Pretentious Drivel

I finished the first draft of "Just Jazz" yesterday at a Starbucks in the mall. It took about 4 more hours of writing than I'd planned. Today the story is out with a couple of friends and a former teacher. They're doing read throughs on it and hopefully giving me some feedback.

Every time I finish a story these days I keep stepping back and wondering if I've written something good or if I'm just spouting pretentious drivel. It's something that is very easy to do, especially with a theme of fate, and destiny, and the interconnectedness of everything.

I could be going to Chicago tonight, or more than likely tomorrow morning. I'm hoping tonight, but fate rests in the hands of Duke.

Interview and Graffiti

After a few days of glitches there's an interview up at Twilight Tales. Just follow this link.

I had an interview at Target today. It turned out to not work even in the slightest with my schedule. They wanted to hire me for temporary work starting in mid-August through September. Exactly when I couldn't work because I'll be prepping and moving to Ann Arbor. So in the end that puts me all the way back to square one.

I saw the greatest graffiti in the world today. It was a stencil sprayed onto the ground that said "I Love Waking Up With You." It made me smile.

Duke is coming with me to Chicago and to my first reading. We're staying with my friends Kristy and Lisa. I haven't seen either of them since I graduated and got back to Michigan, and Kristy I haven't seen since January.

Now I'm going back to watching Battlestar Galactica with friends.

Another Micronation

People will never cease to amaze me.

A little over a year ago I made a blog post about this thing called a micronation. You can read that here. It was about a little weapons platform off the coast of Britain that got claimed by some rich people and turned into their own micronation called Sealand. I laughed and used the article as the basis for a novella idea which has since been maybe abandoned and probably eventually turned into a short story.

Today I'm skimming Yahoo News, a tradition I do every morning after reading up on all the blogs I've missed and webcomics, and I stumbled on an article titled "Tiny Shetland Island Declares Independence." (Note that most Yahoo News links tend to be very transient and may not work).

How tiny? you might ask. One Hectare (which translates to 2.5 Acres or 107,639.1 square feet). I went and did a little research on Wikipedia and discovered a full article about the country of Forvik. And from there was a link to the Declaration of Direct Dependence.

The population of the country is 1. A man named Stuart Hill, which, if wikipedia is to be believed, goes by the nickname "Captain Calamity."

It seems that the once glorious United Kingdom is falling apart. One acre at a time.

God save the queen.

PS:

Sealand has a website that can be accessed here
According to Wikipedia the rebel government of sealand's website can be accessed here

Catch Up

I'm back from the great white north.

I went up this weekend to Gaylord to visit my Grandparents for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. We had a party for them, my mom and my aunts put it on. It was all in all a very good time. Full of turkey and beer and more cream puffs than any one person should eat. The mornings that we were up there we were greeted by the roaring motors of airshows from the airport just south of town (I saw a parked F-18 when we left there this morning), and in the evenings we were annoyed by the obnoxious thump thumping of a concert which (according to my grandparents) was over a mile away, but prided itself on the volume of its music, which we could hear clearly.

I figured out what I'm reading at my first reading next Monday (see my previous post for more information). I'm doing a short excerpt from The Rider, all of Interlude, and all of another short story I've yet to finish titled "Bern Corwyn and the Society of The Miracle Workers," though I'm thinking of shortening the title to "Just Jazz." Now I actually have to finish that story, let it cool for a couple of days and then run a second draft over it before I read it. And this is how I still procrastinate even when I'm not at school.

There should be an interview up on the website at http://www.twilighttales.com in the next few days.

I have an interview with Target on Tuesday for a super early morning job (4am-8am) stocking shelves or some nonsense. It's crazy, but it should pay well, and it'll line my coffers while I attempt to really do this thing we call writing.

First Real Reading

Whoa! Sorry about the long drought of posts for the past couple weeks. I'd tell you that life has gotten the better of me and I was doing stuff, but it's not true. I'm still here. I'm still (mostly) unemployed. I'm still broke.

I had a relative die the other day, and so have spent the past few days doing funeral stuff. But that's all done now.

In better news we're a week and a half away from my first non-school related reading! Pop on over to Twilight Tales for more information. specifically their schedule section.

Monday, June 30

• Joshua Doetsch
  
  
• Martel Sardina
  
  
• Nathaniel Gray
  
  
  Tonight's event will be held at The Fixx Coffee Bar, 3053 N. Sheffield. Just three blocks from the Belmont El Stop!

I think it's free, but don't quote me on it. It might cost a few bucks at most (not to pay us, but to pay the group and pay for the venue). I'll ask around and let you know. A brief interview should be appearing on the front page of Twilight Tales in a couple days talking about what I plan on reading and such.

The Best Laid Plans

So maintaining this strict regimen has been (unsurprisingly I would bet) laughable at best. I've been running fairly consistently (though I haven't in the past few days). Writing on the other hand has been an entirely different story. I need to kick it back up a notch and embrace this absolute lack of schedule conflicts.

I started going to Cappuccino Cafe to write and read and drink coffee. I've been getting a fair amount of work done there, but it is still not enough.

Tomorrow is going to be job hunting day, followed by a resounding afternoon of work at the cafe. I want to start reexamining the plot I've got for the Rider, and look at scenes I've created in Bombed. At the very least I can get the ground work laid out for the rest of summer.

And on that note I'm going to crash without having run today. Tomorrow I think I am going to eat a breakfast and then try to do the lake. We'll see...

Summer Slow

My sister graduated this weekend, and my grandparents came into town, so I've been busy entertaining the family. After that I don't have much excuse for not posting other than that I've really not had a whole lot to write about.

Last night I went to Dublin Square with Duke and we sat and talked about writing among other things. I've got him reading the first hundred pages of Bombed. He helped me figure out a few problems that I've known were arising in the last probably 30 pages of the book and how to nip them in the bud before it kills the book.

The problem that has arisen, beyond the usual figuring out of character things, is the lack of funny. I started out funny. I planned to barrel on with the funny. I also wanted to be aware of the gravity. And the gravity weighed me down. It seems like every event is now: they go somewhere, get shot at, get safe, get sentimental about the fact that things suck now. So Duke told me to change it. Throw in something absurd or funny. That I've got enough root in reality that the absurdest things that happen will still be believable. What that means is today I'm going to the coffee shop again with my laptop and I'm going to kill an afternoon reformatting everything.

Ran 7 miles last night. Finally I am back to what I used to do.

Other than that all is quiet. Still job hunting. Still putting off figuring out grad school hooplah... Probably shouldn't put either of those off anymore. And now I begin my day.