Driving Decompressions

Over So Quickly

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 22:48:13 PDT

It blows my mind how quickly some weekends go by. It's already getting late on Sunday night, and I feel like we've only just begun to hang out this weekend. Maybe it was because we slept in until about 9:30-10 each morning, or because we spent most of the two days taking Tucker to a dog park and going shopping in stores. But the time went by way too quickly.

Not that there weren't several high points -- watching Aiden get so enthralled with his new paintings was one. Both days at the dog park, he wanted to sit on the bench and color in his pictures. And all of the ones he's done have been visually stunning. Lisa wants to scan them all in and make some sort of big display of them. I hope she does -- the pictures look really good.

Evan, on the other hand, takes too much after his dad. He just wanted to play video games this weekend. He played quite a bit of Real Racing 2 on the iPad, as well as a multitude of other iPad games. I'm convinced that his ability to jump from game to game and never get bored or stuck on any single one is going to change the way developers make, and children today consume, video games and other electronic entertainment.

I can't say I wanted to do much else, myself. I would much rather have plopped myself in front of the TV and played video games all day than take care of shopping. However, it was pretty killer to be able to chill with the little dudes and Lisa, so I'm certainly not complaining.

Here are some pictures showing off what we did this weekend (I'll try to get more in the future):

Aiden and Evan color on the bench at the dog part

Lisa and Tucker getting some cuddle time in before bed.

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Saturdays

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 11:37:24 PDT

One of the most relaxing things about the weekend is sitting around doing nothing. We're not terribly fond of letting the kids watch TV, though, so usually we end up throwing on some clothes and going out and doing something. Today, though, we're getting a slow start -- breakfast around 10am after the kids got up early and watched TV on their own, and now we're still in our PJs talking about going shopping and taking Tucker to the dog park.

But one of the things we LOVE is when the kids start doing more creative things. Unprompted by us, Aiden decided he wanted to work on his color by numbers book, and Evan is putting together some magnetic mosaics.

The kids sitting at their desks being creative
This is great in that we love seeing the kids' creativity, but it also lets me and Lisa sit around and drink coffee, catch up on the news, clean up a little bit, and check out online sites. Which usually triggers my desire to post a blog. Which is what I'm doing now.

In a few minutes, we'll get dressed and we'll start our day of going out and picking up supplies, taking the dog out to give him some much-needed exercise, fighting the kids on whether or not they can watch TV or watch a movie, and eventually get lunch and then dinner situated. But it's moments like this that make me love Saturdays -- the quiet, the comfort, and the enjoyment of hanging with the family.

Aiden's first work of art, using the color by numbers

Aiden's Second Piece

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Tucker Meets Calvin

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:57:18 PDT

Tucker Meets Calvin -- Caught On Video!

Today Lisa introduced, in a rather forceful way, our new dog Tucker to my ornery cat, Calvin. Calvin has been hiding downstairs since Tucker first came into the house, barely ever coming upstairs, and begging for attention whenever someone is down there without the dog. But he's never far from his escape hatch now, as he knows Tucker can come down to visit any moment.

Lisa left a trash can in front of the cat door in the closet where Calvin normally runs, and so forced a confrontation.

The good news -- they didn't hurt each other. The bad news is that Tucker doesn't know what to do with a cat other than bark at it, and Calvin had no idea what to do with a dog rather than try to claw its eyes out. But the fact that no blood was drawn on either side gives me hope that the two of them may yet make peace.

Though clearly it will be a while...

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My NaNoWriMo Winner's Badge!

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:01:00 PST

Finally took the time to download this and put it up here. Feels good to be hanging out on the evening of the 30th, knowing I accomplished my goal. Congrats to all the other winners out there!

Success and Victory! #nanowrimo

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:13:22 PST

This is the second time I've attempted NaNoWriMo, and the second time I've achieved my goal of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. This time I barely squeaked by, cranking out 5,103 words just in this last evening to reach a grand total of 50,009 words. Barely over 50k, but over 50k. And I still have tomorrow to try to raise that total by a bit.

Now, I just have to finish the book. I'll do all the fun stuff of posting my stats, updating my badge to reflect my winning status, and all that good stuff later. Right now, I'm going to sleep.

Behind but catching up with #nanowrimo

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:15:34 PST

Today's Word Count: 2142

NaNoWriMo continues on, though we're approaching the end of the month very quickly. And while my daily word count has been fairly high (I'm writing longer chapters) I'm still quite a ways behind where I should be. I'll need to manage about 17k words in the next week if I hope to make the goal of 50k by the end of the month.

I was hoping as I was writing that more would happen in my story that would make it easier to write. What's interesting is that I'm actually finding it HARDER to write, rather than easier. Now that I have story arcs, open plot holes that need to be filled, I've introduced things in earlier chapters that I wanted to leverage in later chapters, and elements of the story that have to be wrapped up and ended at some point, I'm at something of a loss.

I think I'm just now getting into the meat of the story, which is good, but the journey here has been so long that I'm curious how I'm going to wrap things up.

In 2007 when I did NaNoWriMo, I hit my goal with several days left to spare. I knew I had about 15-20k more words to write to finish the story, and I left it at a key scene, where the protagonist could go any number of ways to resolve the conflict and discover the answers to the mystery. And I never finished it. With the 50K goal achieved, I never went back and finished writing my story, and that's something that's bugged me ever since.

So while I'm concerned about hitting my word count for NaNoWriMo, I'm more invested in making sure I actually finish the story. And that's why I'm writing about this here. So that hopefully my friends and family can make sure, regardless of NaNoWriMo, that I actually finish the story I'm trying to tell.

The good news is that now I'm really into the meat of things, I have some fun ideas for what's going to happen and what the twist will be. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how it all connects together and actually writing it down.

Next year, I'm TOTALLY going to outline!

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Blog Post: Good days, good nights, and good writings. #nanowrimo

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:57:54 PST

It feels good to be writing again. The whole point of NaNoWriMo is to try to crank out the words as fast as you're able, but it's hard to crank out words when you're not making time. It's also tough to get them out when you're not really sure where your story is going, or what should be happening.

For tonight, I muddled through okay. I managed to catch up with two chapters, nearly twice the daily word count, though I'm still about 5k words behind the halfway point I should be at. But I feel good at least about the direction my story is going, the excitement of my characters, and what's going on -- even if I still don't know where to take it from here.

But that's something I can deal with during tomorrow's writing session.

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Blog Post: Waaaaay Behind on #nanowrimo, but worth it

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 20:15:30 PST

The plan was simple. Use the weekend to catch up on the writing. That way I could excuse the last several days of last week when I was too busy doing Email and getting ready for launch to hit my word count.

Didn't happen.

But something marvelous DID happen this weekend. Our neighbors next door have been married since they were just out of high school. They have two children that are about our age, and have been wonderful neighbors, great friends, and a blessing to us over the last few years we've lived here. They've been married for 40 years, and when they got married, it was at city hall in front of a judge.

This weekend, they renewed their vows in a full wedding ceremony, with family and friends in attendance.

Sitting there in the church, taking pictures, and seeing these two people together who have been through so many trials and tribulations, who have raised two children, who have faced so many ups and downs through the years -- it was humbling to see the steadfastness and the support they have given each other through it all.

It was something I think you only get to see once in a lifetime, something so special shared by two wonderful people.

So, yeah, I didn't get to do much writing this weekend. But between that joyful occasion, another joyful occasion of a friend's birthday with old friends and old stories, and a Sunday spent with the children.... well, maybe I'll just do a little more catching up this week.

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Blog Post: Already Missing The Writing

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:12:27 PST

The last two nights have been zero-writing nights. There is a product we're launching early next week, and product launches always take time, energy, and late-night writing bouts of Email madness. So there have been no updates over the last two days.

Luckily I'm a fast typist, and hopefully I can make up some ground this weekend. The second challenge there is, of course, that I have no idea exactly where the story is going from my last scene, and taking two days off and not following up on it will likely make for a rough transition.

But I at least feel like most of the overall story is getting formulated in my head. It's amazing how little things you see or hear during the day can trigger an idea that you want to put into the book. That, really, is the fun part.

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Blog Post: #NaNoWriMo in the Dead of Night

phoenixwolf27@gmail.com (Michael Wolf) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 23:23:28 PST

Daily Word Count: 3,701

Last night I tried. I REALLY tried to reach my word count. But after writing about 500 words while laying in bed typing as much as I could on my iPad via a wireless keyboard, I finally succumbed to sleep and woke up in the middle of the night trying to figure out what I was lying on. Luckily no damage befell either my iPad or my keyboard, but there was no blog post and there was no word-count update.

I made up for it tonight, getting through what I was supposed to write yesterday and catching up for today. Not, however, without some guilt. Some more time will be spent tonight, I'm afraid, working on some Email. Sadly, as much as the day job should recede during NaNoWriMo, when products are launching and things are moving, it's up to the intrepid Wrimos to multitask and do as much as they can with as little time as they have.

But that's okay. I figure writing fiction is just a warmup for writing the REAL important stuff -- marketing materials and Email correspondence!

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