Wednesday, November 30, 2005

I cleaned up that drop down menu code in the sidebar but I need to return to the instructions and find out how to add stuff into the menu like the links in my sidebar and I'll figure that out as I go along.

This morning I worked more on CH and there are even more changes I need to the story. I was thinking about making the side kick a native/aboriginal but somehow that doesn't seem to fit.

my last submission has had the story "Lift Off" since the 18th of this month but I hope to hear from them by at least the end of the year.

I don't know if my who's online counter is working because, I'm the only one currently on line when I'm doing Template work etc. so it's kind of hard to tell. The stat counter seems to be working ok.

e.Jim

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Sigh, it seems that CH won't be ready to go out this month. I began reading and editing the story some more and found some major plot elements missing but the holes that needed to be fixed came at me with unexpected surprises and I was able to fill those in. All that remains is the type -in's and I can do those hopefully today or tomorrow.

The other thing is, I was asked from our incoming PM to do some lines in the lodge but nobody emailed me anything yet and now I have nothing and lodge night is Thur. So this means I've got to get a-hold of somebody and bow out. I wasn't there at the last emergent meeting so there was no way for me to get anything. I don't like leaving anyone in a lurch like this. So, tonight I'll be calling people as soon as I head into the office.

Also, I've been meaning to call the printer ink refill place and see about getting some toner refill for my deskjet printer so I can get more rough draft hard copiesto use. Paying $80 bucks for a toner isn't an option either. I haven't done the math but each toner could get me 2000 pages. Still each story from say Staples would cost me $3 but it's not an option for me to go out of my way and to get a copy printed either. Sure it's much easier to just do this on screen and that's fine because the finished copy is going out on screen anyway but I like a hard copy to work on. Each story is about 30 pages so that means that out of a 2000 page duty cycle bin rate I could get about 67 stories. At $3 each, that'd be $201. Each new toner cartridge would cost me about $80 each. Or almost 3 Toners for the price of $200. One toner fit's the bill.

More later

e.Jim

Trying to install a drop down menu in my sidebar for my archives but nothings working.

I had a great night at work getting into the "$1005 club" and earning myself a $10 bonus. At the job I ended up doing some revising and cutting on CH and I hope to do some more in the wee hours after I get a few hours of sleep. It's almost there. I might just send it out as is tomorrow night after a quick once over and then work at it again and when the rejection slip comes back I can always send out a better prepared copy to somebody else.

One of the movies I'd like to see up and coming is Aeon Flux. From the movie trailers it looks pretty good. I think it's out next week and it might be something Anne and I could see on our anniversary as we are planning to go out for a dinner and a movie.

On Coast tonight will be on parapsychology and OBE experiences. Not my type of a show but on the first our there will be more on the story about the former Canadian defense minister regarding the disclosure project etc. and I think I might end up listening to that and do some more work on CH and go back into bed around 5amish. Also, I want to work at Lift off some more and work on the grammar for that. I'm not quite done with that yet but that's all for now.

e.Jim

Sunday, November 27, 2005

alright, I read the story further to the mention of former Canadian Minister of defense and Deputy PM under Trudeau has joined forces with 3 non Govt organizations or NGO's to ask the parliament of Canada to hold public meetings on Exopolitics-relations with ET. Or as Mr Hellyer calls them ethical advanced exterterstial civilizations but such a proposal to open up the Canadian version of ET discloser wont happen until around the new year and after the possible upcoming election.

Mr.Hellyer said: On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada defensee Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head." This too me seems reallyunprecedentedd but people are taking him seriously.

Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."

There's more to the article but my initial reaction is this being so close to an election, who is it going to hurt in the polls?

The article was dated Nov 24th and I'll have more to say about this later as the week goes on.
here's the link to the full story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20051124/bs_prweb/prweb314382_1

Anyway, I worked more at CH and watched the Grey Cup game. Esks won 35-32 and into double overtime. Their 13th Grey Cup Victory. WOW.

e. Jim

On Coast last night the host Ian Punnet was encouraging discussion about a recent story of a Canadian Minister of defense (ours) and former Deputy PM went on record that the Bush Govt has bases on the moon and has been shooting down UFOs and that we could be on our way to an alien intergalactic war. But he also said he had no confirmation on this and of course out of the loop for some time. Now I haven't read the story yet and I'll have more reaction after I get out of bed and another 5hrs or so of sleep.

The other story is that this Setti program could be picking up ET viruses and depositing these viruses all over the Internet. Both of these stories are very interesting to me and I'm going to investigate them later on, like I said.

e.Jim

Saturday, November 26, 2005

I began doing the type-ins from CH "B" and I've got a much more improved story. I hope. I'm going to read it once more and I think I need to add a bit more in there to foreshadow some more elements in the story.. Other then the grammar the story is just about done. My printer smudged a page and I had to reprint and I got the second print okay. Smudging tells me the cartrige could be out of toner. I need to call the printer ink refill place in Londondarry mall to see if they can refill laserjet toner. If they can then that could save me a lot of money.

Anyway that's all for now.

e. Jim

I completed the 2nd CH story revision this evening and I'm about to work on the type-ins.

The job went by fine enough last night and now I'm off for the weekend.

Also, the Oilers won in a shootout at Calgary and won 2-1, which I'm happy about. Onto CH.

e. Jim

Friday, November 25, 2005

Just a quick note here as I get ready to go into work. When I get home, I'll be working hard on CH and I will try and get it ready for this month. My plan is to send 1 short story out/month. I want a min of 3 sold stories and one of my novels possibly 3 available. When I have 3-4 stories sold and a body of work, I'll shop for an agent. I'm 54 and I want a novel published before I turn 60. I know, but age isn't everything and even a factor in writing/publishing. Besides many new writers that have had their first novel published usually end up going crazy publishing books like nobody's business.

I hope to get out of the gate and never stop. If I can live until I'm 80+ and still have my health and wits about me, I'll continue to write.

Anyhow, it's off to do the job thing and I want to bring my story and try and work on that a bit more. This weekend I'll be putting it all together and then touching up the grammar and with crossed fingers, I'll be able to send this out before the end of the month.

e. Jim

Couldn't sleep so earlier I got up to watch Adam-12 and Seinfeld and a bit of MASH and went back to bed.

Coast was interesting last night on the Hollow Earth.

Also, at the job I began to work more on CH and picking out redundant story elements and those really long sentences. I'll be doing the type ins over the weekend and then comes the grammar. CH will be the most extensive story rewrite I've ever done since Earth Tones was accepted back in 1994. But that's all for now. Time for bed.


e. Jim

Thursday, November 24, 2005

A brief note here. I've been going over some Blogs to get ideas for my own Blog. I think I'll stick with this Template but yesterday I found DotPost and I'm going to play around with that and see what it can offer me. I want some more button links to signify my various interests and maybe a background color and same for the sidebar. I also want to get an analog clock but some of the Blog clock sites I've visited were extremely slow for me.

Also, I want to put up a poll as well so that should be fun.

And of course the Guestbook is in so you can leave a comment without the word verification. Of course any spam will be deleted as soon as I know about it.

e. Jim

My wife's mother past away last night about 10:30pm Nova Scotia time, so this is a tough time for Anne and I. I feel very badly for my wife right now. My own father past away 1994 and my mother Dec 2000. So I know a bit about what she's going through. Two weeks ago she suffered a brainstem stroke and had to be fed through a tube. The real cause of death though was pneumonia caused from the stroke.

Last night I continued making adjustments on CH and I don't know if I'll be able to get the story ready to market this month but I've got the weekend.

Still, I was looking to register with Tehcnorati last night and I did that okay but had trouble getting the link to show up in the sidebar. I don't know if I want to do that this afternoon as I've got about an hour until I got to go into work. Or a least get ready. Anne won't be able to come in with me for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, wrestling is on tonight for me when I get home and the Oilers won against the Wildlast night, so I'm happy about that. Other then that, not much else going on today. The weather here in Edmonton is very nice for this time of year. Can't complain about that.

So tonight at work, I'm going to play around with the story CH a bit more. I'm getting some good ideas at my dialer and spotting some slightly hidden erros in between calls. Grammar of course being my main writing weakness. I was able to ask Darryl at work about doing some grammar checking for me but that's not been decided yet from his end.

more later.

e. Jim

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Hey, check out two new items on my Blog. There's the snazzy new pixie weather Icon and now thanks to Bravenet, I got a calendar. I'll have to check it out when I come home later tonight. My Blog is really taking shape now.

Tonight at work I'll be dabbling a bit more in CH. I'm finding some redundant stuff in the first draft that really shows up in the 2nd reading.

All for now

e. Jim

Having trouble sleeping.

Jim Mars is on Coast tonight talking more on JFK and this assassination show was better then last nights.

Work went by just fine last night. We did a TD run for magic & miracles. Boring but I brought my work along and I actually managed to fill a few holes and some more just now while trying to make CH flow some more. I think this story will get me a step closer to publication. After I get the first go of this up and running then I'll have the first CH submission still out by the end of the month. AON gets the once over in December and I'll be writing www in December. I've got a few story ideas for the up coming year. I have a feeling that 2006 will see my first professional sale/year.

e. Jim

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

I added in my latest project "Whacky whaler Willy" I know the title looks a little silly but I can always change it latter on.

Still no response to my "Blogger add on" post under "buttons and things" as I try and dress up this blog. The stats counter is working okay but visitors aren't really staying long. Except the return ones. I think. Eventually I'd like to have a calendar and a real time clock up and running and a proper guest book. That's why like everything else, this blog is a work in progress.

Wonderful weather today. A high temperature of +16!!! And it's almost the end of the month. If I had a digiital camera I'd post some pics but the weather is changing into more seasonal norms by the weekend we should be at -2* again and even then that's not to bad.

I listened to that jfk special on Coast last night and it wasn't worth staying up late to listen. But I did. Some of my ramblings can be found at the alt.jfk assassination newsgroup.

Anyway it's off to do the job thing after having yesterday off.

The next thing sports wise I'm looking forward to will be the Grey Cup on Sunday. That should be pretty good.

So X-box released its X-box 360 Next Gen platform today to a lot of whoopla. I'm thinking about picking one up when We get the resource checks coming, in January next year. Seeing as how I'm only into playing the D&D style of games anyway I'd like to play that Elder Srolls Oblivion when it comes out. Most likely with the platform.

Pardon the spelling today, I'm running a bit rushed.

That's all for now

e. Jim

I'm really having some fun with my stats counter and most of my visitors come from Calgary. Though the visits are short. This leads me to believe that people are trying to spam me or they are just skimming. Whatever at least I'm getting traffic. It seems the return visits are staying, but not long. For those of you actually reading this Blog, please leave a comment. I'll answer and I won't bite.

Anyway I added two modifications to the wip bars and I tried to add a 3rd but the wip bar timed out on me. Strange.

Anyway, the jfk show wasn't that great but it did help me fit the Payne/Oswald connection and I got something out of that and I learned I can listen to Coast on my PC/local radio station so that's okay. So I got something outof the show, but not much.

e.Jim

So, just before I get ready to leave for work Anne entices me with: "Would I like to stay home tonight?" That's a silly question for all that's been going on tonight? So I did and I watched a really boring Oiler game hosting SJ Sharks here ar Rexall place. The Oilers didn't score until late in the 2nd period to tie the game at 1. Then it went into OT and then in a shootout. The Oilers won 2-1. So did Calgary win that is and in a shootout, which didn't help in the standings very much. After that, I watched wrestling and thought that was kind of lame.

e. Jim

Monday, November 21, 2005

I got up on the late side of this morning as Anne left to do a bottle run and she's off today but I've got to do the job thing so she better get home fast as she has he bus pass.

But tonight. I'll bring my radio to listen to the game and my work to work on some of the areas that need work on CH. Hopefully, I'll give it the once again over and get it out the "door" after the weekend but more then likely before the Grey Cup game. Also, I want to work on another adventure and I've got the story title but I need the plot to go along with it. I'll probably write the "www" story I posted earlier. The game plan is to still have one story go out/month. December, I'll be sending out AON.

Also, I plan on updating the wip bars latter after wrestling. It's easy enough to do but I would rather introduce some new wip bars as well.

So far the stat counter bar is working. I think I got one return visitor and 6 loads, so at least this is being read. I'm not here to use it to make money directly but when I get something published I'll post a link to the story. I might even post snippits in a special Blog for stories that are being sent out.

that's all for now

e.Jim

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Today was just a relaxing day, mostly on the couch watching CFL football. Toronto hosting Montreal for the eastern Championship and Montreal won, which is what I wanted. Then at 4pm I watched the BC hosting Edmonton. Of course living here in Edmonton, I was pulling all the way for the Esks and it was a real nail biter to the very end. Esk's won 28-26 and in the dying seconds of the game BC had possession. It was wild that's for sure. Now the Esks go on to play in the Grey Cup next Sunday. That was 7hrs of football. I'm not ordinarily a football fan but lately I've been following it since the LaborDay classic. The Esks had to beat 2nd place Calgary at Calgary last Sunday to even get to the Championship in BC that ended a few minutes ago and they not only beat BC, but at BC Place. The Esks, were in third place. What a come from behind story.

Anyway, I'll be back to my writing later tonight as I still want to tighten up CH after supper.

e. Jim

Saturday, November 19, 2005

I love blogger forum Even when I'm not posting there are often some interesting bits of discussion going on and very often free stuff like the stats counter page I added this hour. It was a clean and simple install. See below in the sidebar.

e. Jim

I went through "Cross hairs" and gave it the once over read and made a brief revision and tightened things up a bit more. It's almost there but I need to tighten up characterization and and a few things. one of the guys at work read the first page of the rough draft of another story and pointed out a few grammatical errors. "Hey Darryl. You seem to be pretty good with grammar aren't you? If you can edit my story, I'll buy you a pack of smokes for the deal." He might go for that but I'll do the grammar myself when I have a larger novel in revision. He might go for it. CH has to go out this month and I'm going to get "LO" the grammar once over as well and re submit that. But LO went out already to Anti-muse. If CH needs to go out this month, I better get cracking and get this grammar thing under control. I'll think I'll fire this off to "Quantum Muse" next but there might not be enough time to grammar check this and have it out by next weekend. So, what I'll do instead is have LO and CH checked off. AON has been printed off but it won't be ready for market until December sometime.

e. Jim

Friday, November 18, 2005

I had a pretty good night and we got out at 8pm, so I was happy with that. I think we had less then 20 people. I was on taps and I pulled in $455 in in 3hrs on two campagnes that were more or less done for.

I felt pretty good that I sent "Lift-Off" out again. At least it's not costing me anything to get this out like when I submitted to Print magazines. I'm still doing market research as these webzines are scattered all over the place. This weekend I'm going to work on CH some more and watch the Oiler hockey game.

We've been getting some really nice weather lately and tomorrow it shoud go up to +12 if not as high as +14. So the weather at least is good.

Also, I'm contributing again to the alt.assassination jfk newsgroup again under my real name. The thread this time around is "Oswald's jacket." The one found at the Texaco dealership.

This weekend, Coast has some pretty good shows.

Anyway, that's all for me today

e. Jim

I received my rejection letter from “Strange Horizons” last night. I don’t know now if I want to submit to ezines. More then likely I still will. I’m not sure which zine I’ll submit to next as I’m still weeding out the paying markets from the non paying markets.

I submitted “Lift-Off” to “Anti-muse.” They are a paying Market, even though they pay $5-25/per story. I like “Strange Horizons” because they have this submission story receipt confirmation service that says the story was received. I like that and I can’t say that yet about Anti-muse, or AM. I’ve got maybe 6 zines that accept email submissions and are paying markets. A lot of them accept story lengths of. AM also accepts simultaneous submissions.
But Lift-Off had been in SH possession for 23 days. Not to shabby. Very impressive turn around time. If they read it that is.

e. Jim

_________

No title for this entry but I had a better night then last night at work and even got a $20 credit card. I had a nice train ride home and Oiler fans were just emptying out of Rexall place. lot's of Oiler jerseys on the train and I asked some stranger what the finale score of the game was. 8-4 Oilers over Detroit. Excellent. Oh and I got my check and my stat pay. Wonderful. Anne came in shortly afterwards and I gave her my check and she went to get us pizza while I was watching wrestling.

The last match was awesome with Triple H doing a tribute match for Eddie Gurrereo even though Benoit won both men embraced in tears and resprect for Eddie. A side of triple H we seldom see and on "Friday night Smackdown."

So, after Pizza and wrestling I checked my email and I received a rejection from Strange Horizons. So now I'm going to go over the story again and see if I can make it better and send it out to someone else. I was going to get it out to SciFi.com but see below.

e. Jim

Thursday, November 17, 2005

AON is done

but I wanted to go in for this afternoon but I was so tired and not getting much sleep, well I'll go in for tomorrow afternoon instead.

Anyway, I went to bed just about 6:15amish or so but I couldn't sleep. I was getting a bit shaky but I dozed off for a bit but Anne kept on waking me up. So I got up about 8:30am and I began to work on my story AON I even printed off a copy double spaced this time but the page number formatting wouldn't let me do double digits because I was to far over Also, I thought the story would come in at about 6k but I was surprised when It came in at 5,253. I need to cut 300 words from the story but I broke the story down into my 7 point outline segments to get the story just about 700 words but no way. That would have brought the book down to 4,999.

On a bit of a sad note, SciFi. Com according to Locus online will no longer be accepting fiction after the end of this year. Too bad as they were I believe the best paying market for sf stories paying up to .20 cents/word. And I was going to submit them a story by the end of the year. Reasons why are staff changes.

Also, there is an update on Eddie Gurrereo's death from last weekend and apparently he had a heart attack brought on by pain killers it seems he was in a lot of pain over the years. That's just what I heard from a fellow wrestling fan at work It seems he died in his sleep. I doubt there will be a Smackdown tonight but that's okay, the Oilers are in town playing Detroit tonight. That's enough to keep me busy.

Coast to Coast last night was boring, talking about predictions. Tonight I think it's about Politics espionage and China. Should be a good show, if I can stay up for it.

e. Jim

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Still working at

building my website. Putting it together kind of reminds me of a new video game. Your not sure of what's going on at first but gradually you pick up some pieces and the picture gets a little clearer.

This morning I worked more on AON and I'm not sure that will be the finale story title since so far the story has nothing to do with what that title evokes and some of the parts are a little longer then I want them to be but I'll carry on. The way I'm going I should have AON done by the end of the week. My next story is an adventure called "Whackey whaler Willy." I know "WWW" sounds silly as well. This weekend I'm going to read and do the first line editing on "CH" I'm going to have that up and ready to go before the end of the month like I origionaly planned and also print out a working copy of AON this weekend as well. I think I want to return to AON a bit more and work on that before I close this computer session off here and get ready to go and do the job thing.

That's all fo rnow.

e. Jim

I don't know

how usefull this will be but I added a stats counter to this site. I'll check more into it maybe on the weekend to see if it's working.

e. Jim

Well

I had a great day. I began working on AON. it was slow going in an unfamiliar genre: Adventure.
Work went well tonight on a tough "ghetto" type of campain but our "Magic and Miricles" side most of us did over $200. Cold calls. Also, I put my commitment forward to Rob, the Boss to work Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon but I won't do Saturday's anymore.

On Coast to Coast tonight the topoic is about "Mothman and Bigfoot." Boring. I'm enjoying George's open lines again. Good stuff.

Other then that, not much going on. I was planning on going to the Lodge Thur night but we need the cash and so I put my bid in to go in for Thur/Fri afternoon/evening. That will give me 24.5hrs. Not bad and more in line on what Rob is asking for.

e. Jim

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

What a

shocker hearing about the loss of Eddie Guerrero of wwe apparently died at the age of 38 found dead in his hotel room on Sunday in Minneapolis . Another shocker this weekend. The Tribute RAW show was in the target Center. Details are slow in coming in. Police are ruling out fowl play and suicide. I liked EG and thought he made wrestling a lot better. He wasn't one of my fav wrestler but I'll miss him. Here's to you Eddie.

e. Jim

Monday, November 14, 2005

Yesterday

was spent relaxing. We didn't get up out of bed until around 12:30pm and then brunch and after that I watched the Eskimos at Calgary semi-finale CFL game and I thought oh no, here we go again as at the half it was 23-15. So the Esks Coach changed quarterbacks and what a difference that made. The score ended up being 33-26 in a real nail biter. I was flipping back and fourth at the half between the lousy play the Oilers had and the lousy first half of the Esks. But the Esks won and I was happy about that and couldn't care less about the Oiler game losing 3-1 but while I'm at work tonight on the job thing, I'll bring my radio and listen to the game, sitting beside good ol' J.T. come back at about 9:30ish tonight and get ready to watch my wrestling. Monday night Raw.

Anyway during the second half of the football game Anne received some distressing news that her mother over night had a brain stem stroke and she is having problems swallowing food. Anne's very upset right now and I feel bad for her. However, Anne made us a great prime rib dinner as we usually eat about 7:30pm on a Sunday night and I got to Download.com and found some great third wave Ska revival free Mp3's. I like the band Benuts. some great material so I installed that on my 512mb SD media card. I'm going to look for the CD and buy it if it's around town anywhere.

Other then the above I watched a bit of a movie on Showcase Action before I got back online last night after supper and checked on my regular sites etc.

My next story is called "All or nothing" and it's a slight departure from my SF genre.

But also before brunch yesterday, I began to look for some Blogger replacement options because I feel like I'm selling out the writing community due to this Google Print controversy, by using Blogger. I even went and checked on a few books as well but sure you get a sampling and you have to register but you get a search "more into the book" option and page links. You don't get the whole book but a good enough portion to know what's going on. But people need to know this is still in Beta test and like the Napster/peer-peer MP3 kazza wars this could go down the same way. The AAP is already looking into the legalities of this. My feelings are that people who want to read the whole book will want to buy the book and Google has options for that as well even though we can not overlook the add revenue they are getting from this venture. I think the add revenue or portions of it should go back into authors hands as another revenue stream. In other words, you want to click on my book link I should get that add revenue kind of like Google add sense.

Yet if Google can risk this kind of flirting why can't they do the same with MP3's? Because as far as I know, MP3's can not be (yet) broken up into snippets and reassembled. Or can they? With sampling and digital sound technology this should be easy enough to do. So you get six links to the song, copy all six links and splice them together. Or let the software splice them together at the source. Now I'm not totaly niave enough to assume this technology doesn't exist but like add sense artists should get their share. Hey Google, if your listening, remember I came up with the idea first :-)

Anyway, it's cold out there. -5c* but there is a wind chill and it should warm up though Thur and Friday to +7, if not more which is pretty good for Edmonton this time of year. Anyhow, I'm going to go on my usual internet site haunts as I have an hour left before lunch and work. Though one side note about Google print before I go, I'm not too worried about the big whoopla over this as the whole concept is still a work in progress and I'll continue to use Blogger as the best free blog service out there but we'll see how the AAP lawsuit (if any) comes about. More on this later.

e. Jim

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Whew! ! !

I put together 3,990 words today in one setting and finished the story Cross Hair's. Of course it needs work but the rough draft is done. I want the overall story to come in at just under 5000 words and I'd rather be under then way over. I'm happy with what I got today. I'll do more tomorrow. At least I got this done so I'm happy with that.

e. Jim

I was reading

in Holly Lisle's Blog earlier today, the internet writing journal's of of Best author Blogs and most of them were Romance writers and a lot of the Blogs had not been updated. There were some 35+ blogs and I went through them all and I thought they were nice looking Blogs but none of them I found compelling enough to read over except for just a brief look see. Out of all the Blogs I've been reading that are about writing and the mechanics of writing and an authors day-to-day goals and challenges and just in general are interesting to read, is Holly Lisle.

The thing is I wish there were more Blogs from the science fiction authors I like, but I have yet to find any of them yet. So, HL, you remain high on my list of Blogg's to read. I come into her "Pocket full of words" site every day. Sometimes 3-4 times just to see what's new.

Anyway, I fleshed out some more ideas for CH and AON earlier while I had this boost of creative energy this morning and since I got up at around 10am, I've had this mild headache. I'm still going to work on CH this afternoon as soon as I close out of here. That's all fo rnow.

e. Jim

Yesterday was

spent relaxing. I just did Internet stuff and watched an Oiler hockey game but I plan on buckling down to CH today after I get some sleep. I'm also toying with some ideas for my next story. "All or nothing" Or AON. When I get my response back from SH, on Lift-Off, I'm going to try and market the story to some print magazines. Not that I think there is anything wrong with webzines or anything like that.

But since I want to write a few adventure stories and market them, I also want to write some mystery stories and some more Westrens as well. But one thing at a time.

I got some good responses from my enquiry about stuff to use n between scenes. Transition and narrative summary are two tools I can use. I'm not talking about story pacing or piling scene upon scene but adding material in between the scenes. World building is also another useful method.

e. Jim

Friday, November 11, 2005

Not much

time to Blog yesterday. I didn't get much sleep the night before but I have tomorrow off and I'm going to write CH.

Also, my next story isn't going to be science fiction at all but an adventure. No aliens or gadgets or space ships. Just pure adrenalin rush excitement. I've got the story title and it's going to be my novel project going out in December.

On the Yule weekend, which I'll have 3 days off, I plan on writing that story and have it ready as my January submission. I might just write several adventure short stories before I return to a sf story again later. Actually the way I write, I can produce 1 short story/weekend. If I can keep my healt and able to write until I'm 80, which would be in 26 years, that would be 1,352 short stories. LOL.

e. Jim

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

CH is a story

with a bit of a Planet X twist. I have most of the story outlined and room for some un expected twists and turns if I need them. If things go well and I hope to be ready to write the rough draft and finish the story this long weekend. If any luck at all, it will go out the door November 30th in keeping with my 1 story /month plan.

e. Jim

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

I spent an hour earlier redefining

CH, the short story. Each section will have about 700 words in it and I've got some good stuff, especially to try and make the villain more evil. I think I've got some good stuff here. Still trying to work out "Has a problem." I've taken lots of notes and wrote them down by hand and this looks good but the way it is turning out doesn't read like a science fiction story but more like a mystery. I need to foreshadow some more elements into the "In a Place" to have the MC appear to be more of a villain then before. Now it's time to go over these notes and make some sense of them.

PS if anyone is reading this, I'd sure appreciate some feedback. Thanks

e. jim

Monday, November 07, 2005

I'm in no hurry

this week to get CH done. If it comes out around 10k, I can live with that. But this is mainly to reinforce my own aspirations for the story. Not that anyone ever reads my Blog but this is mainly for me and not necessarily for others but if people get something out of this, then fine. I want to add another Blog called Special Interest and I might do that today.

e.Jim

Sunday, November 06, 2005

CH

is coming along fine but I think this could be going the way of Dark Intruder and that itself is another project. However with CH, if it goes 8-10k then there will be a lot I need to trim away from the story to bring it under 5k. Not that there are no outlets for a 10k web story but I want the story to be 5k. The main problem I'm having at the moment is to make the Villain more evil then he is right now and I'm around 4k. However, I can trim and condense the story down.

At least I'll have a lot more latitude in CH the novel. It looks though as though the story will be in the rough draft by the end of the long weekend.

I haven't had as much time as I'd like today with the story because of back problems I'm having but at least I got something done today and at least 1000 words. But that's all for now.

e.Jim

Saturday, November 05, 2005

I began

work on "CH" today and I have just under 3,000 words to the story. trying to get everything down to just under 5k will be tough and able to keep all of the major elements in the story as I'd like. CH, the novel will be a lot better.

e.Jim

Friday, November 04, 2005

Now I'm preparing

for the structure of "CH" the Novel and expanding more on the material I already have and laying out some scenes. This time though I'm going to work on subplots a bit more and work the middle by adding more things to tighten up the story over all. I'm looking to start this December 1st but still working on short stories. This novel project, I'm under no pressure. I might even start this January 1st. My goal remains the same, one short story/month.

e.Jim

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

I've got about

4 pages of notes on CH and what I don't use for the story I'll be able to use on the Novel and I think I'll be starting the novel this month. but with the Novel I'm going to write 1000 words/day and still do one short story/month. That's the plan. I'll most likely do 2000 words on the weekends, so that would make it a total of 9000 words of fiction/week> to 10,000 words/week X 53 weeks is 53,000 words/year. But of course,l holidays and when I'm off for Lodge night twice/moth, that's 2000 words. When I join the other lodge, that will be one week, 10k So say, 40k per month. More if there are holidays. Multiply that by 12 = 504,000 words/year. If I can keep my health and still able to write up until I'm 80, that will be in 2031 or 26 years from now.Or 13, 104,000 words. Or 13.1 million. Or about 131 novels. If I can do 1 short story/month multiply that by 26, then that would be 312 short stories. not including the ones I have here that I haven't sent out yet.

That's all for today

e.jim

Just working

on some pretty good stuff for CH. It took me awhile but I got a villain and most of the story fleshed out. If things work out ok I should be ready to write this story over the weekend and I might even finish FF as well and do some more world building on Star side. If Possible though CH and FF could both go out the door for November.

So far no word from Strange horizons other then their notification they have received my submission. I don't really expect to hear from them this month at all. If anything the earliest I could hear from them would probably be mid Dec.

Speaking about CH like I said yesterday it has the potential for a stand alone novel. I'm thinking maybe 100k. I'd like to do something with Ace Valorous, and Rouge behavior still. I'd like CH to be the first novel published, Ace Valorous a trilogy, and Rouge, the 2nd stand alone novel, and then 3 novels for Star side and Underworld before any more Star side and a couple of stand alone novels. In theory that is.

I miss working on a novel but I have some short stories to get out of my system and I want some publishing credits for now before I shop around for an agent.

Anyway, I'm probably repeating myself a lot lately here but I am providing updates on my story progress especially with CH, my recent project. That's all for now.

e.Jim

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

I got some good stuff

going with "Cross Hairs" or CH and it has the potential for a strong story.

I was thinking about my website and or my earlier struggles with images and the problem was that the images needed to be uploaded from the Template. The img code src thing, didn't go in the body of the html page but in the link area of Nuke in the Template. But I'm more or less happy with Drupal even though I haven't done anything with it yet. It's just a matter of content more then anything.

one of the things I'd like to do with my website is to once a story has been published in the ezine and rights revert back to me is to publish the story in my website, or excerpts to it. If they want to read more then they can go to the site that hosts the story and read the rest from there. Well, that's the initial idea of course. But that depends on how long the webzine keeps the stories there for and that's something else I can consider when a story has been published. I'd also like to get an icon of the webzine where my stories are available so they click on the story, read a large part of the story at my website but to get the conclusion they have to go to the other website.

But CH will be my next story to go out to an ezine. After that, "Freedom of movement." and then I want to complete "Face to face."

Anyway, that's all for me for today. Just a short entery in here anyway.

e.Jim