Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Things

Wed, 13 May 2026 22:27:42 GMT

Things done:

-- Watered our plot at the community garden and the two sidewalk squares in front of our building. Meant to do that last week but ran out of time and spoons.
-- Bedsheets washed and a new set put on. Juli 'helped' in her own cattish way.
-- Gave Juli far too many pettins already, as she is now begging for even more.
-- Watered the house plants as they were all looking a bit shrivelly.
-- Blogging and journaling kept up. Yay!

Things to do:

-- I still need to reorganize the garage storage room, but that should not take more than an hour at most. I just want to make it a little more accessible, and to put the stuff I don't need right away further in the back. As for the books that are in there, I'll do a quick save-or-donate. I think most of them are manga titles so I'll see if I still want them.
-- Still need to reorganize my writing bins in the garage. That could take longer so I'll have to do that on one of my days off during the week.
-- Restart the longhand scan project. This is going to take some time, and it's a little noisy so it'll be a weekend/evening thing when A isn't in the office working. I'd already started on scanning The Phoenix Effect before we moved, so I'll continue on that, then work on whatever might be next. I was thinking perhaps the poem/lyric notebooks, as I know those would be relatively quick and easy to do.

Things going on:

-- On the 23rd I will be the opening bookkeeper at my old shop, due to a slight scheduling hiccup (the main BK on vacation, the backup taking a day off, with no one filling in). No problem by me other than it would have been nice to let me and my current main BK know this before this past Monday. It'll be a bit weird to be back there, but I am curious as to how things are in my absence, and who will be my openers, heh. Am also hoping that it won't be another case of BK work with a pinch of twelve other responsibilities for flavor.
-- Work on Theadia is still eluding me, though I think I'm starting to figure out why. I'm not entirely happy about it, but it is what it is, and I'll have to deal with it how I can. I'll post something about it on Friday at the writing blog.

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Finally done with unpacking...for now

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 23:55:08 GMT

I think it's safe to say that we're finally at the point where we don't need to unpack anything else for the moment. Important things are put away, the PCs are up and running, and we've even organized various things like bookshelves and closet spaces. We can finally allow ourselves to stop and relax without starting the day with 'okay, we're going to hit (x) room next'. Whatever is stored downstairs in the garage is stuff that we don't need immediately and can bring upstairs at a later time.

Hell, I'm even prepping this week's blog entries, that's how up to speed I am!

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it), we both have to return to work tomorrow, so it's once again back to reality. But fortunately, I have not utterly exhausted myself with overwork which means that heading back to Real Life seems like a welcome return.

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The monthly start-over

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 15:29:25 GMT

As always, the start of a new month is always the start-over of the usual daily whiteboard schedule. I no longer see being unable to follow it to the letter as failure, of course...I accept there were reasons for not getting any writing work done, or whatever it was that didn't get completed. Life gets in the way now and again. The whiteboard isn't a strict errand board but a useful way of keeping my brain in working order.

I have to say I'm quite impressed that I somehow managed (sort of) to get 391 writing days in a row on 750Words, but the other day I just said nah, enough is enough and I don't need to do that anymore. To be honest I'd started running out of new things to write there early on, and instead writing a sort of Walk in Silence (the book) overview of the music I enjoyed over the years. It was fun while it lasted but by the time I reached 385 days it had become a time-consuming chore. I'll use the site again, of course. It's extremely useful for writing very rough drafts of novels! But yeah, I'm taking a hiatus on that for a bit now.

Speaking of hiatuses, the one I'd started for my blogs is now over. I want to return back to Welcome to Bridgetown and Walk in Silence (the blog) again, because it's always been fun. Do I have stuff to blather about? Who knows? I can usually come up with something, so no worries there. I'm going to try twice a week for both once again, but I'll still allow a day off if I'm just too busy or distracted.

And speaking of distracted, I think I'm up there with @anagramofbrat in that I'm feeling VERY distracted by social media again. Not so much doomscrolling as just getting that dopamine fix, mainly on Threads. I'd like to be more connected on them and not reactive, though. The difference of course being that I miss having that fun connection with other people because I've been too willingly drawn in by someone's drama thread. [And I'm ACTIVELY avoiding political posts these days, so no worries there.] How to handle that, change that? Well, I'm not sure, but I'll figure it out.

New month, new schedule, new days. We'll see where this leads.

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Oops! And feeling overwhelmed

Thu, 30 May 2024 15:23:34 GMT

I forgot that yesterday was Dreamwidth blog entry day! My head has been elsewhere these past few weeks for varying reasons and I'd completely forgotten about posting here.

Speaking of blogs, I'm putting both Welcome to Bridgetown and Walk in Silence on a brief hiatus because I haven't had the proper time to write entries AND work on Theadia AND do my daily words AND fit in some kitty attention time. And to be honest I just haven't had the mental spoons to come up with posts lately. I'm really wondering if I should just cut the two down to once a week for each when I don't have some ongoing themed series going on for either of them. I hate that I have to cut back but I'm back at the level where I feel like I'm phoning it in sometimes. I'm thinking maybe that once-a-week schedule might be semi-permanent going forward, though, because of that. I'd rather post something of interest rather than "I listened to (x) today" or talk about some writing process that I've already posted about previously.

As for the daily words, I'm three days away from writing a full year's worth without missing a day (sort of -- the 750Words site lets you catch up by writing 1500 words for each day you miss). Will I keep the daily run after that? Maybe? Or I might go back to what I'd done previously and take the weekends off? We'll see how I feel about it on Sunday.

Interestingly enough I don't feel as though the Day Job is cutting into my creative time, because it really doesn't. I could easily utilize my downtime and breaks a lot better if I just stop being so damn lazy about it. I'm not asking for an intense writing session every time...just some note-taking will do. Planning out the scene I'm about to write later that day or the next, for instance. I know...I talk about that a lot. It's just a super bad passive habit of mine to pull out my phone and dick around on the internet, and I'm not even trying to shake it at this point and I'm mad at myself for it.

ANYWAY. Obviously I'm not getting anywhere by being overwhelmed and passive at the same time, so I need to change things up.

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midweekery

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 20:03:37 GMT

One of the downsides to working the midshift on Wednesday is that I lose all track of time and forget to post here on the DW, and run out of time to write something for Walk in Silence. I don't feel guilty about missing a posting day now and again, but my brain sometimes does give me that wave of 'aaaah you skipped a day EVERYTHING IS RUINED' that I duly try to ignore. I mean, I'm using all that time to work on Theadia and maintaining a daily schedule on the 750Words site, which are currently just a bit more important to me at the moment.

Thankfully I have today off so I might just throw something together for Welcome to Bridgetown this afternoon. It's nice to have a day off midweek to get errands done and take my time doing what I want to do. I of course still wake up early out of habit, so that also gives me the morning to faff around a bit without any guilt! Heh.

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I'd love to get back to blogging, but...

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 00:55:56 GMT

...I still need to focus on Queen Ophelia's War for a bit longer. For the most part I've just been sentence-level rewriting (the idea is just fine, but the execution is terrible) or inserting a few this-will-be-mentioned-later bits and pieces (important plot stuff I came up with after I wrote what needs revision). There's a lot going on in this story -- not nearly as much as the Mendaihu Universe, but enough that it needs to be properly worked out -- so I'd like to keep going with this work for maybe a bit longer.

Maybe in December? I'm not sure? We shall see.

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so far so good

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 16:57:39 GMT

Looking at my writing whiteboard right now and it doesn't look any different from the last few months:

--SUN: PC clean session, post at Dreamwidth
--MON: 750 Words, post at Welcome to Bridgetown
--TUE: 750 Words, post at Walk in Silence
--WED: 750 Words, post at Dreamwidth
--THU: 750 Words, post at Walk in Silence
--FRI: 750 Words, post at Welcome to Bridgetown
--SAT: music practice

The only differences here is that I didn't put 'poetry' anywhere, as I think I've gotten myself back into the groove on that where I don't really need to schedule it anymore. I've added 'music practice' because I really need to do so again...it's been far too long. I actually write the blog posts the day before and schedule them for a 6am PT drop (I just finished writing tomorrow's WiS entry), and these Dreamwidth entries are usually quick and off the cuff.

It's the 750 Words that I'm actively trying to get back into my daily regimen. I've only scheduled them for weekdays (weekends I'm keeping it optional), but my aim here is to try to make it a daily thing again. It's part of exercising the creative brain, just like with the music practice: I'm not going to get better if I just do the minimal work. And I really do need to do better work!

Anyway...it's Day Four and I've done pretty good with the schedule so far. I've hit every beat I've wanted to hit so far!

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Wait what

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 03:05:31 GMT

Tomorrow will be seven days in a row that I'm opening the shop at 6am, six of which I had to actually be there at 5:30, and oh yeah also there's a heating unit problem there so the store has been a brisk 45 degrees the entire time, so yeah I am a bit loopy and overtired right now, why do you ask?

Anyhoo -- things are going as normal for the last couple weeks of the year. I'm taking it easy and not pushing myself with the writing other than with the blogs. I am, of course, thinking about how I'm going to approach the new year with the various projects I have in mind. If you've been reading my latest entries at Welcome to Bridgetown, then you'll have heard that my main project for 2023 will be the fourth Mendaihu Universe book, along with doing some 'remastering' of the original trilogy (more on that at a later time). I'm really looking forward to returning to this particular world again!

Other than that...not much to report other than that I REALLY need sleep right now...

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Trying to return to a regular blogging schedule

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 01:38:55 GMT

I admit I've been a bit lazy these last few months, even despite saying I was going on a blogging hiatus to give them all a bit of a rethink. In retrospect I think it was less of a rethink than it was making a conscious retreat from the high self-demand approach I'd thrown at myself for years. I've been trying to adjust that for years and now I'm finally, actively doing so. It's never been a healthy habit and I constantly have to remind myself that there are other ways to approach creative processes that aren't Pour Your Every Emotion Into It And Turn It Up To Eleven.

What does that have to do with blogging? Well, I think for me it has to do with being okay with just talking about stuff here without constantly trying to turn it into a 'human interest piece', as my dad used to call them. It doesn't always have to have a beginning, middle and end, or even a point. This blog certainly isn't my professional site like Welcome to Bridgetown or Walk in Silence are, but then again, they don't always need to be Writing Life articles or Music News and Reviews. What am I trying to prove with them, anyway? Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to imitate the writing magazines and the music blogs I read, and that's fine, but it's not always me, if you know what I mean.

Anyway. I'd like to post here more as well. It's always been my personal site, and it's going to remain that way, and that's fine. Talk about my music and writing obsessions, things going on in the hood, day jobbery, and whatnot. Just thinking about making it a bit more frequent is all.

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Should I post here more often?

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 20:57:57 GMT

I've been posting here mostly on Sundays for years now, mainly to keep this site alive and somewhat active. In the past it was mainly because I had little time for it, balancing it between the Former Day Job, novel writing and the WP blogs, but now that I have time and a lot more headspace for it, I'm thinking maybe I should come here more often. Because why the heck not, yeah? I'm sure I'll have stuff to share!

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Weekend Update, In Which I Make More Best Laid Plans

Sun, 13 Jun 2021 22:42:09 GMT

...and as you know, by "Best Laid Plans" I mean "I have a fantastic idea that I'm going to implement immediately *crash* *implode*" plans, especially when I jinx them by talking about them online before I've even put them into action.

ANYWAY! I had a nice talk with a creative friend the other day that had me thinking: The Daily Schedule has been working wonderfully since I implemented it a month or so ago. I don't follow it to the letter, but nor do I completely ignore it unless I have a good reason (such as being on vacation or on an outside errand or New Music Release Friday) (heh). In fact, I've noticed I've been starting a few of the items earlier than scheduled lately because I've wanted to do them right away. For example, writing in my personal journal has been at 9:30 am for ages but I've been hitting it closer to 8:30 am because I just want to get the creative day started. Conversely, I find that if I start my morning writing session at the scheduled 10:30am, it feels too l late and I've wasted enough time already.

Point being, it's been going so well that a) I should update the Daily Schedule, and b) I think I can ramp it up a little more.

This means reimplementing the whiteboard calendar schedule. That for the most part has been kind of quiet on purpose as I had myself get used to focusing mostly on the Daily Assignments (so to speak). In other words, I'd focused one day at a time to get used to the micro part of my productivity, and now that I've got that down, I can return to adding focus to the macro part of it as well.

The whole reason for all this isn't necessarily to Do All the Things, even though it seems that way. The primary reason is to Get Better At It. I've gotten so much better at my writing over the last ten years and I'm quite proud of that, but I still want to get better at the music and the art, especially in certain facets of it where I can use it for Career Purposes. Better short stories so I can submit them to magazines and anthologies. Better photography so I can upload pictures to Shutterstock. Better artwork so I can create a portfolio for storyboarding work. Better music so I can write better songs to share.

What's so different this time out, though? Didn't I go through this multiple times in the past? Well, I think this time out it's because I think I've managed to purge the admittedly toxic mindset ingrained in the past me that I Must Be The Best At It. Somewhere along the line I picked up a bad habit that I had to go further, go bolder and louder in order to be bankable. You can kind of see it in the Bridgetown Trilogy, in which it's such a BIG STORY that keeps expanding and getting bigger as the story goes on. (The released versions have been tamed back considerably from the rough drafts, but you can still see it in places.)

Right now I'm thinking, you know, maybe I don't have to crunch everything I do? All I really need to do is write a good story, a publishable one, I don't have to break my back and brain and pour 1000% into it every single day thinking I have to win a marathon every single time. I can have fun with it too! And more importantly, focusing on the same task for six or seven hours at a stretch is actually quite exhausting, especially a creative task. So working on multiple projects -- the photography, the music, one scene each on multiple works in progress, a for-fun 750Words entry purely for working out ideas or playing out new ones, an occasional poem, and keeping up with submissions and freelance work -- doing all that over the course of eight or so hours isn't so bad. Some of it's fun, some of it's deep-focus, but doing that over the course of one day is something I can do (and have done before).

Also, let's lay this out now: I need to be busy so I'm not fucking around online wasting time. Not that I'm spending my entire day ragetweeting or watching cat videos or whatever, just that I'm still feeling the occasional level of distraction that I can do away with. I don't need to disconnect the internet, nor do I want to; I just need something else to occupy my brain when things slow down, otherwise I get physically and mentally lazy. I'm pretty sure part of that is an undiagnosed-ADD thing, and assigning myself things in this manner is the perfect workaround. It's worked in the past, so I know it'll work now.

So are you going to see more DW posts than just on Sundays? Maybe? Perhaps not right away as I get used to a heavier load, but who knows. You may even see a return of the twice-a-week blog posts over at Welcome to Bridgetown and Walk in Silence!

And now that I've posted all this, I'm waiting for it all to implode on schedule. Heh.

In the meantime, hope everyone has a great week! :)

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Weekendery

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 22:44:32 GMT

Geh. I've been thinking again about whether or not I want to keep doing the two blogs. I just haven't felt the drive or inspiration to write them lately. It's weird, because it's not as if I *hate* doing them, or that no one reads them (I know I'm on at least a couple dozen personal reading pages, even if no one ever comments). Occasionally it feels like an assignment, but that's my own fault for falling prey to those thoughts to begin with. It's not as if I'm really running out of ideas, either. Sure, sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself, but a lot of blogs are like that. I need to remember that I'm doing this for the fun of it, not because Every Post Needs to Be Unique. I do my writing blog because I like sharing what I've learned in the field with other writers. I do my music blog because I'm just a big ol' obsessive music nerd.

Well. I think what I just need to do here is stop thinking so much about its worth and just DO it. Talk about whatever I want and feel like talking about, and stop worrying about it.

Meanwhile, it seems to be getting warmer here in the Bay Area, and I'm all for that. We very rarely get Uncomfortably Hot here, and instead get glorious days in the upper 50s and mid 60s. Occasionally a warm day in the 70s! This means more reason to get outside for a walk at the end of the day and on the weekends! Can't complain about that. It was such a lovely day yesterday we went to the Botanical Garden, and apparently that was everyone else's idea too, as it was filled with couples relaxing and toddlers on the loose! Nice day, though, and it looks like it's going to be like that throughout the week. Woot!

in other local news, they finally opened the new supermarket up on 32nd and Clement. That was an Albertson's a looooong time ago before they went out of business a year before we moved to SF and was empty until 2017 when they split up the building and Fresh & Easy and CVS moved in. F&E went out of business a few years ago, but just this week Andronico's moved in. (They're a sort of upscale Safeway...slightly fancier selection and a little more expensive.) A and I walked up there this morning just to check it out and duly left with many bags of stuff. We'll most likely still stick with Trader Joe's for our grocery shopping but it's good to know we have that extra selection again!

Anyway...it's been a typical Sunday. Errands, brunch, laundry, email and PC cleaning. Yeehaw!

Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

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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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A fresh start...?

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 22:55:20 GMT

With the few people I've started following over the last day, I'm noticing a bit of a theme...a few have mentioned that this latest transference from LJ has rekindled thoughts of posting more often than they used to. It made me think about it as well.

To be honest, my Weekend Update posts over at LJ were fun but mindless filler. It's like I was posting there out of a sense of duty, even as my readership there dwindled. I did the bare minimum required though, a short What I Did This Weekend (or alternately, What Is Jon Writing This Time?).

A fresh start does sound like a good idea.

I've been thinking about trying to find a different speed to write at. What I mean by that: I've never found trying to stay on top of the latest trending topics all that enjoyable. It half feels like I'm jumping on a bandwagon, whether I'm prepared for it or not. The other half feels like I'm doing it more to stay caught up than I am riding the flow. I get entangled in the maelstrom of whatever indignation or Latest Hip Thing is going on.

Most of you have already heard me talk about this in previous blog posts.

My WordPress blogs have helped me detach myself from that, as has my personal offline journaling. I find my own pace, my own topics. I'm writing about what I'm thinking about, what I'm not reacting to. So perhaps this newly-minted account here might provide me with a similar avenue.

So what would I post about? Well -- good question. All sorts of things, really. This is my personal blog, separate from my writing blog or my music blog. I'd talk about what goes on in my personal life. Possibly where I'll post my photography (when I'm not uploading it to my Instagram feed). Whatever happens to be on my mind, at my own speed.

Let's see where this goes.

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