Category: Personal

Five resolutions for me to break

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

Happy New Year to all.  Like so many others, I have a list of changes I’d like to make in my life.  What better time for them?  Some are ambitious, some are desperately needed.  I wonder how many I can pull off?

  1. Get more organized at least a little organized. I am the personification of chaos, to the point that my principal has started rolling her eyes at me.  My classroom is a mess, my house is a mess, even my truck is a mess.  I’m not planning to go from zero to OCD overnight.  Baby steps.  For now, I’m taking a few minutes at the end of the school day to put things back where they belong.  Same at bedtime.  Little by little I’ll become a functioning human being.
  2. Eat healthier. This is not a diet, just a vow to make healthier choices in the overabundance I consume.  More fruit and veggies, less soda, more fiber, less sugar.  I need to lose weight, but I’m pretty bad at that, especially when the rest of my life isn’t perfectly in line (see #1).
  3. Play more actively with my daughter. My little girl loves to run and jump and squeal and frolic.  I love watching her, but I don’t have the energy to join in.  Well, I’m going to start thinking of our play sessions as my workout regimen.  I’ll work up a sweat and get my endurance up so we can play the way she deserves.
  4. Write 3000 words a week. Not a lot, I know, but it’s doable.  And if I get my 3000, I’ll likely get more.  It’s usually the first few dozen words I have trouble getting out in a writing session, be it time or mental constipation to blame.  I’ve been slow to the point of wondering if I still fit my own definition of a writer.  Must write.
  5. Get stories in the mail. Stories don’t sell from a drawer.  I need to do a better job getting them out there.  I only have three out right now, two of them to WotF, despite having four or five unsold stories that have been sent out before that remain unsold.  If they were good enough to send before, they’re good enough to send again.  I intend to get one out a week through this month, that giving me enough time to read them through and brush them up first.  Besides, the staggered submissions will stagger responses and hopefully lead to less blocks of wonder-time.  Wonder time always seems to kill my productivity.

Well, those are my goals.  There are smaller things: apply to (and attend) a Clarion workshop, apply to all four quarters of WotF (or lose elligibility, even better), train my mutt, put valuable writing content in my blog, sell some stories (slightly beyond my control short of #5), and on and on.  Five is probably more than I can pull off.

Here’s hoping that you find the strength to follow through with your resolutions and that 2010 is a great year for you.  Now I need to go start working on some of these.  You probably should, too.  😉

Sci-Fi under my tree

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

As I type this, I am wearing/using one of my Cristmas presents: th uCrown2 head massager from Osim.  Maybe it’s the improved circulation in my head, but it’s giving me story ideas left and right.

Picture a hat used for reading minds or controling an avatar or whatever else aSF hat might do to your brain.  That’s what it looks like, with a cord sticking out of the back and running to a hand controller.  A little creepy, but I tried the hat on and fired it up…without reading any directions.  Yeah, I now.

The first thing that happened is the hat tried to squeeze my head until my eyeballs popped out.  It uses air pressure like a blood pressure cuff would, but it has pressure points that I guess are supposed to be like fingers digging into my temples, browline, and the base of my skull.  Just when I expect my skull to cave, a capm feminine voice says “You are sitting in a very comfortable chair.”

It goes on to knead my head into a stiff dough before my scalp erupts with the most extreme cell phone vibration imaginable.  To which the hat of course says, “Relax.”  As the squeezing and shaking and Zen commentary continue, I start to suspect that my scapl is bleeding.  A moment’s investigation reveals that it was not, rather the hat is heating my head.

I turned it off.

It is not the most soothing of massages, but a little fine-tuning has me appreciating the gift more.  I still hate the voice, but I can set it for nature sounds which are pleasant enough.  It’s supposed to be good for my migrains.  We’ll see.

Anyway, the uCrown2 is definitely the most science fictional gift I have received in my life.  If ever a gift could inspire a story, this one could.

Merry Christmas to all.

-Oso

My Writing Must Have Made Karma Unhappy

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

If it’s not one thing, it’s three others.  Now that my wife is finally starting to emerge from her bout with pneumonia, I seem to be battling it (or some close cousin, perhaps bad bronchitis).  I just pray my daughter doesn’t get it.  This clearly seems contagious.

Needless to say, I have gotten no writing done.  None.  It’s been a month and a half (I think) since significant words were added to one of my stories.  It’s just really tough to focus when I’m trying not to drown in my own phlegm.  (Too much?)

I have decided, however, that I should try to resurrect an older story in time for the WotF Q1 deadline.  “Thinking Out Loud” was a promising old story that I didn’t write from the correct POV.  I have since rewritten it (at least parts) from every character’s POV.  That’s right, all eight characters from the original story (there was a ninth, but pure cardboard set-dressing).  The idea was to rotate through all eight POVs when they were most important to the story.  That proved a touch exhausting (though still a cool idea, just not for these characters).  The next idea was to cycle through the four original antagonists.  Better, but I found I was only really interested in one of them.

So now I plan to rewrite the story just from this interesting character’s largely unsympathetic POV, changing a few plot points (more monkey wrenches in the works) and tweaking some characters (make some more exaggerated), all in about a month that includes Christmas and my daughter’s third birthday.  After that, I plan to pull a rabbit out of my…

In an effort to make this blog more educational and less personal, I hope to highlight some of my story wrestling here.  For instance, I have gotten away from outlines almost completely.  Soon I will explore the possibility that this is a causal factor of my current block (that and phlegm).  A no-brainer, but a boy has to sort out his issues somewhere.

Eventually.

-Oso

WotF XXV

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Finally.

I got out to a real bookstore (well, Books-A-Million) and picked up WotF XXV.  It has been on my to-do list.

Now I need to do some reading.  I have heard so much about the writers and stories, I don’t know where to start.  Jordan’s story, “After the Final Sunset, Again” will surely be first, friend that he is.  Emery’s and Gra’s stories have been intriguing me, too.  Can’t wait.

Do you feel alive? Woooooooo!

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

I went to a Metallica concert Monday (Wooooo!) and atried to collect some descriptive sensations for my writing.  I got a few, but mostly I enjoyed the concert.  Big Metallica fan.

I also put “**************” back up at OWW for a last look.  It’ll be in the mail to WotF in a week.  I’m hoping some sharp eyes can help me catch little stuff.  I’ve got a couple old friends looking at it, too, but they may not get to it until the next total solar eclipse.

I’m setting a daily goal of 500-words on “The Naked Man”.  (Wow, I need a new title for that.)  It’s low, but I’m busy.  At that rate I should finish in a couple weeks.  I’ll likely trim some length out later.  It’s up to 4200 so far and I’m not quite halfway yet.

Anyway, that’s my update.  More substantive posts to come when I’m less exhausted.

-Oso

back early and sad

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Mourning cut our camping trip short.

My wife’s grandfather passed away yesterday.  Viewing tomorrow, funeral Thursday.  We packed up and came home so we could be part of the farewell.

J.W. was 96 and liveda good life.  He was lonely; his wifeis in a home with Alzheimer’s.  His body just gave out on him.  He got to see the people who loved him before he passed.  How many of us will be able to say that?

He was atough but sweet old man who will be missed, but he’s in a better place now.  We will see him again one day.  For now, we remember his best moments and prepare to finish our journeys without him.

Oso in the woods

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

If this blog has been quiet the past few days, it’s because I’m camping.  No internet in Tennessee State Parks.  (Imagine.)  This post is a result of a daytrip home to drop off the dogs.  Two dogs and a toddler proved too much for my wife and me.  My in-laws were there, but they left when my wife’s grandfather fell ill (condition TBA).  So the pups will be visited three times a day by one of my wife’s former students.  We’ll miss them, but it frees up some good time with our bitty!  It should also liberate some time for me to write.

Anyway, I’ll give an update when I get back.

goal update

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I have good news and bad news on the goal front. Good news: I accomplished every one of my school-related goals. Even those pesky tests are finished (don’t ask how they did…*shudder*). Bad news: Not one of my personal goals was accomplished. The kitchen looks better, “Secondhand Rush” is in the middle of an overhaul that might well cut the first couple thousand words (see my next post for details), moles are alive and well, invisible fence is still a worthless underground wire, and the laundry has claimed my bedroom in the name of its king. Most unhappily, not one word of new story has been written. I can use my real job as an excuse again, but the jobby-type job is not going away. I have to do better. I don’t have to do better every week, but my aims were low and I did not achieve them.

Next week will be better after Tuesday.  I’ll even be able to do a bit of writing at school (don’t tell my principal).  My mother and grandmother are coming to visit next weekend, followed by my best friend’s bachelor party. And then: Mother’s Day.   Some combo, huh?  I’ll be bipolar by the end, possibly even schizophrenic.  But that basically gives me seven days to clean the house for Nana (who will try to clean for me if it’s not perfect…clean her way).  We’ll see.  But I vow, writing will be accomplished.

(Drat!  Ended in passive voice!)

Not too bad…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

The goals were set high and I fell short on a few. That pesky kitchen is taking forever; people keep messing it up as I try to clean it. Couldn’t we all just stop eating for the weekend? And those tests are still untouched. I’ll set my goals for the week here, though that does technically mean it didn’t get done over the weekend.

On the upside, I breezed past my word count target last night.  A lot of those words may get cut before the end, but that’s irrelevant.  I got the contest entry out to coolstuff, got the living room clean (with help from my wife), filled a box with dirt, sent off the headset, saw some waterfalls, even replaced a leaky shower head with a cool two-head model (not on the list).  A successful weekend despite the unfinished list.  I’m a little disappointed with my eating habits for the past few days, but that’s a different post.

So goals for this week (outside menial day-to-day stuff):

  • remember my soccer ticket duty for Tuesday and show up
  • grade those blasted tests!
  • print and distribute the last of the review worksheets for my classes
  • get answer sheets for those worksheets printed and reserve time for the students to use them

Those are all school-related goals.  There’s a high-stakes test next week so these goals are at the forefront of my attention, but they fall within the school day and aren’t that big a deal.

  • write 500 new words
  • rewrite “Secondhand Rush” 
  • finish cleaning the blasted kitchen!
  • catch up the laundry
  • lose 2 pounds
  • fix the invisible fence

The fence might not get done, but I want to try.  I thing a mole chewed through it.  Speaking of…

  • poison those stupid moles

The low word count is practical considering the school pressure I’m under the next couple weeks.  That should jump after the big test.  Anyway, let’s see how I do.

It’s time…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

One of my Facebook friends — my former college roommate –today posted his intention to start losing weight.  He weighs only a small Thanksgiving turkey more than m and I decided to join him in his endeavor.  I think doing this together will be beneficial; neither of us is the type to let the other run away with all the success.  As long as one of us makes progress, I suspect the other will tag along.  If we both shrug our shoulders at the first donut, well then we fail together.

I am no stranger to weight loss attempts.  I got down to 240 a couple years ago (shortly after my daughter’s birth) while my wife was losing with me.  It took longer to gain the weight back than to lose it, which was comforting if only mildly.

For Lent, I pledged to get back on my diet.  That didn’t work.  The stress of waiting to hear from the Clarions was my excuse to falter.  I am the kind of person that eats when he is stressed…or happy…or tired…bored…awake…

I feel better when I am lighter.  Imagine wearing a 40 pound jacket that you have no need for.  It makes me slower, I tire easily, I’m always hot.  It sucks.  Does it suck more than I like donuts?  It might, but it’s a close race.

Food is my drug of choice.  I’m an addict.  Compulsive overeater.  They don’t make a patch for this.  They make pills, but no thanks.  I’m not exactly quitting cold turkey (still have to eat), but I’m doing it on my own (well, me and my old roomie).  No rehab, no Biggest Loser, no electroshock therapy.  I’ll approximate the Weight Watcher’s plan that worked so well for me before.  (Wikipedia has the “points” formula posted.  I would link to it, but I  question the legality of their sharing.)  That combined with some not-too-tough exercizing should melt the pounds away at a steady rate.  I’ll be hungry as my dog is scruffy, but I can do it.

I hope.

-Oso