Go For It

I haven't really had much to say lately. I did manage to get a fragmentary trilobite article out yesterday, but I wrote most of that closer to New Year's. Since then I've been focusing mostly on moving out and settling in, with a little bit of real writing thrown in here and there, but not much. 

And that's the thing. I've been writing this one book since... what? 2015? People are starting to snicker when they say, "Oh, that's right, you're working on a novel." At least, snickering is what I hear. Sure, I'm making steady progress, but it's slowwww progress. I need to try something different if I'm going to finish this before I'm seventy.

Well, here's something I've never done: the writing retreat thing. It's expensive, and the idea seems to have made some of the humans close to me and one of the cats think I don't love them, but we can sort all that when I get back. Truth is, they enjoy being outraged. I just need to lock up all my stuff so nobody pees on it.

I'm gonna spend a whole week alone in a cabin in my favorite park (although it won't be all green like in the picture). That area is what the wilderness in the first half of the book was based on so, y'know, bonus.  

The goal is to finish the draft. It won't mean the end of the job, but it'll get me to a point where my constant prodding and patching will be a good thing. I have no idea how this is going to go. I might come shuffling back with nothing but a few trail pictures and an embarrassed shrug, but at least I gave it a shot.

Echo of a Trilobite

This is one of my most prized possessions. It's not the most expensive, but that's different.

I bought this when I was desperately poor. (Again, I guess, qualifiers. I knew I was going to be able to eat. I knew that, if I couldn't support myself, I had a place to go. I'm well aware that other people have endured hardship that makes my "desperation" look like living in my own private mansion. The point, though, is that I was scared.) 

I had just gotten my tax return and, because the business in which I was a partner was constantly hemorrhaging dollars, it was pretty generous. Like a lot of people low on cash, I wanted to enjoy some of this before I squirrelled away the rest. 

This was my indulgence. This thing speaks to me. These creatures used to be everywhere. I mean, I don't even know which species this is, and the trilobites were an entire order. (If you never had to memorize the steps in that classification system, google it. The answer is readily available.) 

. . . I started this the day before the move from Cleveland kicked into rush mode. It's been a few weeks and I've kinda lost the train of thought, so I guess I'm just gonna post what I have and move on.

Office / Nerd Sanctuary

Okay, the new Robin's Nest (still not sure about that name) is done!

More pictures below:

Drill My Brain

I've been watching the Phantasm movies by way of "A Very Joe Bob Xmas" and I wandered off on a tangent from one scene:

TALL MAN: Let me free you of this imperfect flesh that binds you to time and space!

ROBIN: Okee-dokey.

TALL MAN: It's no use struggling. There is no esc-- Wait, what?

ROBIN: I'm down with what you're selling. Bring it on!

TALL MAN: Look at this freaky drill thing I'm gonna use. Doesn't that terrify you?

ROBIN: LOL. Stop teasing me. Eternity's a wastin'!

TALL MAN: I -- I think I need to go pray.

ROBIN: Hey! Where are you going? GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE AND DRILL MY BRAIN, MOTHERFUCKER!

Fiesta Snow

I took a peek outside with my cat and it's snowing a bit today. Speckle wasn't too happy about that. 

The funny thing is that, while the snow was blowing around, someone was blasting salsa music across the neighborhood. 

So there she is, covered in frosty confetti, looking at me like, "This is the worst Mexican restaurant ever."

Comfort Movies

Among the shelves of DVDs in my house and the vast ocean of streaming options, I've got a few of what I call comfort movies. It's not so much that they're great films, although many of them are. There are plenty of movies I love that aren't comfort movies, though. 

It's not just me. Occasionally, late at night (you might call it early in the morning, if you're a bad person) Tom will decide he's done with whatever he was doing, settle into the couch, and watch The Time Machine (the 2002 version with Guy Pearce). That's how he winds down that long evening of world-building or drinking or both. I don't think he's ever described it as a comfort movie, just a good one, but that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. 

Like comfort food, a comfort movie feels like home. It doesn't matter how many times you've seen it; it never gets old. If anything, familiarity makes it better. Just looking over the three I picked to go with this post – my current main comfort movies – I'm noticing that they're all kinda chatty, fun movies that don't take anything too seriously. I don't think that part is a requirement, even if we're only talking about me.

Anyway, here's my list. I'd love to hear who else has comfort movies and what a few of them are.

• Murder By Death (1976): I first saw this in the theater as a kid and it's been a favorite ever since. Everyone in my immediate family and several friends I tied down Clockwork-Orange-style to watch it will quote lines from it at the slightest provocation.
• Go (1999): I missed this one initially but saw it shortly after as a rental. I was never a huge partier or anything like that, but this brings back the times I did visit the night life and I feel like I know these characters.
• Scare Me (2020): I discovered this one during this year's Halloween Season horror binge. I think calling it horror is a little iffy. It's definitely about horror, but I wouldn't really say it is horror. Anyway, the fact that it's so recent makes it an oddball as a comfort movie, but I watched it twice the night I first saw it and have re-watched it several times since and kinda want to watch it again right now, so yeah, it counts. I get such a strong sense of being in that cabin in the mountains, trading stories by firelight, and it's a nice feeling. It's such a great depiction of people creating together, too. It reminds me of some of the better role-playing game sessions I've been in. I've never had much luck collaborating on fiction projects -- that seems to be something I have to do alone -- so it doesn't remind me of that, but anyway, the energy is cool. 

2020: A Little Bit Closer

"I've been swimming in a sea of anarchy. I've been living on coffee and nicotine. I've been wondering if all the things I've seen were ever real, were ever really happening." -- Sheryl Crow

I'm doing the 2020 retrospective post a little early this time, because December, especially the end of December, is going to be a really busy time for me. 

Everybody I know has been all "OMG 2020 is the worst!" This year's been pretty good to me, though. The only major downside was that, despite a strong start, I didn't get much writing done for most of the year. That seems to have turned around, but the lost time is still gone.

In January and February, I continued my habit of finding a hidey-hole and working on The Nameless Way. That habit kept me in touch with the work and helped me do more at home, too. We made it to one convention before everything shut down in March. Even after that, I got a lot of gaming in through Hangouts. That's how my geographically-challenged regular groups had been meeting anyway.