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.

Survived The First Round!

Yes, I can celebrate tonight. The Crownless King made it through the first round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel of the Year contest. While I don't know the exact number of entries in the young adult category, I know that it was open to 5,000 entries and that the first round cut that number down to 1,000.

The next stage of the competition is the reading of the excerpt, which is up to the first 5,000 words of the manuscript. That's actually not as long as it sounds, but I'm pretty proud of my excerpt. I think it's strong enough to contend, but I don't know what I'll be up against, so we'll just have to see how it goes.

I didn't find out that I made it until just a few minutes ago. I spent the day watching for it and the list was just released after 8 p.m. eastern time, as near as I can tell. Talk about a really, really long day. Not knowing was pretty aggravating. I could have handled had I not made the cut...I just wanted to know.

So needless to say I really didn't feel like writing much of anything today. I spent the time polishing off a book I was reading and processing photos. I put a dent in them, but I still have a ways to go. That's what tomorrow's for. Tonight I'm going to enjoy having made it this far and I hope that I can do the same again in a month.

Briefly Updating

It's been a tiring week. The last three days have been pretty well filled with constant running with little time for anything else.

It's looking to slow down a little tomorrow. I figure I'll make some serious progress on Blood & Steel as well as knock out some serious photo processing since the deadline for delivery is fast approaching. I'll also be finding out if I survived the "pitch" round of the ABNA contest, so I hope all goes well there.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep this one short and sweet and go find a book to get lost in a little bit before heading off to catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow will bring a calmer day and I'm looking forward to it.

Fundamentally Challenged

Have you ever had one of those days when all the little things in life just won't add up?

I have this theory about life that I try to apply to my everyday living. If you can take of the small details, they'll add up to the big things and life in general will go your way. Think about it...to play any kind of sport, you have to master the fundamentals first, right? Passing, shooting, dribbling...you have to know how to do all the basic stuff before you can play a real game.

In life I find that taking care of the basic stuff makes taking care of the bigger stuff easier to deal with. When I'm having a bad day, I absolutely must have a clean house. I can deal with the clutter in my mind if there's no clutter surrounding me.

Well, today the little things just aren't adding up. This is the week we have to finish off processing the wedding photos that we took at the end of January. I should have had them finished by now, but the truth is that dealing with unemployment distracted me and then led to a watershed week of writing that just couldn't be stopped until it ran out. So, honestly, part of the reason for the sudden crush of photos is my fault.

This morning I woke up with the intention of fixing all that. I did the little bit of chores around the house that needed doing and then sat down to check my e-mail. The laptop won't access the Internet. I don't know why, but it won't. I then went to work cleaning off the desktop and backing up files, all part of the process of getting the photos processed. It still won't connect to the Internet. Nor will the hard drive defragment or the the anti-virus software open up.

So I fall back to the desktop machine, which needs software updates and defragmentations and various other little details to be ready to work. I've had some success here and am down to the intensive virus scan that I try to do at least once a week and usually fail to do more than once a month.

But that's OK. I'm making progress. At this rate I should be on those photos by dinner.