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So, I pondered a great deal. As per the previous post, Black Glass was getting a little rougher around the edges than I’d like, and I was getting concerned. The cure? Move back to what I’m good at for a little while.

See, it seems that whenever I’m knee-deep in 3rd person writing, I get to a point where I’m just so mired in the muck and bogged down that I can’t seem to take any forward steps at all. I needed a break from that, something familiar. And when it comes to writing, we all know what POV I have the most experience in . . .

(Hint – this blog is written in it!)

Yup, it’s time to get back into a little first-person action, ala Harael. Book #3 – Ten Arrows. It’s been mulled over long enough to get a complete outline, save for some minor details. Annoying ones, really.

See, the thing is that Vincent is clever, and thus whatever Vincent does, well, it’s bound to be clever. Most of it is spontaneous wit, flip remarks, and other stuff like that – that’s easy. But the *big* clever thing? You know, the plan that is so secret that even he barely knows anything about it? Surely you remember . . . the plan that outsmarted everyone in the whole city, that plan? I mean, he’s clever, therefore it would have to be clever, right?

Which means I have to be clever as well. Le sigh.

Sometimes while trying to come up with a plan – his plan – I find myself feeling a little resentful over the fact that he’s not the one coming up with it! He just sits back in his keep, doing Lordly things, while I’m working my butt off to-  . . .

(ahem) Anyway . . . let’s just say it isn’t easy to come up with clever “Aha! It was in plain sight all along!” kind of stuff and leave it at that.

So, I spent days trying to figure out the mechanics behind a little something that Vincent (clever fellow that he is) had put together, one of the dozens of little tricks that he’s become known for that will play a big role in the story. It’s a hard thing to do, creating a situation where several small and seemingly insignificant things are visible to readers from the very start, and yet keep them from understanding the importance of them. It’s the sort of thing that can even get me stuck from time to time.

And then, poof! Walking down the street, listening to Infected Mushroom, it came to me. Everything fit together, one shining instant. It made me smile – hell, it made me pat my own back, which is an odd thing to see someone do as they’re walking down the street. Good thing we got all these mosquitoes hanging around, so I’ve got something to blame these awkward self-congratulatory moments on.

And now, with 99.9% of the outline completely done, the only thing I’m waiting for is the “Okay, it’s time to start Book #3″ admission from myself. You know, that loud, fanfare-laden statement that rings out in the evening sky like the world’s largest collection of . . . things that ring out. That one simple statement is the only thing holding me back.

And thus . . . (straightens posture)

(clears throat)

Hey y’all! It’s time to start book #3! Hyuk!

. . .

Wow, that didn’t sound at all like I hoped it would. No cannon discharge, no fireworks in the background. Hmmm. Maybe my expectations were too high.

Update: Goal for this week – Prologue for Ten Arrows, 5 hours spent on Hamlet

Yeah, didn’t do much the whole long weekend, except go down to the heart specialist and run on a treadmill while half-naked. It’s not the sort of thing that allows you to write at the same time. So, I’ve got some lost time to make up for. Let’s get at ‘er! We’ll see how I’m doing by Wednesday.

Bit of a downer this week.

Oh sure, there’s all kinds of stuff that was going on, things I needed to kick-start here and there, and that’s to be expected. It happens most every day, and it’s why I get paid for being in an office for 40 hours a week. I accept that. In fact, I get some of my best work done during the in-between hour when I’m at work . . . swivel my chair away from my office computer and towards Beast, typing away merrily until 1:00 at which point I swivel back and return to work.

That’s not really the problem. I’m bummed out that I didn’t make one of my weekly goals. Worse, I had many opportunities, but chose instead to think long and hard about a problem.

Writing is hard work, but it shouldn’t be a struggle. Right now, with Black Glass, I’m struggling. I got to a part where there should be some stunning, shocking revelation, and it’s not really doing anything. I’ve gone ‘Ta-da!’ and there are crickets chirping. On top of that, I go back to the last few chapters and go over what I’ve put together, and I’m missing description, motivation, emotion, entire reasons for doing things. Characters are doing what they’re doing because that’s what they need to do in the story, not because they’ve come to a logical conclusion, or respond emotionally, or anything like that. It’s been an uphill struggle ever since I rewrote and broke out of Chapter 23 or so . . . meaning that the last six and a half chapters have been like trying to pull teeth.

75% of the way through, and I think it’s gotta stay there for a little while. If I keep going the way I am, I know I’ll end up hating it. I think it’s a good concept, and a good story, and I don’t want to kill it by forcing my way though too much of it during a bad patch, one where I’m writing what should be an explosive, tearful moment as a ho-hum collection of facts and wooden dialogue. It may not be as bad as all that . . . it may be a case of me overreacting, but when I’m like this I really need to just leave it for a bit and see.

So, Black Glass officially parked for the moment, 75% done. about the 65000 word mark. Maybe the target for this story needs to be 120,000 instead of 90,000 . . . who knows. I’ll figure it out later, once I’ve had a chance to let go a bit. Maybe I’m missing something really obvious, and I’m too close to see it.

I just hate not finishing something. Even when it’s only temporary.

In the meantime, I’ve got the Shakespeare stuff which is comparatively no-brainer work. It’ll fill in the gaps in the meantime, so at least I’m working on something. Once I’ve had the weekend (long weekend, woohoo!) to think about stuff, I might even have an additional something to work on as well. Something a little more first-person-ish.

Update: Black Glass – back-burner’d!

’nuff said.

Update: Hamlet

A little progress, but not much. Feel free to mock away.

Update: Ten Arrows

No, I’m not intentionally shelving Black Glass so I can start this one . . . I’d fully intended to finish BG before doing anything Tucat-like. However, I’m also coming to the conclusion that 3rd person storytelling is a lot more difficult for me than 1st person. Might just need to put that to the test with a trial chapter or two, now that the outline is more or less completely done.

Humanity really isn’t all that special, or evolved, or even nice. Wanna know how I know? I’ll tell you how I know.

Rubberneckers.

You know the ones. Accident at the side of the road, and everyone cranes their neck for a better look.

Some of us are so dead inside that even the scary, primal, direct-from-our-caveman-ancestors kind of jolt like the one I’m talking about is preferable to the numb, empty feeling that we carry around in our chests day-in and day-out. It’s like punching a wall just because you haven’t experienced pain in a while, and you want to re-familiarize yourself with the whole concept of ‘Ow, that hurt.’

Maybe it’s the involuntary (and one-hundred percent free) shot of adrenaline that you get when your subconscious starts wigging out at the sight of something dangerous, possibly fatal, that has just happened. When cavemen were roaming the mountain ranges and plains, if they came upon something like the still-bloody remains of what appeared to be a fellow caveman, survival instinct took over, and the pre-language equivalent of “Get the hell out of here right now!” would start playing inside their heads at the loudest possible volume, glands would get squeezed for every ounce of action-juice they could muster, and the caveman would flee to somewhere safe. Heart beating in their chest, they’d finally make it back to wherever it was they called ‘home’ and count their lucky stars that they didn’t end up like whats-his-face. That whole fear instinct lets us know that danger, or the potential for danger, is somewhere nearby, and that fleeing to safety is one heck of a fine idea.

Does that feel good to some of us? Living in a society that is relatively safe from violent animal attacks, fatal acts of nature and other caveman concerns, is that sort of thing something that we miss?

See, I’m not saying it’s precisely an addiction . . . but there’s a reason why reality television does as well as it does.

It doesn’t matter if you believe that human beings are inherently peaceful creatures who should all be vegetarians and live in harmony with nature so that everything can be about peace and beauty and everything wonderful. Fact of the matter is this; humanity didn’t get where it is by being weak, or passive, or gentle. We are the apex predator, folks, able to kill any other animal on the planet. If you are a living creature on this planet, you have ‘man’ listed as one of your natural enemies, and it doesn’t matter if you’re an elephant, a shark, or a baby kitten. Sure, human beings are aggressive, brutal animals, but by God . . . we’re very, very effective.

Thing is, you don’t take thousands of years of aggressive, violent, bloody instinct out of an entire species overnight.

And what does reality television focus on? Why, it focuses on angry people, or excited and crying people, or people who are *this* close to getting into a fist-fight. They focus on what’s ugly, or competitive, or humiliating, or aggressive, or violent, and they broadcast only those moments to as many people that will watch. The hours and hours of peaceful coexistence gets piled up on the cutting-room floor. They’re trafficking misery, the ability to judge and feel smugly superior to the poor hapless bastards you’re watching, thankful that you’re not one of them.

Maybe that’s a little closer to the truth than people are comfortable with. Most people aren’t as happy when good things happen to them as they are when bad things happen to people who aren’t them. Maybe it’s that shot of adrenaline that wakes us up from the cold, the numb. Maybe that satisfies the blood-drinking savage in you, the one you’re suppressing day-in and day-out.

The next time you pass a wreck on the side of the road, try to ask yourself why you’re looking. Then, when you have a second, look up the word ‘junkie’.

Update: Black Glass – still chugging away at 50%

Yeah, this whole Wednesday update got kind of dark on me. Maybe it’s a reflection of the fact that I’m barely halfway through the chapter right now. Maybe it’s because of a bunch of stuff. Maybe I just need a good night’s sleep.

Hey, that’s a hella plan!

I don’t know about you, but I can always tell.

When you’re having trouble with something, it usually shows. We’ve all gone over to a friend’s house and saw the dessert cake they’d attempted to put icing on, something that looks more like a trifle, and even (more often than not) ends up becoming one. Same with drawing, public speaking, just about everything you can think of. I’ve seen attempts at Photoshop that could (and have) inspired gut-laughs on a scale previously unimaginable, and not on purpose. So too, you can just sort of tell when a writer is having a hard time of things.

Was listening to an interview posted by a friend of mine, and the conversation was steered towards writing about what you’re passionate about. The writer mentioned that the difference could be felt, not only when he was writing it, but when it was read afterward. He maintained that you could always tell when someone was passionate about what they wrote, because it almost always sounded stunted and awkward when they weren’t.

Following Black Glass to completion will be a learning experience – of this I have no doubt. I’ll finish it, because it needs to be finished, and because you need to nudge yourself out of your comfort zone from time to time. You can’t learn much by doing the thing you’re good at over and over, after all. What if you were better at something else? How would you know?

So, I’ll finish the novel, and I’ll pat myself on the back, and then I’ll stuff it somewhere and not look at it, not think about it, not do anything at all. Maybe I’m too close to it right now. Maybe the struggle to slog through it comes through in the pages I’ve put together, maybe it’s all fine and I’m just oversensitive to the whole struggle. This has become less about telling a story and more about reaching a goal, and maybe that’s what bugs me. I was passionate about the story when I started it – I’m not sure if I still am.

And thus, I’ll finish writing, put it away, and then work on something else for a while. Whatever I do end up working on, I’m going to make sure that it’s something I’m passionate about. I have a pretty good idea of what it’ll be, too.

And no, the fact that I appear to be good at it doesn’t factor into the equation at all. It’s all about the passion, baby. Trust me.

Update: Black Glass – Well, duh.

If you need an update on how Black Glass is going, you obviously haven’t read the above paragraphs. I mean, you probably didn’t even skim them! Tsk tsk!

That being said, I finished Chapter 29 last week and have moved on to Chapter 30, meaning that I’ve reached the 75% mark or so. There’s still a lot of time to put in, but I gotta step it up and get it done. It won’t be ‘Yay, it’s done! I’m so proud!’ at the end of it, as I’ve said, but it’ll still be something. I’ve already learned a great deal.

Part of the goal I set for myself when I started the novel Black Glass was to move things along as quickly as possible. Fast-paced action is where it’s at, and slow-moving stories are an indulgence reserved for established authors, ones who do not have as much of a pressing need to sell themselves. This isn’t to say that a story shouldn’t meander and move slowly, just that the market isn’t designed to accept that sort of thing from untested writers who don’t have a built-in audience.

So, I moved fast, and I discovered that there was quite a bit of detail that became unnecessary as a result. Good lesson to learn, really.

Except now I suspect that lesson was the first of several. The next one is this – there’s a difference between sacrificing the amount of detail, and sacrificing the level of detail. I thought they were connected to one another at first, but am starting to realize that the difference is merely one of quantity vs quality.

My growing dissatisfaction with how the story has been progressing is rooted in the fact that the details I have been providing thus far haven’t been particularly rich, or helped develop the characters as much as I wish. Right now, as it stands, the main character’s ‘crisis of faith’ moment could easily be overlooked. The internal conflicts seem wooden and dead. What should be roiling, berserk rage comes across as ‘Anger lite’.

Or maybe I’m just too sensitive to it right now.

There’s an author, Neil Gaiman, who I would consider to be a master when it comes to writing rich, compressed quality detail. In one book, Neverwhere, I was quite literally sitting there with my jaw hanging open by page 4, because I’d been subjected to small-ish, innocent-looking paragraphs about the main character that packed such a concentrated whollop when it came to detail that I felt like I knew him for years.

Perhaps this isn’t the right time to be looking at something like that . . . maybe it’s an editing thing. Maybe I go back, look at these sentences that I’ve recently written and find a way to make them better. Maybe I look at them and realize they weren’t half as bad as I thought they were. Still, I think this weekend I’m going to take some time to sort through how Neil does it . . . pin down what he does that works so well, and try to understand why. Maybe understanding what someone like him is able to do will help me, maybe it’ll cause me to look at the stuff I’ve written so far with chagrin and mild embarrassment. Doesn’t matter.

After all, the whole point of this is to get better at it. How could you possibly get better at something you profess to love doing if you ignore those things that make you uncomfortable, and only focus on the parts you’re good at?

Update: Black Glass – Chapter 29 100% done

I’m writing this in the morning, and right now I’ve only got about 1000 words done on the chapter, but I’m going to say that the goal was met. I have an hour over lunch, and will stay up until the wee hours of the morning tonight if need be, but it’ll be done before I go to sleep.

Despite mini rants about flat, emotionless writing, I’m still rather excited about the progress – the entire story is about to reach the 75% done mark. Of course, when it’s 100% done, the editing will probably take a year, and it won’t end up in print form until all three books in the trilogy have been written, edited, and completely finished. That’s going to be difficult, and require some skill at gratification delaying.

Update: Ten Arrows – Outline further refined

I came up with a new character, one that will appear throughout the story, and won’t have any real relevance outside of it. It’ll be wacky, fun, and hopefully make milk shoot out of the nose of dozens of people. Even the ones who don’t drink milk.

This story is becoming increasingly vocal in its demands to be written. Right now I’m closer to viewing Black Glass as an obstacle I need to hurdle over to get to this story. I picture myself, slowly scratching out the last few words of the story, wearily acknowledging that it’s done, crossing the proverbial finish line. Then, I imagine myself perking up, despite the fact that it’s 3:00 in the morning, filled with brand new energy as I start writing the prologue for Ten Arrows.

I’m a strange, strange man.

Update: New goal – Black Glass Chapter 30 100% done – More Hamlet

It appears to be working for me, Bubba. Do some painful, hurried writing, and then do some Hamlet to cool off and relax. Maybe even remember what it’s like to be funny. Shouldn’t be hard to pull off again this week. In fact, I may do Chapter 30 over the weekend, just so I’ve got a week or so to take a breather.

You get to this point, eventually. Doesn’t matter if it’s skiing, running a marathon, or writing a book. Sooner or later the pristine powder you’ve been swooshing down just becomes a bunch of frozen water crystals, the test of running prowess becomes nothing more than some stupid, pointless activity that sees you dropping one foot in front of the other, over and over again. If you’re writing, the words may no longer sparkle like they did when you first began, and you begin to ask yourself questions like, “Why oh why did I ever think that this was a good idea?” and, “Who in their right mind would want to read this horrible, horrible tripe?”

Whoops, didn’t mean to mention the whole ‘reading of entrails’ thing. This post isn’t about religion, after all.

Still, it’s annoying when I get to this part, because not only do I know that most of these words aren’t nearly as bad as I’m thinking they are, but I also know that if they are, I’m not just going to leave them like that! Look at all those other words in the previous chapters! How many times did you go over it? Are you happy with how *those* words work?

What? ‘No’?! Uhh . . . hmm. I was rather banking on me saying ‘yes’, actually.

Well, okay, there’s several chapters that don’t need all that much work, and several that I actually enjoyed re-reading when I was doing some idle proofing, but first drafts are supposed to be messy. They’re supposed to be cleaned up later – shaped into whatever pleasing form you’ve determined it should take. I don’t know of anyone who writes something from beginning to end in one try, just like I don’t know of anyone who paints one small section of a picture at a time, waiting until that section is finished before going on to the next. You always start off with broad, bold strokes, leaving the finer detail work until you’ve got a firm understanding of the overall picture, and know how it’s going to look, more or less.

Sure, I’m a creative guy, but I’ve found that one of my main talents is the ability to take something and improve it, whether that something is a business plan, a photograph, a painting, or a collection of sentences. Even if they don’t sparkle right now, I’m good at adding sparkles. Why, I have a half-pound of rainbow glitter in my pocket as we speak.

Don’t ask.

So, why should I be distressed over something that I know I’m doing to be doing anyway, and believe I’m particularly good at? Why, because that ‘fixing’ stuff happens sometime in the nebulous future. This writing thing sucks *now*.

(sigh) Don’t mind me. It’s a phase, I’ll get over it.

Update: Hamlet – Up to page 31 complete

See that? Just like I predicted. Happened yesterday too, which means that today gets to be a ‘focus on the new chapter’ day. Thus my mini-rant above.

Update: Black Glass – Decent start, 40% or so.

750 words or so in so far, and I think it’ll be a short one. In fact, this whole chapter is going to be fairly easy to write I think, despite the distressing plain-ness of the words I’m using to write it with. You know, I may just need something fun to happen, something uplifting!

I know! The main character will tearfully admit that he’s always wanted to be a mime. That’ll spice things up!

(insert gasping, out of breath retching sounds)

It . . . I’m just . . .

Hold on a second, lemme catch my breath.

(pant, pant)

Sorry, was out of breath there. I just . . . wooooo! Man oh man, that was a close one. Still trying to recover over here. Gimme another second.

(insert several deep breaths here)

Whew! Okay, feeling a little better now. Wow, that was intense. Two chapters, both which ended up being close to the 3k mark, done this week. They said I was crazy. They’re probably right, but still, they actually said it . . . which hurts my feelings. I mean, think I’m crazy all you want, but don’t just say it outright! What are you, nuts? That’s the sort of thing that makes me so mad, I could strangle a giraffe in the nude!

(insert several totally sane cheek-twitches here)

Anyways, enough of that sort of talk. The important thing here is that I did it. Two chapters, one week. Glove thrown down, glove picked up, glove worn about town for a while until some cops started looking at it suspiciously. I’ve never understood what the big problem is, really . . . it’s just a metal gauntlet, folks! It’s not like I’d beat anyone senseless that didn’t deserve it or anything!

But enough about last Tuesday . . . let’s get on with the updates!

Update: Black Glass – Chapters 27 & 28 finished.

As described previously. 3k words apiece. Sure there’s some wicked editing that needs to be done, but then again there was some wicked editing that needed to be done with chapters 1-24 back when I’d finished them. Honestly, the biggest thing I need to do is get away from what I’ve written a while, which is one of the reasons why I need to push myself forward, get more chapters under my belt. The more the story progresses, the more distant the last stuff I wrote becomes, and I can visit it with a critical eye and say “No no no, that’s all wrong! He’d actually say this, not that!” and poof! Editing.

So yah, blitz through another 12 chapters or so and I’ll be finished. I’ll also come in under the 100k mark, too! Sure, there’s some chapters that may need to be split, condensed, expanded, whatever . . . but that first ‘done’ is oft times the most important one . . . the one where you’ve made it to the end of something. You’ve crawled along a length of rope suspended over a dangerous chasm, and you made it to the other side. Oh sure, that rope is way different from the bridge you plan on building there, but for now you have the means of getting from one side to the other. It only gets better once you’ve got that.

Update: New Goal – Black Glass, Chapter 29 done. Hamlet, up to page 30 done.

Okay, I sort of see what’s going on here. Don’t want to just come to a standstill after meeting a goal that big, right? No, sir . . . just like you don’t run a marathon and then collapse on a bed. You gotta walk around a while, give your body a chance to settle down.

Or, this is my new ‘rest state’ – a chapter and Shakespeare re-write hilarity. “Here, take a break from all that hard work. We’ll only make you work at 80% for a week. How does that sound?”

Right now, it sounds bloody marvelous.

I’ve come to learn that wherever you find madness, you’ll usually find a little bit of method here and there, if you look close enough.

Look at beaurocracy, for example. You can be in the middle of it, yelling things like “Why are we doing things this stupid, stupid way?!” or you can exist outside of it and look at what it accomplishes – the preservation of an oversized and grossly complex way of doing something, usually benefiting the interests of select people who are in charge of deciding how things are done. Just look at Washington. A bunch of rich folk look around at the way things are, say “This is nice, we should keep it just like this,” and before you know it you’ve got to claw your way through a veritable ton of forms and papers just to change the vendor that the government buys their paperclips from.

It’s not exactly smart, or fun, or even fair, but it’s what exists . . . and there’s a reason for it. There’s nothing sillier than a person who looks at something like that and asks “Why does that happen like that?” They’re just being lazy – if they wanted to figure out the reasons why, they could. It’s not like it’s difficult to do. You can apply that sort of analytical reasoning to just about any of the ‘why’s out there. Why do some cops act like such assholes? Why can’t we all just get along? Why do some people beg on the streets instead of looking for honest work? Look hard enough, Bubba, and there’s always an answer lurking behind the ‘strange and illogical’ behavior of others, even if it seems mystifying at first. There’s always a reason, something that makes sense to someone. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do it.

Recently, I saw that someone did the math on just how much of a musician’s CD money gets through to the artist, and how much goes to paying middle-men and RIAA cronies. It was desperately sad, and reaffirmed my notion that the RIAA are full of individuals who, in terms of likability, don’t compare favorably to, say, a diseased, rotting rhinocerous pizzle. They’re an example of the sort of clueless, terrified people that saw the way things were at one point, liked it, and decided that’s the way it had to be forever . . . though they made sure they could adjust the rules to favor them whenever they saw fit. What? The musician makes a whole dollar for every music CD of theirs that gets sold? Get me my calculator, flunky! There’s got to be some sort of new fee we can introduce to bring that down a little.

My point? Right . . . there’s always a point, a method to the madness, as I mentioned above.

I’ve been told that giving stuff away for free is stupid. A couple of times, actually. Once, it was by someone who holds vague and lofty ideas regarding what it’s like to write a book, as well as the process whereby a book gets published and the author paid. They came pretty close to telling me that I was an idiot for not packaging my novel up and sending it in for someone to turn into a traditional first-edition, several-thousand-book run sold out of brick-and-mortar bookstores, just like all the other books out there.

The other time, it was in the form of a vague comment by someone who is a published author, who objected to the whole concept of ‘giving it away’ as a means of promoting work, because it devalued their own work as well as the work of all those other authors out there that had to go through everything they went through to get to where they were. It sort of reminded me of an immigrant crossing the border to get into a country, making it, and then complaining bitterly a few years later about immigrants coming in and taking all the good jobs.

But enough about Canadians applying for green cards . . .

In each case, author and non-author alike, they considered it ‘stupid’ to do anything but go through proper channels, to put the work in the same place that all the other work before it had gone, so it could be processed and refined, and cut into a hundred pieces so it could be divided amongst the hundreds of terrified old people that make a profit off of the ideas of others. They look at what I’m doing, call it crazy, and point to the dying empire ruled by a bunch of has-beens and say, “See? That’s what you’re *supposed* to do!”

I’m not the crazy one here, folks. I’m the most sane person in any room, and that includes some pretty rational imaginary people I’ve had to dream up over the years. Crazy is thinking that something is going to stay the way it’s always been, just because you really, really want it to. I’m giving it away, because that’s how I want it to be . . . because I would rather be heard than paid. Because times are changing, and the last thing I want to do is sidle up next to a bunch of scared old people who are terrified that people might read something they haven’t gotten their grubby little hands all over already.

Change is the only constant, bubba – accept it, or die horribly. With forks in your eyes.

See that? Stark raving sane, that’s me.

Update: Black Glass – Chapter 27 almost done

Yup, discouraging to say the least, but this chapter decided that it wanted to flesh out a few more concepts than I had originally planned for. Start off figuring it’ll be about 1500 words or so, and, like this whole post, I just get carried away. It’s at the 2600 mark right now, which means that I’m technically 1100 words into the next chapter, but I’m pretty sure that the ‘goal-centric’ part of me won’t take that into account. No matter how much I beg.

It’s always sad when I’m forced to resort to begging myself. Especially in public. Someone always seems to have those men in the white coats on their speed-dial.

Yup, don’t want to admit it, especially this early into the whole ‘quest for chapters’, but real life work managed to rear its scarred, ugly face and present me with something I haven’t had in a long, long time – a lunch-free work day.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like my job. It’s pretty much everything I imagined/hoped it would be when I took it . . . a rash and impulsive decision based on the fact that my old job was giving me a rash, in addition to giving me the impulse to throw myself down tall flights of stairs. I’ve often said that my worst, most stressful day at this job is ten times better than my best day at my old job. Not counting the last day, of course. My last day at the old job was full of post-job interview-y goodness, and other fun things like that. Imagine leaving a job that you’ve been at for 8 years, and hated the past 5 of. Imagine the things you’d say on a ‘post-job interview’.

I don’t have to imagine – I was there!

Interviewer: “Okay, so on this form here where you’re supposed to list ‘Reason for Departure’, you’ve got a bunch of scribbles. Why don’t we talk about that for a second.”
Me: “Yes, sorry. It’s just that there were so many, I had trouble fitting them all in. So, I tried writing overtop of the ones I’d already listed, but in a different color. I thought it would work, but I ended up using fifteen different types of pens and marker, so it sort of got wrecked.”
I: “I see. So would it be fair to say that you had many reasons for leaving?”
M: “In the same sense that Bill Gates has many dollars, yes.”
I: “Ooookay. If you had to sum up your reason for leaving in one sentence, what would that sentence be?”
M: “%$*&$@!!”
I: “?? . . . Uhm . . .”
M: “Oh, I’m sorry . . . you meant without swearing, didn’t you.”

However, old job hilarity aside, I had a busy day today. No lunch hour. Thus, I had little time to devote to the accomplishing of goals. And by little, I mean none.

Things don’t look good for tomorrow, either.

I’m not giving up, though. I got some done over the weekend, and it’s enough that I may still have a chance to finish both chapters. Even if my job is conspiring against me. At least this job isn’t trying to kill me.

Update: Black Glass – 1000 words into new target

Yup, told you I got some done over the weekend, Bubba. Turned off the DVD player, relaxed, and just went to town on it. There’s a part I thought I was really going to hate, and knew I’d have to redo, but after getting it down and looking at it, it’s not too bad. I’ll leave it. For now.

Yeah, even when working out really hard, you have to take moments to just stand back, catch your breath, grab a drink of water, and wait for the next set of reps. No point in going overboard, right Bubba? No sir, you might accidentally pull something, and then where would you be?

You’d be smack in the middle of an awkward workout metaphor that I’m not sure how to end properly . . .

Still, it was a good idea. Give myself a bit of a rest, head into the weekend with renewed optimism and confidence. I not only met the goals this week, but I kicked enough ass to go over and above them, something I didn’t force myself to do, but secretly kind of hoped I’d do anyway.

Black Glass – Chapters 27 & 28 outlined

In case I haven’t mentioned it before. Should be an interesting bit. Had a small-ish problem at first, because the outline sort of needed to be reconsidered – the first time that this one’s come into question. I had the sequence of events picked out and measured, but as far as character development is concerned my measurements might have been a little off. So, I may just have to wedge a new chapter in between a couple of the old ones, ending up with 41 instead of 40. Still, worst comes to worst I’ll still be around 90K words, which will be much easier to work with once I’ve let it sit and need to do some second draft edits.

Hamlet – Up to Page 25 and beyond

I’m starting to clue in to the humorous potential here, and we haven’t even got to the part where Hamlet is intentionally acting weird. That’s a good sign. Coming pretty easily, too.

I’ll come to spots where I’m reading what Shakespeare originally wrote, and I’m thinking, “God, what was the point of that?” Like, Hamlet’s going on about how evil his mom is, and marveling about how his uncle is capable of murdering his own brother and still able to keep the smile on his face. Then, he (Hamlet) apparently has to *write this fact down on a piece of paper*, so as not to forget “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;”

I’m pretty sure I’d remember something like that. In fact, I’m starting to wonder about this Hamlet guy’s memory.

Still, it happens in the original play! What’s the modern equivalent to stopping mid-rant and writing down something that’s so obvious that nobody’s ever thought to write it down before? What does the ‘modern’ Hamlet do?

I know! Hamlet’s so angry, he can only express himself with some edgy, teen-angst poetry! That’s the ticket.

New Goal – Chapter 27 & 28 of Black Glass

Yeah, somehow I knew it. Maybe my Hamlet randomness was so I could try to avoid the new goal, because I had a feeling I knew what it was. Well, buy the ticket, take the ride. At least I’ll be closer to the 75% mark soon.

. . . That gives me an idea! Hmmmm.

Best not talk about it out loud – my goal-setting subconscious might catch wind of it.