#363 - Discovering Neo

I slept in until about ten.

Robyn was already up and downstairs working on some paintings and schoolwork.

I spent the morning relaxing, watching some YouTube videos and a couple of episodes of Sugar starring Colin Farrel. The show is growing on me. It’s definitely one that you have to give a chance. It’s a slow burn, with plenty of style. Farrel plays a PI that could be straight out of the fifties with the way he dresses, that cars he drives and the places he goes in California.

A lover of movies from that era, even some of the sets are reminiscent of Casablanca and other classics of that period.

Robyn asked me to take a walk with her in the park after lunch and I readily agreed. It was a beautiful day, and we both needed a break and some exercise. The park was busy with people, dogs, and the dreaded cyclists. But I could hardly blame anyone for wanting to be out there in such nice weather.

We returned to find the microwave's slide-out fan broken again. The little plastic device that clicks the door into place had broken. The funny part was that no one had even used it. It just gave up on itself. I am done with trying to get another one. It would just take too long. Instead, I ordered some magnet door holders that have a spring-loaded action. I think there is room to attach them on the side of the slide-out part. They should be more durable than the tiny part they make for the oven. I’ve seen pictures of the part that keeps breaking and it looked to me like it was designed to break. The parts are so thing and small. I would have used a more durable material, like aluminum or spring steel.

The replacement part is twenty-five dollars, and I am nit willing to pay it because I know it will fail before the week’s out. I’ll try my MacGyvered version first.

My on-writing book, Brick by Brick arrived today. It is by Canadian author Douglas Smith and had plenty of endorsements from big authors. Even my mentor gave him a paragraph of praise. I don’t have time to get into this weekend, but it will be my next read after I finish my mentor assignment.

Our friend Jody sent us home with a bucket of leftover chilli last night and it made for a delicious supper. The new microwave is much better at reheating things than the old one was. It has some type of sensors that can tell how it’s cooking. Everything that I have used it for has come out as nice as when I made it fresh.

I downloaded a writing program I discovered the other day created by author Huey Howey. So far it looks really good, and I like how it’s set up to be user friendly. On top of that, he offers the software for free and there are no subscription fees or cloud services to sign up for. It’s a tool he made for himself and is sharing it to the writers of the world.

I’ll be giving it more of a test run next week when I have more time.

I started writing my assignment earlier than I have been recently. The old way just wasn’t working out for me anymore. I wrote a scene after going through the markups I did on the train.

The story is really just getting started, but I think things are about to pick up and get more fun. I am really trying to think about this story in scenes, and I think that is a helpful way to look at it.

Robyn and I took a break, her from schoolwork and me from my writing to watch an episode of Mobland. We followed that with Bill Maher, but the Crave app was being difficult on the Apple TV. I found that even though it is set to download updates automatically, it needed a software update.

After about fifteen minutes of running the updates, Crave TV started working again.

After the shows, Robyn was tired and went to bed. That was around eleven PM. I went down to the living room to work on my assignment. For the most part I was revising and trying to see what would come next. Ideas started popping into my head, so I darted to the basement where I had all my note pads. Sitting in the writing chair I made all kinds of notations on who people were, how the story might end and a bunch of details that sprouted into symbolism for the arc of the story. I did a bit of research on Greek oracles, and the oracles of Dodona seemed to fit in nicely with some of the symbolism in Oakville, where the story takes place. Mostly in the form of the oak leaf and the oak tree as powerful symbols.

As much as I was getting somewhere, none of this was actual writing and by two AM I was getting really tired and my word count had barely moved. My only solace was that I had the entire day to work on my story, and I know had an idea of where things were going.

I went to bed feeling nervous about how much time was left to write this story that was going to be longer than usual.

Until tomorrow.