B. W. I.

Okay, not particularly intoxicated, but well lubricated. What does an author blog about when he isn’t writing? Stuff like this.

When we walked into Old Chicago at the Boise Town Square Mall, the Blood Mobile was parked out front.

Old What’s Her Face asked, “Do you want to donate, dear?”

I said, “Yes, but I want to donate from that guy over there. Grab him.”

You probably had to be there, but we had a good laugh.

They actually had a Belgian beer on tap tonight, and those are kind of hard to come by. I had two. I had two different ones as well.

Supper was mediocre at best, but I got to actually watch a Diamondbacks game on their televisions, and they actually won. (A rare thing these days.)

My pizza was one of those with so much sauce the toppings all slid into my lap. Otherwise it was wonderful, but it wasn’t what I’ve become accustomed to at OC.

Old What’s Her Face went for a pedicure while I watched the game and swilled good beer. She has her thing, and I have mine.

I’m not going to get to write this weekend, but I did work on a blog post for Story Empire. It’s all scheduled now. If you enjoy the Expansion Pack series, there is another one up on Wednesday.

My daughter made a surprise visit this weekend, and we had a nice chat. She even offered to cut Dad’s hair, and I couldn’t pass that up. She really does a good job.

While this isn’t a writing weekend, I have some vacation time scheduled. I’m milking the flex schedule, and by taking two ten-hour days off, I actually get six days off in a row. It all starts next Friday. My hope is to give Lanternfish a good launch.

Aside from that, I need to work on some blog tour posts for Viral Blues. The release will be upon me before I know it. I want to do a tour of favorite sites, but I may get a mutual promo tour with some friends going, too. I’m kind of excited about that. We all draw some people and the crowd is bigger because of that. Maybe one of their regulars will be interested in my release, and maybe one of mine will be interested in theirs. More on that later.

We have some home improvement stuff to deal with tomorrow and I’m dreading it. I’m not a tool guy, and not particularly handy in that department. I’ve replaced the kitchen faucet before, but I really don’t think my back is up to it these days. I’ll update on this later. It will either be a successful replacement, or a trip to the hospital. Either way I get a blog post.

On another note, my side project is moving along well. I’m in the mucky middle, but about to move out of it. I’m finding that a side project might not move as fast as the targeted book, but it doubles my productivity.

That’s it, B. W. I. How did I do?

Home again, home again…

I have a list of things to accomplish this weekend. I intended to jump right in and get with it, but my wife intervened. At least she chose Old Chigago for entertainment. I get to blog and have beer. I'm sure she has ulterior motives, being at the mall and all that.

I made contact with a promotion service while at the convention. I may not hire them, but there is no harm in finding out how they would brand me as an author. Part of the weekend is to follow up via email with them.

I'll probably set up another Amazon campaign too. This was moderately successful the first time, and October might make a difference in this promotion.

I need to work up my critiques, but that won't take a long time. There is a novel to finish reading too.

The new television season is starting in force. My wife managed to record some season premiers for me, but we missed one. I really like Sleepy Hollow, and didn't know it premiered this week. Now I have to look into online ways of seeing what's going on. I'm open to suggestions here.

The good news is that I'm off Monday. I can actually pay attention to my wife, and still get a few things accomplished. Therefore, tonight is all about pizza and beer, probably some covert shopping too.

I may catch up with S.H.I.E.L.D. later tonight, or may not. Depends on how the evening plays out. I'm pretty sure Agent May misses me though.

Quick little update

I made absolutely zero new words on paper today. It was a golden opportunity squandered.

On the other hand, Chloe now has the last name of Chafin, because it sounds right. Chloe always was the result of a mixed marriage, and her parents are now Rob and Moriko. She’s a cute kid.

Reading her story, and only her story, today was a great exercise. I skip from leading character to leading character for sections. Chloe’s story flows pretty well. I will absolutely read Gina and Clovis seperately too as part of my second pass.

I need to decide how far down the rabbit hole to go regarding Chloe’s new therapy. Maybe it’s enough to let readers know it’s happening. Before I move on, I need one solo conversation with Chloe and the therapist. I have a line from the Playground doll that’s too good to pass up, and that convo is the setup.

My wife just rolled in with one of our granddaughters. She has to drop her off with her mom at the mall. It looks like grandma is shopping, and grandpa may get a beer at Old Chicago. I just have to get this post up before we leave.

I’ll take my phone to watch for comments.

A lazy day off

I slept in until 5:30 this morning. It’s an hour and a half later than my everyday alarm goes off. D. S. Nelson invited me to write something for her blog and today was the day we agreed it would be posted. I searched my WordPress Reader and never found it. I went through my email, but there was no notice from WordPress that my address was posted by anyone else. WordPress is doing some strange things lately, and I hope I haven’t failed to respond to anyone’s comments.

I went directly to her website and found my post. I re blogged it and made a quick comment. I encourage everyone to go visit her and support her. She’s been very kind to me and invited me over several times. Read today’s post here. Consider following her sites too. She has one for writing, and another for the pending birth of her child. She’s an interesting person and reads tea leaves on occasion too.

I fiddled around with some other projects for most of the morning; sending a couple of chapters to my cover artist, and getting my critique submission sent off. Then I read through my current work in progress.

I made a few changes, and managed to add a few hundred new words. I have to explain the situation to my heroine, and am trying to weave all this in without making it a huge info dump. It has to get in there, but I’m trying to minimize it. She has to know what she’s up against. I also gave her and one supporting character a tiny bit more personality.

Not a real productive day, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Old What’s Her Face* is taking me to Old Chicago tonight to finish up another beer tour. I get a football sweatshirt for this one.

I hope your day was more productive, but I needed this one.

* Not my wife’s actual name.

Movie and shopping

Old What’s Her Face* wanted to do something today. Our standard fare is to go to a movie. What appealed to me was Planet of the Apes, (of course, I love science fiction.) Lucy, and Hercules. I read a review that Hercules sucks and the twelve labors have nothing to do with the story. My wife felt like without Kevin Sorbo it wouldn’t be worth her effort.

She was indifferent to either one of the remaining movies. I had to choose between a beloved franchise from my youth and Scarlet Johansen strutting around in tight clothes. (Some of us like Sorbo, and some of us like Johansen. Go figure.)

You know you’re getting old when apes win out over the most beautiful woman in Hollywood. I liked the movie. There is a great parallel when Caesar can’t controls his apes, and the humans can’t control their people either. No one wants war, but they get one anyway. The bad guy is an ape named Koba. He has this wonderful ability to act like a circus performer and be completely evil at the same time. It’s one of those movies that could wait for HBO, but it was good. I think it could use more female touches.

A quick dinner at The Outback, and it was off to Old Chicago for beer. My wife went shopping. She knows just how much time to give me before she has to show me something. A few beers, a nice meal, a fun afternoon together and she’s in charge.

It was more bath towels. Here’s a question for you: What’s worse than Bed Bath and Beyond?

Answer: Nothing.

We recently spent a small fortune on bath towels at BB&B. I considered raising my insurance to cover them. My wife won’t use them, because after multiple trips through the laundry, they’re still linty.

Old What’s Her Face dragged me to Macy’s. We wound up with twice as many towels for a third as much money. They were even on sale. I always liked Macy’s. We can mix and match for colors along with the BB&B towels. We don’t dare throw those out, they’re too expensive. I wonder if we can donate the BB&B towels to the Smithsonian for a tax write off?

I didn’t goof off completely today. I edited several chapters of my epic fantasy story, The Cock of the South. I’m kind of excited to get this one out there. I don’t write a lot of fantasy, but I really enjoyed this one.

I hope everyone else had a great Saturday too.

Note: Old What’s Her Face really wants either a new camper or a new bedroom set. I do too, but they don’t have enough beer in Boise for me to fall for that one.

* Not my wife’s actual name.

Saturday Out

I went through my critiques and made some good changes to Will ‘O the Wisp this morning. There was pretty universal agreement among the group about where I could improve things.

I had a pretty common thing happen to me regarding the story this week. One of the cool things I came up with for the story occurred in a television show I saw this week. This happens to me all the time. I write something months ago, and it winds up in a show or movie before I can publish. I’ve heard I’m not the only one, and not to change a thing. My story is different, and it will have to be what it is.

We’re a couple weeks behind around here. We wanted to see the new Captain America movie weeks ago, but wound up with other commitments. Today was our day.

I thought it was a really good movie. In a series type story, the one where the good guys fall is regularly the best one. The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite of the Star Wars movies. The story here was my favorite part. That and Scarlet Johansen.

I like a good action movie, but that was the worst part of this film. The camera was in constant motion during the action scenes. Quarter second point of view angles, lots of blurs and shaking cameras. I had to look away, because it made my head hurt.

I know this is the cool new thing, but I hate it. It distracts me from the story. I don’t know if I can make a comparison to writing. All I know is pulling someone out of the story is bad.

I wound up drowning my sorrows at Old Chicago Pizza. I finished my Mexican beer tour and got my tee shirt. The beers were all very similar, and all pretty good. They aren’t my style, and if you’ve ever had a Corona you’ve got the flavor down. I’ve been drinking craft beer for quite awhile. Compared to good craft beer, they’re kind of like making love in a canoe. (Think about it for a second.)

I still have some editing and publishing type work to do, but it isn’t nearly as much fun as writing a new manuscript. I tend to hit it pretty hard, and never feel weak when I step away for a bit. I may work on a few things tomorrow, and I may not. The next two weeks at work is going to be hectic. If I have to use the weekends to just wind down, so be it.

Saturday fun

We went to see The Hobbit, the desolation of Smaug. I have to say I really enjoyed it. There was a bunch of new material crammed in there, but they’re trying to force us to buy three tickets. The material they shoehorned in made sense, in a fashion. I thought the elf/ dwarf mini romance was handled pretty well. Legolas is showing his age though.

Smaug was outstanding. With him in the film, I never missed Golum, and he’s one of my all time favorites. I think they auto tuned Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice a bit too much. I thought he sounded exactly like the goblin king from the first movie. This is unfortunate, because he has an awesome voice all by himself.

Old Chicago was packed. We waited a long time for a seat, and a nice lady approached us and offered us her booth when she left. Maybe my wife and I are looking older and more pitiful. I thought it was wonderful, and really appreciated her. I finished my holiday beer tour, but they are out of tee shirts in every size. Something about getting a Christmassy tee shirt after Christmas doesn’t turn me on. The last two beers were pretty good though. They were more like an English Bitter which I really like. Some of the others were like India Pale Ales, and I don’t like those. You have every right to, I just don’t.

I really wanted to post a picture of my cool new shirt, but they’re sending it to me. A photo won’t have as much impact after the holidays.

We’re home now. I’m looking forward to writing another thousand words tomorrow. Fingers crossed.