For whatever reason I am utterly exhausted tonight. (Could be why I am going in for a sleep study in a little over a week.)
Anyway I did watch a Sunday Night Movie and I will write it up tomorrow.
See you kiddies on the other side of the terminator.
Well, I have been away from my blog for a few days as I have been busy.
Yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment with my Ear, Nose, Throat man. Dr Brian Weeks. IF you live in the san Diego region, have health insurance, and need any sort of Ear, Nose, Throat medical help I would highly recommend this doctor. His great at his work and hhe’s also great at talking to you about his work.
I may be having sleep apnea issues so Dr Weeks and I are setting up a sleep study to look into that. I’ll be sure to let everyone know what that is like.
Then I had to mess around with my bank. They got swallowed by a larger bank as part of the whole fun financial fracas and this week I got my new debt card. Worked fine as a credit card, but my pin number failed at ATMs. So it was sitting in the lobby waiting for a ‘banker’ to fix that issue. Finding out it was not fixed and being told that it should be fixed today. Joy
Today I sit around waiting for Fedex as I am expecting a DVD from amazon today.
I think Cawdor is speeding along much faster than any of my other novels. Today I finished chapter 5 of the novel and looked at a rough page count.
I have written 94 pages of prose on this novel already. I started the novel writing just 1 month ago today.
I am hoping to bring Cawdor in for about 360 pages. (90,000 words for industry geeks.) I am flabbergasted (what a strange word that is) to find myself so far along after only one month. And Month that saw headaches, Overtime at the day job, and sundry interruptions.
I have just printed up chapter 5, the largest of the chapters so far and tomorrow I will start ink on paper edits. That will slow thing down, but I will be easily 110 pages by weeks end. very close to a third of the way.
Might I actually get the 1st draft finished by my birthday?
That would be un-flippin-believeable.
So I have spent a few hours this morning databasing my DVD/Blu-ray collection. I have according to the database 222 movies in my collection, but this number is not completely accurate. The database software counts boxed sets as a single entry, so for example my boxed set of the Star Wars movies is one entry, but it has three movies.
Given that my feature film count is closed to 290 from boxed sets. (The el cheapo 50 ‘classic’ horror films bosted that count by 49 alone.)
The database software is Movie Collector and I love it. After the jump is a screen capture of what it looks like. The software cost me $30 so it is not pricey. You can enter films by title, barcode number (typing it in by hand) or by scanning the barcode on the box of the DVD/Blu-ray. I bought a cheap barcode scanner off Ebay ($8) and it took me just a couple of hours to enter all the films. Continue reading
This is because it took me two nights to watch my Sunday Night Movie feature. The film was 2 hours 37 minutes long and tomorrow I will tell you what I watched and how hard I laughed. (Not a good sign as it was not a comedy. Here’s a hint, I much preferred When Worlds Collide.)
Today I got my new computer glasses with an Rx designed for use at a range of about 22 inches. It seriously reduced the eye strain I had at work and for most of the day and early evening I was feeling fairly good. The headaches returned to full force by the end of the evening because for everything else I am still using glasses that are out of date and my eyes are just too damn sensitive.
Talk you to tomorrow.
Well, the last two days have been quite a tour de force of headaches for me. Yes my new glasses still have not arrived from the lab and so I have been suffering my daily headaches at this time of year. Friday got to near migraine quality and I left work a couple of hours early so I could do nothing and let my eyes rest.
The most frustrating part of the last two days is that it brought production on Cawdor to a halt. Thursday night was reducing to typing in edits on the chapter 3 and no original writing. Friday my head hurt far too much for me to even think of stringing words together.
However, by a bit of luck I woke up this morning without a headache. I intended to spend some quality time with my sweetie-wife, as I have not been the most fun to be around lately, and later a double feature of films with friends.
A friend and co-worker, Rachael, (No that’s not a typo that’s how she spells it.) Is both a fan of Zombie movies and The Terminator franchise. Yet somehow she has never seen the 1978 Dawn Of The Dead and even more surprising she has never seen The Terminator. This is going to be rectified today.
Then in the evening it will be card and board games.
Until I was 40 years old I did not need to wear glasses. That doesn’t men I’ve been blessed to live trouble free where it come to my eyes. I had a real fright in high school with an infection that almost blinded me. However, my vision after that was 20/20 just restricted in terms of light levels.
On my 40th birthday my gift from the fates were my first reading glasses. Every year since then I have had to had a new pair fashioned as my prescription changed. Each year as my vision gets worse, I start getting headaches that eventually become constant headaches with the occasional migraine tossed in for variety’s sake.
This year is no different. Last week I had my exam because I could feel the strain building after long bouts reading. The new doc confirmed my rx had changed — again and I ordered new glasses. Seven to ten day wait to get them so I am living in the land of constant headaches again.
However, I am still writing. I am clocking about 1500 words a day and if I can maintain this pace I should have the draft of Cawdor finished by the end of May or early June.
Tonight I will continue chapter three. Now all chapters are important but the first three have a special place for the unknown author. When you get a bite from a query letter it nearly always is a request for the first three chapters. This is what you have to sell the editor or agent on reading the rest of the book.
In the case of Cawdor the third chapter is really important. It is where those who were not clued in by the title, but familiar with MacBeth will realize what it is I am attempting; with great hubris, stealing from Shakespeare. Tonight I will take my first crack of the highly modified scene where the witches first encounter Macbeth.
Wish me luck.
There is no Sunday Night Movie this weekend as I was at Condor and too tired after the convention for movie watching. I wish I could do Condor justice in a review but the combination of a really busy and good con plus a series of headaches that has been pretty consistent since last Weds has just ruined my ability for decent blogging.
However I can say this. This was the best Condor I have been too. There were plenty of interesting panels, I rarely felt that I lacked anything to do. I had a number of really good conversations and re-connected with a number of friends I only see at conventions. I also came away with the idea I needed to make chapter three of Cawdor work. So despite the pain it was a pretty good weekend.
Today I managed to write over 1500 words on Cawdor. 750 at work on my laptop and the rest at home after my sweetie-wife went to bed. If I can keep up that pace I will have the first draft finished by the end of June early July.
Yesterday I got stuck sitting for three hours plus without the ability to stand or walk around. Sadly yesterday was also a bad arthritis day for my knees. By the time I went to bed both knees were hurting fairly steadily. I had hoped that when I awoke they would be better, but that is not the case. My right knee is going to be giving me fits all day. I can tell.
On the plus side I got several more pages written on chapter one of Cawdor and that seems to be progressing well. Today I take my laptop to work with me and I’ll utilize my new hour long lunch to get more writing done.
As you can see I have switched themes for my blog. I particularly like this theme because it is customizable by the user to a pretty good degree.
You can expect the background image — currently courtesy of NASA — to change a bit as I look for the perfect space image for my SF blog.
Comments are of course welcome.