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May is over. I'm happy about that. Not that May is, in general a bad month, it's actually a part of the year I love: spring and fall are among my favorite seasons for the weather here in New Jersey, just so much more enjoyable than mid summer like July and August, where it can be too hot, or winter like January or February where it's just cold and miserable. But I digress. It has been great weather, and so I have gotten some outdoors time. Including all sorts of planting, and lawn moving, and gardening, and weeding, and watering, and weeding, and gardening. To some of you, that might sound like an enjoyable pastime. I could really live without it. I'm not all that good at gardening, to be honest. Further, I hate mowing lawns. I do it, because someone's got to, and my wife's grass allergies make it a bad idea to stick her behind the mulching mower while it turns blades of grass into a fine mist. To be inhaled. Then produce asthma. So I figure, I've got a dozen or so more years of lawn maintenance ahead of me before the Little Man gets to the age where I will feel safe/comfortable with him doing the work. Hopefully he'll be able to pick up some of the weeding and watering duties before that. The day job is frantic, but I've mentioned that before. I expect it to continue to be frantic for at least one more month. Two tops. If it goes longer than that...I'm not even going to contemplate it as an option.
I got to feel just a bit older this month, as my eldest Nephew had his High School graduation this past week, and we went out for a party in PA yesterday. (Some of you might recall him as the chef-in-training that you helped earn a scholarship by voting for his video) I had a good time seeing my family, though it was a long day. Looking forward to the family reunion in August back in my home town.
Writing: I've been revising stuff lately. Not enough forward momentum for me to be thrilled, but even if I haven't had as much focused time as I want, I'm putting some time in the trenches in the scraps of moments I can find. I've got a story that's been knocking at the inside of my frontal lobes, trying to find a way to get out of my head and onto the page. I'm rather glad that I didn't run right out and start writing it though, because on the long trip out and back from my brother's yesterday, I came up with a few ways I could turn the straightforward idea onto a different path. I still have to make some notes, and do a little research, but I hope to get a first draft going soon.
Editing: No new tasks in this department.
Reading: One book. I kept pulling out other stuff to read after I finished that novel, but by the end of an evening, I'm so exhausted, that I'm feeling under motivated to read. I think I need to change gears and do some non-fic for a stint, see how that works.
Mainspring, by Jay Lake: The world that clockmaker's apprentice, Hethor Jacques, lives on is literally a part in the machine of the universe, as is evident by the giant brass gears upon which the world spins its way throughout the heavens. The nature of the gears that circumscribe the globe along what we could think of as its equator, divides the planet into two distinct halves, literally, culturally, biologically, and perhaps even spiritually as well. The story starts in the North, in a small New England town, in a setting that seems familiar enough, if some signals show it is distinct from our own history. In this version, America is still a part of the English Empire, at least this far into Queen Victoria's reign. Technology has advanced differently than in our own world as well: there are flying ships of the Royal Navy--zeppelin like structures that are now a hallmark of the "steam punk" movement. The opening sets things on end for Hethor, as he is confronted with the Archangel Gabriel, who sends him on a quest to find the Key Perilous, and wind up the titular Mainspring that. His journey starts locally, but soon spans much further. As the journey progresses, we move further, and further from anything even remotely resembling our own world, until we reach the Wall, that portion of the Earth that connects it to the clockwork of the Heavens. Beyond which, things look far less like our world, except perhaps in general geography. It is populated with vastly different peoples, cultures; a place where sorcery reigns, as opposed to the technological based North. While there were some moments where I felt the story lagged slightly, and a few story threads that seemed, in the end, to go nowhere--or at least have much less significance than I originally anticipated--overall the novel was quite an enjoyable adventure. I look forward to the Lake's next novel The Escapement in this same setting.
I got to feel just a bit older this month, as my eldest Nephew had his High School graduation this past week, and we went out for a party in PA yesterday. (Some of you might recall him as the chef-in-training that you helped earn a scholarship by voting for his video) I had a good time seeing my family, though it was a long day. Looking forward to the family reunion in August back in my home town.
Writing: I've been revising stuff lately. Not enough forward momentum for me to be thrilled, but even if I haven't had as much focused time as I want, I'm putting some time in the trenches in the scraps of moments I can find. I've got a story that's been knocking at the inside of my frontal lobes, trying to find a way to get out of my head and onto the page. I'm rather glad that I didn't run right out and start writing it though, because on the long trip out and back from my brother's yesterday, I came up with a few ways I could turn the straightforward idea onto a different path. I still have to make some notes, and do a little research, but I hope to get a first draft going soon.
Editing: No new tasks in this department.
Reading: One book. I kept pulling out other stuff to read after I finished that novel, but by the end of an evening, I'm so exhausted, that I'm feeling under motivated to read. I think I need to change gears and do some non-fic for a stint, see how that works.
Mainspring, by Jay Lake: The world that clockmaker's apprentice, Hethor Jacques, lives on is literally a part in the machine of the universe, as is evident by the giant brass gears upon which the world spins its way throughout the heavens. The nature of the gears that circumscribe the globe along what we could think of as its equator, divides the planet into two distinct halves, literally, culturally, biologically, and perhaps even spiritually as well. The story starts in the North, in a small New England town, in a setting that seems familiar enough, if some signals show it is distinct from our own history. In this version, America is still a part of the English Empire, at least this far into Queen Victoria's reign. Technology has advanced differently than in our own world as well: there are flying ships of the Royal Navy--zeppelin like structures that are now a hallmark of the "steam punk" movement. The opening sets things on end for Hethor, as he is confronted with the Archangel Gabriel, who sends him on a quest to find the Key Perilous, and wind up the titular Mainspring that. His journey starts locally, but soon spans much further. As the journey progresses, we move further, and further from anything even remotely resembling our own world, until we reach the Wall, that portion of the Earth that connects it to the clockwork of the Heavens. Beyond which, things look far less like our world, except perhaps in general geography. It is populated with vastly different peoples, cultures; a place where sorcery reigns, as opposed to the technological based North. While there were some moments where I felt the story lagged slightly, and a few story threads that seemed, in the end, to go nowhere--or at least have much less significance than I originally anticipated--overall the novel was quite an enjoyable adventure. I look forward to the Lake's next novel The Escapement in this same setting.
