Wow. I have tried and failed at my last three attempts to post something. Not because I can’t figure out how to schedule posts (which I can’t, they say they’re scheduled – then they sit there as the scheduled time passes right on by), but because I cannot seem to write a post.
My mojo has left me.
I’m not saying I’ve got blogger’s block again, that never left me. No, instead, I’m saying that I can’t seem to write a coherent post. I’ll write them, read them, then delete them, deeming them unfit for humans to read. I’m finding this whole blogging business to be a big mess of confusion for me, and organizing my thoughts into a single, cohesive narrative is hard. So I’ll just post a few notes.
On Writing
I think I’ve outlined a tentative plan for what I’m going to try to accomplish this summer on the writing front. I wrote quite a bit over the weekend and feel appropriately smug about that. I can thank the heat for my burst of activity. It was too miserably hot to do yard work, which can take up a great deal of my weekends.
On Reading
I finished up Cindy Borgne’s Vallar, a fun read that I hope others check out. Then, quite by accident, I started reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I intended to read A Dance with Dragons but I was out and had some time to kill and had to thumb through my Kindle library on my phone. I’ve been building it up for a while now. I’ll see something I know I want to read go on sale and I’ll pick it up. If the big publishers ever catch wind of my buying habits once books get under $5 then watch out. I’ll be broke.
Anyway, I’m a third of the way through this new book and am committed to seeing this through. I like the premise. Now Jim Butcher’s Ghost Story comes out tomorrow. That means I’ll probably push back George R.R. Martin’s epic another week as a result. Oh well, I’ll just have to wait a bit longer to find out how much almond milk noble Tyrrion drinks over the course of 1000 pages or so.
Funny, I remember when I used to read science fiction exclusively. If I saw this reading list of mine as recently as a year ago I would have flogged myself for it.
Business
I’m still having thoughts about self-pubbing something. If I can handle the formatting I think it may be two works set in the same universe that are shorter in length. A novelette and a longish short story. Combined I believe they’ll be between 20 - 30k words long. Hopefully folks won’t feel robbed if I ask them to hand over cash – who knows, if I can do it, I might throw in some artwork as well. We’ll see, my plans in this area are pretty nebulous. I have a strong inclination to send stuff out via more traditional places. But I think I can use the education this will offer. Especially if I plan on putting something novel length out there soon.
On the Weather
How hot was it last weekend? My dog, er, my larger dog, has a bell she rings when she wants to go outside. This weekend she got in the habit of ringing the bell, then once I opened the door she would stick her head out, put a single paw on our deck, and promptly decide it was too hot and back right up until she was inside again. I agreed with her. I also learned she can hold her pee for a really long time. Good girl.
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| Barking is awesome. You should try it. |
The bad side is that she usually goes outside to bark at stuff, she discovered that she could now bark at everything from inside a cool, comfortable place. Our bay windows look out over the neighborhood so she has a great view of all the stuff that pisses her off. She barked at the mailman, the movers down the street, the ice cream truck, a cat, a dog, another dog, a bird, my neighbors, and at least half a dozen things I couldn’t figure out. On a side note, my dog barks really loud.
Other
I’ve been thinking of putting a real photo of me as a profile pic. Everything I have online is a sketch, The one I’ve been using on blogger is also my Facebook profile. I have a Thor sketch I use on twitter, an Astronaut sketch on Goodreads, even a batman sketch as my work email avatar. So, the hidden face of Rusty may be revealed to the world soon. Everyone hold your collective breath.
