New blog because, well....I wanted to

I've started a new blog for my writing. It's novelmage.blogspot.com. I'm going to be using it as a place to write about writing. To share my frustration, writer's block and who knows what else. But it's going to be focused on my journey to getting published. It should be exciting....eventually!

ProNaNoWriMo - Oh yeah!

So November was NaNoWriMo or to non-writers, National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you set a goal to write 50,000 words in a month or a decent length book. Not really a novel but I know a lot of writer's have SOMETHING in the works and this is to encourage them to further their progress on it. I totally missed it.

Oh I knew it was happening but I had school and work and an anniversary and my wife's birthday and Thanksgiving and finishing my son's "robot". I didn't have time to write.

So I have declared December, Procrastinated National Novel Writing Month. I have set my goal to write 50k words this month. I have a novel and a screenplay that need work so I'm getting a little bit of a late start but I'm determined. I'll never get published if I never finish anything that can be published. I invite anyone who wants to join me...to the writing desk!!

Identical is only skin deep

So I don't blog as much. I don't FB much either anymore...well post new updates. I read, I play Scrabble, and I spend lots of time coding. It's for school so it's ok but it takes my time. But this post isn't about that.

My little twin boys will be 4 in a few months. Cameron is going to be Pooh Bear again this year and Lance wants to be Buzz. As I was thinking about this, I remembered something from when our little guys were happy little monkeys at Disneyland. We have some great pictures of Cameron leaning out of my arms and laying on Pooh Bear's head. Adeena gave him the Pooh Bear stuffed animal that we gave her. He loves it. He was Pooh Bear last year and still wears his costume when he thinks about it. Cameron is sensitive and generally more obedient.

Lance is a boy. He and Ethan are cut from the same cloth, except Ethan is still more mild. Lance is pushing the envelope on everything. He and Ethan finish their dinner about the same time. Both always seem to be starving. Lance can be sweet but he is definitely the more nuts.

My boys may look very similar and I admit calling them the wrong names still because as almost 4 year old boys, there are some things they do that are the same. But they are really unique individuals. They came that way. They made their nursery teacher laugh a lot on Sunday apparently. They made paper bag puppets and as we were leaving Lance turned and asked his teacher if they were called 'Muffets' or 'Puffets'. I love them both. But they are identical only skin deep.

Sacrificial Fries

This post has nothing to do with fries...yet. Have you ever had one of those days when you just want to strip to your skivvies and go play in the warm summer rain? Ok, maybe not as an adult, there are some serious moral and public nudity issues we have to deal with if we did, but have you ever felt like it?

We went to Lagoon last Friday and it was fun outside of the heat. On the way home I had some fun dips on the memory pool about Lagoon and one of them was a time the summer I turned 16. My friend Ryan R. worked at Lagoon and he was going to try and sneak me into an employee only pool party by giving me his badge and him getting in on knowing the people. Alas, a storm blew in and they cancelled the party just as we got there due to lightning. Major bummer. But he had planned to meet up with a group of other employees so we all headed to a park in Centerville, changed into our swimsuits and played in the rain at the park.

The next time that I remember was at my orientation for SUU. Being into theater in high school, I'd come out of my shell more...yes, it really was more. So I got to talking with several of the other freshman hanging out waiting for something...I don't remember what. But it started raining. And I couldn't help it. I excused myself and went out and sang and danced in the rain. I totally blame it on choir and theater. :) The other freshman thought I was a little odd (at least that's as much as they told me when I came back in).

This summer we have had some wonderful summer rains and I've watched them all from the comfort of my cube or my house but never revelled in the freedom found getting soaked and not caring. So the next time it rains this summer, I encourage you to go out and enjoy it no matter how old you are.

Inspiration

What a fickle thing inspiration is. Where it comes from is a mystery. Why it chooses one person out of a group and not another is baffling. But come it does and what you do with it is the ultimate decision.

And so it is that I've embarked on yet another writing project. But first let me give some background. I've joined a writing club started by my friend Ryan. One of the first things we did was an activity where we drew 3 slips of paper that had random words written on them. Then we were to write roughly two pages of a story using those 3 words. The next month we switched stories (round-robin) and drew 3 new words and so forth until it came back to the original writer and that person was to finish it. Well, I completely forgot so I wrote about a page or so during the next meeting just on the fly. When it came back to me, I cut out pretty much everything the other two had written but I liked the ideas that they had introduced. So I started re-writing. I'm now 40 8.5x11, single-spaced, 11 point font pages into it and only on chapter 5 of 16 planned. I have some work to do.

Then as I drove to work, inspiration hit. The story wasn't new but I started seeing it. I'm a big movie fan. I love to watch movies. Many times I get ideas that I 'see' in my head like I'm watching a movie. And so it was with this. And because of that I decided to make this a screenplay. A straight to movie script. It's the story of the sword in the stone...good old King Arthur. So while the basic plot that Arthur pulls the sword from the stone and becomes king is just like the Disney version, the only other similarity is that Merlin is there and a wizard. But I'm hoping that the story around that is what will draw you in. Only time will tell.

I'm glad I didn't ignore inspiration as I think this may be one of my favorite projects ever. Kind of crazy for me though. In high school I was a poet. Prose frustrated and eluded me. Now, while I can still write a good poem, my ideas have grown to more epic proportions.

Please sir, I'd like some more....

Time is not a luxury. Nor is it a right or an entitlement. Time is just there. Like oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. Or dirt, grass or sun. People speak of time lost or wasted like it was a set of keys or a half-eaten hamburger. They refer to the best time of their life as though it has morphed into some chocolate fudge brownie sundae topped with $100 bills.

Time, I've decided, merely exists to give us something to schedule with. Time passes, you know, like me passing the guy in front of me who has decided to ignore the 65mph sign and keeps going 55. Days begin and end. We've counted them into months and years but I think the only real thing we can measure are days. The sun rises and sets. Except in Alaska and parts of Canada where the sun never really sets during the summer or rises in the winter and they are just out of luck.

We count revolutions around the sun and call them a year but the science isn't perfect so maybe we should stick with revolutions. The native Americans used the cycle of the Moon. Must have been inspired at some point.

I'm Mark and I'm 33 revolutions old.

Culmination and Crashing

The semester is coming to an end...always a great sense of relief knowing that I have only a little left to do and I get a break. Much needed as there wasn't really a break between semesters earlier this year. And then I start in on the death march. I know my wife hates it when I refer to these last 4 semesters like that but I'm trying to be optomistic.

This coming fall I will have class 4 nights a week. It really hit home when I was telling Ethan and Adeena that they needed to be big helpers for Mom because I wouldn't be home until after they are in bed. Adeena asked if I can at least come in and tell them goodnight after I get home but it may not be until after 8:30pm and I'd hope they were sleeping by then. On the up-side, I know my kids still love me and like me around when they say things like that.

My schedule will be kinda crazy because it's going to require I get up half an hour earlier. Which most people wouldn't like but could deal with. But I'm getting up at 5:30am right now. 5 just sounds too scary to think about. We'll see how that goes.

And lastly, I have a great wife. She inspires me, encourages me, expects the world of me and still loves me when the best I can do is give her a little clod of dirt.