One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Ten

Today was a frustrating day, with much potential wasted thanks to a lingering writing funk. The writing funk made a peculiar transition to a different issue, in which I had three short stories fighting for my attention at once. I’ve had this happen before, but I could never quite sort it out on my own. I either let it sort itself out, or I just went without writing for a while.

Forgive the moment of fanboying, but I instead took this opportunity to tweet C. Robert Cargill (best-selling author of Dreams and Shadows and Queen of the Dark Things) and ask him for advice. He’s an author, so I figured 1) he would have some pretty solid wisdom he could impart, and 2) he wouldn’t respond because best-selling authors have more important things to do. And then he responded, and I melted into a shrieking jelly-like blob of star-struck dumbness.

He suggested I write the story most ready to be worked on, and let the other two wait. This story, a mini-series just for this project, happened while I was taking a short drive earlier to try clearing my head a little. It was a lot of fun to write, and I hope it proves fun to read as it was a little out of my comfort zone (the humor is more subdued compared to the fantasy aspects of this piece). It’s only the beginning so far, but I promise there will be more before long. Continue reading

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Nine

Today has me feeling a bit tired, and I know it’s not entirely from work. I took a nap, which turned into one of those naps so mighty it blocks out any alarm clock sounds. And so I awoke, groggy and slightly hungry, to what should be an evening of writing.

There’s a general malaise about me at the moment. With enough effort, I could probably banish it, but it’s one of those nasty little bastards that just sort of leaves me shrugging my shoulders and feeling generally apathetic. Chief among my complaints is being unable to find a comfortable spot to write in, which sounds a lot like a first-world problem. I briefly considered buying a desk, if only because I’m ready to throw my Surface 2 out the window and call it a night.

All of this complaining has a point. I promise. Two points, really, because it does serve as some small level of venting (which would be going much more easily if my godddamned mouse would stop leaping to places elsewhere on the screen). It also helps me get to the topic, which wasn’t the planned topic, for today’s post. Continue reading

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Eight

I’m at that point in the summer where I can’t live in the present. Just isn’t happening. My vacation is over a month away, and my focus is fixed on it without possibility of being shifted elsewhere. It’s a real pain in the ass when it comes to being creative, but I’m still finding plenty of energy there. And for work. And for Tweeting. I sure as hell don’t get enough sleep, but I figure that’s an acceptable sacrifice.

My car passed its inspection, and I am tremendously excited and anxious about my impending trip to Chicago. And so this will be one of the (probably many) non-writing posts. Continue reading

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Seven

It’s my day off, and I’m currently spending it waiting, quite anxiously, for my car to be inspected. My default mindset is that the mechanic will no doubt find at least ten somethings wrong with my little black Toyota Corolla. At least five of those things will be problems of a cataclysmic order, which will require special parts to be shipped in from overseas or across galaxies, and they will be very expensive and time-consuming to fix.

Maybe I’m being a little ridiculous. Only a little.

The walk back from the garage was nice. Here are some fun observations I made, and general thoughts I had, between dropping my car off and getting home.

  1. Hm. Was it supposed to rain today? Shit. I should’ve checked the weather.
  2. The buildings in Hollidaysburg are really charming.
  3. I hope I didn’t forget anything important for the inspection. Did I tell them I’m going on a trip in August? Yeah, I think so.
  4. Shit. It’s starting to rain.
  5. When did my house get so damn far away?
  6. The obvious joke to make is how I’m perfectly in shape, except that the shape in question is a pear. Or a hippopotamus, if they can be considered a shape.
  7. Thanks, guy who parked right on the crosswalk. Very helpful of you.
  8. Better call Brianne, because someone made me leave my house key on my car keys. What an asshole.

There were other thoughts and observations, too, but my trip back home from dropping my car off isn’t t0day’s focus (though it might as well be with how much time I devoted to it). Continue reading

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Six

The only appropriate way to read this post is while listening to Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” with your best POGS sitting next to you. That’s right, folks, this is the well-overdo Pokemon celebration post in honor of my 150th and 151st posts.

I got briefly side-tracked by an overwhelming level of stupid that will not be brought up any further in this post. Continue reading

This Week in Misadventures

It’s been a mostly-exciting, somewhat headache-inducing week. Let’s just leap into the actual post. I’m entirely too tired for this early, which is embarrassing, but I want to finish this post before I fall asleep on my Surface 2.

Writing

Do tweets count here? They still don’t, do they? Damn. Ignoring that, there’s “The Maskmaker’s Apprentice”, “Another Starstruck Misfit”, the cannibal story I still haven’t officially named…something else. My brain’s gone a bit soft. I need to get back into setting goals for myself in terms of weekly writing, which sounds mildly suicidal since I’m working on my One Hundred Days of Blogging posts as well. “The Maskmaker’s Apprentice” doesn’t count towards the goal of twenty stories posted, by the way, because I’m apparently challenging myself to write and rewarding myself by making it as punishing as possible. On the plus side, I’ve received so many new commenting readers. Mostly spammers writing comments in Russian, but I’m not too picky when it comes to comments.

I’ve got no particular plans for writing in this coming week, but I might just be lying there. We’ll see.

Reading

So many books, so little time. I’m rereading Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir), and I picked up The Long Mars. You may be saying “Phil, you buy a lot of books and you should probably read them instead of buying even more books,” to which I say I will never stop buying books. I should, however, get working on reading them. I think a great starting point would be to start over on The Long Earth, move on to The Long War, and then get to The Long Mars. I’m impatiently waiting for Bryan Lee O’Malley’s new graphic novel, Seconds, which sounds like it’ll be a terrific fun read.

Important Miscellany

Car inspection happens this week, which is important for my planned Chicago adventure at the end of August. I’m anxious that something will go horribly wrong, but when am I not? Don’t answer that, anyone. It’ll be the longest road-trip I’ve ever taken, and I’m going solo so it’ll be something else. We’ll see, once all is said and done, what something else turns out to be (good or bad). I’m considering a travel journal to post on here, as there’s still enough time for me to actually plan it out. Or put off planning it and just haphazardly meandering through it like I do with many other things.

The plans for this week include writing, reading, and a little recovering from last week. I’m more excited, I’ll admit, for the week after this one, as I work three days (thanks to a couple leftover paid holidays). Making a trip home to see my family, and I’ll have plenty of time to work on getting some additional writing done. None of which will be spoiled here, of course.

Here’s to a pleasant, hopefully peaceful week for everyone, and remember to keep the Kaiju population under control by getting your Kaiju spayed or neutered.

PS: I’m sorry, but I refuse to see this post linger just beneath five hundred words. Nope. Had to fix that.

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Five

It’s Sunday, which means there’s a This Week in Misadventures post around the corner as well. I’d say that’ll be fun. Probably. If nothing else, it’ll offset this business of being awake at 4a.m., which is a time of day only birds and overly-caffeinated college students should experience. I still owe a Pokemon post celebrating my 150th and 151st posts on here, too, but I’ll get to that at some point. Probably.

Today’s topic popped into existence earlier. I had to stop by Walmart, and I encountered two of my favorite drivers. The first was the special sort of jackass who drives diagonals through parking spots to get from point A to point. The other one was someone who parked what I rather unkindly refer to as their compensation truck (the kind of truck that was clearly designed for people who wish to actually pack up everything they own and move it, house and all) over the lines that divided up four parking spots. And that brings me to today’s post topic. Continue reading

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Four

I finally got around to seeing Pacific Rim, and I’ve got to say it was better than I expected. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the age-old, time-tested tale of giant robots fighting giant monsters. I grew up on Gundam Wing on Toonami, and loved every second of its weird cartoon, semi-soap opera feel. A lot happier with the ending than I thought I’d have been going into it, too, so that’s a plus.

The flipside is that I’m feeling a touch under-the-weather, so I’m forcing myself to go to bed shortly. However, the post must go on. It’s only Day Four after all. Given that I watched Pacific Rim after work instead of working on this, I think my topic of choice is appropriate. Continue reading

The Maskmaker’s Apprentice

This short story popped into my head a couple nights ago, and demanded attention when I was too tired to provide such thought-requiring things. I started working on it last night, and continued on it most of today. I’m very happy with the end product. I considered sending it out for publication consideration, but I’m instead opting to be a story-dragon and keep it in my hoard. That is to say that I wanted to share it with those of you who misadventure alongside me at Misadventures in Fiction. I really hope you all enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Without further rambling, I present “The Maskmaker’s Apprentice”.

Continue reading

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Three

Let me start this by saying how much I love my days off of my day job (like almost every other person alive, save for those detestable ones who do something they love). While I’m not particularly fond of my internal clock having deemed 8a.m. the point at which I’ve slept in, I’m glad to say it’s not even 10a.m. and I’ve already been semi-productive.

No need to sugar-coat it: I’m a slow-starter, and I’m okay with that. However, being awake this early and meandering through my morning, complete with moments of being hooked up to my iPod, also provided ample inspiration, between half-sleepy yawns, for today’s Day of Blogging. Continue reading