R&L News

Well, I’ve survived the World Cup, a few Grand Prix weekends, a couple of health issues, my wife having a few tons of dental work, and a bit of the writer’s lament.

On the World Cup.  I’m starting a contest to name the Yugo awards for the World Cup.  For those not in the know, the Yugo Awards are a special award for the worst in a particular Formula One Grand Prix.  The inventor of the new ball is the leading candidate at this moment, although I’m leaning towards Razzy for the bad acting or something to do with Opera, given the grand theatrics of bad officiating and the action known as diving.

Anyway, with this distraction out of the way (I was busy selling marketing services to food service establishments to help improve attendance during the event), my wife’s mouth now healing (and her vacation ends today), and I’m feeling fit as a fiddle that hasn’t been run over by a truck in a couple of weeks, I’m back to writing seriously.

Chapter 28 is nearly done.  Well, a draft I’m getting happier with daily is nearly done.  I’m currently in the second to last scene and, while the last scene is already written in my head, this scene is proving a bit of a challenge.  Yet, this is why the timid don’t write.  I’m now set to power through it, I can polish it during the edits.  Which leaves only three “issues” (which is what I call my ToDo list as I write a chapter – those things that need to be added, subtracted, dealt with, bribed, murdered, maimed, etc).  Two are simple changes which will be handled as I go through my read-thru/correct process.  One is a bit more.  Some additions to existing scenes to handle open threads from previous chapters (how could I ignore Rosalee like that when putting down the basics of the chapter, Becca will beat me into submission).

Chapter 29, 30, and 31 are in good shape as far as outlines, goals, my version of issues, and such.

Now, if I can just get someone to marry my ex-wife, or survive until Feb of next year (when her Spousal Support ends).  If Ferrari could just get near the podium and Schumi would decide that being retired isn’t a bad thing.  And, the Yankees win this year.  That lottery ticket I bought yesterday hits for $65 million…  Oh, and my current two consulting clients would just pay me!

Be well,

Orb

R&L Chapter 27 Up

Yeah!  Finally.  Chapter 27 is up.  Of course, not all is smooth sailing.  I found an XHTML error that has propogated itself through most of the chapters here and on ASSTR.  Crap.  I’ll be fixing that shortly.  That’s what I get for changing operating system (and thus editing tools).  A good thing, I guess.  Yet, to have to edit 26 chapters and two versions of each…

I hope you enjoy 27, or at least take it in the spirit that it is offered.  It is a dark chapter.  A key to the rest of the story.  It had to be done.  That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.  Hang in there.  Good stuff (sex, romance, football, and such) is coming!  I promise!!  Or, as Skip Niccio would say, “Trust me.  I know what I’m doing.”

I do need to offer an apology.  Jamaal should have first appeared on Tuesday.  He didn’t.  The writer was on leave that day, I swear!  He’s been flogged.  Jamaal is not a main character, but needed for the story going forward.  This chapter seemed like the best place to introduce him since I couldn’t go back and rewrite Tuesday morning and afternoon.  Well, two scenes anyway.

An update on Script Frenzy.  What a shitty week it has been for that!  A friend’s birthday party for their business (yes, a place that serves alcohol) became more of distraction than I ever counted on.  A new grill had more of an impact than I ever figured.  It was already assembled.  Free.  That was nice.  What wasn’t so nice was the leaking regulator!  Home, grill, and self are fine.  I’m sure the scorch marks will disappear as the grass grows out.

I’m about 12 pages behind where I wanted to be Friday.  So, I’m where I should have been last Thursday.  I’ll catch up a good chunk of that tonight, already have made a big dent in it.  Whether I will get back on track by the 30th…  Keep rooting!  I do hear you!

Let me know what you think of 27.  I promise to answer many of the questions raised in later chapters.  Patience is a virtue.  Or so they keep telling me!

Be well,

Orb

R&L Update and Script Frenzy

Chapter 27 of R&L…

All my life I’ve heard the phrase “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

When I was five, I asked, “Why not?”

By sixteen, “Just need more power.”

By thirty, “It’s a project management issue.”

By fifty, “No shit!”

Well, Chapter 27 in various forms has been written for a while.  First, it had to get past me.

Many of the people in my life have used the word bastard in reference to me.  Well, that is not an insult.  I am .  My biological mom was a secretary and my father (married with kids) was her boss.  Not only was I adopted, she was forced to give up the other two children (insert here, I feel like shit that I caused that – insert here, life isn’t fair).

Others have used the word contemptuous.  Yep.  I can prove it.  I spent time in jail courtesy of judge on the charge of contempt of court.  That makes me contemptuous.

Now, back to Chapter 27.

I’m obviously a contemptuous bastard to my team (ex-wives are a given).

We’ll work out the issues and make the chapter great.

Now.  Now.  Now.

Script Frenzy.  My April insanity.  I’ve committed, to myself, to tackle two screenplays this month.  30 days, 100 pages of screenplay.

Well, more later.  Right now, I’ve being called back to writing…

Orb

Computers Suck!

Okay, something that has provided me entertainment and my ex-wives with comfortable lifestyles, maybe I should be a bit lighter about.  I normally am.  Then I started having the infamous Blue Screen of Death.  Could fucking Windows tell me the problem?  Hell no.  Turns out I to wait until the disk drive was on the verge of failure before the Doze would give me enough information to diagnose it.  Well, all last week I was without my primary system (a laptop) and using my wife’s system.  I do back up critical files to it daily, so I didn’t lose any writing, just time.  Saturday, my new disk arrived.  3.2 times the space of my old laptop drive.  For less than $100.  Kewl.  I also made the decision to abandon Windoze forever.

I’ve now joined the movement I’ve been advocating on the server side of the house since the 1970s – a Multics flavored operating system!  Okay, Multics had to go through many trials and tribulations to arrive at Linux and then Ubuntu, but it did.  Yes, a deep, dark secret of mine, I’m a Multician.  One of the few, the proud!  And one more than one system, two of them being in real production making money!

Now I’ve come full circle.  I’m running it now on my desktop – or a flavor there of.  A long way from the Honeywell DPS-8 I was first introduced to Multics on.  That sucker took up most of a 4,000 square foot computer room.  Had all of 8 (yes eight) megabytes of memory (yes, megabytes).  And a whopping 1,000 megabytes of disk (One gig) in big washing machine sized drives.  Ten of them.  Not to mention the ten 16 track tape drives that stood six feet tall.  The vacuum columns were three feet tall (youngsters, ask the oldsters about what that means).  I’m not even getting into the 50+ tons of A/C the room needed.  Of course, there was another 5,000 sq feet consumed by some big blue thing…

Now I have two processors with 2 GB of memory.  500 gigabytes of disk.  All in a package one inch tall when closed.  With a 15.1″ wide display.  That consumes something less than 50w.  Damn!

Okay.  Enough of memory lane.  For the moment.

Writing has been delayed as I diagnosed, researched, and now am moving operating systems.  Not to mention the stray dogs and neighborhood kids I kicked, the copious quantity of beer and whisky consumed while diagnosing the problem…

The good news?  I’m back!  I’m shooting to release chapter 27 to my team late next week.  I would this week, but the new wife and I are celebrating seven years of blissful marriage this week.  I’m gonna be a bit distracted.

Thanks for reading!

Orb

Chapter 26 Posted

Ah, as life would have it, it went well.  Just as I plan for all sorts of interruptions, problems, and such…  Things went well!!!

So…  tomorrow will be…  eh, uhm…  er…  Murphy is alive and well, and an optimist!

Enjoy the chapter!

Orb

Chapter 26 Update

Chapter 26 is finally in its last edit stages and I should begin the HTML conversion process either tonight or tomorrow.  Chapter 27 is on track.  Still no acceptable draft, but rapidly closing in on one.  Just one scene…  Just one scene!  Okay, so it’s the most critical scene in the chapter (and for the day), but, hey!  LOL

More when 26 is out.  I should have an update for 27 as well.

On a more somber note.  Russ Hoisington, who we know from his “Wynter” stories, is at death’s door.  I got to know Russ over the past years through email as we discussed his stories, mine, and the art of writing.  I’m going to miss him.  Terribly.  I will hold him in my thoughts and prayers, and in my heart forever.

Orb

R&L Chapter 25 Posted

Well, Wednesday has come to an end at “Don Sanche, or the Castle of Love”.  Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 26, the beginning of Thursday, is in final draft.  I plan to finish my edits in the next day or so and turn it over to my team for their majick.  I doubt it will post this weekend, but…

Enjoy!

Orb

Chapter 24 Posted

Chapter 24 is up on my site and SoL.  Asstr and other formats to follow later this week.  Chapter 24 is about late Wednesday afternoon – football practice and media day.  There are some surprise visitors.

Chapter 25 will be up this coming weekend.  Wednesday night has arrived.  Rebbecca has Luis all to herself at his house…

Orb

2010 – Finally!

The Aughts were a damned interesting decade and I’m personally delighted that they are over.  Yes, some good, a few great, and many bad memories.  The chronicle of the decade would take at least a series of novels, which I’m not going to do here.  Let’s just say that I started the aughts out employed, with three children I was close to, and a wife of nearly 20 years.  I end the aughts retired (or so I think – BTW, bitch, where is that $3.5 million???).  Dabbling in my life-long profession (technology and strategy).  And… writing.  Oh, and remarried.  And pretty much estranged from my kids.

A new decade begins.

I’m writing up a storm right now.  There are three chapters in the bag for R&L I haven’t published.  I’m working through the next two before I do.  I want to get to lunch in the story before…  well, I still have some planning I’m working out.  I’d talk about the reasons, but…  Be assured, you’ll see new chapters to the story in the next bit.

A bit – in Information Theory, that is the smallest, indivisible component of information.  A bit – something my wife tells me when we’re going out.  She’ll be ready in a bit.  In female timeframes, that means anywhere from “Boy, you’re late and making me wait” to two hours later.

My bit will refer to the second definition.  Chapter 24 will be out in “a bit” – within a week or so.

Welcome to the Ones!  The Aughts are over!

Orb

Writing Again

OMG!  I hate the fall.  Yes, there are distractions.  Yet, then again, there are distractions all year long.  So, I don’t have that to fall back on.  Instead, I can only look at past history.  In the fall, I’ve performed horribly with my writing.  Another fall has past and I have yet another data point to add to it.

This past weekend, a series of events occurred.  Most just coincidence.  Yet, I’m writing again.  Today, I rewrote over 4,500 words (edit/rewrite) from first draft to possible story of my deadtree novel.  I also added over 1,500 words of new first draft.  I tackled a roadblock in R&L and came out the other side with something I like.  Tomorrow I feel I can finish the detailed outline for Thursday, which means I can get back to writing the story again.  I also tackled another project (made it past another set of hurdles that have been plaguing me for months) and I can see the outcome.  It has something to do with two people paddling around in canoes and a possible movie.

For my R&L fans – Wednesday afternoon has been done for a few months.  I have attempted three different versions of Wednesday night.  I now have a clear path through the night and into Thursday.  I want to deliver a solid product to my readers, that has been my goal for the story since day one:  To learn, grow, and do the best I can at any moment.  It would seem that the fall decay of Earth (yes, I follow the Old Religions, as I do many of the contemporary ones) has once again intruded into my life.  I refuse to release something that is NOT the best I can do in the moment.

Well, I’m back.

Plus, a new laptop is soon to be arriving at my door.  Which will only help!

Next week, I’m hoping that all can find a few moments between stuffing themselves and watching football (two wonderful activities that I plan on indulging in) to take a few moments to reflect, to find those sources of personal inspiration and strength, and to give thanks for them.  Joining with family and friends to share (and mutually stuff and enjoy football) is even better.

I’m spending the first part of next week traveling to the world of one of my favorite online writers.  I’ll be in and around Paradise, PA.  Should I run into Kyle or Penny’s families, I’ll let you know.  I won’t be there for the annual high school rivalry game – dammit.  But, I will be home to watch my Yellow Jackets put a major hurt on that high school in Athens, GA come next weekend.

Be well and Be thankful,

Orb