June Sweeps - Day 500

Today marks five hundred days writing in a row.  When you do the math, it comes to almost three thousand words total!

Even though I know I'll sit for an hour surfing the internet instead of writing, I mean to go to the library this afternoon, and force myself to write at least five hundred words before I leave.  Five hundred is nothing.  It's what Stephen King writes before nine in the morning, every single day.  It's what James Patterson contributes to each one of the books his name's on the cover of.  It's how many words Brandon Sanderson accomplishes between sitting down on the toilet and flushing.  It's what George R.R. Martin writes in a month.

I can do this.

Of course, I've been sitting here more than an hour, and I've only managed 106 words so far.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In June: 1638

The drought continues, along with the hottest temperatures ever recorded for June.  Add to that, wildfire season, which occurs in mid-summer every year, has been moved up a month or so.  There was an article in the local paper today about restrictions about campfires, target shooting, fireworks, welding or grinding metal, and, most surprising to me, "no smoking unless in an enclosed vehicle" or building, "or while in a paved area free of vegetation."

These restrictions don't apply to city limits, but there is talk that there will have to be some kind of regulation on fireworks in July, since--

You know what?  Land of the free and home of the brave and all that, but dude, there are always little wildfires that break out the first week in July--in fields and orchards and hillsides and apartment complexes, houses that burn down and children that are turned into Fred Krueger lookalikes* . . . and that's on a regular summer, without record heat and preternatural dryness.  Can't we just tap the brakes and say, "Okay, for every fire that breaks out, that's more water we're not going to have to water our lawns or wash our cars . . . or worse, shower in and drink when August arrives.  Just have a little consideration this year, like we all were supposed to do last year with mask-wearing and social distancing.

Oh, but I remember how that went over.  The outcry of people who refused to cover up their ugly, triple-chinned faces because some radio personality told them it made them seem weak, in order to maybe protect the health of strangers and loved ones alike.  The near-deafening shouts of "My comfort is more important than your safety, rah, rah, rah, make America great again, you can't tell me what to do, emails, Bengazi, Pizzagate, Freedom Fries."

Hey, I love the Fourth of July.  But I walked to my nephew's school last year and sat on a blanket, separated from other families, and watched the town launch over a hundred thousand dollars' worth of fireworks into the sky, while the next city over did the same thing, both within sight of each other.  And every neighborhood had their own private fireworks display, and every family had sparklers or towers or whistling petes.  It just seemed like such a waste, so much competing noise, like a political rally where every attendee had their own megaphone.**

I guess I'm getting off on a rant.  I didn't mean to.  I just wish people could say, hey, we live in a community, and sometimes, I need to put my personal wishes on hold--just momentarily--so that society can benefit.  Somehow, we now laud and respect the people who refuse to do so, rather than encourage and recognize the many that nod and say, "Sure, I can hold off until ____ (it rains again, there's a vaccine, it's safe to toss cigarettes out of a moving car again, the wind dies down, etc.)."

Push-ups Today: 184
Push-ups In June: 1832

What I decided to write--if I actually decide these things (who knows how my brain chooses these thing?)--was on my latest "Lara and the Witch" story, the one I've mentioned a couple of times here, that takes place when Lara's a Senior and is asked to go undercover to investigate another teenage witch, one who has been less under the radar, so to speak.

Yes, it's a lesbian love adventure featuring Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and it's going to be so explicit, Larry Flynt would've turned away in horror.

Okay, that's not the case.  But still, I'm sure Old Widow Holcomb had adventures much more akin to those, when she was seventeen.

Something that's remarkable (to me, anyway--you might have been doing this for centuries) is that writing a story about Lara years in the future means I can throw in little references to stories I've already written, but also to those I haven't written.  Adventures she has had in the five years since "You're In Good Hands" that I may never get to.  Stuff like "Already she had had two different magic users try to take her life.  Encountering a third one wasn't exactly enticing."  

I could do any number of things to amuse myself in a story like this, such as referring to a scar Lara got at some point in the past, or mentioning a character I introduced in a previous story but is now dead (but not spelling out what happened to them).  Just little shortcuts to writing future stories one day.  We each have our mechanisms to keep ourselves entertained.

I got about seven hundred words written, and would've gotten more, had I not decided to include a reference to an extinct bird (I originally typed "Great Auk," but it wasn't what I thought it was), and fell down the rabbit hole of reading about what are known as terror birds. I read about them, looked at fossil pictures, then investigated a 2016 horror film (starring such luminaries as Greg Evigan and Leslie Easterbrook) called TERROR BIRDS.

It's a real shame, because had I not gone onto this mental tangent (and then blogged about it), I might have managed a thousand words.

Words Today: 804
Words In June: 11,670

*Or Reggie Nalder, if you're Marshal Latham and happen to be reading this blog.

**Or, as Webster's Dictionary calls it, the internet.