%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
This blog keeps me in touch with WDC. Jamesdillingham.com keeps me in touch elsewhere. |
| I like to stay in touch with WDC, even when I'm not contributing on a daily basis. My main blog is at jamesdillingham.blogspot.com |
| I am in a small town outside of Albany, New York for the first week of a 7-week project. The weather is gloomy but not too cold. I am staying in a house that the company just happens to own. It's old but available so I don't need to go to a hotel. There is no TV at the house but I guess I am fine with that. I usually just put on CNN and let it keep me company as I work/write. I hope to enter the Daily Flash Fiction today. I miss it if I don't enter it for a day or two. I wrote most of Chapter 9 for my book yesterday and posted it in my port. I may finish that chapter this afternoon. The writing is better than my first shot at the book but still not where I want it to be. With Flash Fiction, I have to make every word count. With my novel, I am more concerned with character development and plot lines. The editing will help with the style. I am not being overly sloppy style-wise but I don't want to spend forever trying to make each sentence perfect. I am wondering if others have had to deal with this issue. When I try too hard ... I stop and find myself looking for a quick fix from Flash Fiction (or this blog). Ha! Just caught myself stalling. By the way, my son and I went geocaching on Sunday and had 9 finds! That is a lot. If you want to see where we went, open up Google Earth and type in Novato. About an inch to the right of the word Novato, you will see Deer Park. That is where we were. Jim Jim |
| I thought I would write about yesterday just so I would have something to look back on. First thing in morning I took my dog for a walk. From 9 am to 11 am I was at high school wrestling practice. I am one of the coaches and my son is a freshman on the team. After lunch my son and I went geocaching. This is where we use a GPS to find hidden treasures (trinkets). There are hundreds of thousands of these worldwide. We had to hike to find these. They are almost always someplace scenic. If you are interested go to www.geocaching.com. There you can find caches near your home along with lat and long coordinates and hints. My dog loves to geocache, especially when there are cows he can look at. I think that he thinks they are just really big dogs. My son, Matt, and I then went to a movie. The movie was TAKEN. Starts our kind of dull with some overacting but once the action starts, the movies is great till the end. I dropped Matt off at his girlfriends; he will be home by 11 pm. I watched Happy Gilmore and then was asleep by 9pm. I spend a lot of time with Matt. We are very much alike. He lives with his mom on weekdays and me on weekends but there is all the flexibility we need. Today, I have to clean the house. My wife is coming over from Hungary for a week and she likes a clean house. I am out of town all of next week (Monday- Friday). I am starting new project in New York. If anyone wants to know what I do for a living, my company's web site is www.shift-work.com. By the way, I can feel chapter 9 of my book trying to get out. That must mean I will crank it out any day now. J |
| Here I sit in a hotel lobby waiting to be paged to a meeting across the street at the convention center. I am a little piece of the corporate meeting schedule for the day. I am essentially a hired gun and they want to check me out. I hope to be able to fly home tonight. It is freezing up here in Canada. It is most likely that I will miss my flight and have to catch one out in the morning. I need to be in California by tomorrow afternoon so I can watch my 15 y/o son wrestle. I had twenty minutes to get an entry in for the Flash Fiction. I wrote a story that I liked. It was a great prompt: Write about a character in a book that comes to life. Now I have time to go and get today's prompt. This would make two flash fiction entries in about an hour and a half. I love Flash Fiction. the story I wrote today was about my favorite character from literature. J |
| Here I sit at the Denver airport on my way to Toronto. Timing is not good since Arakun needs time to read entries for daily flash fiction before she posts todays prompt. Unless she is super fast today, I will not get the prompt before my next flight in 5 minutes. I have decided to enter the Inspirational Quote contest again. It was the first contest I ever entered on WDC. This will be my second attempt. My story Death of a Hero was my first attempt and remains my most viewed story. Time to fly! |
| Thursday I wrote a chapter for my book. Friday, meetings in Detroit and a long flight home in the back of the plane ... too tight to write Saturday, all day wrestling tournament. My son is in high school and I help coach. Today, Superbowl. I hope to write a flash fiction before Monday, flight to Toronto from California. Tuesday, all day meetings and then flight home. I will not be on United so no chance to upgrade to a bigger chair. |
| I just posted Chapter 8 of my novel for those of you that may be interested. I am keeping the chapters short so I can write one in about 4 hours. I hope to post chapter 9 this Saturday. I am in Detroit for the night. I have a meeting in the morning and then back home to warm California. Planes are great for writing. I have an extra battery so I can go clear across country. Typically, I try to pick of a prompt from Daily Flash Fiction during my short layovers. J |
| The 15 stories in 15 days in 15 minutes contest is over and I miss it. I looked forward to it every day. I missed a couple early on as I had to build it into my routine. The story had to be in be 5:30 am PST which meant I had to always write it the night/day before. I still enter the Daily Flash Fiction often, not every day but about 3 times a week. I need to get back into my book. I am off to Detroit tomorrow for a meeting Friday morning. I am home all of next week. This is a rare event. My wife is coming out from Budapest the week of Feb. 14th for a week-long visit. I am looking forward to that. |
| Here is a list of my favorite movies. The order is unimportant as they could easily be rearranged with my mood. Some of these are pure guy flicks. Others come from nostalgia. Still others make me laugh (or cry when no one is looking). Dr. Strangelove One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest 300 Fight Club Groundhog Day Sound of Music The Family Stone 50 First Dates Its a Wonderful Life Brian's Song Four Weddings and a Funeral A Christmas Story I am sure I am missing quite a few but these ... I can watch over and over. |
| I am doing so writting today. I entered the Daily Flash Fiction just before the deadline this morning and then entered it again for today/tomorrow's contest. I wrote a story called Quiet Wife that I rather fancy. I also entered the 15 day, 15 minute contest for the day. I seem to be on a Sci-Fi binge. I still can't seem to win on that 15/15 contest. It is nearly half way through and I am out of the running. I keep trying though. That is the purpose of the contest, to get me to write. |
| Obama takes office today and I could not be prouder of our country. A leader we will follow, not because he is the Top Dog but because we want to go where he is leading us. I don't expect miracles and there will certainly be failures, but in the end, we will be better if, for no other reason, than we have finally come to judge a man by the content of his character. My first day in the office in a long time. I need to spend most of the day catching up on thing. I have 3 weeks scheduled with nothing to do but write. Yipee! |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
