It kinda gets put on the back burner, but I play guitar.  Sometimes, I even sing.  Mostly blues (King, Clapton, Shepherd, Vaughan, Waters, Hooker, Reed (Jimmy)), sometimes classic rock (Eagles, Kansas, Foreigner), sometimes poppier stuff (Mayer, Gray (David, not Macy)).

You get the idea.

I don’t play often these days.  Rarer still when I play for people.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with all things Justified.  Based on a short story by Elmore Leonard called ‘Fire in the Hole‘, Justified follows Deputy U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens, a man born in Harlan County, Kentucky.  Raylan worked in the coal mines until he got out of Harlan and eventually became a Marshall.  In the show, he shoots  man in Miami and is transferred back to Kentucky where pot and other drugs and crime are rampant and old memories lurk around every corner.

The show airs on FX late on Tuesday nights.

I recently rewatched the first season (they’re currently airing season three).  In the last scene of the last episode, there is a snippet of a song.  A haunting male voice sings the lines:

In the deep dark hills of Eastern Kentucky
That’s the place where I trace my bloodline
And its there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive.

Those words, the way the guy sang them – it really stuck with me.  I had to look it up.  Turns out, the singer is a man named Darrell Scott.  The song is bluegrass, but a lot of country folks have sang it, which is probably why I’ve never heard it, given that I don’t listen to country on principal (there was a lot of country in our house when I was growing up).

Title: You’ll never leave Harlan alive.

My obsession lead to my buying the song.  I was listening to it a lot Saturday and Sunday.  Next thing I knew, I had my guitar out and was trying to work out the lyrics and chords.

Then this happened:

Click here to download. You’ll be taken to Box.net.

Anyway, I hope you liked it.  I’ve never tried to sing like that before. 

~P

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The End.

I know, I know, you’re not supposed to start with those words.  But in this case, it’s appropriate.  You see, over the weekend, I finished draft 1 of Sam Kane, Book 2.

As you can see from the screen shot, I needed more words than I had planned on to tell the story.  But I’ve already talked about that.

A hundred thousand words.  Yay me!

Now I am at that ‘take a breath’ stage.  The draft is done, the story is written – my brain needs time to process.  I should do some other stuff and decompress.  Unfortunately, my brain is all, “Hey, hey! What’s next? Let’s go, let’s go!”

I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

If I let my brain do what it wants and keep writing, what’s next?  I know that I want to let book 2 sit for a bit before I start editing.  (we’ll see how long I last before I start obsessing)  Maybe I’ll work on the space opera.  Maybe one of the short stories I’ve got sitting around collecting dust.

Maybe I’ll finally finish Batman: Arkham City…

~P

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A cool feature of Scrivener is the split screen.

FYI: I use my little MacBook Pro for all of these screen shots.

If, like me, you have a lot going on in your project, you might need to reference something else while writing a scene.  With Scrivener, you don’t have to keep multiple projects open, you can have it all in one project and just view things in a split screen:

Click for a larger view

To split your screen, look for the little Toggle button location above your editing window, just left of your Inspector (if you have it turned on as shown in the screen shot above):

It's the Box with the line through the middle

Clicking the Toggle button splits the editor horizontally and will show you the scene you are currently working on in both areas.  Whichever section has the blue bar on it is the ‘active window’:

Note that the top bar is Blue-that's the active area

To change one or both sections of the split screen, first click inside one to turn the bar blue, then go to your Binder and click the scene you want displayed there:

Scene 2 is selected in the Binder & is active in the lower half of the edit window

You can actually have other things active in your split screen.  Say you have a character sheet or some research in your project that you need to write your scene.  Just click the bottom, then click whatever it is in the Binder to make it visible in that area:

"If you don't hear from me, you take the ship, and you come rescue me."

Handy, right?

BUT WAIT, there’s more – say you’re a vertical split kinda person.  Well, you can do that to.  Click on View > Layout and you have the option to split Horizontally or Vertically:

Options for editor layout

Which will give you this:

Columns! Columns! COLUMNS!

So, there you have it.  Split screen goodness!

More Scrivener Tips coming (every Monday?)!

Don’t have Scrivener?  You can try it free here (no, I don’t get paid for pointing you at them!).

~P

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In Estes Park, Colorado, there is a river walk that includes a tunnel. The entrance and exit of this tunnel are lined with ceramic tiles decorated by local school children.  This one is particularly amusing:

Click for full version

As you can see, the kid in the middle just wants ‘Whirled Peas’.

~P

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Random Thoughts for Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

/begin Random Thoughts

The Supernatural Favorite Quotes Of Dean Winchester Edition

Dean Winchester:

“Well, if it’s isn’t the Ghost of  Christmas Screw You.”

“You stink like sex.”

“Snow White? Ah, I saw that movie. Oh, the porn version anyway.”

“What do you want me to do, Sam, huh? Sit around all day writing sad poems about how I’m going to die? You know what, I’ve got one. Let’s see, what rhymes with “Shut up, Sam”?”

“Every complaint called in this week about anything big, black or doglike. There’s 19 calls in all. And, uh, I don’t know what this is.” “You mean Carly’s MySpace address?” “Yeah, MySpace, what the hell is that? Seriously, is that like some sort of porn site?”

“I’m gonna go stop the big bad wolf. Which is the weirdest thing I’ve ever said.”

“It’s like we got a contract on us. You think it’s ’cause we’re so awesome? I think it’s ’cause it’s we’re so awesome.”

“House rules Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

“Sammy, wherever you are, Mom is a babe. I’m going to Hell. Again.”

“That fabric softener teddy bear… Oh want to hunt that little bitch down.”

“Look at me, I came back from the furnace without any of my old scars, right?  You know bullet wounds, knife cuts, none of the off angled fingers from all the breaks, I mean my hide is as smooth as a baby bottom, which leads me to conclude, sadly,… that my virginity is intact.”

“Oh, I’m sure he has, its just your standard haunted campus, alien abduction, alligator in a sewer gig.”

“Is that Gandhi?” “Yeah.” “Dude is squirrely.”

“Dude, I full on Swayze-d that mother.”

“Dear Castiel, who art maybe running his ass away from Heaven, we pray that you have your ears on. Breaker… breaker.”

“They were grabby incandescent douche bags.”

“Holy! UFO! UFO!” “Whoah, dude, stop yelling. I didn’t catch that last part.” “Close encounter! Close encounter!” “Close encounter? What kind, first, second?” “They’re after me!” “Third kind already? You better run man. I think the third kind’s a butt thing.” “Empathy, Sam! Empathy!”

/end random thoughts

~P

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Me: *goes to bed*

Shadow the Cat: *hops up onto the bed, walks to the far corner, meows. Walks up the side of the bed to the other corner, digs around a little, meows, sits down.*

Me: *rolls over*

Shadow: *Walks to the foot of the bed, meows, hops over my feet, stares at the bathroom door. Walks up my legs to my hip, sits down.*

Me: Seriously?

Shadow: *Reaches one paw out, touches the blanket, tests it. Steps down, does a circle, pauses, stares at me, walks to the head of the bed and looks between the mattress and the headboard, meows.  Returns to the spot he tested, does a circle, pauses, does another circle, pauses, looks at the wall, another circle, curls up into a tight ball*

Me: Every freaking night?  Really?

Shadow: I’m patrolling! I keep you safe from blanket monsters!

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Well, I took a break.

Sort of.

Closing in on the end of the Cold as Ice manuscript, two things occurred to me; 1) there was no way in hell I could pull it together under 95,000 words and 2) my original plan for the end wasn’t going to work.

This caused me to stop my momentum and think.  Think about how I could rework the end I had in my head with the direction I have taken the manuscript in these last few weeks.  See, I’d actually written an outline for this novel, which is new for me.  The changes an agent brings.  Anyway, I had this outline and, for a bit, I stuck to it.  But I realized that the ending in that outline was easily 50,000 words and I was already at roughly 92,000 words.  A new ending had to be worked out.

Brent Weeks actually gave me some advice about the outline when I created it in the first place – You won’t be held to it!  I took that to heart this week.

So rather than push forward, I went back.  Back through the manuscript, fixing little things, adding a word here, changing another one there.  Found a couple of things I setup and never followed through on (marked those and fixed em this weekend).  Hit maybe 300 words Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights.

Saturday morning I got up and did my reading for writers group early, then sat down to write.  Didn’t know what, only that I needed to write something.

This is where random thoughts comes in handy.  I decided to do something completely different.

And it worked.

2200 words later (I forgot to screenshot my progress Saturday, so that’s Sunday’s count) and I’m well into the end, over my 95,000 word goal and feeling really good about it all.

The end is nigh.

~P

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If you’re a writer who likes to outline, Scrivener has a cool feature you might be interested in.

Here’s a simple Scrivener Project that I’ve created:

Click for a full view

Notice I’m in Corkboard View/Mode with a Chapter Folder selected.  This means that the SubDocuments, called Scrivenings, are each represented by Index Cards.  On those cards, I’ve written a quick synopsis for each Scene.

When I select the first Scene in my Binder, I can start writing – but note that the Synopsis is still visible now in the right sidebar – also called the Inspector:

Click for a full view

I can also add to the synopsis right there in the Inspector:

Click for a full view

And if I select the Chapter Folder and the Corkboard View again, those changes are now on the Index Card:

Click for a full view

More Scrivener Tips coming!

Don’t have Scrivener?  You can try it free here (no, I don’t get paid for pointing you at them!).

~P

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Click for the full version

No, sorry – that’s not Treebeard.  What that is, I can’t say.  Other than weird.  Pucker up?

I snapped this photo at a tourist attraction in Manitou Springs, Colorado – the Cliff Dwellings.  Cool place.  Weird tree.

The sign hanging from it reads as:

Click for full version

The Ponderosa Pine!

…with Mister Potato Head features…

~P

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Random Thoughts for Thursday, January 26th, 2012

/begin random thoughts

I went and got a haircut this week. I was overdue.  The lady said, “I see in your notes that you like a scissor clip.” (wait – they have notes on me?  So, the friggin hair cut place HAS NOTES ON ME?  DOES EVERYONE HAVE NOTES NOW?)

“Welcome to Olive Garden! Oh, I see you’re a shitty tipper.  We’ll be seating you by the kitchen door tonight.” “Wait, what?  I TIP 18%!  SOMETIMES 20!  I SWEAR!”

* * *

Tips are earned.  People in food service work their butts off – I was one of them.  So I reward good service.  I also can be a bastard when I don’t get it…

* * *

*Fresno, CA. The 90′s.  DiCiccio’s Italian Restaurant*

Me: I can’t believe we’ve been sitting here with empty glasses for so long.

Friend: Oh, no!  You’re not going to say somethig, are you?  DO NOT SAY ANYTHING! I DON’T WANT THESE FRIGGIN PEOPLE SPITTING IN MY FOOD!

Me: >_>

* * *

Because I’ve been working on the book exclusively, and it’s a 1st draft, I have nothing to take to writers group this week.  This makes me sad.

* * *

“…and Tebow has the ball, he’s scrambling in the pocket, he’s throwing, OH! Interception!  Wait… wait… there’s a bright white light shining down from the sky, it’s enveloping Tebow!  Yes, the light has completely surrounded him!  He’s rising up off the ground!  Now he is shooting up into the heavens!  Proof that God exists!  Proof that God exists!”

*onboard the alien spacecraft*

“…probe the hell out of this guy.  I lost $50 cuz he can’t throw worth a damn.”

* * *

I often wonder if a barrier to my working out at a gym might be some repressed high school trauma.

* * *

“…and this is the weight room.”

“Wow!  Pretty cool!  What’s that?”

“Dead rat.”

“AAIIIEEE!”

“…did you just scream like a little girl?”

“…no?”

* * *

(there wasn’t really a dead rat)

* * *

2 years of pulling Coach Herzog, the CROSS COUNTRY COACH, for P.E. might have something to do with it.

* * *

“Okay, boys, today we are going to run.”

*loud groans*

“The more you groan, the more you run.  Once around the school, please.”

* * *

In HS, I took a computer programming class.  We were working on TRS-80′s (TRASH EIGHTIES!) and had to create a custom animation (monochrome, low resolution by today’s standards).  People did things like a football going through the goal posts, cars racing down a road.

I had a dog walk up and take a piss on a fire hydrant.

So.

Yeah.

/end random thoughts

~p

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