Inevitable Change

Sorry for the long delay between posts, but it has been a hectic week or so. I think all family now knows, so I don't feel like I'm jumping the gun posting here. Last wednesday morning my wife's mother passed away. She had lived with us for the past 16 years. Save whatever mother-in-law joke comes to mind, I've already heard it. But, she was part of the family and a fixture in our lives for all that time. The kids never knew the house without her.

The past two years and a few months have been a real challenge. She broke her hip in January of 2007 and never really recovered to the woman she was before. She needed constant care. It was tremendously difficult, but we did what we had to do. If you've done it, you know what I mean. If you haven't, chances are fair you will eventually.

I'm not going to go into any more detail because I don't think this is the right venue for it. What I will say is that looking back through all the thousands of photos I took over the course of 16 years, it was rare for me to find a photo of her without a smile on her face. I discovered that while digging through them all to put together slideshow to send to family and friends. (Still working on refining it.)

Anyway, a change like this is a fairly significant change, and it's going to take some time before everything settles into a new normal.

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If you actually come to my blog to learn about my writing, M-Brane SF #4 was just released. It contains my story "Plan R." If you are quick enough, you can grab a copy here.

It's Da Bomb

Today the scouts had a visit from the Air Force guys from Luke who are in change of mine removal and ordinance disposal. They told some Iraq stories, and showed the boys some equipment and some training weapons. The coolest thing was the bomb robot (aka pizza delivery boy).

Here is Russell with an RPG.



And here is the very cool bomb robot.

Overcoming Newton's Law

I mean the one about an object in motion remains in motion, an object at rest remains at rest. My writing has stagnated over the past 2 years. It started with a certain problem in my previous job that sent me packing for a 3 day trip to a small city near Terra Haute, Indiana to get raked over the coals by a customer's management. They sent me despite requesting our top brass.

I'll not go into any more detail about that, the details aren't important now. Follow that up with the ascent of Yertle the Turtle into that top brass and my stress level rose so high I couldn't write consistently. It got so bad that I haven't written anything like regularly for an embarrassingly long time. The little bit I have done in the past year has stunk up the place.

Writing is like exercising. Or, more like playing piano. You know--if I miss one day of practice, I can tell, if I miss two days of practice, the world can tell. Since I left the Heart Attack Factory(TM) it hasn't improved. My stress level is down, but I lost how it feels to write regularly. It's something that isn't going to change on its own.

I'm something like3 novels and 50 short stories behind where I should be. I also seem to have lost my ability to generate story ideas in any quantity. Time was I had more than I could write.

I think this is a vicious circle that feeds on itself. The longer I go without writing, the worse it gets and the harder it is to get back into the saddle. It's like I'm back in 2004, before I started the novel I finished. That was when I became a real writer because I took it seriously. I've regressed that far, and it's pitiful. But writing is part of who I am, and today I have bibliography, unlike 2004. The boilerplate stuff I write today can sell. The good stuff? Remains to be seen.

I've been stuck on this semi-pro plateau for far too long. No point of thinking about what might have been if I kept writing regularly after that flight to Indianapolis two years ago. I can't change that. What I can do is move forward. First, I have to get back on the horse. That means, I go write no matter how I feel. I can't think of anything to write, but i have 4 unfinished short stories in addition to the aborted novel. I'm sure I can find something to work on.

So, I'm off...wish me well on the long climb out of this nasty hole I've dug myself into.

Hmmm

Okay, looks like the problem is not that the video is huge, it's just that I uploaded an enormous splash image. Live and learn. Okay to watch here.

Novy Mirror Cross Posting

Okay. I see blip.tv did, indeed, crosspost to my blog. The video does seem a little large to me. If you want to watch it, I suggest you watch it here.

NOVY MIRror Episode 0

Click to Play

This is a bonus edition of the Novy Mirror.  Episode 0 was created as a dry run to go through the process of creating an episode.  In this episode, Rick Novy interviews himself.