Thursday, November 29, 2007

What Did You Do Last Night?

Well I decided to finish a rough draft of a novel..... It has officially been counted by a NANOWRIMO bot and 50,085 words is the tally! Woo yeah! See for yourself: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/246822



So yeah I did it on my first try.... I am totally not even sure what to do now. I read a lot of comments at the NANOWRIMO website from other people who had tried to complete this in the past and failed so I feel pretty good about this. Well I am walking away from it for a few days and sometime in December I will go back and see what it looks like. Anyway thanks for the support on this crazy endeavor.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

My Take on the Writer Strike

PAY THEM!!! FOR GOD'S SAKES PAY THEM!

It is abominable to think that we as everyday working folk would ever dare to side with the pigs at the top. If you used to be a hippie and you sold your soul for an Audi and a 6 figure income I am willing to bet you are not reading this. If you are..... maybe you should do some work for that 6 figure income instead of reading my blog on the companies dime. Anyway back to my point. Most Americans go to work everyday and strive to make ends meet, don't let anyone fool you into believing otherwise. There are the lucky few who are vile enough to succeed in business and those that go on to 'great' political endeavors. A few have a gift with a sport and some have a gift that is more artistic and harder to define. Successful and highly paid writers, that every executive at the networks wants you to believe are the only ones out there, are actually not that prominent. That is why you know the high paid people's names. The other thing is if the company that produces it makes a mint off it and the people that act in it do as well, why shouldn't the freaking writer or writers make some cash too? It only makes total sense, without them we would have nothing to view. I have always known it was hard to write but this month has driven that point home. Ask me why I have never finished anything. Because sometimes it gets harder when the end is in sight and sometimes you give up before you actually ever see that end. Check my prior post 'Nanowrimo Crisis #2' out if you do not believe me. I think those that actors have something to do, say and feel so I can sit down and watch it need to get paid. Regardless of how I decided to view that particular show, be it online (legally I stopped doing the illegal thing in case you are the RIAA), on TV or from the video store. I hope the strike is resolved in the writer's favor very soon. If not I hope all of the people that think writers are whiny lay abouts realize that nothing but reruns for the rest of time will totally suck. Can you imagine them recycling the movie 'Space Truckers', new actors and just slightly changed dialogue? Don't know the movie, google it and you will thank the heavens that you never saw it (even if I kind of liked it and watched it more then once but hey it was on HBO). I am just trying to get you to envision a horrible dreck filled universe.
Here is the other thing that bugs me about the strike, some people who have griped to me about the writer strike are the same people who support the ball player strikes on the grounds that the freaking higher ups need to spread some greenbacks to those that pack the seats. It is the same thing. The writers provide the dialogue, be it good or bad, for the actors to say. Without it they might make up there own stuff to say. Have you seen most of these idiots be interviewed before? I may be a wee bit into Lindsay Lohan, cocaine problem or not, but do I really want her deciding what her character is all about (so like my character feels like drinking and doing drugs and then driving recklessly... Yay me, I'm Lindsay Freakin' Lohan)? Not really!

FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE PAY THE FREAKING WRITERS SOME FREAKING WELL DESERVED MONEY! OR ELSE THE ACTORS WILL TRY TO TALK MORE!

Ps.... Sorry Lindsay. You have been my fall gal of the day. I really like watching your movies... I am not sure if it is just because I like you or the movies. Don't do nose candy anymore it is bad for you.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Nanowrimo Crisis #2

So I am nearing the end of my 50,000 word race and I was golden until I hit 42,000 words.... I have been fighting the writing ever since and 5 days later I am barely at 46,000 words. 4,000 words in 5 days? That used to signify two days of writing, if I was taking it easy. The words were falling out of my skull onto the keyboard and it was smooth sailing. One moment of panic happened early on about what my characters were doing and that was chronicled here and now comes the second crisis. I know I will finish this endeavor but I am sure this 'novel' is a total disaster. 50,000 words of crap that will take forever to edit and still never be any good. Ok.... I knew that writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days would more then likely end up being nothing but total crap and I also know the actually doing part is where I need to focus. I get all this... I understand the concept but that does not mean I don't feel like griping. I am at a point in my story where I know what I want but I am not sure how to do it. I wrote myself into a world that I know even less about then the two girls I started writing about. But I have an ending in mind, I have my characters more or less in place and I have a story even if I managed to only barely get it across. It is only the first draft and the best part is that it is nearly done. I have 3 days left to go, on a nearly empty tank of gas and a 'car' that just started sputtering but I will drag the damn thing across the finish line if I have to!

WORD FREAKIN' UP!

Friday, November 23, 2007

Thanksgiving Review

Well I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! I hope as I write this at work you are at home relaxing with family. Perhaps eating more left over turkey..... or tofurkey depending on your meat or no meat leanings. I had a good Thanksgiving. I stayed at home, did a little writing (not enough if truth be told), watched some football, made a roast beast and ate said roast beast, helped put together a crib, and watched Fantastic 4 and the totally silver guy that surfs and Evan Almighty. In case you are wondering I am at 43,500 on the word count. I just could not get motivated to write yesterday. Oh well.

So a quick review of the movies I watched.

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer - Yeah.... hmmm.... yeah.... Could that have ended before it started? That would have been better. The least they could do was have a lot more of Jessica Alba in slinky form fitting super hero outfit, that would have made it better. I was so unbelievably bored.....

Evan Almighty - Hokey but fun. I liked the movie but yeah hokey sums it up. It was good for little people too.


Well continue having a nice holiday.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

A Rambling Review of THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM!


It occurred to me that as I was saying yes to seeing The Bourne Ultimatum, that I was in fact agreeing to see a movie I was not going to like. I hated the first two, the camera work is awful! I figure that if I handed the camera to my Nephew he would shoot a better looking movie. The camera would be more still and his angles would not suck nearly as bad as this director's camera work. I never really understood why this technique became popular... and I hate that people have copied this jerky camera technique. I like to call it the "Twitchy super-caffeinated 4 year old" camera technique. Ok, I just made that term up and have never in fact used it before this but it fits. As far as I am concerned the way they shot this movie can be directly linked to the decline of good quality cinema. Somehow, someone thought that adding a shaky camera as a character would heighten the intensity of what you are watching but in truth all it did was make me dizzy. I have to admit this particular movie was not as vomit inducing as the Bourne Supremacy had been but maybe my vomit inducer meter can take more shakiness and crappy angles then it used to. The story is ridiculously thin and well.... let's just dive in. You are checking out the rambling review of THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM!

In my defense it was viewed at a theater that not only serves pizza but also serves beer for you to imbibe while you view the horrible dreck they call movies. If it was not for the beer I would never have said yes... well I would have been less likely too anyway.

Matt Damon is back as Jason Bourne who seems to be some kind of ultimate human weapon. They throw all kinds of guys at him and occasionally they might slow him down a bit but he barely even gets hurt when he fights them. His hair does not even get messed up. He is also blessed with the ability to track anyone down and yet remain completely untraceable himself. He is like Osama, you know how somehow Osama can get his videos out but nobody can manage to figure out from where. If this movie were based in fact, the question would be: why would we even have a military when we have Jason Bourne? He could single handedly take out the world. Jason Bourne for president! Except that he is also a total retard because he can't manage to remember who he is and he has been trying to figure that out since the first movie 5 years ago.... Really? You are like really good at finding people, disappearing from people trying to find you, and killing people yet you can't seem to recall your name? How freaking retarded can you be? Well apparently not nearly as retarded as the evil overlords running the NSA. They roll with the shoot first and ask questions later routine. It amazes me.... I mean why not bring him back in? Why continue to do things that keep pissing him off so that he has to single handedly take you down? You have a whole division of guys plus people you term 'assets' that are just killing machines and yet one guy can bring you down? Really?

The Story (SPOILER ALERT!!! This part contains the storyline, which means I tell you the story. So if you insist on seeing it for yourself and you do not want to know what happens don't read the part right here, just skip to the recommendation part, if you do not heed this warning you can't blame me!)

We open with a scene where Jason is being hunted down like a dog. He goes into a medical facility where he starts having flashbacks while he tries to cure his wounds. Meanwhile, two police officers follow his trail of blood and are ordering him to do stuff in words that produce white letters at the bottom of the screen. I have decided it is my goal to learn a language that puts my words in front of me so people can have the joy of not only hearing my words but can also choose to read them too! Back to Jason who is bleeding to death.... some guy tells him to do something... I am not sure what he said because I refuse to read other people's statements but it seems to totally piss Jason off. So Jason gets all hostile on his butt and takes him out and was just about to shoot the other guy when he started pleading for his life. Jason decided to leave and not kill this guy and managed to somehow escape the entire police force who are also looking for him but they don't show how he manages that feet. A boring reporter scene and an incompetent NSA scene. Then we see Jason on a train and he is reading a story about himself in the paper..... yeah. Totally stupid right? Some hack reporter that has crap for brains and will end up having slush for brains after getting shot in the head is able to find out a lot about Jason by the unheard of approach called 'asking someone'. So once again you have to ask yourself..... how does Jason not know who he is yet? Anyway the NSA totally freaks out and they try to kill the reporter and Jason and of course manage to just shoot the reporter (who decided he knew more then Jason who survives for a living). On top of it they shoot the reporter in the middle of Waterloo freaking Station! Why would that be a good idea? Wouldn't that make you wonder why he got shot? Wouldn't it make what he was reporting headline news? It doesn't of course and the movie continues to boggle your mind. Jason somehow manages to know exactly where the reporters had stashed his hand written notes that contain his 'secret' source. Naturally Jason goes after the source and is too late but runs into Julia Stiles and once again evades the NSA. Julia Stiles's character, Silly Face (I swear that's the characters name), helps Jason find the reporter's source. They run off to another country and once again end up being late. Jason pulls out a can of whoop a** on an 'asset' that is trying to kill Silly Face and Jason too. Then he ditches Silly Face and goes to the US..... and gets in the 'borders' without anyone noticing, which is probably the most plausible part of the movie. He fools the NSA again, and then another time and I think maybe even one more time. What is funny is Jason is not trying to kill anyone but they keep forcing him too and you think why can't they just have a sit down with this guy and clear the bad air? Well apparently the government is a bunch of meanies! Well boo freaking hoo let's get a new idea, we get it! Hollywood thinks the government is evil... ok, already they're mean and evil, whatever you say, just move on! Then we have the not so amazing discovery that Jason is not quite as much of a peach as we all hoped this crazy one man department, miltary, and country destroying machine was... which is all I have to say about the movie.

My recommendation? See this movie with beer and pizza. If you find yourself without beer or pizza? Totally skip it. It would suck so much worse if you view it while totally sober. Unless of course you have a thing for Matt Damon....

Monday, November 19, 2007

The book and the Holiday

Well I am at 42,031 words right now. I have a story and it is all over the place but I do know what I am doing with it. Kind of..... I know what I want to make it do but I am still working on making sure I do that. I am 8,000 words away from the super scary rewrite..... I will be reorganizing things and perhaps going with a new direction on a few things, a few characters may get scrapped and a few others might get added. I have an idea of what this is and it took nearly 40,000 words to see it. Which in itself is scary. I am spending time flushing out some ideas or writing new pieces to add in different spots to help with the reorganization. My story is a story about people coming together basically and that is all I am saying at this point for a description. I hope to organize it in a semblance of a coherent and flowing story and then I will start getting people to help me edit it. My mom is dying to be an editor but I am looking for other people as well for down the road a bit. Maybe the end of December on into January. Just so you know it is super rough and I can not guarantee it is anywhere close to what I ultimately want it to end up. Heck... I am not even sure if where I want it to end is where it is going to. So what I will need in the beginning editing are people that will help me find weaknesses in the story and maybe suggestions on how to improve it. If you are still interested let me know somehow.... email, blog comment, phone.

Other then that I am going to my dad's Friday night for Thanksgiving on Saturday.... as I said before, I work the day after Thanksgiving and I was not looking forward to driving all the way down to Roseburg just to turn around on a stomach full of Turkey and drive all the way back up. So they moved it to Saturday. Thanks Dad, Maryjo, Aunt Wanda, Uncle Don and Mildred for being flexible.

In yet other news I will be making a rare appearance in Phoenix the weekend of December 7 - 9. For more tour dates just let me know you need to know where I'll be and when and I will let you know. I may even sign autographs....

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Post 200!

Well I have written 200 blogs on this thing since I started it over a year ago. That is pretty amazing. I guess I have a lot to say or at least I like to write a lot of stuff about nothing. Either way that is a lot of words and time spent on this thing.

Well I had a good day Friday. I slept in, I had film developed and I bought a new jacket. I wrote 400 words...... Then I went bowling with my room mate. I suck at bowling in case you were wondering. I know you were. I had a few beers and I bowled a high of 86 and a low of 71. Like I said, I suck at bowling. Either way those few beers or those 4 miserable performances that I called bowling allowed my brain to get the mojo back and I came home and wrote 3,500 words. I am going to bed now because it is 3:30 in the morning and I feel tired but not because I want to. My brain wants to keep going and find out what is going to happen to these people. (See even I don't know what will happen in my story isn't that exciting?) Anyway the word count is firmly in the 34,000 range and I am feeling good since I wanted to get 35,000 words written by the end of Sunday.

I could not think of a better way to say 'Happy 200 blogs!' then I just did by giving an awesome word count. I want to add that I am in a great mood today and it is because of the day off. I really needed the time away from that den of evil that I call my job. My roommate needs a break too but he keeps waiting for everything to be perfect and I keep saying that it never will and to preserve sanity he needs to not go to work one of these days real soon. Work is bad. Like worse then the devil bad. I mean really really really bad. I think I need to quote Office Space right here: "I don't really like work, so I don't think I am going to go anymore."

Don't worry I am going back Monday. I just feel that the above quote properly sums up my feelings about work. You know the whole desire to stop going and stuff.....

Friday, November 16, 2007

Shiny Happy Thoughts for Disgruntled Citizens

I am so glad I took Friday off this week. I was starting to get a bit tired of the people that I deal with on the phones all day at work. It gets hard to care about what people are whining to you about when you are tired of hearing it. It is even harder to care when you have not been to sleep before midnight all month long because you are writing a novel in 30 days. Yeah I bring that issue on myself I get that, I am just saying I needed a day off so I took one. I am working the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve for this evil company and I might have stabbed a brother if I did not take some me time. Sometimes I still get amazed that we allow work to take such a huge chunk of our lives away from us. Why the Hell should I have to spend this much of my waking time doing stuff I hate. I get it there is bills and yada yada yada, but really? I was in a rut before I started this writing project. I would work all day, come home and take a walk (when the sun was still up and if it was sunny), then I would eat dinner, watch 3 to 4 hours (depending on if I went for a walk) of pointless TV, spend some time on the internet and then I would go to bed so I could get up for another day of exactly the same thing. I know you have heard this from me before and woe is me and all that jazz but I just can't believe this is what adults do. I can't believe that because it boggles my mind. I remember thinking "when I grow up..." when I was a kid but you trade one set of rules for a new set of rules when you get your 'grown up life'. In fact the only thing I realized was how free I was when I was a kid. I remember people told me to enjoy the fleeting moments while they lasted but who the heck listens to the voice of experience? No one does. How can you? As a kid you just see you are not allowed to do anything. You also never have money to do anything and your parents won't let you see if you have the ability to fly by jumping off the roof. Here is the thing, I am sure as an old fart I will envy these days too.... maybe. Anyway enough of my 'the corporate world is a fascist regime' tirade.

So I am on word 30,090 on my story. Just 19,910 left until my goal is achieved. I have a story with a crisis and I am in way over my head because I know nothing about the crisis I chose to write about, but I feel alive. It is fun, scary, intense and exhilarating all at the same time. I would highly encourage any budding wordsmiths to tackle this with me next year. I have a book that helps you keep going through the ups and downs that I could loan you. It is pretty entertaining to just let a story take you but some people spend quite a while laying out their ideas and the research needed to pull it off as opposed to coming up with and idea and then googling it mid writing stint like I have been doing. Anyway, the words still flow and I am still having fun. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Don't Count Me Out!

I had a heck of a weekend in productivity for my book. I was feeling pretty down Saturday because I was only at 17,000 words and I was super whiny and defeatist, just ask my dad. I was worried about the plot (or lack of one) and my characters not doing anything interesting. I read the instructions for week 2 in 'No Plot? No Problem!', which was written by the founder of the National Novel Writing Month. He basically tells you how to survive this crazy ride you signed up for and says week two is tough because it is when the novelty of 'writing a book' wears off and the writing gets harder to complete. He said lots of people find they still don't have 'plots' during this week and usually feel panicked but he says don't worry, just keep writing about your characters and they will tell you where they want to go. So I churned out 5,000 words between Saturday night and the end of Sunday night. I still had no concrete story but I had decided the 2 male characters needed to ask out the females. I was thinking this is it, this is my story it's about being a dork and trying to have a relationship with people that aren't dorks. So I started writing at work today because work was super slow, I guess people thought the evil corporations would be closed on a national holiday but of course they weren't. I wrote 2,400 words before heading home and things had happened and I was ok with what had happened but I could see a sad little tale developing with a storyline of relationship woes. When I got home I decided to watch some football and that was boring, the 49ers suck. Then I decided to do some work for the Grove Review and I read all of the poets I had taken home with me. So I sat down in front of the computer and I started writing. And I had a complete left turn come up and smack me in the face and I had finally been delivered a problem to confront..... YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH YEAH!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

26,000 words and I feel fan'freaking'tastic! I have a story here! WOO! This is awesome! I want to keep writing and ditch work tomorrow, but I won't (booooo). I am going to bed in a helluva good mood though! I have a story to tell! Yay!

I have a story but you don't got one cuz' you're on welfare!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Meow Meow Meow

Hello all!
Well it seems at 22,000 words my characters all still alive. They aren't doing illegal drugs. It is scarily calm. I am not sure what storm is approaching but I feel one building. I have a feeling I will attain 25,000, the halfway mark very soon, hopefully tonight. Yay my writing is growing in size..... yay.

In other news I am a reader for the Grove Review. I went to the informational meeting last night, in case you don't know what day I am writing that was Sunday night. The day I usually lay around watching football all day and night. I have a stack of poetry to read and rate by next Sunday.

Other then that life is moving along. I am in 4th place in fantasy football. ASU is in 8th. The Blazers are 3 and 3 and the Cards are 4 and 5.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

18 k and feeling fine....

I am sure you are all just dying to know what is going on with my novel. Well is still has no plot but I like the characters enough to keep charging ahead. I took Thursday night off so I am at 18,000 words instead of 20,000 today. I have been stressing a lot lately and I read some tips and they say that most people experience moments of panic and despair in the second week. That calmed me down quite a bit. I am still struggling to develop a story but I am taking another tip from what I have read and I am just writing and trusting my characters to help me decide something should happen. In the meantime I am just putting together more words that help me get to know my characters. There are 4 main characters now and each of them interests me for some reason. I can't wait until they let me know where I am supposed to take them.


Anyway.. I have some more words to ramble.

Oh and the Blazers won the last 2 games! Yay! Beat Dallas tonight!


UPDATE: 9:30 PM, I am at 19,000 words and the Blazers beat Dallas! Woohoo 3 wins in a row. Next game....The Pistons on Tuesday...
The Pistons Booooo!

Beat the Pistons! Yay!

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Nanowrimo Crisis #1

Well it seems that I have hit the wall..... I am 11,000 words in and I still have no clear idea of what I am doing. I have one main character and I think she is too mild and not all crazy so if I am going for a young adult feel here I need her emotions to kick up a bit. That is another thing should I have went with a female lead? I mean it is not too late to totally kill her off. It's not like it's a first person role. Mostly it is thought driven so I could switch people and just rotate or whatever. I mean I have read some interesting things lately with a multiple person take on things, ie. Jodi Piccoult. I mean all I really need to do is find something to write about. That is where I fall into a bigger dilemma. I do not want to write a heavy book about death, rape, teenage sex or other retarded ills of the world. Hell the world is dark enough isn't it? I want a lighter feel where you just escape your life and get into someone else's problems that are not completely overwhelming. Something that might make you laugh and might make you remember and even possibly relate but I do not want you balling or trying to figure out the mystery. I guess I have to make a decision tonight......

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Yo! CLD Rocks!

Well the weekend was pretty good to me. I am currently sitting at 7700 words written on my novel that I still have not titled or figured out where it is going. I am trying to get to 8500 tonight before I call it a night. I just needed to take a break and say hi to you all. I wanted to mention a few things. ASU lost to the stupid Ducks... that was horrible. My roommate was all happy and I felt like kicking him in his fat head a couple times. So I decided to write for a while with my headphones on so as to stay on good terms and all. It wasn't his fault the Ducks finally started playing defense. We went out and saw Michael Clayton on Friday night and I would recommend it to you. It is not an action packed thriller but it is highly intriguing and I liked it. It kinda of showed corporations as being super evil and I felt like I should point out my poem called Corporate Practices that I posted in October about corporations and there evilness. We are totally on the same wave length there. Then Saturday after watching the Devils lose (boo!) I went with my evil roomie to a place called Indian Grill that had some awesome food. I had a Lamb Tikka Kabob and loved it. Then we rented Alpha Dog which was actually pretty entertaining. It had a horrible ending and all but it was kind of amusing until then. Other then that I have been lying low and close to the home front. Anyway I need to get back to writing.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

A quick November howdoyado!

So it's freaking November! I had a great weekend this last weekend. Halloween wasn't too bad either. I would love to tell you about it and you might even want to hear about it but I have promised my time to a few other projects instead. The first thing you should know is it's NANOWRIMO month (google it) and I am involved in crapping out 50,000 words in some semblance of a story. The second is a little book called the Grove Review has asked for volunteers to staff their little office to help them put out their book. I have decided to look into being one of the volunteers so Sunday the 11th I will be checking it out at an informational meeting. We shall see but it seems intriguing. So I am currently at 1322 words in my story and I have a mere 48,688 left to type. So my words here are going to brief this month. Suffice it to say my pumpkin won a contest at work for being the coolest and most creative pumpkin. Of course there were no other pumpkins but my beast of a pumpkin would have eaten them for breakfast or at least fallen on them crushing their souls and their pumpkinness. Either way it got me a gift card at Starbucks and a week of dress down to be used in December. Well hope all is well. I will check back in. I have some more writing to do.

If you have little people you dressed up in costumes for Halloween I would love to have a copy sent to me and your permission to post them, if you do not mind, on this blog. If you do mind the posting of the cute lil' people then send the pic to me and say "No posty!" The message being little kids in little costumes are cool and I want to see what they were dressed up as and I am sure most sane people do too.... Actually any of you silly people out there can send me a pic of your costumed self and I will post it! DO it! DO IT NOW!!