Is it August already???

I CANNOT believe it's the middle of Summer! Where the heck did June and July go?

I think the Pandemic has triggered a TWC, a Time Warp Conundrum, causing my sense of time and space to fracture and sizzle like an egg dropped on a hot Texas sidewalk!

I've been doing a lot of writing on the latest book in my 'Arlo and Jake' SciFi series and mulling over other stories that are waiting in the wings. It seems that the closer I get to finishing this story the more 'cool' ideas pop up and try to tear me away. It's like having a room full of puppies yipping around my ankles while I try to walk my dog.

One of the things I've been doing is collecting pix online related to my US Navy experiences. Some people remember their time in college doing crazy stuff and wondering how they survived. I served on nuclear subs in the 70s so I remember doing crazy stuff and wondering how I survived. ;-)

Here's a cool pix that gives me 'fond' memories. Before an extended run we would load as much food and coffee as possible. The Navy runs on coffee, trust me. What you see here is one of the crew's quarters lined with food/coffee cans on the deck. As the stuff was consumed we finally got to see/walk on the actual deck! ;-)

Those curtains hide our 'racks', our beds. Under the thin mattress is a 'bed pan' about 12 inched deep. That's where you store all your clothes, personal items and gedunks you bring with you. Gedunks are things like beef jerky, chocolate and for some guys cigarettes. The racks are stacked 3, 4 and in some places 5 high. Chiefs and Officers have their own areas that are not quite so cramped. 

I've also been collecting pix from the early 60/70s, including my high school years in Boulder, Colorado.

This is a shot of 28th street in Boulder around 1968, looking south. The Volvo is turning in off Walnut Street I think.

The Texaco on the east (left in the pix) side is my father's station, where I worked during High School at the old Fairview HS on Cherryvale Road.

On the west side is a King's restaurant. Great place! You sat down in a booth that had a little music juke box and a telephone on the wall. You 'phoned' in your order. You plopped a quarter into the juke and listen to some music until they called you back to pick up your order at the counter in the back. Grub-Hub before there was Grub-Hub!!

This is what a coke machine looked like in the 50/60s, except that the first one I remember at my Dad's station cost 5 cents not 10 cents. Everyone was appalled when the price of a coke went up to 25 cents! Outrageous! ;-)

You dropped in your coin and pushed down on the handle. That rotated the big vertical drum inside and lined up one of the bottles so you could pull it out. 

Best tasting Cokes on the planet. Really cold and of course the original recipe made your throat burn as it went down. On a hot Texas Panhandle day it was liquid heaven!

Stay safe and wear the mask, friends. 

When the pandemic is over we can a huge party to celebrate!

Writing in isolation

I'm fortunate to have a 'man cave' den in my house, where I can read, write and just think. This desk is over 25 years old, something I bought in Longmont, CO WAY back when I was just starting to play round with writing.

I can close the door to my den, tell Alexa to play some smooth jazz and lose myself in my writing. Or lean back in my chair and get lost in Naval History books (just finished Samuel Eliot Morison's 'The Two Ocean war'), sipping a tumbler of bourbon and snacking on some cookies.

You can't tell from the picture, but I also collect SciFi and Fantasy Art books like the 'Spectrum' series. Some days I just scan through the amazing artwork and let my imagination take a trip. I get ideas from stories sometimes as I lose myself in the images.

I AM a lucky Dude and I know it. But it wasn't always like this. I've 'worked' on software projects, hardware projects, balsa models and writing inside spare closets, on the couch and the kitchen table. It doesn't really matter, as I'm sure my fellow writers know. Once you dive into a story the world seems to reconfigure around you, your characters and environment swirl around you, blocking out the real world.

I've found my writing has blossomed in this imposed isolation. I put my head down in the story line and then hours later look up, amazed at how fast time has flow. With fewer commitments there is more time to play with my heroes and villains.

I hope you've had good luck with your writing as well. I'm looking forward to hearing from my current writing friends and some new authors.

Keep writing!

Finishing a story...

This is from a post I did on a friends writing blog back in 2016.

I hope it motivates you to ...

Finish

This post is about finishing. Finishing is harder, by far, than starting. Yeah, it seems like an obvious statement up front, but please don’t leave me yet! ;-)
Starting is hard, sure, and I don't minimize its place in any endeavor. To start writing, be it a poem, a short story or an epic novel series, takes guts and confidence. I think you’re lucky if you’re one of those writers that can just ignore your doubts and go for it, mindfully dismissing your fears. Yeah, that’s so not me.
If you’ve finished a project it’s easier, because you know you can do it. You know what’s ahead. You’re ready to begin a new adventure. You can look forward to stretching the boundaries of your imagination. It’s damn exciting to look at a blank sheet of paper, envision your dreams sketched upon it and KNOW that you’ve done this before.
In contrast, to finish a story takes stern will and dogged determination. It takes sacrifices of time, energy and soul.
I don’t like missing out on my nachos or leisure time. I look forward to patio time all day during the Texas spring, summer and fall. Winter evenings are best spent indoors, in front of the fireplace, with a nice big mug of hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps. Hmm. But, I digress.
When you want to watch a movie or just chill out on the patio with a glass of Texas Red and some nachos, you’ll have to force yourself to write a chapter first. Moreover, by the time you’ve written that chapter, it will probably be too late for the treats.
Finishing means that you care more about this story and these characters than you do your personal life. You will spend endless hours exploring plot arc possibilities. You’ll consider when and how to introduce new characters. Is this the right place to bring in a sidekick? Maybe I should do some foreshadowing earlier, let the reader get a taste of what’s to come. Does this paragraph push the story forward or is it just sparkling fluff?
‘Finishing’ is everything that happens after the euphoria of the opening moments of your piece ebbs. After the moment when you realize this story is going to be very, very hard to get right. Sigh. ‘Honey, could you make me another hot chocolate?’
Finishing means a daily grind of rewrite, rewrite and more rewrite. Then your paranoid Muse pipes up, whispering questions in your ear, fueling self-doubt. “Am I rewriting too much? Should I leave this passage alone? Did I give the hero a good enough reason to go on this quest? Will the reader understand what I mean here or is it too esoteric? Will I ever finish this chapter?” Shut up, you soulless, nagging harpy!
‘Finishing’ means more than anything else, not giving up. It’s not looking for an excuse to stop here and ‘put it aside for awhile’. It’s grabbing a bagel and a cup of coffee and sitting your butt back in the chair, instead of hitting the ‘close’ key for the night.
If you have more than a couple of ‘to be continued’ stories on your hard drive, you know how difficult it can be to finish. I have a few myself, and I’m working overtime to get them off the bit-box and into a publisher. They do no one any good sitting there rotting away, bit by bit.
‘Finishing’ is what makes you a writer, an honest to God ‘author’.

Go finish that story.