>.>
<.<
^.^
No! I'm not dead! Wait, you didn't notice? Oh... okay... Let's go to the counts! FOR TWO WEEKS!
Mon: 4032
Tue: 2605
Wed: 3602
Thu: 2700
Fri: 2067
TOTAL: 15006
Mon: 2011
Tue: 2061
Wed: 2026
Thu: 2135
Fri: 1579 FAIL
TOTAL: 9812 FAIL
I'm calling it a win. Nearly 25K in two weeks is not bad, if I do say so myself. Deal with it!
So what's been going on? Well, not a lot. What's up with you? Okay, okay, I've been busy lately. I've been working on judging a short story contest, making a costume for a convention coming up rather rapidly, making a video game, writing this book, and to top it all off, we had a massive data issue at work recently that ate up a lot of time. It is, in fact, the sole reason for the Friday failure in the second week up there.
So what now, you may well ask... I'm taking a break for this week. Not to say there's going to be no writing, but I've got a lot on my plate right now and will only be at work half of this week (leaving town on Thursday for the costume thingy :D ) and deadlines for the short story contest, said costume, and some work stuff are all taking priority right now. But I'll be back later this week with an "adventures" story and for now I'm going to go read more short stories and work at work, I suppose!
Monday, June 30, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
Momentum
Ever felt like something was coming to you and going so fast that you felt like gliding through it was almost effortless?
Mon: 2207
Tue: 3200
Wed: 3665
Thu: 2000
Fri: 3312
Sat: 1636 BONUS
Sun: 1016 BONUS
Total: 17036
Finally! A week with NO failures! And look at that total. Whew, I'm loving this new book. It's coming along swimmingly, as you can tell, and the plot is advancing nicely.
I don't want to say that it was the flash of inspiration for this novel's idea that led to this sort of momentum, but there's something about the fresh perspective and new characters that have really brought my stride into high gear. I'm really enjoying writing this one and will continue to until the end. For now though, back to work!
Mon: 2207
Tue: 3200
Wed: 3665
Thu: 2000
Fri: 3312
Sat: 1636 BONUS
Sun: 1016 BONUS
Total: 17036
Finally! A week with NO failures! And look at that total. Whew, I'm loving this new book. It's coming along swimmingly, as you can tell, and the plot is advancing nicely.
I don't want to say that it was the flash of inspiration for this novel's idea that led to this sort of momentum, but there's something about the fresh perspective and new characters that have really brought my stride into high gear. I'm really enjoying writing this one and will continue to until the end. For now though, back to work!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Retail Recap 1
One of the many jobs I had before I was blessed with my position in IT was at an electronics retail store. I won't say which, for obvious reasons, but I will say it's a small-box electronics retailer that's been around a long time, and most people wonder why it's still relevant. Even the employees wonder this.
In any case, my wife (then girlfriend) worked there in college for a summer and when she left, I took the open position at that store. I went to college in a very small town, and keep that in mind as it becomes relevant to the story later on. I worked as an associate there on and off for my last years in college, and I learned a lot about small town living. I'd like to share a few of those observations (since my current adventures are a little boring!).
Lesson 1: People sometimes walk into retail establishments with no intention of buying anything. They just want to talk. Sure, some people come into a store to check out the merchandise and to price match, or even scout out competition for another store. That's all well and good! But there are some people (especially in small towns) who come in just to... have a chat.
My fifth manager at that small town location (yes, it went through 5 managers in the lesser part of a year) and I became friends. Mostly because we were of like ages, but also because we were both "city boys" who were living in the small town against our will. And neither of us really cared much for retail, just had it as a job. One month we were having horrid sales. It's not that we really tried overly hard on the normal months, but this month in particular no one was coming in. So he asked me if I had any ideas on how to attract more customers. Being dumb, I suggested we could get a coffee pot for people, encourage them to stick around more, look around the shop, and possibly buy cell phones (our primary revenue driver, despite having poor selection and we were a 3rd party retailer).
"No," he said, "We do not want that."
"Why?" I asked.
He reached over and patted me on the shoulder and said, in the nicest way, "That's the dumbest idea you've ever had, and soon you'll know why."
Not one week later, I was sitting in the back room playing Angry Birds on a tablet that was supposed to be for store demos. It was early morning (9-930ish) and a weekday, and that meant no customers, so kick back and finish your McDonald's breakfast, Patrick. And so I was. Soon, I heard the door chime ring and I got off my butt and paused my Angry Birds and made for the sales floor.
A middle-aged gentlemen was walking in the door. He looked like he had recently come out of a cave that he had been in for a few short decades. His coat was denim, dirty, and had holes all over. His hair looked closer to cobwebs than an actual byproduct of the human body, and his face was craggy and rigid. I greeted him and asked him what he was looking for.
"Oh, nuthin'," he said, in an awkward gravelly country drawl, "Jus' lookin'."
I nodded, "Sure, well, if you have any questions, let me know." He proceeded to look around the store by turning his head ninety degrees to the left, then turned back to me and leaned on the store's counter.
"How's bid'ness?" he asked, smacking his lips after the words exited. This was the first of a few dozen questions, all of them as idle and mundane as the next. Each time he asked another question, the miniature version of myself that inhabits my head would slam his own body against the walls of my skull in a small and rebellious attempt at suicide. But, being retail, and being trapped by the big brother eye of the security footage, I had to be polite and had to remain at my post. The district manager was rather strict.
"Ya know," he said at one point, "Ya'll'd do good to have sum coffee in here, Ah could go fer a cup!" And then, right then, I understood how suggesting a coffee machine was the stupidest idea I'd ever had.
But, being the semi-college educated man that I was at the time, I formulated a plan. I had an old flip-style cell phone. I reached a hand into my pocket and thumbed at the dial pad, lucky that I had remembered to mute it so that the customer couldn't hear the tone it played when I pushed the buttons. I slowly and painstakingly found each number and pressed 'send'.
"So, Ah put tha' corvette's engine into mah pickup, ya kno' the ford 250 Ah was tellin' ya abou'?" He went on and on as I waited. The words typed above were literally the words out of his mouth, and I know nothing of cars or whether it's possible to transplant a Corvette's engine into a Ford 250, but I surmise anyone who had the idea to mutilate a Corvette in favor of a pickup truck is in need of a shift in their priorities. In any case, as these thoughts rang through my head, I was saved by another type of ringing.
The store phone went off, my call had finally gone through. I excused myself from the conversation that had been going on for (according to the store's clock) over thirty minutes. I answered the phone and heard only the sounds of my pocket on the other end. But I--using the best acting skills I could muster--pretended the other end was an interested customer. I gave a wave to the man-who-speaks-forever and said into the phone, "Sure, let me see if we have those in stock," and went to the back room. From there, I watched the man-who-speaks-forever on the security monitor, and only after five long minutes of standing at the counter doing nothing (possibly talking to himself, warming up for my return) he finally left.
I knew then that having free coffee for customers in a store like that was just begging for people to come in, stand around and have a chat. And as much as I enjoy meeting people and being polite, there's only so much a retail person can take. Some of them do have other work to get to. Some of them just really want to beat their boss's scores on Angry Birds.
In any case, my wife (then girlfriend) worked there in college for a summer and when she left, I took the open position at that store. I went to college in a very small town, and keep that in mind as it becomes relevant to the story later on. I worked as an associate there on and off for my last years in college, and I learned a lot about small town living. I'd like to share a few of those observations (since my current adventures are a little boring!).
Lesson 1: People sometimes walk into retail establishments with no intention of buying anything. They just want to talk. Sure, some people come into a store to check out the merchandise and to price match, or even scout out competition for another store. That's all well and good! But there are some people (especially in small towns) who come in just to... have a chat.
My fifth manager at that small town location (yes, it went through 5 managers in the lesser part of a year) and I became friends. Mostly because we were of like ages, but also because we were both "city boys" who were living in the small town against our will. And neither of us really cared much for retail, just had it as a job. One month we were having horrid sales. It's not that we really tried overly hard on the normal months, but this month in particular no one was coming in. So he asked me if I had any ideas on how to attract more customers. Being dumb, I suggested we could get a coffee pot for people, encourage them to stick around more, look around the shop, and possibly buy cell phones (our primary revenue driver, despite having poor selection and we were a 3rd party retailer).
"No," he said, "We do not want that."
"Why?" I asked.
He reached over and patted me on the shoulder and said, in the nicest way, "That's the dumbest idea you've ever had, and soon you'll know why."
Not one week later, I was sitting in the back room playing Angry Birds on a tablet that was supposed to be for store demos. It was early morning (9-930ish) and a weekday, and that meant no customers, so kick back and finish your McDonald's breakfast, Patrick. And so I was. Soon, I heard the door chime ring and I got off my butt and paused my Angry Birds and made for the sales floor.
A middle-aged gentlemen was walking in the door. He looked like he had recently come out of a cave that he had been in for a few short decades. His coat was denim, dirty, and had holes all over. His hair looked closer to cobwebs than an actual byproduct of the human body, and his face was craggy and rigid. I greeted him and asked him what he was looking for.
"Oh, nuthin'," he said, in an awkward gravelly country drawl, "Jus' lookin'."
I nodded, "Sure, well, if you have any questions, let me know." He proceeded to look around the store by turning his head ninety degrees to the left, then turned back to me and leaned on the store's counter.
"How's bid'ness?" he asked, smacking his lips after the words exited. This was the first of a few dozen questions, all of them as idle and mundane as the next. Each time he asked another question, the miniature version of myself that inhabits my head would slam his own body against the walls of my skull in a small and rebellious attempt at suicide. But, being retail, and being trapped by the big brother eye of the security footage, I had to be polite and had to remain at my post. The district manager was rather strict.
"Ya know," he said at one point, "Ya'll'd do good to have sum coffee in here, Ah could go fer a cup!" And then, right then, I understood how suggesting a coffee machine was the stupidest idea I'd ever had.
But, being the semi-college educated man that I was at the time, I formulated a plan. I had an old flip-style cell phone. I reached a hand into my pocket and thumbed at the dial pad, lucky that I had remembered to mute it so that the customer couldn't hear the tone it played when I pushed the buttons. I slowly and painstakingly found each number and pressed 'send'.
"So, Ah put tha' corvette's engine into mah pickup, ya kno' the ford 250 Ah was tellin' ya abou'?" He went on and on as I waited. The words typed above were literally the words out of his mouth, and I know nothing of cars or whether it's possible to transplant a Corvette's engine into a Ford 250, but I surmise anyone who had the idea to mutilate a Corvette in favor of a pickup truck is in need of a shift in their priorities. In any case, as these thoughts rang through my head, I was saved by another type of ringing.
The store phone went off, my call had finally gone through. I excused myself from the conversation that had been going on for (according to the store's clock) over thirty minutes. I answered the phone and heard only the sounds of my pocket on the other end. But I--using the best acting skills I could muster--pretended the other end was an interested customer. I gave a wave to the man-who-speaks-forever and said into the phone, "Sure, let me see if we have those in stock," and went to the back room. From there, I watched the man-who-speaks-forever on the security monitor, and only after five long minutes of standing at the counter doing nothing (possibly talking to himself, warming up for my return) he finally left.
I knew then that having free coffee for customers in a store like that was just begging for people to come in, stand around and have a chat. And as much as I enjoy meeting people and being polite, there's only so much a retail person can take. Some of them do have other work to get to. Some of them just really want to beat their boss's scores on Angry Birds.
Monday, June 9, 2014
A New Project (Again!)
Alrighty! Some big things happening now, let's hit the counts:
Mon: 1689 FAIL
Tue: 2099
Wed: 2025
Thu: 1039 FAIL
Fri: 2020
Sun: 1510 BONUS
Total: 10389
"What's that bonus mean?" you may well ask. So, Monday was Deletion Day. You already heard a little about that if you read last week's update. I cut back 30,000 words. Part of those words were the 1689 that I had already written, so I stopped for the day after that and worked on some editing. The next day I started in on the standard fare, going on where the deletions left off. Failed legitimately on Thursday, and was way behind for the week. Yesterday, I got an idea for a new novel. As all my novels are, it was set in my universe of sci-fi fun and I've been working on it since Sunday as my primary project. No, I'm not abandoning my third novel in my series, I'm just taking a break from it. Everything was going really well on it, I just got distracted by the new awesome. We'll get it all finished! Though right now that does mean that I have four works-in-progress, all set in my lovely universe! It's a good thing.
Anyway, since the weekly goal hit, I'm taking this as a success! Also, the reason you've not seen any "Adventures" posts these past couple of weeks is because... I've had no real adventures. Been mostly hanging out with my wife and my friends, so it's been slow, but fun. This weekend, on Saturday I'm working, BUT I'll be reading and judging entries for a short story contest, so I might be too busy to put in another day of bonus writing. We'll see!
Bishop
Mon: 1689 FAIL
Tue: 2099
Wed: 2025
Thu: 1039 FAIL
Fri: 2020
Sun: 1510 BONUS
Total: 10389
"What's that bonus mean?" you may well ask. So, Monday was Deletion Day. You already heard a little about that if you read last week's update. I cut back 30,000 words. Part of those words were the 1689 that I had already written, so I stopped for the day after that and worked on some editing. The next day I started in on the standard fare, going on where the deletions left off. Failed legitimately on Thursday, and was way behind for the week. Yesterday, I got an idea for a new novel. As all my novels are, it was set in my universe of sci-fi fun and I've been working on it since Sunday as my primary project. No, I'm not abandoning my third novel in my series, I'm just taking a break from it. Everything was going really well on it, I just got distracted by the new awesome. We'll get it all finished! Though right now that does mean that I have four works-in-progress, all set in my lovely universe! It's a good thing.
Anyway, since the weekly goal hit, I'm taking this as a success! Also, the reason you've not seen any "Adventures" posts these past couple of weeks is because... I've had no real adventures. Been mostly hanging out with my wife and my friends, so it's been slow, but fun. This weekend, on Saturday I'm working, BUT I'll be reading and judging entries for a short story contest, so I might be too busy to put in another day of bonus writing. We'll see!
Bishop
Monday, June 2, 2014
A Step Backward
Today's a rough day... let's look at last week's numbers:
Mon: OFF
Tue: 2116
Wed: 2295
Thu: 2074
Fri: 2076
Took Monday off, but really these numbers are irrelevant because...
Today I deleted over 30,000 words! Okay, not really DELETED, but I removed them from the work (saved them in another file, just in case) and am considering whether I want to keep it or not. I really got bored with what I was writing, and that to me spells disaster. I had originally planned for this novel to go one way, then it ended up going another. Somewhere (74,000 words in) I realized I hated that new direction. So I went back to a major moment in the plot and hit "cut-paste" and tossed the trash into a fresh document (in case I want to change my mind, or revisit some section).
The reality that hit me was that things were getting too heavy-handed and too cliched in some spots. The overall story was boring the hell out of me, and I was losing track of a lot of the characters. The lesser issue is that the "science" part of "science fiction" was being loosely used. It wasn't too bad, but it was making me uncomfortable enough that it all added up to removal. It's the first time this has really happened to me, where I had to delete a massive chunk of a story to start again, essentially, but I'm in no real hurry with this book.
I'm a little upset about it. It's a lot of work that I'm essentially resetting, but I really think I can make this story a lot better by doing this. We'll see. I'm going to plan out a little tonight, see what fresh ideas hit, or see if I want to revert to the original plan. Either way, this whole project may end up getting restarted. We'll see, and I'll keep you posted!
Mon: OFF
Tue: 2116
Wed: 2295
Thu: 2074
Fri: 2076
Took Monday off, but really these numbers are irrelevant because...
Today I deleted over 30,000 words! Okay, not really DELETED, but I removed them from the work (saved them in another file, just in case) and am considering whether I want to keep it or not. I really got bored with what I was writing, and that to me spells disaster. I had originally planned for this novel to go one way, then it ended up going another. Somewhere (74,000 words in) I realized I hated that new direction. So I went back to a major moment in the plot and hit "cut-paste" and tossed the trash into a fresh document (in case I want to change my mind, or revisit some section).
The reality that hit me was that things were getting too heavy-handed and too cliched in some spots. The overall story was boring the hell out of me, and I was losing track of a lot of the characters. The lesser issue is that the "science" part of "science fiction" was being loosely used. It wasn't too bad, but it was making me uncomfortable enough that it all added up to removal. It's the first time this has really happened to me, where I had to delete a massive chunk of a story to start again, essentially, but I'm in no real hurry with this book.
I'm a little upset about it. It's a lot of work that I'm essentially resetting, but I really think I can make this story a lot better by doing this. We'll see. I'm going to plan out a little tonight, see what fresh ideas hit, or see if I want to revert to the original plan. Either way, this whole project may end up getting restarted. We'll see, and I'll keep you posted!
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