School's in, Word's out!

No, we didn't get to posting last week. Lots going on...

Last week was the first week of school at ISU so it was kind of panic stations at Lisa's work. Not to worry, she's alive and well and working on her dissertation. She is also gearing up for a double conference. Literally she's leaving from one to go to the other. One is the one she wants to go to to build contacts and the other she's presenting at. The book she's published in will be on sale at one of the conferences...

Ok Patrick... that covers the "school's in" part but not the "word's out" part...

As far as that goes...
Words Mean Stuff 
Click on that link. Seriously click on the link. I'm not going to repeat myself (this time!).

If you haven't guessed, I am the Farangian (I am he and he is me and we are all together!). There is even a page at the blog (the other blog (remember the link I told you to click on...)) that will tell you about where the name comes from.

If things go at all well, the first book is out by the end of the year. If things go reasonably well, so is the second... 

Sadly I can't say that if things go outrageously well the third will be out this year. Three and four are in pieces on my desk but three needs some information that is not expected to be released until January and four... well I have a draft but there is some refining editing left to be done and I'll hedge my bets and say it will be out next year (stupid novellas...).

Getting away from the printed word for a second... in doing the writing for the chainmail book (that's book one if you still haven't clicked that link yet) I felt I needed to make some information available but not put it in the book (didn't want to slow it down...). So, I'm creating my own YouTube channel with videos of the information. The channel is out, but the videos are still coming (they will be out before the book is (but hopefully not by much!)). 

In setting up the You Tube channel this happened...

Yes, yes that's an MRI of my brain... No! Wait, that's the picture I took for the channel art for the You Tube channel! (It just happens to look a lot like the inside of my brain...)

But seriously lets take a look at that piece of shiny in the center...

That's an Argentinian fluorite chunk that I picked up at the farmer's market. The gold colored stripes are what makes it really unusual. Hey, even when I don't have time to do rocks I do rocks. That piece is for the collection, but I bought it specifically to include in some channel art picks for the channel and the blog.

Is there anything in this post that isn't about writing?

Did you see the shiny rock?

Not good enough... Ok...
How about this...

That's a pretty decent plate of pasta and sauce made from food storage ingredients. It's part of a line of experimentation that started with an "Expo 73" at a little place in Manhattan Beach. Yes, it is good. Yes, I will provide the recipe. But, not till next year (yes that's a hint).

So what have we learned from all this?

Let's see... Lisa's busy.  Patrick's crazy. Rock's are pretty. And, food storage is more that wheat!

That's it for this week everybody...
Thanks for reading...
Now get out of here before I start talking about book five, and six, and seven through eleven (and maybe twelve). Not to mention thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen. (sadly I'm serious). Basically run! Lisa or I will be back next week (and hopefully not reporting on my "little vacation" to the psych ward!)

And so once again...

And so once again I have ridden through the desert on my horse with no name (Ok... this time it was a rental... and Lisa handled the driving part)...

Once again I have reason to be cocky...
As some folks know we took a trip out to Cali to see family. Sadly one of the reasons for the trip was my mom is not doing so well and we really needed to visit her. On the happier side Lisa got to spend some time with her family. My plans during this part of the trip were to eat guacamole, write, and drink soda until I mutated into a Minotaur... well sadly... no Minotaur... But the eating guacamole and writing went really well. Figure for the size and line count of the notebook I was using I should have gotten about 25 pages done on the trip. The actual score was closer to 60. I got no less than three good story ideas on the trip (with one over 50% complete...) and have made progress on the two non fiction items I want out by the end of the year; the rough draft of the one was completed just before we left and the the other is just waiting for cover art and printing. We brought a copy of a book Lisa is published in on the trip with us (an actual hard cover copy of the book. Not even a galley, an actual production copy! (congratulations Lisa)).

Lisa's sister Marisa read a teaser story for the novella (anticipating the teaser will be up on WMS before Thanksgiving. The novella will be out next year (under the current plan)). And Lisa's committee has given her verbal and email OK to propose (but she does wonder why she has to route a physical piece of paper around to get signatures for an online program).

Now, none of that has given the reason I have to be cocky (Ok... Author who will be published this year married to a published author who will be a Doctor next year... got to give myself that one...). The big reason I'm cocky is I made it through a long, stressful trip without using a single drop of insulin and with my highest blood sugar reading being a 143 (normal range is 80-120 they won't  even really use the word diabetic until 130 or 140...). So getting through the trip with numbers that low was really good. But they aren't all good days...

And once again... there's drama...
Lisa almost didn't want to go to work last Thursday. It turns out is was kind of a premonition. Somebody (and I can't even blame one of her coworkers because it was on another floor) managed to flood a bathroom on a floor above the ITRC, so they had work crews trying to clean up a flood right across from her office. It was pretty major in that they ripped up the base board from a fairly large area and stripped the insulation out of a room across the hall. As of this afternoon the the drying fans are still going. The worst part is that the @#$@#$@#!!! people they sent to do the work the first day were too dense to realize there were people trying to work in the offices around them, so they were noisy and rude.

Once again there are things on the horizon... Lisa will be heading off to not one but two conferences in the near future (I'm not going (trying to get work done). So, if the city burns down while she's gone... )). We're both up to our eyeballs in writing, research, organizing and trying to edumafy people. But, those are items for future posts...

Once again... I get to say "But wait! There's more!"
Once again... I get to put up a video!



Once again... Information Society (One of my favorite bands from the late eighties / early nineties) has released  new album.

Actually the album was released last year and I missed it... which is weird...
What is weirder, is that parts of the album actually fit with my novella which was started last year... before the album was released... There will be more about this and how the album relates in future posts here and at WMS...

And once again...that's it for this week...
Until next time... Forget Minotaur! Next year, one of Davy Jones' pirates from Pirates of Caribbean!