#168 - Ovens and Failures

I missed the deadline for my mentor assignment yesterday.

I knew around eleven PM that I wasn’t going to get the story done in time. I should have worked on it throughout the week, but I procrastinated and hummed and hawed.

Part of the procrastination comes from fear. When writing, the start is always the hardest part. Getting myself into the writing chair is sometimes a struggle, and yet once there I usually enjoy the creative storytelling.

Last night was a struggle. Each scene needed research, because I set the story in a place I am unfamiliar with.

As I gave up and headed to bed, a sense of relief washed over me. Maybe it was just acceptance of the failure. But if I had to narrow it down to the one thing that stopped me, it was the lack of energy. Work has been busy and unusually stressful. Commuting into work grinds me down even if its only for three days a week. By that third day I am worn thin no matter how busy the week was.

I would still like to finish the mentor story. I hope I get the chance to. Writers miss the mentor deadlines for other reasons, and I am sure I am not the only one to ever do so.

One thing I found interesting was that as soon as I stopped writing and went up to bed my brain started spewing out all these ideas for the story. I keep a little notebook and a pen with a red light at the tip on my nightstand for this very reason. Inspiration often hits as soon as my head hits the pillow. The red light pen is so I disturb my sleeping wife as little as possible.

So, slept in until noon today and stayed in bed watching TV until we decided it was time to go find a replacement gas oven for our defunct workhorse.

We found a model in our price range at the local Home Depot. I wanted a double oven, but we ended up with a single. It had nicer curb appeal and higher stove top BTUs.

It had some new features that the old oven didn’t, including steam self cleaning, direct gas burner convection and air frying.

The stovetop also came the option to use a center griddle as well. I can see us using that for bacon or pancakes on the weekend.

The local warehouse had this model in stock, so we’ll get the new unit on Friday afternoon. A day I get to work from home which is helpful. I have to disconnect the gas line, but the delivery guys will haul away the old one for free. Which is one less thing I have to deal with.

This model is what they call a slide in. Meaning it has no backsplash panel at the back of the stove. All the controls are up front above the door. This means we need to address the lack of tile directly below our counter tops where the stove goes. We opted to get two 2 ft by ½ ft tile pieces to act as a border behind the stove that are in the same color family as the old backsplash tiles. It should look like it was always meant to be there when it’s done.

After that, we did a little grocery shopping and went home. We were both feeling tired and watched some of the Murdoch Family documentary which was interesting. I loved the show Succession, and the characters were said to be modelled after the Murdoch family. It was interesting to see how Murdoch changed his politics everytime the wind changed direction. He started off being very vocal about Trump and then as Trump’s popularity increased, he started to back him through positive news reporting on Fox.

There was definitely a theme of doing whatever was going to make money over doing what was right. I guess there is no surprise there.

Then Robyn went to pick up the kiddo from work after which the two went for a walk. And that leaves me here typing this blog.

I got some feedback about my novella from my friend John. The longest feedback he has ever given me, by the way. I gave him the direct output, meaning I  never corrected any spelling mistakes or other gaffs. I even changed the main characters name three times and forgot to change Dennis, to Davis, to Davie.

The overall review was positive, but I have question or two to ask him when I see him at the next Survivor Pizza Hot Tub night.

But before I get anymore rest, I decided to clean the toaster. Man! There was half a loaf of bread in crumb form resting at the bottom. I spent a good twenty minutes cleaning it out and testing it under the stove fan to see if it would smoke. I finally got it to work without the potential of bursting into flames.

I have decided to take the night off from writing, other than this blog of course, which means I will be behind on my word count as of tonight by at least half a day’s quota. This is a bit annoying as I have worked really hard to get caught up this past week.

But I need the rest to tackle all that the coming days are going to throw at me.

My new lap desk arrived to today and I am testing it out as I type this. The platform is heavier than I expected, but not in a bad way. The slide out mouse tray seems to be working just fine; it has a little lip to stop the mousing from falling off the edge.

The width of the platform is about half an inch wider on each side than the latop. Overall, it is very comfortable even with out the writ support and the thigh cushions. It’s definitely small enough to toss in my bag and I don’t think I will notice it is in there.

Last night as I was typing on my Nuphy Air 75 keyboard, I kept hitting the page up and page down buttons and it was annoying the hell out of me. I thought to just pull out the key and key cap to stop myself from accidentally hitting those keys.

But after a quick google search, I found the Microsoft store has a free tool called Power Toys. In that free download from Mucrosoft you can tell your computer what each key should do when typed. I opted to disable the offending keys and my problem was solved. They really should ship that software preloaded onto the computers.

I really help improve my typing speed last night. And it was only an issue I had with that specific keyboard because of the way a seventy-five percent keyboard is laid out.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a wild weather day. Warm in the day and then high winds and rain possibly turning into snow in the evening. It’s weird when you have days in the double digits and nights below zero.

At least I won’t commuting tomorrow!

I think I’ll end the day with a little reading. I have no desire to watch and television and I need to keep my reading up. I am also interested in starting the last novella of ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Mystery Knight’. After I am done reading this book, I will read one of the Robert Crais books I own, since the story I am currently writing is detective tale. A Crais is one of the best novelists writing in that genre and I could learn a thing or two from him.

I think going forward I am going to start numbering my blog posts just for my own interest to see how many I have written.

This will be blog #168.

Good night all!