A List of Delays

Although procrastination is known to be one of my virtues,I’ve decided that it is not the biggest threat my writing faces.  Even writer’s block, that classic foe, cannotclaim the title of biggest reason why my writing slows.  No, it is very simple really, myproblem.  It’s called busy.

Don’t take it to mean that I find useless or dull things tooccupy me.  I don’t watch much TV, myPlay Station is covered in dust (and ash, but that’s another story), and the onlything I ever go shopping for is guns.  Ijust have way too many important and interesting things to do.  In a random act of randomness, I have decidedto compile a list of ten of these great distractions.  It is as follows:

1. Work. Whether the tractor needs driving, greased, or repaired, or maybe the crops need planting/harvesting/plowing/spraying,there is neveran end to the farm work.
2.  Work[2] If and when there is a break fromfarming*, the cows and the ranching side of the business are happy to fill anyspare time I might find. And always a cowboy's job security, fencing.  There is always fencing to be done. Alas. 
3. Martial Arts. When I ignore the work (see above)and pretend I don’t need to be doing it, the next most common demand on my timeis Taekwon-Do. In the off-season, I teach the all-ranks adult class once a weekand I go to (or teach) the advanced/black belt class once a week.  In the on-season, when I am training forWorlds, I add two to three days of training per week. 
4. Muscle Cars. In a exemplification of insanity, my brother and I have started buyingand restoring cool cars.  We startedhumbly one year ago with a mad-dash midnight trip to Seminole to buy a ’68 Mustang.  That car is almost done (we’re in the laterstages of ‘work the bugs out’).  Ofcourse, instead of stopping there, or even finishing the first project, in theyear since, we have added a .68 GTO, a ’69 GTX, a ’69 Roadrunner, a ’68 Roadrunner,and a ’54 Hudson Hornet to the to-do list. I’m not including the three othercars that we plan to use as parts cars and/or strip down to stunt/racing cars.
5. Guns.  Bigguns, little guns, and guns in between---but mostly big guns.  I love shooting and I seem to be pretty goodat it.  I go hunting occasionally andspend the rest of the year trying to figure out how to make it harder next time.  I prefer a challenge.  Last time, I used a scoped .500 S&WMagnun revolver and that turned out to be a one-shot hunt anyway.  I’m pondering open-sights and a Desert Eagle.44 Magnum pistol next time.  Cleaningand buying guns takes up plenty of time too. And if that wasn’t enough, I’ve started doing USPSA (United StatesPractical Shooting Association) competitions. 
6. 6. School.  Two degrees in four years.  Yes, I was crazy.  But I did it. With great pleasure, I hereby remove this distraction from furtherconsideration.
7. Music.  I sing, play the guitar, play the fiddle, andplay some other instruments (not at the same time, I’m afraid) and all too often,I find myself agreeing to play in a band for some gig or another.  Of course, said gigs are invariably withoutpay and in the rain, the wind, or some other undesirable venue or weather condition.  Oh, I did I mention those weekend jams inratty hotels?  Gotta love those.
8. Pushing Sand. It fills up the roads and my tires push it around until it gets so bad Ihave to blade the sand out of the way with the maintainer.  It also fills up the house and it needs to bedusted and gotten rid of (I’ve pretty much given up on this, it’s just not feasibleto maintain).  All too often, we get agood, ground-scouring, yankee-ridding, burn-your-eyes, fill-your-nose, andscrape-the-skin-off-your-face, sandstorm. In which case it’s best to stay inside, but there is usually work thatmust be done outside. 
9. Making Stuff. Lately it has been leatherwork. Making holsters, chaps, dusters, andother good stuff out of leather. Sometimes it is woodworking, jewelry-making, fly-tying, rod-building, andif I kept going we could be here a while.
10. Staying Alive. Sleeping, eating, and other time-consuming acts that are necessary tothe continued operation of my body. And/or, avoiding water-starved/homicidal cows, not getting run over, notgetting bit by poisonous snakes (or poisonous spiders), not getting eaten bycougars, and otherwise surviving all the dangers that I encounter in myeveryday life.

Whoa, I could keep going. But I won’t. 

Back to it, then! 

*Definition: “Break From Farming” A rare moment when there is no desperate emergency that needs taken care of;  There is lots of work that needs doing, butit can wait at least a day.

Book Covers, oh boy!

 How 'bout some covers? 

 Take a gander at the covers I came up with for some of my stories. 
 It's a very interesting exercise to try and represent a large collection of   words with a simple image.

Always, the questions I ponder are simple.  What would it look like to the reader?  Does it convey a sense of the writing?  Does it look good enough to think twice about?

I know that I like the results, but I wonder what everyone else out there thinks?

To Nook or not to Nook, If only that were possible...

eBooks. The new and exciting way to read.  The newest gadget acquisition for our gadget-obsessed society.  Right?

Well, it just so happens, that I was into eBooks years ago. It’s not new, it’s just the new fad. I had a Palm Pilot in my pocket before smartphones, ipods, or any of the other recent additions to the pocket gadget world. Heck I had a Palm back when people thought that having your own cell phone was hip. Back then, I was well ahead of the curve.  Few people even knew what a Palm was and even fewer had one.  Basically, I was into eBooks when eBooks weren’t cool!  Now, I’m a grumpy old technophile who is griping about the price and the limitations of the newly popularized eBook readers.

I remember when most eBooks were far cheaper than their paper counterparts, when most of the ones you bought were formatted in such a way that you could read them on multiple devices without trying very hard because there were one or two (freely available) readers that worked the best on any device.  I miss those days.

Now, I have a Nook.  I waited till the second generation, until my family forced my hand by jumping into the eBook reader abyss and therefore forcing me to join them or be deprived of the ability to read all the new eBook they were purchasing. It works great and is even a decent replacement for a real book.  It had minimal downsides and annoying superfluous extras. I am impressed.

 But, it laughs evilly in my face when I propose the unthinkable—that I would like it to read all the old eBooks I have collected over the years.  When I plug in “The Gunslinger” which I paid plenty of money for and bought in the formerly common format for the formerly common software known as eReader, the Nook smugly informs me that it does not recognize the format and will not open it.   I can just hear it mocking me What kind of barbarian are you? Do you not understand that your primitive formatting is not worthy of recognition!  Bow to the Nook and repurchase your books in ePub format or die!

Ok, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.  Once again, the early adopters, the very people who made a technology viable by buying in early are being slapped in the face and punished for making a tech popular.  While all my friends go gaga over their new eBook reader and how wonderful it is, I just sigh at their ignorance and resist the urge to explain how it was in the “good ole days.”

As for me, I’ve still got my old Palm (another sad loss to the techy world) and though I have finally caved and bought a Nook, I will defiantly read my old eBooks in spite of the Nook!  It can have my eBooks when it takes them from my cold, dead, Palm!

My final comment is this. It will never be able to truly replace the real thing.  I proudly read a paperback trilogy, on vacation, while my family all read their Nooks. I reveled in the extra weight, space, and hand-cramping that it caused—their ridicule only made it all the sweeter.  I even bought a hardback the other day, because of all things, I liked the cover!  I will read it and enjoy it and someday I will be smothered under a mountain of books.  But hey, that’s a pretty cool fate.

Till batteries never die!