Updaterage

The last few weeks have seen some major changes:

I went to advanced officer training last week. In past years, AO has stunk like BO. This year was a vast improvement, with useful classes taught well.

I did very well in FATS (FireArms Training Simulation). I found it interesting that I was among the best at it; not the shooting, necessarily, though I did well enough at that. No, I was able to regurgitate, with a greater degree of detail than anyone else in the squad, exactly what had gone on in each scenario. I'm not sure why. It certainly isn't being more used to computer screens and the like, as many of the squad were in their twenties, and surely played more games than I.  It might have been the roleplaying games, or the fiction writing, or it might simply be the ADD that shoves part of my brain into record mode as I game everything out in my head; one part interacting with folks, another analyzing their responses and attempting to predict and push toward the desired outcome. As I write this, I think it must be the ADD.

The week of AO ended on Thursday, beginning my vacation. Plans for said vacation include: playing some Star Wars Old Republic, some roleplaying, and generally goofin' off.

My writing is no longer represented. Things just turned out that way. My agent was unable to represent me in the way we both wanted. I say that without rancor or upset. I am saddened, but look forward to the future. So much so that I sent The Last Captain off to Baen books on Friday night. Work on the Fantasy project continues apace, and I think I am doing well at it. As in all things, we shall see.

Today was the first of the scrimmages that precede the regular season for the coed adult soccer league the Coolness and I are in. I made sure not to over do it and end up with another brutal hamstring tear like last year. As it is I played half the game and did well enough, pulling some pretty saves. I need to work on my punts and goal kicks, however. I shanked quite a few off course. Isabelle sat behind me in goal and gave encouragement, even when I blew it. The Coolness had a good game as well, though both of us need some serious conditioning.

Take That, Aaron Spelling

Last night I was on the couch writing while my daughter watched ye olde Charlie's Angels. Now, she has watched a bit of TV over her eight years, and she reads a great deal, so I do expect her to occasionally see where simple plots are headed. What happened last night was a bit different, and rather stunning.

The scene had the Angels are chasing a hood on foot. The bad boy with large perm runs up to a bike stand and steals a bicycle, Angels and Boz in close pursuit.

"Watch," my daughters says, "There'll be just enough bikes for all of them."

Sure enough, there were four bikes remaining for the Angels and The Boz to mount.

Now I know the writers for Charlie's Angels weren't writing high drama, and there were a lot of bouncing boobs and short shorts to conceal plot holes a grown-up man (oxymoron, anyone?) might fall for, but still!  

She's only eight, and picked it up so fast and uttered her observation so easily I barely heard her.

I despair of when she's old enough to read my profanity-riddled work and tells me, with a roll of her eyes, "Dad, did you have to? It was soooo obvious where you were going with that!"

Another Tiny Tease!

A tiny excerpt:

Desperate, Yarvis released his cudgel again, drawing Connab closer with his right arm. He reached around his shorter opponent's back with his left hand, found the blood-soaked knife wounds by feel, and dug fingers in. 


I am, as you can probably tell, having fun with it.

Awesome!

A Small Thing

Most times, when I write something, I just do it and move on. I force myself to worry about syntax and error correction later. I do this because I know I have to get what I want out and on the page, get it down so I don't lose the thread I am trying to hold onto.

Sometimes you have to go back and tweak it, otherwise nothing makes sense...

Tonight, I had a good little paragraph. It was alright. It served its purpose.

I immediately went back and began playing with it. Some things are important. Critical, even. One such thing, for me, is the feelings I have had on looking at death.

This is the result:


Blonde hair of shoulder length and lively color made a queer halo about a face he didn’t know but would now always remember. He felt an odd satisfaction he didn’t recognize her. Some part of Yarvis was always glad he hadn't known the dead. In his experience, most who were murdered had earned it in some way.


 Tell me, does it play?

Motorbikes, Level of Cool, And Zen

Today was wet, cold, and generally miserable.

I still rode in. I was, for the first time in recent memory, the only bike on the road. I have rain gear, I have good safety equipment, and I rode more cautiously than my usual.

Still, I arrived at work cold, wet and a little wrung out.

What I didn't bring to work was a great, big, ugly wad of angry.

That, my friends, is the single biggest difference for me between riding and driving. In a car, if someone cuts me off or endangers my life, I have to stew on it through traffic, quite possibly close to the driver and vehicle that endangered me. Stew and brood and howl, if angered enough.

There's no getting away from it.

While riding, I might howl, once, then I am past and watching out for the next mouth-breathing moron's attempt to kill us both. It is far better for mood and mind to be able to get it out and give it away, focus on the next thing.

I think that's one of the reasons riding is associated with 'cool'; one cannot hold onto shit that really only hurts the bearer. Instead you have to move to the next thing and do it as best you can. Well, you could, but then you are likely to get hit by the next bad thing while you're head down and polishing your hurt feelings.

I hope I can continue riding and keeping whatever measure I have of cool. Not anywhere near Steve McQueen's level of cool, mind you. But as close as a mere mortal can come:

And Ye Should Ride In His Name

Gelling

Things are gelling for me on the writing front. I had to remove the self-pity stick from my ass and throw it far, far away, but I am getting things done, finally.

Speaking of which: more to do.