Michael Pickell

Posts

14 February 2020

On Valentine’s day, I’m home alone. I’m okay with that. I had Chic-fil-a, I’m having a guilty feeling about that, so I’ll eat oranges for a snack later or whatever. I decided that I wasn’t going to go out if I was by myself. There will be another time where I will be with people on Valentine’s day and that day will come. I hear that Valentine’s day is a made up holiday, it’s not, it’s an exploited holiday that the card industry pushed to make money during winter. Sometimes I have to remind people that Saint Valentine was a priest who married Christians when it was illegal in Rome to marry Christians. And ultimately was sentenced to death for his acts of love, or his willingness to marry people illegally. So if anything, people should marry on the day that celebrates him, okay, just kidding remembering a man who married people illegally is something in its own self.
I could have hung with my cousin and his daughter and friend, but I already went out to eat, so this thing to be …

9 February 2020

Song Mood: We Built This City by Starship a.k.a. Jefferson Starship a.k.a. Jefferson Airplane. I think of this as a time of building. I’m building my writing career and though it may not be profitable, it’s really about the story. So I’m building this city, erm, okay I’m building the fictional world.
I felt rather blah today, and that’s okay, it’s winter and I just never feel well during winter. I feel mildly okay during summer but will complain that it’s hot. In Autumn I’ll feel that life’s good and then sometime in November, wham I feel like crap again.
As I’m writing my novella this weekend, I added some scenes that won’t be explained until the sixth and final novella of the series. It has something to do with time travel and a chronomancer. Then I thought about what to do with the cover. In all reality, I’ll need a graphic artist. What I want mostly, for all my books, is something similar to the cover of The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht. To have someone…

Chris Riddell

The other day I saw in the bookstore an illustrated copy of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere with Chris Riddell as the artist. I follow Riddell on both Instagram and FB. I like what he does. I was so tempted to buy it and probably will at some point. Every now and then Riddell posts a video of him drawing something and he makes it all look super easy to do. I know it isn’t, not even the slightest. He’s been doing this for so long, it like breathing for him. A few curved lines and an eye appears. More curved lines and an ear appears. Then a nose and then hair and within a minute a girl from the Victorian era appears. I would need basic cones and circles as a base and then the features would appear, granted that I had a book on how to draw by my side so that I could read about what I would need to do next. That would require time and I decided it would be best to just focus on writing.
And so I envy all drawing artists.

7 February 2020

Song Mood: I Melt with You by Modern English. There was this cool scene in the romcom Whatever it Takes where the guy plays this song on the accordion to the girl in the apartment building across the street. Then plays it again in front of everybody after he proclaimed his love for her.
Snippets. I think I will try to work snippets in my blog. These posts already work with the idea of snippets. I put in a drop down when I change ideas. I chronicle the day or week with things that happen. But drop down when the blog post goes on a different idea that I thought of that day. But I will try to do individual snippets for blog posts as well. So if in the near distant future that I may want to present a personal essay collection, it will be easier for me to chose and edit what I have already posted. Sometimes the problem when writing these posts is that when I write them, I tend write more than I had originally thought I would write. Anyway.
I decided that I would give probiotics…

3 February 2020

Song Mood: Everyday by Buddy Holly. Today is the day that music died. Most people wouldn’t know that because we are so far removed from the fateful crash that killed Buddy Holly, JP Richardson a.k.a. the Big Bopper and Richie Valens. Buddy Holly was ahead of his time. When I did play guitar, I taught myself Not Fade Away. I wouldn’t be able to or remember how to play that song, not that it matters.
I was pretty low energy today. It’s winter. It’s Monday. I may be coming down with a cold. Take your pick. I woke and wanted to go back to sleep. I forgot my Fitbit as I made my way to work. Sent a blunderous email, it got pointed out to me and then I sent an email saying sorry, waiting for the coffee to kick in. But this morning I told myself being tired cannot be the only reason to stay home.
I found the perfect upper body workout. It’s simple and only takes 8 minutes. Even better I tried it out right away with 10 lb dumbbells. Today my arms are sore. It’s a work out that…

1 February 2020 Today's Recap

Quick recap of today. I wrote 2000 words. My goal still remains 3000 words on Saturdays. But I’m making good progress. The last 300 words may be cut but gave me ideas of what to write. I’m at 7,300 words and the goal is to get to 36,000 words. I didn’t write the end sequence. I wrote some confusing scenes as I was trying to describe a couple of characters using their sonar abilities. There was exposition. In Sci-Fi there is going to be a fair amount of exposition. Even with the Hugo award winning writers. Sometimes you need to tell to do some world building and ground the reader. It’s how you go about it. Most of my favorite authors do a lot of telling. Neil Gaiman, John le Carré. Many Sci-Fi writers do have ‘was’ in their sentences. Does it really diminish the story, in my opinion: no. I enjoy reading Neil Gaiman. I enjoy reading Paul Cornell. I enjoy reading Seanan McGuire. And if they read their material at a writing school or a writer’s workshop or a critique g…