January Sweeps - Day 359

Jetting on over to the library before it closes.  

I didn't get all my work done today, and my nephew (who got out of school at . . . wait for it, ten-fudgin'-thirty this morning) bugged me about taking him to the pet store like he was a crack addict asking for just one more hit on the pipe.  I have these turtles (only three of them now) and he recently bought one the pet store was getting rid of (at least that's how he explained it, like they would've put it down if he hadn't bought it), and now it's sick, its eyes all swollen shut and it unable to eat or move, just awaiting the turtle version of the Grim Reaper.

Again and again he asked me to take him, until finally, deciding I had gotten enough work done for the afternoon, told him to put his shoes on, that we'd jet over there and get some turtle eye drops (I had a bottle from about fifteen years ago--or jeez, maybe longer--that didn't seem to be cutting it, and seems to have gone bad in the container).  And he said, "Nahh, my friends are coming over to play video games."

Honestly, if I had ten dollars for every hour of video games those kids play a week, I could take a vacation every season ("Well, it's spring, time to head for the Gulf of Mexico!").

In the end, I told him to tell his friend not to come over until we were back and to put his shoes on and come with me.  I grabbed the packages I needed to take to the post office and we drove down to the pet store and were back within twenty minutes, since I ran into a mailman on the way there and unloaded my stuff on him (I do this a couple of times a month, and in the, say, fifty times I've flagged one down and asked if they will take my packages, I've only ever been told no once).

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In January: 2909

I looked at "Only Have Eyes For You," trying to get it a little bit formatted, and fill in the blank spaces* and out of curiosity, did a word count on it.  It's already over sixty thousand words, and that's without the first page and one bridging chapter.

I was editing the audio for "Never Let Him Go," the story in the Dead & Breakfast series I put out most recently.  It's one of those stories where nothing happens, just character development, and I--okay, a couple things happen, but I'm being particularly hard on it right now--remember the criticism I've heard before of just how passive, pathetic, and pussy-like the characters in my stories tend to be, and it's all out on the table on this one.

Sometimes makes me wonder why I continue to share anything I write.

But yeah, these stories are all just glorified versions of me, and if the characters are spineless and unremarkable, just imagine how I am in real life.

Still, I did more sit-ups than you did yesterday, and probably will today, unless you really, really hustle.

I'm at the library now, and instead of blogging, I need to write, write, write (I'm at eight words for the day so far).

Push-ups Today: 60
Push-ups In January: 2159

I ended up dragging my outpost pandemic story out of . . . is it in mothballs already? . . . and writing a bit on it--not a lot, mind you, this is still me we're talking about here--until they started with the jarring announcement and the light-flickering.  Still, there is something of a comfort in knowing that I'll be back again tomorrow, to pick up where I left off.  And the day after that.

Words Today: 718
Words In January: 17,358

*Which reminds me, I need to go on Facebook and ask for suggestions for last names.  I've had Meeshelle featured in five or six short stories and one novel now, and her name is still Meeshelle ____.