What I’ve been annoying Sara with lately

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Okay, there is a song by comedians Myq Kaplan and Micah Sherman which I just can’t get out of my head. (Side note, yes his name is “Mike” spelled “Myq”)

Not to over explain the joke, but basically the idea is, sometimes you have something you don’t really want to do. So, in order to convince yourself to do it, you sing a little song of encouragement.

So, for example, if you have to take a shower and you don’t really want to, you might sing something like, “It’s time for Dr. Show Show to take a showey-show! It’s time for Dr. Show Show to take a showey-show!”

Well, it probably makes more sense if you listen to it:

(Sorry about the low audio, that’s right off of Myq’s website, not my fault!)

Ah HA! Now you’re hooked too! You also will be breaking into these little songs throughout the day. Make sure you do it around Sara, because it drives her CRAZY!

Finding the Time

/ Shane / Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since I had a post on writing. There’s a reason for that.

Ever since Oliver was born, my writing output  (never fantastic) has literally dropped to zero. For two months I didn’t write a word. That’s not to say I gave up or forgot about it, but I simply did not have the time, even an hour or two. One kid was okay, but two kids are rough.

Every day I get up early and stumble downstairs when Evie wakes up. We are solid, running-around-like-chickens-with-our-heads-chopped-off busy until I leave for work. Even still I get to work at least an hour late every day. Factoring in the commute, by the time I get home, I’m usually late for dinner. This is assuming that my amazing wife somehow had time during the day to actually come up with something for dinner, and I don’t have to make it when I get home. So by the time I walk in the door, dinner is already at stage Orange, if not stage Red. We get that going, we eat, (sometimes) clean up, and then immediately I have to do Oliver’s bath. As soon as he is done, I hand him off to Sara and start on Evie’s bath. After reading her a story and tucking her in, I can sit down for the night…or not. Because then it’s time for laundry, dishes, etc.

I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m just saying that, with two kids, every minute of my day is accounted for, with no time left for other pursuits (writing included). And on the very rare occasion that I do get a minute, I do have other things that I like to do. So even those rare moments are subdivided. Especially since my writing is still on the downlow, so I don’t do it when other people are around (this pretty much rules out weekends).

Okay, so everybody has challenges. That’s good, because that’s what I want to talk about in this post.

First off, I readjusted my goals. I decided that I wanted to complete a minimum of 4 stories this year, one for each quarter of the Writers of the Future contest. I thought this would be an easy goal, especially since the first of those stories was already 1/2 done. Well, here we are, almost done with the quarter, and I haven’t quite finished the first quarter’s story. So, it’s going to be a bigger challenge than I thought.

Second off, I had to cut some things out. This is why I haven’t updated the writing section of my blog in a long time. I’d rather spend that time (if this fictional time were to materialize) writing fiction. Note though, that I didn’t stop updating my blog altogether. There are a few reasons for that. First off, I love my blog, so stopping this would be trading one thing I love for another…what’s the point of that? Second off, I can sometimes blog when I can’t write (for example, when I’m out of the house). Third off, I see the blog as important to my writing, both as practice and for the social aspects.

Third off, I had to be inventive. I had to evolve. I had a major discovery the other day: at the moment, the best time for me to write is on business trips. I was gone for almost a week the other day and, between the plane and the hotel, I managed to knock out something like 1,600 words, even though I was pretty busy the whole time. Previously my writing style was between 100 and 300 words a day, maybe once or twice a week. Slow and steady. Now, that no longer works for me, and I’m doing big bursts all at once. And I plan to continue in this fashion, until something changes.

One interesting thing that came out of this, is that it somewhat forces me to follow Heinlein’s rules, something that I believe strongly in. If I only have a few minutes to write, and if I’m going to meet my goals, then I seriously do NOT have time to go back and edit stories. That time can be for new work, and new work only.

So, as usual, life throws you curves. You can either quit, or roll with the punches. And if I can’t write new stories, at least I have been able to keep the old ones in the mail…

Zombie Harmony

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Finally! The zombie dating site we’ve all been waiting for! Zombie Harmony…because the apocalypse doesn’t have to be lonely.

I found a date through zombie harmony - one of the best free dating sites for zombies

Certainly ONE of the best free dating sites for zombies

This is so great. You fill in the search criteria to specify the type of zombie you’d like to meet. For example, fill in the blanks (between the quotes):

I am a “slow-moving” zombie seeking a “slow-moving” zombie with “all limbs intact” who is “freshly turned” and is interested in “Gnawing”, “Lumbering” and “Groaning”

Don’t forget to check out the sample profiles or the testimonials by happy couples!

Link via Jackie’s twitter.

The IBW

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Introducing The Interdimensional Buddy Wilson (otherwise known as The IBW)

I know that picture already has you hooked, but let me explain a little bit. The IBW is an Internet television show (yes, they have those now!) written, directed and produced by my brother-in-law. How cool is that?

Episodes premiere every Thursday between 3 and 5 p.m. Maybe the coolest part about it is that, because it is a relatively small production, anybody has an opportunity to get involved, from donating money and getting a mention in the credits, to watching their facebook page for opportunities to become an extra in an episode.

Last week was the series premiere, and is available here.

In this premiere episode of The Interdimensional Buddy Wilson, Buddy decides to take a journey in order to try and save his beloved girlfriend, Melissa. He hopes to accomplish this by finding an identical version of her in another world, and bringing that version back to rekindle the brain of his own Melissa. It is a big undertaking, but what’s the worst that could happen?

Hurry up and watch that episode, because it’s Wednesday already and episode 2 premieres tomorrow. Watch their website for each episode as it premieres.

If there’s interest, I can set up a post on Thursdays for discussion. Let me know in the comments.

A very special day

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Being spontaneous is not something Sara and I are very good at. So I was very proud of us for seeing an opportunity and seizing the moment last weekend.

My extended family has an enormous rummage sale every year and we had some stuff in it. Now technically, if you want to have stuff in the sale, you should help out with the sale. However, for out of towners, I think they make an exception. Nevertheless, we had originally planned on being there for the sale, if at all possible. Plus, it made a good excuse to introduce Oliver to a few people.

Plans changed, however, and we scheduled my dad and step-mom to come down that weekend, so we put all those plans out of our heads. So when my parents ended up going home on Saturday to get their dog out of the kennel, we didn’t think of it right away. After thinking about it for a while though, we said, “You know what? We could go there tomorrow.”

Thus began our “very special day” in Evie’s parlance. For her, the fact that we got her up before the butterfly lights were even on to get her in the car was enough to make it a very special day. She kept saying every few hours, “Today is a very special day!”

So we packed an amazing amount of stuff for just a one day trip (a baby adds a lot of stuff, on top of what you need for a toddler) and took off. Evie had a pretty good time. She said her favorite part of the day was coloring with the sidewalk chalk (although I still think all the adults had more fun). She did about half a block worth of pictures, including a crocodile, an ant holding her baby, a mother giraffe, bubbles, and a mommy and baby spider, as well as a really good rainbow.

On the way home both of the kids were sleeping, and I said to Sara, “I’m really glad we decided to do that!” Later I said to her, “If I ever make a statement like that again, remind me to wait until we are actually home and done with the trip.”

So what happened in between? Well, we had some bad traffic, so we decided to stop and get something to eat, because it was going to be bed time by the time we got home. When we stopped, we experienced our first full scale meltdown of both kids at the same time. Ouch. Quite embarrassing, and we were forced to run out of there with our meal half eaten. I like to think of us as a sort of roving birth control for the teenagers sitting in the next booth.

Afterwards, everybody was in a bad mood, and it was pretty rough. When we finally got all of the stuff in the house and the kids in bed, we just collapsed into sleep, without even putting most of the stuff away. It was sort of spectacular how fast everything took a turn for the worst! But as Sara said, we sort of set them up to fail, since it was a long day and everyone was tired.

So anyway, long story short, it was sort of a mixed bag. Certainly we learned a bit about handling two kids out in public, and we’ll do things a little different next time. Evie has already asked several times if today was a very special day, or how long until the next very special day. So I think we will work on including more special days in the future.