What I'm Up To - What If

As I contemplate what to do next on this blog, I've been working through this book of writing exercises called What If. Actually, working through What If is sort of like my writing a journal; I start it, have every intention of keeping it up, only to let it slip by the wayside. Some fun.

Some of the exercises are fairly fun. The very first own suggests writing five first sentences every day. A real quick sample would be something like this.

• On the third day in the apartments, Enid noticed a door that shouldn't have been where it was.
• The flower whispered something new whenever she neared it.
• The men came back with two more than they left with.
• Murphy never worried about the crocodiles when he went into the pit to wrestle them because by this point they were due a bit of revenge.
• The robot danced and sang to itself.

Another exersices gives the reader a first sentence, "Where were you last night?", and asks for the reader to come up with a story. There's a bit of leeway in how the sentence can be used. Like so:

Graves glared at Wells as he strode into the room. “Where were you last night?”

Wells grinned at his partner. Same old Graves, same old stick up his ass. Who cared if he blew off a night every now and then? Not like anything ever happened in this dump. Not like there was anything worth stealing.

Since no matter what he answered would be wrong, he said “That would be telling. Anything interesting happen last night? One of the rats make a break for it again?”

“Funny you should say that,” Graves said. “Someone broke in last night.”

The grin died on Wells’ face. “What?”

“They didn’t take anything. They just killed every last rat in Doc Brown’s lab. Only the control group, mind you. Five years of work gone,” Graves snapped his fingers. "Like that."

No prize winner, I know.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. Well, at least one of the things I've been up to...

Temperamental Artist

Learned something interesting this weekend about myself. If we were to be creative (and why not?) certain thought processes I have would run sort of like this:

First draft essays?
No problem. Up they go, everyone can see.

Pictures?
Not a big deal. Here they are, warts and all.

Poetry?
What do I care? Here's what I've got.

Fiction?
ARE YOU MAD?! THAT'S NOT FINISHED YET!

Yes, but I made a comment on...
NOT GOOD ENOUGH! PULL IT AND WAIT TILL IT'S DONE!

Yes but I said...
THAT'S NOT MY FAULT, NOW IS IT? PULL IT!

So what can you do? They pull the red font out on you, you have to listen at the very least.

Here on out, at least for a bit, no scheduales, no pre-planning. I'm tying myself in knots over it and for what?

This week will be sporadic posts at best. My Grandfather's birthday is tomorrow and Things have been Planned.

Hopefully I'll return to a more or less constant updates, but I'm not going to promise them anymore (until the next time.)

Sorry for the hassle.

(Boy, are my archives going to look weird... Ah well. I DO say "Reader Beware" in my Blog description...)

Site Update - Hang on a moment

I might not be updating for a little bit. I hope to have something more substantial in a bit, but I'm having wee troubles inspirational wise. It stinks, but...

Sorry about all of this. Will be back soon.

Site Update - What's Up for the Next Couple of Days

Like has been so often the case dealing with this Blog, my little "weekend" has been a fairly interesting experience. Before, I'd been bang my head against a wall trying to come up with some fiction for the site. I had an idea for a sort of serial novel type deal, but that didn't gel just yet. I started a science fiction piece and a fantasy piece that both grounded to a halt. Frustration after frustration.

In other words, a typical couple of weeks.

Along came the weekend and BAM! Got an idea. A real nice one. Spent Wednesday night, Thursday morning grooving with it. I had the usual Cullen troll whispering in my head that the story was too familiar, that I was copying something I read and was only half remembering now, but that didn't matter. The words came flowing out and it was fine.

I didn't finish it before going to bed and spent most of Thursday thinking about how the story was going. I was driving home from my Borders fix, and suddenly it all went south in a major way. Over thought the whole thing maybe, or maybe I started seeing holes in what I had.

Whatever it was, I put the story on a back burner in my head rather than risk losing it completely. Because even as down on it as I was, it still is worthy of seeing through.

However, and here's the interesting bit, by that time I already had a second story idea ready to go. This never happens. The rule of thumb is I finish one story, then go about redecorating my house with bits of skull embedded in the wall before coming up with the next.

This second story I intend to post later today. How much later, I can't say just yet. It's (hopefully) close to being half finished, and I've had some additional projects pop up. Plus, I need to sleep sometime.

When it does come, it will be in at least two parts. I'm going to publish the first part as soon as I finish with it, and get the next post up by the next day. (If I can't get to the halfway point , I'll put up what I have and edit in the new stuff later... a pain, but it'll do, I hope.)

Next I will either tool on the first story, dabble on a new Fantastic Writer essay, rewrite the "send out" short stories, fumble about with the novel, or explode in a ball of green flame. Whichever proves easiest.

(Between you and me, I'm putting my money on Spontaneous Human Combustion...)

Site Report - The First Weekend

Tomorrow is the first intended break from my 7 day a week schedule. Which is an odd thing to write, now that I think about it.

I hope to have, on Friday, a bit of fiction to post. At the least an essay.

See you then.

Site Report - BRILLIANT!

I don't want to toot my own horn too much, but my woes of site design are now OVER! Everything looks about how I want it, without annoying shifts in location. I don't have to mess around with the template any more.

All that work and I still don't understand half of what I did.

My ignorance appalls me. Just not enough for me to do anything about it.

Any way, from here on out, smooth sailing!

I Don't Want to Sound Like I'm Complaining...

...but I've been having a wee bit of problem with Blogger this past week. I've enjoyed my time here, and really shouldn't be carping, especially when all of it could be due to me and my computer, but it's lead to a bit of aggrivation, and darn it! what's a Blog for if not letting off some steam? Please bear with me.

Earlier this morning I had a post almost ready for publishing when, for reasons unknown to me at this time, the site ate about half of it. Which was a serious let down, as I'd worked hard on it, put in several links, and the like. This is not the first time it's happened to me. Maybe it's a problem with the site. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

The solution, as I see it, is writing everything out on my word processor (the termanaly depressing Works). I've been doing that half the time anyway for Works' (depressing) grammer and spell check. Problem is, when I transfer everything over to this side of things, the Blogger doesn't like Works apostrophes and quotation marks. And I have to reinsert them. All the while wondering if I'm going to lose the page.

Fun!

Then my page starts looking funny. I don't know how it looked on any other computer, but on mine it looked sort of like this:

My witty posts here. My
witty posts here. My witty
posts here. My witty posts
here. My witty posts here.
My witty posts here. My witty
posts here. My witty post here.

My sidebar down over here

someplace, looking lost and

forlorn and stretching on

and on and on and on and on...

This is not acceptable. I don't want my Blog to look this way. It might have been just me and my computer, but if it is, then how can I tell when something REALLY doesn't work? I've already give up Blog Preview as a waste of time...

Now, as I'm mucking with the HTML code with all the skill of a chimp working on a Roll Royce (using a jack hammer no less), I can see that this particular situation is, indeed, my doing.

It doesn't make me any less upset.

So bear with me. Next few days I will be meddling with the HTML code to get things to my liking. Again. My links will return (I may change out the pucture, though... "Galatic Duel" is getting a bit old...) as well as what past as my wit and wisdom.

Now, having said all of this, I would like to repeat that I've enjoyed my time here. All in all, this is an excellent service. But right now I'm a little frustrated. Once I figure out what I did wrong, things will chill out for me...

Until the next problem in my life creeps up, of course...