Aim For The Heart: August 2008

I'm hitting the mid-book blues on the revision of my current book. Not a big deal, of course. It happens; it'll pass. It usually means it's time for a short break to work on something else. (I came up with a new novel plot and sent off a short story.) The difference between writers who finish and writers who don't is realizing what those mid-book blues are and working past them. New writers often give up when the book starts to lag, when it stops being fun to write. Finish the damn book is the best writing advice I can give. Though really in this case, the book is finished for certain values of "finish."

In other news, I'm about 60% through Grand Theft Auto IV. It's still great. I'm becoming a pretty good driver. I'm also looking forward to Spore, assuming the reviews are favorable. And Fallout 3. And Rock Band 2. Damn Harmonix for providing a transfer of Rock Band 1's songs for a mere $5.00 (and free transfers of your DLC). $5.00 to effectively double your song list. My husband wants the super elite 3rd-party drum kit. It's $300. I think RB2 is gonna have to wait a while. Also on my to-buy list are Mass Effect for XBox360 and Crysis for PC, which plays wonderfully on my new PC. Those will wait on the other two PC games.

Parts of my new computer come in today; the rest tomorrow. Got a D&D game tomorrow, so it'll probably be Saturday before I get to put it together. The first thing I'm going to do once it's up and running is download the Crysis demo, crank up the graphic settings as high as it can go (sans MS Vista so no DX10), and see how it runs.

I'm reading my first Lee Child book, Killing Floor. So far I'm really liking it, though the abrupt writing style takes some getting used to. Which is weird when you think about it, because I tend to write in a similar style. I'm also re-reading Ptolemy's Gate, the last of The Bartimaeus Trilogy. If I could get everyone on the planet to read these books, I'll be so happy; they're just that great. And I started a book on Charles Ponzi, the creator of the Ponzi scheme. Can't say much more than that yet, because I've only read about three pages.

I've watched a couple of movies in the last couple of days. Battlestar Galactica: Razor, and 3:10 To Yuma (the Christian Bale/Russell Crowe version).

3:10 To Yuma was terrific. Tense, gripping, and with two fantastic lead characters. Russell Crowe's bad guy, Ben Wade, was smarmy, seductive, and likable yet unrepentant. Christian Bale played the tired, overworked rancher who was just trying to take care of his family. You just felt so sorry for him.

BSG: Razor, on the other hand, was meandering, plotless, and dull. I've seen all three released seasons of BSG. I love the show. But god, Razor was just awful. It had flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks. It made an attempt to make Admiral Cain more sympathetic and only succeeded in making me hate her more. I realized about twenty or thirty minutes in that I was staring at the screen and thinking about something else. I rarely just walk away from a movie, but I walked away from that one about halfway in.

I have recommendations to see In Bruges and The Orphanage, so I bumped those to the top of my Netflix queue. I also saw trailers on the 3:10 disc for a couple of movies that piqued my interest that got bumped near the top: War, starring Jet Li and Jason Statham. Silly and mindless. And Ladron Que Roba a Ladron (sorry, you'll just have to imagine the ` over the "o's"), a Spanish-language (duh) heist film starring a bunch of people I've never heard of.

Well, it looks like I managed to fill one blog post with games, books, and movies. My three main forms of entertainment.

There's a recent article on CNN.com about stay-at-home-wives that coincidentally came out two days after my last day on the job. While the article itself is interesting, I found it more interesting to read the four-page thread it spawned on a messageboard I frequent. The OP decided that anyone who would do that must be lazy.

Naturally he's right. I've been so lazy this week, sitting around eating bon-bons, watching my stories, and waiting for my husband to get home to cook me dinner.

Oh, wait...it's that other thing.

Chores that were being neglected are suddenly done. The front and back yards are mowed. The pantry has been reorganized. Dishes and laundry have been kept up. I have a pile of stuff to take to Goodwill today. My husband can come home from work and enjoy his evenings. His to-do list for the week was precisely two items long.

No more am I cramming only an hour or two of writing into my evenings after a full day of thought-intensive programming. I've edited nearly 50 pages of my book this week and that'll probably end up being 60-70 before the weekend is up. While I was working, I'd be lucky to get 15 pages edited.

My evenings have been enjoyable, too. I finish up my writing and my chores before he gets off work. The only "chore" I have left is to exercise. I'm actually finding time for movies again!

What surprised me the most reading that thread was finding out how many women would love to be able to stay home to take care of the house and how many men would love it if their wives could or would stay home. (There was also a not-insignificant number of SAHH and men who would like to be SAHH/F.)

I am so very, very glad people fought for our rights to work and be educated. I think every woman should have the same job opportunities men have, and I think it behooves every woman to try to have a good education. You never want to be trapped in a marriage only because you have no work skills to make it on your own.

But I am also so very happy being home, keeping the household running smoothly, and putting serious effort into my books. I'm very fortunate.