Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Center Punched Mail Box

Center Punched Mail Box

If I don’t do my blog first thing in the morning I tend to let it slide. After supper I do the chores, feed the cats and curl up with a good book. I am convinced that if you want to be a good writer you have to be a good reader, that writing pours out the pitcher of creativity and reading fills it back up again.

I have to do something with Linda every day. Some sort of activity. She is pretty good at keeping herself occupied but we need to get out of the house, go somewhere and do something together. Otherwise she is like a pressure cooker building to a big venting. Having worked the past few years is part of it but I am part as well, having interests she doesn’t share in which get translated as I ignore her. Oh well, if that is the extent of my worry I must be leading a pretty low stress life… don’t you think?

After this class I’ll be getting back to my novel. I’m fascinated by how George Martin has written Game of Thrones. Instead of chapters covering events he writes chapters on his characters. They are then loosely arrayed in a time order and the reader sees through the POV of the chapter character. If a reader is plot oriented and wants to stay focused on story line the experience of reading him must be frustrating. I will say that many of his characters are rather uninteresting and he goes off for pages on events that are boring compared with other characters in his work. Then what else is new. As a reader you have to get used to long pages of boredom separated by an occasional oasis of interest.

It’s almost as if he has written hundreds of character vignettes, some better than others but has included them all. Maybe he is being paid by the word. Then almost realizing the story is moving slowly and going nowhere, he kills off abruptly some of the more intriguing characters he has tried so hard to create.

Sometimes I forget to take my pills. Linda gives me a hard time when I do but missing one every now and then is not a war stopper. However, to a retired nurse it is a big deal. I am reminded of a Stephen King novel of a writer that is held captive by a nurse who is one of his fans. I found a great deal of sympathy for the poor guy she had chained to the bed.

My big golden doodle likes to lie next to me as I write my morning blog. She drools on the pillow. Fortunately it will often dry up before its time to get up and go do the chores.

Yesterday morning on our walk Linda and I saw Mark's mail box was down and there was a wrecked scooter lying next to it. We called it in. That must have hurt, center punching a mail box with a scooter. Ouch!