Taking the garbage out makes the whole house seem cleaner.
Now if I can just get my laundry done.

Books: Well, tonight I hope to finish rewriting chapter 16. That will bring me up to my goal of the next bunch of chapters to send out to my readers. Sarah should be happy. It'll mean I'll be printing out about 160 pages to give her to read.

I'm a terrible fan of Charlie Rose's late night talk show. (or at least, sometimes I am) Tonight he had the author of this book (Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't) who seems to be holding motivational/leadership books to scientific standards of research, rigorous data, and insight.

I can't say any of his ideas were revolutionary. But they were backed up by good data and specific definitions. That's better than most of these books can say.

I hate hot weather.

Bleagh.

Books: The goal for tonight: chapter 15 redux

You know you live in an interesting part of the city when you have to run police barricades to get home.
For those of you frightened by Sarah's claims that we live in "da hood," I should clarify and say that the last few days have been the Puerto Rican Festival in Chicago. For reasons I'm not quite clear on, that means putting up police barricades all around my neighborhood. I suspect that it's an attempt to control traffic and pedestrians so that they don't completely overrun us residents. Or get hit by fireworks. Anyway, what that means is that those of us who really do live there have to talk our way through the police guards or find a barricade we can squeeze around.

Living dangerously (for yuppies) on the West Side of Chicago....

Books: Ok, my latest attempts at rewrites of early chapters don't entirely suck. Maybe I can still write even when I'm burned out at my day job.

For those of you keeping track, the commenting system actually works now.

Books: There was another death in the book last night. Horrible, horrible. And what's worse, he can't even be brought back to life.

I just tried to install a commenting system, so my adoring public can post short responses to my eloquent submissions.

Books: Yeah, I'm doing this instead of writing. I think I intimidated myself by doing well over vacation. How in the world will a write that well when I'm burned out from my dayjob?

I used ebay for the first time today. I can see where it could get addictive.

Books: Shut up.

So, the latest project keeping me from writing my book is the painting of my apartment. To give you a little sense of the project for yourselves, I give you some statistics.

Different paint colors: 6
Number of times I've had to go back to the store to get more paint: 2
Family members bribed to help: 3
Hours worked in inadequate light levels: 8
Shortcuts taken: Many
Conversations about the previous tenant: 12
Times that conversation was complimentary: 2
Drawers unstuck from being previously painted shut: 5
Windows scraped free of paint: 1
Remaining windows that are painted over: 3
Windows that will get murals painted on them: 2
Times my brother looked worried about the livingroom color: 8
Rooms in the house that are a shambles: 4
Rooms in the house that were a shambles before project began: 2
Months estimated until this project is finished: 1
Months estimated that I'll be living in this house: 5

Yeah. Overall it makes very little sense.
That never stopped me before.

Books: Ironically, depending on how long it takes me to get tired of painting trim, this project may actually increase the output on my book. Paint trim or write? Paint trim or write? I guess it all depends on how bad the writer's block is.

My family came to visit me! Yay! They're going to help me paint my apartment. That's so cool.

Books: I'm beginning to be spiteful about the short story situation. I've plotted out a new short story I'll put together and see how it turns out. (With the help of my writing partner, who can pare down my book-length ideas to a short-story length.)

Here's another interesting link when you search on Despain:

Imp Head Studio

I realized I haven't done a google search on just my last name in a long time. It's always entertaining, so I did one today. This is the best gem so far.

Official Series Description - DESPAIN Series

The weeds ran wild in the back garden while I was away.
The tree limbs sprouted fingers reaching high, growing out of place.
Certain flowers faded, others burst into view.
What was blue and silver is now yellow and violet.
So much happens there when I turn my back.

Books: Time to kill off another character. This time, the poor soul got added in to the beginning for the express purpose of dying here and raising the stakes. It used to be a fairly uneventful chapter. Now there's shocking death and mystery. It should be an improvement, right?

Well, I'm back from LA. It was mostly uneventful, although I got a chance to ponder the effectiveness of video as a mass tranquilizer. Give us a movie on a long flight, and you won't have any difficulties.

No big celebrity meetings this time. I did get to meet one of the producers working on the Hulk movie, though. Does that count?

Books: Well, I heard back from the magazine about my short story. Have you ever played volleyball? Or watched people play volleyball? You know that moment when it looks like you're going to have a really awesome spike - only to have it blocked spectacularly right at the net so it goes smashing back in your face?

Yeah. Rejection letter.

I don't think I'll rewrite this one again. I may send it out to another magazine or two, but I don't think I'll intensively rework it. I'll try something new.

When I get up the courage again.

This is a busy time of year. I'm leaving today on a business trip to Los Angeles.

No rest for the wicked.

I've started reading some things by Anne Bronte. She's "the other one" of the Bronte sisters. Died of tuberculosis before she could write more than two novels and a few poems. She was 28, I believe. Unmarried. She gets overlooked a lot because her writing isn't much like her sisters'.

But then... I don't like her sisters' books much. I do like Jane Austen, and that's how I came to Anne Bronte. Sadly, I wasn't the first to notice the similarities. The introduction of the book encourages readers to think of Anne Bronte as Jane's little sister. So far, I definitely agree. The other Bronte sisters didn't much like Jane Austen's work, and just reading the description of each woman's work, I wouldn't expect that I would, either.

They say that Jane and Anne write about comedies of "manners" -- silly social confusion among the upper class. The other Bronte sisters, on the other hand, wrote "wild, dark examinations of the human soul like the moors they grew up on." Wow, that sounds like my kind of writing.

But it's not. I find it depressing. And that's pretty much it. Not very litterary of me, I know.

Jane and Anne, though... I find their books make fun of the society they see around them and say more true things about wider humanity. They can see the absurdity in all the little things that make the world go round, and still accept the people for it. They turn their honest eyes on the normal people around them and tell what they see there.

I wish I could do that.

Books: Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Sigh.