Word-Count Wednesday - Feb. 15th, 2017

Lots to talk about today. It's been a productive week.

What Am I Working On?

Let's see... I finished writing the publicity information for my new one-act play -- which means that it is now online and in print! Ta-da!

As you can tell by the mesmerizing graphic, the play is called "The Twilight Cone." It's about a young man experiencing his first day on the job at an unusual ice cream parlor. Turns out, every flavor triggers a unique "twilight zonish" chain of events.

In other news, I finished the revision of my picture book, so my agent sent it out into the world! It is currently on the desks of 12 different editors. Twelve chances. I'll keep you posted as the results trickle in.

And finally, I've had a creative breakthrough. I have decided on a new long term project. I was calling it Kettle Black for a while, but I'll probably come up with a new title further down the line. I finished the first chapter yesterday. So far, I love working with these characters. They remind me of my daughters when they were younger.


Word Count: 2500 words. (That makes up for last week's failure.)


How Do I Feel About the Process?

Very good. I think I'd like to get feedback about the first chapter. That's a little scary because sometimes feedback inspires and sometimes it discourages. But I'd love to get a few first impressions from readers.


What Am I Reading?

Narrative essays written by my English 1A students. Lots and lots of essays.

Mistakes Were Made

I taught two classes on Monday and when I got home, Cheri and the girls left for Disneyland. (They had an okay time that evening, but there was a multi-car fire in the parking structure, so that absorbed a lot of their time; it took forever to get intobthe park.)

While their misadventure was going on, I planned to have a relaxing and productive evening all by my lonesome. I expected to grade eight essays and then return to my creative project, a brand new book that I'm very excited about.

I thought I was going to be good and responsible by choosing to get grown-up work out of the way. That was my mistake.

If you are feeling creative, you should work on your art! Inspiration combined with ambition is a rare and beautiful thing. Don't deny the muse when it calls to you!

Instead, I tried to grade those darn essays... And I got distracted... I had to walk the dogs,  had a meeting at the theater I nearly forgot about, and to top it all off I made really bad food choices: ten Candy Cane Jo-Jo cookies, four girl scout cookies (all hail the Samoans!) two salami bagel sandwiches, one large Beatles coffee-mug filled with Moose Tracks Ice Cream. (Although I did choose the reduced fat kind, so Bravo for me.)

By the end of the evening, I graded six essays instead of reaching my goal, and I didn't write a single sentence of my novel.

Fortunately, I did not make the same mistake today. Chapter One is finished!

Sunday Funnies - Feb. 12th, 2017

A little doodle I made for my aunt to celebrate Valentine's Day....

 or as many of my students call it: 

"Single's Awareness Day" 

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Dragon's Lair

Like so many children of the 80s, I was obsessed with video games. The thing about this obsession -- some may aptly call it an addiction -- is that it wasn't just about playing for hours on one's Atari or (if you were a bit of a snob) Intellivision. This was the golden age of arcades. So, the best games cost 25 cents a pop. Places like Chuck-E-Cheese (before they turned into places where you played pseudo-gambling games to earn tickets) were havens for those of us willing to waste countless quarters just to feel the thrill of electronic mayhem, if only for a few fleeting moments.

Notice how the young folks in the above photo are lining up to play their favorite game? That's how hooked we were. No instant gratification for us 80s kids. We gathered around and waited our turn.

The game that I was the most in awe of was different from all the rest. It was called "Dragon's Lair." And everytime I went to the arcade, this game possessed the longest lines and the largest audience.

This game was different for two reasons. Reason #1 -- it was two quarters! 50 freakin cents. By 80s economics that meant that I was giving up two candy bars just to have a turn. Reason #2 -- it was animated, yes Gloriously Animated by Disney veteran turned rogue, Don Bluth. And since I passionate cartoons, Dragon's Lair was a case of love at first sight. Here's the "trailer" that would play as the machine waited to gobble up your money.

Unlike games such as Joust, Asteroids, and Ms. Pac-Man (my first foray into feminism), I never got very good at Dragon's Lair. It could never figure out the timing. However, I loved the hilarious ways poor Dirk the Daring died. 

If you were like me and endlessly failed to play the way all the way through, just so you could watch the entire animated film, you'll be happy to know that someone posted all of the scenes on YouTube. Hooray for the Internet! 

Photograph Friday #3: Top Out Climbing

I actually took these last week... They aren't very good. The camera on my phone isn't the greatest (which is why my wife gave me this iPhone 4 to begin with -- she wanted to get a new version with better resolution!). Also, I know nothing about composition... or simply how to take something in focus. But hey, this is part of my New Year's resolution... so here they are... for better or worse!

Unlike these photographs, my daughters are excellent. They are second degree black belts with brilliant minds... which means they could beat me in a debate and in the Octogon.

To try something new for the New Year, they joined a cool gym call Top Out Climbing. This is the easy boulder...

But things get much more vertically challenging than this.... I've tried this once... and although it was fun, being up this high -- even with a harness -- makes me a little bit nervous. 

Still, I think if I was going to join a gym it would be this place. I'm not interested in lifting weights or running on treadmills. I'd rather pretend to be climbing Mt. Everest or scaling Half Dome. 

Word-Count Wednesday - Feb. 8th, 2017

What am I working on:


I've been trying to brainstorm my next BIG idea... and so far nothing much has come up. I have tinkered with the idea of having a STEM picture book about simple machines (and the silly mice who use them to steal cheese). Oh, and I also finished editing/reviewing a new one-act play.








Word Count: 115 (A week of failure) --- but I am planning to write more tonight. I'm just writing yb the seat of my pants now... seeing if something interesting happens. Here's what I have so far:

“Jess, wake up.” If it was the morning, Willa would have sung the words to her older sister while she pulled open the curtains to brightly awaken her to a new day. But this was the middle of the night, three a.m., and there wasn’t time for singing, only shaking.

“What, what, what?” Jessica grumbled, looking around the dark room of their farm house. Willa replied by pulling away her sister’s quilt and tossing her father’s jacket. It still smelled of cigarettes stayed within the denim. Their father, on the other hand, was long gone.

“There’s another one in the woods,” Willa said.

“Not a raccoon?”

“Definitely not a raccoon. Let’s go. I got flashlights.”

How Do I Feel About the Process:


I go back and forth between frustration and patience. Today I feel patient. The next story will manifest in time.






What am I Reading:


I am still listening to Charles Dickens' audio book version of Little Dorrit. It's a LONG book... and I listen to it on the commute home from work. I have a feeling I won't finish it until the end of the semester.

Wade's Poetic Terms

A couple weeks ago, I posted a useful link to a PDF document that covers a whole bunch of poetic devices... the things you might study in a literature course.

There's lots of useful stuff there... especially if you want to write an essay analyzing the prosody of Shelley and/or Byron. However, sometimes when I'm trying to express my love of poetry, the academic lexicon isn't enough.

For me, excellent poetry contains some of these elements:

Puzzle-Treasures: Lines of poetry / song lyrics which are difficult to decode but oh-so worth the effort. With insight and context Puzzle-Treasure poems are clever and delightful.

Phrase Bombs: Words / ideas that evoke surprise and command attention.

Vicariocity: The level of empathy created by the lines. Poetry with high vicariocity transcends the reader so that they feel they are within the world of the poem.

Philoseeds: Embeds themes/beliefs into the text in subtle yet persuasive ways.

Eargasms: We might have no idea what the poem means, but the sound of the word combinations provides pleasure to the listener.

What do you crave in poetry?