The Diamond Island

Hacking and wheezing my way out of the flu, which has kept me stuck in bed with the creeping cruds for several days now.  I’m only now getting main viewscreen turn on ability, and rousing my crew back for their duties.  I guess that’s what happens when a mutational star cluster moves through the brain stem, crumbs!  Any day now, I’m going to be back on track, I swears it!  In other news, excerpts from my book are being examined by some friendly lifeforms so I can get a reading on what they think.

Sheesh, everything keeps bugging me.  My host is preparing to do a server upgrade, so I need to get my own website in order for the event.  If things get a little buggy in the next few days, fear not.  It’s only a random.

Tons of posts in the wing.  Unfortunately, I’m trying to get used to having to take pictures for a lot of them.  Gettting the post and the picture to match up in reality is proving harder than I thought.  Some people make it look so effortless.

And to boot I’m trying to apply my redline edits.  Which is taking a lot less time and is a lot more fun than I thought.  Should be ready for beta-reader victims and/or my editor of doom in no time.  Moving quickly, it is.

I finished going through my draft and making red marks. Now comes the task of making the changes and reading it again. Satisfaction eludes me for the moment.

I’ve noticed I need to reorganize my notes, as I’ve accumulated a lot of information that can probably be thrown out or put away. The relevant creative juices are bubbling up regularly now.

I’ve decided on removing the Colloquial Speech category. I realize that I can be a bit rambling and unclear most times. I’ll struggle to keep what I say clear and to the point as much as I am able. It’s all about remembering to speak earthling for the earthlings.

I’m taking a web writing class, of all things. I’m hoping that the concepts in the class will adhere to my brain stem in some usable fashion. It’s covering a lot of ground I already am familiar with. My studies in writing have exposed me to a lot of the concepts already, but I’m pleased to see it confirmed elsewhere. I’m on the right track!

In other words, since I decided to commit myself to being a writer, strange doors continue to open up for me. It’s as if Carlos Castaneda was right about the path that heals and empowers you, and Joseph Campbell was right about following your bliss. I get a free bonus round of study to improve what I’m doing already, whee!

In other news, I made an edit to my Rum Punch recipe. Due to a failure to clarify what I meant, exactly, one of my guests was unsure about two of the ingredients. Well, “Mr. Enjoy Your Meal”, just wait until I put out the Family Punch Recipe I learned from my Pa! The mutations continue!

Watched Rambo IV. Much better than I expected.  Went with my friend Liephus.  We had a blast watching the carnage unfold.  I’d say that Rambo II is still the best, but IV is definitely number 2 on the list of the Rambo movies.  It was everything you’d expect it to be, but what the heck.  I see maybe 1 or 2 movies a year at most.  I’m off the hook, and it wasn’t a horrible experience, because the theater forgot to play the stupid commercials!

Now that I’m taking a temporary break from the writing madness, psychological feedback has set in, and I’m feeling out of sorts.  My brain hurts, as if Gumby took two bricks and bashed them together with my head in the middle.  Yet, I’m wired and can’t seem to relax.  Strange aches and pains are showing up all over my body.  The cats must sense this disturbance in The Farce.  They’ve been laying on me and falling asleep all of yesterday and last night.  “Quick, he full of hole, pin him down!”  Sheesh.

A year ago yesterday, I started writing my book. I’d accumulated my material and worked out the framework about four months prior to that, but it was January 20th when I sat down and got busy. In three months, I’d written the draft – what I like to call the naked ore version. Since then, for the last nine months I’ve been working on the revsions to beat the book into shape and flesh out the material. The last few days have been the hardest, since the most difficult revisions have been near the end. I’ve re-written characters, scenes and descriptions in numerous places. In others I’ve taken out things that didn’t work, or I’ve added things I hadn’t thought of at the time. All during this time I’ve scoured the internets for information on how to make my writing better, and ways to improve my story. I’ve hit the bookstores and the libraries on the off chance I might find something useful. I’ve also dug through my own piles of available information for inspiration and contemplation.

Surprisingly, I found that things came to me at the right times, as if doors opened up for me because I had decided to do this thing. I’ve been devouring knowledge and in some cases, spitting out or tossing aside what didn’t make sense to me or didn’t work. I’ve been working on my formula, my own personal special sauce and it’s a blast. Difficult work, but addictive and exciting.

Now that the major revisions are done, and on a strangely auspicious date, I can ready myself for the next step – the polish and editing stage. I don’t anticipate it will be as tough as the first revison, but I have a suspicion it will take some time. I’ve already noted 3 or 4 places that will require a further revision, and there are some continuity issues that don’t quite fit together. There’s also the question of errors and mistakes that might lie hidden. I’ve caught most of them, but I just know there are many left. I’m just going to have to rely on an outside perspective for that angle.

For now, I’m going to step back for a little while, and let the whole immensity of it percolate and brew. I’m going to spend the next week or so concentrating on my cover choices, and refreshing my memory on what kinds of requirements I have to work within for Lulu. I’m very excited, because this is a major step forward for me in getting my work out there for people to experience. I’m making stuff!

The progress on my book continues. I’m 87% through the revisions, and am about to tackle the climax of the story. Come on, big creative push!

I got my hands on the DVD for Hawk the Slayer, and am very pleased I made the acquisition. It’s a sword and sorcery movie from 1981, and is actually watch-able, in a Beastmaster kind of way. The dialogue, characters and plot are all hilariously awful. I place the movie somewhere between average and good. It’s not “good enough” to be good, but it isn’t “average enough” to be average. This is the kind of movie you can watch with friends and have some laughs. Though nothing will beat the sheer WTF-ness of The Core. All I can say is that the universe must have taken pity on me for having suffered through The Return of Captain Invincible, and compensated me with a movie that is both bad and fun.

Just finished Season 1 and 2 of Heroes by means of Netflix. K’s new computer, plus our nifty high speed FIOS connection, equals “watch now”. Apparently, you can watch Netflix movies on your computer, who knew? Because we subscribe, we get a certain amount of free hours of viewing each month, so we’ve been draining that account dry to get caught up with the show. Maybe I’ll go into analytic detail of the show in another post, but for now all I’ll say is the show is worth watching. Lots of problems and plots that don’t add up, and Season 2 drops in quality significantly, but I’d say Season 1 was a heck of a lot of fun.

Musically, I’ve been listening to The Cure’s Wish and really digging it a lot. It comes on the heels of Disintegration, which carries the distinction of being my big breakup album. So to hear the post-breakup energy many years later after putting college way behind me, it’s very cathartic and enlivening. I’ve also been listening to Deutsch Nepal, a dark ambient sound that I’m really starting to dig. I’m going to have to get some more of this stuff. It puts me in the zone when I need to concentrate at work or hash my book revisions out.

On the cat zone, K and I got a large bath mat for the upstairs bathroom, and Frankie loves it. She uses it as a springboard to dash downstairs, then comes back up and rests on the bunched up mat. Frankie made sure to trill at K and give her the head-butt leap of affection to let her know this was approved. Meanwhile, Michael and Blink got a new soft throw to lay on. The fuzzy warm goodness does well on the couch, and when a human sits there with the throw over them, the two cats gravitate. Even independent Frankie has been taking turns resting on it. Wow!

My car was broken into the other night. I drive a bucket, and one of the doors doesn’t lock all the time. Needless to say I never keep anything valuable in there. Just a glove compartment jammed full of napkins ripped off from fast food joints, some moist towelette packets, and a pad of paper with a pencil. I could follow the progress of the intruder exactly. First, the pad and pencil tossed casually to the floor of the car. Then all the napkins got shoved out of the way and left on the passenger seat. Finally the moist towelette packets had been thrown on the ground outside of the car in disgust before leaving the door semi-closed. I had to laugh, because it’s a lot of effort to clear the compartment out for zero returns.

It may be winter for all practical purposes, but I’m still looking forward to next spring’s planting. K and I got ourselves a garden weasel finally, and aim to test it out as soon as the ground dries out a bit from the recent snow we had. The ground hasn’t hardened quite yet with the cold, but the weeds and other plants are on the defensive. I’ll give the scoop on how reliable this ding dang darn thing is when compared to the TV commercial soon enough.

And on a final note, I have yet to begin writing my Xmas cards. The beat down looms!

Happy Halloween and Celtic New Year. Since it’s hulla-boo-loo time, here’s a teaser page for you from my book.

It’s now October, my favorite time of the year.  K and I retreated to one of our hiding places for a few days to recover our strength and reconnect with our vital energies.  Even though we’ve more or less beaten the bugs back to the Stone Age, the toll of the struggle, along with work and chore duties had really gotten us both off track.  It took being out in the wilderness, with a nice warm fireplace and ani-mani-mals with unrestricted access codes to the outdoors all around, to get the jibber-jabber out of our sensor arrays.

As far as anipals go, we saw lots of deer (use gentleness to heal those who need healing), a large hunting spider in our cabin (weaving the patterns of your life to catch opportunity), and even a bear made a brief appearance (use introspection to connect with your deepest layers of truth).  I’m sensing a pattern here.

The kitties were less than thrilled at eating out of timed relay dispensers and water dishes going for the long play.  They’re used to instant room service, you see.  But all was forgotten the moment we came back.  Nothing gets the kitties back on an even keel like a pair of devoted heating pads that deliver the goods when you need it.  Life is good for the little ragamuffins.

I also came back with a moleskinne full of thoughts, reflections, and some really far-out dreams.  I jotted down some topics for development and eventual posting here, and I ruminated over some revisions in the book that are still yet to come.  Oh yeah, that.  I’m 60% through the revisions, and I’ve been going over some candidate passages I’ll post here to satisfy your curiosity, perhaps even a full page, woo and hoo!

I’m excited.  This time of year, everything just becomes so interesting to me.  The weather starts to get milder, the psychology of people is in a transitive state, and the darker recesses of my brain stem start churning with ideas.  I definitely feel my Celtic roots responding to the wrap up of what has been a very tumultuous year.

I suppose it had to happen sometime, so I may as well admit to the wah-wah-wahhh now rather than go into denial.  Yup, that blog malaise has settled in, and it looks like I won’t be a-postin’ every weekday as I’d hoped to do for at least a few months.  Fear not, this is merely an adjustment of the psyche rather than a complete reactor meltdown.  I’ve been writing my posts on Sunday and hitting ‘publish’ on the relevant day, but alas I’ve been too crummy even to manage that.  Believe it or not, I’ve been flaking on just logging in to press a button!  Sadness, part Deux.

I guess this means I’m going to go into the “post when I feel like it” mode that most blogs seem to settle into.  Hopefully, the quality of what I do post will slightly improve.  I’m not satisfied with all the variables yet, so expect more mutations down the line.  And I need to “get kraken” on improving this page some more.  As Roseanne Rosanna-Dana said, “it’s always something!”  I had to see what a merciless posting schedule was like, as I wasn’t sure if I understood how the intermittent posting worked conceptually.  With some data in hand, I believe I’m more comfortable now going to that very thing.

Plenty of goodies in the queue, so Guy Caballero at SCTV won’t have to do a “street beat” sketch to get some programming out of me.  I have an idea for a post where I’ll open things up for a discussion, just to see what happens, though that’ll happen when it happens.  Considering what further tidbits about the current book I’ll tease you with in the weeks to come.  I’d like to add more pictures and links, but it seems like everyone but me has the knack for that right now.  I’m just going to have to let that creative cauldron simmer a while until the meat gets tender and the vegetables melt in your mouth.