"What are you writing?"

"What are you writing?" One of my friends at Domino's asked me that question today, so I thought I'd let you all know what I've been working on. As you probably know, I wrote my children's book "Dino-Boy's Adventure" about ten years ago. It was published through a messy process where we paid a "Vanity publishing house" big bucks to print up a bunch of over-priced copies of what I think is a very cute book for kids. Since then I've been working on several projects. My novel "Moral Imperative" is about 2/3 done. It is a futuristic political thriller, that will need a few major rewrites to keep it futuristic. I also am working on a young reader novel called "Their Tears Will Make Them Better". But most recently I have been focusing on short stories. I have written "The Actors' Club" (which has been rejected by both Analog and Glimmertrain literary magazine), but I still have hopes for it. My story "Christmas Dreams" (which you can find in my older blogs from December 2010) has been submitted to Glimmertrain. I have also finished "The Sentry", a short story of my early life from the point-of-view of a tree in my front yard. I will be submitting that to Glimmertrain in April for their Family oriented fiction contest.

Currently I am finishing up "Outpost 63" a scifi story I am hoping to submit to Analog. So for Jessica and Larissa, who wonder what I'm writing, that's the rundown. Hope to have a lot of you as readers soon.

Winter weather, rental cars...excuses excuses

Once again this week the battle to keep the new years resolutions faced several challenges. Two evenings (Monday and Wednesday) it was snowing up the hill and I was forced to stay down the hill at mom & dad's. This left me unable to work on my writing very much. Also being away from home lead to more fast food meals (at meal time only, not as extra snacks). I haven't done this weeks points total yet, but pretty sure it will be low.

Hopefully by the middle of next week I will be in a temporary lease and my life will flow back to normal. But for now, I will keep trying, and keep pushing on.

New Car Time

Well, got word today that the insurance company is not going to fix my trusty matrix. I guess the roll was more than she could take. So it is time once again for a new car. I am hoping to get another Matrix. They are good cars and the All Wheel Drive model gets me through most of the snow storms the mountain throws at me. I am also considering a Prius, which would give me some good mileage...but I don't think they come in All Wheel Drive, and I REALLY hate putting chains on. So pray that I make the right choice in what to order, and that it arrives without a problem. And pray that the stress from accident and snow and stuff doesn't make me stress eat and gain back the weight I've lost this year.

Another rough week

Well, if you are working at keeping goals & resolutions, or just generally trying to get stuff done, a word of warning: Do NOT roll your car. I did just that on Monday and it has really screwed up my resolutions for this week. In particular my writing (hard to get inspired when your brain is focused on the accident) and my eating goals (I stress eat, and the accident has of course caused stress). So this is going to be a low point week. and I say....there's always next week. Praying for a better one.

P.S. Jury Duty also screws things up!

Don't be a Hater (or I'll report you)

One thing I have found on social media is that the distance a computer offers you from those you are contacting has lead many to reject general rules of conversational conduct and manners. Or to put it more bluntly, "I'm on line and I can say whatever the He** I want and you can't do anything about it".

But today I found out there IS something I can do, at least in a small way, if you offend me on Facebook. I was viewing comments on a post from a young rising music star. She had commented on her faith, and how important it was to her. Many other people had comment on her post and encouraged her. Then there was a post from someone telling "all you Christians shut the +*&# up and go +*&# off ". This is when I discovered you can report a post or comment on facebook as offensive, and it then gives you drop down choices of how the comment was offensive. I decided to report this comment.

Now please don't think I'm a week little Christian who cries any time someone says anything bad about Christ or God. I am perfectly willing to let other people have and express opposing views. I will even debate or discuss religion, politics, music, theatre, movies...anything you want. If you want to have a civil, intelligent discussion on a topic, I'm up for that.

But one you jump into a chain of comments just to hate on a person or group of persons, and to cuss at them and tell them to shut up. I'll report that stuff. I'm in favor of an open discussion forum on line, but lets use manners and common courtesy. If you are rude to someone on line and attack them personally because of religion, politics, sexual orientation, etc., and if I see the post, then I will report it. Call me a snitch if you like, I prefer to call it a politeness policeman....no, that;s corny ..maybe a rudeness eradicator. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is be nice..just because we are not face to face doesn't mean we can't be civil.

Terrible horrible no good very bad day

I feel like Alexander in the children's book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad day" I should be reading or writing or doing something productive with my time, but instead, I'm freaking out.

To be honest my day was going pretty well until around 1:00. That is when I looked at the bottom of the shoes I got for Christmas and noticed a split along the center of the sole of the left shoe. I do not want to buy new shoes, but now I'll have to soon.

But this wasn't SO horrible. What happened as I was leaving my friend Rob's house (we carpool together) is what made the day Horrible. I was making U-turn in front of Robert's house when I realized I was too close to the car parked along side the street. I tried to swerve out of the way but hit the car and flipped my car onto its side. Now I am scared it is totaled, and more scared I may lose lease privileges from work. So I'm a little freaked out, and am having a terrible horrible no good very bad day.

I think I'll move to Australia.

February Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that as we enter February, I'm still doing pretty good on my resolutions. To keep on track with the resolutions I have made a chart where I give myself points for each part of the resolution I keep. It works like this: 1 point for not snacking on extra junk at Domino's (I work there, which makes this tough), 1 point for only ordering once a week from Domino's, 1 point for NOT eating dessert, 1 Point for not stopping for fast food between jobs, 1 Point for each hour I read, 1 point for each blog I post, 1 point for each hour I work on my writing. An Optimal week, keeping all my resolutions is 11 points, looking for a year end total of 572 points.

I can get bonus points for extra hours of reading or writing. Also bonus for finishing a book (reading), entering a writing contest or posting my monthly update blog. I lose points in the eating categories each time I break 1 of the area. For example, I struggled in January with the desserts. 2 weeks due to family birthdays, and once just due to poor will power. But the nice thing about the chart is I can balance stuff out and get back on track.

So for the first 4 weeks of the year my points were: Week 1--12 pts; week 2-- 12.5 pts; week 3-- 10.5 pts; week 4-- 8.5 pts (I was sick part of the week and missed some writing/reading time).
Also in that first month I lost about 7 pounds, and come down one notch on my belt. And this week I finished reading a book. And looking at this week, week #5 I'm aiming at at least 14 points.

So overall, my resolutions are going well....How about yours??