If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

Friday, June 27, 2014

June...it's a marathon.

Well here it is, the end of June.
Summer has officially started.  I am officially ready for fall. 
Yep, I don't much care for the heat of Summer.  I like to be cool, not just in nature but temperature wise too! 
Probably because I'm fat.
I don't mind being fat so long as it's cool outside.
"Get to the point Bushman,"  the voice inside my head barks.

"Fine, fine," I answer aloud.  This causes the chocolate colored dog laying on the floor next to the couch to glance up.  He knows there is no one else awake in the house so I must be talking to him. 
He eyeballs me for a minute, then flops his head back down on the soft carpet.  Within 30 seconds his tongue pokes out of his mouth and he begins to snore softly.

Point being is we are headed off on another adventure this weekend.  heading to the west side of the state to the great lake of Michigan, AKA, Lake Michigan. 
We have booked into a campground for three days and our main objective is a soccer tournament.  Not an ordinary soccer tournament where you stand around for hours watching someone try to score.  (Heck if I wanted to do that I would take my old friend to the bar). 
This one is a soccer in the sand tournament.  The fields are on the beach, they are much shorter and the goals are smaller as well.  Each game lasts around 30 minutes.
Kait and Joe are playing on the same team and Kate is also playing on an all girls team.

"So the point is.....?"  I smack myself upside the head to shut him up.

We will be camping in the pop up camper (mostly used for deer camp at an average of 25-30 degrees) and the temperatures will be hovering around 85 degrees.  Now for some of you that may be just perfect.  For guys like me?  UGH!

Good thing the campground has a pool!.  I just hope our spot is shady!
Actually I'm looking forward to it.  I don't get to spend much time with the kids or my wife lately so here's hoping it turns out nice.

Looking back at my blog I must apologize for my lack of blogging commitment this month.  I have been busy elsewhere.  My time (writing time) is almost exclusively reserved for mornings.
I awake each day at 4:20 AM to go to work.  When I get home (after a 10 hour shift) I am pretty much spent.  Any creativity that I had, has been washed away by the stress of work.  When it is hot it just adds to the oppression. 

June has been incredibly busy.  If I wasn't working overtime than I was preparing for Kait's open house, travelling up north to see my folks and attend Grandma Jan's memorial service or getting ready for a soccer/camping weekend. 

Now I did get a few hours here and there but I spent those precious minutes writing other things.  I have finished a few short stories and have also started another new novel.  I am 50 pages into that as of right now and hope to continue soon.  I don't like leaving characters out in the sun to wilt anymore than I like being there myself.

Next weekend is our Independence day weekend and I don't have anything planned.  I do have to catch up on some yard work but that will be during the day.  I will have three glorious mornings to myself.

The garden is doing well in spite of the continued rainy weather and a few cool days.
On a sad note our female duck LuLu has disappeared.  I can only imagine the poor girls plight as she could not fly being a farm duck and not a wild one.  She was a nice duck and she will be missed.  I will also miss her eggs.  She was an egg laying machine.

I leave you with this picture.  It seems as though my yellow dog has a liking for Grisham novels.


Take care,
Bushman

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Friendly Chickens and Flowers

Hello and how do you do?
Just a quick drop to tell you I am fine. (you wouldn't think otherwise would you?)
A busy weekend it was and is.  It is still not over with as I will be leaving the house shortly for the family birthday party of mt step daughter.  The beautiful and talented Miss Kaitlin!  They are off on an adventure tonight after we eat dinner and have cake and ice cream.  She will be headed to the casino with her Mother, Step Mother, brother, boyfriend Jake and boyfriend's mom.  (Tootie who is not from State Farm)
At midnight my daughter will be corrupted into giving the sly indian tribal nation of the Great State of Michigan her birthday money.  Not only will she be 18 and legal to gamble but she will also be able to legally buy a pack of cigarettes of which she will not need to do as the gratuitous casino offers free second hand smoke to all who get within 20 feet of the front door   Once her eyes are sufficiently burned and stained yellow with nicotine they will head back into town where Monday morning will greet them with a personal massage.  After the massage it will be a trip to a fancy fish market restaurant I forget the name of.
Of this I am jealous because I have a love affair with any seafood that has sacrificed its life to attain its final destiny of ending up in my ravenous stomach.
I have to work. :(
I hope she has a good time (except at the casino that way she never wants to go back) and I wish her a great birthday.

Yesterday I spent the day with my wife and surprisingly both of us are still alive and contain the same amount of blood we did the day before.  It was nice spending time with her and even though she had to endure my walk about at the landscape yard and I sat through her browsings of the thrift store we managed to have a nice day.  Upon our return to our acre we planted flowers and put fresh mulch in the planting beds.  A frosty beer alongside a crackling fire finished out the night and we roasted viennas over the fire and gobbled them up on fire toasted buns with just a dab of mustard.  Heaven you ask?  Almost!

Today we visited a graduation open house, went grocery shopping and when I returned I whipped up a batch of venison snack stix and tossed them in the smoker in anticipation of my Father's arrival this coming weekend.  All this after I ripped out a 4800 word short story this morning.  I just finished editing it and sent it out for critique.  I need to go check on the stix in the smoker shortly.

Here are a few pics of the beds.







Here is me with Boo on my shoulder.  Such a friendly chicken!


Garden is doing great and I will update with some pics soon.
Gotta run, have a great evening!
-Bushman

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Paperback Dreams

"If anyone asks just tell them I'm writing", he said lazily as he swatted at a bothersome fly circling his head.
"But they insist on talking to you", the young lady in the polka dot dress reported.  The sun was intense and the longer she stood here the hotter it became.  She planted a hand firmly on her hip, took a deep breath and exhaled loud enough for him to notice she was still there.
He raised his hand and removed the book that was covering his face, the hammock rocked slightly with the subtle movement.  Peeking out from behind the pages he eyed her, one eye slightly closed, the other open with an eyebrow raised.
"Really?"
"Yes", she said sternly.  "You have been avoiding these people ever since you signed.  They will call you out and void the contract if you don't talk to them.  They can even sue you.  What do you plan on doing once the checks stop coming, Mr big shot writer guy?''
"Well if the checks stop coming does that mean the phone will stop ringing?  Sounds like a good trade to me".  He adjusted the book back over his face, shielding his eyes from the daylight.  The hammock, nestled in the shade of a scattering of elm trees provided the perfect retreat for a daytime nap.  Or rather it should have but for this pesky woman in the polka dots he thought to himself.
He started to doze off again and was jarred awake once more by the alarm clock.  Stuffed into his own bed, sandwiched between two large and snoring dogs.
A dream, just a dream.

-----------------------------------------

If you've been around long enough you know I like to write.  Good, bad or indifferent it really doesn't matter as long as I'm writing something then I'm happy.  (I especially like grocery lists!)
I have graduated to the mediocrity of mid life.  The kids are off doing their own thing (college and work and in a few months college for the other) and I am left wondering what will become of our little family.  What will I do?  I can only do so much gardening and yard work.  I'll flat out go crazy crazier!  So I have decided to make a commitment to my writing and see what happens.  I will be entering a writing competition so I have something in the near future to work towards.  In a nutshell the entry will be a short story, 5000 words or less.
I have completed one story so far that is out for critique and eventually a re-write.  Many more to come.
Practice, practice, practice.
A big thanks to my dear friend Jenny who introduced me to some new writing software.  This is a big step towards a more organized story, one with structure and a format.  Writing a small story can be challenging, trying to fit as much plot into such a small space but it can be done without the hassle of losing yourself in the many pages, characters and plot twists that a novel may contain.  This software breaks it all down for you.  It contains all the necessary features, right at your fingertips, to help you write that novel.
I will be continuing my journey 'The Madness in the Fire' on this software and am looking forward to the adventure.  (Which is incredibly fun to write even though I have been a bad parent and neglected it.)
You won't see anything on the blog unfortunately as anything published here in full will not be eligible for first time publishing anywhere else.  That goes for certainty with the contest.

The contest link is here if you would like to check it out.  It is called Surrey International Writing Contest

The best thing about writing for me is creating that adventure in your head.  You may not know how it will turn out but you get to pick which road it is going to travel on.  It is the best 'choose your own adventure' story you will ever read.  Only the person behind the words can control what happens.

Thanks for your continued support and reading,
-Bushman