THE DAY
Or maybe that should be buckling in. Yet another blustery, rainy day. Once again, took the glider down so it wouldn’t blow over (but it did anyway, even without being suspended, which is a pisser because I had it refinished before we moved here). Then downloaded a wind meter app because I was curious. Went to the NASA site to see what the wind gusts might be and then compared what I got to what they’d reported. In the valley, they said the gusts were about 35 mph with sustained winds of about 16 mph. Up here, we had SUSTAINED wind of about 25 mph with gusts up to 35.7. So we’re talking a lot of wind. I kept looking at the bird feeder: Don’t go, please don’t blow over.
So you can see why I might have felt like buckling in.
Anyway, worked all morning on the story idea for this anthology. Wrote down tons of rough notes, let the characters take shape and start to gel. I’ve got a story I like; now to translate it to a short proposal. But before I could/can do that, I returned to that cover designs assignment around noon and figured I’d just muscle through it. Reloading the program helped, I think; there were no major catastrophes, though the program ain’t easy. Read several articles and watched a couple tutorials before I started mucking around. Saved my work in various iterations, too; the idea of having to do all this again-again just made me crazy. Plus, honestly, I didn’t want to be the only person in the whole class who couldn’t get it, corrupted program or not.
So I got it. Took another 3 hours, but I did it. Let it sit for about thirty minutes and then sent it. It’s not life or death, and the whole point is to be able to create a cover that doesn’t look too terrible. For a first attempt, I don’t think this is half bad.
I’ll tell you what I wanted to do initially: capture the silver in the sword and use that for the letters with a black stroke outline to get everything to stand out better. For whatever reason, though, the program would only capture the palate of those little missile spark dart thingies. Noticed, too, that “Author” seems a little skewed but couldn’t get that to correct itself, so left it be. Decided, hey, this is just the first bloody assignment; finish it and move on.
So I moved on. Went to the gym; sweated my brains out, did my 90 minutes of aerobics. Shopping, then home, then back to work on the proposal until the husband came home for dinner. Got about another half hour before bed, so I figured, okay, tackle the proposal bright and early tomorrow, finish it up and let it marinate while I go to the gym. That’s the plan anyway.
WRITING OUT LOUD
Story Proposal (Working Title: “Guardian”)
Day 1: 700
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
Day 1: 4326 Day 11: 2500 Day 21: 1800
Day 2: 2085 Day 12: 500 Day 22: 0
Day 3: 3011 Day 13: 1000 Day 23: 2700
Day 4: 2652. Day 14: 3700 Day 24: 3500
Day 5: 3210 Day 15: 5630 Day 25: 1500
Day 6: 3450 Day 16: 1060 Day 26: 0
Day 7: 0 Day 17: 130
Day 8: 2756 Day 18: 0
Day 9: 4580 Day 19: 3000
Day 10: 2670 Day 20: 2600
Blog Post: 740
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What I’m Watching:
Finished Interstellar. Not a bad movie, but kind of silly for the last third. Before that, it was pretty interesting, good physics. Then I think they just couldn’t think of a way out of the box. But, hey, no one pays me that kind of money, and I enjoyed it. Just glad I didn’t see it in theaters, though.
Watched about fifteen minutes of Dying in the Light. Here’s the thing: I like Nicolas Cage. I realize that puts me in a minority, but personal taste is . . . personal. I just don’t like some of the movies he’s done lately. The last one I truly enjoyed was Joe. This might be a good one, but maybe I just wasn’t in the mood after finishing off Interstellar.
So switched to the second episode of The Expanse. It’s . . . okay. Only got about twenty minutes through this episode, so it’s a little early to be losing faith (although I lost faith a lot sooner with Fargo; I think I only stuck it out because a) I kept hoping it would get better and b) it cost me money).
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What I’m Reading (and Listening to):
Decided to speed things up with Let Me In by reading and listening to it at the same time. So many books, so little time.
