Over the last three weeks or so the most of time I would ordinarily spend writing I am spending shoveling snow. L As I write this, it's snowing like a movie made in Alaska. The snow is coming down steadily, the wind is blowing, it's twenty-seven degrees outside, and just a few minutes ago our dog, Rusty, was outside rolling in the snow, running around, having a great time. He's a very thick-haired dog. He sheds all the time and often naps outside because it's cooler.
Many dogs shake a lot. Especially when they're wet they'll shake themselves to get the snow or water off. Not Rusty. He will shake himself now and then, but he doesn't seem to mind having snow and ice on his back. I think his hair is so thick that he doesn't even know when he's wet.
He also makes it clear when he wants attention. He's not especially long-legged, but he is long-bodied. So often I'm sitting at my desk writing and he'll come to either side and hoist his front legs onto my back or shoulder and push his forward like he's trying to read over my shoulder. Then he'll put his face into my face and say, with his eyes and posture, "Here I am. Give me attention, and I mean now."
Despite the snow, I am getting some writing done. In my last post I mentioned that I wasn't sure how I was going to handle the upcoming battle scene. I'm taking a different direction with this particular event. I have now described how it ended. After the immediate aftermath is dealt with, I will then describe the action. Bad guys died. It was inevitable. The training and preparedness of the good guys was much superior, and they were on their home turf.
I've written about 63,000 words so far, and the majority of those words are devoted to sub-stories I'd never even conceived when I got the idea for this series. And, some of the key things I did imagine haven't even had a chance to happen yet. These surprises and wanderings from the plotted path are some of the delights that writing provides. Sometimes I don't know what's going to happen until I get there—like the scene of struggle I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Just a brief mention of politics: something I find both humorous and head-shaking ridiculous. Some high-ranked Republicans are belly-aching about how "big tech" has silenced them and they can't speak to the public anymore. They're making these complaints on national television shows!
The reading continues. I just today finished The Ocean of Night by Greg Benford. It was kinda good, but not great. It was written in 1972 and has some interesting views of space exploration in the future, but a grim view of the environment. It shows people getting sick and dying simply from living in the polluted atmosphere of Earth in 1997. On the other hand, he has our space program advanced enough to send a lone astronaut out to rendezvous with the asteroid Icarus (minor planet 1566—a real thing. Discovered 1949) after that rock suddenly shows signs of being different than what had been thought. From there we go back to Earth and the beginnings of a new religion, more exploration, an ancient alien artifact on the moon—a complicated and very large computerized artifact. And he finishes with Bigfoot—a whole tribe of them.
Here and there in the novel, but primarily at the end, in the Epilogue, he presents a style I found novel (pun intended) but a bit annoying. He would right several sentences of a paragraph, stop in mid-sentence, present a short bit of another part of the current story, then
I'm not sure what he had in mind, exactly, beyond perhaps experimentation. I think he was trying to show two things happening at once.
he'd pick up right in the middle of the sentence he'd interrupted.
Yes, just like that, but it was all much longer, both the interrupted paragraph and the inserted one. As I said, I found it annoying.
I'll be contributing those books to the PDC public library sometime this or next week.
Next up is Gordon R. Dickson's Wolf and Iron. Judging from the flap teaser this is a post apocalypse semi-fantasy story. It's a BIG book. Looks like it'll keep me busy for a while.
I have a confession: I enjoy reading slightly (very slightly) more than I enjoy writing. But writing gives me a feeling of accomplishment and discovery that reading does not quite manage.
I'll watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, but I'll be at this computer, writing, paying bills, reading emails, and maybe fixing and eating supper.
Please read, and don't believe anything you read just because someone put it in print. What you really need to watch out for is fiction or opinion labelled as fact. I write fiction labelled as fiction, and sometimes opinion labelled as opinion or fact labelled as fact. At least, I try.
I try to be honest. Many don't.
Good luck, and good month.
Many dogs shake a lot. Especially when they're wet they'll shake themselves to get the snow or water off. Not Rusty. He will shake himself now and then, but he doesn't seem to mind having snow and ice on his back. I think his hair is so thick that he doesn't even know when he's wet.
He also makes it clear when he wants attention. He's not especially long-legged, but he is long-bodied. So often I'm sitting at my desk writing and he'll come to either side and hoist his front legs onto my back or shoulder and push his forward like he's trying to read over my shoulder. Then he'll put his face into my face and say, with his eyes and posture, "Here I am. Give me attention, and I mean now."
Despite the snow, I am getting some writing done. In my last post I mentioned that I wasn't sure how I was going to handle the upcoming battle scene. I'm taking a different direction with this particular event. I have now described how it ended. After the immediate aftermath is dealt with, I will then describe the action. Bad guys died. It was inevitable. The training and preparedness of the good guys was much superior, and they were on their home turf.
I've written about 63,000 words so far, and the majority of those words are devoted to sub-stories I'd never even conceived when I got the idea for this series. And, some of the key things I did imagine haven't even had a chance to happen yet. These surprises and wanderings from the plotted path are some of the delights that writing provides. Sometimes I don't know what's going to happen until I get there—like the scene of struggle I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Just a brief mention of politics: something I find both humorous and head-shaking ridiculous. Some high-ranked Republicans are belly-aching about how "big tech" has silenced them and they can't speak to the public anymore. They're making these complaints on national television shows!
The reading continues. I just today finished The Ocean of Night by Greg Benford. It was kinda good, but not great. It was written in 1972 and has some interesting views of space exploration in the future, but a grim view of the environment. It shows people getting sick and dying simply from living in the polluted atmosphere of Earth in 1997. On the other hand, he has our space program advanced enough to send a lone astronaut out to rendezvous with the asteroid Icarus (minor planet 1566—a real thing. Discovered 1949) after that rock suddenly shows signs of being different than what had been thought. From there we go back to Earth and the beginnings of a new religion, more exploration, an ancient alien artifact on the moon—a complicated and very large computerized artifact. And he finishes with Bigfoot—a whole tribe of them.
Here and there in the novel, but primarily at the end, in the Epilogue, he presents a style I found novel (pun intended) but a bit annoying. He would right several sentences of a paragraph, stop in mid-sentence, present a short bit of another part of the current story, then
I'm not sure what he had in mind, exactly, beyond perhaps experimentation. I think he was trying to show two things happening at once.
he'd pick up right in the middle of the sentence he'd interrupted.
Yes, just like that, but it was all much longer, both the interrupted paragraph and the inserted one. As I said, I found it annoying.
I'll be contributing those books to the PDC public library sometime this or next week.
Next up is Gordon R. Dickson's Wolf and Iron. Judging from the flap teaser this is a post apocalypse semi-fantasy story. It's a BIG book. Looks like it'll keep me busy for a while.
I have a confession: I enjoy reading slightly (very slightly) more than I enjoy writing. But writing gives me a feeling of accomplishment and discovery that reading does not quite manage.
I'll watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, but I'll be at this computer, writing, paying bills, reading emails, and maybe fixing and eating supper.
Please read, and don't believe anything you read just because someone put it in print. What you really need to watch out for is fiction or opinion labelled as fact. I write fiction labelled as fiction, and sometimes opinion labelled as opinion or fact labelled as fact. At least, I try.
I try to be honest. Many don't.
Good luck, and good month.
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