9 December 2020

 Song mood: Winter Wonderland by Felix Bernard and Richard Bernhard Smith.  I’m thinking of the one done by Dean Martin of Rat Pack fame not to be confused for the Brat Pack.

Today I hung out with a friend over coffee.  It was great.  

I told him the story about how my parents drove from Fairbanks, AK to Nova Scotia.  I can’t remember much of that trip as I was around four.  It was the trip where I lost my bottle, or more accurately my parents left it at a lake.  That summer, I kept on wanting to know if we were going home yet.  My parents wanted to visit as many Canadian Provences as possible.  All done in a Buick.

We were talking about travel.  He gave me some ideas of where I could go in Nebraska.  It was cool hanging out.

So, I’ve done core exercises and a basic upper arm dumbell work outs every other day for the past week.

Today, I only had two 12 oz cups of cold brew.  Tomorrow I will attempt to do only one 12 oz cup of cold brew.  I am attempting to lower my caffeine intake.

I worked on my mystery novel today.  I wrote a three page murder scene.  And maybe it will be in the book.  Although since it was the way that victim actually dies, it may or may not be in the book.  It might be something that gives the reader the edge on the mystery.  Because how the murder takes place and how the victim ends up are two different things.

What I need to work on is, what kind of job does the victim have?  Or does he have a job?  He is Sir Cavendish after all who has inherited a great fortune.

I am currently listening to For the Sake of the Game edited by Laurie R King.  Which prompted me to start working on my mystery.  Most of the stories have been amazing.  Every now and then I like to listen or read anthologies.  That is how I discover new writers.

Piranesi by Susan Clarke was actually a good book.  By midpoint in the novel, I had enough of a reveal to make the book good.  All of the confusion was at the beginning because we don’t understand what the narrator was talking about.  But by halfway through, enough light is shed to understand what was going on.  I really do recommend this book.

All week I have been reading Flash: Writing the Very Short Story by John Dufresne.  I had given this book to a friend for Christmas.  Well, at the writer’s workshop Christmas parties, he could tell which gift I brought and I could figure out which one he brought.  Anyway I had forgotten that I bought the ebook until I saw an Amazon ad that said because you bought this book.  It gives good insight into write flash fiction.  It also gives good insight about writing a scene.

So for the rest of the year, I will work on the mystery and also on the website.  I need to start outlining the story and writing scenes for the website.  Also, I need to reach out to artists to do art for the website.  But one thing at a time.  Time to brainstorm and outline.