Michael Pickell

  Song mood: Monster Mask by Pomplamoose.   ’Tis the season. October poems will be inspired by The Bride of Frankenstein .  I have selected pictures from the movie.  I have the first four poems written.  I should have rest written tomorrow. I started writing the mystery.  I started with the party scene first, which is at the beginning.  I wanted to know the motives of the suspects.  The victim is hated by all who attend the party for some reason or another. I ran tonight.  First time in months.  The last time I ran, it was too hot and I got dizzy halfway around the lake.  Had to walk the rest of the lake feeling dizzy that time.  Tonight was cooler.  I ran four miles. Target goal or target weight: 170lbs. Last weekend, I finished watching the Inspector Morse series.  The final episode was befitting for the detective.  The actor died a couple of years after the episode was shot.  He had some sort of medical condition.   The author wrote a book where Morse died so that they co

  Song mood: The Globe by Big Audio Dynamite (BAD). Miranda .  It was an interesting show.  Not what I was expecting.  The perfomance by the singers was great.  If they were going with animation, I wish they would have hired a team of artists.  I know animation is difficult and takes time.  But this looked like it was done in a computer simulation program.  If they hired twenty artists and did an animation that matched the cover posters for the program, it would have been way better.  But that is my opinion. Three more episodes and I will be finished with the original Inspector Morse.  In the laters seasons, it’s a whose who of british movies.  Many Harry Potter actors. Tonight Son of Dracula will be on Svengoolie.  @realsvengoolie has been more active on IG.  And that’s how I knew Son of Dracula was playing.  I miss watching horror show host movies.  The horror show hosts do some quirky comedy before and after commercials.  And play some really cool old horror movies. I’m cu

  Song mood: Hip to be Square by Huey Lewis and the News. Miranda the opera performance is tonight.  There are three showings a night for the three nights.  The run time for the performance is twenty minutes, not the hour I thought it was going to be.  But that’s okay. 5 November 1960 is a Saturday.  Last year that day fell on a Tuesday.  Bonfire night in England.  I thought it was going to be loud on bonfire night.  But then I was in a small town and it rained, so not loud at.  Well, except for the pub/motel I stayed at because there was this foreigner there. I nearly finished listening to The Daughters of Cain by Colin Dexter.  Inspector Morse is an even bigger jerk in the books than in the television series.  I think I would get along with him. The book I can’t wait to listen to is The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab.  It’s about a woman who wanted to be immortal and becomes immortal only to find that no one can remember her. I finished reading The Night of

  Song mood: I’m Gonna Be ( 500 miles ) by the Proclaimers. I remember a few years ago a friend posted this video on how one needs to follow the beat of their own drum.  That is what I need to remember as I write my stories.  Sometimes I will write mystery.  Sometimes I will write sci-fi and sometimes I will write horror, albiet cozy horrors. This week I will get to writing.  I’ll start with the mystery.  Then I may go back to sci-fi. I read a sample of a book called Story Fix .  I had this idea, that maybe I would go back to some of the stories I wrote before, figure out how I can tweak them.  Then maybe I could actually self-publish five books next year by fixing up old manuscripts.  However, after reading the sample I realized that the book was a bunch of fluff and it wouldn’t teach me what I wanted to know. The other thing is, I already know what I’m trying to learn.  The second draft of the last project I worked on is proof of that.  It may be that I’m just plain lazy.  The

  Song mood: Eclipse by Pink Floyd.   I totally loved Pink Floyd until one day I completely despised them.   This was the song that played in the trailer for Dune .   Not done by Pink Floyd, obviously. Tonight, would have been the night that Oktoberfest would have started.  In Omaha, tomorrow, the German American Society will have the Oktoberfest done as a drive through.  I probably won’t do it.  Just because I’ve gone on to other things.  I’d go, if I had people to go with.  Last year, when I went, I didn’t know anybody, didn’t talk with anybody, it wasn’t much fun.  The drive through, by myself doesn’t give me the experience that I am looking for. I miss England.  I thoroughly enjoyed my time in England and France.  Even with all the mishaps I had, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.  Watching Inspector Morse makes me miss Oxford.  I miss Oxford way more than I did Cambridge.  Next time I go to England, I will do more research about what I want to see and visit. Half way throu

  Song mood: Times Like These by the Foo Fighters. Nearly finished with Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell.  I nearly forgot how much I enjoy the Wallander series.  Wallander’s emotions are all over the place. I did a quick list of movies: Death on the Nile - 23 October Black Widow - 6 November No Time to Die - 20 November Dune - 18 December Wonder Woman 25 December They are kind of spread out.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do for them.  It would be a lot easier if….  The issue with the pandemic is that yes, you can stream the movies.  But it will cost $20 - $30.  Which, if it’s just me, that’s kind of a high price, if there were others, it would balance out or be okay.  I don’t have a problem donating $20 for the upcoming opera because I tend to spend $45 for a ticket to the opera. I may just go to the theater.  But wear a heavy duty mask. I haven’t made up my mind on if I will like the new James Bond movie.  The trailer seemed to be all extensive explosions. 

  Song mood: All Star by Smashmouth. I started naming characters. Next step write a scene of a party that has the victim and the suspects.  Write the murder scene.  Write a synopsis of what the characters were doing at the time of the murder.  Brainstorm ideas for clues and air tight alibis. Either the victim or the murderer was a bully.  Who has this nature or this belief: it isn’t enough to just win, the other or the oponent must be humiliated.  I haven’t decided which it will be.  It makes more sense for the victim to be the bully as that would give motive. I didn’t do much this weekend, but drive around.  Getting stamps on my Nebraska passport.  I like it, reminds me of geocaching.   Yesterday I listened to the Thin Man while driving around.  The book and the movie were very similar.  The movie veered a bit to keep within the 90 minutes.  But I liked the way the movie did the story.   The book had a section, basically a short story, that had no relevance to the book what

  Song mood: You and Me by Lifehouse.   I saw Lifehouse twice.   Both small venue, which was odd because they had a song that was on the billboard charts for 55 weeks.   I saw them in Fargo, ND and in Aberdeen, SD.   But maybe small venues were their thing. Hanging by a Moment is one of my favorite songs of all time, mainly because I love the bass-line. I finished reading Death on the Nile .  I guessed who was murdered and who did it.  I was a bit off on how it was done.  And had I been paying attention to one small clue, I would have been right on how the events took place.  Anyway.  I dare say sometimes Agatha Christie borders on Hallmark type mysteries.  In this book there were two newly formed couples. Next up on reading: Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones.  I will be going through my books and making a list of books that I need to read by the end of the year.  In this instance I will be physically placing the books in order. In my dream this morning, I was ha

  Song mood: Manic Monday by the Bangles.   This is absolutely the one band I want to see in concert.   Which would make me take a trip to California.   Not that I would mind, it’s just that California is not nearly as interesting to me now as it was when I was in my twenties.   I would rather go to New England. One of my grade school friends send me texts like: watch Mutha Don’t Want to Go to School Today by Extreme.  And I’m not into hair bands anymore.  When I played guitar, it’s was pure ego fueled by teasing by other guitarists to want to imitate the hair bands.  To be able to play fast scale solos.  If I were to listen to Extreme, I would list to their their album: III Sides to Every Story .  It wasn’t as popular as the first, but they had a symphony orchestra and was much more a masterpiece than anything they did.  I probably listened to that album the most of all their work. I have long realized that it was pure ego that has kept me back as an artist, if that is what I wa

  Song mood: Love is Strange by Mickey & Sylvia. I watched We Have Always Lived in the Castle .  An adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novella by the same name.  I thoroughly enjoyed that movie.  Merricat is a very interesting woman.  I haven’t read the book yet, but I will.  I’ve read The Haunting of Hill House .  We Have Always was perfectly done.  Crispin Glover was phenomenal as Uncle Julian, who has the most interesting line in the whole movie.  The book, is a must read, which will go on my long list of books.  Lots of good actors. I’m two thirds of the way through Death on the Nile .  I’m probably two thirds of the way through Broken Angels . Next week, I’ll be able to wear my boots.  The weather will be nice.  Which is why I didn’t want to get a new pair of running shoes.  I can buy the running shoes in spring once it gets warm enough to go running again, if I ever go running again.  I may be content with walking. Tomorrow will be another day, except that I don’t ha

  Song mood: Everyone Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears.   I would love to see them in concert, if they still do that sort of thing. So the long weekend is coming up and I don’t know what to do.  Except that I have my Passport Nebraska brochure.  I foresee a trip to Ashland.  I should get some writing done.  We’ll see. My copy of Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones arrived in the mail.  Currently I’m reading Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie.  Seventy pages in and I’m trying to work out who will be murdered.  There’s one obvious character: the rich socialite who is played by Gail Godot in the movie that comes out next month.  When I finish that I will go on to the book that arrived. Currently I’m listening to Broken Angels by Richard Morgan. Tonight, I came to the conclusion that I need a writing partner.  Someone whom I can bounce ideas off of and someone who can suggest a poem to write.  Instead I look at some poems on twitter and IG.  But then how