Fridge Update

Day sixteen with no refrigerator.

And, the story gets better.  This past Tuesday I called Home Depot because I was supposed to get a refund within 3-5 business days.  That Tuesday would have been seven business days, and still no refund.  So I call HD's customer support, and got a very helpful young man who at the end of our phone conversation gave me his direct line number so that if I have more problems he can help me do follow up.

Anyway, the much mortified young man told me that the Customer Service lady I spoke with that Saturday, so long ago now, had not actually cancelled the order, even though she sent me an order cancelled email, that the refrigerator was still sitting in the docks waiting for me to call them with a delivery plan.  Arrgh.  So, per the helpful young man, I'm supposed to get a refund by this coming Thursday.  We'll see.  Not holding my breath on this one.

Also, remember that the HD delivery driver told me that I should have gotten a permit to allow him to park in a no-parking zone. Well, I called the Seattle DOT parking division and spoke with another very helpful young man.  He said that the driver (or shipping company) should get the parking permit as they are the ones who know when it's going to be delivered.  Another strike against HD and their fly-by-night delivery people.

The real clincher is that no where on their web site does it state that they, Home Depot, aren't responsible for the actual delivery.  Probably, if I burrowed down into the very minuscule print, hidden twenty or thirty links away,  it might indicate otherwise, but on first impression, I believed that they would be responsible for the delivery.  They weren't.

With that said, we'll see what happens with the refund, and you can believe that I'll never shop at Home Depot again for anything.

P.S. Sorry, this is another blog not about writing, but there will be a writing blog post tonight.  Promise.

P.S.S. God, I miss having ice.

Appreciating the Little [or Big] Things

Saturday a week ago, Home Depot was supposed to deliver a refrigerator to my condo.  I've never had problems with deliveries at my condo. So I didn't think anything about it and went ahead and gave my old refrigerator to a friend on that Friday before, figuring I could live for one day without refrigeration. [There's a grocery store right across the street, and I have a big cooler.]

Saturday afternoon comes, and everything is going great. The delivery guys called a half an hour before and were on time. But when they got there, this driver -- I got the impression the real problem was that he already had a bunch of tickets -- wouldn't park in front of the building because there's a no-parking sign there.  Now, this is Seattle, and like any big city, there's lots of signs that mean little or nothing for delivery drivers.  Some of the UPS guys just stop in a lane, double-park, whatever.  Same with FedEx, USPS, etc... But this guy wouldn't budge. No, we can't park in a no-parking zone [even though he was parked there in a no-parking zone arguing with me about it for more time than it would have taken them to unload the refrigerator and be gone].  He also would not consider any other solutions, like unloading and then moving the truck to a real parking spot.  He even wouldn't budge when I told him that he would be leaving me with no refrigerator.  And the Customer Service person was nice, but totally useless.  Sorry, there's nothing we can do about it.  To which I responded refund my money and cancel my order.

The problem is that I had to order another refrigerator, and to get the one I wanted [because of sizing, condos aren't the easiest places to buy appliances for], I would have to wait two weeks.

Today is day nine with no refrigeration.  Fortunately, a friend took all my condiments and cheese and stuff like that and is storing it in her refrigerator, because replacing all that stuff would be really pricey.  All the stuff in the freezer, I gave away or threw away. Damn you, Home Depot.

The lesson I've learned [no, not the one about never shopping at Home Depot again, which I did learn the hard way] is that we have so many things that we depend on and never think about how much we use/need them until they're gone. Heat, running water, hot water... refrigeration. [Most Seattlites don't have air conditioning, but in the Southern states, that's a big deal.]  But you know what I miss most, no-refrigerator wise, is ice.  I eat out a lot, so it hasn't been a huge issue in regards to food, but I don't like drinking warm drinks.  I miss ice.  Ice water, ice tea, martinis [which should be served icy cold]... the list goes on and on.

And how far does our dependence spread, when you really start to think about it?  Most humans, at least all of the ones I know, have a very cushy life when examined closely.  Yes, we bitch about work and the weather and the price of gas and so on, but we don't have to haul water or wash our clothes in a stream or grow our own vegetables. We don't have to hunt/slaughter animals for protein. We don't have to make our own wine or bathtub gin.  We don't even have to type term papers on a manual typewriter anymore [one of the banes of my college years].  Yes, some people do many of those things.

But the key words are don't have to.

Even my quilts are pieced using a rotary cutter and a sewing machine; the quilting itself is done by someone I pay who has a long-arm quilting machine.  Oh, and BTW, the cat quilt is finally finished. See. With everything I try to do, the five-bazillion projects I have going at the same time, it took me nearly ten years to finish it.  No, that wasn't working on it every day or even every year.  That was the time span from start to finish.  Imagine how long it would have taken if I'd had to sew and quilt the whole thing by hand.

Sorry that this blog post had nothing to do with writing, but I felt compelled to send this message, that we should all be cognizant of how easy our lives are, at least appliance wise.  Yes, we whine and moan and bitch about how hard things are, but think about what your life would be like... if you didn't have a refrigerator. 

With that said, I'm going to a restaurant and get some dinner.

So Where Have I Been???

Just wanted to give a quick update, since I haven't written a post in nearly a month.  I've been working with my editor friend, Lisa, for quite a while now, but the last month was really a push to finish.

I feel like An Untold Want (formerly known as Counting Crows) is done.  Lisa is doing another run through edit, and there may be some little things, but nothing that should take another year of editing.  I'm happy with the story as it currently exists.  I added some things, deepened some things, and explained some things that make it a richer, more satisfying tale.

I know I've told my friends that I've been working on this novel for nearly ten years, but I thought hard about it the other night, after Dustin teased me, and, really, when I started my current 9-to-5 job six years ago, I only had three chapters written. Today, An Untold Want is thirty-one chapters, plus five diary excerpts [from ancestors], a total of  129,244 hard earned words.  Plus in that six years, I've also taken a lot of breaks, while -- *sigh* --waiting for agents to reject me, including time to write Couillon and to start my new novel.

I had planned on submitting this novel to Amazon on Summer Solstice, but since it's still in the  hands of one last agent, I want to wait and see what happens with that.  If nothing else, I'd love to say I'm in the good-ol'-boys'-club.  I'd also love to have a physical copy [or twenty] of my book to put on my book shelves.

But if I get another reject before August 1st [Lughnassahd], then it will be going on Amazon on that date.

Lughnassahd is the first of the Celtic harvest holidays, the time to reap what has been sown.  Growing time turns to gathering time, which seems like an appropriate time to release a novel.  Maybe it will help me reap some rewards, as in royalties.  Who knows?  It certainly doesn't hurt.  As Maggie says, I'm praying to whichever god/dess is listening.

Holy Crap, I'm Critiquing Stephen King's Work...

In preparation for Stephen King's Doctor Sleep coming out, in which Dan Torrance [as in Danny Torrance] is the protagonist, I decided to re-read The Shining.  

Let me give you just a little background on my favorite writer, before I go on.  According to Wikipedia, he's written eighty-seven pieces [which include novels, short-story collections, novellas, e-books, non-fiction, a screenplay, a couple of comic books, and a poem -- you get the idea].  And if Google spreadsheets can be trusted, those eighty-seven pieces add up to 35K+ pages [not words, pages].

The Shining, which hit the book stands in 1977 [the year I graduated high school], was his third novel to be published. So needless to say, his writing has grown over the years and has changed with the times and the expectations of the publishing world.

Yes, I say 'needless' now, but I didn't think about all that when I picked up The Shining this time, thirty-six years after I'd originally read it.  No, I thought about how much I enjoyed it the first time, about the scene with the topiary animals [which I mistakenly remembered as having happened to Danny, not his father], about the creepy history of the hotel, about how after reading Salem's Lot at sixteen, Stephen King had once again written something capable of scaring the stuffing out of me.

And I couldn't wait to dig into it again.

But this is where my story gets wonky.  I'm about halfway through the book, and I'm thinking, wow there's lots and lots of telling -- not showing.  For example, not even three chapters in [or something like that], Wendy, the mother, while laying in bed [so no action other than her being drowsy] reflects on her life with Jack and what happened to Danny, etc... for a whole chapter. Basically it is a full chapter of flash-backs.  Same with the father, Jack.  Further in, there's a chapter of Jack reading newspaper articles about the hotel.  Even Danny does a bit of looking back on his short five years.  We get the arm-breaking incident from three different perspectives. What hit me was that that type of writing is frowned upon these days.  I was beaten soundly [okay, exaggerating a bit] for things like that when I was a new writer.

Back-story slows the action.

Maybe you should start the novel sooner. 

No one cares about all that.

SHOW us; don't TELL us.

And yet, I don't feel like all this telling takes away from the story. Yes, it could be cleaned up a bit, but it's still a fabulous story.  And when Stephen King shows you something, you can't get it out of your head.   So maybe a little bit of telling from the Master is a good thing. And yes, I noticed the discrepancy in style, a lot, but like I said, I've had it beaten into me that you don't do things like that, at least not in this millennium.  A new -- 'uneducated in the rules of writing' -- reader may not have even noticed.  [I do tend to edit as I read now, re-writing as I would have written a given story.]

So, I'm writing [no pun intended] off this problem that I'm having as a change in the rules of writing over the past thirty-six years, or maybe because so many more people are publishing now, the rules have become more rigid.  I know that Stephen King's new novels fit right in with today's requirements for what constitutes a 'good writer'.  I know that I only wish I could write as badly as Stephen King.  [That's for all the snotty, literary fiction people.  Hey, I read/write literary fiction, and he's still my favorite author. So there!]

With that said, I'm enthralled with Stephen King, and there are parts of The Shining that still has the ability to scare the stuffing out of me.  Oh my god, the old woman in the tub.  How scary is that?  Danny's only five in the story.  If I saw something like that, I'd pee my pants too, even now.

And I'm looking forward to reading Doctor Sleep.  Although Joyland will likely come first. I can honestly say that of the eighty-seven pieces that Stephen King has written, I've read at least half of them, and several multiple times.  [Doctor Sleep and Joyland are included in that eighty-seven.]

You want to know more about Stephen King, you say. Well, let me google that for you.  There are about a bazillion websites out there.  Go look for yourself.

But if you're really lazy, you can start here: http://www.stephenking.com/index.html.

Who's in Charge: You or Your Writing Tools?

From guest blogger Dustin Higbee:

By day, I’m a software developer.  By night, I’m a sleeper.  The spaces in between are filled with family and writing.  There are many parallels between software development and writing.  You need to know a language, but more importantly, you need to know how languages work.  You need to learn the fundamentals of good structure.  You need to adopt a work process that suits you.  This can be planning via outline or model, or you can iteratively write and revise.  No matter how you get there, the only thing that matters is the working code you ship or the finished manuscript that you publish.  But I’ve noticed that there is one part of the process that keeps both developers and writers from getting to done: tools.

It starts with an unmet need.  The project has grown too large to organize, so you search for a tool to help with organization.  The tedium of a repetitive task drives you to look for a tool that can automate the task.  Pretty soon you are auditioning tools instead of cutting code.  You are testing features instead of putting words on the page.  A little of this is ok, because a legitimate productivity boost is possible. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

Enter phase two.  You’re comfortable with the new tool, blissfully hacking away at your project, when a friend (or your stand-in, the Internet) mentions a useful feature that hadn’t occurred to you.  New tool X has it, your tool does not.  You decide that you don’t need it and continue working with what you have.  But the knowledge nags you from the back of your mind, tells you that you’re incomplete without it.  So you switch.

Again, you’re blissfully hacking away at your project.  But alas, you find that New Tool is missing features that were available in Old Tool.  In a brief moment of insanity, you contemplate using both tools at the same time.  If you are a software developer AND a writer, you are permanently insane, so you contemplate coding up a new tool that has all of the “required” features.  Maybe you are lucky enough to find a third tool that has everything.  But at some point, you catch on to what others in your profession have already discovered: the tool is a distraction.

 
If you’re a developer, you switch from Eclipse to Sublime Text.  If you’re a writer you ditch Scrivener for WriteRoom.  These tools hide the features they contain when placed in “distraction-free” mode (Scrivener tries to do this too), but in many cases these tools are simply missing features.  So you are almost back where you started.  From here you have options. 

1. Repeat the cycle until vomiting ensues
2. Retreat to quill and parchment
3. Plan your process

Option one is obviously bad, but many great works have been created with option two.  If it works for you, I am impressed.  But I will still think of you as a Luddite who is missing out on the progress of humanity.  What about option three?

Option three starts with recognizing that the tools have taken over your writing process and that you need to regain control.  A little Project Management can help here.  Many writers think about the steps of their projects as Plan, Write, Revise, although maybe not always in that order.  In this view, the Plan task is focused on the real work of researching and outlining that happens during the project.  I’m suggesting that you add a pre-planning step in which you create a project plan.

The project plan describes your process for completing the work.  The key for this discussion is that you are choosing the tools you will use for the duration of the project.  You are setting aside a specific time for selecting tools (before the project begins), and then making an agreement with yourself to stick to them until the project is complete.  When you start the project, you simply Plan, Write, and Revise using the tools you have in your toolbox.

 
There are, of course, other parts of the process that you can lay out ahead of time and it is easy to fall into the trap of planning so much that you never start.  But if you know that tools flip on your ADD switch, then a little planning ahead may just help you maintain your focus.  

5000+ Hits, Another Milestone

Sometime during the night, I passed the 5000 hits mark on this blog.  I can tell I'm getting more of a following -- thank you all -- because I went from 4000 to 5000 in a little over a month.  Considering it took me a year and a half to get to 4000 hits, I consider this a huge accomplishment.

Keep your cards and letters coming, and keep coming back, please....

Love you all!

Reflection and Images as Writing Tools

Guest blogger Alan Brewer muses:

In my personal life, I allot time to reflect.  As a talent development leader and executive coach in my professional life, I spend inordinate amounts of time teaching executives to reflect and to capture those thoughts in a journal.  I ask them to think about what was, what is, and what can be.  There is no better window to the soul than a private, reflective journal.  I tend to keep two; one is an appreciative journal to remind me how wonderful life is, and the other is dark--- filled with vicious thoughts and evil.  I find that love and hate are two strongly connected emotions and sometimes when one is developing a character profile, the best emotions and most prolific characters can be found when I cull through my own journals.

While working in the media and entertainment industry, I became acutely aware of the value of images.  Think about a movie poster.  How does one create / capture one image that communicates the theme of an entire movie with all its twists, plots, characters and layers?  Creating an image with words can even be more challenging.  How does one create an effective, compelling image using only words?  Images, however expressed, are powerful storytelling tools, and there is a delicate balance to strike in getting them just right.

I recall two exercises from my undergraduate coursework that I still find helpful.  Exercise 1:  Take an ordinary red-tip kitchen match and strike it, watching it burn until it reaches your fingertip.  Blow out the match, inhale and observe the gray smoke unfurl and disappear.  Then, describe that activity in minute detail, writing a minimum of 5,000 words.

Exercise 2:  Take any horrific headline from the television news (destructive tornadoes, building collapse, plane crash), and tell that story in 3 or fewer paragraphs.  Get all the facts, and tell the story concisely as though you were writing the newspaper copy.   Those two exercises force your brain into mental Olympics, expanding and contracting your memory and thinking faculties.  Free thought and discipline are both valuable in character development and experienced writers learn how and when to use each tool.

Next, I’ll explore how a vivid imagination can fuel character development when “with that said” continues…