I’ve taken the last 7 weeks off from blogging. It wasn’t intentional to take that much time off, but I needed the break. A lot of things happening in this part of the world, mostly personal and boring and not necessary to bring up. Suffice it to say that I’m working on making parts of my life more balanced against each other, rather than one aspect dominating all of my time and attention. To that end, I’ll be popping in once and a while to see how everyone is doing, and while I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to read every blog post, nor will I be able to comment on them all, know that I have missed you all.

During this time, I’ve been doing a lot of revising. I’m about halfway through draft two, and a quarter way through draft three. The second draft is taking longer than I expected, only because I’ve made one or two substantial changes that have ramifications across the entirety of the story. (more…)

To say that time is a precious commodity in my little part of the world would be a drastic understatement of facts. Truth be told, I find myself quite a bit over-extended most days, and the scales of time are heavily in favor of those things that have to be done and need to be done. Unfortunately, this leaves little time for things that I’d rather be doing.

Tuesdays in particular are jam-packed from the moment I wake until exhaustion sets in. However, I did read two chapters from A Clash of Kings last night. At least, I think I did. I’m about 150 pages into the 950 page installment, and I’m loving every second. I wish I could world build half as well as Martin does. (more…)

Just a quick thought, and I don’t know why it popped into my head.

You know how Morgan Freeman seems to narrate everything? And there’s a picture that has been going around for a while of Morgan Freeman with the text that says something like, “You’re reading this in my voice.” It’s funny, and interesting, but it got me thinking about the voice inside your head. Anyway, it got me thinking about who has a great voiceover/internal monologue voice.

Now, I’m not listing these as potential candidates for my internal monologue, but Sam Elliott, Christopher Lee, and Ralph Fiennes have great voices for such a thing. My opinion anyway.

Who else would make a great internal monologue voice? Or is there someone specific you hear in your head when you read?

A few months ago, I came across a video of “Misheard Song Lyrics – 90’s Edition” which can be viewed by clicking here. As it said “90’s Edition,” it turns out there is an “Original Edition” that needed to be found. Here it is, right here.

This morning on the drive to work, I heard two songs that were obviously the wrong lyrics. So, I present to you the correct wording, followed by what I heard.

Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton.

Original Lyrics: “Like the ceiling can’t hold us.”
What I Heard: “Like the ceiling fan told us.” (more…)

Considering it aired over a decade ago, some find it amazing that I have never seen Band of Brothers. That is, of course, until the last few weeks.

I won’t get into the specifics of the show; that’s what Wikipedia is for, after all. The long and short of it, it’s based on the book of the same name by Stephen Ambrose. 10 parts. 11 hours. It tells the fictionalized history of Easy Company from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division during World War II. The title (of the book and, therefore, the series) comes from the St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” (more…)

Rolling back the clocks an hour brings me two things I’ve been missing the last few months: driving into the rising sun in the morning and the setting sun at night.

On my drive, I pass over the Chattahoochee River. I know I’ve mentioned that fact before, and before you ask, it’s the same one that Alan Jackson sang about in 1993. Anyway, here are three shots from this morning’s drive.

I like how in the first one you can see the light from the rising sun above the fog, and how in the last one you can see the fog breaking. Just peeking through there.

This next one was on the drive home a few days ago, shortly before a storm rolled on in.

In other news, I made some progress yesterday for NaNo, and did just over 2K for the day. Still about 10K behind, but here I go.

Have a great weekend everyone. If you’re NaNoing, I hope you make great strides. If you’re not, get some fun in. Hell, even if you’re NaNoing, go have some fun.

Just a quick post today to tell you all that I won’t be around today. Or much of the weekend, either. And the way my work calendar looks for Monday thru Wednesday, it’s going to be July before things slow down again. Or pick up even worse than they are now.

Today’s post title has a strange sort of significance, and I’ll illustrate them with these two letters.

A decade is a long time. You drive me completely nuts sometimes, but I can’t imagine a better way or a better person to spend my life with. I love you. Happy 10th Anniversary.

(more…)

In all truth, the hardest part about today is over. I made it out of bed and into work on time. Seriously, though, I walked into a shit storm upon my arrival, and three hours to do it all. I beat the deadline by 22 minutes. Hence the lateness of this post.

It was an . . . interesting weekend, to say the least. Busy, busy, busy, but mostly in the good way. Pool time with friends, family movie night to introduce the kids to Hook, and swim lessons. Not to mention cleaning the house. Then there were the Tony Awards last night. (more…)

“My tunes and numbers are here. They have filled my years, the years when I refused to die. And in order to do that I wrote, I wrote, I wrote, at noon or 3:00 A.M. So as not to be dead.”
―Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man

You had 91 excellent years, sir. Rest in Peace.

I talked yesterday about lacking focus and wondered how to jump back into a WIP when you’re nearing the climax and ending after you’ve been away for a few months. There were some truly great suggestions including character development, eavesdropping on conversations, listening to music, re-read the whole thing, re-read the last chapter or two, and just diving right back in. (more…)

It’s the strangest thing, listening to the radio in the morning. Depending on when I leave for work—meaning if I’m leaving “on time” or not—I either hear about 20 minutes of morning show, or I get a ton of commercials. This morning was a commercial listening day. When this happens, I turn on whatever CD is in the player. Turns out, I still had the Les Miserables soundtrack in (well, the first of three discs), so I listened to a couple songs to finish out the drive. Which reminds me, have you see the first trailer for the upcoming film version? In case you haven’t, here it is.

Now, a few things. I’m crossing my fingers that this will turn out all right. From what you can see in the trailer, it should be visually stunning. Hugh Jackman can play Valjean; this much is true. I still hesitate at the casting of Anne Hathaway as Fantine and Russell Crowe as Javert. (more…)