First I will start by apologizing that I have not posted in 3 days. I am ashamed.

And now I am over it.

Today I hit a huge milestone in my novel. 50,000 words! Not only is it a nice round number, but it also marks the end of my 2nd Act, with one final act to go. It feels like I’m at the 2 hour mark in a 2.5 hour movie. The rest of the book is a rise to the final climax. Since my original outline quite a bit has changed. It will take some reworking before I begin the final ascent, and several more months of writing, but it feels great to get this far!

In addition to writing I’ve been doing some reading at a cool website called Lulu. Not only can you get your book published and have an actual copy of it, but there are some interesting forums where people talk about ideas and critique each other’s work. And like I said in a previous post, there is a lot of “wow, this makes me feel pretty good” kind of stuff.

All it takes to write a story is an understanding of the English language, a creative mind, and time. Take a look at the story here. If that person thinks they can write a story (which so far is terrible), then what’s stopping you?

The dog used to pee or poop in the house randomly when we were gone. Sometimes she’d go days without an accident, other times she’d have one everyday almost. We knew she could hold, as she has before, but this appeared to be a mental issue. Doggy anxiety.

We tried a lot of stuff, but we finally found something that works. We used to close the door to our bedroom so she wouldn’t go in there and mess things up. But one day we decided to leave that door open, and see if that helped. That day, no accident. For the last three weeks we’ve been leaving our bedroom door open, and still no accidents.

We think she likes to lay on our bed while we’re gone, which isn’t a big problem, and it must relax her. Even though we aren’t home, she can smell us or something. Or she might go under the bed and hide all day. Either way, I don’t have to clean up poop and pee every time I get home!

If you don’t watch Last Comic Standing, you have to watch this clip from earlier in the season by Gerry Dee. It’s the only bit that’s actually had me rolling on the floor laughing. OK, I wasn’t actually rolling on the floor, but I was laughing really hard while sitting on the couch.

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I know you don’t care, but I hit 45k words tonight. Mostly that’s for me so I can keep track of my progress and I can look back at previous posts and see where I was several weeks prior.

Somebody is gonna die soon!

Thought I would share a couple interesting “writer” websites I’ve come across over the last couple months.

The first is the website for Orson Scott Card. I’ve never read one of his books, but he has some excellent articles on different aspects of writing. They’re mostly questions he gets from new writers and he answers them. Very cool stuff.

The other isn’t quite as interesting, but it’s more fun to post more links. This is another writer website by some guy named Crawford Killian that I’ve never heard of. Again, more questions answered and stuff. I really like this guys website, because it makes me feel better. People post comments saying “I wrote a story that’s only 5k words. How do I make it into a book?” While I know my first book won’t win any awards, it’s still encouraging to know that I can put together a whole story and don’t have to post on a website to ask how long my chapters should be.

I’m back to work and the blog is already suffering.

I’m getting my fill of Dodger baseball with the game last night on TV, and the game today on TV. By TV I mean regular TV that I don’t have to pay for.

Nothing too exciting to report about work. Different classes will have different challenges, but the year is off to a good start. Each year feels like it’s getting easier and easier. I have one period that could be a big pain, but I’ll do my best to reign them in nice and early.

Went to Woodranch BBQ last night with Sarah and Andrew. Ate the second half of my baby back ribs today for lunch. Mmmmm.

The poor Celica is out of my life officially. I had to go a couple hundred bucks under what I wanted, but now I don’t have to worry about it during the school year. It’s so sad what a pain it was though.

Everything went fine until we went to take the personalized plates off. They’re mine, I paid for them, I take them off, they get new ones. Then the mom who doesn’t know how this country works starts going crazy. “But they pull us over! Blah blah blah!” I was starting to think someone might be illegal, or have something else to hide, because not having license plates is a fix it ticket. She had the flipping title, she had the registration, she had the bill of sale, just shut up and leave!

I wish my parting with the Celica could have been a more memorable experience. Ye served me well.

The mood in the house tonight is very somber. We’ll be holding a candlelight vigil for the death of summer in a moment.

I hit 40,000 words on the book tonight. That’s 15,000 in a little under three weeks! I’m hoping that momentum isn’t hurt too much by work. I know you’re probably getting tired of the updates, considering you don’t even know what the story is about, but I’ll update you anyways. I can tell you that I spent a good 5-10 minutes tonight researching what a gunshot wound feels like. The best description I read was 1000 tiny knives stabbing you all at once. I also did some research about the Invasion of Panama in 1989, and how the pit maneuver works. Exciting stuff!

Off to bed. (Pours out bottle of tequila onto the floor dramatically)