Yesterday, I didn't get a lot of writing done, but I blogged a lot and I edited another story. I nearly recorded a new one (I entered a contest in 2009 with a story, lost, and haven't looked at it since, but because I've been thinking of writing a new werewolf story, I dug it up to see if it's related, and thought I'd throw it in as a bonus on my way overdue audio collection), but I was yawning, and then the alarm started, and that would've ruined any recording.
So, I put my laptop to sleep, turned on the lamp beside the couch--but it was pretty dim, so I only read for a few minutes before turning it off and going to sleep. I was only asleep for a few minutes (maybe an hour) before I woke up again. Everything was dark, and I could vaguely hear the alarm blaring downstairs. I didn't have anything on, except my laptop charging, so I didn't get it. But some of the electrical outlets my brother installed have little green lights on them to tell you if power is going to them, and those lights were blinking on and off, so it must be that they drain power just being on. I went back to sleep, not doing anything about the alarm.
Well, I woke up a couple more times, and each time I did, I asked myself if I should get up or not. The last time, it was insanely dark, but I fumbled for my phone and turned it on to check the time: it was 5:04. Not a lot I could do at five with no lights, so I just went back to sleep.
Now I'm awake again and I did get up. I wanted to make the best of this last day here (although, if I really wanted to, I could stay the night tonight too, just ignore my responsibilities like the overgrown teenager I am). But the alarm was still blaring downstairs, and when I opened my computer, I found that it had restarted during the night, and a lot of what I had been working on when I went to bed was gone.*
And the laptop was no longer charging--hadn't been for quite some time--which is a bummer, but at least it wasn't completely dead.
Only forty-nine minutes of battery left. When it dies, I'll have the choice between trying to get the power on again, reading, exercise, sleep, or maybe writing in my notebook, like I used to.
Now, the power is out, and the sun is low enough in the sky that I feel strange.
There's one hour and eighteen minutes left on my laptop battery, and after that, we'll see (I turned the brightness of the screen way down, and it added twenty minutes to the "time remaining," so I'm going to make the best of it--I didn't even want to go to the bathroom or go out and take a picture of my dinosaur, for fear of wasting what little power I have left**). If the power does not resume with the rising of the sun, there is a gas generator out there that I could start, but I can't recall how to switch it over. We'll find out in an hour.
My computer just went into Power Saver mode, where the screen got even darker. That gave me the push to type a little faster and get as much out as I can. Dang, I wish I knew where that Will Choner story was going. It's the one I keep talking about (for years now), where a now adult Elsbeth Vance comes to him and says, we could use your power to help people. Will doesn't want to, but she is haunted and broken, and thinks that it might help her to help others. So they start a business or something. I guess it's the "or something" part that's tripping me up. I can continue to write their reunion and make up what's been happening with the two of them since they last saw each other, but I really ought to think of where I want it to go (do they find another kidnap victim, do they do various tasks for people like finding last wills and testaments and engagement rings and such, do I have Will FAIL to find something, and that discourages him, so they close up shop . . . and that's when the guy from the government shows up and asks him to find their lost nuclear device?)(do I even want to do something that big with these stories? So far, it's been a lost turtle and a poor girl being held in a basement, and that seems as big as I'd ever want to go).
The deer family just ran by the window. I will miss them when I'm gone, and I wonder if they will spend the whole winter here. Right now, there's a cabin with a big deck that they stay at (they sleep under the deck, not inside the cabin, mind you), but once the snow comes, I imagine even that will get completely snowed in. And without something to eat, they've got to move on, further down the canyon, right? I wonder if they are territorial, and next year, they'll be back here, the fawns now fully grown, or if I'll never see them again.
I did go outside just now--laptop be damned--and watched the deer for a couple of minutes. There were the usual four, but a fifth one came along after a moment (another adult doe), but they took off as soon as I thought to take a picture of them, all of them doing that amusing hopping thing.
It's not even cold out there this morning (though I tend to get cold easier than most folks), and it looks to be another very nice day. The construction guys just pulled up down the hill, starting their day's work on the giant cabin, and they tend to be noisy enough I'll hear every nail they pound and everything they call to one another, even with all the windows closed.
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| This is the building they're attempting to finish before the snows come. |
My brother's supposed to come up today at some point to winterize the cabin. When he gets here, I'll defer to him--he knows the cabin better than anyone, so when my dad died, he became the guy in charge of it, and when he says we're closing it down for the winter, everybody falls in line.
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| With no power, I started taking pictures of random things. |
There's a little solar-powered sunflower toy in the window above the sink, that waves back and forth when the sun hits it. Just now, I heard a noise over there, and couldn't figure out what it was (was the mouse back? Did a deer come back and was brushing against the door? Is my brother here, but I somehow didn't hear his truck? But no, the little sunflower must have gotten enough sunlight to start moving, and in this heavy darkness, even that sounds pretty loud. Heck, any sound of the cabin settling, or the clock ticking in the kitchen, or the construction crew's generator sounds surprisingly loud to me right now. My stomach just made an audible grumble, and it makes me wonder how I slept through that battery alarm as long as I did.
I just got an alarm that my battery is about to die. Amazing how fast that time flew by (though I did take a minute to write a new scene, and sometimes the time slips away when you're writing and you don't even realize an hour has passed).
Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In November: 772
I actually started getting into the story, writing a scene where Beth drives Will back to his house and they talk. But suddenly, zoop!, the computer announced it was going into hibernation mode, and shut down without a chance for me to save anything. I was displeased by this, but that was that, there was nothing I could do about it. So I started my day, built a fire, washed my face etc., got dressed, and read another chapter of my book. Eventually my daily alarm went off, and I ate the last donut I brought (I had forgotten to buy a loaf of bread, or any soup, so I just had to eat what I had left here over the last month--which, granted, is enough to keep me alive until Thanksgiving). After I finished my chapter, I decided to try the solar battery again, see if it might produce enough power to type again. If not, I'd start the gas generator out in the shed.
But it did start up, just the hour of sunlight it's been absorbing enough for a few minutes, at least. When my brother gets here, I'll ask him how you can tell how much power is there and how fast it's coming in, and whether it's fine to turn things on or not. So far, the alarm has not sounded yet, so that's good. I had planned on vacuuming since the wood I have been burning has made a big mess on the floor by the stove, but I seem to remember him saying that microwaves and vacuum cleaners consume the most energy.
Shoot, I spoke too soon. It wasn't a minute after typing the above that the alarm started to sound. I'd say I got less than ten minutes out of it, which is a bummer.
So, I went out and tried to start the generator. Tried is the operative word. I failed. I don't even know if it has gas in it. I flipped switches, I pulled the choke and pushed it back in, I turned the lightswitch on (in case that's not what it was), and never had the generator do anything but pop and fart out a bit of black smoke. When my brother gets here, I'm sure he will become my father and tell me what stupid thing I did (or forgot to do), but for now, I'm just going to type and maybe edit with what little power I've got left. I left the computer off and charging while I went outside to try the generator (and boy, it somehow got cold out there since I saw the deer), and now I'm up to a 20% charge again, which should do me until my brother arrives.
Of course, if he doesn't arrive, and if it stays overcast and cold, I may have to cut short this little vacation, and head back home early. I can hear the alarm downstairs, and now the laptop has gone from charging to draining to charging again. So, that's life. Not much I can do about that, except for maybe close the laptop, take a break, and read a chapter of the book while it semi-charges. Then I'll have an hour or so that I can type--or record that story--while I let the solar batteries recharge for a while.
I built another fire, which promptly went out. Then I built another one just now, and it has already gone out too. Hmm.
I went into the bedroom and recorded lines for an upcoming Dunesteef episode (a Marshal Latham joint with more movie references than my entire "Popcorn Movies" novella), but because I had no cell service, I only managed two-thirds of them before the file cut off. Still, it's better than nothing . . . unless it isn't, in which case I'll have to do it over. We're really serious about doing Dunesteef shows again for the rest of the year.
Words Today: 1786
Words In November: 4929
My brother did arrive, and thankfully, he didn't make me feel too bad about not being able to start the generator. He tried it over and over, adding gas, making adjustments, and finally got it started on . . . if I had to guess, I'd say the fortieth time he pulled the cord. I think most people . . . if I had to guess, I'd say eighty percent of them, would give up after twenty or twenty-five tries.
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| Yeah, I took a picture of it. I love you that much. |
Once the electricity was back, the laptop started charging again, and I talked to my brother for a few minutes, before realizing he was going to completely winterize this place, which meant no water, no toilets, no cooking--unless I want to leave dirty pans and silverware for six months. So I started packing up all my stuff into my car (I think I'm going to leave the dinosaur, though I could just throw it in the back seat with all the junk I piled there) and cleaning up, so I can leave shortly after he does. I vacuumed, cleaned the fireplace, the table, washed the dishes, folded bedding, cleared and wiped the counters and table. Now, it looks good--not as good as my mom would've left it, of course, but good enough, considering there's very little chance anybody else will be here between now and May (I did drive my dad's truck up here last November, but once the snow starts piling up, you can snowmobile up here or ski up here, if you really want to).
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| This all used to be the lake. |
I edited one more chapter of "My Friend of Misery" while my brother worked. I asked if he needed help, but it's really a one-person job, and last year, I just stood around watching while he did it (basically, you drain the water out of the pipes, then use an air compressor to drain the rest, then put antifreeze in the toilets and drains, so whatever is left doesn't freeze and burst the pipes--which has happened in winters past).
He's just left, and I'm sitting here--practically shivering, now that the fire's gone out and I took my blankets to the car--typing on my story. I wrote a fun scene where Will remembers porting to Disneyland as a four year old (which I believe I mentioned in the first story, "Lost and Found"), but I can't remember if the big castle after Main Street is Cinderella's or Sleeping Beauty's. Gosh, I love Disneyland. Haven't been in fourteen years (but it feels like three).
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| (apparently, it's Sleeping Beauty's) |
The thing that's fun about writing this story is imagining Will getting to partner up with this girl he's been in love with since before puberty, and how she starts to feel whole and happy when she's with him, helping other people. It will be a blast coming up with scenarios where people have lost things and he has to get them back.***
Well, now I go. Sad. Shouldn't be, but it is. I am very grateful to have had these many trips this summer. It is super cold outside now, an icy wind blows right from Jotunheim (the frost giant land), and it's time I went on my way. See you next year, I hope.
R.B.O.
P.S. I got home, and there was no news, election-wise, except for tons of delays and anger and frustration and the guy with the BBQ - Beer - Freedom shirt screaming at a press conference. I spoke to my buddy Jeff in Germany, and he's hoping for an end to this just as much (maybe even more, since his travel back to the states is complicated because of the U.S.'s handling of the pandemic).
*Most of the day's writing should be okay, because that tends to automatically back up (not 100% of the time, of course), but everything I wrote on the blog after eight pm is gone. It was talk about the election, complaints about the Taco Bell drive-thru, and some dude racing up and down the street in his pickup truck with a TRUMP 2020 flag in the back. I might rewrite that at some point, but more likely, it will stay dead (I retyped some of it while my brother was here).
**Oh, and the dinosaur's not a euphemism. It's the T-Rex I painted over October, that I put out on the deck to take a picture of last night, but then forgot about and it was then too dark to do it.
***Of course, there is the Orson Scott Card book with the identical title (and premise) that continues to vex me. I don't know if it sold a lot of copies, or if he's planning on writing sequels to it (though, he'd be foolish not to, having come up with not just a character like Willie Choner, but a bunch of other teens with powers in it), but I don't know if it's enough to know that I DIDN'T rip it off, no matter how it appears, especially if somebody comes along and says that I did. I guess this is a little bit like that (I think) Steven Spielberg-produced mini-series about the Titanic that aired the year (or only months) before James Cameron's version came out, the one with Catherine Zeta-Jones in it. "Oh, you were in the knock-off TITANIC movie," someone's bound to have said a time or three.
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