So nothing political this time, and not a movie review, but just a rather generalized summation of my life.

Writing:

Aside from not being a finalist, I still do not know how the story I submitted for Quarter 2 of Writers of the Future performed. It may be a semi-finalist, and honorable mentions, or even a flat rejection. Since it is not a finalist and therefore not in the running to win Q2, I went ahead and submitted it to NIGHTMARE magazine (it is a horror story of a sorts.) NIGHTMARE served me the fast rejection I have ever experienced. 4 hours 8 minutes from submission to rejection. Oh well. I turned it around and submitted to another market. That brings to seven the number of short stories currently out, and that may be a new high for me.

I’m back to work on splitting my novel, Command and Control into two novels, Assuming Command and Mutiny on the Montgomery. The story truly is the same, but the tone is shifting and I hope for the better.

Job Search:

I still number among the unemployed. I’ve had a few good interviews that turned into nothing. I expected this week to be a dead one, what with the holiday and people taking long weekends, but I was wrong. I got a call today that turned into a telephone interview and while on that phone interview another call went to voice mail about another job possibility. The upshot is I have an in-person interview tomorrow, and the possibility of one later this week. So while I have to continue job searching I am not depressed about it.

Learning Cool Stuff:

I found a great website, Filmaker IQ. It has a number of videos, ranging from 8 minutes to half an hour, on various aspects of films and film making. Go there even if you aren’t interested in making movies but just want to know more about them. Particularly good is the one on aspect ratio.

Health:

The last two weeks have been fairly rough ones for my arthritis. Last week my toes hurt night and day. It’s very tough to carry on in good humor when it feel likes some invisible demon is going at your toes with a rubber mallet. However I am trying something new. A new diet.  I found this doctor on the web, Peter Attia, who has some really interesting things to say about diet, weight gain, and how the two are related. I’m trying his diet for several weeks to a few months to see how it works out. The principles are simple.

1)   Eliminate all sugar. (That means fruit as well. Fructose is a sugar as much as glucose.)

2)   Reduce carbohydrates as much as possible.

3)   Replace remained simple carbs with complex ones.

4)   Give fat preference over Protein as a primary source of calories.

I’ll be sure to let you know how this work. I only started it last week.