12:31 – I hope USPS is running tomorrow. I have kits stacked up and awaiting pickup. Barbara shoveled the front steps and walk this morning. I got the Trooper out of the garage and used it to punch through the pile of snow that the snowplow had left blocking our driveway.
We’re watching Last Tango in Halifax and Orange is the New Black on Netflix streaming. The former is typically high-quality British drama. The second is up to Netflix’s usual high standards. It features lots of nekkid women and simulated cunnilingus, so it’s not appropriate for pre-pubescent children, although teenagers won’t find anything new or shocking in it.
Last night, I read Bobby Andrews’ Prepper’s Crucible (Omnibus, Volumes 1-3): An EMP Tale. He’s not a great writer, although he gets better as he goes along. He calls this three volumes, but in really it’s one mid-length novel. The fourth volume is also available, like the omnibus volume, from Kindle Unlimited. It’s only a nominal 115 pages, so I’ll go ahead and read it as well. Volume 5 is imminent, and is available for pre-order.
I’m going to help Barbara hang more pictures this afternoon. Tomorrow we need to make up more biology chemical bags and build more biology kits.
Email from Jen. She reads lots of PA novels, and has decided that she could do a better job. She’s currently outlining the first volume, which she intends to self-publish on Amazon. We’ll see. Lots of people start writing books. Few finish them. On the other hand, Jen is a very determined woman, so perhaps she’ll actually do it.
” Lots of people start writing books. Few finish them.”
No chit, kemosabe; this one has taken a frequent back seat to the daily crap that goes on around here; I’ve taken to writing little notes while I do other stuff so I can pretend I’m making progress. This weekend, for example, has been shot full of holes thanks to various fembat travel and vehicle and schedule issues, coupled with potentially rougher travel points south, and Great-Grandma on the horn last night messing around with her return flight from Floriduh in MARCH! She’s 86 and still be-bopping between New Brunswick, Virginia, Floriduh, and Kalifornia, several times a year and this household is the A-team for all that. Then we have the constant weekend entertainment, social and be-bopping travel demands of Princess, back and forth between Montreal and the rest of New England. Plus multiple vehicle issues and problems. And the five-page To-Do List that never gets any shorter.
All crappy excuses, but one fades on the energy front after a day and night of this stuff, not to mention motivation.
“The former is typically high-quality British drama.”
I get the PBS catalog in the mail here and I’d hazard a guess that 3/4 of it is that same Brit drama, comedy and tragedy, very heavy on the multi-generation soap operas and History Lite. I find most of it a crashing bore. Or as they say down in Oz, it bores me rigid.
“…Netflix’s usual high standards. It features lots of nekkid women and simulated cunnilingus, so it’s not appropriate for pre-pubescent children, although teenagers won’t find anything new or shocking in it.”
No doubt. You know when they’re cutting-edge, though, when they have almost as much frontal male nudity and hairy male buttocks. Contemporary teenagers? They are a mystery to me, although I was once one. And kind of a bad one. What goes on in their heads I cannot begin to fathom, but I do know that if they came through twelve or thirteen or more years of our publik education system then they’re probably ignorant of a LOT and misinformed about a LOT ELSE. And that they simply assume stuff like affirmative action, diversity as a state religion, the warmist agitprop nonsense, and the utter and total evil and depravity of the Western Christian male patriarchy, is like unto breathing for them.
Lots of people start writing books. Few finish them.
It was a slog to finish my first screenplay. Now that I have feedback from a pro reader, it’s revision time. And then on two the next two I want to write. My reader, who taught the class I took on screenwriting, said only a handful of her students finished one and mine was very, very good. For one thing, I formatted it correctly. Not hard when you use a dedicated tool (Final Draft) and read a little on how to format.
@OFD
Don’t know if this is limited to my friends and families, unique to this part of the country or what.
Not to be indelicate, however I have observed since I was a child that men can take 30 – 60 minutes ‘on the throne’ in undisturbed and (relatively) respected bliss. Even in single bathroom homes.
The women folk may belly ache privately (what on EARTH is he doing?!?) but the sanctuary is inviolate.
Can you write your novel in 30-60 minute chunks?
Not trying to be an @$$ or funny. A genuine question.
@jenny, we used to say that ‘you know you are busy when the 20 minutes you spend in the bathroom is the first time you’ve stopped moving all day.” And we’d leave our radios and phones outside…
Lots of mommy bloggers (apparently) would kill for 20minutes uninterrupted….
nick
“…men can take 30 – 60 minutes ‘on the throne’ in undisturbed and (relatively) respected bliss. Even in single bathroom homes.”
“…but the sanctuary is inviolate.”
Good one!
Only when there are no other women/girls in the house. Otherwise, frequent interruptions in the form of suddenly important questions, impatient pacing back and forth in front of the door (yeah, single bathroom here), and/or sudden unexplained but disturbing noises in another part of the house. Plus phone calls and surprise visitors showing up at the outside doors. I get ten minutes, tops; it’s like being in the service again; do yer biz and GTFO.
“Can you write your novel in 30-60 minute chunks?”
That’s what I’ve been trying to do here, but some days it gets degraded to ten-minute chunks, see above.
“My reader, who taught the class I took on screenwriting, said only a handful of her students finished one and mine was very, very good.”
Question for Mr. ech; I’ve read and been told in the past that in order to be successful at screenwriting and flogging your work, you gotta live in LA. Is that still true? Or was it ever true? And whether or not it is, do you know anything about moving screenplays to foreign markets, say, the UK and Europe, instead of just Hollywood?
Like most guys I’m in and out of the “bathroom” as quick as I can. It’s my observation (mother, sister, nieces, female boarders and friends) that women are the ones who take all day, 30 minutes minimum in the morning, ditto evening, putting on and taking off their faces. As in Asimov’s The Caves of Steel “women’s personnal” is a social event.
Obviously you live alone. If there were an annoying preschooler or really annoying dog in the house, you would take your time.
I’ve read and been told in the past that in order to be successful at screenwriting and flogging your work, you gotta live in LA. Is that still true? Or was it ever true?
Yes and no. It’s easier if you live in LA, but there are screenwriters that live elsewhere. It was much more true in the old studio days, where writers were on retainers. Today, the key is to have an agent in LA that can shop the script. Email and the like make it easier to move product around. That’s the step I’m on, and it’s hard. There are a few other venues for getting the connections made – film festivals with writing competitions and pitch competitions, things like that.
And whether or not it is, do you know anything about moving screenplays to foreign markets, say, the UK and Europe, instead of just Hollywood?
Nope. You might have union problems in UK/EU. I know that in the past, there were quotas on US actors going to work in the UK and EU, not sure if it affects writing.
Thanks for the info, Mr. ech; about what I expected, though I’d not thought of the union angle overseas.
RE: Bathrooms
Apparently the gender/time ratios are skewed in my experience.
I’ve always been in/out and every male I’ve been around is a 30 – 60 minute-r
Odd.
Too bad OFD. I was hoping.
Mrs. OFD is in and out pretty fast except if she’s taken reading in with her, and then she simply loses track of time. Other females in my experience take forever. My lifetime experience has for the vast most part been with males and they almost always go lickety-split in bathrooms. Imagine how fast we all were when it was mostly outhouses and outdoor privies.
The writing continues in fits and spurts here; I should apply for one of those writing colony grants where I can just disappear for a few months, but it’s outta the question here with an invalid wife and the animals. We shall see what we shall see; I hope to have something resembling an outline and several chapters by summer at the latest.
My experience is also that men spend (guessing here) 20% of the time in the bathroom that women do. Even if you discount makeup/hair/getting the accessories draped just right, men are quicker.
OFD, you should put on a shock collar with an internet connection. Then, every time someone checks on your book and is unsatisfied with the progress, he can click a button on the website and give you a zap. That’ll motivate you, you betcha!
“OFD, you should put on a shock collar with an internet connection.”
No thanks; the state of innernet security leaves that idea way out in the cold. Someone that doesn’t like me, and they are LEGION, could hack the site and shock me senseless all day long, not that anyone would notice, least of all, me.
OFD you’re doing it wrong. You need some real motivation. All you need to do is set a deadline. Then you give me $5,000 dollars. I will put it in an interest-bearing account. If you meet your deadline, you get it back with interest. If you don’t, it’s donated in your name to Handgun Control, Inc., the Hillary Clinton campaign and Al Sharpton.
That should give you an incentive.
Rick in Portland
Jenny, based on what you say I assume you and your wimminz sample don’t apply/remove makeup, oils, creams, etc in the bathroom.
“Then you give me $5,000 dollars.”
Cool! I’ll let ya know when I collect that amount to send…
Cool! I’ll let ya know when I collect that amount to send…
Your tax refund maybe…..
“Your tax refund maybe…..”
You speak of “tax refund,” kemosabe; what is that?
Thanks for yet another laugh today!