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 |   So playing the trombone wasn't getting me in enough trouble? |
| I need someplace to write down the often confusing thoughts that enter my mind, while my stories give voice to the characters that wander through periodically, this is the place for my voice. Join me if you wish, comment if you wish, all are welcomed and appreciated. |
I originally posted this on two forums — "The Dreamweaver Lounge"  & "Invalid Item" , but I decided to share it with more people, or at least the few who might view my blog.First, a bit of explanation: I started a NaNo project in October. Yeah, a bit insane on my part, I know. At the same time, I decided to participate in the 30 Day Blogging Challenge. Neither seemed mutually exclusive, and a suggestion by Kåre Enga in Montana intrigued me. The proposal? Let a character(s) from the NaNo project answer blog prompts. I thought that was a splendid idea. And now some questions for the group: Has anyone here ever experienced starting a project with a clear path and a set main character only to have a sub/supporting character emerge that interested you more? How did you handle it? Did you abandon the first project and a month's worth of research? Did you stick the new voice in a box and confine it to a very high unreachable shelf in a very dark storeroom? The original MC resides here "Bilton - Working Title" , the usurper here "New Comers - Z'llya's Voice" As a result of this debacle, I've fallen behind on NaNo, which I expected, my eyes aren't being cooperative. I am out of the competition on the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" , but I intend to work through that and complete it. |
PROMPT – November 5th. –You work alone from home, logged on to your work PC. One day you log on, and start your routine. You look at the clock on your desktop and eight hours have passed, but you have no memory of getting any tasks done. Tell us what might have happened to you during those eight hours.  {e:f:Turkey}It's so easy to fall into the internet. All it takes is one wrong turn, and your off to the races. Just yesterday a simple comment on the News Feed sent me searching for a coffee jingle, from there I needed to know who wrote the jingle. Then who sang the jingle? What kind of career did the singer have? Are there other recording by the artist? Those are all questions that needed answers. STAT! Okay, now you've found your answers. What do you do with them? Oh yeah, go share them on the WdC News Feed, which means writing a clever post. WritingML, embed videos, write my cleverest prose — hey! That all takes time/ Time that I'm supposed to be doing other things like NaNo, reviews, working on music. And, it just doesn't happen on WdC. There are squirrels EVERYHERE!    ...I'm only the trombone player! |
PROMPT – November 5th. –You arrive at work today with five donuts and five coffees for the people who are scheduled to be there. But you have a problem. Counting you, six people are there, and all of you love coffee and donuts! How do you and your friends resolve this? I need to stress that this is purely a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question! Okay, the premise; I have somehow managed to show up at work with only enough coffee and donuts for the people I expected to be there. Unfortunately, there is an additional person present, how do we solve the dilemma? Actually, the solution is quite simple; First the coffee. I never make anyone's coffee. Meaning that I always buy large black coffees, provide sugar, often in packets, and provide some form of creamer. I used to buy just Half & Half, but now I would have also brought a flavored creamer. We would have scrounged up an appropriate vessel, and each of the five original coffees would have sacrificed a gulp to create a sixth cup. Coffee Solved. Donuts, again a simple solution, we would have cut each donut in half, creating ten pieces, and shared the results. Donuts Solved. Now, why was that a theoretical answer? For two very simple reasons; Again, first, the coffee, whenever I was in the position of buying coffee I would have opted for the Box O' Joe concept, which is a disposable thermal box that holds multiple cups (8 oz. cups), in this case for five folks I would have bought two ten cuppers. According to Lilli 🧿 ☕ an 8 oz. cup qualifies as a coffee shot, not a real cup o' joe. As for the donuts, I would never show up with less than a dozen and there'd be other stuff, like a box or two of munchkins in the mix. |
PROMPT – November 4th. – We've all heard of people who mysteriously 'go missing'. Tonight, write about a person who 'goes missing'. Someone that you read about in the newspaper or online, but nobody seems to know them, or remember them Her name was Common Sense. She disappeared along with Reality and Sanity at the advent of the Social Media Age. Sadly they were replaced by dogmatic adherence to Preconceived Beliefs, Conspiracy Theories, Rumors and Misinformation Campaigns, masquerading as Facts. The manifestation of her disappearance has been harmful in so many ways. Hateful rhetoric flourishes, people adhere to unproven realities with no basis in truth or fact. Unfounded conspiracy theories damage reputations, and social programs. When those who post the hate and misinformation are presented with the truth, the presenter is labeled as brainwashed, an unbeliever, a boomer, or worse. Common Sense expects us to be able to weigh all of the evidence, not just the evidence that supports our preconceived beliefs and opinions, Reality expects us to search out facts and information, not just accept the words of some social influencer. Sanity requires that we be able to review the new information critically, with an eye toward truth. I really miss Common Sense, Reality, and Sanity, hopefully enough others do also. Maybe, We can continue to search for them. |
PROMPT – November 3rd. –You live in a tourist town. There's always an 'interesting' mix of visitors. But this year they are especially... different. In what way? Z'llya has graciously consented to answer this prompt, she was invited to by Kåre Enga in Montana. She is a minor/supporting character from my NaNo project. Without giving up any spoilers; Z'llya is a trained agent/assassin, she is bonded to a minor character, until an incident breaks that bond. She then becomes bonded to Hiram Bilton, the main character in my collection of typos wearing a raincoat NaNo project "Bilton - Working Title" Z'llya didn't like it, they filled the streets of her small city. Crowding the eateries, and making it hard to move about. The city always had visitors, people from the outskirts came to shop, eat, and be entertained. These people were different, or more disturbingly not as different as they should have been. The Newcomers claimed to have come from the stars, arriving in things they called boats, flattened cylinders that flashed across the sky, leaving behind the scent of a thousand lightning storms. Churning clouds of dust they landed on the outskirts of B'dray, the city and planet she called home since she was selected for training. At least her people's appearance was as startling to them as theirs was to her. Her people had long expected visitors from the stars, their Sacred Creeds foretold it. The Visitors would arrive in ships, not unlike the boats the newcomers came in. They would be small, much smaller than the people of her planet. And, uniformly gray, gray hairless little creatures. That's what her people were prepared for. That's what her people expected. What arrived was a shocking surprise that struck at the very heart of their beliefs. The Newcomers looked exactly like them. Well, almost exactly, they seemed to have a great variety of sizes, some her people's size, while others were seeming giants, standing head and shoulders over her. The hair was different too, there were too many colors, B'drayians all had black hair, yet there were Newcomers with brownish hair, white or gray hair, something they called blonde hair, and she shuddered even RED HAIR. The eyes were the worst though, again too many colors, she couldn't even name all the colors. Bydrain's had all had some variation of yellow eyes. From light, almost translucent yellow to speckled gold. The eyes made it hard to speak with the Newcomers. She shuddered once again. speaking with the Newcomers might have been the greatest shock of all for the B'drayians. When the boats first landed, no one understood the Newcomers, it wasn't until one of them spoke into a device he carried, and another ship landed. A newcomer spoke to them in a strange dialect, a very old dialect of the B'drayian tongue. These were not the Visitors the B'Drayians had expected, not the small gray almost gods, the Sacred Creeds had prophesied. The Newcomers were them, with jarring differences and too many similarities. |
PROMPT – November 2nd. – You are curator of a museum. This museum has an area of interest to you. Take us on a guided tour of your latest exhibition. Any museum I was a curator of would most likely be a bit cluttered but well organized. Everything would have a place, there'd just be a lot of it. I think the world needs a museum dedicated to cooking, Topics covered would be methods of cooking, from the stone age to now. Recipes, and the chemistry of cooking. And, exotic ingredients, items we don't always consider when cooking. My specialty would be recipes. I love collecting and trying new recipes. I am very intrigued by older cookbooks, always seeking them out in used bookstores, yard sales, and the like. I would love to curate a library of recipes, preserving and cataloging them. The collection would pay closest attention to the family heirloom recipes, making those very special slices of life available to all. Imagine all the meatball recipes! |
PROMPT – November 1st. – We all have possessions of some type. Tell us five possessions you can’t live without, and why they are on this list. An interesting prompt, particularly since I am in the paring down period of my life. Having retired, Lenore and I plan on eventually moving. Not sure where yet, someplace snow-free for sure. But that's not what we're here to talk about. Five possessions I can't live without? We have to start, at least in my case with trombones. I could wrap this up fast. There are three trombones, each has a specific purpose, but I'll treat them like a single possession. Trombone # 1 is my pride and joy a King 3B, brass bell, and silver slides. I bought it myself with my own money way back in Junior High. It's the workhorse of the fleet and the horn I play on the most. Trombone # 2 is a Yamaha Concert Tenor, this is the horn I use when playing orchestral music, it is a bigger bore the 3B and gets a darker sound, more in line with the orchestral trombone sound. It has a trigger, which allows it to play lower notes, so it does double duty on those rare times I need to play 4th. trombone in a jazz ensemble. Trombone # 3 is a small bore, Olds Director, I use it when I have to play consistently in the upper register. Easier to hit the high notes, and its much brighter sound quality makes playing lead a dream. Next? My laptops and desktop PCs. Again multiples with distinct jobs. Right now I am on my main laptop. Most of my writing is done on this laptop. I check emails, do banking, and almost all the everyday stuff. The desktop is used for my music. Limited internet access, mainly program updates, and cloud storage. I also have a travel laptop, no information on it. I use it mainly to check email when I travel — not much use lately. That's two, what's next? Again I'm going to lump similar items together. My cookbooks, pots and pans, and knives. I love to cook and eat! 'Nuff Said! I've come to depend on Alexa for everything from my morning alarm, timer in the kitchen, weather information, and front door monitor. So I guess she's made herself indispensable. Lastly, there are some books that will make the keeper cut, the ones I've reread already, can't live without those. |
| I've heard of The Evil Eye, The Stink Eye, "The Eye of the Tiger", and even this movie — "The Eye" . But, Really!! The Ol' Twitch Eye has got me and won't let go. It's related to screen time, which includes my PC(s), phone, kindle, and even the TV. Basically, too much time in any combination makes my left eyelid twitch annoyingly. I have been limiting my time on screens, which is messing up Octoprep, and I think might hamper my NaNo attempt. I've changed to different glasses and sunglasses, opting for heavier tints. I have adjusted as many screens as possible to their darker modes of the display. Including WdC's site and the music notation programs I use. All of this has helped, but as yet has not eliminated the problem. I'll keep chipping away at that and hopefully get the Ol' Twitch Eye under control. On to OctoPrep and Nano; I have for the most part always been a Pantser, creating a story in my mind (at night usually, when I'm trying to sleep), then committing the tale to the keyboard. So prepping and outlining are very new to me. The novel I hope to write does require research and planning, more so than I originally thought it would. Not that I'm complaining, but it is adding to the screen time load. I find myself reading everything from essays regarding Stephen Hawkings, to travel brochures for communities in the UK. While I intend to keep up, I'm not sure I'll be able to, given the scope of the project and The Ol' Twitch Eye. Meanwhile, enjoy Brandi Carlile - "The Eye" (Official Video) No flashy productions — just plain, old-fashion great musicianship. |
 A few entries ago I posted about an escaped bull whom I dubbed Ferdinand, alas the local media named him Barney. I guess I don't have much pull with the local media!?! Barney eluded capture for several weeks until he was finally enticed into a trap of sorts baited with Bull Treats (I Have No Idea). After his capture and a visit with a Vet, he was taken to his forever home, a sanctuary where he'll live happily ever after. Although his first reaction was to jump the fence of the holding pen he was in, Barney does now seem to be settling in nicely. YAY! In Other News, I gave myself a little bit of a scare.  I noticed a new phenomenon in my right eye, a slivery flash of light in my peripheral vision. That of course sent me scurrying to Google. Of course, the medical team on Google couldn't decide if I had a detached retina or hemorrhoids. Accompanying the flash, was what I perceived as swelling/pressure on my right eye. Naturally, I panicked and feared the worst, fearing my diabetes had reared its ugly head and was attacking my eyes. A visit to my trusted Eye Doctor however solved the problem. A full exam, including dilation, showed my eyes to by in good health with no changes since my last exam. The slivery flash? Floaters! We all have them, and our brains filter them out. But. when they move, which apparently they do, the brain loses track of them and we notice them. The little buggers are reflective, hence the neon explosion I witnessed at night. The pressure? My sinuses, driven by allergies, are swollen. Translating to a feeling of pressure on my eyes. Regular Doctor changed my allergy regimen and that seems to be working. The last of the eye saga? — Both Doctors seem to be united in the fact that I have been spending too much time on screen. So I am now practicing a time on/time off schedule, with Alexa nagging me to get off the screen periodically. YAY! And the last of my news?  I've signed up for the "October Novel Prep Challenge" , not sure how I'll do or if I'll be able to keep up, but I am going to try! I like the format because the tasks/challenges are laid out in advance, and I can work ahead a bit, and hopefully won't fall behind or succumb to self-induced pressure.So if you're looking for me, I might be hiding here, ""Bilton" - October NaNoWriMo Prep Log"" — That is when Alexa lets me, feel free to stop by, as always comments and critiques are welcome. A Nervous/Scaredy Cat YAY! |
| I come here to WdC every day with the intention of writing. But, it seems each day I sign on I find a little bit of disheartening news. Sometimes in the form of a blog post (I know just stop reading that blog). The latest is a bit harder to ignore. I have been informed by a Moderator that a word I used in a title is non-E, yes I could change the title, that would be easy and no problem. But here's the rub, the word is also used in a Merit Badge, and the critter is kind of the mascot for much of what I do here on WdC. So, if it's wrong in the title, is the Merit Badge also non-E? Do I banish the critter? I'll try writing again tomorrow, but it's getting tiresome. |
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Credit is delaying the pain unless one pays it off every month. I don't buy what I can't afford. I don't go into debt. I live well by living well within my means. 
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