#367 - September Word Challenge!
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I managed to sleep in untit ten thirty on this holiday Wednesday. Which is as long as I can afford to sleep.
I’ve got my heart set on staying in the 2026 Words Per Day challenge. I’ve been doing in now for nine months and I plan to make it into the tenth. That means writing just under fifteen thousand words today. And that translates into an entire day of tying on my laptop with some dictation thrown in as well.
I got my mentor response this morning as well. And although she had many great things to say about it, the big issue is that the story is really a novel. So, I have to do the assignment again but really keep the fantasy element small and the problem to be solved very small. No save the world stuff. The example she gave was a girl finds a drawing that comes to life and then she has to get people to believe her. I have to resolve that problem in three to nine thousand words.
With the story I handed in being too large in scope, I end up skimping on some of the descriptions to get the story done. As she described it, you ended up outlining the story and stop describing things. The emotion and the opinion disappear and that’s critical to keeping a reader glued to your story.
I’m feeling much better about the writing in general. And I’m looking forward to writing this next assignment, particularly a much smaller idea. I’m going to be exhausted by tomorrow, but my goal is to at least write two hundred and fifty words tomorrow of this assignment. Enough to give me who the character is and what the problem is and where the story takes place. I may think a bit of how to make a smaller story from there. Any big ideas will have to be filed away for a later date.
Robyn got up before and is probably downstairs on her computer working away, either on paintings or her schoolwork. I am constantly amazed at how she is just able to knuckle down and get things done. It’s a skill I wish I had, and I admire it in her.
I learned yesterday that today is my neighbour Bopesh’s birthday. Robyn seemed surprised that I knew that bit of information when I mentioned it to her. I guess I talk to my neighbours more than she does.
Last night as we were watching Ted Lasso, I got to wondering what was happening with the character of coach Beard. His entire character arc as been a bit out there this season, and that is saying something. The only thing that makes sense is that he is going through a midlife crisis. The wig or hair change, the new outfits, and the blue contacts all hint that he is trying to look younger. And of course, he had that interaction with a young lady at new years that likely prompted the whole thing.
But is it a successful portray or is it to silly. And I mean is it even too silly for Ted Lasso a show quite comfortable in silliness. This season hasn’t been as good as some of the others, but I find it’s still enjoyable. I feel like this and the show Shrinking are just Brett ‘Goldstiens therapy sessions translated into stories. And I wonder if he sees a therapist to get more story ideas for his shows. Not a bad strategy really. Something for me to ponder one day if I have the extra cash to spend on therapists.
And I will apologize to the therapist in advance for what I am going to put you through during those sessions!
A friend texted me late last night to ask if I had ever read any books by Gene Wolfe. I had to admit I hadn’t, but I was aware of him. I tend not to like writers who veer into the literature section of the bookstore. These books are often more interested in words and less so in story. It’s the worst selling genre of books for a reason!
But having said that, I may read one of his books eventually. It’s a good idea to read different things even if it’s not what you usually reach for.
I took my first break of the day I went downstairs to heat up an apple strudel in the oven, a trick I learned from kiddo #2. You put the pastry, he uses croissants, in a cold oven and set it to 350 F. Once the oven comes up to temperature it’s done. And you end up with a warm crispy croissant with a soft and moist interior.
I made Robyn and myself a tea as well. And it was no surprise to see her sitting at her desk working on school projects.
And to do something different I wrote this last little section on my phone by opening the Word app. I was able to continue where I’d left off even though my laptop is still upstairs with the file open. Isn’t technology wonderful?
I even did a bit of it using dictation, but the results were mixed, likely due to all the road noise. Plenty of transport trucks going by today up the main road.
Maybe they don’t get the paid holiday. Our studio never used to give us the day off until we got bought by a bigger entity.
While I was sitting out front, kiddo #1 came back from the gym, said hello and went into the house. She locked the door after going inside. She does this every time. Now, if I hadn’t been there, she would have left it unlocked. It’s funny how her brain works because I don’t think she is even aware that she is doing it. Luckily, we have one of those doors with keypad entry, but I mean, come on!
I’m back on the laptop and realsing what a monumental task this is going to be. There won’t be much time to take hour long breaks. Maybe ten minutes every two hours if I don’t want to be up to six AM again. It hurts too much to do that every two weeks let alone twice in one week. So, my goal is going to be to ge words down as fast as my fat little fingers can mash the keys.
It’s twelve thirty and I still have just under fourteen thousand words to go. Phew!
I need to see if I can get my words per hour up to the twelve hundred mark. The question is, can I sustain that for an entire day?
Failure is not an option.
Alright. I am at 13,724. I’m going to do a writing sprint and see if I can get it down to 13,000 in a half and hour. That would put me above the 1200 per hour average. Okay! Let’s go.
I was thinking about what books to listen to with all the extra Audible credits I have. One that came up was Frank Herbert’s Dune. I have never read the books. My first exposure the Herbert’s creation was through my dad, when he took me to go see the eighties movie production that famous starred Sting. I was mesmerized by it at the time, and the movie didn’t entirely make sense to my young mind. But the giant worms, spice, the Bene Gessirit mysterious religion and or course spaceships and all the cool tech, like the fighting shields.
The repulsiveness of the Harkonnen Duke and his entire family. Heck, their entire planet.
As a child they were all scary and instantly evil.
Of course, when the new films came out by Denis Villenuve, I was the first in line to see it. I love a good science fiction movie and this one promised to be a big one. It also came during at time that most of the movies be made weren’t very good. And the Dune movies were outstanding in the look and story. So, they stood out. They were a series of beautiful paintings. Every frame a masterpiece. It was akin to watching Lawerence of Arabia. The movies had a grand scope that was captured so well.
But I’d never read the books.
So, I think I’ll get Dune as an audiobook so I can listen to it on the train or when I am working. Part of the reason I think I never picked Dune up was because it’s a bit of a time commitment that I never had the luxury to make.
I’ve really enjoyed other bigger books this was, my all-time favourite being Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts. The story of an Australian, falsely convicted who escapes to a new life in India and eventually falls in love with the land and its people. Never has a book made me want to ear delicious foods and drink a cold beer or hot chai.
So, I have the credits, why not give it a go?
Okay, downloaded and in my library. It clocks in at just over twenty-one hours, which isn’t terrible. Hopefully, they got a really good narrator to read the book. I have spoiled myself with books exclusively read by Ray Porter. The best narrator in the business in my humble opinion.
I’ve got five minutes to write just over 250 words to make my goal. Seems unlikely that I’ll be able to reach it, but at least I got really close to the finish line. This is what I and others a call failing to success. Sure, I might not make the goal but would have come within a hundred words of it. If this was writing a novel, it would mean the book is a little closer to be written and that is a win. We beat ourselves up too much when we don’t get the full win. There is this Survivor mentality that if you lost you no longer matter and you get sent off the island. But that’s just not the way the real world works.
In writing, accomplishments are cumulative. The stack up like the bricks that make a wall.
I was talking to a guy at a party that knew a young girl that committed to writing 250 words per day. She stuck to it and in a year, she had written a book. That means she only committed to writing for about fifteen to twenty minutes a day. It’s the consistency not the volume that really matters.
So, the clock just turned to one PM and I was eight four words short of my goal. I’ll take that failure as a win!
Time to set the next goal. 1 PM to 1:45 PM: one thousand words. Get the quota down to 12, 000 words.
Last night when I received the text from a friend, it got me thinking about some of the people I don’t speak to very often anymore. Some are intentional because they were draining my energy or because I didn’t like their behaviour towards me and others.
I think it’s perfectly fine to axe those kinds of people from your lives. If you aren’t enjoying them, there is a good chance they feel the same way. I am reminded of the show, Things We Do in the Dark and the energy vampire! Some people are just like that.
One person, who I have cut all social media ties with is a genuinely nice person. They dream is also to become a writer, but I never got a sense of solidarity with this person, and it was their online writing and correspondence that led me to block them from my mind. In person they were great, in writing I started do dislike them and then lose respect for them.
And then there are the people who you’d love to spend more time with that you don’t get enough opportunity to spend time with them. Moving away from Niagara meant I was no longer a few minutes away from grabbing a coffee or a pint with a friend. I miss the ease with which we all used to get together, often at a moments notice. We were all just a phone call away from meeting up.
Playing hockey was that way for me as well. There were always pick up games that needed extra people. I haven’t played a game in years. Since I moved permanently away from my hometown. I had good reason to leave. Robyn and the kids were here, and we didn’t want the kids to have to change schools. We decided we wanted them to at least have that kind of stability in their lives. But it there were sacrifices to be made in order to make that come true. One of those sacrifices was not seeing my friends and family as much. And as the years have gone by, the drive back home became longer and longer as more traffic filled up the QEW Highway. The expansion of the highway system has not kept up with the increasing demand. And that means a forty-five-minute drive can sometimes take up to three hours.
And if I am axing people from my life because of the amount of energy they drain, then making a three-hour drive is a great deal of used up energy. So, I don’t make the trip very often and when I am invited somewhere I have to take how long I’ll be sitting in stop and go traffic into account. And most invitations involve driving during the busiest time of day.
And I hate sitting in cars. I despise the Tim Horton’s drive-through with a passion you might find alarming. If I never had to go through a drive-through again I wouldn’t. I hate line ups and the feeling of wasting time. The invention of pre-ordering your beverages before you get there was a genius level idea. But no one uses them in our family but me. Or at least not often enough. We can’t even get in a car without stopping for Steeped Teas!
I’m generally a patient person, but I have no patience for line ups. When went to Cuba for a vacation, there was a cook would made fried eggs while you waited. I ate boiled eggs all week because the were ready and you could just grab them. That’s how much I hate lines. And don’t even get me started on amusement parks and their cattle chutes for humans. No thank you, sir!
I felt the same way the other day when I went into the Long and McQuaid music store only to be ignored by the entire staff for a long period of time. And I mean I am standing at counter, being very obvious about wanting to but something. Those boys have some serious customer avoidance skills. You can tell they have been practicing for a long time. You don’t get that good at not helping people without some experience. So, I stood there for a good while being ignored, ready to spend my hard-earned money. May have well been on the highway to see a friend or in Tim Horton’s line to get a caffeinated beverage.
I guess I hate all kinds of energy and time vampires, whether they be person, animal or thing. Waste my time and you’ll end up on the “Don’t Even” list.
My time working at a fancy Inn in Niagara on the Lake trained me to see service in a different way. We were polite and apologized for making people wait even if there was nothing we could do about it. We at least acknowledged it. And we would never stare a person in the face, about face and walk away without saying a word.
I suppose that’s one of the reasons I despise the drive-through at Tim Horton’s. Some has trained them, or not trained them, to say, “Is that all?” after ever item order. The proper thing to say, would be, “Would you like anything else?” One says please stop ordering food and drinks I can’t take this anymore. And the other says, please buy more of or delicious products.
But all you ever hear is, “Is that all?”
“No, I’d like an apple crueller, as well.”
“Is that all?”
“And a box of ten Timbits.”
“Is that all” You can start to hear the frustration building in their voices. How dare you have an order that is bigger than a coffee and a donut!
I hope you see my point. It’s just bad service and no one is teaching their employees about service. Maybe, I shouldn’t expect that level of service from a coffee shop, but it seems to me to be a simple thing to do. You don’t need a college degree to excel at customer service.
So, darn. It’s 1:45 PM and I missed my goal by thirty words. 😊
Failing towards success.
Time to rest my fingers for fifteen minutes.
So I’m now back for my 15-minute to do this I’m sitting in my Hyundai Santa Fe break which ended up being half an hour. I got on my skull candy hash and see noise cancelling earphones and I’m using Dragon to dictate what I’m saying. I’m going to try something crazy where I try to get 5000 words in the period of two hours by talking.
I’m sitting in the back of my 2015 and a Santa Fe to record this. It’s the one place in the house where I can talk and not feel overheard and feel self-conscious about being heard out loud. Maybe one day I’ll be up to do this without worrying about being overheard but for now sitting in the car is the best sound booth I can find.
So far be working pretty well and getting hundreds of words in a matter of minutes compared to what it would normally take. As an example 15 minutes of typing would get me around 250 words to 300 words on a good day. I think I blew through 200 words in less than five minutes.
I have a book downstairs called 5000 words a minute which talks about using this method to increase your writing quantity. I have no trouble using this to do blogs or nonfiction, but when it comes to making up a story I think I might need to use bullet points and plan out my story ahead of time. Perhaps my next assignment would be a good test of this because I’ll need to think about my assignment before I start writing to make sure I don’t write another novel.
One thing that is clear using this method is giving my hand I break but my throat is going to be raw. I’m not used to talking this much. I’ve brought a can of Perrier in the car with me and keep my throat and mouth moist. I tend to dry out very quickly when I’m constantly talking. Also, it some warm day in the car is a bit warmer than the outside so I’ll need to open the door every once in a while to air it out.
My laptop also produces a fair bit of heat energy that comes out the exhaust port. It’s surprising how much it can eat out a small space like a car.
And to put things in perspective little more, I’m almost at the halfway point for my hourly goal of a thousand words per hour. The last 15 minutes I’ve written about 450 words. That’s still a bit shorter than what I need to achieve my goal of 5000 words in two hours. But it gets me around 3600 words in that same time which is still way more than I would have been able to write by using my fingers and keyboard.
One thing I haven’t tried yet is using Dragon with the new writing software I got from Hugh Howey called Neo. I’ll be interesting to see if it works as well as it does in word. I know Dragon has a word plug-in because they’re both owned by Microsoft.
I just quickly opened Neo and tried to use Dragon to write. A dialogue box opened and allowed me to use Dragon however; it was incredibly slow to the point of not being worthwhile. I think for dictation purposes word is still the best software I have.
But so far the new headphones are working like a treat. They seem to have no problem picking up my voice and there’s very little delay. I think this proves my point that the older Bluetooth systems were too noisy and slow compared to what we have today. Bluetooth five seems to be able to handle dictation without much problem. And this is exciting because I can use the system more often now without having to worry about looking up microphones that may or may not work.
The only thing that needs to change is I need to make sure I talk loud and clearly enough for the software and the microphones to pick me up clearly. And I need to make sure I’m sitting properly so that my throat does not become strength and I be able to do this for much longer periods of time.
I just popped open the car door let some fresh air and to test how the headphones with extra noise coming from the road. I do notice immediately it dropped the software’s ability to pick up words correctly. But since were heading into cooler weather using the car as a sound booth isn’t going to be much more of a problem. I’ll be trying to stay warm not trying to get cool. It is amazing how good these cars are at insulating sound.
One thing that just occurred to me is that I don’t actually need to wear the headphones over my ears. In fact, they can stay wrapped around my neck and probably will pick up the sound much easier than if they were around my head.
Robyn just came out and saw me sitting in the car and realized the project she was working on a school that requires voiceover would have been easier to record in the back of the car.
It should be interesting to try these and noisier setting, and I still need to try them downstairs in the writing cave to see how well they work. The writing cave is still a bit noisier when the washing machine is running and the furnace is running and or there’s people upstairs walking about on the floor. The kiddos tend to walk like baby elephants, stamping their feet on the floor like they are trying to kill ants.
Still so far the attempts to get more words written is working out well. It is now 2:45 PM and I’ve written a thousand words in about half an hour to 40 minutes. That’s a significant percentage increase in words per hour. Imagine that increase multiplied by 365 days and how many more books and stories you can write using this method. I’m still not up to the 5000 words per hour level, but I think it’s something you have to get used to and requires a great deal at practice.
But having said that I have 11,000 words left before I can complete the challenge for this month. That’s down from 15,000 words this morning which is a good start. I’d like to be able to do 11,000 words in 5 ½ hours if I can with a 2000 words per hour speed. Can I do it? I have no idea!
Robyn and kiddo number one and gone to the dollar store to buy miscellaneous cheap items. So I’m all alone in the house sitting in my car like a weirdo, glad that I got a car with tinted windows and pull-up shades. I can only imagine what my neighbours would think. They do like to sit out on their front porch very often and they would have a clear view of me talking to myself in the car. But I guess people are used to that image now, people talking to themselves when in reality they are having conversations on their phones.
Something just happened with the dictation software; it didn’t seem to want to hear what I was saying anymore. I ran a little diagnostic and retrained it while wearing the headphones so it would have a better idea of what to check. I also went into the sound settings of my laptop and made sure the microphone was being used from the headset and not from the laptop. That cost me a good 10 minutes of farting around with the tech. But, having said that, I only have 700 words left to achieve my 1000 words an hour goal. But it’s still a far cry from the 5000 in 2 hours I was hoping for.
I have to keep remembering to drink water while I’m doing this as well. At least my hands are getting a bit of a rest.
I just had some leftover chili from my friend John’s birthday party that we took home as a parting gift from his wife Jody. It was a very nice chili and I will make more of it if she makes it. I particularly liked the large mushrooms in each bite. Doing some experiments right now where I stand further away from the laptop and increase the screen size I can move around and while I’m talking. This has given me an idea project screen of my laptop onto the television in our room and do the same.
Okay, just went upstairs and hooked up my laptop to the TV in our bedroom.
Seems to be working well, but the microphone on the of the headsets don’t seem to be picking up instead is coming from the microphone on the laptop. Yeah, no. It’s not working well at all. Maybe the laptop has been using the built-in mic all along. It works well in the car because I was in close proximity to my laptop in a very quiet environment. So that was a failed experiment with the headphones. I haven’t tried plugging them in directly, but I’ll try that later on when I get caught up with my word count.
So, I am back to typing for the moment. Letting my vocal cords rest for a bit. I also changed my location to the writing cave for a change of scenery and a really comfortable chair. I looked briefly at what microphones might be best to use and came to a company called Speechware that has a bunch of great options. The only problem is that they are sold out of most of their options. And the ones I might consider were definitely sold out. They seem to be popular with people who have disabilities and by doctors. It
But all that investigating and experimentation has cost me my goal. It’s four o’clock and I am about three hundred words behind the minimum I was hoping to achieve.
Okay, you’re back to trying dictation. I’ve connected the mic many from DJI and its transmitter to the laptop. So far, it seems to be working quite well I’m going to do a bit of a distance test second.
Okay I’m still new credit up my hand over my mouth before noise laptop seems to be working very well.
Stepping even further back I can still get some dictation bolts I think the mic many might be right about. Okay just snapped it to my shirt s of ee what kind of results I can get. And it seems to be working really well.
So far this is the most success I’ve had with microphones and dictation. The Speechware microphones sounded great but they’re also about $275. The nice thing about the DJI like any is that I already own it. And it small enough to go just about anywhere. And it can be plugged directly into my iPhone. So, the next thing I’ll try is to have my laptop up to the larger monitor here in the writing cave.
So, on the plus side it works. If there’s a drawback it’s that the courts are all taken up by the monitor out USB C and the DJI transmitter in. I could possibly get around this with some different cables for the monitor, or I could try the USB a out to the laptop from the DJI transmitter. But for now, I can see the text a large screen and the voice dictation is working quite well. This could be the way forward using the mic many for my longer dictation sessions. The only problem we might have today is that I never charged the mic mini and I’m not sure how long they can run for.
A quick Google search tells me that the transmitter and receiver can run for over 10 hours. So, I should be able to charge it while I’m on my next break. I’ve got the laptop powering the receiver so it’s just the transmitter I need to worry about.
And they paired easily with the laptop and with each other.
Sometimes Dragon likes to delete lines of my text for no apparent reason. It’s one of the reasons I like to have the screen in front of me while I’m dictating. The last thing I need is to lose sections of my writing due to a naughty program.
One thing that would make this system better for me is to remember to bring down my glasses. This larger monitor is just far enough away for me to need the corrective lenses. This also means that the DJI mic mini should work upstairs to the bedroom my project the laptop onto my television.
One thing I have noticed is that it is hard to find any tutorials where people describe their dictation set ups. For example, what microphones they use and what programs they use. Which makes it very frustrating for me because I like to do my research before I purchase something. And if I can’t find research it means I have to purchase various products to see if they work for me. I have seen a lot of authors using desk mounted USB microphones. Probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of $100-$300. It’s nice to know that the DJI mic mini works so well.
Right now the air-conditioner is running full blast down here in the basement. It’s one of the large units that’s also a furnace. It’s approximately 15 feet from my location, and there is no door between the rooms. And yet the mic committee does not seem to be affected by the increase in noise. I did a quick online noise level reading, and it came out to approximately 40 dB with air-conditioner running. The software is having a bit more trouble getting all my words but all I have to do is talk slightly louder than I was before.
I can also bring the mic up to my mouth if I need to get a clearer result.
It’s just coming up on 5 o’clock and I have approximately 9500 words still to go. Which means I’m just past the one third point of my goal. Going to take a break and watch an episode of slow horses. While I’m doing that, I will charge up the mic mini.
It probably comes as no surprise that my break lasted longer than an hour. But I enjoy break and the episode of Slow Horses. I also watched a twenty-five-minute video by The Hacksmith and his team who were creating gadgets for Batmobile build. The made a smoke screen, a grappling hook and launcher and added a thermal camera system to their test vehicle.
In the episode of Slow Horses, Lamb, Ho and a young dwarf are riding in Lamb’s car, and the young fellow lets one rip. Lamb counters with his own and the other two try to leap out of a moving car it’s so bad. If you know me at all, and I am not ashamed to admit it, I was rolling on the floor in stitches. Robyn would have been rolling her eyes as she does with any joke involving flatulence.
Currently Robyn and kiddo #1 are directly above me in the kitchen as I work below them in the writing cave. I can clearly make out what they are saying, even with all the padding I’ve added on the makeshift roof of the writing cave. But it means I am not dictating at the moment because I won’t if there is even the slightest chance that anyone could hear me.
But that’s okay as my throat could use a little more rest and my fingers have been waiting on the bench while I was testing and using dictation.
I also want to charge up my laptop because I forgot the big monitor was plugged into it and the battery was draining the whole time I was gone. I don’t think there is a cable that can broadcast your monitor and allow your pc to charge at the same time.
I’ll type for a while and then switch over to the big monitor and the microphones. At least I remembered to bring my glasses downstairs with me this time.
It sounds like kiddo #1 is making us some dinner tonight. And I heard some talk of her making tandoori chicken, which is always delicious. We found some in the frozen section of the grocery store a year or two ago and we grab a bunch of them whenever we see them. Sometimes they aren’t readily available. But it seems like Walmart is now carrying them and that bodes well for us getting a steady supply.
I went outside to retrieve a package of anti-fouling gloves delivered from Amazon, when I noticed the house two doors down was getting appliances delivered. The house sold a little while ago after the older couple that lived there couldn’t be left alone and care for themselves anymore. I guess we might have some new neighbours in the coming weeks. Hopefully they are nice people. The people who used to live there were really kind.
Today is the last day to enter a story into this quarter of the Writer’s of the Future Contest. I had hoped to have written something during my mentor assignments that I could send into the contest, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Luckily, the contest accepts entries every three months. It will be making entering the contest a priority in 2027. I hope by the end of my mentorship I have advanced in the craft enough to have something worthy of the contest’s attention. One step at a time though. I still need to write a contemporary fantasy story that fulfills my mentors asks.
One way I plan to do that this time around is to start on the story tomorrow evening no matter how tired I feel. And then hit it hard this weekend. I know I have said it before, but I can’t do anther marathon writing session again. This coming from the guy who still has nine thousand words to write before he can go to sleep tonight! I have to learn from my wife’s example and do the work whenever there is free time. No more waiting until I feel like it.
Another way I’d like to implement dictation over the winter is by using it while I am walking on the treadmill. I have just about everything set up, I just need to see if my laptop will fit into the iPad holder I bought for the treadmill. Its design should allow me to have the laptop directly in front of me. If not, I’ll Gerry rig something up and make it work.
I really do need to get more exercise the winter. Using the treadmill each evening makes a difference, at least it has in the past. In the winter I am less keen about walking in the cold, particularly at night.
I ate too much junk food last night and today. I’m feeling the effects of not eating a proper meal. I’m glad tonight will be tandoori chicken and vegetables. As part of ramping up my writing, eating properly and getting exercise will help to increase my mental capacity and my physical endurance. You think physicality would have nothing to do with something like writing, but it does affect how you feel and how long you can sit in a chair just thinking away.
I got another quick chess game into to keep my streak alive. It was a close game for awhile, but once again I think I took things away from the memorized games that a lot of players rely on and took it a place of chaos that I was more comfortable playing in. In the end I was able to win the game by slowly putting pressure on his king side while simultaneously blocking his most powerful pieces from doing much in the game.
I like my daily chess habit as it lets me clear my mind and engage it on the other side. There is a logical intuitiveness to it that I enjoy using. I just don’t always get it right of course. Some of my games are complete disasters!
But I have managed to play a game a day for the last 251 days! I think that is a pretty amazing streak!
The YouTuber I watch who is sailing around Spain in a solar boat posted a video yesterday of him towing a smaller sailboat behind him for most of the day. When they finally reached their destination, they still had full batteries. This was while pulling another boat, running a fridge and freezer as well as charging their phones and cooking on an electric single stove. I imagine they were charging all their devices as well, like phones and laptops.
They even had enough power left to charge the battery bank of the guy’s boat they were towing. I’m really looking forward to seeing the next version of the boat he has designed. It will be a power cat and will be designed to be more comfortable, faster and have a greater capacity for range and power generation. The design looks cool and he has a guy back in Norway who is already starting the build. First, he has to make a shed big enough to build the boat in and then he can start assembling it. Some of the pieces have already been cut
If I was a single guy, and a bit younger, I would be doing this right now. As soon as I saw it, living for almost nothing on a boat that provides you with most of your needs seems right to me. The idea of fishing and diving for food can greatly reduce your expenses as well. The thing I like is how cheap he did it and how he keeps adding things as he can afford it.
At his next port of call, he is getting an Auto-Nav, so he won’t be married to the steering wheel all the time. And with a bit of other tech the boat could sail itself at night. Arriving in the morning at new destination seems cool. It’s one of the perks of taking a cruise after all.
But it’s the sense of freedom that I think is the best thing about what he is doing. He still apparently has a job that he does online using his Starlink satellite internet. He can watch videos, do his banking and make calls. And eventually, if he hasn’t already he has a secondary and growing income stream through his YouTube channel and by selling the plans for his boat designs. Not bad way to do it. And he might start getting some sponsorship deals as he continues his YouTube journey. His girlfriend is also on the boat and has an online job too. She also has a channel to promote and potentially make income.
I like that for them and wish them continued success.
I still have to finish watching the movie Pressure. That might have to be a tomorrow thing.
Food’s ready. Time to take a break.
Kiddo #1 made us tandoori chicken with roasted potatoes, peppers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and rice. It made for a tasty meal and a nutritious one as well. It’s a nice change of pace to have someone else other than Robyn and I cooking dinners. She’s slowly learning how to cook different recipes some of them we have never even tried before. Although she doesn’t like quinoa way more than we do and luckily, she hasn’t made it for us yet.
And on top of doing cooking she has also been going to the grocery store and buying all the items necessary to make the food. We certainly appreciate all the extra help around the house while we are so busy with work, school, and my writing studies. It’s nice to see both kids growing into adults. It takes a great deal of pressure off of myself and Robyn.
Recently, the television show Survivor as come back on air. I think we are going to start watching the show with our friends again, but this time we will alternate between our house and their house so that hosting duties are divided equally. We both really enjoyed hanging out with them last year. Of course there will be no hot tubbing at our place. And I think we will simplify the food situation because buying two pizzas from Blondie’s was getting a little expensive. On the days we are hosting will allow me to cook things for my friends. It feels like we haven’t been able to see our friends as often as we would like this whole summer.
The fact it feels like the summer went by in the blink of an eye. It always feels that way, but this summer I felt it even more than ever before.
It’s just coming up on 8:30 PM and I have written a total of 7050 words. At least another 7080 words before I can go to sleep. I think it’s safe to say at this point that I won’t be doing any overtime work for the studio today. Which is a shame because we could really use the extra effort right now to help us get caught up. And to make matters worse some of my team members will have to work today, giving up their day off. That makes me feel like I let them down.
I’ve been squinting at the screen for the last 10 minutes with my glasses perched on my forehead like a dummy. Everything so much nicer and clearer when you put your glasses on. This is what happens now in writing all day, after a crazy week at work and evening crazy or week of writing, things start to slip.
I’m glad I finally booked some vacation time in October. Will be taking a week off and going up to the cottage in Peterborough. Although Robyn will be working and I will be taking vacation. We have plans to celebrate Thanksgiving up at the cottage with Robin’s side of the family. During that trip, we will bring Robin’s work computer up with us and test to make sure that they work as expected. If that test goes well, we will commence with the vacation at the cottage a few weeks later. And since fall is Robin’s favourite time of year, with the turning of the leaves from green to orange, red and yellow it should be very beautiful up there.
I personally I’m looking forward to a week where I don’t have to worry about the show we are working. My plan is to read as much as possible and to write as much as possible. And since there is Internet at the cottage, I’ll watch some writing tutorials recorded by my teachers. I have basically unlimited access to their classes, but I haven’t had a great deal of time to use them. Continuous learning is essential to fulfilling my goals of becoming a professional writer.
I just crossed the halfway point for my word count for today. There’s just about 7400 words written and just about the same to be written. That’s exciting and it feels good to see how much I’ve accomplished already today. On any other day 7400 words would be amazing. On a day like today it’s only halfway!
I’ve got the 5000 words per hour book open in front of me and I think I need to give it another read. When I first read it, I didn’t have all the experience and technical set up that I have now. There may be some things that I missed the first time around that are now more relevant than they would have been to be at start of my dictation journey. I also have another book by a famous author who writes and consults on the new Dune books, who goes by the name Kevin J.Anderson, and who writes almost exclusively while he’s walking up the mountain near his house. While he doesn’t use dictation software, rather he uses a dictation service that is staffed by real humans to do his transcriptions. His reasoning for this is that he doesn’t have to say all the punctuation words or to make quotes. The human transcriber automatically understands his pauses and dialogue and writes them down as they should be written.
The downside of this, of course, is that he has to pay so much money or word. Which isn’t a problem for him because he makes enough money writing that it is a worthwhile expense. And it’s one of the reasons he’s able to write 200,000-word problems while also writing short stories in teaching.
I’ve tried writing while walking and recording myself with a portable recorder. I found it difficult to write that way but maybe in the future when I have more experience creating stories I to will be able to combine exercising out in nature with writing stories that make me a living. I really admire that he can crank out so much high-quality work while he’s walking. It kind of makes me jealous.
Just for fun, I am stuck the mic mini onto the bridge of my glasses using its magnet and it seems to work really well for picking up what I am saying. I suppose I look fairly ridiculous right now. Imagine if you will a baldheaded man with a grey beard and silver glasses. On the glasses is a small dark rectangular box with one of those tiny dead cats to muffle the sounds. No idea what it looks like but I’m sure it’s ridiculous. But hey, it’s working. I seen some YouTuber’s use the mic mini strapped to their baseball cap as a good way to pick up sound.
I might try that later today. When I go upstairs to take a break at nine, I’ll grab a baseball cap.
I took a short break and went upstairs and grabbed a baseball cap. I currently have it mounted on the bill of the baseball. It seems to be working fairly well and picking up my books. I place it on the side of the brim and on the peak of the brim furthest away from me directly in the centre of my mouth and both seem to be working quite well.
While I was taking a break, I ordered a flexible gooseneck iPhone older with the idea of using it as a mount for the microphone. At this point it might not be useful or necessary but having a gooseneck around is not a bad idea. Also, I can only wear a baseball cap for so long before it starts to irritate me.
It’s been a great deal of experimentation surrounding dictation today and it’s been a lot of fun exploring some different ideas for the technology. But it has also been fun seeing some progress in my word count and getting more comfortable talking instead of typing. The software still misinterprets some of my words, but I can’t entirely blame the software for the way I speak. I am normally a soft-spoken person so speaking loudly goes against the grain for me.
But like anything else the more I do it the more comfortable I become. Just upstairs, Robyn is going through the same thing, except for her it was recording her voice to create a video and learning how to upload her assignment. These are all things for her and luckily, we have one of the kids going to the same college as her. A wealth of knowledge that I’m sure she is finding in valuable tonight.
I was thinking on my break, about the artist Michael Whelan and how much his work meant to me in my teens and early 20s. I would often buy a novel simply because he had painted the artwork. To me it was a sign from the publishers that the book you were buying deserved from Michael Whelan cover. And because he was the top illustrator, and demanded his top pay, you knew the publishers would only use him for a book I thought would sell. And that meant they would have to wait for him to become available. It’s still one of my goals to have a Michael Whelan cover grace one of my novels. That would be a real coup in my opinion.
His artwork always had amazing colours, and he was often called the colourist. On top of that he was illustrating some of the best science fiction and fantastical books to be published. I used to play a game where I would go into a bookstore and see if I could pick out which covers were his without looking at the credits. At first this was challenging, simply because I was not as familiar with his work. But after a while it became incredibly easy to pick out which books were his. Some of my friends were amazed that I could pick out who the artist was, but that was just because it was never something they ever thought about. It was only the author’s name that mattered to them when they were looking for books. I guess I’m the same way when we go to see an animated film, I’m more interested in what the background paintings look like versus the story or the animation. But I guess that’s why I paint animation backgrounds for living.
I own every single article book that Michael Whelan ever put out. To my knowledge there are only four books in existence. One of them, my favourite was also the largest and had nothing but full colour images on each page as well as some of the black and white sketches and colour studies he did for each painting. As a young artist, seeing the drawings he made to get to the final product was like looking behind the curtain and seeing how the sausage was made. Once I even emailed him, with a question about colour mixing his acrylic paints, and he even replied. I still have a printout of that email in a book where I collected all my art wisdom.
There was a time I thought the information in the book would be what I used to become a professional artist. It would be a reference guide for me to return to time after time to remember how, what and where to use certain techniques. I still have that book somewhere deep in the shelves, behind other books.
Even to this day, I still take out his art books and marvel at the beauty of them, and I still hope to either be able to paint one as well as him for my own books or to have him pay one for a book I write that is worthy of one of his paintings.
While I was at my friend John’s birthday party this past Friday, he played me his new song that he had written. The song was about a musician needing new guitars to become famous. It’s the old idea that it’s not the player but the instrument that makes them great. It’s an old trap that we’ve all fallen into no matter what your hobby or work is. If your carpenter, you need a special chisel or saw. If you’re an artist, you need an expensive brush or a hard-to-find pencil. And if you’re a golfer it’s always the Club or the ball’s fault for your less than impressive score.
John’s song captured this idea so very well in a comical rock ‘n’ roll way. I thought it had a bit of a rockabilly sound to it as well. Just a groove that keeps you going and tapping your feet. And of course, the lyrics, and the story were something we could all relate to.
I’m glad that my friend started writing music again and has had so much fun in the process. His orchestrations have become more complex as he learns how to use the software and the instruments he has at hand. The two of us are always talking about how important it is to just keep going even if what you’re working on doesn’t work out. We are our hardest critics and me are the ones to self sabotage any chance of success.
I’m happy that we both encourage each other to keep trying, to appreciate each small step towards the final goal. To enjoy the ride and to fail towards success.
It’s now 10 PM and I still have 5800 words to go. 5800 words would be a lot in any given day but today it’s two thirds of the way to the finish line. The funny thing about this type of thing is you have to just keep chipping away at the numbers. Every hundred words is a success and at the time it doesn’t look like much, but he quickly adds up. 100 becomes 200, 200 becomes 400 400 becomes thousand. And before you know it you achieve something that looks tangible but to give up when the chips you’re slicing off are so small would be a crime against your own success.
Last night I was thinking about how I haven’t been keeping track of my streaks during the month of September. Somewhere along the line I stopped filling out my little logbook. Sometimes this was because the book was in another room and other times it was because I was so exhausted I just wanted to go to bed. Sometime this week as we enter into October I will update the book and get it back into working order. Although I’m aware I have kept most of my streaks alive I haven’t given myself the satisfaction of seeing it written down. And seeing it written down helps you get through the tougher times. Those little marks on the paper aren’t there just record what you’ve done there to remind you where going, to remind you of where you started.
After my neighbour passed away last week, I promised his brother-in-law that I would make sure that their lawn got moved. The weather has changed and although I cut it last weekend, the grass is not grown enough to need a second cut so far. I continue to keep an eye on it so that I can honour that promise. I haven’t seen my neighbour’s wife since he past so I haven’t had a chance to ask her if I could cut the backlog as well. They have a lock on their gate going into the backyard ever since they were broken into four or five years ago.
While I continue to keep an eye out, but I am also aware that his wife might want to cut the lawn as a form of distraction. Sometimes keeping busy helps us deal with such a great loss.
I had to unplug the large monitor again to let my laptop charge back up. This is the one flaw in my set up, but I don't think I'd be writing for so many hours in a row under normal circumstances.
It’s kind of sad that both Robyn and I, had so much extra work to do today. Today was meant to be a day of reflection, and introspection for the country. And I’m grateful that I had the time available to allow me to continue my streak and stay in the challenge. Well stay in the challenge so far. I haven’t crossed the finish line yet for September.
But it does seem like we are two ships passing in the night sometimes. And this is probably going to continue for at least the next year while she’s in school and I am continuing to work on my writing career, while we both work full-time jobs. But you don’t get anywhere without putting in the effort and making some sacrifices. We both support each other in our attempts to make a different future for each other.
But that’s what a good marriage is all about. Helping each other achieve the things that are important. Sometimes helping someone achieve something is as simple as being a cheerleader. And I have to thank my wife for all the support she has given me. Some people try to sabotage their loved ones when they are going for something difficult. That’s just not the case between the two of us. And I love that.
One thing that never occurred to me, was whether or not my blog software could handle a 15,000-word entry. I guess we’ll find out in four or five hours when I get this thing done. I suppose if it doesn’t work, I can split it into part one and part two.
I also have to give a shout out to our friends Paul and Laura who donated the chair I’m sitting in. It’s a small lounger covered in black fake leather with two stainless steel cupholders one on each side. What makes it comfortable for writing is the electronic lounging. With a push of a button legs come up and the back reclines.
I find this chair allows me to sit for hours comfortably, and that means I get more writing done. Any other spot in the house tends to give me a sore back eventually. I also like that I can adjust the position of my legs every so often which also reduces any fatigue. The only other chair in the house that I found to be this comfortable is my old recliner that is in one of the kids rooms. And because that particular kid is home right now it means I don’t have a chance to use it.
So, this new chair has been a godsend to me. In fact, it might be the perfect writing chair for me right now.
It’s also just realized that Dragon Dictation has a setting that turns off commands so that it’s only listening for dictation. For me this means getting rid of some of the pesky behaviours that are triggered when it misunderstands what I said as a command. Words like open, or cut can cause issues. And sometimes I have no idea why it’s doing what it’s doing. But this new setting seems to have caught most of the issues.
However, this means some of the commands I would use while writing are also disabled but I think that’s okay. One of the commands Dragon uses to make it stop listening is, “Go to Sleep,” which with the commands turned off makes it just type those words.
I’ve just mounted the microphone on to a flexible goose arm to see how that works. Now the microphone is pointed towards me and directly in the centre of my body. And it seems to be working really well, probably better than any other configuration. Which makes sense if you think about. Why wouldn’t clean the microphone directly in front of you work better. This makes me feel better about the longer gooseneck I purchased from Amazon, which should arise tomorrow. Hopefully, it will allow me to mount it in a better location than where I have it now.
Not having to wear a baseball cap is a plus in my opinion. I’d rather have something on microphone stand, or a jerryrigged gooseneck clamp.
It’s amazing how many different configurations I’ve gone through today testing out different microphones, headsets, and different positions. It’s kind of fun but also, it might be the wrong day to be doing this. In fact, it’s almost certainly the wrong day. But then again not everything I learn about the craft of writing has to do with the actual writing itself. Sometimes it’s about having the right process and tools available to you.
It seems like everyone else is upstairs watching shows or relaxing and I’m still downstairs in the writing cave. There is an innate loneliness, or perhaps it’s better to say solitude to be a writer. It’s a good thing I’m okay being alone as I’m always find in my own company. Not that I want to be by myself all the time, it’s just that I’m okay with that.
I haven’t been paying attention to the news for the last couple of days, so I was surprised to hear that on a plane flight to Israel one of the pilots try to stab the other. It appears the goal of the attacker was to down the plane somewhere over Israel. One has to imagine this has something to do with all the bombings happening in Palestine.
There are some very sad things going on in our world.
Also in the news, I see that Apple TV has announced that they are seeing a huge jump in viewership since the Emmy awards. Probably because they have so many shows that one awards this year. And they have a whole roster of new shows coming out like Neuromancer. And on top of the many of their shows and have multiple seasons also one awards. Which if you’re one of the people who is just discovering them means you have multiple seasons too big to watch. October reported that viewership was up 200 to 275% on some of their shows. And since they are likely the smallest streamer, that’s a huge win for them.
I’ve mentioned in this blog many times before that I think they are doing the best job of creating shows of all the big streamers. It’s nice to see that their consistency is paying off. That should mean that they will continue to hold the course and keep producing high-quality entertainment.
And in other news, just as the EU and Canadian governments get ready to sign a trade deal, tariffs are being imposed on Canadians by the United States. Donald Trump stated that this was to teach Canadians a lesson, because they had been very bad. And as I said that out loud, I thought to myself what an odd thing for the president to say. But I guess it’s just to be expected from a person like Trump.
As a Canadian, I’m quite proud of our prime minister, Mark Carney, who has gone out into the world with his teams to secure trade deals with other countries. Often, it is trade deals that present the escalation of differences into wars and fighting. So, I applaud Carney’s efforts to create relationships with other nations. I’d rather have a prime minister looks to build bridges then tear them down.
I am starting to feel fatigued from doing this all day. This is the dangerous point. This is the part were quitting seems easier than continuing. But quitting right now would render all the hours I put in today pointless. And there’s no way I’m going to do that. I’ve worked too hard not only today, but throughout the entire year to stay in this challenge. I gave up working extra hours which would have made me more money to sit at my computer and work for free. To work for myself. To work for my family. To work for our future.
It would be so easy to give up right now. I have half a mind to do it but I just won’t let myself. It’s coming up on 11:30 PM and I still have about 4000 words left to right. If I can do a thousand words an hour that’s still another four hours. That means I’d be going to bed around 3:30 AM. The course that means I will be nearly as useful in the morning for work. Coffee can only do so much.
Still it’s nice to see that counter going below 4000 words. I’m trying to let it give me a little boost, help push me over the finish line.
My writing teacher has been talking about copyright over the last few weeks. This is a topic she comes back to often and has been talking about it more often because of the anthropic settlement. Since he and his wife both house hundreds of books that could be considered as part of a lawsuit and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars it’s top of his mind. But it is also an excellent illustration of why you should not sell your copyright to anyone ever. As a writer you should hold on to your copyright no matter what. You never give the copyright away. Any deals you make with movie production companies or gaming companies always have a return date. Meeting your work always comes back to you.
One thing that came up during the anthropic settlement, while he was going through the list of books, he would receive money for, was a list of people he knew that were owed money. The problem was there was nobody claiming that money for the estate. Which means money was left on the table by people who should’ve known better. It’s just another reminder that writing good stories is only part of the business. You also have to know all about copyright and contracts.
I was telling you earlier that kiddo number one had cooked us dinner and how wonderful that was. I just went up into the kitchen and found all the leftover chicken and vegetables sitting on top of the stove. So naturally, I went and boxed it all up in sealable containers before putting it in the fridge. Every time you think they finally understood, they do something to remind you that they are not quite ready for the world yet. It’s a good thing their cute!
Our friends John and Jody were asking us about joining them on a vacation in November to Jamaica. Unfortunately, with Robyn attending school and a lack of finances we had to say that we couldn’t go with them. Our big vacation this year is going to be the cottage in October. Personally I’m hoping we might get away sometime in February or March. February always feels awful for the two of us. Every year we say we should have got away in February.
I, however, they also have a week of writing lessons in Las Vegas in 2027. The course was originally supposed to take place in 2025. It was cancelled twice, both times because of the chaos that Donald Trump was causing in the United States. There were also multiple airline crashes due to a lack of air traffic controllers. At the time it was decided by the teachers that their country just wasn’t safe enough for us all to travel.
I still need to reach out to my teachers and see if it’s going to happen this year. I haven’t heard them talking about it so far. And I’ll need to plan my trip including plane and where I’ll be staying. I’m hoping to get an affordable air BnB or a cheap motel near their condo where the classes will be held. At least they are far enough off the main strip I should be able to find something in my price range. Either way, I am looking forward to meeting my teachers and the other students in person. And I’m looking forward to the challenge of writing adventure stories during that week.
I recently started to think about any adventure stories that I had read and liked. Any Alistair MacLean novel comes to mind and the recent book I read called The Sand Pebbles. I have a few upstairs from the fifties and sixties. Adventure novels were very popular with men back in those times. I guess anything by Clive Cussler might qualify as well. His Dirk Pitt character is probably the most famous one. A daring marine engineer, adventurer, and government agent all rolled into one man. And you could maybe include some John D. MacDonald books in there too.
I should really see if there are any modern books that have that sense of adventure to them. I suppose Shantaram might qualify as one of them as well. It’s an adventure in India.
Perhaps Shogun might be considered an adventure novel as well. More research is needed to be sure.
Kiddo #1 told she was excited for her birthday coming up in October and when I asked her why she said I was because she knew we would be taking her to Red Lobster. Somewhere along the way it became a tradition. I think it was Robyn’s mom who started it. And then we continued it almost as a tribute. Funny how excited the kids get thinking about it though. They even get the dessert the same way every time. The get the chocolate cake which Robyn shares with kiddo #1 and kiddo #2 wants the ice cream that comes with it. Robyn eats the outside of the cake and Kiddo #1 gets the middle section. I usually order a coffee so I don’t feel left out.
Over the years I have come to love their salmon bowl. The Brussel sprouts might have a lot to do with it. Of all the places, I think Red Lobster has the best Brussel sprouts in the world.
I just popped upstairs to get a slice of bread slathered in peanut butter. I need to keep my energy up while I am writing. Particularly as I close in on the finish line. That is when the desire to quit hits the hardest.
It’s twenty minutes to one AM and I still have about three thousand words to get written. That puts my head on a pillow around three forty-five. Much later than I wanted to get there.
It might be time to get back to using dictation to get myself caught up or maybe even a little ahead of the game.
Okay, here we go. Back to dictation using the set up that seems to work the best. Robyn asked me if I was going to go into the studio tomorrow. And that’s a good question. I’m also not sure what the answer is because it depends on what time I finish beating the quota for this challenge. She was only asking so that we weren’t in the bathroom at the same time in the morning, and she also needs to get up early. Fortunately for her she got to get into bed at a decent time. I wish I could say the same. But it does raise the question is it worth going into the studio tomorrow.
Technically, it’s considered mandatory that we go in on Thursdays. This is a mandate that comes from our client. Recently, the client has instructed us to push back on the cause that they were making. It only just occurred to me that one of the things we could push back on is the mandatory in studio days. Working from the studio is only mandatory for this client. No one else had the nerve to demand that from our studio. It’s on nights like these, when I know I will be exhausted in the morning that I would prefer not to drive a car.
If it were wintertime, and there was snow on the ground I would not go in.
I also still need to take the car into a collision reporting Centre as well as talk to my insurance company about the accident that happened on Sunday. I suppose there’s no reason why I couldn’t do all of that on Friday. The thing that has me going in tomorrow is the amount of work we have to do. Not being there might look bad to the others I work with. And I wouldn’t want to do that to them.
I’m wondering how busy things will get at Christmas this year. My sister sighed the family along with my mother and father are travelling to an island in Mexico for Christmas and New Year’s. Neither Robyn nor I can afford to go and neither of us likes to travel during that time of year. That probably means that they want to have an early Christmas dinner before they leave. And Robyn side of the family will also want to have something as well. The problem with having time off for Christmas, is that you never actually get to have any of it for yourself. The time is filled with driving here and there. It’s a time of multiple parties and get-togethers.
Strangely my favourite time was the year we all had Covid and we couldn’t go anywhere. We watched sopranos for two weeks straight and ordered food in from places we loved. There weren’t many calls and we were freed from all obligations. To me that was a wonderful Christmas. Bah Humbug!
That took a quick break and watched a video on the DJI mic minis and saw that there was a little booster for dB on the transmitter. I have now set the booster to 12. I think the idea is that it boosts the signal to get a higher volume from the microphone. The question is will it understand me better and pick up more words accurately. It seems to be working pretty good so far and I’ll keep it on the highest setting for the time being. The experimentation on my dictation set up never seems to end.
The hard part of getting this far into the challenge today is that I am running out of topics to discuss. Not that there aren’t millions of things to talk about is just trying to figure out which ones. One thing that is clear, is that I need to tidy up my writing environment, it’s gotten a little out of hand. Maybe that’s something I’ll try to do this coming week before I get too far into my next mentor assignment. It would be nice to have a fresh clean area to work in for the next step in my writing journey. I also am overdue for backing up all my stories. They currently only live on my laptop, at least the most recent ones. The older ones are already backed up on SD Drive.
I noticed when I was looking for in the short stories that some were missing and I wasn’t able to add them to Neo. One of the good things about Neo is it acts like a backup system for all my stories simply by uploading them to that software.
Sounds like Ridley Scott’s movie Dog Stars is taking at the box office, badly enough that is being pulled from theatres by Disney. Which is disappointing because I thought it might have been one of the movies that help bring people back to the theatres. However, it’s not getting great reviews, and it doesn’t seem to be making any money. Course there’s always the chance it will do well when it goes to the streaming platforms. One has to imagine it will go to Disney first and then possibly the others.
There’s been a bunch of disappointing movies this year, most of them have not performed well. We still have doomed to look forward to but I don’t think there’s much else that could move the needle.
Just approach the 2000-word line, which means I likely have two hours left before all it the quota for the month. Boy it’s going to feel good crossing the finish line. Part of me still can’t believe that I’m at this once again scrambling at the very end. Will I ever learn my lesson? Probably not.
I’ve been thinking about my garden recently and wondering if growing certain foods is worth it. I definitely enjoyed the cherry tomatoes and the strawberries. I doubt we’ll be able to grow peppers next year unless we start them super early. The tiny tomatoes, the ones the size of blueberries were not that tasty and had very thick skins. I will grow those again. The larger tomatoes did okay but they weren’t as big as I was imagining. Probably they needed more sunlight. However, the tomatoes from the cherries in large ones were very tasty. I was hoping to get enough large ones to use in a chicken Ruby recipe. It would’ve been nice to harvest the tomatoes from our garden and use them in that special recipe.
Next year I would like to get three strawberry baskets so that we always have strawberries. The one small plant we had this year produced quite a bit of fruit. I think the squirrels enjoyed it too maybe once too often. It produced smaller strawberries, but they were bursting with labour. We get enough strawberries next year I’d like to make some strawberry jam.
After all the recent problems we have with our refrigerator freezing up it seems to have corrected itself. I unplugged it for a few hours while I was working on Tuesday and after I plugged it in it seems to be fine. Maybe it just had some ice that wouldn’t defrost any other way. Nonetheless it’s working once again. I also did some adjustments to the microwave range hood so that it shuts properly and stay shut. That also seems to be working well now however I suspect I will have to add larger steel plates for the magnets to attach to sometime in the future.
I suspect for the fridge that humidity had something to do with it. The last time it acted up was when we had a lot more humidity than normal.
It’s getting even harder as I get closer to the end to keep myself motivated to stop myself from calling it quits. Even my throat is starting to get a little croaky. Although I know using dictation is so much faster than typing the words manually. And my hands are very tired from working all day on Sunday and then all day today. That’s a lot of typing. I also did a couple thousand words yesterday as well. There’s no rest for the wicked and apparently I have been very very wicked.
I just remembered I forgot to respond to my sister who wanted to know what was going on for Thanksgiving and when we would be back from the cottage. She said they were going to be having a prime rib dinner which is something I enjoy. It’s not often we can afford to beef these days, so when the opportunity arises I’d like to take part in it. But I just haven’t had the time or energy to look into the matter. My sister likes to climb months in advance and I am more of a two days before kind of guy.
Down to the last 1500 words probably the hardest 1500 words of this entire blog. It’s easy to admit that I’m running out of things to talk about, I mean it’s not like my life that interesting that they could be covered in 250 words in a day. It’s also hard to talk about what you did stay when all you did was this writing this blog. Never even left the house today, not even once.
I have an audible subscription where I pay a monthly fee and in return, I get one credit to download an audiobook. This month I purchased three books, a David Sedaris essay, a Dennis E Taylor Bobiverse book and just today Frank Herbert’s Dune. I guess what struck me as funny just now is that I just received my next credit for October and I still have five other credits from before. I really need to start listening to audiobooks again while I’m commuting. Sometimes they’re nice to listen to while I’m lying in bed an hour or two before I plan to go to sleep. I find they can be quite calming and it doesn’t keep you awake the same way watching television does. And of course you don’t have to worry about blue light messing with your sleep schedule. I shouldn’t say sleep right now as it’s all I want to do.
Another author I’ve enjoyed recently write science fiction is Adrian Tchaikovsky. His books are pretty whacked out in that he often thinks hard about extrapolating a situation until it becomes something quite interesting. I think it’s his work is very original although it can be a bit dry with science fact. If you’re not someone who doesn’t like that sort of thing you might find his books tedious. But if you do like that sort of thing is books are very engaging.
One of his stories extrapolated what a planet where the main species was spiderlike might have evolved into. We did a very good job of thinking like a spider which is very difficult to do for many authors. It definitely would have been safer to stay in the viewpoint of the human characters, but Tchaikovsky isn’t afraid to go there.
I also listened to Matt Dinamin’s Dungeon Crawler Carl book. It was in the Rev. Rob through a literary RPG world. There seems to be a rise in these types of stories that are fun and the little wild. Probably not the kind of thing that would’ve been published if there were only traditional publishers. And yet people seem to love it.
Were coming up on little after 2 AM and I still have about a thousand words left to write. I think my estimate of finishing around 330 in the morning is probably on point. Unless of course I get a burst of inspiration and start talking nonstop about this topic or that topic. But since my brain is full of mush right now I’m not expecting such good results.
That I’m using or was using to hold the microphone came from a store in Haliburton where we vacationed the summer. And normally a regular sized baseball Looks like it belongs to a child on my big fat head. But low and behold, these hats actually fit my big noggin. And they look good for once. I got in to the store looking for a Haliburton hoodie that I had seen in years previous. But the hoodies on offer this year didn’t seem to be as good quality so I moved over to the hat section and imagine my surprise when I found two hats that fit my hand and looked it.
On the first trip I bought one hat because it was $35. But as we got back to the cottage I realized I would never find I had fit quite as well for a long time. So, when we went back into town the next day, I made sure to buy a second hat of a slightly different colour.
That’s something Robyn and I have discovered over the years. There have been times when we came across something that we both knew we should get but for whatever reason we didn’t, whether that be financial or logistical reasons. There are two items will always talk about not purchasing. The first was from our trip to Disney the kids. We went to a gift shop that had original oil paintings by some of the Disney animators. There was a painting on the wall of catain Hook that captured both of our attention. It was a bit pricey and we had to worry about shipping it but we both fell in love with it and ultimately decided not to buy it. We still talk about that painting to this day.
The second is a set of gliding chairs that we wanted for the front porch. We found them at Costco and thought they would be easy to get at any time. Of course we know much better now at Costco changes their suppliers almost all the time. And so, when it came time for me to buy the hat I remembered these two other items that helped me make the decision without regrets.
That’s how I feel about taking holidays now. We may not have the money to travel, but will we remember the money we spent a year from now. My thought is no, what we will remember is the amazing time we had together. The bill will be paid the money will be gone that’s okay.
Down to the last 600 words.
What oh what do I talk about?
Suppose I’ve been thinking about my upcoming birthday, not so much about the day or a party. Just that I’ll be a little bit older and I’m on the other side of that hill. You know the one? The one that’s all downhill.
I suppose as you get to this age mid-50s you start to think about all the things you didn’t do, and you start wondering if you’re on the right path. For myself I can’t really complain, I’ve always been a mostly creative person say slight logical bent. But I do think my artistic days as a visual artist are coming to a close. And instead of being upset about this I look forward to starting a new chapter of my life where I create worlds and visions from words.
And is no surprise that I like a job where I can be anywhere and still making a living. If I was a writer, I could be on the shores of the beautiful beach, with palm trees sunshine in the cool breeze and no one would know the difference. Except me of course.
I’ve also done the math on how many words you need to write per day to write a book a year and it somewhere around 250 words per day. So let’s say I want to write six books a year. That’s only 2500 words per day. Assuming you don’t have any other work other than writing, that would put you at work for less then four hours a day. And as you approved would likely only have to work two hours a day at least on the writing part. Granted there would be more work to do selling your books and updating your website.
But you could also get a movie or TV deal from your intellectual property that will meet spending a little time with some lawyers. But even after all that you’re still working less than eight hours a day on average.
Well, it’s getting down to the final last couple hundred words. Maybe about 250 words left to go until I’ve reached this month’s quota and completed the challenge. I’ve got to tell you it feels pretty damn great to have put in the time and the effort to be at this end of the challenge. Little voice in my head told me that writing almost 15,000 words today was ludicrous and impossible. But I proved to myself that can be done, granted dictation certainly helped speed me along. I think I say this at the end of every month, but don’t you think writing 2000 words a day will be easier now that I’ve done 15,000 in a day. Will I actually learned my lesson this time? Based on the last few months I’m going to say, I will not learn. But damn I wish I would.
I suspect this blog post is far too long for anybody to have read this far but if you skip to the end thanks for coming. I’m glad we could spend this time together even if you’re reading this in my past. I somehow managed to finish an hour ahead of where I thought it be. Well, it’s really 45 minutes ahead of schedule. But that’s 45 more minutes of sleep I’ll get tonight.
And with these last words, I cross over into a completed challenge for the month of September.
Till tomorrow.