Starting to come together

Yeah, I'm seriously screwing around with the overall appearance of this blog thing. I figure it will be a continual process and I'm sure I'll never really be happy with it's over all look. But, for the time being I'm happy with it.

I'm starting to wind down my day and I'm wrapping up one of the stories I've been working on for the past week or so. Like I said at the beginning of the week, the act of writing has been a bit of a struggle for the past couple of months, but luckily it seems like I'm starting to kick off the rust a little bit and starting to get back into the groove of things.

It's amazing what a slight change in habit can do with the creative process. My poor little stretch of writer's block (Yes, I am officially calling it that, because that's exactly what it's been.) stemmed from two incidents in the recent past. 

First was a family vacation to Disneyland. Yeah the trip was a blast, and I loved it that my two year-old daughter had such a great time, but during that week long trip there was zero time to write or read or do any of the crap I normally do. And when we came back, I was exhausted, and had to throw myself back into the old day-to-day life without a minute to rest. And then Christmas came up to me and smacked me in the face with Yuletide cheer masquerading as an athletic sock full of horse poop

The second thing that happened was that I broke the tip of my left index finger right before we left for vacation. I slammed my finger in the passenger door of the wife's baby SUV when I was attempting to make a quick run inside a grocery store to pick up some beers.

That shit hurt, and my fingernail is still blacker than coal miner's bunghole.

And like most self taught typists, my index fingers are my main typing fingers.

But whatever, I've adapted, and now my left index finger is more or less used for nothing more than slightly deformed pointing. The great thing is that I'm spending less time online and more time writing.

Alright, before I call it quits tonight, I thought I'd mention a cool thing Duane Swiercynski is doing over at his little piece of talking head zone, Secret Dead Blog. I dig Duane as a writer, and as a reader his taste in books is awesome, and his blog is typically a daily stop for me. But over the last few days I've really been into what he's been posting. If you haven't seen it yet, I encourage to stop by.

You're a Meme, and I'm a Meme too

Yeah, I got tagged with one these things again today. This time by Geoff Eighinger editor extraordinaire of Crooked Web-zine (http://crookedwebzine.blogspot.com/) and writer of Eastern Standard Crime (http://easternstandardcrime.blogspot.com/) And I figured since I was such a good boy today and pumped out around 750 words of fiction, I thought I might as well goof around a little and pump out 25 random things about myself, and then go and menace some of my friends by getting them to write one too.

1. I have the same birthday as Stephen King and Bill Murray
2. My favorite holiday is thanksgiving, because, hey, I love to eat
3. I'm cheap, incredibly cheap. Yeah, Scrooge McDuck cheap.
4. I hate driving.
5. Tom Waits and the Flaming Lips are the only performers I would go to see live anymore
6. I am an anti-people person, people person, i.e., I dislike people, yet I'm drawn to them like a moth to a flame.
7. I lived and worked the Grand Canyon for two-and-a-half years
8. When my wife and I first got together, we traveled across the country in our old Honda Accord, camping in national parks the entire way. We did this three months straight and for less than a thousand dollars
9. And guess what, we haven't gone camping since, nor do either of us have the desire to do so ever again
10. I'm a morning person, but love staying up until 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning
11. I love NAPS
12. Being a Dad is awesome, and the best job I've ever had
13. the number 13 is my favorite number
14 my favorite color is green
15. In my mid and late twenties, I loved to paint, and would easily produce a canvass or two a week, until I started to go color blind.
16. Going color blind sucks. I can't tell the difference between blue, black, and brown anymore; purple and deep reds are going down the shiter too
17. I love to curse, but have curbed this activity due to the fact that I have a two year old daughter who repeats every word you say.
18. My favorite curse word is Bastard. More specifically, Rat Bastard.
19. I think actors and athletes are way too over paid.
20. I think the more formal education you receive, the more narrow your world view becomes. I know factory workers who are easily the most open minded and intelligent people I know. And I know people with Bachelor's and Master's degrees who are nasty, bigoted creatures without an ounce of empathy
21.In the same breath, I think education is one of the few ways most people can get ahead in life
22.I don't have anything against people who don't read as as a leisure activity, I just feel they're missing out
23. I love beer. Specifically, Guinness.
24. Kurt Vonnegut is the writer who most made me want to be a writer. It was James Ellroy and Ken Bruen who made me believe I could actually do it
25. Coffee is the nectar of the gods

Happiness is Slavery

So, I was alerted on Facebook yesterday that crime fiction writer/blogger Bryon Quertermous would be bringing an end to his blog because he felt that it was interfering with his day-to-day writing life too much, so he decided to kill it and focus exclusively on writing books and stories and nothing else. I really don’t blame him for doing this. The internet is a huge distraction and time suck, especially if you’re involved with social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, or the blog communities of Google Blogger or Wordpress. I, of course, know this from personal experience. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve logged onto Facebook before I sit down to write and before I know it two-and-half hours have blown by and I haven’t written a single word other than replying to Facebook comments. Needless to say, when you have a limited time to write per day, this crap can be a serious weight.
For me, I’ve noticed the exact opposite effect on me in my writing life.
I started blogging on Myspace back in May of 2008, and posted over 40 entries. During this period of time was probably the most productive I’ve ever been writing wise. Blogging would jump start the messy mass of gray gooey that is my brain and would get me into the mind set of actually sitting down at the machine and writing, It would unwind me and clear out all the crap that had cumulated through out the course of the day.
But, over the holidays, my time to sit and write became extremely limited, and I stopped blogging so I could concentrate on writing fiction.
The holidays came and went just as suddenly as they came, and I noticed that even though my schedule went more or less back to normal, my productivity level was hitting the wall. Before, when I was blogging, I was putting out 1000-to-1500 words a day and that wasn’t counting my regular blog posts. I compare that to now a full month after the holidays, and I’m maybe clocking 500 words a day.
Huge difference.
So, I’ve come to the decision to become a slave to blogging again. However, instead of continuing on Myspace, I created on of these little blogger pages with Google. I more or less plan on doing it every other day; most of it will be rants, like the Myspace blog, the main difference being I’ll be concentrating on reading and writing a little more.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve got today, see you later.