Another Life

As promised, here is the second post I mentioned writing last week. My birthday is coming soon,which always puts me, and I'm sure lots of people, into thoughts about what I've done and what I'm doing with my life.
It also doesn't help that my current job has this feeling of impending doom, that has put me on a search for employment.

One of the things I've always loved is books. So I've always had this desire to work with books, whether it be writing, editing or selling. I love the library and book stores, so in my recent job search I've been continuously applying to the library as well as bookstores.
Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of luck in those areas. I have a few guesses as to why not. Everything from Michigan's horrible economy killing any and every type of retail and there's also my fear that little, pointless things I've said about the library on this blog, that may not have been necessarily positive, have been found in a search of my name on one of my many attempts to apply for open positions at the library. I guess my love and support for the library, since as long as I can remember, counts for nothing.

Anyway, I've been trying to figure out the best way to fix this situation and the only idea I had was to open my book store, which is just nuts. Or is it?
Obviously, I'm not exactly financially able to do that at this point in my life and I'd probably be nuts to try it in Michigan right now. So how can I start a business with very little money and be able to reach lots of people not just local people?

I started a book store on half.com!

I wanted to wait and post about it until I had over a hundred books listed. I've been out and about searching for good deals on books. And so far business hasn't been bad. Anyway, I'm trying to build until I have a huge inventory. And everything I make is going right back in to buying more books. I'm also considering getting into rare and antique books that can't be listed on half.com. I've found quite a few in my search of books. I'll also be using me eBay/half.com account to sell comic books, magazines and other reading materials that lack ISBNs and can't be sold on half.com
I'm still getting used to pricing. There are lots of things to consider, for instance, whether the shipping allowance will full cover an item, how many other of the same item are listed, the books condition, and a books demand. I'm learning as I go along.

My store is called anotherlifebooks. I'm giving used books another life and reading a book is like living another life.
Here's the link to my online store and I'll be putting it in the sidebar. And if anyone is ever looking for a particular, harder to find book let me know and I'll keep an eye out on my never ending book search. There are a lot of good deals out there but I can't buy them all so if I know someone wants it I won't pass it up.

That's all the exciting news for now. I'll post any store updates as they come along.

Hopelessly devoted to writing

Can't stay and chat. I'm busy writing a very long short story. Here's a preview from the playlist.

I've been reading for months. Now it's time ot write.

Yes, I was suppose to have a post about something to do with my future and what I will do alongside writing, but I've been hard at work on other things so I haven't gotten around to it.

I started what I thought would be another quick short story but it's turning out a lot longer than I expected. I'm thinking it might be over 20,000 words. At what point does it become a novel?
It's a story that has a lot to do with me and a relationship in my life. So it's kind of like therapy and it's helping me to work out my problems. I've put all other writing aside because I feel the need to write it right now.

I've had plenty of time to write now that I finally finished the Sword of Truth series. I'm no longer obsessed with these ridiculously long books. I can't go with things unresolved in my head no matter how bad the books are. So I muddled through the eleven books. The first four were pretty good aside from being way too wordy and repetitive. The fifth and sixth were okay. The seventh and eight were completely pointless. The seventh one didn't even feature any of the main characters until the last 100 pages. The last three too the series back to pretty good. I just felt like the whole series clubbed me over the head with politic speeches and constantly reminding me what happened, not only in previous books, but what happened in the book that I was reading.
Also I felt like there was a lot of detail, almost too much. There were pages describing one room. I try to hold by a rule that I read in Stephen King's On Writing, which says to walk into the room and write the five most important things. Terry Goodkind could have moved his books along a lot faster if he had went by that. In the end I started skimming through quite a bit.
I really did like the characters. If not for them I might seriously have given up, but I had to know what happened to them.

Well, all reading is a writing lesson and I felt like these books were a good lesson.

Blog Plans

As promised, a post about new ideas for my blog.
The idea I had is about searches. I check my sitemeter every now and again to see how people are randomly getting here. Posting the quote by Stewie to Bryan about "How's that novel comin'?" from Family Guy has gotten me a lot of visitors and I ended up putting a link in my sidebar to the post that has the full quote.
Then after I wrote about writing a speech on leadership, I had a few searches for quotes on leadership and speech writing. I also get an occasional search for mix tapes and Batman's wedding guest list as well as my Batman sonnet.
I thought that maybe I should look into posting about interesting searches when I can. I could give information that I have that may be helpful in case anyone else is directed back to my blog for a similar search.
I'll also put links to posts that get a lot of searches. Eventually, I'd like to figure out how to work out the HTML to have a separate link section for searches but so far I don't know how to do that.
To start this off I added a link in the sidebar to my Batman sonnet for anyone who has searched for Batman poetry and Batman rhymes.

*While I was editing the links in the sidebar, it occurred to me that I should finally take down the link to Writer's Post Journal, since it's out of business and no longer works. I'm a little sad now.*

Slacking off just for today.

Yay! It's my day off and I've done nothing productive.
I had two other post that I thought about writing today but decided against it for a few reasons.
One is another new "idea" I have for my blog. This idea has something to do with past posts, searches that lead to my blog and links in the sidebar.
The other post was about my future and what I plan to do along with writing. It includes details about my current job, the search for another job and what I'm doing about the sad situation of both of those.
Is anybody out there confused and/or curious yet?
Well good. Come back this week for each of those post.
In the meantime know that I'm actually attempting to enjoy my day off. I'm in the third to last book in the Sword of Truth series. I'm trying to get that long journey finished and now the end is in sight.
I've also become horribly obsessed with a game called Knighthood, featured on Facebook. If anyone reading this is on Facebook follow the link to my profile on the sidebar, scroll through my profile and find my Knighthood, then join with me as your liege. If anyone reading this is not on Facebook, I must ask why and then demand that you join Facebook, then follow the previously stated directions.
Now off to write to Jenni, who by the way is my vassal in the Knighthood. Don't make Jenni be lonely in my castle!

Just watched: Children of Men
Just watched: Hot Rod
Currently Reading: Chainfire by Terry Goodkind

Welcome to the play list

Okay so I've been thinking about how my blog is kind of boring and I need to update more so I've decided over the next few post I'm going to have a few new ideas. The first being that sometimes I don't get a post written because I actually am working on fiction and it's a choice between one or the other.
I get tired of writing post that go something like "well I'm working on "something" so I don't have time or anything to write about."
Although, I haven't really written anything exactly like that in a while. One, because I figured people were tired of reading of it. Two, because I haven't gotten a ton of work done on other things lately. Three, because it gets a bit discouraging writing about stuff that's going no where fast.
Anyway, so I've often expressed that music is a big part of my life and that it inspires my writing. Also, I have a play list for everything I write.
I find myself entertained by videos when I go to other blogs so I thought maybe when I'm working on something instead of writing on my blog everyday that "I'm working on 'something'" I'll post a video of one of the songs on the play list. This will allow me to post more often since it's fairly simple and will hopefully be somewhat entertaining. It will also give readers a feel for the story without giving too much away.
Yay to that!
So for my first post of this kind, I'll be at work where it's much easier to edit rather than to write. I feel it's not as difficult to stop in the middle when a customer walks in. So I'll be working on Going It Alone. Here's a song on the play list that I listen to while working on it.
Beautiful Disaster performed by Kelly Clarkson.

You should be a science fiction writer

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from.And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi.Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics...Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

I'm pretty sure it's no longer happening

Well, I started it last summer in hopes of getting it published for the holiday. Yes, Christmas Bells is completed. Well, in rough draft form anyway.

Now the question of what to do with it. I mean, eventually I will send it out to get published but in recent months, before sending out stories, I got used to having a writer's group look through my work, telling me what worked, what didn't, pointing out grammar errors, as well as spelling typos and just reassuring me that my work was not, in fact, complete and total crap.

I'm afraid that the writing group may be done with. I can't actually remember the last time we met. I believe October or November, but I would have to check post archives to be sure and it's not really that important. What is important is that we have continued to schedule and then cancel meetings for some reason or another. It's not any one person's fault, we're all busy and I am forgetful. I don't send out reminders or try to set up meetings as often as I can.

Anyway, it's frustrating because dates are suggested and then shot down. I just don't think that we'll ever have another meeting. I don't want to badger them about it anymore either.

So I think we're done for now. Maybe in the summer things will be different. We all seemed to have loads of time then.

For now, I have to figure out another way to have my work looked at. Hmm...

My apologies

Okay, I'm really behind. I haven't posted in over a week. I haven't written anything new. I have gotten much work done on anything. I haven't researched anything. I haven't written a review for RENT. I haven't found a job. I'm a bum.

Last week I got stricken with the flu something fierce. I was knocked out for four days and half functional for another three. All of this happening at the worst time possible. As if there's ever a good time to get sick but it was a really hard time for me and my family. All I wanted to do was get out of bed and help out and do anything to make things better and I couldn't move. My body ached too much. My head felt completely out of it. Sleep was all I could think.

I've bounced back and aside from a slight cough, I feel back to new. Things in my family are still crazy and I doubt they'll get better anytime soon but I can't sit around waiting for things to be perfect again.

I'm off to get stuff done so I'll have something to talk about in my next post.