is.

Today, I frittered around with social media after talking to my parents. I determined to do something and went into an alternate room. There was writing time, the possibility of editing, but I decided to read instead. I don’t do enough reading, so it feels productive to me. (First third of a new novel in one shot is pretty good for my reading.)

It was a good weekend. I got the chance to be productive and balanced that with some real life.

I get a Wednesday flex day this week and have it earmarked for more Lanternfish. Other than that, it’s back to work in the real world.

Unexpected progress

This is my short weekend, and my wife is off at the same time. I never really expected any writing progress, so I’m pleasantly surprised.

I have a tree I need to prune and we wanted to check out a new restaurant while we still had some Biden Bucks in our account.

Old What’s Her Face insisted we hit the restaurant at 11:00, because it’s so new. A big lunch will require us to skip dinner, but it turned out to be a pretty good idea. When arrived, there was already a line down the sidewalk.

The place is called Sid’s Garage, and it’s a burger joint, but a really upscale burger joint. I had something called the Jekyll & Hyde burger. (Really, how could I pass up something with that name.) It had a grilled peach atop a Wagyu beef patty. It was wonderful.

We shared a basket of Parmesan truffle fries, and a small plate of flash fried deviled eggs. I’ve never even heard of something like this. They’re like the love child of deviled eggs and Scotch eggs.

They also have fancy milkshakes. It’s to early for beer, so I went for one that was peach and pralines with a bit of bourbon maple flavor to it. It looked like this. Oh yeah, there was a crumble of candied bacon on top.

I mentioned writing, so here’s that brief. I never planned on writing. Somehow, I wound up closing myself into an alternate room before lunch and tearing into my project. Before it was time to get ready, I dealt with moving Lanternfish into position for the big battle.

After a bunch of orders and prep, it was time for the cannon to roar and a whole new kind of trouble to face my crew. Exploding monks made an appearance, but I had to stop just before Mal pulled one of his witch doctor shenanigans to benefit the war effort.

I’m telling you, things were really working for me this morning. It came to 2500 words and I feel like I could have doubled that given the time.

Sometimes, you have to spend time with your wife and chow down on something incredibly bad for you. With that kind of word count, I think today was a big win all around.

I morn for the lost time

This weekend wasn’t a productive one for me. My wife was off, and we tend to hang out together. (Imagine that.)

We dedicated a bit of time complaining about how our furnace went out. This one is all computerized and the numeric codes don’t really tell us anything. She didn’t want to call someone over the weekend, because they gouge you. I’m okay with this, too. We’ve been using alternate sources to take the chill off and it has been decent weather as well.

We went to Old Chicago last night, masks and all, for beer and pizza. We also rented Monster Hunter with Milla Jovovich. (Don’t waste your time or money.)

What I didn’t do was write. I feel bad, because weekends are about all I have. I managed one page of dialog and that’s it. Dialog sections tend to have a lot of white space on the page, so there isn’t much as far as word count goes.

I am going to get an hour to myself today when she goes to town. Rather than force things, I’m going to spend my time reading.

I’ve run into a section in Lanternfish that requires some micro-plotting. You know I use storyboards with broad things I have to check off, but between the index cards, I occasionally run into something like this.

Normally, I would jump to another story, but I’ve finished Lunar Boogie, and am loath to start a new one until I finish Lanternfish. I know the next one up is Good Liniment and it will suck me in and keep me from Lanternfish.

What I need is a good solid twist in my story. Jumping projects usually makes one come to me. Perhaps reading will do the same thing. Next weekend isn’t looking like a good one for writing either. Hopefully, I can come up with my twist inside of two weeks.

Hope all of you are happy, productive, and warm.

Checking in

I really don’t have much to report this week. I wound up with company for yet another weekend. Our daughter only managed to stay one night, then had to go home to work a shift. It was nice getting to see her for a bit.

My work week was busy, and the next one is likely to be just as busy. This is fine by me, but I feel it sapping my energy on my days off. Maybe it’s an age thing. After our daughter left, I really didn’t try to do much of anything.

Old What’s Her Face and I had date night last night. We went to one of our favorite places and had prime rib. It’s also a substantial beer garden, so I got to sample some wonderful new things. It was nice getting out, just the two of us.

Beyond that, I managed to send out a critique chapter, and marked up one for another member of the group. Mine all came back, but I haven’t tried to address them yet.

I used my sourdough to start a loaf of bread, but it isn’t looking too good. It’s better if it can raise overnight. Sourdough is not quick rising yeast. I’m cooking it for supper, so if it’s too heavy, so be it.

Next weekend is a three day weekend for me, so maybe I’ll get some new words down then. This post was mostly for me to check in. There’s nothing too special to report, but I’m still kicking.

Gotta write something…

It was a busy week at work. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. When you combine that with my short weekend, I didn’t get a damned thing accomplished on the writing front.

Next week is looking like it’s going to be just as busy, but I have a three day weekend at the far end.

I managed to dabble a bit, but it doesn’t amount to anything I can see. I marked up some work for a critique partner. I’ve been sitting on my own critiques for a week and finally addressed those. Then I sent out another section, but I wrote that two weeks ago.

I also hacked out my next Story Empire post, but it needs some work. Beyond that, I added a few words to my Jason Fogg short story in the evenings, and that’s it. This stuff counts, and it has to be done, but it isn’t the same as one of my 3000 word writing sessions.

Old What’s Her Face and I ordered takeout, then watched whatever we could find on television. That’s kind of boring, too. I’ve decided that most takeout doesn’t travel well. Sweet and sour chicken is great at the restaurant, but becomes a big dough ball by the time it gets home. Anyplace we’ve gone that comes with fries tends to work out the same way.

When it comes to take it and bake it pizza, or a bucket of chicken, that stuff works well. Maybe it’s because they’ve had decades to perfect the product.

Don’t lose faith in me. I intend to have two more releases this year, and inclusion in an anthology. Some weekends are better than others.

Looking forward to next weekend and maybe I can move one of my stories ahead. Hope all of you are safe and well. Those of you who write, I hope you had a productive weekend.