November Sweeps - Day 647

Today was the first day of the year that I heard Christmas music playing.  

Now look, I don’t want to feed into the idiotic “War on Christmas" conspiracy theory, but I could stand to have at least two weeks (if not a month) between constantly hearing This Is Halloween and the deluge of It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.  But hey, I know it makes some people happy.

And plenty of other people a lot of money.  And really, that’s what it’s all about.

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In November: 933

Every day this week, I have awakened before my alarm, my body telling me that I’ve overslept.  And that’s cool, that’s fine—I understand it’s a side effect of Daylight Savings Time ending (or maybe it’s the 5G chip I got implanted along with my vaccine getting switched on.  Have you considered that?  Why haven’t you considered that?*), but I will admit that it’s given me a bit of extra time each day this week (oh shoot, it’s only Tuesday.  That means it’s been happening for only three days.  Sorry, let me delete the above paragraph).

Today was miserable weather--it was grey and rainy and cold, and I doubt I’ll make it to the cabin tomorrow because of it (the snow that’s presumably there), despite nearly killing myself there a week ago--and I was shivering and unhappy without a jacket on in the morning, then in the afternoon, I’d put on my jacket, but had to take it off again as I got all sweaty raking up wet, heavy leaves from the lawn, before I jetted over to the library to get some words in.  I keep telling myself to do 500 words, at least. 

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In November: 982

What I said at the first about the Christmas music?  I keep hearing these jokes (or seeing memes) about Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You being the absolute nadir of holiday songs, and how it marks the end of the peaceful fall season (and/or sanity), but once again, I consider myself quite the opposite of a Mariah Carey fan . . . and I totally dig that song.  Haven’t heard it yet this year—we’ll see what happens when I do.

Well, I finally reached the end of reading through (and formatting) the Will Choner story.  Not sure where it’s going next (I wonder if I ever did), but I got over seven hundred words in (all of them either “Will said” or “Armin asked”).

Words Today: 753

Words In November: 7258

*Because THEY don’t want you to consider that.

November Sweeps - Day 646

I came to the library about forty-five minutes ago . . . and surfed the internet.  Just across from me are a bank of (I think) four computers that DO NOT have internet access.  I feel like they’re there just for people like me: folks who have a task to do and do not want to be distracted from it.  Or it could be for luddites that hate the technology of the world wide web, but have no qualms about using a word processor.

I am needing to use the bathroom, and feel like I ought to say, “Sure, AFTER you write 200 words.”  The problem is, and I don’t want to be too graphic here, if your body tells you it needs to go to the toilet, and you tell it, “Let me do this other thing first,” sometimes I decides to create what they call “a teachable moment” in the classroom.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In November: 833

I wrote a little bit on my Will Choner story (okay, that’s not true, I didn’t write a damned thing, I just opened the document for the third time, and read through it, adding little details here and there, correcting typos, sticking in “he saids” and “she saids,” willy-nilly, but those words still add up), and I’d forgotten how much I liked the Marcellus character (Will's best friend from the lost turtle story).  I left him out of the story I wrote a couple of months ago.

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In November: 882

This might be amusing to you: do you remember how I wrote a book called "Hatchling," and set it in the same town as "Into the Furnace," just about 130 years apart?  And how I realized in February that I had actually set it in the town the "Sidekick Chronicles" stories take place in?  And maybe you recall that in August, I went through and changed all the references to Trueno to Bendo's Furnace.

Well, some a-hole has been recording the book, and didn't remember until today that the story isn't about the Lightning in Thunderclap, Arizona, but the Firebirds in Bendo's Furnace, New Mexico.  And that means that the version I've been recording from is an earlier version than the one I revised in August.

And that's more work for me.  Hooray.

I did go through the document and replaced the references (again), as well as adding nine or ten lines that had been added to the file on my laptop (as opposed to the one on my desktop).  I didn’t record them, though.  Sorry?

Now, it's the end of the night, but because of Daylight Savings, I still have an hour before I have to go to bed.  I could use it to write, or to edit audio, or to do a podcast.

Whoops, none of those things--I watched YouTube.  Sigh.

Words Today: 626
Words In November: 6505

November Sweeps - Day 645

Daylight Savings Time ended, and hey, I got an extra hour to write or edit or blog.  Or surf the internet, right?

I felt like I had been given an extra hour (it was even more than that, since I woke up before my alarm went off), and I used it to . . . shoot, what did I do?

Oh, I did go ahead and publish "Underdecorated," that short story I was hoping to get in before Halloween (and just in time).  Big gave me multiple options as far as text on the cover art went, and this is the one I chose:

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In November: 722

It got dark EARLY today.  I had resolved to go on my hike today, because it was in the high fifties outside, but darn, by the time I got in my car, the sun was already setting.  So, do I do the hike anyway, knowing that the second half will be in the dark?

I did.

A great man once said, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”*  And so I went there anyway, and did what I set out to do.  Despite the chilly fall weather, I worked up a good sweat by the time I reached the summit, and was passed quite easily by two other hikers.

As I went up and up and up (it turned out to not be nearly as long a hike as I thought it was; not even two miles up, but boy, you feel it, especially early on), and it got darker and darker, I worried about the foolishness of walking around at night.  But thousands of people hike it every year and only between six and seven hundred of them do not survive.**

About halfway up the mountain, I saw the silhouette of a couple who had climbed a rock formation to look at the city lights and make out.  I think it would be extremely uncool to take a picture of them, so I did.

By the time I got to the top (I went all the way, because my body kept suggesting I turn around and go back), it was fully dark.  There was no one else up there with me, and I could hear coyotes yipping and baying not far off.  I drank some water, put on a YouTube video (there was still cell service, even up there), and started back down.

It is dark and hell is hot.

To my surprise, there were still many people climbing up that I passed while heading down the trail.

The view at the top was pretty rad, if you don't mind me using that word.

Heck, it was rad even if you do mind.

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In November: 782

I was listening to a podcast with an author (I thought I’d check out at the library) as the guest, but it really, really turned me off.  The hosts were writers, and at one point, they brought out some of their earlier writing to read on the show and make fun of.  I guess I could see that being funny to some, but to me, it was just death.  The author started complaining about people who write “he said” and “she said” after lines of dialogue, and how amateurish that is.  “When you write, Betsy walked into the living room and saw Tom sitting on the couch.  ‘What are you doing here?’  You absolutely don’t need a ‘Betsy said’ there.  The reader knows.”  

Well, I could not have disagreed more vehemently.***  She may be a professional writer, something I’ll never be, but she’s certainly not an audiobook narrator.  There’s nothing worse than having no idea who is supposed to be speaking (okay, there are worse things—like when the writer forgets the name of a character—but you know what I mean), and I always prefer too many “Betsy said”s to too few.

Still, I wondered if I shouldn’t have paid close attention to the podcast, hoping to glean useful tips to becoming a better writer, rather than just turning it off in anger and disgust.  Sure, somebody could learn a lot from reading their old writing and pointing out why it doesn’t work, but not by poking fun of it in the round.  I’d much rather teach a class where you point to something that makes people laugh, or think, or feel scared or sad, and ask the students to analyze why it works.  But hey, I’m not a best-selling YA author.

After the pitiful performance of yesterday, I forced myself to go all the way through to the end of "Here With My Childhood Friend," and boy howdy, did it suck.

I wrote the story as a tribute to my dead uncle, and I can guarantee you that if he were here right now, and read the story, he would say, "I died for THAT??"

But you know what, I wrote it for him, the feeling was heartfelt, and eff it, I'm running it on my podcast.  Some people say "It's the thought that counts" and some people say "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions," and one of those two groups is made up of assholes.  Guess which one I'm going to side with.

Words Today: 290
Words In November: 5879

*I’m not really sure who should get credit for this in BACK TO THE FUTURE.  Marty says it at the beginning of the movie, quoting Doc Brown, and then says it to his father in 1955, who says it to his kids in 1985.  I boy never loved a dog the way I loved BACK TO THE FUTURE.

**Okay, that was a lie.  But still. 

***I think there’s just as much chance of the reader thinking it’s Tom asking the question as Betsy.  If two little words can ensure that nobody feels that confusion, why not include them?

November Sweeps - Day 644

My nephew (the thirteen year old) spent the entire day today in bed or on the couch.  When I came home from ETERNALS last night, he was on the couch, awake, and we talked about the movie, despite it being 2:30am, and I made a bed for him on the couch (just because my mom would always complain when any of us slept on the couch without sheets or pillows, claiming that would ruin them, and heck, she's probably right).

But I had no sympathy for him when I woke up the next day, and he was watching TV again, and claimed to have watched it all night long.  He was a fan of this Chicago-based hospital show with an insanely-hot actress in it, and recently watched that whole series, and now he's moved on to . . . ugh, "Grey's Anatomy."

I've always hated "Grey's Anatomy," but not for the reasons everyone else has.  It was first aired, if I recall correctly, as a mid-season replacement (temporary, anyway) for David E. Kelly's "Boston Legal," a series I loved, and not only because it had William Shatner in it (I was so enamored with James Spader on the set of the show that a fellow extra nicknamed me "SpaderLover" in her phone).  And when "Boston Legal" ran out of new episodes, ABC tried "Grey's Anatomy" in the same timeslot . . . and the ratings were spectacular, like, considerably better than "Boston Legal"'s.

So, that became "Grey's Anatomy"'s permanent spot, and the lawyer series had to find a new place to live.  And that's it, not the sappy, big-eyed melodrama, or that lead actress with a voice like an over-ingested helium balloon.  Your displeasure with "Grey's Anatomy" is your own.

Sit-ups: 100 (these were super hard today, and that was BEFORE eating ice cream)
Sit-ups In November: 622

In the afternoon, I tried to get my nephew to come with me to the city, where they do a monthly toy show/trade.  The last time we went was in July (I usually manage every third month or so), and because the movie we were supposed to be working on today got postponed (twice), we were free to go.  But he refused, insisting on laying there and watching TV for another few hours.

I ended up driving up there on my own (as I believe I did in July), in an attempt to be social and do something with my Saturday afternoon.  There were some familiar faces there, and some folks I’d never met before, and I bought a couple of toys, and talked to a bunch more people.  One of them casually mentioned that he worked for the television station that Big Anklevich (and I) used to work at.  He also asked me why I kept coming around his booth if I wasn’t going to buy anything.*

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In November: 682

It was the end of the night, and I had done the absolute minimum of exercise allowed by law, so I sat down to watch some TV.  I had heard a lot of good things about the HBO series "Succession," so I decided to watch the first episode of that and see if it was to my liking.

The HBO logo came up, and then a few seconds of darkness, as an unseen character (presumably Brian Cox) gets up in the middle of the night.  I felt guilty, paused the TV, and went in to record another chapter of "Hatchling," or my recent story "Here With My Childhood Friend," and made it about a half hour before I lost interest.  I guess my nephew's not the only slacker in the family. 

Words Today: 107
Words In November: 5589

*It kind of reminds me of when I was talking to (actor) Kevin McCarthy at the Twilight Zone convention, and this kid kept interrupting, asking what movies he'd been in then saying, "Never heard of it," and finally McCarthy said to the kid, "Look, are you gonna buy anything?" and when the kid said he wasn't, snapped, "Then get the hell out of here!"

Sort of "New" Episode of the Dunesteef

I don't usually plug the Dunesteef on here (considering those episodes get ten to twenty times the traffic that my stuff does), but I figured I'd plug the latest episode, which I put together after interviewing Jason Sanford about a month back, on the eve of him releasing his first novel.  We had been introduced to Jason when the StarShipSofa podcast invited us to produce a story of his called "When Thorns Are The Tips Of Trees," which we worked really, really hard on.  

They ran that story in a 2009 episode of their show, but I asked Jason if we could run it on ours, since we still had the recording, and I thought it would be fun to reminisce about it.  If it's been a decade (or more) since you've heard it--or you never have--do yourself a favor and listen to an awesome story with an awesome full-cast production, when we were at the top of our game. 

Check out the link HERE.

November Sweeps - Day 643

I'm at the library again, and after the frankly sad number of words I wrote at the cabin yesterday and the day before (but hey, I got lots of recording--two podcasts and two stories--done, and edited a full episode and four chapters of an audiobook), I thought I'd come over for an hour or two, and see if I couldn't raise those numbers.  I should not care about the numbers (and mostly, I don't), but there's a good feeling you get when you do the word count and it's in the thousands, as opposed to the hundreds (or teens).

Sit-ups Today: 100

Sit-ups In November: 522

My cousin and I went to see THE ETERNALS, the latest of the Marvel Studios releases.  There had been a lot of bad buzz about it these last couple of weeks, and it's the only MCU film to get a "rotten" on Rotten Tomatoes.  I thought it was interesting, with impressive visuals, and way too many characters.  It's actually pretty amazing that somebody somewhere thought they could satisfyingly introduce ten main titular characters, a love interest or two, and a villain, and that we could keep it all straight.

I was particularly upset that the movie name-dropped both Superman and Batman, but Big Anklevich pointed out how SPIDER-MAN name-dropped Superman in 2002, and I loved that like it was donut-flavored Pepsi.  Sigh.

A few things in the movie didn’t really work, but I’ve got to say, even if it’s the first “rotten” MCU movie, and if it doesn’t make its money back, it was one of the more ambitious films of the last ten years . . . and it’s always better if a movie swings for the fences and fails than doesn’t aspire to anything and fails.  You know?

Push-ups Today: 100

Push-ups In November: 582

I wrote for a little while, then lost interest, but I really shouldn't have--I emailed myself the Will Choner story I started last year, and was trying to format it into MS Word (you'd be surprised how much of a pain that is, in addition to just figuring out where the new paragraphs are), and tried to add little details to the book.  Even though it was only a year ago, I didn't recognize much of what I had written, and when a girl hires Will to find her lost cat, I had no idea how it was going to turn out.

Sometimes I wish I were a real, professional writer.  Of course, I sometimes wish I were Al Pacino's butt double, like Joey Tribbiani in the first season of "Friends."  Remember that?  "He goes into the shower, and then I'm his butt."

Words Today: 1425
Push-ups In November: 5482

November Sweeps - Day 642

Morning now.  I slept right up to about a half hour before my alarm went off.  The fire had burned out during the night, and cold was/is seeping in through the windows.  My headache was all but gone, and I think I'm now fully recovered.  

The sun is warm and comforting, like a pillow or a bosom (Everybody wants a bosom for a pillow, as Cornershop taught us, after all), and I think, around noon, it should be warm enough to go out on the back deck and read for a while (amazingly, I finished one book yesterday, and am more than halfway through another one here at the cabin).

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In November: 422

Before too long, it was time to pack up.  Heck, it was later than I should have left, the sun super low in the sky when I shoved everything into the truck and got going.  I managed to do two short podcasts on the drive home, and look forward to sharing those one day soon.

At the end of the evening, I did my run, watched a "Modern Family" (I'm on Season 7 now), and sat down to record a chapter of "Hatchling."*  I apologize in advance for that.

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In November: 482

Words Today: 306
Words In November: 4057

*Actually, I intended to do two chapters (the chapters are really short), but spent so much time agonizing over the story--it's really not going well--that I cut it off after one.  When I pasted the revised Chapter 7 into the text of the main document, I crossed the forty thousand word mark with it, so I wasn't kidding when I said (last year) that the short story got long.

November Sweeps - Day 641

Every time I come to the cabin nowadays, I think it'll be the last time.  Today is warmer and less snow-covered than last week, but when I think of the sun going down around five o'clock next week, I suspect this SHOULD be my last visit here.

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In November: 322

I was able to gather logs for the fire today, and built a fire right before I sat down to write this, but it has already gone out.  I guess I'll try again.

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In November: 382

I put on a movie, leaving the stove open (hoping to get some warmth, at some point), and fell asleep earlier than I normally do, the movie only halfway through.

Just before four o'clock am, the carbon monoxide alarm started to go off, and I didn't know how to turn it off.  Probably, you're not supposed to be able to.

I opened the windows, loath as I am to do so out here, and fanned the doors several times.  My head is aching now, and I suppose that's evidence that there is something unhealthy in the air here.  I went upstairs, where it was smokier than elsewhere, and went out onto the deck to look at the stars for as long as I could stand it.  The Big Dipper was particularly bright out, but as often happens, my imagination started bugging me with spooky possibilities, and my mind went back to some of the more chilling moments from that movie from last night (which got its title from a conversation Quentin Tarantino had about the song titles that would make the best movie titles)*.

Eventually, the alarm stopped blaring, and I closed the windows, only then finding myself coughing a few times.  After a half hour or so, my headache started to fade, but I still sat here and finished editing a Dunesteef episode (that's right, a Dunesteef show!) before deciding to go back to sleep at 5:21am.

Words Today: 232
Words In November: 3751

*That being LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a track I was unfamiliar with.

November Sweeps - Day 640

I came to the library again because I was falling asleep—okay, that’s not true: I was actually full-on asleep when Big Anklevich called, to tell me he’d written one day in a row—but once I got here, I didn’t feel much like writing.  I started recording a Patreon address this afternoon, but never finished it, and the responsible thing to do would be to quickly get my five hundred (or whatever) words, race home, finish recording my podcast, and see if I couldn’t get it posted tonight or tomorrow morning.  

Instead, I keep surfing the internet, reading about the history of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.”

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In November: 222

Well, I spent a few minutes, typing away, and finished my story.  It’s short and inconsequential, but it was never meant to be anything epic, just another one of those stories that serves as a coda to a longer piece.  I like doing those.

Push-ups Today: 111
Push-ups In November: 282

At the end of the evening, I met my cousin and we went to see Edgar Wright's LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, a slow-burn horror film about a country girl who moves to London and has visions of a girl in the Sixties who lived in the same flat, at first exciting and romantic, but increasingly dark and disturbing.  There was a chilling moment where I screamed rather unabashedly, and it's been a while since that happened.

Afterward, we talked in the parking lot (things still haven't returned enough to normal for restaurants to be open all night like they used to be), and though he claimed he enjoyed it, my cousin is not particularly fond of horror movies, and when I apologized for dragging him to two this year, he argued that ARMY OF THE DEAD shouldn't count as one.  Go figure.

Words Today: 1064
Words In November: 3519

November Sweeps - Day 639

It’s a new month, and I don’t feel particularly like blogging.  Every month, I write up a list of goals and try to hold myself to them, but it feels pretty draining today.  Even writing might be difficult (I sat down and tried to edit the first chapter of “Hatchling,” but I fell asleep within the first five minutes, and then my body said, “No, stay asleep, it’s only 6:30, why bother?), but I forced myself to get up and go to the library, where I could at least get 500 words written.  And I won’t let myself go home until I do.

So sad.

The writing went fairly well, once I made myself actually do it.  Maybe everything is like that.  I guess I'm calling my new story "With My Childhood Friend."  In my mind, that's clever, but I never know anymore.*

Sit-ups Today: 111

Push-ups Today: 171

The other day, I was driving to the library, and there was a car ahead of me, slowing for a red light.  As I approached it, I saw something move in the back seat, and immediately thought it was a person, hunched over there, like in the old urban legend.

As I neared the vehicle (it was a station wagon-type car with two seats and a third section for groceries or personal items or serial killers), I saw that, indeed, there was a man hiding behind the seat, ducked down in the back.  In the famous story, the car following the woman driving at night keeps honking and flashing his lights at her, freaking her out until she finally pulls over in a public place where this car that’s “terrorizing her” can’t drive her off the road.  When she approaches a policeman (or maybe it’s just the gas station attendant, I don’t recall), she discovers that there was a man crouching behind her seat, ostensibly with an axe, and he kept ducking down again whenever the pursuer shone his lights on him.

Now, I assumed this was just a college kid, riding around with other college kids, and there wasn’t room for him on the seats, so he was splayed out in the back, so I never honked or “brighted” them, but I did take a picture to post on my blog.  That’s what we’ve become, kids.

But you're no better--you wouldn't even have taken a picture.

Words Today: 2455

*You could tell me that I'm clever, but that won't take me anyhow, or anywhere with you.

October Sweeps - Day 638

It’s Halloween, my favorite day of the year.  Because it falls on a Sunday, there’s something less special about it (at least around here*), though many in the family are getting together for Sunday dinner, where my brother-in-law is barbecuing ribs.

My niece and her boyfriend arrived in costume, but no one else thought to.  I’ve always been a little delighted about the idea of amusing couples’ costumes, and they chose to go as Jesus (him) and the Devil (her).  I worried, somewhat, that my mom would be offended by this, but the only person who complained was my sister, who doesn’t like the guy who took her daughter away from her.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In October: 3249

I had considered going on another hike (the same one I did last Monday), but I didn’t make it.  There were activities with people around, and at one point, my sister’s family all got in their costumes again to take pictures, and then most of them went out trick or treating, even though that had happened the night before.

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In Octobre: 3646

Last month, I recorded an episode about the death of my uncle, and I edited it on Thursday, but felt like I needed to put something in there, besides just my thoughts about the man and a bit about his funeral.  So I got it into my head to write a short little fiction piece to go at the end of the episode.  

I sat down to write it, basically a follow-up to the story I wrote for (and about) my uncle, “Who Can It Be Now?”  But it too got away from me.  I got a thousand words into it, but it was only about a third of the way done.  But ah well, I don’t imagine people will complain, even if it ends up being three thousand words long.

I need to get to it, as I’m planning to hit the cabin one last time this week, and it would be nice to have stuff to edit (assuming the sound works on the machine, that is).

Words Today: 471
Words In Octubre: 21,798