The SoapBoxers

So, what’s up in Kosmo’s world?

I avoided the ladder

I encountered one of my more interesting driving experiences this week.  As I was driving into work, an extension ladder suddenly appeared on the road in front of me.  The ladder was in the two right lanes (of three total lanes) and I was in the right land, so I veered sharply right to avoid the ladder, then back sharply left to avoid leaving the roadway.  I felt a little bad about the lack of control the car exhibited during this maneuver – until I looked in my rear view mirror and saw another driver perform a carbon copy of my move.  I really didn’t need my morning caffeine after that – I was wide awake.

Baywatch (and Hollidaywatch)

Red Sox outfielder Jason Bay rejected a 4 year contract offer worth $60 million from Boston this week.  This sets an apparent floor on the value of Bay and fellow free agent outfielder Matt Holliday.  The emerging consensus, based an advanced statistical measures, is that the two players are comparable offensively (albeit with different strengths and weaknesses), and that Holliday is a better defender.

An interesting quirk is that Boston would actually come out ahead in terms of draft picks by allowing Bay to leave and nabbing Holliday as a free agent.  They would forfeit their first round pick to sign Holliday, but would receive a draft pick from the teams that signs Bay (assuming that a contender signs Bay, this would be a first rounder) as well as a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds.  The sandwiches are truly a free lunch – they picks are artificially added into the draft.  That’s why there are about 40 “first round” picks every year – in spite of the fact that there are only thirty teams.

There’s one important free agent who might be slipping under the radar of a lot of casual fans.  The name is Rudy Jaramillo.  Never heard of him?  What position does he play, you ask?  Hitting coach.  Jaramillo, widely renowned as the best hitting coach in baseball, is moving from the Texas Rangers to Chicago Cubs.  Don’t be surprised if you see several Cubs players have strong seasons at the plate.  Interestingly, the Rangers lose Jaramillo just one season after poaching standout pitching coach Mike Maddux (brother of Greg) from the Brewers.  What goes around, comes around, I guess.

Novels

I recently broke ground on my novel, Casting Stones.  I’ve been kicking around plot ideas for several months, but finally began the actual writing on Halloween.  I pushed past 6000 words on Friday and am making good progress.  The infrastructure for the plot is developing pretty well, with concrete ideas for seventeen chapters.  I see 15,000 words as a turning point – if I can make it to that point, I think there is a strong chance that I an maintain momentum and finish up with a full sized novel.

I’m not the only one working on a book.  Martin Kelly is working on his, of course.  We’ll see another installment of his NaNoWriMo diary tomorrow) and few other folks I know are either in the midst of writing a book, or are seriously considering one.  Go for it!  If you finish the book, great.  In any case, writing a book is an absurdly cheap hobby.

A substantial portion of the readers from The Soap Boxers are from the midwest, but we also have other people spread out over quite a geographic area – not just in the United States and Canada, but spread out across Europe and Asia as well (with the occasional visitor from Australia or New Zealand spread it).  Today’s article is mostly geared toward the out of area readers.

Jobs

When I say that I’m from Iowa, you might immediately jump to the conclusion that I grew up on a pig farm.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

It was a dairy farm.

While it’s true that a considerable portion of Iowa’s economy is tied to the agriculture industry, it is far from the only industry in the state.  My own “day job” is working in the information technology area of one of the most recognizable companies in the country.  Quite a few Fortune 500 companies have a presence in Iowa, and there are plenty of white collar jobs in the state.

Cost of Living

One of the best things about the midwest is a substantially lower cost of living than on the coasts.  I live in a city that is more expensive than most in the state, but it’s laughably less expensive than New York, San Francisco, Seattle, or even the larger metro areas within the midwest.  On the rare occasion that I watch a real estate show that watches people buy homes in other cities, I have to laugh.  People are paying multiples of what my house costs and getting a fraction of the space.

Caveat: salaries in cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Seattle can often by higher than those in the midwest.

Weather / Traffic

The midwest is blessed/cursed by the existence of seasons.  We don’t have the consistently frigid temperatures of Point Barrow or the baking heat of Death Valley, but it does get over 100 degrees in the summer and wind chills can dip to fifty degrees below zero in the winer (although that is fairly rare).  During the course of the year, we’ll get rain, snow, sleet, hail, freezing rain, fog, and even something fun called “wintry mix”.

One quirky thing that we do in Iowa answer the question of “How far is it to point X” in miles!  Why don’t we give the answer in minutes?  Well, because there’s a pretty standard conversion factor that everyone knows.  1 mile = 1 minute.  I work in one of the larger cities in the state, and a “major” traffic delay means 15-30 minutes.  A few years ago, I was delayed for nearly an hour!  For someone in NYC, this might not sound like much of a delay, but it’s historic around here 🙂

Politics

Considering that Iowa has the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses, you may jump to the conclusion that Iowans are, by nature, very political people.  This really isn’t the case, though.  The registered voters in the state are split pretty evenly between Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters.  The Democrats have done well in recent elections, but any given election can turned based on how the substantial block of unaffiliated voters swing.

The big political news this year was the state supreme court legalizing gay marriage.  Iowa has never been known as an activist state, so this came as a surprise to many.  Opponents of gay marriage are proposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.  However, it’s difficult to even get such a measure on the ballot.  Such a measure must pass in the state house and senate in TWO consecutive state assemblies (an assembly lasts two years) before going in front of the voters.  With the Democrats in control of the state legislature, there is not chance of this occurring any time soon.  The next chance the Republicans would have to gain control would be in the 2011-2012 general assembly, meaning that it will be 2013, at the very earliest, before this measure could go in front of voters (since it must pass in TWO assemblies) – where it would face an uncertain fate.

What to Do – Sports

Iowa has no top-level professional sports teams.  However, we are within an easy day’s drive of Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and Milwaukee (or a more aggressive day’s drive to quite a few other cities).  So sports fans in Iowa aren’t completely shut out.  A nice bonus to this is that you don’t feel compelled to lock in to one particular sports team.  The fan base within the state is fractured.  The Cubs have a plurality among baseball fans, but there’s also a strong contingent of Cardinals and White Sox fans.  The Vikings probably have the most football fans right now, but this tends to flip-flop between the Vikings, Bears, and Packers depending on who is doing the best on the field.

The biggest sporting events in the state, however, are the college sports.  Iowa is the only state that has a team in both the Big 12 (Iowa State) and Big 10 conferences.  This leads not only to debates about which team is better, but also which conference is better.  (Iowa State and the Big 12 are better, of course).

If you’re a fan of college wrestling, Iowa is a great state for you.  Wrestling legends Dan Gable and Cael Sanderson wrestled for Iowa State, with Iowa native Gable later switching sides and turning the Iowa wrestling program into a juggernaut.  During the season, quite a few wrestling matches are televised on the state’s PBS station.

There are also quite a few race tracks in the state, ranging from go-kart tracks in the smaller towns all the way up the the Iowa Speedway in Newton, which features NASCAR Nationwide and truck racing, as well as an IRL race.

There are five affiliated minor league baseball teams (headlined by the AAA Iowa Cubs) as well as an independent league team in the state.  There is also the Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville (a hop-skip-and-a-jump from my hometown).  It has been twenty years since the movie came out, but the field still attracts visitors.  Admission is free.  They do accept donations and will happily sell you merchandise.

What to Do – Non-Sports

OK, I realized that not everyone is a sports fan.  What is there for the non-sports fan to do?  Well, of course there is access to activities in the larger metro areas mentioned earlier, but what is there to do within Iowa itself?

Hebert Hoover Presidential Library – It might surprised you to know that Iowa is home to a presidential library.  The library and music of native Herbert Hoover can be found in West Branch.

Cable Cars – Cable cars aren’t just for San Francisco.  You can recreate the experience in Dubuque, riding up the side of a hill in a cable car.  I was there when I was a kid, and it was pretty cool.

Burial Mounds – Effigy Mounds National Monument features more than 200 Native American burial mounds, including 31 that were formed into the shapes of animal.

The Bridges of Madison Country – Yep, Iowa is the home of the covered bridges of movie fame.

Rivers – Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.  This provides great access for fisherman (and fisherwomen), and has also resulted in interesting topography for hikers.  Personally, I like the bluffs along the Mississippi.

The Basilica of State Francis Xavier – Don’t think there’s gothic architecture in Iowa?  Check out the Basilica and you won’t be disappointed.

RAGBRAI – Every year, thousands of people participate in this ride across this state.  It’s half exercise and half party.  Well, maybe that’s not the exact percentage 🙂  They change the route every year (but it’s always west to east)

I’ve just scratched the surface … swing by and visit Iowa some time.

My name is Dollar Bill. You can call me Bill. Like most of my family, I was born in the Philadelphia mint. I remember it like it was yesterday. At birth, I was attached to my siblings in a sheet. We were sliced apart and sent to a federal reserve bank. I was sent to Chicago.

Shortly after my arrival in Chicago, I ended up at Wrigley Field. I couldn’t see the game, because of my obstructed seat in the cash register. I could hear the crack of the bat and the excitement of the crowd. I loved my new home.

In the middle of the fourth inning, I was given to a man in change after he purchased two foot long hot dogs, nachos, and two large Cokes. I was hoping that he would share some of the foot with me, but he didn’t. After the game, we left the ballpark and went to the man’s home.

I received a crash course in life at this point. The man was addicted to cocaine, and the crisp new $1 bill (that would be me, Bill) was his instrument of choice for snorting his cocaine. The cocaine gave me awful headaches, and my brilliant green skin became speckled with white spots.

After several weeks, I became depressed at the prospect of living the rest of my life this way. Fortunately, I fell out of favor with the drug user. My body lost some of its firmness, and he found another bill that was still crisp and new. I disappeared into a pop machine when the druggie bough a Pepsi. I sighed with relief. I had escaped.

I chilled out in the pop machine for a few days. It was great to be away from the dealer and his drug parties. The relative silence of the pop machine was a welcome change.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I was living in the cash register at a used book store. It was a pretty cool place to live – the guy who ran the place loved to talk about books with all the customers. Before long, though, it was time to move on once again. An older gentleman bought a slightly used copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and received me as part of his change.

I got to meet the guy’s grandson the next day. The kid is pretty cool. He’s learning how to ride his bike, and he’s taking a few tumbles along the way. He always gets right up and jumps back on the bike, though. Resilient little fellow. The grandpa was proud of the kid’s efforts and gave him a dollar to put in his piggy bank. Not just any dollar – but me!

Now I’m sitting in Billy’s piggy bank. Billy’s mom tells him that he needs to save up all of his money for a trip to Disney World. I’m very excited – I’ve never been to Disney World. I can’t wait to meet Mickey Mouse!

The two big wars the US is involved in these days are getting less and less popular by the minute, thanks in part to the 24-7 news coverage modern technology brings us.  I personally was fine with our invasion of Afghanistan and very much against our invasion of Iraq, but that’s not the topic I’m going to rant about today.  I want to talk about a “war” that the US has been losing for decades:  The War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs fought its first losing battle in 1969, when Richard Nixon used the term to describe a plan to intercept marijuana at border crossings in Mexico.  That lasted 20 days because of the burden on state border guards who had better things to do than inspect legitimate traffic for illegal materials.  Thanks in part to Nancy Reagan, the anti-drug campaign saw a huge media push in the 80’s – we all remember “Just Say No.”  It’s received quite a large amount of funding, too:  $600 dollars.

Yes.  $600 dollars.

A second.[1]

The Federal government alone spent $19 billion dollars in 2003 fighting illegal drug use.  When you combine state spending the figure for this year is already over $40 billion dollars.  Surely those large sums of money are doing some good, right?  85% of high school seniors say it would be “very easy” for them to get drugs if they wanted, and that figure has never dropped below 82% in the last 3 decades.[2]  Doesn’t congress hold budget inquiries for misused or misspent federal funds?  We’ve had our elected officials in Washington get involved with professional sports multiple times in the last decade, yet none of them are questioning why we’re spending billions a year on a war that has seen no improvement.  Imagine if McArthur was still trying to re-take the Philippines in 1951, appearing before congress like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel.  That would have gone over well.

Add this economic sinkhole to a controversial yet widely accepted fact that marijuana, in terms of lung health only, is less harmful than cigarettes.[3]  In addition, the United States Department of Health and Human Services published a study in 2002 that showed less than 1 percent of Americans smoke marijuana on a daily basis, and just a small percentage of those were considered dependent.[4]  Personal anecdote time:  I know at least a dozen people who smoke pot multiple times a year.  All of them are productive members of society, holding jobs or making good grades in school.  Cigarette smoking cost the US almost 200 billion dollars a year between health care costs and lost productivity time (those smoking breaks add up!).  Pot doesn’t look so bad compared to your average Camel or Kool now, huh?

We have a war on drugs that is wasting vast sums of money and a drug that doesn’t appear to be overly harmful.  What is the point I’m trying to make?  We should legalize marijuana and tax it.  A recent Frasier Institute study showed that the price of .5 grams of weed on the street is about $8.60 while the cost to produce it was only $1.70.[5]  While that’s quite a profit, there are reasons for it, the biggest being it is illegal and not currently industrialized in this country.  But imagine if the government could get a decent sized chunk of that revenue.  In 2005 the Federal Government made 7.7 billion dollars on tobacco tax, and the state governments took in over 13 million combined.[6]  While not as many people would immediately jump to smoking pot, a big chunk of money would be simply saved from that $600 dollars a second in addition to the tax revenue you would generate.  A recent projection showed nearly a billion dollars a year could be made from the taxation of marijuana.[7]

I would think the tax revenue and savings alone would have Republicans jumping on the bandwagon to support this cause, but I fear pandering to the religious right and socially conservative crowd is the reason they don’t.

[1]  http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm
[2]  http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/data/05data/pr05t13.pdf
[3]  http://www.healthline.com/blogs/smoking_cessation/2007/07/is-cannabis-smoking-more-harmful-than.html
[4]  http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/
[5]  http://economics.about.com/od/incometaxestaxcuts/a/marijuana.htm
[6]  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17170991/
[7]  http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxes_marijuana/revenue.html

I have written a few other articles on the topic of writing fiction. Today, I’ll spend our time together talking solely about the development of characters.

Let them have a little fun

Characters are the lifeblood of any story. If your characters are dull, your story will be uninteresting. Conversely, an interesting character can not only captivate your audience, but also inspire you during the writing process.

Recently, Martin Kelly mentioned that he liked his characters. To an outsider, it might seem odd, but I also find myself relating with characters. With a short story, a writer doesn’t spend a lot of time developing characters, due to the compressed nature of the writing. For longer stories, though, many hours can be spent molding the character.

In order to explore various plot scenarios, I often will send my characters to the “back burner” of my brain to let them try out various experiences in and effort see what experiences are good fits of the plot and which are not.

The net result is that I create a nearly sentient being. These characters can run wild inside the imagination of an author, living very full lives as they rush to and fro, experiencing all that life has to offer. Do I sometimes wake up and wonder what a character did while I was sleeping? Well, um, sometimes.

Let your characters have fun, and you will have more fun writing about them.

Attributes of a character

One problem I have stumbled across is that many of my characters are quite slender. Why is this? Quite simply because I’m projecting. I stand a shade under six feet tall and tip the scales around 150 pounds. Not surprisingly, it is easier for me to write about slender characters than it is to write about characters who are 5’4” and 275 pounds. I simply don’t have as solid a frame of reference for the other characters.

I also have a habit of making most of my characters physically attractive. Most of my characters also have very engaging personalities. Many of them share the interests and hobbies that I myself enjoy. In short, they are people that I would get along with great.

So, by default, I have a bunch of Stepford characters running amok in my brain. In terms of their usefulness as imaginary friends, this is pretty nifty. Unfortunately, these happy-go-lucky characters make for a pretty lousy plot – because there is not conflict.

Thus, I am always compelled to roughen the edges on a few of the characters. Interestingly, it isn’t difficult for me to create truly bad characters such as murderers – I struggle more with putting a few necessary blemishes on the nice people. For the most part, I actually fail at this. The majority of my characters are still much nicer than I would like.

So, it’s OK to like some of your characters, but you should also dislike a few – and dislike some aspects of nearly all of the characters. Also, avoid using yourself as too much of a reference point. After finishing up the writing of Key Relationships, I was stunned to find out that the vast majority of the story is written from the male perspective! Even worse, there was no valid plot-related reason for this.

Names and Dialogue

If you write a lot of stories, it can be difficult to constantly find new names. You may find yourself using names of family, friends, and celebrities. Within the past year, I have begun going to the source. The US Census Bureau tracks first and last names and ranks them by how common they are. This is, in a word, SWEET. Not only does it provide you with names you may not have considered previously, but it also lets you know how common the name is.

As we segue smoothly from names to dialogue, we encounter the topic of names being used as part of the dialogue. It is important to avoid overusing the names of characters during the dialogues. If Mark and Bob are speaking to each other, you need not use “Mark” or “Bob” during each line of dialogue – you will drive your readers crazy.

It is also important to spice up the dialogue with a bit of variety. “Said” is a perfectly fine word, but people can also ask, shout, exclaim, whisper, hiss, utter, reply, or comment. Amazingly, most of the time you can simply avoid using any of these verbs. The presence of quotes already makes the reader aware of the fact that someone is speaking.

Finally, natural dialogue will typically be less formal than the prose that surrounds it. Spoken language tends to be less formal than written language – in large part due to the minimal preparation before speaking. If your characters’ dialogue sounds as if they are reading it from a teleprompter, it won’t ring true to your audience.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

It only took 65 official starts but a major breakthrough victory occurred on the LPGA tour this weekend. Michelle Wie, won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico

Wie has been one of the most talked about figures of all time in Women’s Professional golf. Heck she has been one of the most talked about sports figures regardless of any sport over the last 4-5 years.

She brings a lot to the table, young, spunky with her attitude, enormous power which is unusual for the women’s game, one overbearing parent in her dad Charlie, coached by the great David Leadbetter, and on and on and on.

She has played against the guys a few times in various events, and not shown up. She has played poorly in some events and even withdrawn under some scrutiny on one occasion when a high score would have prevented her in playing in some future LPGA events due to a weird scoring rule they have built in on that tour.

On the other hand as a very young player she had close but no cigar calls in all major golf tournaments. Showed flashes of brilliance at times and even was a major part of the United State Solheim Cup Victory this year at Rich Harvest Farms in the Chicago area.

Yes, Wie has secured millions of dollars of endorsement deals, has a army of fans even at this early age, good looks to go with her good game … the only thing missing was a victory. Until Sunday.

Wie beat an impressive filed, likely as strong as any major golf tourney. Kerr, Creamer, Pressel and Ochoa all finished in the top 6. Her normally average at best putting was good enough this week to take her to the place she has not been before. The victory podium

I think this could be the beginning of an impressive run. Wie appears to have been under a LOT of pressure, I believe by her immediate family, as well as herself to produce results. You could tell in her interview following her win that she was more relieved than happy. It seems the proverbial monkey is now off her back.

She has the talent, she has the following, she has game … now she just might have her head right. And if so, the rest of the LPGA better look out, as they might be in for a long ride .

WIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Guest writer Martin Kelly is participating in National Novel Writing Month.  NaNoWriMo pushes writers to write a fully contained 50,000 word novel (this equates to about 175 pages) in the course of just a month.  This is quite an aggressive goal – a bit too aggressive for Kosmo!  Martin shares his writing diary with us:

11/1 – calculated the word count that I will have to achieve 50,000 words by 11/30: 1667 words a day if I work every day, 1352 on weekdays and 4054 on Saturdays if I take Sundays off. Today is Sunday, and I’m taking it off.

11/2 – signed up for NaNoWriMo. Easy enough to sign up. You have to declare a genre. I chose general fiction. I may have to change to Romance later, but I am trying to stay away from that. Got to work on first chapter. I want to complete a chapter each night, about 2.5 pages in MS Word at 11pt Calibri. 1313 words by MS Word (-39 words for the day), 1316 by the web site counter. You can copy your text into a box on the web site and it will calculate your word count so far. It is considered “beta” until the end when the official counts are made. I’m going to stick with the MS Word tool for now. Introduced the main character and his wife, a couple of nurses and a doctor. Dialog is hard, description is easy, I will have to work on that. Having just been in the hospital recently helped the descriptions. Having a doctor and several nurses in the family helps too (all on my wife’s side).

11/3 – Chapter 2 was 1407 words, so I caught up from yesterday (+55 today, +16 over all). We will have to see if I can keep this pace up. Started the interaction of the main character and his wife. Since he is still in the hospital and weak, I was able to avoid dialog for a while longer. I have to stop reading what I have already written and editing. I can clean it up after 11/30. My wife is worried that I am staying up too late working on this. There are lots of support options on the web page, but I haven’t figured out how to use them yet. I am more concerned about writing right now. If I hit a block, I will probably spend some time diving into the site to get help. Everyone else who is trying, KEEP WRITING!

11/4 – Chapter 3 was 1723 words, anther good day (+329 today, +355 over all). Tried dialog today, Mother-Daughter. I will ask my wife to read it over to make sure it is realistic. I reread the first two chapters again and probably deleted more than I added. Introduced the wife’s mother and father. Started the conflict of the main character and his mother in law. It is all one sided for now, until I build up the main character. A lot of this book is going to include farming commentary. I will be depending on my father in law to make sure I do it right. He grew up on a farm in western Iowa. I am a townee.

11/5 – Chapter 4 was only 1310 words (-42 today, +313 over all). My overall count over/under count is not accurate any more as I continue to edit the earlier chapters. I think I have stopped deleting more than I am adding, but I am spending too much time editing instead of composing. I added in two more characters today and I think I am doing better with dialog. Two older men (like myself) so a little easier to think of what they would say and how they would react. Tried to capture some future chapter stuff at the suggestion of Kosmo, but can’t do it. I can revise stuff I have already written, but writing ahead poses the challenge of merging. I am writing almost like a soap opera. It all flows nicely, but I do not know where it is going.

11/6 – Chapters 5 and 6 are in the bag. I started an Excel sheet to keep track of just my totals. I was right about hosing up the count earlier in the week. My total is now 8447 words or just 100 words ahead of schedule. I really developed the characters of the main character’s minister (Methodist) and his wife’s priest (Roman Catholic). I really like both of them. That probably sound strange as I created them. I added a list of characters at the front to help me remember who everyone is, I will not include that in my word count. I brought in the news reporter who covered the accident for the local TV station. I don’t know if I will use her again, but she could be useful.

11/7 – Chapters 7 and 8 are good. I am falling behind on the word count. I got the main character out of the hospital. He is meeting his wife’s family, father in law first. Before he got out, the priest and minister set up a video of him in high school. He had been a football starter, so they had gotten footage from the TV reporter. It is all part of their effort to help him heal. I realized that in this blog, I haven’t given a summary of the story plot, so here it goes.

The basic story is that a young man (about 22 years old) is in a major accident. He was drunk and the other driver died. When he wakes up in the hospital he cannot remember anything. He spends the first few days awake listening to everyone to try to piece together what happened. His wife visits every day, that helps him a lot but also presents a problem, he doesn’t remember her. He had been a pretty lousy husband up to this point, drinking and carousing with his friends instead of taking care of their farm which he inherited from his grandfather. Her mother asks her priest and his minister to help them with their marriage. The young man confesses his problem to his minister. The minister and priest are good friends and decide to try to help the young couple together, including trying to help the young man recover his memories. The video in these chapters is supposed to give him some positive commentary on his life to this point, since he has only learned about the bad parts so far.

The plot goal is to get him to overcome his memory loss, not recover it. Finally admit to his wife what has happened. Reform his life in general, and face down the bad influences he has been hanging out with. The romance part of this story is the two main characters restarting their love life together.

11/8 – I had to keep working to stay on schedule even though it is Sunday. Chapter 9 introduced the main character’s brother in law. I needed someone to teach him what to do on his farm. Basically, his brother in law is a guide both for the main character and the reader. He tours the farm, the house, the chores and introduces some more characters for later. I am getting close to having the main character and his wife in bed. I don’t know why, but I am nervous about that.

11/9 – I was on an airplane all day traveling for business. This turned out to be a good thing. I got most of chapters 10 and 11 done. I am well ahead in word count now, about 2000 words ahead. I was uncomfortable writing a sex scene sitting next so a stranger on an airplane, so I had my characters avoid it to. I will be in a hotel room the next 11 nights so I should get a lot of writing done. I joined a writing group on NaNoWriMo today. They have “write-ins” where local groups get together at coffee shops and such to sit, talk and write. I don’t know if I will join it, but it seems friendly. There are also dedicated people in each group who have completed the event in the past who are on call to help. Help could mean explanation of the rules or help on plot. They also have a tracking graph to let you see if you are on schedule. I will have to copy my effort in every day. There is a distinct plateau and jump up on my graph.

11/10 – Chapter 12 was all description. Also started the main character taking on responsibility. I explained why only his in laws are part of the story. Dad is dead, mother move off to be with one of his older brothers. He came from a very cold family, but the farm house suggests that his mother came from a very warm and loving home. She was an only child but our character had lots of brothers and sisters. Again I don’t know what I am going to do with that, but it is an interesting branch if I need it.

11/11 – Chapter 13 the main character finds out that he was kind of a pervert. He had a rather tall stack of adult magazines that his bother in law stumbles across causing great embarrassment. Then the minister drops by to check on him. He confesses that he feels like a creep because he want to have sex with his wife, but he doesn’t know her. That is just me avoiding the sex chapter again. I am getting more comfortable with dialog. Others will have to decide if I am actually good at it. This was a short chapter so I have lost some of my advantage in words. I am right at 20,000 words now, which is still good. I have to have at least 25000 words by Sunday.

11/12 – Chapter 14 and a lot of editing of the earlier stuff. I had the time passage all messed up. I am about 3000 words ahead of my plan, which is great. In the story, the main character’s wife is having problems believing that he has changed his ways. It is hard to believe that a drunk can change quickly, even if the drying out is forced by a hospital stay. He still hasn’t told her that he has lost his memory. He is worried that he is doing everything wrong, what just about every man in the world worries about when his woman is upset.

I probably made my first purchase via the internet in about 1994. I’m sure the purchase for a few dollars worth of baseball cards. In the fifteen years since then, I have bought a multitude of things on the internet. Some things just seems to be best purchased over the internet – I’ve given some examples below.

Filters – Our furnace has a SpaceGard (now AprilAire) air cleaner. Most of the time, this is OK. When it comes time to change the filter, this can be a royal pain. The good thing is that these filters only need to be replaced every sixth months – much less frequently than a normal furnace filter.

The bad news is that changing the filter is a somewhat complicated process. Due to the setup of the utility closet, it is necessary to first remove bi-fold doors from the track in order to access the filter. Note: this design decision was NOT my brilliant idea. Then the actual filter unfolds like an accordion. Little plastic “combs” are supposed to keep the filter’s pleats properly space. Except that the combs no longer snap firmly into the filter assembly.

These filters are hard to find in retail stores. I finally thought to look on the internet. Not only were they cheaper, but they were available in a little box unit that just slides right into the assembly – no combs needed! I still need to take the doors off the tracks and put them back on, but no more messing around with the combs. That’s a win.

I’ve also found good deals on humidifier filters online. They’re the same item you see in the retail stores, but lower priced and delivered right to your door. Sweet.

Computer accessories – If you need to buy a computer cable or flash memory (such as the memory card for your camera), think twice before buying them in a retail store. You’ll pay a lot less buying them online – often a small fraction of the cost. Often, you’re buying the exact same product. And when it comes to cables, don’t let a salesperson bully you into thinking only a certain brand of cable will work. Unless you have a funky device that requires a special adapter, any brand of cable will work just fine. A gigabit Ethernet cable is going to provide the exact same top speed, regardless of brand, and a USB 2 cable is going to comply to version 2 of the USB standards (hence the moniker USB 2) regardless of manufacturer.  Standards are just that – standards.

Books and CD – I have been known to go absolutely crazy on Half.com. I once bought a dozen William X. Kienzle paperbacks for $20, shipped! Not only is that a better price than retail used book stores but Kienzle is a hard author to find, so I save a lot of effort tracking them down over the internet. I also buy CDs on Half.com, particularly when I become a fan of an artist who already has several items out.

If you have the patience to wait a month or so, you’ll see hot new hard covers books for just a few bucks on Half.

Out of market sports merchandise – I live 800 miles away from the Denver home of my beloved Colorado Rockies. That means that I can’t just pop into a retail store to pick up a Rockies shirt of jacket. Buying through the official Rockies store can be pricey. This is where eBay comes in handy. Last year, I bought a Starter brand winter coat, in great condition, for a total cost (price + shipping) of about $30. The coat appears to be nearly new. How much does the coat cost new? $100.

In 2008, the Rockies gave away replica National League trophies to celebrate their run to the 2007 World Series.  I couldn’t be in attendance on the date of the giveaway, of course – but I did end up with a trophy.  A friend from Purple Row sold me one for a very fair price.

Soon, baseball’s free agents will be signing rich new deals. The Soap Boxers has assembled a panel of baseball fans to predict where the players will go.

The panel consists of:

• Kosmo
• Gabe Tyndal, Casual Observer Science/Nature Writer
• BA, a fan who bleeds Cardinal red.
• Fulton Christopher, a fan who bleeds Cubbie blue.

The top 10 free agents being analyzed are:

• Matt Holliday
• Jason Bay
• John Lackey
• Chone Figgins
• Jose Valverde
• Rich Harden
• Marco Scutaro
• Randy Wolf
• Vladimir Guerrero
• Miguel Tejada

Without further ado, the predictions:

Sports Baseball, Contests, Free Agent Predictions The Attack Nov 13 kosmo - See all 763 of my articles No Comments This was a losing entry in last Friday’s fiction contest at One Minute Writer..Cool site – check it out. Roger Fox consulted his watch by the light of the waxing moon. It was nearly time for the rendezvous. His brothers – Travis, Peter, and Zamphir – would be approaching from the other three directions. Roger girded up his loins and prepared for the battle. The odds were against the Fox brothers. The fort was defended by eighty five members of the enemy platoon. For this reason, the attack had been planned for 1:17 AM – a time at which few creatures within the enemy camp would be stirring. Roger’s ear picked up a sound wafting through the air. It was the musical whistle of his brother Zamphir. The time had come. The battle had been joined. Roger raced quickly and stealthily toward the west flank of the fortress. A sentry was on duty, as had been predicted by the advanced scouting party. Roger attacked quickly, leaving the bloody corpse on the ground. He heard sounds of struggle to his left, right, and straight ahead. His brothers were dispatching the other sentries with similar ease. None of the sentries had raised the alarm. The camp was oblivious that the imminent attack. Roger burst through a window, sending glass flying in all directions. Travis, Peter, and Zamphir came flying in from the other three directions and landed near him in the middle of the fortress. The enemy began to awake, aware that something was very wrong in their protected environment. The Fox brothers quickly attacked and scored kills on enemy soldiers. Within minutes, seventeen of the enemy lay dead on the floor. At that point, the battle became much more difficult. Feathers began to fly, obscuring the vision of the Fox brothers. The hens began to fix back, scratching gashes into the Foxes with their sharp claws and drawing blood with their beaks. The battle had begun in earnest. Roger and his brothers fought back with their weapons of choice – their razor sharp teeth. This was turning into a battle to the death – kill or be killed. Roger jumped onto the back of one hen and sank his teeth into its juicy neck. He ripped a chunk of flesh from the hen and consumed the meat as the hen dropped to the floor. Fifteen minutes later, the bloodbath was complete. A handful of the hens had climbed out the small windows and had flown, haltingly, away from the battle in the henhouse. Those hens formed themselves into a circle to provide common defense. The Fox brothers would not be seeking any further conflict on this night, however. The four Foxes had killed seventy four members of the hated hen clan. Each of the brothers had suffered significant wounds at the hands of their enemies, and the group would retreat to their den in recuperate and ready themselves for the next attack. Fiction Friday Animals, War Older Entries Newer Entries Pages Follow Feed Me! Contact Archives Books Policies Category Assorted (223) Uncategorized (22) Canvassing The Art World (9) Carrots of Wisdom (10) Entertainment (17) European View (1) Fiction Friday (126) Guest posts (9) Philossify (3) Helpful tips (16) Humor (12) News (75) North of the Border (11) Opinion (9) People (13) Personal Finance (8) Ramblings from Martin (157) Reality Bytes (6) Review (55) Science (6) Sports (402) Technology (23) The Dilbertesque Files (1) The Goodman File (160) Johnny's Picks (15) The Playground (28) The Political Observers (173) Travels and Tales (5) Archives June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 August 2014 May 2014 April 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 Recent Comments Lazy Man and Money on Budget Tablet: HP 10 G2 (Android 5) Robert Hughes on What are the Best Baseball Sites? Cool Man on What are the Best Baseball Sites? Lazy Man and Money on Back from the dead Cindy Hoffman on The Best Comics Ever © The SoapBoxers 2025 Powered by WordPress | Theme by N.Design