I looked back and discovered that it has been quite a while since I have updated you on the progress of my starting over adventure. Clearly there has been more going on in my life than the thinly-veiled fiction that passes for reality in my world and about which I usually write. There are of course the day-to-day, mundane issues of survival in the not-so-big City of Seattle. On with the progress report.

Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way first. Let’s face it, when I think about boring, as do you as well unless you’re married, I think about work. Writing has turned into a pretty much full-time job out here in the Emerald City. And it’s a job that starts early. This time of year the days are getting longer and the sun starts shining here way before most people have even dreamed about waking up. Sadly, I am not “most people”. Since I don’t own a watch or clock or even a sundial time is a more amorphous concept for me than for most. In fact, if I want to find out what time it really is I either have to 1) get up and look at my phone or 2) get up and look at my computer. Either way this results in my getting up, which, as is typically the case with semi-somnolent enjoyment, is the thing you linger in bed to avoid. My ordinary morning goes something like: my snores are interrupted by the soft light filtering into my subterranean abode, stirring me sufficiently awake to bid farewell to the dreams of appliqued sweat-pants behind, so to speak, and leaving me tossing and turning in a vain attempt to go back to sleep. This continues for what seems like hours until, unable to justify being awake and horizontal any longer, I get up, perk up some coffee, pour a cup, and wander into my office to begin my day writing. This is the point at which I find out what time it really is, i.e. early, typically between 6AM and 7AM, although it was 5:15AM today. I curse my inability to sleep late and start pounding on the keys.

Okay, so not quite. Like you other office workers out there, I typically whittle away the pre-lunch hours with a few games of Solitaire, Hearts, or FreeCell. I feel that this early morning challenge sharpens my intellect and hones my insight, noble goals for a writer indeed. I play a game until I win. Then I play the next one until I win it. Then move on from there. If, by the time I’ve won all three, it’s not yet time to break for lunch, then I’ll follow on with a game of Mahjong since, by this late hour, there’s really not enough time left to do anything productive before lunch.

At lunch I’ll typically grab a light snack and then take off on a walk for a couple of hours. This is the interval during the day when, due to my lack of motorized transport, I’ll walk to the grocery, library, or post office and knock out those errands we all need to do to get by. If I have to go farther afield I’ll take the bus. If it’s a nice day, and surprisingly most days here qualify as “nice”, I’ll throw in a detour to one of the view parks on my way to wherever I need to go. This usually adds only a couple of miles to my route so I’m as a rule back in my office by about four or four-thirty in the afternoon. Now, faced with a fast-approaching cocktail hour, I’ll spend the final wisps of my workday doing research or getting things organized for tomorrow.

But, I have managed to squeeze in a couple of productive moments over the past few months so am happy to report some progress on the writing front. First off, I’d like to thank those of you who clicked on my link last week to help me with the issues I’ve been having with the size of my equipment. I was able to determine how to make my website enlarge when needed and shrink when appropriate and that change will be happening online in the next few weeks. 

My novel, Fresh Squeezed, which my co-author Bonnie Biafore and I have been working on, is nearly through its first rewrite. That should also be finished over the next several weeks. I’m going to try and convince Bonnie that we need to post the first chapter as a teaser when it’s ready. I’ll let you know when that happens.

Then there is my new magazine article ‘Critter Cakes, the story of what you cook on a boat when there is nothing to eat. This was published in the May, 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes Seafaring Magazine. That issue should be available on their website for a few more weeks or maybe in your local library. I’ll also post the article on my website in the Articles page. That will happen sometime around June first.

Lastly there are a couple of short stories to note. The first, Rock Fever, is my first attempt at science fiction. Set in the not-too-distant future it looks at a day in a mining camp on an asteroid. A very interesting day. I think the story has some legs and I’m considering expanding it into a serial. To try and get some fiction writing cred I submitted it for publication to Strange Horizonsmagazine. So far I have not been rejected. Stay tuned. Then there is Apotheosis. This story is set in the afterlife and traces a lost soul’s journey to enlightenment. This is destined for online and ePub versions on my website. Soon.

So there will be a few things coming up of interest. I’ll keep you posted.

But what about the not-so-boring other aspects of my life? How, basically, do I fill the idle hour of my day? Well, one thing that I can guarantee you is that, Bubba, it ain’t tango. I give up. As much as I hate to be beaten, tango did it. It wasn’t that I didn’t much like the music. It wasn’t that I couldn’t dance without completely frustrating my partner. It wasn’t even that tango is something that primarily ends after midnight and I am cursed with awakening at dawn. It just all boiled down to the fact that I just didn’t get it. When I would be lounging around and wondering what I wanted to do “Tango” never made the list. It just didn’t move me. So that’s that. However, a friend has suggested I don’t give up on dancing just yet. She suggested Salsa, a style of music I enjoy even when dance isn’t involved. It’s supposed to be easier than tango too. So maybe there’s hope for my inner Fred Astaire in the future.

Then there’s volunteering. I am happy to report that my application to volunteer at the zoo has been accepted and I have my face-to-face interview this week. By the time you read this it will already have happened so I may put a little update on Friday to pass on the good, or bad, news. LATE BREAKING NEWS: I passed my interview and filled out the information for my Pervert Check, which, not surprisingly, is done online given that even criminals are allowed access to the internet. My training class is set for mid-June. I should be able to coax a blog or two out of that.