#399 - Eagles and 8000 Words

Another day of sleeping in until I woke naturally.

I was up around nine thirty and headed downstairs to make a tea and some English muffins with more pepper jelly. I grabbed a few chunks of marble cheese as well for good measure.

Heading back upstairs and getting into bed, I grabbed my iPad and watched the last episode of Lupin on Netflix. It was an engaging season, and it was lots of fun to watch. We could do with more shows like that. I hope it gets another season greenlit because I think it deserves it.

Lying in bed and eating my breakfast while watching a show was a great way to start my day. After that, I watched a YouTuber who made a small houseboat and took it out on a multi-day tour of a river to get to a giant waterfall. I don’t know why, but I like to watch these kinds of videos, maybe because I wish I was making things and going on adventures.

Robyn messaged me to take a walk with her at lunch. We decided to walk into town instead of hiking the trails on the property. The weather was cool and my hoodie was still too smoky from the night around the fire, so I put on a second shirt.

We headed out with the goal of walking to the Tim Hortons and ended up at the Mark’s Worth warehouse. I found a new zip up sweater that looks a little more refined than a hoodie and I thought it made for a nice option when a hoodie would be out of place. And my hoodies tend to go missing around our house.

Robyn found her winter boots there as well and a soft, wide scarf. The lady behind the register was a bit of a character. I would hate to have to work with her myself, but it was funny to watch as she told a customer that the sale prices on an item had ended, she was just too busy to remove the old signs and put up the new ones. She also would butt in anytime a customer tried to ask the young man who was also working there. I got the sense that he was completely fed up with her. I imagined him planning her death as soon as all the customers left.

We headed over to the Dollar Store because Robyn’s sunglasses broke while we were walking. She found a cheap new pair, and we grabbed a few other items like a loaf of bread, chips and some lip balm. The walk back was nice, and I had my new sweater, which came in handy as a cool wind had picked up. The walk back to the cottage gave us a chance to have a chat and that is always a good thing for a married couple to do. A nice walk with my best friend.

We talked about how we thought we could both live here in Parry Sound and be happy here. I think we like the slower place of life and the natural beauty of the land. The people seem friendly and more than willing to talk. It’s one of those places where everyone waves to each other as they pass in their cars. You really notice the difference when you’ve spent too much time living in the GTA.

Once home, Robyn got back to work, and I fired up my laptop to get a start on my writing. I thought I would experiment with a split window with the right-side having Word and the left running a documentary about the Eagles. I’ve been enjoying watching some music documentaries over the past few years. It’s always amazing to see how interconnected the main players are to all the other. The Eagles were friends with Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt to name a few.

I loved the story about how Jackson Browne taught some members of the Eagles how to write a song. They could hear him playing in the basement and all the breaks he took. They quickly deduced that it came down to elbow grease, hard work and keeping at it.

They learned to become a tight band by touring with Linda Rondstat.

Of course, with that many alpha types in the band it was only a matter of time before egos clashed. And much like the Beatles it comes down to who gets their songs on the album, to who gets to sing the song. That dynamic is what fueled the fire to keep getting better.

I loved the story where the title for Life in the Fast Lane, came from on of the band member sitting in the passenger seat of a drug dealer going way above the speed limit. The dealer leaned over and said, “Life in the fast lane, baby.”

So far, my experiment of the dual window is making the writing enjoyable as well as giving me things to talk about. And that is probably the best part for me!

Eventually, I needed to take a break, and I moved my car from the top of the hill back down to the regular parking area. Then I jumped into Robyn’s car and parked it where mine had been. It was time to unpack all the Christmas decorations from her car and drag them into the great room. Robyn’s car was basically filled with decorations, wreaths, and a seven-foot tree.

It took a few trips to get it all out of the car and I was glad I took the time to switch the cars. Carrying all that stuff up the hill would have been a real chore. It basically cost us an extra $200 in gas to take a second car up to Parry Sound. And there is a chance that my sister-in-law will take it all down by the time we come back for the holidays.

I was told my brother, and sister-in-law had it in their heads to get a real tree this year. Maybe they even planned to take one from the property and make a whole thing of it with the kids. They certainly have enough trees on the land to make that happen. Who knows? My husbandly duties as a pack horse are fulfilled. The rest is outside of my purview.

We got a nice sunny day again. It was only the day that Alison came up that we’ve had any cloudiness. The sun is getting low in the sky at four. I guess daylight savings time is coming up shortly. And a quick search tells me it’s this Sunday that the clocks go back. At least we’ll get an extra hour of sleep this weekend.

And we all know how much I love a little extra sleep.

I haven’t seen the kiddo all day. I think he is staying in his room and working on editing his film and writing an essay. He’s got a good worth ethic when he sets his mind to something.

I think we will make some tandoori chicken tonight for dinner and keep things simple. I don’t feel like making anything fancy. Mostly, I don’t want to spend the time cooking when I could be resting or writing. I would like to take another walk along the property after Robyn is done her work for the day. I could use the exercise, since I didn’t really get any yesterday.

We ended up walking the perimeter of the property. I wore my new sweater and was happy to have it. The weather was much cooler at five PM and in the woods the sun is less warming. We ended up on the dock and enjoyed the sunset and the view for a moment before heading back to the main house.

For dinner, we chose to make curly pasta called Rotini with meat sauce. It was even easier to make than the tandoori chicken and I was all in for that reason alone. I learned today that Rotini was translated from the Italian to “Small Wheels.” Small circles makes more sense to me, but who am I to contradict the internet?

I wish we’d brought some garlic bread with us, and I suppose I could make some, but again too much work involved for this guy who is on vacation. But I may have convinced the kiddo to make us some emergency garlic bread.

 Somehow, I managed to get the kiddo to make the emergency garlic bread. It was drier than I would have liked, but beggars can’t be choosers. The pasta meal was simple and filling. The kiddo fried up some hotdog slices and added them into his pasta. The thought of it made my stomach turn a little, but as long as it made him happy that’s what matters.

My phone alerted me that there is a new Season of Dexter: Resurrection, the serial killer with a code of justice and now a son that seems to be following in his footsteps. The last season of this show was good, and we are hoping they hit the mark again this season.

And there is an episode of Mobland to watch as well as another episode of Dark Matter. Dark Matter just seems to keep going. I’d expected it to end by now for some reason. The weekly release date likely has something to do with that as well.

I’ve only managed to write about sixteen hundred words today. That’s much lower than I was hoping for. It’s going to be a late night for me, I think. I’ll likely break out the dictation gear when everyone else goes to bed for the night. I can go and sit in the car without much worry of it getting too warm. It’s the perfect weather for dictation in a parked car.

The real key to me getting writing done is becoming plainly obvious to me, although it is the least attractive of all the options. I need to get my writing done first thing in the morning before all the other people and obligations start vying for my attention and time.

So, I am going to need to spend some time figuring out how to transition to a morning person. I have seen the cold turkey method, the gradual method and the reward method. None of them have ever worked out for me.

And then once I find the best method that I think will work for me, I need to implement it. Some systems take longer than others to get used to. And they say it takes at least three weeks for a new habit to form. I’d love to get a sleep mask that has a light alarm feature to it. There are at least two on the market, but they are well over two hundred dollars US. A little too champagne for my homebrew budget.

Maybe I’ll be able to find something in the future. I have a light-based alarm clock at home, but I don’t want to wake the sleeping beauty beside me. One thing all the videos recommend is not to have any caffeine until about an hour after waking. Others recommend red light therapy, but that’s not a cheap option either. In the summer I can just go outside and face the sun with my eyes closed. But in winter here, the sun isn’t up that early. They also recommend working out in the morning instead of at the end of the day because it gives you an energy boost.

The next thing to do is to eat a high protein diet.

I can do get up early, no caffeine for an hour, go for a walk, and eat some eggs. Just missing the red-light therapy. Four out of five has to be okay, right?

Robyn has the Christmas tree up and is decorating the great room with wreaths and trim. The tree came our friends who are downsizing and needed to get rid of this tree because it won’t fit in the new place. They don’t have a new place yet, but they know they are headed to a much smaller condo or apartment. The tree looks nice centered in front of the Great Room’s main window. There is still plenty of space in the room, so it doesn’t make it feel any smaller.

I’ve still got the Eagles documentary going and it’s still interesting. It was cool to hear that even though they weren’t releasing music for decades, their records were still being played on the radio. It wasn’t until a tribute album was put together for the Walden Wood conversation charity put on by Don Henley. They realized that there was still a fanbase out there. And Travis Tritt even did a video where he had the guys from the Eagles in it and at one point there were all up on the stage. Just another vector that might have pushed the guys to get back together.

There was a bit of bite at the end to the one member of the band that was cut from the band. The credits role and some text says: The Eagles are… and lists only four of the members. The man cut form the band is not listed there.

The kiddo just offered to make me a pisco sour!

Life is just too good sometimes.

Robyn and I watched the latest episode of Mobland and it was as entertaining as usual. Helen Mirren is still killing it in this series, and she must be having so much fun playing this character.

There was a new episode of Dexter: Resurrection on Apple TV as well and we happily watched the season premiere. The show is keeping with it’s winning formula and doing a great job. The previous Dexter show, the second one, was not as interesting. I think they decided to get back to the winning formula of the first series with Resurrection. And the fans of the original Dexter series are loving it.

With the clocks going back this weekend, it seems like some of the other provinces are abandoning the practice of Daylight Savings Time. Ontario, where I live will continue to use the time change and the company I work for even put out a memo. On the plus side, the three-hour difference in time zones between our various studios in now only two hours apart. That will make talking to our colleagues in British Columbia a little easier. Not that I needed to ever really do that. But it’s certainly possible that I could happen in the near future.

Tomorrow, I’ll need to take a trip to the local dump in town to drop off some garbage bags and recycling. The cottage has a weekly pick up, but you can’t really put the cans out early or it will attract wildlife. And we would be gone by the time the cans needed to by brought back up. It seemed easier to just take our garbage into town. And since Robyn made her world-famous seafood boil, there is some smelly garbage that all kinds of critters might be interested in.

And I certainly don’t want to make the three or four-hour trip with it in my car. The drive into town is going to be pungent enough.

Everyone else has gone to bed. It’s a little after eleven and I have just a tad over 5000 words left to write before I can go to sleep. It’s crunch time tonight and all day tomorrow.

I’ve got a You Tube channel that plays instrumental versions of famous bands. Not sure if it’s legitimate or AI produced, but I like some of the compositions.

It’s called Coldplay — Full Dark Symphonic Orchestra Cover | Inspired by Vivaldi, Bach & Paganini

https://youtu.be/-TTWmeR0eHc?si=A066Z1l3cKDSDaHp

It’s good music for writing. I can write when the song has the words being sung as well. Words get in the way of words, I guess. Even though I know all the words to the Coldplay songs.

In a little while I’ll switch over to dictation to see if I can increase my speed. There is no way that I’ll have the stamina tonight to get to the daily total of eight thousand words. I’ve got over five thousand to go and doubling my speed means I get a better night’s sleep.

The Eagles documentary got me thinking about how I used to write songs with a friend. And I’ve always wondered what would have happened if we kept working on that skill set. In all the documentaries it’s obvious that the main thing that got people success was never quitting, a bit of luck, and meeting the right group of people or individuals.

I know why I stopped writing with my friend. It’s the same story of the Eagles. One person wasn’t happy unless they had final say. And writing music became an exercise in slowly losing patience with the other. Maybe they felt the same way about me too.

But since those days I have met other people, one of whom is currently writing and recording his own tunes. He ‘s the second or third person I know who still does this. It seems a shame that the two of us haven’t collaborated. For my part, I am well out of practice, but that can be remedied. We both own the same DAW, (Digital Audio Workstation), software, so swapping song files would be relatively easy.

I’d have to learn more about the software and interfacing the midi keyboard I own as well as recording mics and other bits and bobs, but it might be something I add in the new year when my writing mentorship is finished.

Okay, I’ve switched over to the dictation software to hopefully speed up my word count. And because I’ll be talking out loud I moved downstairs into the basement bedroom so that I want to disturb people sleeping upstairs. There on the second floor and there is the first floor in the basement between us, so that should be enough sound insulation to keep everyone happy. I was happy to see that the DJI microphone software worked flawlessly and connected without any issues as soon as I plugged it in.

It’s almost midnight, and I’m just over 3000 words written. My goal is to hit 5000 words by 1 PM. Here’s hoping I can keep up the pace. I’ve cracked open and Alani energy drink to give me the boost I need and to whet my throat.

It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to listen to the book, Children of Dune, tonight but I will have all the time to listen to it while I’m driving home on Sunday. And that will get me at least three hours of listening time.

I wish I had brought an extra HDMI cable with me so I could plug my computer into the TV that is down here in the basement bedroom. It would’ve made walking and talking a little more easier, in that I would have had more range to walk around and still see this. Having said that, I’ve just removed the privacy screen for my laptop to give me a wider angle of view.

One of the good things about writing downstairs this evening is that it is much colder downstairs and it should help keep me awake longer. Hopefully, it doesn’t also use up extra energy to keep me warm.

Getting back to the topic of writing music with a friend, I opened the software and played with it for a few minutes before realizing I had no idea what I was doing and even after following a quick tutorial I couldn’t get it to work. There’s definitely a deep dive that needs to be done in order for me to figure this out. And I may be able to get some tips from my friend who is now more familiar with the software after using it for the last three years.

Although I have been on vacation, I have kept my teams app open and have been reading all the messages so that when I get home I am caught up with all the latest information. But from the sounds of things, the team has done very well and is catching up to the next team in front of us which is the layout team. That means when I get back on Monday and officially take over the team, we should be in a pretty good spot. I’ll also be meeting my new lead on Monday as she starts the company then. My supervisor will be taking more of a backseat moving forward. Our plan is to slowly increase my involvement and takeover of the team within the next three weeks. Which sounds great on paper and hopefully works out in real life.

All that this will mean a temporary increase in my stress levels yet again, but in about two months will be stopping for the Christmas holidays and I will get a two-week break. And that means we come back in the new year with extra energy and a renewed drive. I’m hoping that two-week period isn’t too busy and filled with too many social occasions. I know that makes me sound like Scrooge, but boy am I tired.

The clock just past midnight, and I was able to write a little over 600 words in 10 minutes. That kind of output is just absolutely crazy and still boggles my mind. I’m hoping one day that I’ll be able to keep up that type of pace when I’m dictating a fictional story. The benefits of being able to produce a vast quantity of work in this era is crucial to being able to make a living as a indie writer. At least according to teachers and most of the conventions about writing.

It gives me a great deal of hope that if I can figure out how to tell a good story that I’ll be able to crank out fun and entertaining worlds for people to fall into. And with the recognition that there are readers who prefer to read the quantity and are more forgiving about quality it bodes well for my future. I believe if you can tell a good story, and entertaining story, and get it written quickly you have a better chance of succeeding.

Plus, think of all the great stories I’ll get to tell because I’m able to get through them quicker and get them out to readers on a weekly or biweekly schedule.

And speaking of books, my sister recently asked me what I wanted for my upcoming birthday. I was at a bit of a loss to think of things I might want or need since most of my wants and needs are already taking care of. But of course, there are always books that I want or may not have wanted to pay for, so I sent her three or four different books that I wanted to read.

The first book was by one of my favourite authors, Mick Herron. He has a book of short stories called Reconstruction. Some of the short stories include Slow Horses tales. The second book I sent her was from Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s called the Language of the Night: Essays on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. This is a book on writing, one of the few that she’s written and it’s one that I don’t currently own. As some of the exercises my mentor gives me are based on this author’s own exercises, I thought it would be a good book to investigate.

I asked for was called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I first heard of this book when I was reading a Louise Penny novel called The Madness of Crowds. This book was part of the inspiration for this story and it sounded interesting all by itself. I’m not sure if my sister will buy meat any of the three or even all three. But I’ll enjoy reading them if she gifts them to me.

Earlier tonight we got some pictures sent to us from kiddo number one who is still in Halifax. She and her roommates decided to dress up as Teletubbies for Halloween. They sent us a bunch of pictures with them in costume and in various poses. It was great to see big smiles on everybody’s faces as they were clearly enjoying themselves. It won’t be long before kiddo number one returns home for the holidays and then has to decide if she’s going to go to school or head back to Halifax. Since her return to Halifax is likely based on working in the animation industry, and the industry isn’t still not doing well, it is likely she will come home and stay there.

Either way, whatever she decides, she will have a safe place here at home with us. It certainly is a lot harder for kids these days to launch themselves into the world of professionalism. I think Robyn will enjoy having her home anyway.

Robyn and kiddo number two took a quick walk down to the dock this evening and were able to capture some nice photos looking back from the dock towards the cottage. All the string lights were lit up, and it made for a scenic view. One of the shots was able to capture the beach the lights the tree line in the stars above. It looked good enough to be a postcard.

I’ll try to remember to link the pictures in this blog post. This very long and bloated blog post.

When we went grocery shopping the other day, I bought a package of breakfast sausages, the kind that are flat. We’ve gone the whole week without even opening the package. So tomorrow I am going to make sure I cooked them and enjoy them. I was also planning to make chicken Ruby this weekend, but I think it’s going to have to wait. We only need one more dinner and we have frozen tandoori chicken, basmati rice and chickpeas in a spicy tomato sauce still to eat. We may have over bought when it comes to grocery items. Of course, we ended up going out for dinner tonight’s instead of one.

I’m starting to feel the effects of the coldness of the basement and am pacing around to stay warm. Not that I’m wearing a lot of clothing at the moment. I’ve got on a pair of shorts for sleeping in a T-shirt. I should probably grab my new sweater from upstairs when I take a break.

Then again maybe the cold is keeping me awake and alert. But nah, I’m going to grab my sweater.

Alright I’m back from grabbing my sweater and it feels much better. I also grabbed my slippers to keep my feet warm because I think that’s where the chill was emanating from. The floor in the basement of the cottage is a polished cork and it insulates the floor, but it also feels cold when there’s not much heat turned on. Which is the case because we were not expecting to be down in the basement this week. We used rooms on the top floor to sleep in and the main floor to work and watch TV.

It’s just coming up on 1230 in the morning, and I’ve just passed 4600 words. That means I was able to write 1000 words in the space of half an hour. Once again, that is the speed I could not reach if I was typing manually. And if I am to make my goal of 5000 words by 1 AM I need to write another 400 words in the next half an hour. What should be completely doable considering what I did this past half hour. I’m feeling very confident as my abilities increase, the more dictation I do the faster I get at it. I feel like I have the pacing down for how to speak so that the software has the time to translate everything I’m saying into text.

And of course, the fact that I’m standing and pacing back and forth in the room is different than from when I have been doing it in the car. My throat is less sore than it would have been by now. Although, I am starting to feel a certain scratchiness this in the throat. I think standing and dictating is probably the best way to go about it. This year I’m going to attempt to dictate while I am on the treadmill, or pen laying on the stationary bike down in our basement.

I watched a video of an author who writes a book every two weeks in England. He writes while he’s exercising on his recumbent bicycle in his back garden shed. He is also one of those authors that publishes frequently and has built up an online fan base that buys his series of books. He has multiple series going on at any one time and as he finishes one book in a series, he can either keep going or write the next book in the next series.

As he was talking about why he moved over to dictation it was because of pure desperation. His wife agreed to give him a certain amount of time to make the writing work before she expected him to go back and get a real job as she put it.

Authors like that inspire me to write faster than I thought was possible. In fact, there are writers who produce a book a week and sell thousands of poppies every month. It isn’t uncommon for these particular authors to make over $350,000 a year. A king’s ransom, it’s still about 3 ½ times what I make in a year.

It’s been sometime since I’ve spoken to my friend in British Columbia, who is also an aspiring author. He finished writing his first novel almost 13 years ago but still has not released it as far as I know. The last time I spoke to him he was in the process of revising it once more, but this time with the help of someone who call themselves an editor. I often wonder if he’ll ever finish the book. I’ll have to check Amazon to see if he’s published anything yet. I stopped keeping in touch with him because I found his online opinions and rhetoric unenjoyable.

However, I discovered he was more of a friend when we spoke in person. So, I decided to keep all our interactions either in person or via video call. But we have yet to reconnect.

I just did a quick search of Amazon and was not able to find my friend book out yet. So, I think it’s safe to say he hasn’t finished revising his 13-year-old novel. But best of luck to him.

I just logged in to my chess.com app and it told me I had a streak of 282 days of playing a game of chess per day. I’m slowly creeping up to the one-year mark and that feels good to have accomplished that much. There are days I don’t want to play chess but I still login and give it my best shot. It’s all part of the using streaks to achieve difficult things.

And speaking of streaks, this blog post is my 399^th consecutive post. I set myself the goal of blogging every day even when I didn’t have anything to say. It has taught me a certain discipline of showing up every day and has allowed me to practice techniques like dictation.

I think it’s pretty exciting that on 31 October I will have my 400^th post. I’m not a big Halloween fan but at last I’ll have a reason to celebrate this year, even if it’s just for personal reasons.

One of the things I find funny about dictating is that every time I clear my throat the screen jumps like it is taking personal offense to the noises I’m making. And who knows, maybe in this day of AI it is actually taking offense.

One of the things we haven’t been able to do while we were up here at the cottage, is to go to the walking trails that Robyn and her sister Shannon hiked the last time we were all appear together. Apparently, the trail is quite interesting and very scenic. But with Robyn working during the day, we just never found the time to go there.

Tomorrow, I have another 8000 words to write, and Robyn has schoolwork to complete. The chances of us getting to this unique trail is slim to none. But who knows when I get a chance to get there. Based on their descriptions, I would really like to see this place and experience it for myself. I love a good walking trail as much as the next person. And we love all the natural beauty that Perry sound has to offer.

My writing teacher does a segment on his blog where he looks at upcoming kick starter’s and reviews them. If he doesn’t like what you’ve done, he doesn’t mention it by name but if he sees your kick starter and it has great possibilities, he mentions it on his blog. This is a great way to give other writers a bit of a boost in traffic to their site. But today he was ranting about how many kick starter’s he saw where the person running it used either AI images or AI written stories. He flat out refuses to post those to his blog.

Taking up space on the kick starter platform, Amazon and the world in general with their AI slop. I do wonder if there is going to be an AI bubble that burst within the next six months. I have talked about this before where the AI companies are starting to put out IPOs and raise stock money to help them get to the next part of their development. But the amount of money they are bleeding every month is in the tens of billions. Some companies that have large AI investments like Microsoft and Tesla are starting to see the impact from investors who don’t want them wasting that kind of money in the AI space.

I think someone who is investing and Tesla for example or Microsoft would prefer that they separate those companies from the main stable stock. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out over the next little while. One thing is for sure, it’s costing these companies a king’s ransom to run these AI companies. And although many successful companies have lost billions of dollars for years before they became probable, like Tesla for example, at least they had a tangible product at the end of the day. Something investors could hold in their hands.

It’s just come up on 1 AM and I have written a total of 5800 words.

Once again, that means I have written 1200 words in the space of half an hour. That’s an increase in 200 words per half hour or 400 words per hour. That’s pretty significant.

And it also means I’ve got about 2000 words left to write before I can get to bed. And at the rate I’m going, it’s plausible that I could be having sweet dreams by 2 AM. And boy do I want to be in bed by 2 AM.

Let’s not forget, that I have to do this again tomorrow. Although, I’ll probably start off with dictation and get my numbers up from the very beginning. I think the mistake I made today was that I was typing by hand, and my fingers and hands were sore like I’d worked them out too hard.

Of course, my throat might be very rock tomorrow as well. Before I go to bed, I will take a throat lozenge to help ease my froggy throat. I was planning to take a break at 1 AM, but I think I’m just going to push through. Aim I may regret that later as my throat starts to sound like I smoke five packs a day. I may need to add some research to how to keep your throat dry while you’re talking for long periods of time. Obviously drinking water is one way to do it, but perhaps being in a higher humidity environment will also help with loss of moisture. I’m sure there are scientists who have looked into this area of interest before. I remember my friend and I would drink honey from the jar when we were recording songs. I don’t know if it did anything for our throats, but it certainly gave us the extra energy we needed to work late into the night.

Now that I think of it, his parents were very accommodating to all the noise we made, sometimes until two in the morning. And I’m talking banging on drums and playing guitars through amplifiers in their basement.

My computer is acting up a little bit. It could be because I am running on batteries not plugged in to the wall outlet. I’m going to go upstairs and grabbed the charger because the last thing I need is Dragon slowing down and Word crashing.

Okay. I’ve got a plugged in seems to be happier.

I’m not sure if the program is chugging because I am saving the word document to the cloud or if it’s Dragon bogging down after 6000 words of dictation. I suspect it has something to do with word because they keep saying it saving instead of actually saying it saved.

Nonetheless, I soldier on.

I have to say that although I have really enjoyed being up here this week I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. And I’m very much looking forward to having blinds that keep out the light. One of the things I forgot to bring with me on this trip was my sleep mask. I am very sensitive to light when it comes to sleeping. Also, the floor in our bedroom at the cottage is incredibly squeaky. There was no chance that anyone could ever break in and sneak up on us. But that also means any time one of us gets up in the middle of the night we are waking up our spouse. And on top of that the doors to the bedrooms also squeak when you open them. And none of that is conducive to a good night’s rest. Luckily for me I had no reason to be out of bed early.

The sleep mask has me wondering about whether I could modify one of my own that would use light to wake me up in the morning. That would be the ideal situation to help me get up earlier in the morning without disturbing my sleeping beauty. Although, these days she is more likely to be up in about before I am. She knows it’s easier to get more things done if you get up earlier than to wait till the end of the day to get things done.

It’s just my curse to be a night owl living in a morning person’s world.

Tomorrow being Halloween, I will have to remember that I have my brother-in-law’s birthday and an old friend Aaron’s birthday to acknowledge tomorrow. It must suck to have your birthday on Halloween. Then again maybe it was awesome. My brother-in-law grew up in the UK, and I’m not sure if they had the same kind of celebrations that we have here in North America. He certainly is well acquainted with it now that he has two kids of his own.

I’ll have to ask my friend Aaron what it was like having his birthday on October 31. I guess not a lot of people were available to come over for a birthday party when he was little. Maybe that’s why he became an economist. But as he just recently retired, I am curious to get in touch with him and ask him what his plans for the future are. Does he have any hobbies or destinations in mind. I think it’s incredibly important when you retire to have something to do every day that excites you. And that can be as simple as walking to the coffee shop or learning a new instrument. Not having a plan usually leads to an early death. But knowing my friend, he has something in mind.

And I guess tomorrow being Halloween, my Facebook feed is going to be filled with everyone’s children dressed up in cute little costumes. And I imagine will be quite a few of my adult friends dressed up in costumes as well. I’ve never really been into hollowing once I got older. I think it was the idea of having to come up with a costume idea and then either find it or make it that made the whole thing unenjoyable for me. It was like having the extra job to do before you went out and had a good time. That’s me being Ebenezer Scrooge once again at Halloween.

It’s just coming up on it 130 in the morning. I have about 1000 words left to go and I think that means I’ve slowed down a little bit. That is not surprising to me. If you consider having a conversation with someone for five minutes versus talking for four hours you kinda get the idea. At some point you struggle to find things to say or questions to ask. And that’s where I am at this point in the day.

But it still feels good to know that I have 7000 words already done for the day. You can imagine how good it feels to be on the 7000 word side than it is to be on the 1000 word side. As usual, there is a part of me that wants to stop for the day and go to bed. But that would mean tomorrow would be a 9000 more day. And that means leaving myself in worse shape than I was in today. And the reality is that I’ll probably be able to write the next thousand words before 230 in the morning. I was hoping to be done by 2 AM, but 230 isn’t too bad either.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about adding my morning routine is doing a couple of push-ups. I was saying to start with something simple like doing 10 in the morning.

And as well as doing push-ups it might be beneficial to do something simple like standing squats or sitting in the horse stance. I feel like squats would be more beneficial to my hip joints and legs. As I’m getting older and spend so much time sitting in chairs for work my flexibility has definitely decreased. And I’d know that my hips back are much tighter than they once were. My thought process goes back to the study that was done in Japan where women routinely sat on the floor. This meant they were getting up and down on a regular basis from a sitting position on the floor to a standing position. And that meant there flexibility had never had the chance to decrease. Because the truth is sitting in a chair is actually not that good for you. Squatting is the natural way for us to sit at rest other than lying down. Unfortunately, years of sitting in chairs tightens our hip joints and make sitting on the floor painful.

And maybe adding a period of time each day where I sit cross-legged on the floor would be more beneficial than anything else to loosen my hip joints and muscles the buttocks. I can tell from just standing straight up and ending to my left or right that one side is tighter than the other. And that comes from sitting and working in certain positions for long periods of time.

And as I pace back and forth dictating this blog, I wonder if I should set aside a portion of time to sit crosslegged it on the floor of my bedroom while projecting the screen of my laptop onto the TV.

There are so many things in our lives that we probably should be doing that we don’t have time for. It’s hard to know which things to focus on and sometimes you really don’t have a choice because you are too busy putting out other fires.

I just realized that the power outlet that I loved my laptop into was not actually giving any power. Just switched it over to a different outlet and the computer is now down to 50% charge. It’s definitely running a little better now that it’s getting power from the outlet.

I’ve got about 15 minutes left in order to complete the 8000 words I was hoping to accomplish today. Looking back, the most words I wrote in a single day was 14,864 words. I did this on September 31^st, to complete my word challenge for that month. So I know I’ll be able to finish this challenge between now and tomorrow night.

But I’m once again in that in enviable position where I have left too many words for the end of the month. But, knowing the month I had I’m not surprised I let some days slip. It only takes a week of doing 1000 words a day to start to get yourself into trouble. Also I stopped using dictation as much and that probably decreased my productivity.

So if I’ve learned one thing this month it’s that dictation is a powerful tool that I should use on a daily basis. I don’t have to dictate the the entirety of my writing day, but I can certainly use it to do something like this blog that doesn’t require a great deal of writing finesse.

I can save the hand typing for my fiction and in that way it will give me more mileage on a daily basis.

I’ve got 10 minutes left to write 250 words and I think I’m going to be able to do it. As I’m sitting down here in the basement pacing back and forth, I can hear all the water draining from the house into the basement whenever somebody uses a sink or toilet. A little motor comes on to pump the water into the septic system. And it sounds like people are still awake upstairs and using water. On the plus side, if it’s Robyn, I won’t be waking her up when I try to squeak past her and slide into bed.

I’m glad I’m not sleeping in the basement because the constant flushing and water running on top of the pump running will probably drive me crazy.

Five minutes left in 120 words before across the finish line. Giving myself these many challenges within the bigger challenge is been a great way to motivate me and to help me record whether or not dictation has been successful. But it’s very clear at this point that it is an incredible tool to increase the amount you can write in a day. I’m grateful I spent the money to invest in the software and the microphone system. It’s taken me a while to find the right microphone that I was comfortable with. But the DJI mic mini works incredibly well with the dictation software.

I made my deadline by 2 a.m. and I am very proud to have been able to accomplish that.

But I think that’s enough for one day. I believe I’ve earned my right to a good night sleep.

Until tomorrow.