Yup, time for another trip down the random road……..

Things that are new and intriguing, for me at least…….

1. I am newly single (again)
2. Being a single father isn’t as bad as the press would lead you to believe.
3. Teenagers aren’t the devil (at least mine isn’t)
4. Writing isn’t as hard as people would lead you to believe, but revising is.
5. Things that are bad for you are really enjoyable.
6. I really need to dive into a good book, or write one.

Just me rambling a bit since I need something to post in between my actual writing.  At this point I am finding getting back to full on immersive writing to be problematic at best.  I don’t know why, I have a ton of ideas, lots of things that are in various stages.  So I could get back into things with fleshed out characters, finish developing an idea I have already done the research on, or start fresh.  Just weird.

Maybe I have been under the shroud of constraints for the better part of a year and am used to the comfortable feeling of guidance.  Or I just might be lazy…….

I am hoping that my forthcoming holiday will rejuvenate me and get my ass back into gear.  When I put my mind to it I can kick out prose like a boss (quality aside).  Quantity is not an issue for me.  But you only get better by doing, and even if in the grand scheme of things I suck at this, then at least I have no where to go but up.

This is just me meandering at the keyboard while typing letters and trying to form them into a coherent mess.  Maybe someone will read this and figure out what the hell I am trying to get at, or not.  It could just be a shiny screen for a pet cat to look at while their master is watching TV and wants to distract the pet from clawing the furniture…..  There’s and idea…. a sentient cat tricks their owner to open the computer so they can have access to the internet to mobilize all the other cats for a revolution or something…..

This is how my brain kind of works and it worries me….. Or it is plotting against me.  Help? Maybe?  I will have to think on it, no, that is what it wants me to do……..

Some of the stuff I have tossed up and some upcoming posts are works that I have written during the course of my pursuing a(nother) degree.  This one in writing.  I have a plan for all of these little excursions into short form, to put them together in a collection.  Like a book of prose for those that want less of me, or smaller doses when they are having trouble sleeping without having to absorb an entire books worth.

To this end I was going to cram all of these things and those to come, I have a Semester left, into said collection.  I was going to also out notes with each to explain how they came to be.  Not the original in some regards, but the rewrites or how the version you read, whatever I will just wing it.  A lot of times people read things and want to know the story behind it, or not, in which case I am doing it for filler.

For additional fun  I have also had dozens of writing exercises during classes that were never fully fleshed out.  I will revisit those and add them in if I need to hit my page mark.  Both because it would be fun to go back and see what I can do with the remnants of fast writing and to see if they can become more than just a toss away idea.  What can i say, I love a challenge.

This is also the only way I see myself delving more into non-fiction as well.  Yes I do have a memoir and a second one started, but those are not short pieces on specific subjects.   I am mot likely to write a lot of these from here on out, so this is a chance to do that.  Not that I am against essays and non-fic, but I prefer fiction more.  So why not mix it up?

One reason I want to include notes is that I was always fascinated by process and outlining mine in certain instances seems to be a place where I can help others understand the work more fully.

For more fun I am going to toss out some ideas for a title, comment on which you like or add some.

1. Musings and Mutterings from a Hack Writer
2. Short and to the Point: Things to put you sleep
3. Ravings of A Lunatic: A Collection of the Asinine
4. Three Cows and a Stick of Butter: Randoms Tales of Stuff
5. Journey Down the Rabbit Hole: Short Stories, Essays, and how they came to be.

That is a few just off the top of my head.

Yes I am alive, contrary to popular belief, not that anyone cares.  maybe one of my two readers.  That being said the real reason was it was the end of the semester, or like the middle of it since my last post.  In any case there was a ton of stuff due or becoming due and I felt a need to prioritize what I was doing, and in the grand scheme of things this little exercise in vanity ranked lowest.  Sorry about that.

On the bright side I have a bunch of stuff I might/will post here that is actually writing related.  That will make for something besides my ramblings.  So in that regard we are good.  I netted two shorts stories and some essay that I have assembled from a couple of the classes that I was taking.  The rest of the classes were kind of worthless in my opinion.

Don’t get me wrong I see their value for a 20 year old that still is trying to figure out life.  but as a middle age single father going back to school to try and learn something more about a thing that he likes to do, they were just a way to get more money for the school that could care less about veterans and/or older learners.  its about the dollar.  This is a good transition to the next thing too……

I will still be posting additional chapters to Emporium over at Royal Road, but there is a caveat now…..  I had an inspiration to totally change the ending.  This is good and bad I guess.  Good in the regard that current ending is the end of the story.  Plain and simple.  The new one opens it up for additional stories in that world, which upon reflecting over I can see potentially being a nice place to go and revisit and do some subversion on Sci Fi Tropes as well…..  Like my original trilogy I wrote and just tossed shit aside.  The bad news being, that means that at about chapter 35 I will not post anymore unless I have the new ending worked out by then.

That is the problem with writing, you never know how long something is going to take.   Which is the thing about this blog as well……..

Until next time.

It has been a while eh?  At least a couple of weeks.  I swear I mean to write at least once a week on this thing, but life just gets in the way.  I am taking 18 credits in school for this writing degree and it’s kinda killing me.  I also just finalized a divorce and am now the proud single parent of a bouncing baby boy, well he’s 13 so there is that.

I have been neck deep in writing for classes, and revising, and rewriting…….  The short story I posted a couple weeks back was the first version of a tale I wove for my fiction class.  The new version is totally different, and apparently I need to give it a third go.  Not a total rewrite this time , but I will eventually post versions 2 and 3 so all two of my readers can see the difference.

I will say it is kind of cool that I am able to take the same concept and deliver it in three distinct manners, but I guess that is why I am going to school.  I also had to do my capstone project for my capstone class…… That was a hoot and write a magazine feature article and a 12 page essay for my non-fiction.  All while trying to learn linguistics and programming, which is kicking my ass.  I get the material but I need a lot of time for it to stick.  I wish I could just write a book or two and get the damn credits I need for it.

How sad is that?  I would rather toss 60k words down in book form than take computer programming?  I haven’t done that since high school.  So its been a hot minute.  Anyway, I am tossing three chapters of Emporium up over on Royal Road for you to read and talk bad about me.  I have to be honest on this one though, I am not a fan of the ending of that book. This is just the first draft though and it was written in under two months, so be a little sensitive to me.  I would love feedback on how to make it a little better, or I might think of something myself, eventually when I get a moment to breath.

I am hoping next semester, my last WOOHOO!!!, will be a bit easier.  I have 3 writing classes and an internship, so the homestretch will hopefully be less stressful.  I like the writing classes.  Writing is easy for me.  I think I wrote both my stories for my fiction class in under three hours combined, as 3k words each……..  Don’t hate me because I can write a lot.  I make no claims as to the quality though.  My grades shall tell though…….

Anyway I will wander off now and let you back to your day, or to read my other drivel, your choice.  I promise to TRY to be more regular at posting.  I need to.

On a side note, when I can get to it I need to change the banner.  Inheritance will not be coming out this fall like I had planned…..  sorry about that.  It still needs work and I don’t have time.  Plus I am thinking of putting out the memoir before that.  But no time for anything.  I finally got a little time last weekend to write for myself a bit and I started something new instead of trying to edit one of the finished books or working on The redeemed, which is about 100 pages in and lying in limbo……

Yeah I can’t seem to multitask, but I swear I can I just don’t have the time.  Plus I am getting ready for my State Tournament with the card game I play.  Don’t judge, I play one day a week, that’s the only break I take from school and life in general. I hven’t even made my board game designers meetup in a month.  You know how hard it is for a nerd to miss his hobby dates?   It’s okay though, I haven’t really worked on any of my prototypes anyway.  But the new project is a follow up to the Marin memoir, this time all the nerd stuff.

Yes I feel as though all my nerdiness and adventures are enough for a whole book…….. a short one granted, but still.  We shall see.  Then again I have like 8 other books I am working on as well, or have started.  I plan to finish them all eventually.  First I have to get this school thing done. I was thinking of going on to grad school to get an MFA, but I’m not sure 2 to 3 more years of school is what I need.  I already have 2 masters degrees gathering dust…….

Anywho, this has gone on long enough.  Go check out the new chapters on Royal Road and tell me how bad they are.

I really like that picture.  And it has been awhile.  I had midterms in school, then did some stuff like finalizing a divorce and getting an internship for my last semester.  It just kind of all builds up and before you know it *POOF* all your time is gone. One thing I have been thinking about is instead of putting all of my writing all on Royal Road I will just put my longer stuff up over there in segments.

I am going to start putting the shorter stuff up here, short stories and essays.  Since I am doing a bunch for school, why not do something with it.  Worst case, all my crap is localized.  So I am gonna start doing categories so its easier to find all the punishment you want.

I figure if I ever get around to polishing some of the stuff I might be in the ball park of having enough for a collection or something.  We do a lot of free writing in classes, why waste it all?  I mean I waste my time writing this blog for all two of you, so a bit more won’t hurt I guess.

So I’m going to toss a couple more chapters of Emporium up on Royal Road to make up for lost time and an essay and short story here.  The latter won’t be regular things, just when I have them done, not necessarily polished though.  I also will have to go through and categorize everything as well.  So fun back end stuff as well…….

Life is always a hoot when you have things going on that you have no control over, it might even make for a story……someday.