While I like getting my paycheck automatically deposited into my account, I don’t like that it’s not a consistent affair as far as time goes. Sometimes, it comes in during the pre-dawn hours and I get to wake up with it. Other times, I check my bank statement online like I have OCD (these times are usually predicated by my gas tank hovering a micrometer above ‘E’) to know when I can head out and get my errands run before the work day begins for me. Today, I have to get a new cyan cartridge for my printer as well as get gas for the beast and I might get myself a Barnes and Noble gift card for the Nook. Also the bills need to be paid and I have yet to terrorize my favorite restaurant. Ahh… payday Thursday – it’s like Friday, but you have money to spend (at least after the bills are paid – I’m looking at you cable company).

I’m still working on the ice cream scenes on my Color. Tomorrow evening, I am going to work on a short first person piece for the writing group from an idea I had called “Image: Maker”. I’ve never written that much in first-person, and I have been asked to stretch myself in the group (well, it was a request made for the group, but I am taking it seriously). Oh – I’ve also found some really neat software for writing! Well, two websites and software: here, here and here. I’ve tried them and they’re basic as far as editing goes: adverbs, repeated phrases, grammar – still no substitute for a flesh-and-blood editor (like mine), but for someone just starting out this is an invaluable resource.

Well, the summer is winding down here. It just seems like only yesterday I was complaining about the heat and nudging the AC closer to zero centigrade. Now, the temperature are on the warmer side of pleasant and the dogs are going crazy over the kids walking to school – unlike them going crazy because the kids are heading to a friend’s house, or just going crazy. Of course, the end of summer means my birthday is creeping closer. It also means I am going to have a short vacation coming up, followed by a nice long one. For both of these vacations, I intend on not being completely sober for several of those days. Which also reminds me: I need to preorder this game, since my long vacation is going to fall on the release date. Between that and Borderlands 2 – the last quarter of the year, I don’t think I am going to be very productive. Which means I should get to work now, or close to now – I do have to go to Penn Station and make sure they haven’t forgotten their fear of me (just kidding – I love that place).

Since I have to go, I will wish all of you a good Thursday and hope your weeks are good.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

This is my secret shame… I love this show .  Sure, it may be faked but it’s an entertaining fake.  I’ve always been interested in the paranormal.  When I went to the library as a child, I would always go to the paranormal section (which I can find in any library) and read all the books there.  Shortly after that, I started my long love affair with horror.  I even told my mom that I wanted to study the paranormal… and got a rebuff for it — apparently being a paranormal investigator doesn’t pull in the big bucks (or at least it didn’t in 1976).  So with that nugget of wisdom in my mind, I tried to find other things to make money rather than follow dream.  Which is why I am trying to publish my work a lot later in life than other people.  Oh, well — the upside is that with today’s technology, I can publish without having to go through the gauntlet of agents, publishers and more rejection slips than trees.  So, maybe everything has worked out in the end.

I am working on the ice cream scene in the novel on my Nook Color.  I slept in a little today and won’t really have the time to work on the novel here.  I’ll try to finish the first ice cream scene and then go right to the second scene and possibly the third scene (also called the end), then load everything into the work processor and fill in the gaps.  Probably not the best way to do it, but it is the most efficient.  I also need to work on something for the writer’s group.  I might do 2,000 words from Image: Maker.  It’s first person — something I am not really comfortable with, but I should learn to stretch myself as far as writing goes.  I also need to grab $20.00 for the inevitable lunch.  I just hope we don’t have to go back to the Indian Buffet.  There was very little that was good.  I’d just as soon go to Chili’s and get some more of that bean dip.  Mmmm-mmm.

I am going to grumble about one more thing: Amazon.  I took advantage of the “Supersaver” and ordered three things: Empowered, vol 7, Rule 34 and Babylon Confidential.  The first two are already released, but the third one is not due to be released in November… and since I did the “Supersaver” and I had to pick the “ship items in as few packages as possible” I have to wait until November.  November!  I’m not really concerned about the other two books — I’m getting Babylon Confidential out of curiosity, and Rule 34 because I want to read some cyberpunk — but I’ve been waiting for Empowered for five months.  Really Amazon?  Really?  You’re not helping.  But, I will recommend Empowered — it’s got a manga look to it, but don’t let it fool you.  It’s a great read and a satire on a lot of comic book themes… and the main character is really hot.  Ok — that shouldn’t be one of the criterion for a comic book, but it’s true.  Emp is good looking.  There are mature themes, so you have been warned.

Well, I need to microwave my lunch and shower.  I hope you all have a great day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

I even slept in an extra half hour to try to get ready for today.  Waking up is being a little problematic as sualy, so I am going to do my best to get something down and get my brain working.  My job wasn’t the hassle is has been for the past few days — I’m hoping the worst of Statement Week is over and I can go back to my unhurried anguish.  I will admit that I like my new hours just because everything slows down after 8:00 and I can read.  Did I mention that I love my Nook Color?  I really do.

I am going to charge back to the novel and finish the poisoner’s scene here and work some more on the pappa scene at work (did I mention that I love my Nook Color?  I can write on it!).  Things are just slow today.  I might have to try something else as far as a writing schedule.  I might do more at work when I am a little more awake.  Right now, I need to get things together.  Sorry for the short post, all.  I am still a little sleepy.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Well, like I said earlier – the Olympics are done with and I should be heading back to work on the novel. I am going to work like a madman in order to try to make up for some of the lost time. With the vacation coming up in a couple of weeks, I should be able to get a lot more done and might even finish since a couple of other plans may fall through – depends on funding issues. Bleh, I feel so tired right now and I only blame myself since I got caught in the web that is this site. I had an idea for a Japanese-ish horror comic (just needed someone to draw it) and I was looking up stories about the onryou (this movie is a great Western example) and the next thing I know, it’s 2:30 and I have to get up in about five hours. The Internet is going to be the death of me at some point. So, I got myself a few hours of sleep and will depend on caffeine to keep me going for the rest of the day. So – after the Olympics, everything is back to normal. 😉

The novel is going to get worked on really hard this week. I need to send that art package to Bindi so she can get started on the art work… which also reminds me that I’ll need to get the specifications to her as far as what CreateSpace wants so I can get the book printed and sold in the still popular dead tree version. Everything is coming together quite nicely… that is when I am focusing on it, when I am looking at something else… not so much. Well, there will be no further distractions in the morning for me until 2014 and I will hopefully be in a better position to deal with it – by staying home those two weeks and just glutting myself on coverage. I might even go on ahead and get another DVR to use to get even more coverage. Thankfully, these are every four years. I should be able to get some work done in that intervening period… I might even finish something! The mind reels!

There is little to say right now. I am still trying to wake up and get going. I can hear the rest of the house stirring, but no dogs. I guess that’s something to be thankful for. I hope that they will maintain this quiet stance for a while. I could use a nap. I’m not going to sleep, but rather I am going to try for my usual minimum word count and then maybe I’ll close my eyes for a while. With no road construction happening, I can cut it a little closer to when I am supposed to be turning on the work PC and complaining that no one’s fixed my desktop interface.

So, with that – I bid you a fond adieu.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Well, the Olympics are done on Sunday and with that I should see an uptick in my productivity.  Obviously, since when you’ve hit bottom there is no where else to go but up.  When the Winter Games start, I intend to take those two weeks off (one way or the other) and not miss anything.  Now I get to look forward to the coming football season and try to get into a winter sport.  Hockey, mayhaps?

Well, I am writing this on Nook Color, so this will be a little shorter than my usual ones.  Also, there is nothing else really going on.  I am still working on the Poisoner’s School idea in my head and pushing along I/O Error in my head… and trying to get used to typing on this tiny keyboard.  I am still thinking about the disease.  I am tryig to think of something that would linger in the body for a while.  Given that the main character is a spy, I would think that something that would work on the mind would more dangerous.  I think that might be the route.  I’ll just ldt it turn around in my head.

All in all, while I am sad to see the Games end, I am happy to have my mornings back with the novel.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

The Olympics are winding down, which means I’ll let other people record things on the DVR. I still have a lot of Olympic coverage to go through, but now it won’t be ‘fast forward to the fifteen minutes I have to see so I can delete this to make room for the next four hours of coverage’. I’ll be able to sit back and watch the other stuff with some interest. At least I got to see some of my favorite Olympic sports (weightlifting, cycling, basketball and team handball). Now, there is a two year gap until the Winter Games and the better of the Olympics if you ask me. So after all is said and done, there should be a pleasant uptick in my productivity… and by uptick, I mean actually working.

I have been working on the ‘sick man’ idea, and I thought I would combine that with the idea of a positive Poisoner’s School story (taking an idea from Silence So Sharp). I like the idea that someone has to be trained to do something monumental, but there is a very hard deadline – death – to everything. Right now, I am just trying to figure out what sort of disease our main character has and whether or not it’s a lingering disease or something caught in the course of training. While I like the idea that this prospective poisoner making the ultimate sacrifice, I also like the idea of someone being passed over by all the other schools, but the least liked school takes this person and turns them into something far better than the others could have foreseen, if they knew that this school did something good. Now, I just to figure out the timeline and a decent enough set of crises – shouldn’t be too hard.

As far as the novel goes, I need to get a package together for the artist. Poor thing – she thinks I have an outline on paper for the novel. She thinks I’m prepared.

Anyway – there is something else I must discuss. Something near and dear to my heart: pens.

We are witness to the passing of an era, ladies and gentlemen

The pen you see above is no longer being made by Pentel. I looked. No longer in .5 mm (my favorite) and not even in .7 (which will do in a pinch), they no longer exist beyond the ones I have horded. I even ordered a package online once, but they’re not there. I can’t be the only one somewhat put out by this, but I might be the only one who is complaining about it. I would call on others to go to their website and protest the loss of this fine tool. No, I am being serious. All one of you. Hop to it.

Well, there is nothing else to report – the Olympics are winding down and my miffitude (that’s your new word, by the way) about my favorite pen being discontinued and a new novel eagerly awaits production. I hope your day is far more level than mine has been so far.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

I have my caffeine; I have my sounds (my favorite podcast) and I have my computer running. I also have a headache, but two of these things are going to alleviate that. Now that I am firmly in the routine, let’s put in the work. What do I want to talk about today? Well, I did see The Dark Knight Rises – on its own, it stands as a great summer film. As the final part of the trilogy, it wraps up everything nicely. I think it suffers from the flaw of too many villains and should have stuck with Bane and the not-so-subtle jab at the Occupy movement. However, if they did that, then the fanboys would have been howling for a Batman movie with Catwoman in it. If they had just Catwoman, then the movie’s theme would have to be different and (while sparking another ‘How I Would Have Done It Differently’ – I should get back to writing those) I think it might have taken away from the dark tone the first two movies labored so hard to achieve and maintain. Overall, this was far better than Prometheus, but as far as action and just plain fun goes – The Avengers is still out in the lead. The next summer film to take a shot at is Total Recall, which I will go to see next Friday.

My novel has languished somewhat, but I have an artist for the cover and hopefully they will be kind enough to do it for free. I have an editor (Hello, editor!), so I believe that everything is coming together (cue: ominous music) to get this book off the ground. I am looking for other e-book hosting options beyond Kindle and Nook. I have heard grumbles of dissatisfaction concerning Smashwords, so I might pass on them. Since I have the software to convert books to Epub format, I might sell them on the major sites, but also have a way to purchase them from my website as well once it’s set up. When it’s done, I’ll put up a link from here. I am still aiming for a November or December release. After that, I might deviate a little from my original plans and release a second volume of 4 Bits and a Dollar for October, making it a yearly thing. But I/O Error is going to be my second novel and I am going to have that finished by January (or so I hope). My goal is to have four books a year written, and at least three of them hitting the shelves in that year. This Saturday and Sunday, I am going to work to get the last three chapters finished, and with it the novel. Thankfully, I can write the ice cream scenes at work with my Color, so I can get a little more work done. I sincerely think this is going to work.

Wish me luck.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello all.  I am using my Color to write this post at work.  This will be a short post because I have a short lunch.

I am a creature of habit.  Any little thing that happens to me that is out of my normal routine ripples through my day like a boulder tossed in a pond.  What threw me off today was people coming over to cut down some tree limbs that were coming close to power lines… so having someone knock on the door at 8:00 AM — an hour and a half before I needed to get up.  I couldn’t get back to sleep comfortably and I was too scatterbrained to write.   I tried to get something going — even if it was some planning on another novel.

How has your day been?  I promise to write something more pithy tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

I haven’t posted a blog since the 3^rd of August. I would like to say that I decided to take a vacation, but that would be untrue. The fact of the matter is that I just stopped. I had told myself that I was going to write Monday to Saturday, but I didn’t feel like writing – especially after Saturday. I’ve also been a bit dodgy about the novel – I got a very little bit done on Friday. Sunday night, I stayed up to watch Curiosity land and went to bed at 2:30 AM rather than midnight. I woke up on Monday at 8:30 AM, but felt like I was trying to think through cotton and spider-webs. So I took a 2 ½ hour nap, with enough time to get ready for work and leave. I did do a little bit yesterday with the next ice-cream scene in the novel (I’m going to continue that today and take advantage of that app in the Color). Overall, this is the first major writing I’ve done in a few days.

But I told myself that I was going to put my nose to the proverbial grindstone on this. I was going to work regularly on the novel and blog on a consistent schedule – but as we can see, I am unwilling to be held to that. What’s even a harder kick in the pants is that this isn’t the first time. I am starting to consider that I am – and looking back over various things that meant a great deal to me at the time – in the habit of sabotaging myself. Why? I am not entirely sure (or I am completely unwilling to face the truth). It could something as simple as I’m lazy, or the fact that I feel as if I deserve nothing good in my life and doing this feeds that thought process. Well, now that I know this – I can work to either mitigate the effects of this thinking, or just float along… and thus, the purpose of this blog is revealed – to be a private sounding board.

Back to the novel – I started writing the ice-cream scene on my Color and I am going to finish it there and move it back to my computer. I’ve gotten a new idea and I don’t know if it should be in the same realm as Rhona and the others, or should it be its own book. The idea (and it is still working itself out in my head – so I am scribbling madly in between calls at work) is that the main character is stricken by some illness that is known to be fatal, but he has to accomplish something in a short amount of time… so it is a race between his illness and this accomplishment. I am intrigued by the idea of the hero being somewhat infirm and getting worse as time goes on. So, as far as research goes, I am going to look for diseases that are medium-term (two to six months) that have a set of highly visible symptoms. I’m not going to start it until I am done with I/O Error. The idea is that I have one novel I am working on writing, another novel that I am outlining and one that I am plotting. I am trying to keep busy, going along with the idea that while quality is going to get me fans; quantity is going to get me paid.

That being said, I have some work to do.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all – you’ll notice that there was no blog post yesterday. Well, I decided rather impulsively that I would take a day off and finally get that Nook Color I had been drooling over. The drooling was worth it. This device is perfect for people who want to have something beyond an e-reader, but also don’t want to shell out the money for an Ipad. I’ve been very satisfied with it thus far – even found out there was a new “Dexter” novel which I am going to get today before I leave for work. As for writing yesterday, I had the best of intentions. I wanted to go to a certain Barnes and Noble store, since they had a Color cover that I liked (with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “At the New York Customs, I have nothing to declare except my own genius.“). The plan was to have breakfast, get the Color come back home and revel in its glory until I had to leave for work. Sure, extra gas was to have been spent, but it would be worth it.

I got to the Barnes and Nobel and pulled into the relatively empty lot… and saw that the store didn’t open until 10:00 AM. Fine. I had fifteen minutes to kill, so I waited and read a book. When it opened up, I walked calmly inside and told the person at the counter that I would like to get a Nook Color. Now, when I get into a high emotional state, I tend to stutter, stammer and flip words around. So, I took a deep breath and relayed my message. The counter person (probably thinking I had released myself from the local sanitarium) cheerfully grabbed a Color and offered me the standard discount card for the store, which I took since I plan on shopping there more often. I got that and the cover, making a beeline for the power socket in the café. My thinking was that I should do as much as I can here, and then go back home for a couple of hours. So, I grabbed an ice coffee and relaxed.

Oh, did I mention that it takes 3 hours for the initial charging? Yeah. OK – I figured that I was just going to have to make a day of it. I wanted it charged up so I could read something at work. So, while it was charging, I decided to get some apps – including QuickOffice Pro, so I can do some work if I don’t have a pen and paper handy (it’s compatible with MS Office). Instead, I bought the one book I knew was missing from my “Dexter” collection (#2: Deeply Devoted Dexter). I perused the newspaper and magazine collection (no hometown paper? Huh?) and generally made myself have a little fun. When the Color was finished charging, I unplugged everything and walked out with the intention of getting lunch, which I got from this place. I would also like to point out that for the amount of money I shelled out – I should have gotten a hot dog bigger than a pencil. I’m just sayin’. I had a good day.

Well, I need to get to work. I hope your days are as good as mine was yesterday.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy