Day 103

Saturday, April 28, 2013

Worked on chapters 11-13 today for about four hours.  Dealing for Richard's poker party fundraiser tonight.  Always a good time.

Poker dealing was great fun.  I stayed up until 1.  We played a cash game for an hour or so after the game and I won $50.  Ray was the big winner!

Day 102

Friday, April 27, 2013

I wrote all day.  Up to 50,000 words in Zombie.  Writing Chapter 11.

Day 101

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Woke up at 7:15, wrote.  Had lunch with Kristi W. at Lin Jia.  Continued writing in the afternoon on into the evening.

Almost at 50k words in Zombie Cookies.  Only 10k to go for 60k.  I may write another 10k as a cushion, then it's revise, revise, revise.

I have the Stockton Pro-Am coming up next Thursday-Sunday, so I want to get as much done in the next seven days as possible.  I really need to get this book written before summer begins.

I'm doing everything I can to even out my moods, but some days are harder than others.  Today was an especially difficult day and I'm not sure why.  

Day 100

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

First 100 Days in 1,000 days of writing:

New novel:  Don't Eat Zombie Cookies - I completed 10 chapters that I emailed Chris and wrote 45,000 words total.  I started March 1 and hope to finish the first week in June.

I've made good progress but have so much farther to go.  I have several sleepless nights in front of me if I want to finish this book by my deadline.

Moving on....

Day 99

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Woke up at 7:30.  Working on chapter 10 today.

Wrote until mid-afternoon.  Sent chapters 9 and 10 to Chris.  We'll talk about them tomorrow.  The book is coming along.  Some interesting ideas.  

Day 98

Monday, April 22, 2013

Woke up at 4, played racquetball from 5-6, then went home and wrote all day, until about 7 or so.  I overdid it.  My head was throbbing in the evening.

I got chapter 9 in readable shape and will write chapter 10 tomorrow.  I plan to send the chapters off to Chris in the afternoon.

I want to reach 45k words by tomorrow night. 

Day 97

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Woke up at 7:15.  Will write and complete chores until 4:30 or so.  It's nice to have an extra day to finish what didn't get done last week.

4:00 - Done for the day.  Time to go to Alice's.  I'm writing chapters 9 and 10 now, will send to Chris on Tuesday, and continue from there.  50k words by the end of the week if not sooner, then organizing the whole book and put it all together.

Fun!

Day 96

Saturday, April 20, 2013

No writing today.

Visited Leo, Louanne and Kim in Fairfield today for their annual open house.  Alice stayed in San Francisco attending a college fair for Austin.

Day 95

Friday, April 19, 2013

So far, I've written 4,007 words and hope to write another 1,000 for 10k words in two days.  I'll revise the first couple thousand for Chris on Tuesday.  I'm determined to get a decent draft of this book finished by our cruise in June.

I also need to plot out my money situation for the rest of the year.  Now that I'm writing full time, I'm getting things done but can't live indefinitely on my savings.  Time to go out and sell, sell, sell once Zombie Cookies is finished.

Day 94

Thursday, April 18, 2013

I wrote 5,012 zombie words today, chapters 9-11 or so.  I just pounded them out throughout the day.  It felt good to be back on my own schedule. 

Had a meeting with Rod G. about the new E-Force season.  Our team will include around 30 individuals or so.  Good size. 

Later in the evening, I played poker at Mark G.'s house from 8:15-midnight.  Lost $4 and missed one opportunity to steal a pot, though I was in first position with two players behind me.  No guts, no glory.

Day 93

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

No writing today.

Flew back to Oakland in the morning and arrive at 1.  Settled back in and ready to hit the writing hard tomorrow. 

Day 92

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

I spent most of the day preparing and packaging  three boxes to be shipped to my apartment in Oakland.  Two boxes contain my K-12 and college papers.  I managed to squeeze them inside two 17x13x13 boxes.  I through out old magazine and some knickknacks that happened to survive several previous purges. 

The other box was a collection of Time Life books my Mom and Dad used to get in the mail back in the 70s.  I've always wanted them.  They should arrive next week, along with my college chemistry book and Beethoven's 6th and 7th Symphonies.

Mom and I had a great afternoon and evening together.  I'm sad that she and Craig can no longer afford to live in their wonderful Bellingham house.  I love that house so much. 

We watched an episode of The Amerikans before going to bed at 10.

Day 91

Monday, April 15, 2013

Tax Day.  I spent the morning with Chris.  Nicole left around 10:30 or so.  Mom took Craig to a doctor's appointment.  Chris and I picked up shipping boxes at Home Depot (I needed three to send my things to Oakland).  We stopped off at a fencing store, then had lunch downtown.  He gave me some good pointers on my zombie story.  After lunch, I picked up some banana bread and wine and headed off to Steve and Judy's in Sudden Valley. 

I stayed from 2-9.  The visit was extremely enjoyable.  Both Steve and Judy have had some really tough health issues these past few months.  Steve had several lymph nodes removed from the prostate cancer that had returned, and Judy had been taking radiation treatments for her leukemia.  They were both doing much better now.

Steve and I talked went through Grandma Hagan's photo albums.  She has about 15 of them from 1929-1975.  Combined, they create an amazing array of pictures from her life.  It's amazing to see pictures of her at 12.  It's another example of the relentless passage of time and how quickly things come to an end.  Steve talked about his days in Nelson in the large house.  Ruby had mentioned how similar my Mom and Dad are and why they could never find a proper balance when together.  I can see that, though I think Dad was ultimately much more problematic than Mom.

We had a wonderful chicken and rice dish for dinner that included more stories.  There is a different dynamic at play that exists in Judy and Steve's family but mine.  They and the triplets seem more balanced and less inclined to fly off the handle.  When I think of myself, Gwen and Jill, I can't help but think how extreme we are in our behavior and how we constantly need to monitor ourselves and bring down our emotions. 

Everyone in my family is getting older. 

It was a wonderful day with Judy and Steve. 
 

Day 90

Sunday, April 14, 2013

No Writing today.

Spent the afternoon with Mom, Craig, Chris and Nicole.  Had a wonderful day at mom's.  She and Craig are getting ready to sell their beautiful house.  After 15 years, they're planning to sell and move to Arizona.  No one's happy about it because they love Mom's house so much. 

I'm getting ready to pack the remaining boxes I have in Mom's storage room downstairs.  That will take most of the day. 

Mom and Craig are tired of living in Bellingham and tired of the horrible weather.  I can't say I blame them; however, the bad weather in Bellingham doesn't bother me anymore.

Day 89

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Woke up at 7:15.  I'll see Dad today in the afternoon and call Uncle Steve to see when we can get together. 

Day 88

Friday, April 12, 2013

Flying out to Bellingham this morning.  Wrote from 5:30-7.

Arrived in Bham at noon.  Mom was there to pick me up.  We headed home and had lunch.  During the day, we watched an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the film Hitchcock, and the first and second episode of Mad Men season six.

I have five boxes of stuff that I need to pack and mail to myself.  My K-12 papers and these:

I remember Dad getting these each month back in the 70s.  I had little desire to read them then, but now I'm ready to plow in.

I went to bed at 11:45.

Day 87

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Woke up at 5 at Alice's, showered at Club One, wrote from 6:45-8:45, dropped off demo racquets at Steve's, saw Louie at 10 for a haircut, then wrote from 10:30-5.  Still working on chapters 7 and 8.  Came up with some good ideas for future chapters and a third kid who's not eating the cookies.

 

Day 86

Wednesday, April 10 2013

Steve Basham and I played in the Club One finals last night.  We were both injured.  A muscle under my right shoulder was inflamed and Steve's wrist hurt.  I didn't like my chances at all, but managed to take the first game 15-10 and build a 5-0 lead in the second game.  Then I shut down and Steve picked up momentum.  He beat me 15-6 and 11-3 in the tie-breaker.  The next day, I was sore all over with a shoulder that is not happy with me.  My feet are all blistered.  I'm a wreck.  I'll be back to full-strength in a few weeks.  I'm taking time off.  It was a good season.  The final match was my only loss for the season.  There's always next year, though the new crop of players (Ed, Mike C., Alex, Roger) are ready to knock me, Steve and Tyrone down.  Tom may sign up next season as well, making the league one of the toughest around. 

Day 85

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

I woke up at 5:15 and practiced for an hour to test out my sore shoulder.  I play in the finals tonight and I can barely hold my racquet.  If it looks as though I don't stand a chance, I'll concede right away.  I hope I don't worsen my injury.  I'm fully capable of it. 

I came back around 7:30, had breakfast and wrote the rest of the day.  I'm writing chapters 7 and 8.  They're coming along.  I'm not a fan of first drafts.  I have over 30k words written, about 1/3 of which is readable.

Day 84

Monday, April 8, 2013

I wrote all day.  At 6:30, I went to Richard & Lisa's and joined them for a jazz concert at Yoshi's where Miles was performing with his Edna Brewer jazz ensemble.  It was very good. 

Day 83

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Alice had a vision.  After we visited the Legion of Honor last weekend and walked through all the galleries, she wanted to buy a display that housed all her trinkets and treasures from all the trips she'd taken.  So we set out early to buy a glass display case at Ikea.  I like Ikea.  There's so much creativity inside that big blue and yellow box.  We went to Berkeley Bowl first for breakfast.  We shared a waffle and omelet.  At 10, we entered the big blue box and looked around at all the cute display rooms.  When we reached Aisle 5 Bin 64 we discovered the glass display weighed 90 pounds and was so long it might not fit inside Alice's Rav 4.  We took a disposable tape measure and sure enough, the thing fit.  We hauled the package to the shipping lot and headed back to Sunset. 

We set it up downstairs and two hours later Alice's collectables were nicely displayed inside the case.  It's actually very nice. 

We spent the rest of the day relaxing.  I nursed my sore, sore shoulder from way too much racquetball.  My finals match is Tuesday and I'm not sure I'll be healed by then.  It's such a drag.  I play Steve and when I'm not 100% he has a tendency to destroy me. 

Day 82

Saturday, April 6, 2013

This morning, I'm playing racquetball at San Ramon.  They have a little in-house tournament that's lots of fun.  I really would rather rest today.  My body is sore from so much playing.  Everything happened this week.  The Club finals is Tuesday.  I'll be ready for it.

I'm thinking of chapters 7-13 in Zombies.  I'm speed writing those chapters. 

Day 81

Friday, April 5, 2013

I'm writing the initial draft to chapters 7-12 and outlining the missions for Jimmy and Kendra.  If I can create a simple lightness to the prose and make everything seemless, that would be ideal.  Nothing too complicated.  I'm constantly battling doubts of my ability and choices, but recognize that is part of who I am and don't really have time to second-guess myself.  If I can keep busy and stay on course, that's the imporant thing.

I have my semi-final league match today at 4.  Steve barely won his against Ed.  I'm not as well rested as I'd like to be, but I hope to give Mike a strong game.  He's fast and smart with some of his shots, though he does get frustrated with himself every  now and then.  We'll see what happens.

8:00 - Won my semi-final match against Mike Cota 15-12, 15-14.  I was down 2-11 in the second game and managed to come back.  I'm not sure how.  I was down 0-8.  I skipped four shots in the beginning.  It was ugly.  

Day 80

Thursday, April 4, 2013

This morning I cleaned the apartment and organized my thoughts for Zombie Cookies.  I have six chapters written.  It looks as though the book will be roughly 40+ chapters long, so I have a ways to go before this story is finished.

I spent a few minutes outlining the major storyline.  It involves Jimmy, Kendra and Switchblade (Herman).  As long as I make it fun, light, lively and entertaining I should be good.

This afternoon I'm heading to Stockton to play with the 209 for a few hours.  Mike Lippitt set it up.  It's always a treat to play with the world's best racquetball players.  They're amazing!

I'm trying not to stress out about how much I have to do, but I sure have some ambitious goals for the next few months.  As long as I get Zombie Cookies written, everything else will fall in place...I hope.

Drove to Stockton to play in a special sharks/minnows racquetball mixer with the pros at the 209.

These young pros will be the best players in the world one day.  Now they're anywhere from #3 in the world to #30.  All of them are amazingly fast and quick with incredible fundamentals.  Super nice guys, too.

There were about 25 players total in the afternoon.  I played with Steve Turner, Bobby Horn, Jose Rojas, and Brock.  Afterward we had a taco feast at Jose Diaz's house.  Really great time. 

Day 79

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

No writing today. 

Instead, I conducted three demos for E-Force and gave a violin lesson to Sophie.  My first demo was from 5-7, then noon-2, then 6-8 with little time for much else.  I played a lot of racquetball players I hadn't seen before so that was fun. 

I went to bed exhausted. 

Day 78

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

I worked like mad to get chapters 4-6 to Chris.  I sent them to him at 2 or so, then strung one of my racquets before my first Club One demo tonight. 

Demo went well.  Steve Young and Dale Millhollin were there. The crowd was a little light, but I got in some good games.  Steve and I got to play Dale and Robbie.  They smoked us, but we kind of held our own.  It's great to play with such terrific players. 

Day 77

Monday, April 1, 2013

Worked on chapters 4-6.  Trying to get them ready for Chris to read tomorrow.  They're coming along, but the process is slow slow slow.

Day 76

Sunday, March 31, 2013

We went to Kaiser at 7 for an MRI Alice had on her back.  We then went to patisserie on California Street for breakfast, a delicious pastry cafe.  We ordered four morning treats, all of them fantastic.

We then went home and I banged out a grant application from SCBWI.

Then we went to the Legion of Honor museum to see the exhibit of museum treasures from the Louvre.

It was a very enjoyable exhibit.

From there, we went home, relaxed and watched an old Audrey Hepburn/Fred Astaire film.