June Sweeps - Day 501

Last week, I went to my cousin's house, and we stayed up to watch the premiere of "Loki," the newest series from Marvel Studios.  It dropped at midnight Pacific time, so it was quite late when we got to see it (and we had to reboot my cousin's television partway through because Disney+ never works right on his TV).  But because of that, I was kind of sleepy, and because of that, I didn't glean all that I maybe should have out of the show.  Didn't even enjoy it all that much.

But everybody else I talked to absolutely loved it, and so I asked my cousin if, last night, we could re-watch the first episode around midnight, in preparation for the second one.  He was amenable to that, but did look over several times, even before "Loki," to make sure I hadn't fallen asleep.  To make doubly sure I'd be awake, I drank a soda around eleven-thirty or midnight, and it had kicked in by the time the new episode dropped.  I still don't know that I love the show--I like my God of Mischief with a little more power and a lot of bite--but I was totally awake throughout.

Even so, it was very late when I went home, and I could feel my brain slowing down, even if my body was totally fine, so I played the Only 9's and 10's game on the radio, which, because it was a very clear, starry night, got incredible reception and stations from cities a hundred miles away.  Having said that, I couldn't find any good songs* as I drove, and it was about ten minutes of searching through stations before I landed on "Amanda" by Boston, the first truly great song of the evening.  I sang along, and found several more great songs before I got home, arriving closer to four than to three in the morning.

And I remembered, as I neared home, that I hadn't done all of my push-ups--that I still had a hundred more to do, and there was no chance I'd be awake long enough to do a hundred.  To my surprise, when I got home, the living room had been decorated for my nephew's fourth birthday, and the floor had been covered in balloons.

So, I couldn't really do push-ups if I wanted to.  Except that I kind of needed to do them, even if I was the only person who cared if I did or not.  So I got up on the couch, and stuck my arms in a small space between balloons, and leaned over and did my push-ups that way.  And I made it through them, all in one sitting (or leaning, in this case).  I've never done a hundred push-ups in a row before, and probably couldn't replicate that right now if I tried (which I most certainly will not, good sir!).

Sit-ups Today: 100 (these were slow and boring, at the end of the night, with no music or video to distract me.  Often, I'll take my laptop upstairs and set it next to the mattress on the floor where I stick my feet to do sit-ups, and it gives me something to focus on while I do it.  I recommend you do the same . . . not that you need it--you're looking better than ever.  How do you manage it?)

Sit-ups In June: 1738

So, I'm at the cabin again, and even though you deserve it so much more than I do, I was so happy to be back here, what, three days since I last was.  It's pre-flowers, but seems like this has to be the most beautiful time of the year up here.  I dunno, maybe I'll feel differently when there are a million yellow flowers in July, or a dozen shades of orange in October.  Or white, as far as the eye can see, in January.

When I arrived, I saw something in the big trap immediately.  But it wasn't my friend the badger, or the woodchuck my niece let go free--it was a skunk.  I didn't dare get close, even to take a picture, because if it sprays, it'll smell like that throughout the cabin, for days certainly, maybe for weeks.  And it's not like that would do anything about the skunk, like my brother's idea of shooting it would** (he also suggested dragging the cage into the sunlight, but that requires getting close enough to the cage that it might spray anyway).

It's so hot back home that it's actually pretty warm here.  I opened the windows during the night for the first time this year--the night was oddly silent, since you can usually hear frogs or birds or crickets or CHUDs, and I can't really explain why--and never even considered building a fire (not that you're supposed to).

And the gnats, which had been a Biblical plague last week, had calmed way down this trip.  There were still plenty buzzing around, but not swarms of them, and it was a calm, warm, lovely end of the day.

Like one of the young people I seem to have such disdain for, I was standing among the majesty of nature and the beauty of the wilderness, staring down at my phone.  I could've stayed there for an hour, texting my brother, reading Facebook posts, looking at Instagram.  In the distance, across the lake, I heard a strange horn-like sound.  When it came again, I recognized it as the trumpeting of an elk.  I asked my brother if deer also trumpet, and he said that was an elk thing.  It did it, off and on, another half dozen times while I stood there.  The sound was alien and super creepy, but hey, I've been told that I am too.

Push-ups Today: 50
Push-ups In June: 1882

I don't know how much more of all this I'm going to take, since every year, as Scrooge said, I find myself another year older and not an hour richer.  But ah well.  I enjoy my stories and podcasting, and really, you've got to find something to live for, otherwise why not catch up on your sleep?

Words Today: 425
Words In June: 12,095

*Well, technically, they have to be "great" songs, not just good, so that's harder.

**I remember one summer when we were still working on my dad's house, we caught a skunk--probably in the same trap--and my brother came up with this idea that, instead of shooting the skunk, we drown it instead (he had had a bad experience shooting the animals).  So we covered the trap with an old blanket, and the two of us gently--gently!--lifted the trap and then lowered it into the cows' watering trough.  It drowned the skunk, certainly, but while it was my job to take the dead animal to the back of our property and throw it over the fence (there were no neighbors in that direction--literally, for twenty miles or more), it was my brother's job to empty out the trough because soaking a skunk there made the water undrinkable. 

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.

June Sweeps - Day 499

It is the dog days of summer already, even though it is just June.  Today it got up to 104 degrees, the hottest June on record, and on Wednesday, it's supposed to be 107.  I'm sure you know what hot is, but I found two Star Wars figures yesterday at Target, bought them, and left them in the car.  Today, when I went out to the car, this is what they looked like:

Thank god Star Wars fans are even-tempered and reasonable, and wouldn't care about the condition of the packaging on action figures.

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In June: 1527

John Oliver ran this thing on his show ("Last Week Tonight") where he looked at local car dealership commercials, and how while they seem like quaint little homegrown ad campaigns, they're actually cookie cutter pieces of garbage written by advertising firms, and executed with varying degrees of quality.

At the end of the show, he made an interesting offer: his writing staff wrote a car commercial that they thought was clever (and non-offensive) that they would be willing to give to any dealership that would sign a contract with HBO to produce and air . . . sight unseen.  In other words, if some used car lot somewhere was brave enough to commit to doing it--WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT IT SAYS, they'd get national attention on a show smart people and Rish Outfield watch every week.

I was delighted by this premise, and look forward to finding out what happens with it in the coming weeks.

While I was driving the other day, I hit something with my windshield that left a bit red splatter.  Whatever it was was so messy, I actually took a picture of it:

I'd like to think it was Tinkerbell.

Push-ups Today: 50
Push-ups In June: 1648

I didn't make it to the library on Friday, and Saturday I was out of town, and yesterday it was closed, so I went today, right before it closed.  Mondays are usually pretty busy for me, and I stayed up insanely late last night (till five or so) doing inventory and boxing stuff up to put in the storage unit, and watching "Hamilton," which I had meant to watch but never had the house to myself where nobody could judge me.

I haven't really gotten into any writing these last couple of days.  In fact, I think I took a lengthy nap when I should've been writing late this afternoon.  Sorry about that.

Words Today: 339
Words In June: 10,866

June Sweeps - Day 498

I saw a picture online where someone had Photoshopped an image of Taylor Swift to look like a monster.  I thought it was strikingly, well, interesting.  I discovered that there is a whole contingent of artists that take images of celebrities and turn them into goths, superheroes, demons, giants, and Bossk knows what else.  I really wish I had gotten into that instead of writing.  But ah well.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In June: 1427

Today was Sunday, and I usually go out and do stuff (by myself) on Sundays, drive, hike, go to neighboring towns, kill, etc..  I listened to Olivia Rodrigo's album again (which is strange, considering there are some records I bought and never listened to more than once), and liked it a lot more than I had the first time.  I suppose I'll buy a copy the next time I go to Target (or the time after that--I go there a lot).

Even though the songs revolve around her break-up with her boyfriend, they really are quite varied in tone and attitude.  And I can't help but think of the dude who inspired them, and the way that would affect you ("You're the dude drivers license is about?  Holy crap, let me get a selfie with you!"), whether it would be a millstone around your neck everywhere you go, or whether it would be a point of pride.

But then I thought about what young, popular guys are like, and you know, there's no way he's not a preening peacock about it, perpetually pointing it out even when people don't bring it up, and proclaiming, "She'll never love anybody the way she loved me, she said it herself.  How awesome is that?" before chuckling and trying to get two hot cousins into a three-way with him.

*

Girls can be pretty nasty, no doubt.  But guys are bad in a different way.

Or maybe they're all the same, I dunno.

Anyway, back to Rodrigo.  

I remember thinking it was notable that she would put out a whole album just with songs about that one particular topic, but no, in revisiting it, there was a single song about a friend she had when she was younger who was gone from her life.  My guess is, the ex-boyfriend could claim that song's about him too.

My whole family was gone today, so I could've sat around in my underwear at home, but instead, I got a pizza and ate it all myself.

Took me two meals, though.  I must be slipping.

Push-ups Today: 183
Push-ups In June: 1598

During my drive--as I try to do every week--I called and bothered Big Anklevich.  I've no idea how much he dreads my phone calls, but until he says so, I'm gonna keep making them.  This time, I talked to him about this idea I had for a future installment of "Caller I.D.," and asked him about the one I just finished, if the protagonist got off too easy, or if there should've been some kind of difficulty or consequences of his time-traveling actions.

Big and I talked about it for a while, and at the end of the day, right around the time I usually watch John Oliver, I sat down and wrote a scene between Chad (the main character[s] of the Caller I.D. series) and a cop (Detective Harrell, from "podcatcher").  It ended up being a nice little scene, with a bit more of Chad's nervousness and doubt, and even though it doesn't affect the ending of the story in any way, I think it makes it a better one.

Words Today: 1655
Words In June: 10,527

*This was the first result for my image search.  It wasn't EXACTLY what I was looking for, so I did a second search, this one for "smug douche" and this was the first picture that came up:

Who says the internet is a waste of time?

June Sweeps - Day 497

At the cabin (yet) again.  This time, it was my mom, my brother, and me.  We stained the middle deck, I went over the top deck again (it still doesn't look perfect--the places where we sanded away flaking paint are a totally different color than the places where we didn't), and my brother is spray-staining the outside and above the deck.

It's pretty cool today--about seventy out--but on Thursday, when I was here, it was in the forties.  That's the thing about this place, you look at the temperature in the city and subtract twenty degrees.  I brought my laptop, and am sitting, resting, while my brother is preparing his paint sprayer for another go.

He'll want me to hold the ladder once he goes up on it.  In the meantime, I went for my run last night, fully intending to think about writing--whether a new project or one that is stalled--and I totally forgot about it.  Seth Meyers does this thing on Fridays where he runs Corrections for all the little misstatements and flubs he made during the week.  It's actually my favorite thing that he does because he pretends that he's happy to address the complaints, and then usually gets really angry at some point in the segment, which I can't quite identify as real or an act (or is the "I want to fix everything I get wrong, so the show is perfect" the act?).  And then, most brilliantly, he'll sometimes (or maybe every time, and I only catch it every once in a while) throw in a deliberate error in at the end of his correction, just to piss of the pedants.

I find late night talk shows endlessly compelling and bizarrely romantic.

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In June: 1316

I wish that I had enough confidence in myself and my work that I could throw in subtle, dark stuff in more shows, like saying, "I really should take more care in my appearance, iron my clothing, get a haircut more often, match my wardrobe, throw stuff out once it starts getting ragged.  After all, I'm only HALF Mexican."  But I don't dare.

My brother worked insanely hard on the cabin, long after my mother and I were done and getting food.  I've mentioned my brother before, and his lack of hunger, the fact that he can go all day without eating and it never really occurs to him, much less bothers him.  I suppose everybody is different, and there are people much less hungry than he is, just like there are folks way more hungry than I am.*

He went up on the side of the cabin on these wobbly metal ladders and first sprayed, then resprayed, and then cleaned the windows, all with me standing around "securing" the ladders, which really meant just standing there, looking up at him, wondering how, if I was getting sunburned where I was, he wasn't on fire up there.

Then, it was time to go.  My mom and I drove up together, and my brother drove by himself.  If you think I'm a solitary person, going out to the cabin alone (or doing stuff alone) as often as I do, my brother has me beat by far.  I wonder if it ever bothers him.**

Push-ups Today: 60
Push-ups In June: 1415

I am thinking, writing-wise, a little bit about the "Lara and the Witch" story I started on, where Lara has to go on her first "adult" mission, despite just being in high school.  I was toying with her becoming attached to this boy who discovered a magical tome with spells written in everyday English, that the local witches are thinking needs to be eliminated.  She wants to help the boy, who is drawn to Lara because she's the only girl he's not able to instantly dominate, due to the power he's just come into, but he is becoming rapidly corrupted by the magic, and Lara knows that, if she's not able to steer him toward moderation and secrecy, that Old Widow Holcomb and her pals will take his life.  I like the idea of a scene where Lara is getting through to him, and the boy is recognizing that maybe he's gone a bit to the dark side, and then she mentions the consequences if he doesn't change his ways . . .

. . . and that pushes him totally in the other direction.  "Why don't you leave them and come with me?" he says, holding out his hand.  "What do you mean?" she asks, already considering herself on his side.  He says, "We'll get them before they get us, kill every single one of them.  Together, we'll be doing the world a favor, ridding it of a bunch of witches.  What do you think?"

I even think it would be fun if she started to fall for this boy, despite the truly ghastly things he's been doing--like making the teachers he doesn't like humilate themselves or go streaking, causing a massive, school-wide foodfight, forcing the football team to play pick-up games to the death, and making the cheerleaders do crazily dangerous pyramids and potentially-deadly routines--and she's sure that she's immune to his witchcraft, since she's been given powerful charms to keep her from his influence.  

But is it slipping?  Can he really be that charming?

Boy, I'm starting to think I ought to go on to this story, just so I can find out the answer.

Anyway, I got almost no words written for the day.  I wrote a bit at the cabin, then went on my run, and having gotten up early and worked out in the sun, I fell asleep a bit earlier than I usually do, and it didn't occur to me to write a second time.  Sanderson I am not.

Words Today: 170
Words In June: 8872

*I don't think I mentioned this in my blog, but last week, I got out a quart of ice cream from the freezer, and put on the Slender Man documentary.  I had only intended to eat a little of it, but by the end of the doc, I had eaten the whole thing.  Talk about horror.

**He has said, though, that he'd like to move to some tiny, isolated town, where there are no neighbors and nobody will ever bother him, and I'll bet, when he retires, that he does just that.  His idea of a happy ending, I guess.

June Sweeps - Day 496

I have to go to the cabin to paint again tomorrow, so I focused on work today, and got very little else done.

After my run, I watched some YouTube videos, and I saw an ad for Amazon.com that featured one of their employees talking about how good he felt knowing he was helping people get what they need (and want) in a fast an affordable manner.  He seemed so genuine and affable, that I started to cry, and didn't hit Skip like I normally do.

I cried because Amazon treats and pays its employees so deplorably.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In June: 1216

I did drive over to the store that had the big dinosaur egg so I could kill two birds with one egg--create cover art for my story "Hatchling," and give my nephew a present for his fourth birthday--but it was gone.  I walked through both toy aisles twice, scouring the area for it (when I first saw it, three weeks or so ago, there were three or four of those overpriced eggs).  No go.  And I feel dumb now about it.

But no way am I spending twenty-five bucks on it, when I balked at spending twelve.

Push-ups Today: 182 (whoops, I think I did too many today)
Push-ups In June: 1355

The end of the night reached me with absolutely no words written, and nothing in mind to work on.  I was hoping to get excited about something, anxious to work on it, because that's when I'm the most productive--when I have a project or scene I'm passionate about, and lose track of time while writing it.

In the end, I decided to sit down and at least start writing the Monty Python sketch I mentioned on here the other day.  I had intended for it to be something for me and somebody like Renee, who expresses her revulsion for Monty Python quotes, and that--either because she has disdain for it, or because the rules of magic have forever dictated against it.  I had a punchline in mind to end the sketch, but pretty much nothing else.

To my surprise, I ended up writing a sketch for Big Anklevich and me, where I go to his house for a barbecue, and he has just gotten married, and warns me not to bring up Monty Python with him, because his marriage will end if he ever quotes the show (or movies).  It's not at all funny--not even close--but I enjoyed writing banter for Big and me, and then I had his wife show up at the end of the sketch, so the punchline could still be made as planned.  

I tried to think of various sketches or lines of dialogue that could get brought up (not finding opportunity for such gems as "That's the sort of Philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage," and "Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great," and "This is an ex-parrot!" and "That was never five minutes just now," and "Mrs. Nilkerbaiter's exploded," which I know is a misquote, but hey), but you can't fit in everything.  At least I can't.

What I ought to do is send the sketch to Big and ask him where I can put a few jokes (since this is, perhaps, the first sketch I've ever written without any jokes in it*), but you know me, I won't do it.  The thing is, he's the biggest Python fan I know, a much bigger one than me, and I'd love nothing more than for him to say, "This is genius, the greatest tribute to Python ever!  If only Michael Palin were alive to hear us do it!"

I wrote the whole darn thing, which was over a thousand words, and there was still time for me to watch "Modern Family," so I went to bed feeling like I'd accomplished quite a bit.

Words Today: 1221
Words In June: 8702

*I did have an idea for a joke, where he makes a Basil Fawlty reference, and she says, "Oh, that's fine.  Magical decree states Fawlty Towers quotes are totally allowed."  But I didn't do it, once the wife character was dropped.

Rish Outcast 199: A Good Enough Brainstorm

Rish shares with you the brainstorming of the story "Two Month Retreat."  

Good, or good enough?

Download this sucker by right-clicking HERE.

Support this bad boy on Patreon by clicking HERE.

Logo by Gino "Better Enough" Moretto.

June Sweeps - Day 495

A couple of nights ago, I had a disturbing dream that, if made into a short film, would be categorized as Body Horror.  I don't know where I first heard that term, but I suspect it was Abbie Hilton, who also introduced me to the terms "Third Wave Feminism" and "Slut Shaming."  Oh, and "Grishnard," don't forget that.

Regardless, it was pretty upsetting.

This morning, I had a dream where I was hanging out with Henry Winkler, it must've been at a convention, and I kept trying to talk to him about projects other than "Happy Days," because that's all anybody wanted to discuss with him.  I kept bringing up various aspects of the movie SCREAM (where he played the principal), and he had no memory of any of it.  That was a bit of a weird dream, since I'm not a particular fan of Winkler, but at least I wasn't losing pieces of myself in it.

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In June: 1105

I woke, and it was early enough I could accomplish something, if I wanted to.  So I ate a donut and blogged.  Not sure if that counts.  

I've decided to take a picture of the baby bird every time I come up here, just to be a jerk.  Here's this week's photo (take my word for it that the thing's alive):

The last thing I wrote last night was a bit about how the time travel in "Caller I.D." came to be.  It was just an accident, something a scientist accidentally discovered how to do, and then refined it once he realized what he had.  I pictured Doc Brown from BTTF in my head, and then, pretty much arbitrarily, changed it to a woman, because engineers and inventors don't tend to be women, especially in fiction, and nearly all the major players in this series have been male.  

I napped, briefly, and maybe I should feel bad about that, but I don't.  I got up, made a sandwich (or three), and reached the end of my second "Caller I.D." story.  I think I should jot down a couple of ideas about a third one, that I can pick up in a few months (which will fly by, like a week or two), and maybe turn into a third story.  I need to come up with a few possible "missions" for Chad to undergo, and I would enjoy having one of them go terribly wrong, and he actually makes things worse than they were originally (before the time travel).  But that's kind of dark, isn't it?

Push-ups Today: 181
Push-ups In June: 1173

I took my nephew to Walmart with me.  They must have just gotten their sports cards in because they had a bunch of them in the aisle with the cigarettes in them.  And my nephew just went nuts, spending well over a hundred dollars on cards (he's been mowing lawns in addition to selling on eBay, so I guess the boy has the cash).

Words Today: 969
Words In June: 7481

June Sweeps - Day 494

 

Here we go again.  It seems like yesterday I was here at the cabin, and it was the day before the day before the day before yesterday.  There's another ground squirrel in a trap, but nothing more, and no droppings on the middle deck.  We're coming back here not tomorrow but the day after the day after tomorrow, and since it'll be another work day, I don't imagine I'll get sick of it in any way--maybe sick of the drive, I dunno.

I felt really sleepy on the drive down, once I got to the long middle stretch of the drive, so I turned off my audiobook and tried to find some music.  There were two stations I could find, one Country and one Classic Rock.  As soon as I got to the little town at the foot of the canyon, the reception got better and lots of stations opened up, and I sang along to keep awake.  Big Anklevich always talks about how he's going to die in a traffic accident during his commute, but he never talks about falling asleep at the wheel.  I wonder if that's a problem for him.

I wouldn't make it as a trucker, that's for sure, because once I got here, I did sit down and tried to read a chapter in my library book, but fell asleep almost immediately.  This time I at least had the foresight to set my phone to wake me up before I overnapped and got all groggy (or until the whole afternoon was gone).

The power was on when I got here, though the water had been shut off.  I'm sure my brother would've preferred the opposite (since the water doesn't get used if nobody's here, but the electricity does), but of course, he'd prefer that both were turned off.  

I think that I'll finish my sequel to "Caller I.D." either today or tomorrow (this trip, definitely), and that's good, since I started it in, oh, 2013 or so.  I have a couple of technical details in this story that I ought to do some research on, but now that it's written, it's a bit late--smarter to do your research and incorporate that into the writing, rather than be forced to rewrite if it turns out to be inaccurate or illogical.  I ought to make a few notes for a third story, that I can follow up on in a year or so when I put out my episode for this one, which I think I'll just call "Caller I.D. 2," and stick the darn thing all together when I get three or four installments done.  

After this project, I don't know what I'll work on.  I could pick up the Lara and the Witch story from last week, or I could write the Darth Vader story I've had in mind for more than a year now.  

On Sunday, I thought about it for a good long while, as I sat in the sun and ate my lunch, and it's a story I think I'll really enjoy writing, but is absolutely impossible to write without contradicting the Star Wars Prequels, let alone "The Clone Wars" series I haven't watched.  If there's a vague way I can go about it, not mentioning any planets in the Prequels and only characters from the Trilogy (like Kenobi, the Emperor, Bail Organa, and Skywalker), and have every other character be my own invention, I think it's fudgeable, but it's a stumbling block that is really something that will make the story harder to write.  

Still, to have Vader encounter a shrine or statue or mural depicting the famous Jedi Anakin Skywalker is almost worth the price of writing it.

(This shirt gave me pause.  If I do write a Vader POV story, it's a good question to ask: "Does Vader know he's bad?"  I think there are plenty of villains that think they're doing good, or perhaps are simply insane, but I'm going to say that Vader is one of those unique few that know what they're doing is wrong, that know they're not on the side of the angels, and yet they keep on doing what they do)

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In June: 1005

On Saturday, my thirteen year old nephew absolutely filled my brother's traps with food from what we'd brought for lunch that weekend (I watched him do it), obsessed with catching something in each one.  When I got here, there was a ground squirrel (or potgut, as they call them here) in the largest trap (the one that had the woodchuck in it last Wednesday), and it was surrounded by chips, cookies, and cereal, enough to keep it alive for at least a week.  I can hear it scratching at the trap's door with its human-like little hand, even though it's down on the ground and I'm up on the second floor.

I also got it in my head to write a short story--an utterly stupid one, mind you--about a man who falls in love with a faerie princess, and she says they can be together . . . as long as he never quotes Monty Python in her presence again.  In my head, it's something I write for Big Anklevich as the husband, Renee or Tena as the princess, and me as the friend who just doesn't get why it's a big deal, since they used to quote the sketches and movies even when they were too young to drive.

We'll see if I do that or not.

It's actually cool enough I'm thinking of closing the window, as there's a breeze blowing through the room that's not cold, exactly, but enough to make me want to have a long-sleeve shirt on.  You'll often (too often?) hear husbands or guys with significant others complain about how their wives/girlfriends are always cold, but I'm definitely among them, and my brother, who's in much better shape than me (always has been), complained on the weekend that his hands and feet are always cold, and sometimes start to tingle while he's working on the powerlines, and he has to make sure that it's due to lack of blood circulation rather than some low-level voltage he's feeling.

Right before the sun set, I decided to, as I always do, take a drive over to the lake and walk around there.  Last week, I spent a good long time, and the week before, I arrived just as the sun was disappearing, but managed to sing a song.  This time, I had a different mission in mind.  Ever since I arrived here, I'd been hearing the little rodent rattling at the bars of the trap, trying to get out, and, despite my eye-rolling on Saturday of my niece having let the big woodchuck go, I decided I'd do the same with this squirrel.

But not here, not where it would poop on the deck, or get stuck in a trap again, or more likely, both.  So I picked up the trap, which was heavy and unwieldy, and took it to my car where, due to its size, I couldn't fit on the front seat.  So I had to stretch it across my overly-cluttered backseat, and drove on over to the lake to have my walk.

The potgut was pretty frantic, being so close to me, and I'm sure my smell made it freak out.  Its own smell was surprisingly strong inside the car, even though it was only eight or nine inches long and probably weighed less than a pound.

I got to the area of the lake where the road goes right down into the water (it's a makeshift boatramp and has a little jetty that is usually deep underwater at this time of year, but is almost completely aground this time), and got the trap out.  I hadn't even lifted the door all the way when the little brown squirrel scurried out and onto the ground, heading for the hills of freedom.

I put the trap on the back of the car, surprised by how many gnats where swirling around me, and started to walk around the far side of the lake from the dam (where I always go).  But I experienced something I had not had to suffer through before: the gnats were everywhere, and not just hundreds of them, but hundreds of thousands, if not millions.  They were swarming through the air all along the shoreline, creating a veritable cloud that I was passing through.*

They were buzzing all over my face, around my nose and mouth, and even though I breathed through my teeth, they were so bad, I kept getting them in my eyes, and had to stare at the ground, letting my tears wash them away.

I had intended to walk quite a ways, but after less than a quarter mile, I had to turn around and run back to the car, buffeted by wave after wave of tiny flies, which I'm assuming just hatched this week.  I hope there are bat colonies up here, and that they are out in force tonight, because it was really rough (I made it to the car, coughing and blowing my nose, and had to keep the windows rolled up on the drive back to the cabin).

Push-ups Today: 55
Push-ups In June: 992

I finished editing two Rish Outcasts today, and that is quite the accomplishment.  Still, they were both fairly recent files (one from May and one from the end of April), and to free up space on my recorder, I really need to edit stuff from last year or earlier.  I laid down a couple of Christmas stories that just sit, like bloated mosquitoes overfilled with cow blood, because I don't want to edit them in the spring or summer.  But I'll make it a point to edit at least one chapter tomorrow, so I can delete it from my recorder.

The end of the night came quickly, and hard.  Due to the hour, or due to the allergy pill I had taken, or due to life, I suddenly felt lethargic and sleepy, and I wanted nothing more than to sit on the couch and read my book for a few minutes and fade to black.  But I had very few words written (around 350), and had absolutely zero sit-ups done (I had done some push-ups earlier, but today's my odd day when I can do as few as I want).  Then came the struggle--the eternal struggle of whether I would do the sit-ups on this hard wooden floor, or go all the way upstairs in the dark and do sit-ups on the mattress there, or whether I would let entropy win and just go to sleep.

And it was a struggle.  I cursed myself and called myself names (technically, those are the same thing--I could also say that I berated and criticized and castigated myself while I was at it), but man, I didn't want to do the exercise.  I stood up and went to my comfy chair and wrote a couple more paragraphs, now about 94% done with my story.  Only fifteen minutes or so, and I would be done.  I looked at the clock, and it was after two.  So I had read for hours, or I had nodded off there and missed it.

And after that, instead of hitting the couch, I sat on the floor and promised myself I'd do fifty-five sit-ups, to match the push-ups.  And it was slow going, inelegant stuff.  But once I reached 55, I thought I'd do 66, and then 77, and I managed a hundred, so that was something.  And I like to think that it made me sleep deeper and better, because I woke up once with the sun low in the sky, and the second time, an hour or so later, I got up.

Words Today: 556
Words In June: 6512

*I read somewhere once a statistic of how many insects there are on the Earth per each individual person, and I want to say that it was some ludicrous number, like 250,000.  I'd never believed it--how could I?--until today.  If a scientist had told me that I, the only person by the lake tonight, had been surrounded by a BILLION gnats, I'd have had no trouble accepting it as fact.

June Sweeps - Day 493

At the library again.  Told myself I'd sit, write for a single hour, and then take off and get stuff done so I could go to the cabin tomorrow.  But I've been here for 51 minutes, and my word total for the day is 130.  But that's better than zero.  Sort of.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In June: 905

One of my goals for 2021 is to publish my novella/book "Hatchling."  I really ought to make it a priority, considering THE YEAR IS HALF BLOODY OVER ALREADY!!!!!.  But you know me, I have aspirations to do so much, and I end up doing so very little.

About a month ago, I saw a big tan dinosaur egg at a store (about nine or ten inches tall), and thought it would be perfect to use as cover art for the book, as long as I painted it so it didn't look like a kids dinosaur toy.  But it was too expensive.  It's some activity thing where a kid cracks it open, or chisels it away until he frees the plastic dinosaurs inside.  You know what I'm talking about, right?

Then, a couple of days ago, I stumbled upon it again . . . and this time, it was on clearance.  I was doubly tempted, but dude, it was still $11.98, which is probably more than I'd make on the book, at least till the audio came out.  But I still have it in my head that I'll buy it, paint it black with various veins of white or yellow in it, and call it good.  I could even take it out to the desert with me the next time I go and snap several photos of it, then have Big make me a cool logo to go with it.

Of course, someone else may have scooped the egg up--after all, it is pretty cool--and that moots my point, doesn't it?

Hey, my nephew's fourth birthday is coming up next week.  Maybe I can buy it, do my alterations, take a few pictures, and give it to him, and that's two birds with one stone.  Hmmm.

Push-ups Today: 180
Push-ups In June: 937

Going to the cabin tomorrow.  I hope to either finish my story or finish editing the 200th Outcast episode.  Or, like that commercial used to go, why not both?

Words Today: 784
Words In June: 5956

June Sweeps - Day 492

Well, this is kind of amusing.  Usually I come to the library and blog and surf the web, and with whatever time is left, I write.  Today, though, I came, sat down, finished up the blog post from the other day (I had written it at the cabin, with no internet, so I couldn't post it anyway), and then got to writing.  I wrote more than a thousand words before I returned to blogging, so here we are.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In June: 794

I'm working on the sequel to "Caller I.D.," which is a story I wrote, I'd say, around 2015, but it might have been any time between 2012 and 2017.  I looked at old blog posts yesterday where I mentioned it, and in one, I took a picture of the notebook I wrote it in, and based on where it's located (bookended by which stories, I mean), it should be easy to peg down what year that was.  But I'm not going to do that right now.

I re-recorded the last chapter (Chapter 7) in "Caller I.D." yesterday, and edited it today.  The entire story is really, really short (about thirty-five minutes in audio), and has very few details (a couple of the chapters are two or three paragraphs long).  It feels like something I wrote when I was much, much younger, when even reaching a thousand words in a story was quite an accomplishment.  Even so, I've decided to run it on the Outcast next month or so (probably episode 202 or 203), some time around my birthday.

The reason for that--running it around my birthday--is so that I can try to make a tradition of putting out a "Caller I.D." installment every year at the same time.  The premise of the story is that a kid gets a call from the future every year on the same day, so each chapter is set in a subsequent year.  It was an idea I had, a long time ago, to write a series of these stories, catching up with present day Chad and Chad's future version one year at a time.*

I very nearly sat down and recorded an episode for it yesterday, but when I checked--no joke--I had around seven minutes of free recording time available.  So, having at least finished editing Chapter 7 today, I should be able to delete that and record something Tuesday or Wednesday.

Push-ups Today: 30 (I started to do some, then realized I'd left the stove on, and got up to turn it off . . . then forgot to do the rest.  Whoops)
Push-ups In June: 757

I started reading a new book on Friday, and took it up to the cabin with me on Saturday.  When I looked for it today, I couldn't find it, and realized I had left it up there.  So I'll have to start on another new book on Tuesday (tomorrow).  A few years back, one of the panels I went to at my writers conference stressed that you, as a writer, should not jump into a new writing project until you've finished the one you're currently working on, and that a stumbling block for amateur writers is flitting from project to project as their muse inspires them.

I had completely forgotten about this point until I read it--on my own blog--while trying to find out when I wrote "Caller I.D." the other day.  But man, it would have been really good advice to follow.  Let's say I finished twenty writing projects in 2020, and five of them in 2021--if I'd followed that rule, I'd probably have managed the same numbers . . . except I wouldn't have had ten unfinished items in 2020 and four in 2021.  There's something to be said for efficiency.

And fat-free yogurt.  Mmm.

Words Today: 1378
Words In June: 5172

*I envision a different scenario or mission he is sent on by his future self each year, varying in difficulty from dangerous to simply embarrassing, and then, in the third or fourth story, maybe later, he discovers something about his future self that throws everything into question.  I haven't figured that out yet--don't even want to know yet--but I figure the final story will be young Chad trying his best to save the life of Future Chad, and probably not succeeding. 

I was going to stick an image of Chad here, so I did a Google search, and this was the first picture that came up:

That wasn't exactly what I was after (there were several map-type pictures), so I grabbed the first person that the image search brought up.

I'm not sure who he is (he looks vaguely familiar--a boy band member?), but I shouldn't waste another ten minutes googling Chads.