Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Getting better all the time

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 01:29:40 GMT

(Why yes, I am listening to Sgt Pepper while I write this, why do you ask?)

It seems to be official that I will be transferring to the new store on the other side of the park, a request I'd wanted for a good couple of months now. I'll be starting there on the 8th, but I'm thinking that I'll stop by during one of my days off this week just to make sure everything's smooth as possible, and that any scheduling conflicts are few and easily adjusted. Patience and stubborn will has paid off! Yay me!

I'm really looking forward to the change of scenery, actually. I've been at this company for exactly four years (I was hired late February 2022, even though I didn't actually start until mid-March) so it's probably good that I change it up a little. I'm familiar with my next store as we'd shopped there plenty of times before my current one even opened up, and I do know a handful of people who are already over there. It's also a much bigger store so chances are I'll feel a little less hemmed in as well.

In creative news, I'm still feeling a bit agitated by a few passages in Theadia that might sound a bit clunky, but I'll fix that on the next go-round. This is taking a bit longer than I'd expected, but I've decided not to worry about deadlines at this point. It'll get done when it gets done! And now that it's a new month and I've realigned a few of my creative and personal plans, I fully plan to kickstart the music and art I've been wanting to focus on!

So all in all, things are doing pretty well, can't complain!

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Other creative outlets...?

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:45:54 GMT

I've been doing a lot of thinking about changing things up creatively. I mentioned this on my Welcome to Bridgetown blog the other day, but I'll explain it a bit more here: I've been focusing on my writing as an almost-daily thing for what, about thirty years now? At least since early 1996 when I bought my first PC and figured that if I was going to make this a successful thing, I was all in, working on something almost every single day. [Not counting the occasional points in time where Real Life Stuff took precedence, of course.]

Thing is, writing wasn't the only creative outlet I've always been interested in. I of course have a clinical obsession with music, so it only makes sense that I've always felt a bit of an urge to explore making it to some degree. I've started a few garage bands and recorded dozens of incomplete demo ideas over the years, but I've never gone any further than that. I've also had a love for visual arts which unfortunately has not been given much attention at all.

So I was thinking...I'm at a good point in my writing career. It's no money-maker, but I'm proud of the seven books I've self-published (and the eighth one I'm on the verge of finishing). I've learned a hell of a lot in that thirty year stretch. I'm not burnt out, and the spark to do more is still there. But over the last several years, I've had this feeling...as much as I enjoyed dedicating so much time with my writing, I always felt like my other two creative loves fell by the wayside. It frustrated me, because I'd want to write songs or draw something or focus on photography (a newer and unexpected interest) and yet the outcome always fell far below my expectations. I knew it was because I wasn't allowing them enough time and focus, and at first I tried juggling them with my already full writing schedule AND the Day Job, but I've finally admitted that wasn't enough.

SO.

What I was thinking was that, perhaps once I finish Theadia and prep it for self-publishing, I was going to take a bit of a creative breather and instead shift focus to one of those other outlets. Like I said: music and visual arts. I know enough at this point in my life that I can get away with not having to relearn too many of the basics -- and besides, I'm more of a learn-as-I-go person than a take-classes one anyway. And as always, I love doing things DIY.

Does this mean I won't be writing? Well, no...just that I won't be writing every single day. If an idea hits me that's worth trying out, I'll give it a go. And I'll most likely be following up on the Trilogy Remaster soon enough as well.

I just want to see how far I can take my other creative endeavors for a while.

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ends and beginnings

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 23:05:50 GMT

So for the first time in a number of years, I've chosen not to do a year-end mixtape or best-of list. I went into this a bit over at Walk in Silence, but the tl;dr is that it had nothing to do with the music and all to do with my own lack of connection with the new releases. Don't get me wrong, there were a LOT of really great albums and singles that dropped...but I'd just been too distracted to let any of it stick with me for any length of time. I'm a bit bothered by that to tell the truth, because that's not my normal state of musical obsession. The distraction was that in itself: I was too obsessed with the acquisition and not enough with the enjoyment, and I want that to change.

The interesting thing is that I came to that realization when I was making the mixtape soundtrack for Queen Ophelia's War. My aim for that mix was to recreate the moods I'd find myself in when I'd listen to bands like Cocteau Twins back in the day; something that would take me on an aural journey and spark my imagination and creativity. And in the process, I'd realized that I'd been so focused on picking up new things that I'd lost that drive to find music like that. Quite some time ago, actually.

So that's one resolution for the new year: to appreciate what interests, inspires and influences me for more than a few dopamine-fueled moments. I want to go back to that, not just because it's pleasurable but because it's what drives me as a creative person.

Speaking of dopamine-fueled moments, tonight is when I'm finally putting my Twitter into cold storage. Short of deleting it all and someone possibly yoinking my handle, I'm just putting it on complete lockdown and posting maybe once in a while to remind others where I can be found. I'll skip on describing how much interest I've lost in it over the last couple of years and just say that I have no real use for the site anymore. Most of my writer and IRL friends can be found elsewhere these days, anyway. One less thing to distract me, really.

So. Any other resolutions?

I'd like to walk to/from work more often. I stopped only because we'd had a long stretch of crappy weather followed by the exhaustion of Christmas Retail. And maybe head to the gym again? It's been far too long. I'm in pretty good shape these days considering how much walking I do at work (I can log 3-4 miles just in one eight hour shift some days), but there's always room for improvement. I still want to be more flexible, however. I know I'm getting older and my joints are getting a bit creaky, but that's no reason not to try to work on keeping in shape, yeah?

I'd like to continue working on having a healthier emotional outlook. I've been doing pretty good lately but I do still slide into bouts of complaining about stupid things (work, annoying people, Republicans, etc.) and when I'm sick of my own complaining, that's a good sign that others are probably sick of it as well. Not that I'm aiming to be insufferably chipper or being the peacemaker all the time, far from it. Just working on knowing the difference between when it's warranted and when to Let It Go and Move On.

I'd like to work on rekindling my love for other creative outlets, namely music and art. I've been focusing so much on my writing for so long that the other two have fallen by the wayside. I have art supplies gathering dust here in Spare Oom. I have guitars here that are dusty and out of tune. I have a keyboard here that's currently used as a storage shelf. I was thinking it's time to relearn how to play piano -- I know the basics thanks to lessons when I was a kid, but I'd like to be able to walk up to a keyboard (or a piano in the park when they have them) and play something impressive instead of just a passing line or two. Will I find the time? Well, I have to make time for it, won't I? Otherwise they'll never get started!

There's more I'd like to do, but I'll get into them at a later date here.

In the meantime, wishing all of you a hopeful, creative and peaceful 2024!

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Early Weekend Update

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 00:36:09 GMT

It's the long holiday weekend (and A's birthday on Tuesday so it's especially longer than usual), so we are doing All Sort of Fun Things! We went walking in the Presidio today, we'll be going to the Disney Family Museum tomorrow (they have a really neat exhibition going on regarding their animation work during WWII), Monday we may finally go to Grandview Park in the Sunset -- how long have we lived on this side of town and not gone there..??? -- and Tuesday we go to the De Young Museum AND go see Shang-Chi at Stonestown! :)

Which means I've been sliding some of my normal weekend things here and there throughout the day today. Just finished the laundry, and now working on my Shutterstock Project in which I share some of my most recent pictures on my Dropbox so I can upload to the site both here and on my laptop. I was hoping to get some uploads done today, but I think this is a good start at any rate. I updated all my blogs, and I'll sneak even sneak in my Daily Doodle later on. I've been tempted to get some words done today too, but if I don't get to it I'm okay with that.

Speaking daily words, I've said over at Welcome to Bridgetown that I've Ramped Things Up. I am now working on THREE novel projects, averaging about 800 or so words a day for each (I could easily do more but I'm easing myself into that instead), plus trying to hit other daily goals such as the aforementioned daily drawing -- I'm using last year's Inktober prompts for that -- as well as journal entries, poetry and other things that pop up. And very soon this will also include finding temporary outlets that could make us some pocket change.

So how am I doing this, you ask? Well, funny thing -- apparently when I close down social media browsers and other distractions for a few hours, I get a lot done! Yes, I have in fact implemented a long-game plan or two here! Seriously, as soon as they're cleared away, I get myself geared up to be creative and just run with it as far as I can. Some days I get a lot of words down, other days I don't, but as long as I'm dedicating time and brain space to it, I'm getting it done to my liking. My idea is that if I'm going to finally dive headlong into this writing career full-time, I'm gonna have to commit to it to the level that I know I can work at to achieve as much as I can.

I'm extremely curious to see where this leads me...!

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Where was I...?

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 16:37:47 GMT

Ah yes. I was distracted yesterday (a pleasant walk in GGP's botanical garden, a drive to the garden center, laundry and so on) and completely forgot to post something here.

Also slightly nervous and distracted due to the fact that I'm running a scan on my external hard drive that contains my entire mp3 library in hopes that I can figure out why it decides to randomly go into sleep mode even when I'm in the middle of using it. I'm not *too* nervous, as I have it all (I hope!!) backed up on another external, but I'd rather not lose it just the same, thankyouverymuch. It's taking forever to finish because there's a LOT of mp3s to scan for issues and/or corruption. I had it running overnight and it's *just* nearing the finish of the initial scan as we speak. [Edit: it's now doing a slightly different deep scan of empty sectors and I'm not entirely sure how long *that* will take...] In the meantime it's made the entire drive inaccessible so it can do its thing. Hopefully there aren't any major issues... *fret fret*

Meanwhile, last week I began a slightly different approach with my writing (I go into it a bit more here at Welcome to Bridgetown) and it seems to be working, so I'm going to continue with this process and see how it plays out. I'm doing the work in smaller manageable chunks and narrowing the focus of the work in front of me in the hopes that I can process it all a lot easier. It seems to have cleared the view a bit, which is good.

Oh -- I should probably add that I've been having far too much fun sketching out a storyboard for Diwa & Kaffi!! They're rough thumbnails for the most part, but they're helping me get better at my art, which was the main goal in the first place! One of these days I'll post them up on the WTBT blog.

What else...we got a new Christmas tree? That was my doing, really. Our old one is fine but kind of looking a bit threadbare. The new one is a four-footer (the old one is a much shorter one made for a tabletop) so I'll have to plan out where to put it. The plus side is that I can hang a lot more stuff on it! Yay! Maybe I should revive my old habit of putting on a Christmas album while decorating....

Hope everyone has a good week!

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Weekend Updatery

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 01:26:40 GMT

Well! Here I am, posting on another Sunday evening, pleasantly surprised that I've kept to my new whiteboard schedule for the most part! Welcome to Bridgetown and Walk in Silence are both getting updated, I've been getting some practice on my guitars, and I've even been getting some drawing done! (I missed one day on the art, but that's okay, it was Friday and I was distracted by all the New Music Releases. Heh.)

The best part is that I've successfully kicked off the prep work for the New Project, which I've codenamed Theadia. It's the waystation story that I've mentioned in the past, and I've been spending the week writing out some world building ideas and rules using my daily words over at 750. I'm of course a little nervous because I don't want to mess it up, especially considering how successful the process of writing Diwa & Kaffi was once I figured it all out. I just want to make sure this one is just as successful, because I really love the idea. Especially considering I'd unexpectedly come up with a fantastic plot idea to run with!

My long term plan is to heighten the focus on my creativity. I don't know where it will lead me, but I've got the time and the drive to do it, and I have absolutely no reason not to follow through now. I know I've been my own worst enemy in the past -- y'know, Best Laid Plans versus Follow-Through and all that -- but this time I want to prove to myself that I can make this happen. I did it before to some degree when I prepped and self-pubbed the trilogy, doing everything on my own, so it's really a matter of self-belief and self-confidence. And now that I've let myself have more of that lately, there's no reason I can't do it again.

Here's to hoping...!

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Re: Creation

Sun, 20 Sep 2020 22:37:16 GMT

I've been thinking a lot about returning to my blogging. On the one hand I went on hiatus because I felt I was just repeating myself over and over with the writing blog and phoning it in on the music blog. On the other hand -- and I've said this before -- the Day Job changes had put considerable stress on me in those last few months before I quit.

I miss sharing the music that I've been listening to. I miss sharing my writing processes. And I also miss the schedule, believe it or not. Scheduling gives my brain a bit of stability and direction. And that in turn inspires me to work more on my fiction.

Hell, I'm even thinking of scheduling my Daily Words again. I'm ready for it.

I just need to stop Making Plans to Do It and JUST FREAKIN' DO IT ALREADY.

Hell, I've already returned to journaling and poetry. Not with any schedule, mind you, but I'm actively pursuing those again.

**

I've also started leaning heavily on my music again. I've been inspired to record my noodling, and not just on my phone for demo references...I'm learning more about what I can do with the foot pedal my sister gave me last Christmas (it's a Zoom G1 Four and it has all sorts of neat sounds and effects!), and I'd like to start recording things onto my PC. (Do I even know what I'm doing? Hell no. But that's part of the fun of it all!)

Part of this stems from the fact that I haven't been able to write music for a long time, at least not in the way I used to write it. I toyed with giving it up or treating it as a hobby, but I don't think I'm ready to do that just yet. I still create melodies in my head that I haven't quite figured out to play, and they're not going to do anything if they remain there on endless loop. This forces me to hear sounds in a different way and build it up exponentially. That in turn will teach me how to layer a song, giving it depth. It's the same as my writing, really -- the only way I can learn is if I keep immersing myself.

**

So what about my artwork?

Well. That REALLY fell by the wayside over the last year or so, and I'm annoyed and saddened by that. Same reasons as above: creative frustration, little time, too many personal things going on. But you know, it's been months and things are better now, so I'm adding that to my creative schedule as well. Any aim on that in particular? Well, not at the moment, but I think I'm going to approach it a bit differently this time. No projects, no specific aim, no goal. Just taking pencil (or pen) (or stylus, if I decide to finally upgrade to a new Wacom) and doing a bit every day just to do it. See where it goes. I just want to do it all again.

**

So yeah. I miss the level of creativity I used to have just a few years ago. It's high time for me to return to it.

I still have the whiteboard up. Let's get this thing filled up again.

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Friday Update

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 17:48:49 GMT

It's funny how deciding to take a WP blog and daily word hiatus has made me more talkative here at DW, heh.

Seriously, though...for a long while I'd been thinking that maybe I was stretching myself too thin and trying to hard to do too much, and it had started to show a good few months ago. I had the determination, I just didn't have any fuel in the car, so to speak. I've finally decided to step back and take stock, figure out what my next steps will be.

I'm feeling my way around new things right now. I've been going on about how I want to focus more on art and music. I've been talking with an art field friend about my options and doing some research into it, and brushing the dust off my art supplies again. I might need to look into a newer Wacom (the one I have dates to 2011!!), but that's a bit down the road; I'd like to shake the rust off and get better first. I have tons of pens, pencils and art notebooks that are screaming to be used again.

As for the music, I did what I've been wanting to do for ages: I downloaded the free version of ProTools, with the plan of getting my feet wet with some Drunken Owl demos. It'll be a steep learning curve, that's for sure. I understand the theories and ideas behind multitrack recording, but I don't have much hands-on, so I'll have to jump into the deep end. I mean -- if I can learn the bassacwards systems of banking, I'm pretty sure I can pick this up! Heh.

Does the lack of writing worry me? I don't think so. I've been doing it almost daily for decades now, so I don't think I'll lose the craft. This is more about resting that part of my brain for a bit and get better at other things on my bucket list.

Hope everyone has a good (and safe) weekend!

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Black Friday and Other Life Sfuff

Fri, 29 Nov 2019 19:57:49 GMT

On the one hand, I'm happy that I have a desk job instead of retail or warehouse at this time of year. I still remember the Q4 insanity all too well...stock quadrupling and the deadlines to get it all out shortening, the exhaustion of extended days and weird schedules, the stress of shitty commutes...the inevitability that I'd end up damaging my back and/or catching the flu...I don't miss those parts of it at all. All I have now is a front seat to witness all these clients attempting to finish up their quarter-end business transactions at the last possible microsecond. And a frustrating but not entirely hellish commute.

Lately I've been feeling a lot like I'm at a crossroads. Not exactly a portentous one, just one that's kind of fallen into my lap. My schedule has changed considerably -- not exactly detrimentally, as I'd originally thought it would -- and I've just completed a major writing project and have not exactly started a new one to any serious extent. But instead of wasting my time throwing a fit or falling into despair or whatever else would end up wasting my time, I've decided to turn them into positives: I can work with this. I suddenly find myself with time on my hands and nothing long-term that desperately warrants my attention.

Which means: I've been thinking lately about focusing more on my art and music again. I've got about two dozen guitar riffs that I've recorded on my phone that I think I might be able elaborate on, and I've been meaning to properly teach myself how to record music on my PC for years. And on the art front, I'm finding I really miss creating book covers and playing around with photography. I've been focusing so much on my writing for the last couple of decades and kept putting these two avenues aside for 'when I have the time'...and damn it, I HAVE THE TIME NOW. So why the hell not, right?

Even the job search is temporarily on hold. I mean, it's Q4 and I'm getting inundated with 'We need warehouse workers STAT!' spam (I'd rather not go that route ever again, tyvm) and not many new opportunities, so I'm thinking of putting that all on hold at least until the start of the year. Maybe keep one or two searches active, but that'll be it. That'll also give me a fresh outlook on it all as well, which is yet another thing I've been meaning to do.

Change is a-comin', and I'm down with that.

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Another Day, Another Week, Another Month

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 18:35:52 GMT

As you know, Bob, I tend to start each month with the outlook of "okay, that previous shambles of a month is over with, let's get our shit together and start over fresh, shall we?", and today is no different. March wasn't exactly a shambles, it was just super busy. And now it's in the past tense and April has a much more open schedule. So let's get crackin' with our plans, shall we?

Still getting used to A not working in the other room. We've had to shake up our schedule just a bit -- who gets to use the shower first, when I should start dinner so the cooking part of it will be wrapping up by the time she gets home, when we'll head to the gym, and so on -- but so far it seems to be working well. It's going to be kind of weird when/if I find a new job elsewhere and start commuting again, but we'll get to that when we get to that.

The biggest thing on April's To-Do list is to get rid of the old love seat and buy a new one. We're ordering from the same place we ordered the living room couch, which means New Seat will come in a few boxes and it's up to me to put it together. Related, it occurred to me that I haven't vacuumed under the old love seat for ages, so there's probably a few generations' worth of dust bunnies under there. Eesh!

It's all part of the KonMari process I've let myself get involved in, I guess. I'm always one for getting my belongings under control, and I figure it's high time to ramp that up a bit. I've got boxes hiding away, full of cards and tchotchkes and bits and bots that I don't need and never will. I also figure this will finally give me the impetus to make good on my oft-planned (and oft-delayed) project of scanning and digitizing my writing. (I figure with the art, scanning doesn't quite work due to quality or size, so maybe taking photos of those help.)

Very curious to see how long I can keep this going, or if I can even get it started. Heh!

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Mixing it up again

Fri, 20 Oct 2017 22:48:35 GMT

I really need to do something about my Twitter feed. It feels like lately it's been seeing the worst of me, and vice versa. This means two things:
I should probably do a rigorous cleaning of my follows, expand my mute list, and be a little more positive on there myself. Which led me to the idea I had earlier this morning: to try to go a month tweeting nothing but positive things. I don't mean just posting pithy inspirational tweets or retweeting cat pictures -- although there's nowt wrong with the latter, of course! But I'd like to be more actively positive, this way I'll get myself out of that reactionary rut I've found myself in.

I don't want to ragequit social media, for multiple reasons: I'd be losing touch with my friends, and I'd be losing a viable avenue for publicity of my books. Plus, it would feel like the jocks and the popular kids won and I'll be the nerd crawling back in his hole and feeling sorry for myself. I did that route as a teenager, I'm too old for that shit now.

ANYWAY. I'm curious to see if I can pull off this positivity thing. We shall see!

In other news, I've also been thinking about bulking up my whiteboard schedule again. It's fine now, but I think I need to push my boundaries once more. Assign myself little exercises to expand my knowledge and expertise. Drawing in a different style. Recording the little riffs I've come up with and writing songs around them. Get out of the 'safe' guitar chords and learn new, more complex ones. Post here more often! I know this is something I usually think about at the end of the year as my form of New Year's resolutions, but why not start now?

I'm curious to see where this will lead. Last time this happened, I came up with a few new novel ideas, one of which I'm close to finishing! :)

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Weekend Update Has Plans

Sun, 16 Jul 2017 02:32:26 GMT

After a frustrating week on the Day Job -- no stressful situations, just a ridiculous volume to slog through -- my best laid plans for having a writing session on Friday evening fell by the wayside. Instead we watched the insanity that is Nichijou (a good example of the inherent absurdity of this anime can be seen here). Ten out of the thirty some-odd episodes. It's quite ridiculous and fun. And the opening and ending themes are very catchy!

That said...having a nice relaxing weekend so far, recharging and planning ahead. We'll be heading to London for a few weeks at the end of the month so we're both going through our projects to see what to bring along and what to put behind. I will most likely be working on Secret Next Project during this time, as I won't be bringing my laptop but will be bringing along my tablet and/or Nook. Sure, I'm a little nervous about being away from the Lidwells project for a couple of weeks, but I'll at least have access to it via Dropbox so I can give it a read-through and make notes on things I need to fix/revise

In other news, recently I did a bit of cleaning up and rearranging in Spare Oom, straightened up a few book shelves (and pulled off some titles I can donate), broke down a lot of boxes, and put away things that needed putting away. The access to the closet is a bit wider now, and the guitar stands have been angled to take up less room. Now I just need to get myself back into the habit of playing that keyboard more often instead of using it as a temporary table to put things on! [Come to think of it, I should probably change the batteries in it as well, as I'm sure they're old and on the verge of getting sketchy. Also: do we have a power cord for that thing? I should see if I can find it, or order one from somewhere...]

This ties in with my plan to get back into my other two creative loves: art and music. I still fiddle around a lot on my guitars, but I haven't written many new songs in years. I'd like to try my hand at laying down some new tracks with some cheap mixing software, just for the fun ot it. And for the art, I'm hoping to get back into that as well. It's been far too long since I've done any art of substance other than maybe a few maps and whatnot. I have the supplies and the art pads...I just need to do something with them.

That's in store for the latter half of 2017: time to come back to my love of writing, art, and music, and dedicate more time to them.

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