I'd Forgotten How Much It Hurts

I'd forgotten how much guitar play hurts. Wow.

I'm not talking about my fingertips now. Though I haven't seriously attempted anything on the guitar in a long while the calluses on my fingertips are still there and up to snuff. No, what I'm talking about is my left forearm. It's been so long since I've played that it almost cramps up as I twist my fingers back into the different chord shapes. I feel like I usually do after I hit the gym after a couple of months of not being in there.

I'm making an effort to do this right and study the different notes and learn to read the music. I have the sheet music to Misguided Roses by Edwin McCain and I also have Before These Crowded Streets and Crash by Dave Matthews coming in the mail. All three of these albums are music that has inspired me and I want to learn to play them right.

The first thing I've had to do is start Guitar 101 all over again and practice my chord shapes and switching between them. Now I have to get my hand accustomed to bar chords again, which, as you might imagine, is a royal pain. But I'm getting there. Now that I have a steady job with steady income I can take my mind off my worries for a while and concentrate more on the things I enjoy.

Devan and I are tentatively planning on a work session Monday it things go our way. And if it doesn't, we'll reschedule for another day soon after. We're both excited because it's the first time we've been on the same side of the world in months and we have some pretty good ideas to get down on paper.

This weekend is Bethany's big Christmas concert with the Greenbrier Valley Chorale at Carnegie Hall in Lewisburg. If you're interested in coming, you'll have to call the ticket office at (304) 645-7917. I'll warn you that there's a chance they may already be sold out, but the good news is that Bethany found out today they'll be singing at The Greenbrier on December 23, which is the day before the night before Christmas. I don't think I've ever been in The Greenbrier and I can't wait for that evening.

The Best Soup I've Made Yet

Last night I made the best homemade chicken noodle soup I've made yet.

The recipe came from my sister in law, Heather, though I can't confess to know where she picked it up from. I've put it on here in the past, but last night I decided to do something just a shade different. Ever see how those chefs on The Food Network take a healthy pinch of kosher salt and sprinkle it in their dishes? Well I did that before I boiled the chicken. Oh...it was perfection in a pot. The salt really sharpened the flavor of the chicken broth and had a great influence on the noodles.

I spent most of the day running errands in Roanoke. I was flying solo, which is a pretty rare event, so I spent a couple of quality hours in the bookstores perusing the shelves. I came home with a wedding photography book for Bethany as an early anniversary present that looks pretty interesting (which means I'll probably be reading it too).

Speaking of wedding photography, we're on the last week of our October wedding crush. We've successfully shot three weddings so far this month and we have a wedding in Vinton that promises to be very photogenic. So much so that we're bringing in a friend to add to the shoot and so we can train someone as a back up in case one of us ever gets sick or just wants to take a break from it.

Sunday I'll be leading the first outing of the Alleghany Camera Club at Roaring Run beginning at 4 p.m. The weather looks promising and I'm hoping we'll have a little more color to enjoy by then. I'm hoping to be able to snag a few outdoor photographs to place in the "Needs Processed" pile to shake things up a bit.

Judging by our shooting schedule we'll be polishing off the last of the fall portrait sessions by the sixth of November. Bethany and I are planning to take a little vacation the following week (to where exactly we haven't decided) and after than I'm hoping that I'll be able to settle back in and spend some quality time on my writing projects and perhaps even pick up another tune or two on the guitar.

I'm definitely hoping to get some more reading done as well. I've stumbled into a pretty rich vein of fall books. My current read is a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel called Hollow Men that is so intense that it almost feels like watching an episode. After that I'm thinking I'll get to James Patterson's Kiss The Girls, his second Alex Cross mystery novel, and then Dragons of the Hourglass Mage by long time favorites Weis & Hickman to round out the fall.

And by then it'll be time for all the holiday food....

Why, Georgia, Why?

We finished up the bathroom Friday night at about 8:30. I still have about fifteen minutes worth of finishing touches to lay down, but for now, it's finished. I know I promised pictures and I'll provide 'em, but at this point that almost seems like work so I think I'll let it be.

The bathroom took a toll on us both. We both were up 'till 2 a.m. every night since Monday trying to finish it off. All the dust we stirred up, combined with the lack of rest and decent food along with the first stirrings of fall have been enough to kick me in the butt and tweak my allergies. Thankfully, after a lazy day of Sunday rest, I'm feeling better than I have in almost four days.

So I've picked up my guitar for the first time in a few weeks. I set it aside a while back to focus on my writing and had some favorable results. Now that Devan is back from Iraq things should start moving in a better direction there at a quicker pace. In the meantime, music has been tugging at me and I'm back to practicing my guitar.

This is part of the reason why I so rarely master a talent: I can't focus on just one thing that I'm interested in long enough to become amazing at it. There's just so much out there that's fun and I really do want to be able to play just about anything on the guitar.

I stumbled on a lesson for John Mayer's Why, Georgia? off of his first album, Room for Squares. I love that song. It has an amazing intro that goes from intermediate to expert in the face of a few measures. It's been difficult since I haven't kept up my practicing, but I'll get there.

Saturday was a great day filled with good food and good friends. Patrick and Amber came up, as did Chris and Sarah and Bethany's sister, Heather, was in and we all spent the day playing games, cooking and swapping stories. It was the kind of good times that we need to have more often and I'm going to try to make a point to experience more frequently. In the past two year's of life it's been too easy to get caught up in the big events that I've almost forgotten that it's the little things that make life worth living. It may be too late for a New Year's resolution, but I'm making it nonetheless.

Cooling Off

So just as I've settled in to my summer reading, we're finally getting a break from the heat. All that really means is that I now need to mow the weeds out of the front yard that are towering over the dead grass, but since it's cooler that won't be a problem.

I've had a pretty good few days lately in the creative world. I typically have a series that gets me through the summer and this year I think Orson Scott Card's Ender novels are going to carry me through a good part of it. Ender's Game is a science fiction classic and the surrounding novels are almost as good. He's great a developing characters that really draw the reader in and that's something I can appreciate.

Bethany and I went out to the movies Sunday and saw Knight & Day. It's getting panned and was a box office flop, but I think that's a bit unfair. The movie was good and yes, I think it could have been better. However, it was a solid action film with a healthy dose of comedy thrown in. The writers could have made a more complex plot, but it really felt like they held back to keep from turning the movie into something they didn't want it to be. I'd say don't miss this movie. It's cool if you don't want to rush out to the theatre to see it, but I'd definitely purchase the DVD. It's one I want to see again.

I spent yesterday helping Patrick go through his bookshelves, organize and pack up the second and most cherished half of his collection to move to their new townhouse. In doing so I found some of my stuff and borrowed the sheet music folio for The Goo Goo Dolls' smash album, Dizzy Up The Girl. One beautiful thing about this folio is that every song has the proper tuning listed and for an album that only has a couple of songs in standard tuning, that's a big help. I sat down last night, tuned properly for Iris, and was making some serious headway into the intro and first verse.

Since I'm laid off, this is the first real summer break I've had since the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. It's almost enough to make me want to go back to school so I can have the summers off.

Almost...

Whoops

Whoops. Apparently I didn't play by the rules with the Beautiful Blogger. I'm supposed to tell you ten things about me that you may not know. Hmmm. Let me fix this....

1. Once I wanted my career to be Tigger at Disneyland. In all honesty, if that would pay the bills I might still give it a shot.

2. I have a personal library of nearly 1,000 volumes, even after some trimming down and gifting of duplicates.

3. I really hate doing yard work, but I have enough experience at it to make your lawn look really good.

4. The best concert I've ever attended was in Orkney Springs, at the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival, in an open air barn on a summer's evening.

5. When I was in elementary school I had a 63 mile per hour fast ball and it was a miracle if I threw a strike.

6. The Harry Potter movies make me sad and angry.

7. If I were a character in a fantasy novel, I would most definitely be a hobbit.

8. I think it's incredibly cool that the word "hobbit" is actually in the spell check.

9. I do have a bucket list and one of the things I'm most determined to check off on it is to go sailing in the ocean, perhaps all the way to Europe. And I mean sail.

10. I really hate running. With a deep and abiding passion. If I'm running, it's only because: 1. I'm going toward food; 2. I'm chasing someone who stole my food; 3. There's a ball of some kind involved.

Now, to nominate ten more people...I don't even think I read that many blogs on here, though I do have to say I appreciate Jeff Mallet's blog (the illustrator and author of one of my favorite strips, Frazz) over at Jeff Mallet and justf8inaround tends to have some interesting photos. The Writer Unboxed is a great blog for authors and I have to give a nomination shout out to my illustrator, Heather Gladden, at both Deviant Art and heathergladden.com.

That's five if you count Heather twice....

Oh. Right. One more thing you probably didn't know.

11. I don't follow direction well. (Then again, most of you probably know that).

Road Trip & Reading

As much as I hate breaking a Commandment, particularly one that involves a Holy day of rest, Bethany and I had to do a little work today. Since yesterday was booked and our client only has every other weekend available, we had to make the best of it and take some engagement photos.

Boy, were those photos worth the two and a half hour drive to Dorcas, West Virginia (which is exactly as small as it sounds). The scenery was incredible, our subjects were photogenic and willing to go out on a limb (almost literally) to post for a good photograph.

The last two weekends have been great for shooting. I believe some of my experience is finally starting to pay off. Shooting in manual has been much easier and much smoother this year, which is odd considering I haven't really touched a camera until last weekend.

Most importantly, though, I'm finally beginning to feel more comfortable with posing people and having a little better luck finding those "real" moments in between the poses. Those moments make for absolute perfect photographs if you're watching for them.

Honestly, that was a big part of my gripe with wedding photography. Yes, it's stressful and there's only one shot to get it right. But once upon a time, I was a reporter and I lived for that. No, I've realized that a big part of my gripe is how polished and fake wedding photos so often look. Couples see the "show pieces" that photographers show them and they want photos just like that, yet they don't understand the time and effort it takes to create those shots. It's easy for weddings to become too formulaic and all the same. My goal now is to ignore all that and start looking for those real moments that get looked over too often.

I'd post some photos here to show you what I'm talking about, but our clients haven't seen them yet and I'm not the kind of photographer that debuts a couple's photos by uploading them to the World Wide Web.

It will be a busy week, even though Monday is a holiday. We have to big shoots to process, one of which must be done by the end of the week. I have a ton of fresh writing to do for the new novel since I'm meeting with Heather at the end of the week to discuss illustrations.

And somehow in the midst of all this, I have to find a copy of Patrick O'Brian's The Reverse of the Medal. I finally worked my way  up to The Far Side Of The World and polished it off just a few minutes ago. That ended my initial exploration into O'Brian, since I bought that title along with Master and Commander without realizing that I was buying books one and ten of a twenty-one book series. I just wanted to read them before I watched the movie that, for some inexplicable reason, took parts of books one and ten and made one movie out of them both.

A reviewer wrote that O'Brian was "...an easy taste to acquire and a hard one to shake..." or some such. I have to agree with him. I'm already dreading reaching the final book and I have eleven left to go.

Big Whiskey

At the recommendation of my cousin (and I dearly hate to admit she was right so she should be ecstatic that I'm publishing it on the world wide web. Consider it a belated birthday present cuz) I've looked into the musical stylings of Dave Matthews.

Wow.

For sheer musicianship alone the man should win a Grammy each year. I dare you to find another artist out there with that kind of talent and song writing ability. I'm a huge fan of Edwin McCain but even I'll admit the dude would be hard pressed to beat Dave Matthews.

I have three albums now, two of which are acoustic duet concerts with Tim Reynolds, who may be one of the best guitarists out there. Tonight I picked up Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King with my birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa. I have enough left over from that, coupled with what I have left over from my family, to get Common Margins: Improvisations for Piano & Guitar by Tim Reynolds. The potential of that album is amazing.

So between the Edwin concert a couple weeks ago, hearing Bethany's chorale concert Sunday and my newfound enjoyment of Dave Matthews, I'm more determined than ever to make something of myself as a musician. Granted, I'm not looking to make it big. I'm looking to learn the guitar and make it an extension of my writing and creativity. There is a vast untapped world of potential out there in music. I'm determined to make a dent in it.

Maybe Bethany will give me voice lessons...

Life Gets In The Way

Sometimes life just gets in the way.


I have big plans. Admittedly, they rarely work. I seem to do better at life when I'm just flying by the seat of my pants from one moment to the next. Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way all the time. Be nice if it did.

I had hopes of getting back to the regularly scheduled blog, but last week just completely blew that idea. My birthday was Tuesday and of course that would have taken up all day on a good day. But instead of spending the day in total celebration of the National Day of Josh, I spent a good chunk of it chasing down a radiator for Bethany's car.

Only to have that radiator to arrive Wednesday for us to discover, a half an hour before the store closes, that the radiator doesn't fit the car. In fact, just to make it more interesting, they no longer make the original radiator that came out of that car. Instead, for some unknown reason, they make a different style of radiator with different mounts for the fan shroud, which means you either have to modify the shroud to fit or spend $150 for a piece of plastic.

You can guess what we did.

Friday was ridiculously busy, as I spent the morning helping out at Magic in the Mountains, the afternoon running errands and cleaning and the evening installing the radiator. At 10:30, Phil and I ran out of light and four letter words, so we called it off until Saturday afternoon, when we finally finished the job. After that I spent the rest of the day with Patrick and Amber. Sunday morning I traveled to West Virginia to visit Mom and stopped at Lewisburg on the way home to attend Bethany's chorale concert and dinner before making it home about 7 p.m. last night.

So this week I've decided to have goals instead of plans. Two of those goals revolve around my guitar. I have the goal of learning to play Dave Matthews' You and Me Together and writing my own song (or at least making a good deal of progress on it). There are pictures to be taken and other chores to be done among all of this, so we'll see how it goes.

And did I mention I now own a Kindle? My in-laws all pitched in and purchased me one for my birthday. Now, I'm a person that appreciates the heft of a good book and the individuality of having an actual printed novel in my hands. But I'm also a person that really likes shiny gadgets with buttons and the Kindle is pretty sweet. It's going to change how I read and buy books from now on.

So...back to the week. Hope to see you here tomorrow.

Road Trip

Live music is amazing. I'm sure all of you out there in blog land have a favorite artist or band or two and wear their CDs out. And I'm sure that you'll agree with me that a CD just doesn't quite compare to hearing them live and in person.

Last night Patrick and I traveled to Charlottesville to hear Edwin McCain play at the Jefferson Theater. The trip came off without incident (though Patrick missed a turn and we didn't realize it until 23 miles later). The Jefferson is a fully restored theater with state of the art sound systems, ventilation, food and, most importantly, no smoking. We met up with Robert at The Mall and walked our way to the theater, where he roamed around enough to find the acoustical sweet spot (he has an ear for these things).

After the opening act, Edwin came on stage at 9 p.m. and played for right around two solid hours with barely a break in the set. He opened up acoustically, jammed with his full band and then polished off the night with a two song acoustic set that was amazing. We were about twenty feet from the stage and near the middle of the room (though at the rear of the crowd) and he jumped down off the stage and ran over to where we were and finished a song, which was pretty cool.

He didn't play a lot of my personal favorites, but he played some new stuff we hadn't heard and some great stuff in between. He wrapped up the show with a solo performance of 3 a.m., which is one of my favorite songs. He hasn't played it live for about 7 years now and he's just playing it again since it's on his greatest hits album. Getting to hear that live was worth the trip.

Whenever I go to concerts, I go for the music. I even imagine how much fun it would be to be the one up the stage putting on the show (though chances are that's not in my future). But when I look at the people around me, I smile a little and think about my Mom.

See, Mom's the kind of person that enjoys that music but also enjoys watching people have a good time. She likes seeing people dancing and enjoying life. Well, there was one guy there last night she probably rarely would have taken her eyes off of.

This guy was huge. He probably could have been a bouncer if he'd applied for the job. Goatee, shaved head and was so muscular and so big he looked like he could've eaten a weight bench if he'd set his mind to the task. He was right up against the stage, even drumming on it (you can stand right against the stage at The Jefferson). And the dude was dancing his butt off, singing every lyric to every song. I looked closely a few times and never saw a drink in his hand. I don't know if he'd taken a nip or two before the show but he was dancing and shaking his butt for everything he was worth. As much as I enjoyed the concert, I don't think that I came close to enjoying it like he did.

World's full of interesting people, isn't it?

The Song On The Wind

Saturday was the first day of spring and the weather here has certainly been gearing up for it. This evening, I went outside just before dark and sat on the porch with my guitar. There was a nice, stiff breeze blowing in dark clouds from the west and the smell of rain danced through the air. It reminded me of that line from a Sister Hazel song..."Sometimes the song on the wind is the only warning before the storm."

So I sat outside and played whatever came to my fingers. I put my capo on the second fret, taking the tuning of the guitar up two steps, and just started strumming. In a small yellow legal pad I've been scribbling some thoughts on lyrics for a song I want to write. Writing music is a great deal more complicated than writing a short story or a novel. The music itself becomes a second voice behind the lyrics and the tune can completely change the meaning of the lyrics.

I've struggled trying to find that tune. Some of my struggle is based in the fact that I just don't have a mastery of the guitar. I'm still, at best, an advanced beginner. So finding the tune hasn't been an easy task.

This evening I made a lot of progress on it. Maybe it was just being outside, alone in the dying light of day and feeling the slight tension on the air as the rain moved in that finally helped me get a grip on what I'm trying to find musically. And I'll need the foundation of the music before I can stack the melody and then the lyrics on top of it. I think. I don't know. I've only ever written one song before and it was about as simple as you can get it. I did it for the final project of my guitar lessons last year.

I think I'm going to spend some time working on it this week and take a little break from Blood & Steel. I've made a tremendous amount of progress on that project and I need just a little bit of time to let my mind chew on some things before I continue on. I'm at a point where I can start really building toward the resolution, but I need to give some thought to whether or not I'm rushing things. I've even made some notes about the possibility of fleshing out certain scenes a little more in the second draft.

I haven't been in the gym since Thursday and I have plans to get back into the weights tomorrow. It should be a chest day, though it might be a leg day, I don't know. Bryan keeps the workout list in his office. Either way, exercising does help clear my head and let me think about things. Maybe it'll help me refine what I'm trying to play.

Surviving The Morning Workouts So Far

I'd forgotten how much being sore really isn't fun. It's been such a long time since I seriously lifted weights that I'd forgotten. Just today I had to be reminded of how to properly do one of my favorite lifts.

When I woke up this morning I was reminded of how much being sore hurts. When you focus a work out on a particular area of your body, say chest and shoulders, the next day isn't really pleasant, especially when it's your first one in a while. I know in a week or so I won't be near so sore until I move up in weight again. But that first week of a training regimen is rough. Today we added a little jogging to it and since my workout partner is a sergeant in the U.S. Army National Guard, we sing cadence just for the sheer fun of it as we run.

Yippee.

So while my butt's being kicked in the gym in the mornings, the afternoon is providing quality time for working on  wedding photographs and Blood & Steel. In fact, the workouts are providing valuable insight to some of what Sam is going through and I'm really putting some ink down on paper in the evenings. So oddly enough, this whole unemployment thing is actually turning into a bit of a blessing in many ways. I guess there's good in everything if you take the time to look for it.

Adversity can become opportunity with the right mindset. I don't know how much longer my unemployment will last because I hear that our workload seems to be improving a bit. Until I go back on the clock I'm going to use every bit of my time off that I can to advance my life in other areas. So far it seems to be working. I can't help but wonder, however, how this experience will pay off down the road.

Hopefully it will pay off with a writing contract and most of a sequel to The Crownless King waiting in the wings.

Making Some Noise

Sometimes its just fun to make a little noise.

Recently I've been looking for something to play that would really bring out some of the attributes that Stratocasters are known for. I found it in the blues. I stumbled on to some of B.B. King's concert videos from the 90s and most especially Live From Memphis. It's a very moody, expressive form of music that will really put a guitar through its paces. King plays what looks like a Gibson Les Paul famously named Lucille, but I've seen him play with Eric Clapton and other greats who play a Fender pretty similar in build to mine.

So today I learned my first blues lick. It's a pretty simple lick in E, but boy is it a lot of fun to play. I sat down this afternoon beside my little amp, cranked the volume and turned on the distortion for a fatter sound. I learned this lick on frets 2 through 4, though I think it can be slid up to start on the 12th fret. I haven't quite worked that out.

I did find some classic rock and roll riffs, Crazy Train, Back in Black and a few others. They actually looked pretty simple and fun to play, but the blues spoke to me over the rock this time. I had so much fun that I came in and looked up B.B. King and found Riding With The King used on Amazon for $1. It's a collaborative album that Clapton and King put out back in 2000. It just sounds like it would have to be amazing.

It makes me wonder how it feels for those two legends to actually collaborate on an album like that. Do they consider themselves legends? Do they realize they're making music history with the kind of landmark album that will be talked about for years? Or are they just two guys who love to play guitar and are fortunate enough to do it for a living?

No matter how they feel about it, I'm excited to give it a listen.

TGIF

Well it's Friday and it's the end of a long and weird week. I really can't say that I've accomplished a great deal because of all the running that we've had to do this week. I did, at least, make a pretty good dent in finishing off the wedding photos that we've had hanging over our heads since January.

Today promises to be a little spiffier, I think. I'm about to dive into the daily chores and thankfully, the list isn't very long today. After that, I have thoughts of turning my attention to the guitar and working on Gravity and perhaps even Slow Dancing In A Burn Room. One of the exciting things about learning John Mayer songs is how much they add to my store of knowledge, both musically and of guitar techniques.

After that I think I'll work a bit on Blood & Steel in honor of surviving the first round of cuts in the ABNA competition and then I'll polish off a few more wedding photos.

The weekend looks pretty promising too. Neither Bethany nor I really have to be anywhere. Patrick and Amber may drop in a bit on Saturday and Sunday looks like the kind of day of leisure that it's supposed to be. My parents are under a blizzard warning and as of this posting have nearly a foot of the cold, white stuff on the ground with the promise of more than double that amount by Sunday morning. We're not seeing any inclement weather here other than high winds, so I think the worst of it is going to miss us this time. I'm looking forward to seeing the weather break out into Spring soon.

In honor of Mom and Dad's blizzard, however, I've posted the photo you see above. I took it during a snow of about eight inches two years ago when I was experimenting with composition and other elements for a Black and White class that I was taking. I've recently rediscovered some interesting photos from that period of my career and I may post a few in the next few days as the mood strikes me.

A Day Fraught With Possibilities

So here it goes. A day where I'm only going to focus on the projects that need my attention and not other worries. I'm going to spend some time in the working notebook for Blood & Steel and see where that gets me. I'm going pick up the ol' acoustic and see what I can work out on Iron and Wine's Naked As We Came, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite tunes. And then I'm gong to polish off the portraits of my little cousin, Lauren, that I've put off for too long because I've hit a wall that wants to hold me back from processing pics. After that I'll cook dinner and watch the Monday night comedies (or the Olympics) with Bethany.

I have a quiet, snowy house surrounding me that will only help fuel the creative fires. I can crank music, get into the groove of writing and put the words down without distraction. Today is a day fraught with possibilities. And reconstituted homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch.

It's really snowing outside now. There's a forecast calling for another four inches on top of what we can't get rid of on the ground. The icicles hanging almost to the ground from my roof were finally starting to melt and break off. For a while it was like looking through prison bars made of ice. I somehow doubt the melting process will be gaining any ground today.

Oh, and I found an interesting new blog this morning, Writing in the Wilderness. It seems so much harder to find blogs about writing than other blogs, but this one looks promising. I'm interested in following future posts.

More later. It's time to get busy.

Libraries & Days Gone By....

It's officially snowing outside. Again. It is going to stop snowing here in a little bit but only because it's going to turn into ice that will then turn into rain that will then turn back into ice. It seems Old Man Winter was ready for the world this time around. I can't remember the last time we've had a winter this wet. It makes getting things done in the world of surveying increasingly difficult.

Bethany has started singing again with the Greenbrier Valley Chorale in Lewisburg, W.Va. Weather like this can make getting to the weekly Tuesday practices a challenge and if this keeps up she may not make it this evening.

One nice thing about the weather, though, is it lends itself to staying home and pursuing hobbies that otherwise get pushed to the side as we're out and about. Monday evenings between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. are devoted to CBS since it's the one evening of television we watch a week, but as The Big Bang Theory ended last night I wandered back into my library and picked up the Strat and tried my hand at Gravity.

From what I've studied, the actual picking pattern isn't difficult. What is difficult, however, is timing the slide from the third fret down to the ninth and making the bends and vibrato sound right. The entire intro to the song and the solo are both built off of two strings as best I can tell, so fingering is pretty simple. It's just the little techniques that I didn't realize were in there until last night that are really difficult. I played the opening two or three measures repeatedly for 20 minutes trying to work it out. The way the weather is it looks like I'll have the chance again tonight.

After reading a little bit of Arms-Commander to put me in the mood for writing I cracked open the working notebook for Blood & Steel. I haven't put a great deal of anything down on paper for a week or so. There have been some scenes I've mulled over as I went about other tasks and I'm just about to an interesting point in the writing of this novel.

As with The Crownless King, I know where Blood & Steel will end. I had a pretty decent idea of where it began, though it needs some smoothing over at this point. I'm just about to the point where I don't know what's going to happen next. I have perhaps two more "scenes" to write that I know what's going to happen. After that there's a long stretch to be written that's as much discovery as it is writing before I get to the next scene that I have planned in my head. I have rough outlines of a couple of possibilities, but I'm hoping that the story itself will decide whether or not these will be included.

Here is as good a time as any to mention some good news about The Crownless King. The Clifton Forge Public Library, one of two libraries I begged my Mom to take me to when I was a kid, called last week and wanted to know if I'd be interested in making an appearance there in March. Of course I was excited to do it. Not only does it mean publicity for me and the chance to get my story out there, but it's also an opportunity to bring people to the library.

Libraries may very well be one man's best inventions. I remember being a kid and asking Mom to take me to the library nearly every time she went to town. We lived about five minutes away from the one in Clifton Forge and about fifteen minutes away from the C.P. Jones Memorial Library in Covington. Both libraries have undergone extensive renovations since those days, but I can still remember walking in and being hit by the smells of stacks of old books. I remember distinctly that the C.P. Jones library had a big, long desk bent like an "L" by the door and directly in front of that was the kids science section. At the other side of the building in two narrow aisles crammed with books was the science fiction section, where I spent the bulk of my time.

I could've spent hours in the library each visit, wrapped in the smell of old books and the silence of reading that was broken only by the "ka-chunk" as the librarian inserted the due date cards into the machine that automatically stamped them. When I was older and finally able to drive I did spend a lot of spare time in libraries. When I worked at the paper I'd gobble down lunch as quick as I could and spent the rest of my hour (and sometimes more) reading and writing in a cubicle at the C.P. Jones library. Sometimes on days off I'd just go sit in the Clifton library and read. When it was late and they were closed, I'd go down to Dabney and find a comfortable chair near one of their big windows and spend some time reading. I went there a lot to do homework during my college days, but truthfully the homework would be put aside after only a few minutes to pick up a book I'd found while wandering among the shelves.

Reading this and thinking about it, I realize now that I probably need to do more to support the local libraries. I haven't checked a book out in years, mainly because I've found the funds to work on building my own private library, but the libraries for me were gateways to other worlds and my own dreams of writing began to take shape among those shelves.

It was a pretty big thrill for me to walk into the Clifton Forge library and see a book I'd written on a shelf, waiting to be checked out. I'm looking forward to that experience again.

Directing The Rambles

Well it's Monday again and back to work. I enjoy my job, though it does have some very steep moments that make me question what in the world I'm doing climbing a mountain with all that gear on my back. It's challenging, both mentally and physically and I appreciate that.

It was a good weekend, though Saturday was snowy and hectic with the wedding. I didn't get anything written but I read a bit of Arms-Commander and continued to pick up the main riff of One Last Breath by Creed. It's the longest riff I've attempted to learn to date and I figure on being at the polishing stage (hopefully) by the weekend.

My next musical goal in life is to pick up John Mayer's Gravity and Free Fallin'. Yes, I know that Tom Petty originally did Free Fallin', but I actually prefer Mayer's acoustic cover. I think I'm going to start looking into lessons again. They're good to keep me honest on reading music and playing techniques and I need to pick up more musical theory if I want to write my own music someday.

I guess that here is as good a time as any to talk about the changes in the ol' blog here lately. This project started out as a way to reach out into the worlds of photography that I enjoy. While that still happens on occasion, I've found that I'm turning more to exploring writing and the creative process, be it in music, photography or writing. It's turned into a notebook of sorts that I use to explore what happens in my every day life and look for deeper thoughts among the mundane.

After watching Julie & Julia Sunday afternoon I became enamored with the idea of dedicating the blog to a project and sticking with it. After some careful thought (mostly in a long shower because that's where some of my best thinking happens) I decided that devoting this blog to one project in particular would be a bit boring. After all, writing is a solitary art for the most part and the process is generally of interest only to other writers.

So I've decided to dedicate this blog to exploring the creative process itself. You'll see the same sort of posts you have been seeing lately. Sometimes they'll be about writing, other times about guitars and music. Sometimes I'll just write about what happened that day and what I've been thinking about and then I'll throw in a dash of photography.  When it's all said and done I'll tie it, however it fits, into the projects I'm working on.

That does seem to be a broad outline, doesn't it? Truth is I don't know where this blogging project will take me. I'm enjoying it, especially now that I'm finding both time and opportunity to blog on a daily basis. I don't know if there's even anyone out the reading this, but if you are, thanks. Feel free to pass it along to people you know, be sure to sign up to follow (it's free and easy to do) and definitely feel free to add some comments of your own.

I'll also be experiment with new features, just like the media player at the bottom of the blog. I'll add some different music when the mood strikes, quite possibly some instrumental stuff to minimize distractions as you read.

So keep in touch and keep reading. I have no idea where it's all going to take me. It'll be fun to find out.