Monday, April 28, 2008

Writing Report

Slipped away for a few hours to write. Clunky at first, but then I got a hold of an interesting idea and managed to get about eight pages of Very Rough Draft. And about a page of the story's start.

Some writer friends agreed to see the draft of the non-fiction piece and I'm getting some feedback. Mark looked at it also and thought that the first chapter was too much about me -- since I'm not really writing a memoir, I suppose he's got a point. It's also curmudgeonly, which I think surprised him.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Writing News

I sat down yesterday to write fiction and it was very strange.

The last month or so I've been working on a non-fiction piece that I thought was going to turn into a book, but instead it seems to have become a manifesto (and divination system). It might make a coffee-table book. A small one.

I had a bunch of fiction short stories and story ideas that I put on hold and now I have to get back to them.

That and I need to get more stories into the mail.

Monday, April 07, 2008

The New York Trip

Friday -- During the day we have rain mixed with snow. We hop into the car at something like 10 PM, drive to the library to return a veritable boat-load of books. Then we drive to the airport hotel.

Saturday -- We wake up at 5 AM so we can go stand in lines at the airport. Actually the line at the security check point isn't that long. We have plenty of time to kill at the gate. Eight hours later we're pickup up our luggage in Newark. Mark's mom, Mary, and his sister, Melora, meet us there and drive us to Suffern.

Sunday -- I tuned up the Dwyer Manse computer.

Monday -- Since Mark's Mother's house has cable, I end up watching Myth Busters. At a very late hour. The next morning I dreamt that I was in some kind of futuristic gladitorial games. I was in a two-man team with someone else and the team we were fighting against had a flying fighting robot. There was adventure music playing as the flying machine swooped around. Then I woke up; but the adventure music was still playing. It turned out to be Hannah Montana, the favorite performer of Mark's niece.

Tuesday -- New York City with Mark's sister, Melora. At the Metropolitan Opera House, there was a high school band. Um... I don't think they got to NYC on their musical merit. We went to the Central Park Zoo and saw Tango, Roy and Silo the penguins; and had "environmental" fried chicken and French fries. We met Larry.

Wednesday -- Mark's sister, Megan, visited with her two boys. At some point we dug out a marble race game and created cascading runs for marbles to shoot through. Mary took us all to see a 3D Imax Theatre showing about whales and dolphins. It was pretty cool.

Thursday -- John's day to the MET. I made an exciting discovery of an Egyptian ritual item with a goddess figure standing in front of a tree. The iconography is similar to "The Ashera", an 11 C BCE term that might have meant "goddess," "tree," or "pole."

Friday -- Drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Mark's other sister, Maria, lives. Mark's brother, Matthew, drove up from Virginia. Made a Mousse (ala Ted Allen). Instead of a candy thermometer, I had to use a meat thermometer (reads way low). I relied on the kindness of Mark, who bought an unknown chocolate from a new source. The chocolate didn't melt the way I expected it to.

Saturday -- Ate Chocolate Mousse. My flavor was more chocolatey. Maria's had a much better consistency. Spent a lot of time in a hot tub. I'm sure there was tequila involved here, somewhere.

Sunday -- Drove back to Suffern. Mark spent some time painting stain glass figures.

Monday -- loafed around the Dwyer Manse. Visited Larry's folks. Drove to Newark. Our plan (from Florida) was two hours late, then sat on the tarmac for another hour. We arrived home around 2:30 AM.