Guns & Magic

 

Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore. Coyote Blue was easier to read than Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal also by Moore, but not as good as A Dirty Job which came later.

 

Not sure what I’ll read next. Need to go pick up a requested book from the library.

 

-David

 

In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters (Second Edition) by Merrill R. Chapman.

 

In Search of Stupidity is about real companies being unintentionally funnier than the fictional characters in Terry Pratchett’s Interesting Times–which I finished last night. I lived through some of the history covered by In Search of Stupidity. I was a computer science major in college in the late 1980′s, and earning my money as a programmer in Corporate America through the 1990′s. Well…by “lived through” I mean, “I remember some of this as news items, and as things discussed by colleagues and co-workers.” Anyway, it’s good stuff.

 

-David

 

by David Michael

 

 

The wire handle of the five-gallon bucket of paint dug into Stevie’s palms as she carried it. The weight of the bucket forced her to hunch her shoulders and shuffle, and she could only manage three or four steps before she had to set the bucket down. The first bucket had been easier. But not by much. She took deep breaths, as if she had been running, and massaged the aching red line imprinting deeper and deeper into her palms. Then she picked up the bucket again and pushed forward a few more steps.

 

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Horse Girl – 240 words (chapter 11 total: 424)

 

Today I updated the outline (again) to reflect the changes in chapter 10 and to restructure chapter 11. Then I edited chapter 10 to get it ready for posting.

 

I’m in the home stretch on this novel. But a combination of self doubt (about being able to write what I’m writing) and reluctance (to end the book this way, with the death of a major character; which feeds back into the self doubt) is slowing me down.

 

In other words: I’m slowing myself down. Drawing out the agony, I guess.

 

Writers can be so silly.

 

-David

 

Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett.

 

This is my first-and-a-half Pratchett book. Last year I read Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

 

So far, I’ve learned the following lesson from Pratchett: Never make one pun when you can make two, three, or even more. More is more.

 

-David

 

Horse Girl – 1008 words (chapter 10 total: 5450; chapter 11 total: 340)

 

Yup. Finished chapter 10. Finally. Started on chapter 11. I expect to edit and post chapter 10 in the next couple days.

 

I’m not sure how much today’s writing is going to hammer the outline. But damage has definitely been done. I think the novel will end essentially the same way I always expected. Just different.

 

And even if I’m not sure I still like the way the story ends, I’ll keep writing it.

 

-David

 

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Funny stuff. I enjoyed the book.

 

I’m still reading The Plague by Albert Camus. I just paused that one for Lamb. I needed something lighter and less dreary to read. I’ll probably finish The Plague over the weekend.

 

I’ve also started reading Engineering in the Ancient World by J.G. Landels. By “reading” I mean, “reading a few paragraphs at a time while waiting for my laptop to finish certain tasks”. Like waiting for Windows to boot up. Or waiting for Delphi to startup or finish its build. Stuff like that. It’s interesting material, but it’ll probably be stretched out through the rest of the summer and into the fall.

 

I’ve been working on The Journal this week, bug-hunting mostly, getting ready to release an update. That’s been distracting me from writing. Stevie’s bad weekend will continue getting worse in short order.

 

-David

 

Horse Girl – 1003 words (chapter 10 total: 4782)

 

When you title a chapter “Hurting”, I guess you should expect to experience pain.

 

Today I realized that I’ll be further compressing the last chapters of the book. A plot point of the next chapter is going to be included in the current chapter. And the last 4 outlined chapters will likely be compressed to 2.

 

In all of the novels I’ve written (this makes 4), I’ve compressed the endings. I seem to overestimate how much is required to end a story.

 

-David

 

Horse Girl – 1048 words (chapter 10 total: 3779)

 

I had hoped to do more, but that took nearly 2 hours, and I have to put out a newsletter for The Journal today.

 

Here, I think, is part of why this project has taken me so long (besides schedule conflicts with other projects and moving):

 

First, simple self-doubt. All this writing about teenage girls and horses and horse ranches.

 

Second, more complex self-doubt. The story has become darker than I originally planned it. Or rather, as I’ve written what I outlined, I’ve come to realize that it was never a bright and cheery story that I had mapped out. A mother that left for no reason. A dead brother. A functioning alcoholic for a father. And still more unhappiness to come.

 

I almost feel sorry for Stevie. And for the niece I wrote this for.

 

Hopefully, we’ll all be strong enough to finish it. And maybe we’ll all grow a bit from the experience.

 

-David

 

The Plague by Albert Camus. I started reading this one on Friday last week.

 

I had hoped, after finishing The Fixer by Bernard Malamud, to read some lighter fare. Going from The Fixer to The Plague, both rather “heavy”, serious books (and both classics of 20th century literature that I had never heard of before I started reading them), hasn’t been too easy. But my library requests didn’t start coming in until yesterday.

 

Soon, though, I’ll be reading pure entertainment again.

 

-David