Draggin'

So yesterday was my first day back from California. Crazy time. My wife's father was in the hospital and we wanted to see him and help her half-sister with a HUGE storage unit he had filled there. Lots of work. A little sad.

But because I'm determined to be more positive this year, here are the good things about the trip:

* We were able to get away one day to take the kids to Disneyland for the first time. Disneyland is like Mecca for my family and I was so excited to share it with my sons that I barely slept the night before. January is a great time to go because it's not nearly so crowded (although there were still a lot of people and it made me actually fear going there when it was busy). We were there when the park opened and stayed until it closed. 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. HOLY COW! Lots of fun. Andy proved himself to be the crazy one. He went on every ride (he even stretched himself to meet the 46-inch requirement to go on Indiana Jones). He loved it. He ended each ride with a scream, "THAT WAS AWESOME!!!" Alex was not such a big fan. It was really my mistake. The second ride we went on was the newly redone Space Mountain and it scared him silly. The next one was the Matterhorn and he actually really liked it except at the very end as we we getting ready to get out, he was resting his chin near the front bar and our bobsled bopped into the one ahead and he hit his nose on the bar. But the place is still magical. I loved it.

* We got a new van. We are buying it from my father-in-law. Which meant, of course, that I had to drive it back from L.A. which meant ...

* I got to go to Vegas. Of course, I had no money and no energy which limited my craziness, but it was refreshing just to be on the Strip for one night and to play a little Blackjack.

So, I'm back and work. Sore, tired and brain-dead. TGIF!!!

Crud!

I just don't understand the HOF!
How do you pick Sutter over Goose!?!?!
OH Well!

Goosed

I love lists and other fun things people get to argue about. And I love baseball.

So, I love the annual Baseball Hall of Fame announcements.

I have three favorite all-time baseball players ... none of whom are in the Hall of Fame ... yet.

First, Pete Rose ... I don't care what he did after he played ... the baseball hall of fame is not a place for political statements, it's a place for baseball greats and Pete should be there.

Second, Rickey Henderson ... I'm sure he'll be in once he decides to actually retire. I love the guy's drive to succeed and be the best ... even now. I remember as a kid when I watched Rickey break Lou Brock's career record. I blew off several soccer practices just to see it happen on my little black and white TV in my room. He's just outstanding!

Now, you may be thinking that two of my favorite players are ... well ... ummm ... ok, I'll just say it ... JERKS. I suppose that's true. Neither Pete or Rickey are nice guys. But there's nobody I would rather watch play the game than those two guys in their prime.

My third pick is a nice guy ... although he wasn't on the baseball field.

Goose Gossage was scary. I mean really scary. He had the greatest stare down from the mound ever (although Dave Stewart later came close). He was a set-up man and a closer combined. He was ruthless and efficient. He was perfection.

For years, Goose has been overlooked for the Hall. I am truly hopeful that he finally makes it today when the HOF class is announced. I know everyone says Bruce Sutter is the only one who might make it, but Goose is far more deserving in my book. Sutter invented the splitter. Goose invented the closer position (coupled with the set-up guy). Which one had more of an impact on the game?

Anyway, hopefully, at noon today, I can finally say that one of my top three is a HOFer.

Off break

OK, so I'm back... It was a heck of a good break ... lots of time with the boys.
Here's a basic rundown...
* Had a great poker night with my friends Ross and Juli from California. We played until 5 a.m. and I lost about $10. Not bad. Had a great time, though.
* Found out my buddy Donovan is moving back to Greeley! Yeah!
* Rode the Poudre Trail with the boys (gorgeous!)
* Got to spend two hours of uninterupted time in Borders to spend my Christmas gift certificate (hanging out in a book store is one of my greatest pleasures (having more money to spend there would be high on the list as well))
* Signed up on an online poker site because my friend, Dan, is so into it. I was doing OK until Donovan lost a bundle of my play money after I went to sleep. But it is fun.
* Had a wonderful Christmas dinner at Ruth's!
* Ate WAY too much.
* Saw King Kong (very good!), Took the boys to Narnia (surprisingly excellent), Saw Family Stone with Tracy after a wonderful meal at Outback (our first date night by ourselves in months!), Saw Munich with Dono and Ross (pretty good ... very long ... but good).
* Watched the boys at their soccer clinic downtown.
* Watched DVDs-o-plenty ... the highlights: Star Wars Ep 3 extras were just awesome (Lucas' back info is like going to a film school), Airplane (classic Tracy gave me), The Island (just really fun ... brainless but fun))
* Didn't write anything, but I did think about it a lot. I have some cool ideas for where the rest of this book is going to end up and now I just have to get it back in my schedule.
* Took down all the Christmas decorations (two day job, but it feels good to have it done).
* Let the boys stay up for New Years for the first time and they loved it. (and they actually slept in the next day!)

Guess that's about it. Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday.

Happy, merry, jolly ... whatever

I got a note from a friend telling people to send a "Merry Christmas" e-mail to the ACLU ... just to drive them crazy.
Got another one complaining about Bush and the holidays.
It's amazing how people are all sides can turn the holidays into a political statement.
I would like to call for a politics-free holiday season.
I don't care about your stand on the war, on the hurricane, on Saddam's trial, on Hillary, on George, on steroids, on Pete Rose (well, I care about that, but not right now), on anything except family and the holidays.
So, given that, have a great one ...

Closer

OK, so I've been writig the family Christmas card. I've been writing my column for the newspapers. I've been writing a lot of e-mails, reports and other assorted crud at work.

I'm still not doing the writing for my book. The ideas keep circulating around in my skull. I think I know where I'm going with it. Just not doing it yet.

I'm hoping that the holiday break will allow me some time to get back into it. I want to get to a regular writing schedule. Not as hectic as NaNo. Something manageable. Like a diet -- I need one I can live with (although anyone whose seen me lately knows I'm not having success finding the diet any more than I am a writing schedule).

Oh, well, I will stick with it. It's not going away.

NOT

OK, I'm not writing.
My alarm goes off in the morning. I lay there. I'm tired. I contemplate getting up to write. I lay there. I think about just getting the ball rolling again and how easy (relatively) it was to get the first 50K. It's a fun story. It's going well. JUST WRITE, Darn it! And I just lay there.
And then I look at the clock and it's time to get up to get dressed for work.
I'm hoping I'm surrfering from a short-term NaNo hangover.
I will get back to it.
It's finally starting to snow here! I love sitting inside a warm house, sipping on some spiked hot apple cider and writing. Now, all I have to do is do it!

Small world

So, last night we had our last meeting of the Greeley contingent of NaNoWriMo.
As I sat and listened to their stories of how their month went and the strange details of their lives and their novels, I realized that without the internet and the NaNo site, there is probably no way in the world any of us would have met up. We all come from completely different worlds with the lone binding link being that we all love to write.
Anyway, I'll get off the NaNo kick now...
My plans for the coming weeks...

• Continue writing my book
• Help with Alex's basketball team
• Help Tracy as she coaches Alex's Odyssey of the Mind team
• Finally freakin' see the new Harry Potter movie (it's killing me!)
• Get some Christmas shopping out of the way
• Continue with racquetball so I don't triple my current weight with holiday food
• Try to give a little more attention to Andy who seems to be incredibly sensitive about just about everything these days.
• Work on Andy's birthday cake!
• Maybe get some work done at the office (ha!)
• Shampoo our carpets

Sounds like fun, huh?

Clips

So, about a week ago this guy from the Denver Post wrote me an e-mail about NaNo. I answered his questions and he wrote this article.

And then I showed it to some friends at the Greeley Trib and they did a story also.

Kind of strange how these things work...

Anyway, woke up this morning ... and without needing to (since I finished the NaNo month), I actually wrote... another 2,000 words. I will eventually get this book finished... then I'll sent out pitch letters to agents for my last book, "Wrath"... then I'll finish making the final edits to Wrath and start editing "Black Sheep." All of that should take me until next November when I actually write again!

Done!

When I planned to stop writing this morning, I was 200 words shy of 50K.
Couldn't let that happen. So I finished it off! Now I'm a winner.
Of course, the novel isn't done. Probably take another month or so to do that (not quite on the same hectic pace). But I'll do it.

Home stretch

Despite a near triptaphan (sp?) overdose (coupled with an excessively high pumpkin pie count), I was able to keep up on my writing over the holidays. I'm now at 46,021. That's just a smidge under the pace, but should be no problem to do especially since there's nothing good on TV this week until Wednesday (LOST!!!).

The novel is going really well. I like my protagonist family. I think the bad guy is pretty real, but still pretty spooky. The tense scenes make me tense. The scary scenes scare me. This is really the first time that's happened. It's really fun.

Because I'm nearing the end of this grand adventure, I want to document all the other things I was able to accomplish this month on top of writing a 50K-plus word novel:

• Put up all the inside and outside decorations for the holidays (and removed the ones from Halloween!)
• Attended every one of Alex's basketball practices and games.
• Unloaded the dishwasher almost every day
• Did the lion's share of the laundry
• Visited with friends and relatives over Thanksgiving break
• Saw a few movies
• Watched most of the TV shows I normally watch (on tape!)
• Helped get my kids up-to-date on all the past Star Wars movies
• Played racquetball every week (twice a week most of the time with an extra session with Dan!)
• Had two poker nights (really, really late nights!)
• Did a Guy's Write Nite with Alex
• Met a couple times with my fellow NaNo folks in Greeley
• Got to play with Alex and Andy a lot!
• Helped get the house cleaned up and presentable (not as easy as it sounds, trust me!)
• And worked a full-time job

Next year when I think I'm too busy to do NaNo, I just want to be able to read this again.

The Wall

Runners call it The Wall. I think. I have no real idea. I try to avoid running whenever possible.
But my understanding is that The Wall is that thing you hit when your body tells you to just shut down. Real runners break through The Wall and keep going.
Why all this background in running? Well, I think I hit the writer's version of The Wall this morning. I only got 1,000 words and each one was a struggle. My body was none too pleased about waking up another morning at 4:30 a.m. (almost as much as Tracy who keeps getting the brunt of my alarm clock).
So, I'm now slightly below pace at 34,514 words after a disappointing weekend for writing (but pretty good other than that). And I have hit The Wall.
But like those strange runners in the world, I need to break through it. Seems to me this happens every year for NaNo. It does suck, though. But I just have to force myself to keep writing. Even if it's just 1,000 words at a time. Eventually I'll break out. Better happen soon, though. The end of November is looming!

Twilight zone

So, I was writing a scene for NaNo this morning (I'm at 28,003 for anyone who might care) and it involved the dad of my family fixing himself a sandwich in the kitchen. He turns on the radio and "Living on a Prayer" comes on by Bon Jovi and it is later followed by CCR's "Fortunate Son."
I don't know why I picked those two songs. They just came to me.
Later, I was driving into work and I turned on the radio just in time to hear the DJ say, "That was Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer' and before that was 'Fortunate Son' by Creedance Clearwater Revival."
Freaky, huh?
In a related matter, I'm headed to the store later to buy lottery tickets.

50 percent

Well, I passed the halfway mark this morning. I'm at 26, 048.
The good news is that my novel isn't halfway done. That's actually a first. In the past I've had to milk my story for extra words as I neared the end. Last year, the final version was about 65,000 which is still a little short for a "real" marketable novel.
I have a feeling this one will be in the 75,000 to 100,000 word total at the end. But it's really good. This morning I actually scared myself with something I came up with. It's kinda fun writing in a quiet basement all by yourself. Nice and creepy.
Also, last night, I had a dream that this book was No. 2 on the bestseller list (I'm sure it was the DaVinci Code in front of mine!). We had lots of money and I was doing talk shows. It almost sucked to wake up, except that I woke up to go write.

The Force is with me

After amassing a word count of absolutely ZERO on Saturday, I kicked hiney on Sunday and this morning. Now I'm back slightly ahead of the pace at 24,104.

The surprising part for me was that I did all of my writing after a marathon movie session with my kids.

Here's how it started:
I took the boys to Burger King after Alex's basketball game Saturday. They each got a Star Wars toy featuring the Stormtoopers. That made them ask me what a Stormtrooper was.
So, I said we would watch the original Star Wars on Sunday. We did that Sunday morning and they were hooked. That led to the next two movies (don't worry we did get outside to play, also!). But when your kids ask you about Star Wars, it's worth putting other stuff off to show them, right?

That's what I thought. And I was rewarded with a hugely productive writing session that pushed my word count into orbit (OK, so it wasn't to the 25K I wanted, but it was still good).

May the Force Be With You.

Keeping it in the family

My word count sucks today... I'm at 18,135.
But I have a pretty good excuse. Last night Alex's school had a really interesting program called Guys Write Nite where all the boys in the class brought their dads into the class from 6-8 p.m. and all we did was write together. Alex's teacher is doing some sort of thesis or something on boys and dads and writing. But it was really fun. Alex was so into it. He knew I've been doing a bunch of writing (especially lately) and he liked being a part of that.
We wrote some fun stories about our road trip to California a year ago and then we made up a story about a boy named Chicken-Butt (Alex's favorite word). In the end, we had about 1,400 words -- that don't count toward NaNo.
Of course, that was only two hours, right? So, what's my REAL excuse?
Well, I did have to write my regular bi-weekly column for the newspapers. That was 650 words -- all of which had to be good enough to be publishable (not quite the standard I hold for my NaNo novel, where I spent about 300 words talking about how my family had bought a new hot water heater (and, no, it has nothing to do with the story ... I think).)
Still that wasn't all my time. How about ER live, Survivor on tape last night and then The Apprentice on tape this morning. How sad and pathetic is that, huh? Well, at least I got 1K-plus done this morning. But now I'm behind the pace again.
This weekend will be the time. In fact, I'll lay down the gauntlet right here... I will have 25K by Monday!
You read it here first!

Pluggin away

My little progress meter isn't working right now. The guy who hosts it got overwhelmed with bandwidth and couldn't keep it going.

So, my count now is 14,310. I'm only slightly under the pace I need. I need one great evening writing session to put me back in the black.

The story is actually progressing well. It is really fun to see how the characters progress. I am also limiting myself with the number of characters. I have my family of four and my one bad guy. That's it. It's really fun to develop them a lot more than trying to do too much with too many others.

10K

I'm still behind the pace, but I passed the first milestone this morning as I hit 10,000 words. The story is going really well. Probably too well. My internal editor is not letting me write the crap that normally propels me. It keeps saying, "You're just going to have to fix it later, so make it good now." Pro is at least it's slightly better than crap. Con is that I'm dragging. I'm thinking of blindfolding my internal editor and beheading him on live TV just for fun!

I'm pretty tickled about hitting 10K actually. I haven't really given up on other stuff to do it. Had a late-night poker game Friday, watched Alex's first basketball game Saturday, went to two movies with Tracy and some friends Saturday night and I actually made my first pie (gluten-free!!!) on Sunday.

With all of that, 10K sounds pretty good.

Slow cruise

I realize I have probably bored anyone who may be reading this with all my references to NaNo lately, but this thing practically consumes me in November, so that's what I'm thinking about.
I'm at 4,384 words on Day 3. It's not bad. I'm slightly below the pace I need to finish and I'm more than a little concerned about the weekends (4:30 a.m. is fine on a weekday, but not sure about Saturday ... especially this Saturday because I have friends coming over for poker on Friday!).
Anyway, the story is going well. I've abandoned my original plan of making this a sequel to my last book with the same detective. I really enjoyed the thought of someone living in someone's house without them knowing about it. So, I decided to scrap the police and have it be a bad guy vs. good guy thing in the house.
The creepy part is that the family in my book lives in a house that's laid out like my real house (so much for imagination, huh?!?). So, now I keep looking in all these hidden crevices and it's kinda freakin' me out a little.
Guess that's good, right? If I scare myself, it's gotta get other people, right?

Started

So, last night we hosted 18 family and friends for our annual Halloween party. Our house (formerly clean, I swear) is a disaster. We cleaned up enough last night so we could still walk around. Tonight I have racquetball. Wednesday is basketball practice for Alex. Thursday is racquetball with Dan and Friday we're hosting a poker party for my friends so the house has to be back in some semblance of order.
On top of all of that (oh, yeah, and work!) I started my quest this morning at 4:30 a.m. to write 50,000 words in one month. I got 1,400 words. It's a slow start (mainly because it took me awhile to come up with my bad guy's name ... Anthony Speck!) but I knew the first little bit would be tough because I had to set up the main scene. Now I get to have some fun!
Hard to believe I actually can't wait for my alarm to go off at 4:30 a.m.!?!?!