Gunpowder and Ink!

Not bad. First four days I hammered out 15,500 words and the last six days I managed to get almost as many again.

But word counts don’t mean squat unless it’s GOOD. I’d rather read a 70,000 word Louis L’Amour book than try to read a 500,000 word (feels like it) Ayn Rand book. He says in a couple sentences what she says in a couple pages. Great ideas! But don’t bore me to death telling me about them, lady.

I hear there are 250-300 words per page on your average sized novel(whatever that is), so I’ve around 100-120 pages written so far.

Rock on.

This is writing from 4am to 7am before work. That’s when I really progress the story. The smaller bits of time I get, I work on re-writing stuff. For re-writes, I mostly went back the beginning and started moving through the manuscript.

What I mean is, I’m on page 66 of fast writing and page 16 of re-writing.

I say mostly back to the beginning, because sometimes I have to re-write a whole bunch of junk. Like the other day, I realized I had written a character into a position where it just wouldn’t WORK. I had to scrap about 1,000 words and re-write it completely. That sucked.

When I fast write, I just beat the keys off the keyboard. Make some adjustments as it goes, and let it lay where it falls. Sometimes I’ll just dump a scene half-finished and move on if I can’t think of where to go with it. I just look at the outline, see what’s next and go.

Speaking of the outline, my original outline has zigged and zagged on and off track now. The more I think about this thing, the more I think ‘Hey, you know what would be cool?’ then I do that.

I actually had to make a new outline so I could keep track of what was going on and the new added scenes. No wonder it takes George R. Martin three years to write a book. Poor guy is trying to shove four high schools worth of drama into it.

Then I’ll be on the treadmill, or at work, or driving, and a new idea will pop into my head. Something cool that I have to pursue.

Welcome to the party, Chief Sitting Bull. You get an important scene. Thanks for all the new research I have to do on you and the Lakota Indian tribe. Ugh.

The bad part is, the more I re-write the more I realize my initial writing is ‘okay, but not great’.

I think this means I’m getting better as I go.

That also means, Reader Zero no longer gets to read anything as I write it.  She has to wait until I’ve gone over it first to make it more of an official ‘rough draft’.

It’s for the best, dear.

🙂

My goal was 20,000 words written over a 4 day weekend.  I got 15,500.  Not bad I reckon since I’ve never done this before.

I’m also using what I wrote from 4:30-7:05am this morning as part of my 4 day holiday word count, since I hadn’t gone to work yet.

Those 15.5k words ended up being 37 pages long in size 12 font.

Pretty good I think.  I’m not sure how many hours I worked on it.  Maybe 12 total? An hour here. A couple hours there…

I also already had a bunch of background research done on characters, clothes, critters, guns… the good stuff.  And the best part is thst since its fiction and since it’s my novel – I can do whatever I want.

HA critics!

This is for entertainment.  All I care about is afterwards, can you say you enjoyed reading it?  If yes, I get paid lots of money hopefully.  Long live Capitalism!

Speaking of stupid critics…  In 2010, Hurt Locker – which was absolutely ridiculous  garbage to any service member, beat out Avatar in Best Picture.

Avatar made 2 billion dollars in 35 days. Hurt Locker made 49 million it’s entire run (probably including the VHS sales to fluff the numbers).

Which movie actually entertain people?

AVATAR.

That’s why so many people went to see it, then brought their family, then talked about it around the water cooler at work.  Cause it was epic and awesome and mind blowing, and even though they made Marines the bad guys (HA! Yea right!) it was okay because it was so entertaining you could ignore all the stupid crap like evil white people destroying a planet for a resource.  (I see what you did there Mr. Cameron.)

Hurt Locker may have taken home a little Golden Statue, but no one cared. Not even James Cameron, he was to busy stacking truck loads of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck and laughing madly the entire time.

Anyways…

The first chapter was the hardest, I was scared to write dialogue because I thought it would sound dumb.  I think there is just a couple lines in it.

But then, it is a butt kicking-try not to get eaten scene.  Who needs dialogue for that?  I just wrote a bunch of pew pew! noises and a couple ka-booms! in it mixed among some roars.

But as it progressed it got exponentially easier to write everything; action, description, conversations….  Now I’m in all sorts of dialogue-y stuff.  But I’m about to start the chase scene.  Yay!  Action!  Pew pew pew!

They say 40,000 is enough to technically count as a novel.  But NANOWRIMO wants 50,000 for their ‘Write a Novel  in the Month of November’ to count.

Whatever, it’s July, and I’ll do way more than that by the end of this month.

Considering how far along I am, I would expect to finish around 100,000 to 120,000 words.

Hmm… maybe I’m not so far along after all.

Reader Zero (based off the Patient Zero concept for the first person to spread a communicable disease) has enjoyed what’s finished so far of the rough draft.  In her words, “I didn’t want to stop reading it!  Write more.  Now.  I’ll watch the kids. Also, you are totally wrong describing women’s clothing.” (Paraphrased slightly)

I’ll take that as high praise since it’s still a rough draft and not polished yet.  I know she won’t lie to me, she once told me something I wrote ‘bored her’.

Her only complaints were that the beginning of this was a little slow, and I used some modern phrases and words that are too out of place in 1885.

That certainly won’t do!

So I hacked it apart and made it faster paced and exciting.  I gotta hook you with the beginning or you’ll never bother with the end.

Now I gotta study some more lingo.

I really want to put, “rootin’ tootin'” in there somewhere.

 

 

Trump may not act Presidential, but with the exclusion of actually being assassinated he has taken a Presidential beat down from every direction.  Even his own corner is sucker punching him in the kidneys.

But the man is unstoppable.

Any other person would have withered and died under the continuous barrage of lies, misconceptions, character assassination attempts, and total fabrications.  In addition to the their usual own baggage of self-doubt and worry of failure.

They would have given into the howling lefties who think he stole the election from Hillary.

With the help of Russia of course.

Never mind that we are now NINE investigations into that ridiculous James Bond style plot with zero evidence being presented.  Because you know THAT would have been leaked by now.  Kind of like how every ridiculous unfounded half-truth that was sourced ‘anonymously’ EXCEPT that Trump was not under actual investigation and that he WANTED Comey to investigate his own advisers to make sure there was nothing there.

And you’re going to tell us that a man who can’t keep his mouth shut about how everything he does is the most fantastic, most wonderful, most beautiful thing America has ever seen – has somehow pulled off the greatest heist in election history without exposing himself?

Ahahahaha.

Excuse me while I wipe the tears of hilarity away from my eyes.

Trump ain’t Spectre.

But by now, any one else would have started to take a more moderate stance.

A less ‘offensive’ stance.

I put that in little ‘ ‘ marks because so far he’s got a great batting average for doing what he actually said he would.  We, I  include myself, voted for him because well… we would vote for a rotten head of cabbage before we would vote for Future Inmate Hillary.

But we elected him to do what he said he would do.  And he’s actually doing it!

What a concept!

Anyone else would have given in to the threats of violence that the left constantly accuses US of.  You know, us gun-toting, bible thumping conservatives of with our Ten Commandments of morality and AR-15s of death.

They would have pleaded for peace.  Probably on a stage with Obama, Bush, and Serial Rapist Bill.  All while holding hands, singing Kumbaya, and rhythmically swaying back and forth.

But not TRUMP!

He takes these hits on the chin like a freaking immovable statue of solid will power and CEO might. 

Then he swings back, swiftly and brutally.

When he told Hillary, “Because you’d be in Jail” I SCREAMED in joy.  I’ve never been a sports guy, but I imagine that’s what you guys do when your team wins the SuperBowl.  Except this actually matters.  (Sorry football fans, it’s just a game)

I thought I was going to wake up the kiddos.  My wife was in the other room, so she missed one of the greatest moments in debate history.  She thought something happened to me.  Thank goodness for YouTube and the replay button.

Trump entertains me so.  He’s a freaking SAVAGE in his responses sometimes.

This latest video of his old WWE days when he smacked down Vince McMahon and shaved his head, with Vince being replaced with CNN is entertainment comedy gold.

Back to my point.

He’s Rocky Balboa.

Against all odds, he’s walking through a withering storm of abuse.  And he keeps swinging.  Often he’s landing knock out punches.

This man LOVES America.  You know that famous picture of Ronald Reagan smelling the American Flag? That’s how I view Trump and America.  Except he’s less likeable and much more crude.

But that man isn’t an apologetic like Obama.  He’s not some Globalistic Goon who feels like WE are the bad guys on the world stage and owe the world an apology for being great.  And Obama’s solution to that was to kick ourselves in the blue berries over and over while handing them the keys to our economy and relinquishing our position in the global stage to the likes of Russia and China, cause you know – their human rights violations are so much better than our supposed cultural racism.

Trump believes, rightfully so, that WE are the good guys.  WE owe it to ourselves to look after ourselves first.

I agree.

Unfortunately, while he’s kicking the crap out of the Leftist/Media/GOP Establishment Drago…. every once in a while he’ll punch himself in the face and knock himself down.

But he’s never knocked out.

He gets right back up, refusing to apologize for his actions, and moves forwards swinging into the pages of History.

(And like Rocky, sometimes you look at the guy and wonder if everything is okay with his brain…)

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!

I’m always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You’re my son and you’re my blood. You’re the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, ya ain’t gonna have a life. – Rocky.

Wrapped up the outline this morning.   3,874 words.

I’m very pleased with it.

Took a handful of hours to write out, but the basic story line has been rolling around in my skull for most of the week.  It’s funny how it grows and changes as you progress in putting it into text though.

But ideas are cheap though.

Now the REAL work begins.

 

Here’s what the majority of Politican’s forget.

They forget what it’s like to be a Joe or Jane Blow.

Your average, typical, normal American… With real world problems.  Like supporting their family, making ends meet, finding and keeping a job, trying to figure out how to make it to the next pay check.  Looking at their bank account teetering precariously close to going negative and wondering how they will have the gas and food they need.

It’s not entirely their fault.  It’s easy to forget where you came from.  I look back at our life, when we started dating we were both unemployed.  Our first Valentine’s Day was a cheap bottle of wine and a frozen lasagna.  It’s a tradition we’ve kept a lot of years since. Now we are both making good money and living below our means with little debt. But it’s still easy to forget where we came from.

But look at Hillary Clinton, she hasn’t driven a car in 20 years.  Yet people thought, this lady gets us, we should elect her to drive our country into the future.  She doesn’t ‘get you’.  She may have come out of the Clinton presidency ‘dead broke’ with all those ill-gotten millions stuffed in her mattress and off the books, but even during that ‘lay off’ it’s not like she was wondering how she would afford her 2.8 million dollar seven-bedroom house she bought in NY in Dec of 2000.  Have you seen that episode of Michelle Obama with Ellen DeGeneres? Where she has to show Michelle how to use a debit card to buy things?

Seriously?

Well…  you are the idiot who told us how to feed our kids for years.  By the way, we spent a small fortune sending our kid to school with a ‘balanced lunch’.  We threw the majority of it in the trash when he came home because milk and such doesn’t last.  This was during some mighty lean times too.  We bought twice the amount of food he actually ate so we could meet your stupid rules.  Thanks First Lady.

By the way, we along with the schools eventually stopped caring about trying to meet your guidelines.  Then parents and schools started ignoring your rules the best they could.  We tossed that yoke into the gutter.

Now Trump? Mega-Billionaire?

It wouldn’t surprise me if he was chauffeured around in the next years model limo with gold plated interior.  But I DO know he can drive a Golf Cart.  I’ll take that as someone more in touch with reality.

Our ‘Average’ Congressman gets $174,000 a year.  Speakers of the House, Minority and Majority leaders make more.  Most of these guys become Politicians after being successful in the real world.  They’ve been making pretty good cheddar in state legislation or they have been professionals like doctors.  Or lawyers. Shudder.

How hard do you think it is for them to recall what it was like to be unemployed, behind on bills, unable to find work, and your kid needs braces.  All these ‘normal’ issues, they don’t deal with.  All they have to focus on is their agenda, which is usually get re-elected.

While the average American works 240 days, you’re duly elected Congressman works about 133.

Thank God.

Could you imagine the damage they could do if they worked 240 days?  They can’t even make the 133 they do work count.

So they come into power with wealth, make a pretty good pile, make even more with investments and a lot of ill gotten gains, then they come out mega-millionaires. You think they have to worry about the next pay check?  Of course they can’t balance the budget, they rarely have to worry about balancing their own.

Unless they just bought a new multi-million dollar mansion.  Poor them, things might get tight for the extra 107 days of vacation they get.

So whats a solution?

Term limits would be a big step in the right direction. Right now we’ve got congressional dinosaurs that become such powerhouses they are impossible to vote out of office.  You think the party will help a new up and coming popular Tea Partier or some such fight against a bureaucrat that’s been in for several decades?

No, they’ll stick with the guy who is a bloated tick dug in on the back of American politics.  Because he can help THEM, not the people.

So the old guy, who has spent decades grooming his voter base, consolidating power, massive name recognition for the ‘dumb voters’, establishing huge chests of money for re-election will face off against the poor, unknown, politically unconnected peoples choice.

Good luck.

So voters from several decades ago have picked your current politician and there is very little you can do about it.  Term limits would guarantee an influx of new blood, new ideas, new ways of doing things.  Instead of this stagnate cesspool that has formed into a coagulated self-serving organism that dictates your life.

Let’s also restrict government pay.

Let’s go to a ‘Average Joe Plan’.

You’re the mayor of a town, you get the average wage of your townsfolk.  You’re the Senator from a state?  You get that average wage from the state.  You’re the President?  You get the average wage of America.

Is this to cheap?  No – There are all sorts of perks from your job that help off set it.

If you make X numbers of dollars a year from outside sources, land, trust funds, wife’s job, investments, stock market, whatever – you don’t get squat.  You are a SERVANT of the people.  You’re only goal is to please us.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t make money, I’m planning on stacking gold to the ceiling in my future. That’s why

Speaking of retirement, YOU DON’T GET ONE.

If you didn’t invest part of your $174,000 a year into a 401k plan, gold/silver bullion, investments or anything else. Tough titty.

Welcome to the poor house.

Maybe you should have learned economics before you entered politics.  We probably suffered under your legislative votes because you can’t handle your own household, but unfortunately you were given the reins to try to run ours.

You’re insurance?

You get Obamacare.. HAHAHAHA.

If there is any providers left in your state.  Or whatever disaster the Republicans are trying to fumble their way through right now.

The President can have TriCare, since he’s basically a retired military man.

Good luck at the VA!