coledust

2009-03-03T14:13:00.000-08:00

Vote 2008

2008-11-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

Ya didn't have to be THAT way, Panera!

2008-02-21T23:29:00.000-08:00

It was part of South Beach, Phase II. I wasn't violating a darned thing. And let's face it, I've come to love ya, Panera. So, why was it necessary to split my eyebrow open on your front door, huh?

I stopped to pick up some tasty sandwiches for a late evening dinner after a much too long day at work. All was going well and I was cruising at my don't-fuck-with-me pace back out the front door when I missed my reach for bar that released the door. My momentum carried my forehead, or more specifically, my right eyebrow, directly into the glass door. The pain registered, even as I rapidly corrected and knocked the door open, barely slowing myself down on the way to the car, but I knew something was wrong almost immediately. By the time I got to the leading edge of the parking lot, I thought I felt the moisture. By the time I was halfway across the lot to the car - not a large lot, mind you - I felt something dripping down from above my eye. I reached up and wiped, pulling my hand away and seeing a substantial amount of blood.

As soon as I opened the car door, I grabbed the reasonably fresh microfiber that we just put in the car last weekend, soaked up the bulk of the mess and applied pressure - a lot of pressure. I sat like that for close to five minutes, wondering whether it would stem the tide. I was shocked at the speed with which the wound had created the mess that was all over the towel. I just sat wondering, will I be able to drive home?

After a few more moments, I removed the towel for a moment. I resisted turning the light on and taking a close look, instead opting to wait 15 seconds before reapplying a clean portion of the towel and then checking it for fresh blood. There was a tiny portion there, but nothing overwhelming. I finally switched on the light and took a close look in the mirror. I was surprised to find what looked like about a half-inch gash just where the eyebrow curves down into the socket. It wasn't bleeding profusely though. Those of you who know me, know I'm a big guy. I'm not used to running into things and not winning. This was quite unusual.

I thought briefly of returning inside to Panera, but opted not to. It wasn't like the floor was slick or anything. It had been an accident - a momentary loss of coordination. I wanted to get home. I wanted to end this day. I wanted to eat a sandwich.

So start the car I did, and home I came. It was when I saw myself in the bathroom mirror here, that I first started to realize exactly what kind of force I must have had behind my head's contact with the door.

It was a split approximately 1/2 inch long, and wide enough to justify stitches. Carole and I talked briefly about that, and scars, and co-pays and sitting around in urgent care for God knows how long. I chose to defer that decision and instead make an effort to clean up the mess and self treat. We wouldn't be surprised if I woke up with a pretty healthy shiner. It would be my first, but I think the rest of the eye looks like there was enough of a hit to blacken it pretty good.

The sandwich, however, was damned good. And that really was the point, wasn't it? Sometimes we have to fight for our food to maintain that connection with our internal primitive.

Day 1 down...

2008-02-04T23:04:00.000-08:00

...just under three more to go.

Back at the hotel after a decent day.

Meetings went long, but well today. Had dinner with colleagues at http://www.stonebrew.com/ . The tillapia was fantastic and nicely South Beach.

Checked the seats for the flight back home and opportunities don't look strong for a repeat of the first class upgrade I managed on the way here, so I may be finding out how my new size fares in coach class as well.

One way or the other, in seventy-two hours from now, I will be back at home, and I simply cannot wait.

Meeting Hell

2008-01-29T13:28:00.001-08:00

Cryptic post of the day:

If anyone ever tries to tell you that engineers speak in confusing, non-sensical terminology...

...don't believe that until you have worked with folks that interface with the customers.

The trouble with goals...

2008-01-15T19:24:00.000-08:00

...is that they can often conflict with each other and end up creating gridlock as you stare in bewilderment at the mess you have created with your life. I hear you begging for an example. Seriously, I hear you begging. Don't deny it.

In this completely theoretical example, not at all based on the real life of anyone dead, living, real, fictional or otherwise making this non-theoretical, you are a relatively new writer for whom writing daily would have been seen as a chore before, say, November of last year. That is when you set a goal for yourself to write an average of 1000 words a day - keep in mind, this is just a nice round ballpark figure for theoretical purposes.

You have just completed eight weeks averaging a little over 1000 words a day in a private journal, but you are not happy exactly what you are writing. You find yourself creating too much stream of consciousness stuff. This sometimes includes material you would post in one of your online journals and other times stuff that you wouldn't be caught dead with in an online journal. Sometimes that off-limits material is just bad writing - other times its way too current-job obsessed, occasionally sensitive. Further, the effort you are putting into getting your words in is driving you to be awake far too often, late into the night, to get those words pounded out. All of this in an effort to establish a new habit that should make it easier to steer this mass of output in the theoretically not-too-distant future.

Do you see it? Good.

Now. You as hinted above, you are keeping blogs - multiple blogs - as another effort you are trying to move toward the habit of. You have also committed to crafting short stories for submission to your writing group on a regular basis.

For a kicker, you have decided that revision words do not count toward your 1000 words a day goal. The daily words are only original work creation. Ouch. That means you are really signing up for more work than you originally expected. That is going to leave a mark. This one could have gone either way, but you really didn't want to be a pussy about it. Instead, you charged into a new reality where you would be crafting two new novel drafts a year plus short stories, plus journal entries, while still moving two of your past works to a finished state during the course of that year. It takes guts and you should be proud of yourself, if you exist.

Now. You have some revelations in your journal that you are keeping apart from your blogs. Some of this content you want to pull back into your blogs to share with your online friends. When do you carve that time out of the rest of your schedule to transcribe the words that count toward neither a) the creation word quota, nor b) the revision word objective?

I am pondering a not entirely different question right now, not that it was the inspiration for this completely fabricated example. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them. My current path is just to internalize habit 1, the daily word objective while shifting into a different gear, accomplishing the week's word count objective in five days instead of seven. The two additional days a week would then become dedicated to revision and planning of the coming week's efforts.

I do expect to post in detail, the new plan for work distribution throughout the week. But for the moment, I am afraid I am out of time.

Today's writing...

2007-12-25T23:41:00.000-08:00

I don't have 1000 words to show for today, per se.

I did post earlier and have done some extensive revision work on As Dominoes for my WotF entry. I'm still a ways from being ready with it, but I'm feeling much better about the size and scope of the story at this point. I still have a few connections between sections to make, but I absolutely love the concept and the ending of this story. I will work tomorrow on the character development working into the ending.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T17:13:00.000-08:00

Today was a wonderful Christmas - providing us a chance to unwrap presents while wrapping 2007, a challenging year in which I believe we have established a foundation for a better year in 2008. As if to provide a punctuation mark, we got a bit of snow today - nothing accumulating, but still pretty as all get out.

This coming year will be all about balance: Focusing more readily on the positives, rather than the negatives. Handling multiple changes and multiple tasks as once. Including flexibility while not dropping balls.

I will continue to write daily, this being my sixth week in a row since Orycon. Ideally, I'll be able to wrap up my Writers of the Future submission tomorrow and get that sent in before Friday.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Our Last Words

2007-12-22T22:41:00.000-08:00

Picked up the paperback publishing the winners of the 2006 Writers of the Future on Thursday. Today I read my first story from the book.

Damon Kaswell's Our Last Words is an intriguing speculative fiction piece that I still don't know whether was supposed to border on dark fantasy. What's damned wierd about this is that the author of this, the first story I read from this anthology was one that we saw on one of the panels at Orycon this year.

I can say with 100% certainty that I did not recognize his name before reading it. I think it was the title of the piece that drew me in. Perhaps it was the proximity to Kevin J. Anderson's piece about time to write that was positioned immediately ahead in the anthology.

In either case. I would recommend this piece. I generally quite liked it. It was an involving treatment of the nuclear holocaust tale that didn't fall into many of the cliche traps.

Bring on the break!

2007-12-20T21:39:00.000-08:00

With the completion of today, I'm now mere hours away from beginning the holiday shutdown week away from the routine. I would have previously used the word grind, but I'm feeling less ground.

I just have a few emails to wrap up tonight and then will close on a couple of action item compilations to provide context around the return to work next year. Ensure that I can pick up right where I left off.

I should watch the weather closely as the remaining week ebbs so that I am clear on any risk to the trip north to Seattle on New Years Eve. If there's a threat, plan on cancelling early enough not to get billed.

That's right, I haven't talked about the plan.

The plan, assuming weather doesn't block it, is to drive up to Seattle on December 31 for a stay at the Seattle Westin hotel. The reservation request was made six months ago with a request for a room with a view of the Space Needle. We'll see whether that one gets pulled off. If all goes well, we'll watch the New Years fireworks from our room :-)

Okay, so perhaps a bit closer than I expected...

2007-12-18T19:26:00.000-08:00

I checked out As Dominoes, my NaNo-ized novel from two years ago (that always seemed much more appropriate as a short story), last night in a bid to identify a candidate for entry for Writers of the Future. Much to my amazement, it actually looks like it might work - and it might be closer to useful than I originally expected.

So that will be the objective over the next few days. Complete the transfer from bad novel into tight little scary short story. We'll see how that goes.

Too little oxygen...

2007-12-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, positive energy can be a bit of a problem...like when it causes you to commit to entering contests when you have nothing that obviously fits or is finished.

At Saturday's INK meeting, high on an absolutely fabulous time, all of us decided we should set a goal to enter Writers of the Future by the end of this month. Yes - two short weeks away.

I sure as well haven't written anything of the science fiction or fantasy genres yet. Perhaps there's something that I've got that's could pass as dark fantasy, but I think that's really more of a fantasy than fact.

The best way to approach this is that I have something that I think could relatively quickly be adapted to fit better. That's what I'll be focusing much of my time on over the coming days...as soon as I take a hit off this oxygen tank.