Soup of the day

I borrowed that picture from TopCultured.com, just thought it was hilarious and awesome.

So, I'm about half way through my 2000 words for the day, and feeling pretty damn good about it. I'm taking a day or two away from the novel and working on a short story for a magazine competition. I scribbled through a couple pages of my notebook working out the idea (which started as something else entirely) (which happens to me a lot) (I just like putting stuff in parentheses) and eventually stumbled onto what I think is a great story.

Sometimes, I feel bad for the people around me. Why? Because I have a constant internal narration. Anything that happens to, around, or within me, is likely to be fodder for some scribbled story arc in my notebook. Oh well. :) I do love my notebook, though. There's just something about pen and paper writing that helps get my creative juices flowing, it's how I start everyday. Of course, when transferring my scribbles to the ol' computer, they tend to undergo a lot of editing, which is probably good. Maybe.

I think that's enough of my ramblings, for now.

Slow Morning and excerpt from Chapter 1

The pages always seem to trickle in very slowly the first day after a weekend.

Before my coffee this morning, my brain was rusty and filled with pictures of snake faced baboons and babies using Monopoly boards for diapers. In my post dreamworld daze, I thought these things would be great to write about in some Gothic style Lewis Carol short story. Then, I spent ten minutes watching a godlike machine, made from white plastic and glass, pour hot water through ground up beans and realized that those images just don't make any sense... together.

So, it's almost noon and I've only been able to muster about 500 of my 2000 words for the day. That's not a huge shock, seeing as how I tend to write in short bursts and the interwebs call to me when my mind wanders from the story at hand. I have fallen into social networking with a vengeance, (though I don't twitter yet) and the urge to find out what my friends have done in the last ten minutes is sometimes overwhelming. Oh well, I'll get back to work soon... or eventually.

Since I didn't start this blog until after my first draft was about a third of the way done, I figure I will post an excerpt from each chapter about once a week.

So here goes:
With the sun growing now, straight along the horizon of trees, the jays began to move around next to him. The birds were readying themselves for a day of flight, food, and all other sorts of natural beauty, and he knew it was time for him to get to work. Breakfast could wait no longer.

As he made his way back down the tree, Bixby still felt the small rush of life from devouring the birds, and intermittent memories of their short lives fluttered through his mind. He quickly brushed those thoughts away and used a feather’s quill to pick the bone and sinew from his many sharp teeth. He would use the rest of the feathers to make Mother a headdress and perhaps, a pillow. Even with no idea when Mother would grace the woods with her presence again, she was still… Mother.

As he lightly dropped to the earth, he belched and then smiled, his deep purple eyes glowing. It was going to be a good day.

First Blog

So, I've just finished writing the fifth chapter of my first novel, and I've decided that it might be therapeutic to share some of my daily experiences and even some of my writing as I go. Although I have had a love affair with writing most of my life, I'll be the first to admit that I am not a professional. Until very recently, the idea of a daily word count never even occurred to me, and my writing habits were sporadic, at best.

I'd like to use this blog as forum for conversation with other, like minded folks that may be going through some of the same hills and valleys that I am. I would also love to be able to share ideas with, and have the chance to learn from others that may have already been where I am.

I will most definitely use this blog to vent. I mean, that's the point right? My writing impacts my daily life and my life definitely impacts my daily writing.

From time to time, I may share excerpts from something I'm working on so that I might get some idea of how others will see it.

I'm going to post this now, I want to see how it looks and find out more about how this site works.

Thanks,
Ken