Welcome home

We have spent the last two weekends and all of the weekdays in between getting moved in. We closed on our home on October 26 and have been in the process of moving in ever since. The first week we came during the evening after work and changed a few doorknobs and tested paint colors.

That weekend we recruited family and painted. We moved things in during the week, packing boxes after work and then driving those boxes to the new house after. And this weekend we moved in. We put the beds on the big ruck first. That was our commitment to moving in. Once the beds are at the new place you have to stay there or sleep on the floor.

Now we have to go through boxes and figure out where everything goes. And the are many boxes. Many, many, boxes.

What I am hoping, though, is after we do that I can get back to a regular writing routine. I have a story that is screaming for a second draft and an idea for a longer story that I really want to flesh out. So, here's to hoping that I can do that.

And here's to our new home.

Ya'll come to Texas. We have the room.

Stephen Hough is a concert pianist from Britain. He has spent a bit of time recently tickling the ivories in my neck of the woods. He also blogs for the Telegraph. He had a very interesting post about the state I call home, including a story idea at the very end if anyone is up for a challenge.
The entire post is short and very readable, but I'll include the most interesting nugget here.

Texas is 268,601 square miles – or 7,488,166,118,400 square feet. If the population of the world at present is roughly 6,795,354,645 then each living person could be given around 1,000 square feet of land each.

Read the rest of the post here for his story idea. It's doable, and if, as it's said, you should write what you know, may be something I should try and tackle.

Laughing, Touching, Squeezing

Journey fan that I am, this post over at John Scalzi's Whatever blog made me laugh.

Today, we paint

We've been doing a little of this and that at the new house since we closed on Monday. We've put some sample colors on the walls. We've changed some door knobs and cleaned the kitchens and bathrooms.

Today, though, the real work begins. Today, we paint. We have family coming over to help, but there is going to be a lot of ground to cover. We have two living areas and a formal dining room.

Those are all being painted one color. We have a breakfast nook that is going to be another color and then the kitchen is going to be a third color. We'll have eight hands doing the work so I am hoping that it will go pretty quickly, but this is the first time I've done this kind of thing so I have no idea what to expect.

I'll try to post some before and after pictures later.

Happy Halloween

Doing my regular blog reading and everyone seems to have Halloween as one of their favorite holidays. It's never been one of mine. I enjoy it fine, and Gina and I have bought costumes the last two years as part of a trunk or treat event that her school is part of. That's a lot of fun. We were pirates this year and looked really good. King and Queen of Hearts last year.

And I did enjoy it as a kid. I grew up in a neighborhood with lots of kids and seeing everyone out in the dark in all manner of dress was fun. There was even one year my mom dressed as a witch and we did up the front yard as a cemetery. She would cackle and give the candy to kids out of a cauldron with dry ice. It was pretty cool and we could hear her laughing a couple of blocks away.

I say all that and still, if I had to make a list of my favorite holidays I'm not sure Halloween would make it. More of a Christmas and Thanksgiving guy myself.

In any case, I wanted to post something and since we are going to be doing some painting and other work at the new house tomorrow I am putting this up a day early. And I think I found the perfect thing for Halloween. Meat Hand.



It's a meatloaf. You can find more pictures and the recipe here.

National Novel Writing Month

I am sitting on the love seat, watching a bit of TV (the DVR'd debut of White Collar on USA, since you asked), playing with my latest idea and listening to a thunderstorm crackle outside. A cold front is pushing its way through Dallas and setting off quite a bit of thunder and lightning. I'm not facing a window but can hear the water splashing in the courtyard and a clap of thunder just made me flinch enough so the keyboard bounced in my lap.

This idea I am working on is one that I like. I like it a lot and think it could be a good story. So far it's fun to write. Granted, I am only a few hundred words in. My only concern at the moment is the voice that it's asking to be written in. It's somewhat formal and not at all the style that I am used to writing in. But it fits this story well.

The idea was just a little bitty thing when I had my last writers' group meeting. I mentioned that I might use this idea as my National Novel Writing Month project. I've thoght more about that, though. I don't think I am doing NaNoWriMo this year. I've tried it twice and failed both times. And both times I have lost interest in the projects I started. Granted, I did pick one back up but it was more than a year later. The other was a project I'd had in my head for years. I'd stopped and started it over and over and over again. I gave it a shot with NaNoWriMo, hoping, I guess, that I'd get some momentum and that would carry me to the end of it. That I'd finally get it written. I didn't. I made it a little over 6,000 words in and was days off the pace I needed to be on to make it to 50k by the end of the month. Opening the document just now was the first time I'd touched it since I gave up last year.

I don't think I respond well to the challenge. The requirement to average about 1,650 words a day is too much pressure. The words get all tangled on me and I get locked up.

So, I'm not doing it. I'm not taking the project I like with me to NaNoWriMo. I'm sitting this one out and thinking good thoughts to all of the other brave souls heading into November with confidence. You can do it. I know you can. If you are ever in one of those writing binges and you need me to get you something -- water, a sandwich, anything -- let me know. As long as you aren't too far away I'll do what I can to help. My only request is an acknowledgment when you publish that 50,000-word masterpiece.

More good advice

I've had a bit of a policy since I started this thing. It's not a written policy or anything, just a rule in my head. I don't like to post bits from or link to blogs that I'm not really familiar with. I'd hate for some to read something here and follow a link to a blog that then starts talking about something unexpected.

I am breaking that rule right now. I really liked this paragraph from a longer post in which the language gets a little salty.

No matter what kind of writing you do—short stories, books, children’s lit, screenplays, stand-up bits, whatever—don’t ever approach it as though you’re trying to please an audience. Don’t ever write what you think people want. Don’t ever write about something you think is popular. Because invariably, it will suck. And it will suck hard.

Write to please one person and one person only: yourself.

Which is to say, write the kind of book that you love to read. Write the kind of script that you want to see on the screen.

That came from here and the few other posts I read were good also. Check it out. But be warned, salty.