How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 3

Come on, everybody! Let's go to the museum!

These rams make me think very much of astrology, though I think the ancient egyptian period that we're familiar with was during the age of Taurus.

We're in the Age of Aquarius right now. Just like the song from "Hair" says.

The Ages go backwards in the zodiac. We were just in the Age of Pisces, which lasted from about A.D. 1 to the year 2000. (I'm totally getting this information from The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need, by Joanna Martin Woolfolk.)

So the next Age will be the Age of Capricorn, which will occur around the year 4000.

 

I wonder if man will survive to the year 4000? I wonder if the ancient Egyptians thought mankind would still be roaming the earth four thousand years after they did?

It's amazing that as many of their relics survived. I bet we're missing tons of important stuff though.

We're discovering new things about ancient societies all the time. They had filtration systems for aquariums. They had medicine tablets, similar to our own pills today, that sailors could take to avoid sea-sickness. They mechanical boxes that could show them the position of the stars on any given day of any year. Yet the general concensus seems to be that the ancients were so dumb and we're vastly more intelligent and capable.

I wonder how many of our items will be around two thousand years from now. Do you think our computer and internet records will be salvagable by archeaologists then? Maybe people then will look back on us and wonder how we managed to survive our incredibly barbaric times? They'll say, "Those people from the Ding Dong Era were so basic. They stopped reading by the decade Ding 8. We can't find anymore printed records after that." They'll totally rename our era to something like that. They'll have a completely new calendar system. I'm sure the ancient Egyptians didn't celebrate the year 3345 B.C. and looked forward to 3344 B.C.  

As you may have guessed, I wasn't too thrilled to remember much of the information inside the museum. I've read much of it before... Hey, are those pomegranates? 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 2

I didn't really discuss the Winchester Mystery House in the last post, but Sarah Winchester had it built until the time of her death. After the premature death of her daughter (six weeks old) and the death of her husband, a psychic convinced her to continue building the house to appease and confuse the spirits of those who had been killed by her husband's guns through the years.

After that, we drove over to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. I'll be completely honest, I thought I'd read that the Rosicrucians had been a "secret" order, like the Free Masons, that had sort of just disappeared into obscurity. This museum made me think otherwise, as it's openly funded by members of the Rosicrucian order. Also, the museum had a combination art gallery/theater/recruitment room, which had a gift shop with Rosicrucian books beside it. Neither Hottie nor myself were interested in joining the order that day, so unless I cheat and do some research online, I can't tell you anything about the Rosicrucians.

But here are some of the pictures. These were taken both by Hottie and me.

 

The next post will show some of the inside of the museum, as well as more pics of the gardens.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Hottie (pretty sure that's the alias I gave her) and I went to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA.

We did the Grand Estate Tour, which combined the House Tour and the Backstage Tour.

I went about ten years before, and I'm pretty sure I took pictures of the inside of the house, but you can't do that anymore. Flashes ruining the paint and all that fun stuff.

This is the Foreman's House, which we walked by during the Backstage Tour. It was closed for rennovation.

This is the well for the house. It now has a super-pump on it.

This is the tank house. Incidentally, should San Jose ever have a water crisis, the Winchester well is considered an official back-up water supply for the city.

I like flowers.

I can't remember if I took this pic or not. Hottie took quite a few with my camera. Either way, I like the contrast of the green on the red tiles.

The house is constantly under rennovation.

This statue's name is Murray, or so said our guide. He said he "looks like a Murray".

We all got hard hats.

I don't think he had a name.

A chimney used to be here, but the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 brought it down.

Our guide for the Backstage Tour. Sarah Winchester was quite fond of the number thirteen. This wasn't here while she lived, but the gardeners liked it.



Order and Perspective

I began writing the next draft of the story I've been working on forever. One of the biggest issues I was having with it was what order to put the chapters in. For the longest time, the story was out of sequence, but it seemed to make my story choppy. I told myself that the readers didn't need to know everything and they'd be able to figure out the connections. But it left my story with a lot of holes. So early last week, I decided to just put the darn thing in chronological order and fill in the gaps. This means (probably) that the books won't have a solid beginning (well, the first one will), middle and end; rather, it will be more saga-like. If I change my mind after I finish writing it this way and want to make it out-of-sequence again, at least the sequences will be more solid.

Another reason why I was going to do the story out-of-sequence is that each chapter is from a different character's perspective. I was planning on having each book only be from a couple character perspectives at a time, so the readers wouldn't get overwhelmed (yes, I was a fan of "Lost"). But now that I intend to do the story in chronological order, I had to decide whether to keep the chapters I'd already written in their original perspectives, or rewrite many of them into a single perspective. I decided on the former, as there are some parts of the story I simply wouldn't be able to tell, otherwise. So I'll just have to remember that people are smart, and write well enough so that my story isn't confusing.  

"... I think I'll put this play away for a while and go back to the war play."

On my way to work earlier in the week, I had a "what if" thought. It started out simple enough, but I kept thinking about it and it became more and more interesting to me. Soon I realized I had a third book on my hands. Once I was home, I started working on story and character outlines.

I have mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, I'm thrilled that I have a third book in the works. Yay, three books. Now when I have an agent and a publisher I can say, "Don't worry, I have at least three books I can give you!" "Hooray!" They'll cry as they throw their arms up in celebration and begin planning my book-signing world tour.

On the other hand, I haven't finished the other two, let alone one. This shouldn't bug the heck out of me, but it does. Of course complaining about it doesn't help matters, but I'm sure I could find a study that suggests otherwise. A couple days ago I read an article called Myths About the Future that Could Ruin Your Life . One of the myths was that those who imagine a positive future tend to have less energy to actually acheive that future, because your brain can confuse fantasy with reality and figures you're already there, I guess. Anyway, it's kind of depressing.

Another thing that occured to me as I worked on the third book is that there's probably going to be a good chunk of people who won't like my books. Not because it won't be in their favorite genre, but because they won't like what my books have to say about things like religion. My stories, the more I look at them, are very spiritual and I'm not sure how people will take to that. (Incidentally, I've written about five different sentences to follow that last one and have erased them all on account of not fully agreeing with what I wrote.)

In other news, I'm really enjoying this book, Outlander . I'm just over half way through it and it's fun. It involves time travel and Scotland, for a quick sum-up. If you've read it and care to discuss it, I'm all for that, but I don't think I'll spoil it until after I've finished reading it.

Busy, busy, busy!

My goodness! I have been so busy... not writing. I've just been working a lot, which is great for the checking account but leaves me with little time or motivation for writing.

I believe that when each of us is born, we are set with at least one official life lesson. This lesson is one we will be faced with in a number of ways all through our lives, and it's up to us to figure out how to solve it and learn from it. And even if we successfully beat it, that doesn't mean that it won't pop up again throughout the rest of our existance in this life. I think one of my official life lessons is the conflict of what I want to do verses what I need to do. Sometimes I can't always do what I want to do, because I have to do what I need to do. This is the way of the grown up, as I'm sure many of you are aware.

So this week I've worked a lot, as I mentioned previously. It doesn't seem to lighten up any time soon, either. Not that I'm complaining; I'm glad to be working. I just need to find a way to balance things. I've been spending quite a few nights at Smarty's apartment and I certainly appreciate it.

My brain has been running a marathon lately, thinking about all the things I should be doing or hope to be doing. I've been saving money for a vacation in July which I'm super excited for. This week I was going to help a friend in a complicated situation, and spent a few days psyching myself up for it. But I was unable to help and that kind of bothered me. I know the time is coming for me to move, but I have no idea how to go about it, if I can afford it or what the consequences would be. I seriously need to get my hair cut. I don't know if working on my story would calm me of any of this.

On the plus side, I've been reading a book forom Smarty's apartment. It's called Outlander and it's pretty enjoyable. It started out rather slowly, but it's pretty good once the action started coming on.

As a future note, I'm may not be able to blog next Wednesday. I'll be out of town and away from my computer, and I'm afraid my phone is not smart enough to blog from. But I will blog as soon as I can.

That Conflict Stuff

I did write last week, which felt fabulous. I love writing with a goal or an element in mind and seeing where it takes a story. Sometimes things come up that I didn't expect, but as I write, those things make perfect sense. 

I inserted that conflict I mentioned last week into one of my chapters. Being that it was the rough draft, it turned out to be a very cheesey, over-dramatic piece of crap. I loved it. The goal for the next draft of course will be to make it less crappy. I really don't think my story can handle less drama, and I adore cheese.

The problem I was having with my story was that my main characters were too passive. Things were happening to my characters, while most of them remained completely virtuous. That is something that I don't think readers would find believable. I needed to get thier hands dirty; some grey mixed in with the black and white. And while it maybe risks the readers not liking some of their choices, they'll be a little more understandable.

I had so much fun putting that bit of conflict before one character, that I brainstormed and wrote out the ways it could affect and possibly damage my other characters. While this might suggest I should look into therapy, it really breathed some life into my story. Suddenly there was a means to get from point A to point B for many of my storylines.

So this week, I'll write a few more pages and see what happens.

Also, I'm sure many of you have taken classes or read books on how to write stories, but in case you like to constantly read about it or would like some refreshers, I'd like to recommend two blogs. First is by Lynda M. Martin. This is the first in a series on writing and I love her advice, Good Writing Is... . The second is by a teacher named Aaron D. Gansky. He also provides some good information. 

Why I Didn't Write This Week

I didn't really think through when to blog, I guess. I should've waited until after I returned from being six days away from the internet. Had I just waited to complain about not having a finished book and blamed my procrastination until last week, I would be on schedule. But now that I'm here, I will say that I really was away from my computer for six days. Not that I couldn't write without my computer, but I couldn't blog about why I didn't write. Were there too many negatives in that last sentence?
Last week, I stayed with my friend who just moved into a brand new apartment. As I love the aliases and simple adjectives, her name on this blog shall henceforth be Smarty Bookington, in honor of all the books she had strewn around her apartment when I arrived. There really is so much more to Smarty than books, but this was the first name that came to mind, and I usually feel that's the best way to go.
It was great spending time with Smarty. I helped her out where I could; washing dishes and buying a curtain for her shower (because I like to smell nice). We explored the area around her complex and found a terrific bakery! And we watched "Prince of Persia", which is just the silliest movie.
I've spoken with Smarty before about my story, and even let her read two chapters. She asked me if I'd found time to write, to which I answered no. But I told her about an idea I was working with to flesh out the storyline.
Without giving too much away, I have somewhere between fifteen to twenty chapters written already, as well as a pretty lengthy outline. The issue is there are holes that need to be filled in and things of that nature. It's very possible that I have a series on my hands, but I don't entirely have a sense of direction still for my story.
The idea I told her about was a way to motivate my characters. It was something that would impact them and cause conflict for them throughout the story, but would put them all in a dark place. Smarty was not too keen on the idea and suggested it might affect the readers negatively. That immediately made me think about the tv show "Stargate Universe". I am convinced that the reason it failed so miserably was you couldn't really root for the characters. Apart from the math whiz kid, there was no one on that show that I liked. The endearing qualities were few and far between, and I don't want that for my characters.
I'm wondering if maybe it would read better if I wrote out a chapter with that element in there. Can a character be both horrible and endearing? Dexter, the character of both the book series and tv show, seems to be (though I admit, I haven't read or seen either one yet).

I've been working on a novel...

I've been working on a novel for a very long time. I'd probably have worked on it less if only I'd not taken giant gaps of not working on it all this time. But you see, I'm what is called an ordinary human being. I procrastinate. I find reasons not to work on it. I start a new hobby. I give myself all sorts of excuses that ultimately prevent me from working on it. Then tv shows, films and other books come out with similarities to my own story and so I think, if I'd only stuck to it! Well, no more, hopefully.

There really is a lot going on in my life. I really wish sometimes I could be like the author of Water for Elephants and just lock myself in a closet for six months to finish my book without any interruption, but closets are dark and small and usually filled with coats. Not my ideal writing space, exactly.

The problem with taking a break for so long from writing a story is you start to see the faults within the story, even if it's only in its early stages. Your characters are not complex enough. Some of your characters just don't work. A major plot device gets contradicted later on or is easy to disprove. Then other ideas for the story pop into your head that sound great, but would cause a serious rewrite.

What I'm planning to do is this: I'm going to write my story, even if it's completely bonkers. And once a week, I'm going to blog about my progress. I won't be divulging my story, but I'll write about things that come about or complications I come upon. There may be blog posts where I might say, I didn't write anything this week, but I'll try to write about interesting things that happened or why I didn't write. Hopefully, this will get my mind working to actually write my story.

I'd like to take a paragraph and explain why I didn't follow through on writing about my time as an extra. Once I started thinking back to that time, the whole thing just really depressed and angered me. There were some really fun and interesting moments, but it mostly just took a toll on me. Along with other things that were going on outside of work, I just felt I wasn't being treated with respect as a human being. I didn't really want to put myself back in that mindset, so I chose not to continue. Maybe later, but I think whenever I try to look back on the whole situation, I'll feel crappy about it.