Writing Update 19 Feb 14

First, some exciting news on the writing front:  I'm up to ten pages in Forbidden Knowledge (not including the title page) now, with a total of almost two thousand words, and the story seems like it still has a lot more to tell me.  I'm excited to find out how it'll end.  Since I finally started listening to Forbidden Knowledge and writing down the story as it relates itself to me, I haven't put much thought (if any) into the other stories.

I think the name for the second short story collection will be At The Turn Of Midnight, and Forbidden Knowledge will be the first story I plan to put into it.  Once I finish writing it (the short story, not the collection), though, I really need to focus my energy on editing and cover design for Dark Stories For A Restless Night.  If I don't, I'll probably never actually publish it, so I'll need to crack the whip on myself.

In other news, Donna burned her hand pretty badly a week ago.  When I first got home and found out about it, the blister was about a half inch by a quarter inch, so I found some second skin and put it on it.  But about 4 hours later, the blister had grown in size to where it was now larger than the patch I'd put on it.  So, we took her to the doctor the next morning and had her treated.  Yesterday, it finally popped, so we took her back.  It's healing up pretty nicely, but I doubt she'll want to mess with the oven anytime soon as a result of the burn.

I'm now bandage free after my altercation with the knife I was using to cut apart ribs last week.  It still hurts occasionally and is still pretty sensitive to direct pressure, but it is healing up nicely.

Gabe had a weird bout with something Friday at school where he was laying on the playground and his eyes were twitching.  When he got up, he walked a few steps and then dropped to his knees momentarily.  They called home to tell Candice that they were going to keep a closer eye on him.  Later, he was (seemingly) unable to track what he was looking at on the computer, so they called home again and we went to pick him up.  He was quite upset that he missed the Valentine's Day party, but we'd rather be safe than sorry.  We took him to the doctor, and she concluded that it was probably one of three things, either a mild virus, a seizure, or heart problems.  We're going to make an appointment for an EKG here soon to eliminate the last option.  The other two aren't nearly as worrisome for now.  If it was a virus, it's likely out of his system.  If it was a seizure, it's likely just a one time thing, as he's never had them before and hasn't shown any other signs of having more.

Also recently, Megi and Candice have both hurt themselves, so, if we can stop having unexpected medical expenses, that'd be great.

I got a decent amount of painting done on the door nameplates over the past few days.  Hopefully, I'll get them done soon and get them fully assembled so I can hang them up and actually have another woodworking project I set out to do completed.

Yesterday, Megi managed to somehow knock her door off of two of it's hinges, stripping out the screws and all.  Mind you, she's only two and a half years old.  We're not sure how she managed it, but in the process of repairing it, I discovered that it had happened before.  It was holding up halfway decently, so I'm still not sure how she managed to do it.  BUT, in looking at the previous handiwork (along with lots of other repair work the previous owners did to the house), I'm surprised the previous owners made money at being in the contracting business, because he SUCKED at basic home repair stuff.  In this case, he used a drywall screw anchor to "fix" the door screws.  In other instances, he also used screws that were a quarter of an inch wide (not deep - wide) for hanging pictures on the wall.  There's lots more, but I really don't know how the man made money.  Then again, maybe he did stuff just good enough that no one realized he was crappy, and he moved because it was getting about time that things might start to fail, so he needed to leave before his reputation would affect his business.

Anyway, that's all I have for this blog.  Thanks for reading.

More Forbidden Knowledge

So, I cut my finger open yesterday.  I was cutting ribs apart to freeze and glanced away for a second while talking and that was all it took.  The knife was extremely sharp, and it didn't start bleeding for a while despite being pretty deep.  The cleanness of the cut (by that I mean how narrow a cut, not actual cleanliness - I was cutting raw pork ribs after all) allowed me to not need stitches, but rather a benzine glue type substance and steri-strips.  Then they put this annoying tube gauze over my finger that I was to leave on for 24 hours (I'm taking it off after I finish typing this since it has been on for around 29 hours how (though, it'd probably be easier to type without it on since it only hurts when I completely straighten out the finger or bump the sore part which is right around the last knuckle on my non-dominant hand's index finger - putting pressure anywhere else is fine).

When I got to Urgent Care, they informed me it'd be two to three hours, so I sent Candice home while I waited so the kids could be put down for their nap, etc.  While waiting for so long, I came up with the brilliant idea to <gasp> write.  So, I walked down the way to the (literally) corner drug store and bought a new pad and some new mechanical pencils, went back and started writing.

I wrote the first sentence of what is to be Forbidden Knowledge, and it promptly yelled at me that I had written something completely wrong.  So I turned the page and started over.  by the way, the wrong sentence read "Nathaniel woke from the repeated rapping at his door."  It now reads "Nathaniel Scribner opened the doors of the library to the complete disarray inside."

That's all you get for now, but suffice it to say that I now see why the story told me I'd screwed up because it's a much better story the way it is heading now.  Did I mention that I now have 5 typed pages?  Woo Hoo for me (and the story).

Well, momentum is going for it, but hopefully it doesn't get derailed.  I have a tendency not to write when I'm around people I want to be around, which usually means I don't write at home unless they are all busy doing other things and then I might take the time to write.

I have no idea how much more the story has to revel to me and my pencil, but it's fairly exciting to see the words as I write them.

On a related note, my "new" laptop that I salvaged a few weeks back started dying.  It was taking me about two hours of getting it to boot/repair startup/etc for every 15 minutes of use.  So, I broke down and got a new one.  I managed to get a decent one for about $400, but it's a Windows 8 machine.  I figured out how to get it to (mostly) behave like a Windows 7 machine, so I can bear to use it.  Now I just need to get a new copy of Office (and not that 365 crap - I need to be able to use it when I don't have internet access, too - plus I don't want to have to keep paying for it every month).

Anyway, that's all I have for this post, thanks for reading!