I recently had a chance to read <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Schism-Collection-Stories-Lincoln-Cole-ebook/dp/B00AUADNQI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453066928&sr=8-1&keywords=B00AUADNQI">Schism-A Collection of Short Stories by Lincoln Cole</A> so I'm posting me review since this blog is not just about me and my writings.
This collection of short stories is a short read, but well written. The stories are varied and fleshed out. I'm not very good at writing short stories, so I respect people who can. Everything in the stories are described well enough that I had a mini movie playing in my head while I was reading. Three stories that stood out to me the most in this collection are "Help Line", "Life or Death", and one about a hero. "Help Line" had me rolling with laughter as I'm the resident family tech geek and while not one of my family members, I could see someone calling in and having this conversation. I could also imagine in my head, this is not really a help line, but the government talking to you and recording and waiting to arrest you. "Life and Death" is about the end of the world. It's very sad and bleak. With this one, I wish the author would take the story and write a longer novel or novella. Reading it made me sad and I could picture the two officers having the conversation, but I was also left wondering what lead up to this? What happened after the list is released? I think it would make a excellent longer novel. The story about the hero, which I'm sorry, I do not have the name on that story, has a huge twist, which I'm not going to reveal. It's hard to surprise me when I'm reading or watching a movie, and this surprised me in a short story, no less. It's essentially about two men, one who saves people from a train bomb and one who witnesses him doing it and finds his wallet. The authors Amazon page states these are his earlier writings and his style has changed since then. I have his other works downloaded and look forwards to reading it soon
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My first novel, Midnight's Sonata is now live on Amazon in both print and Ebook. If you had told me it would take this long to get it published when I finished it when I was sixteen, I would have laughed, but it's really a totally different novel now, as I changed so much. I'm obviously not fourteen-sixteen anymore and don't think that way anymore, though I did have to channel it for the first half of the novel when I was writing the sixteen year old narrator. I had to go to a few dark places even when I switched narrators to her mother. I finished and edited in a whirlwind of 4AM nights when there was a word shortage and edited it again before I uploaded everything. It's a hefty 508 pages in print and I've been told I could have gotten 4 novels out of that, but for the most part, I haven't really picked up reading serials. Most of the series I read and enjoy are all at least that long or slightly shorter for each installment. I remember a few years ago, when the last Wheel of Time novel came out. My husband was so excited as he essentially grew up with these characters and now it was ending. He asked me to read it and if you tell me a book is good, I will generally read it. I've also been bored and read books because I've been told they are bad. That's why I read the Twilight series. I haven't gotten to that point with 50 shades, but did break down and watch the movie two days ago. I was maybe 20 pages away from finishing the 6th book. My husband would answer questions, but refused to give me any spoilers. I used to leave the kindle on the nightstand before turning the lights off and going to bed. Right around this time, the pit bull came into our lives. She slept in a crate till she was potty trained, and now that she is, she sleeps in bed next to me. The night I was 20 pages away from finishing the 6th book, the pit bull apparently couldn't sleep and decided the kindle might taste good and took a huge bite out of it and cracked the screen, making it unusable. I had to order a new kindle, wait for it to come in the mail, get my books back on the kindle and try to find my place again. My husband refused to spoil the end for me and pretty much teased me horribly about my nerd reader predicament. I got him back though because when he asked me to read that, he wanted to know what I was reading, and I just got done reading the last Shadow hunter book and refused to answer any of his questions. I will acknowledge that the both of us are huge geeks. There was not much work loaded last week, so last week was a whirlwind of 4am nights writing, then finishing, then editing. I'm totally done with Midnight's Sonata and have everything uploaded and a proof on the way. They didn't give me a tracking number and my postman doesn't always knock, so I supposed this week will be spent putting pants on, which I hate, and checking the mail in a paranoid frenzy.
When I finally got everything uploaded and approved, I finally fell into bed around 5am with my kindle and a celebratory ice cream bar. This proved too much for my pit bull. Normally, I have a blocky head on the side of the bed demanding pets, but this time, she went too far and tried to steal my ice cream in the short time it took for me to unwrap it and move it to my mouth. It was covered in chocolate and my vet isn't open at 5am for paranoid phone calls like the time I was late for a birthday party because she hoovered a banana peel before I could get it out her mouth. While I'm waiting, there was another novel I worked on if I was ever stuck on Midnight's Sonata and it's about 75 pages so far. I'm writing on that now while I wait for my proof. I've gotten some much needed sleep, finally shaved my legs, and watched a lot of cartoons. My dogs get into all sorts of mischief, so while I was writing last night, I had to get up and turn the radio off that my little dog had turned off. He can't jump on the bed, so he jumps on the nightstand and slides across. Sometimes he knocks my alarm clock behind the bed. Sometimes he sets my alarm clock at random times, which really, explaining to your manager that you were late because your dog messed with your alarm clock is like eaten homework. Sometimes he turns the radio on full blast and wakes me up. I bought doggy stairs off Groupon because I think I'm giving him self esteem issues every time I point and laugh when he tries to jump and misses, but they came in and there are no instructions and none of the screws and screw holes make any type of logical sense so they aren't put together. Hopefully, I'll be able to update with links to purchase and post a sample chapter, but for now, I'm just back to writing. I have sleep problems, so before bed, I unwind by reading a paper white kindle till I get sleepy.
This is how reading goes down in my bedroom. I'm relaxed and under the covers when a blocky, fawn head pops up on the side of the bed and I have two green eyes staring at me. If I make eye contact and do not scratch the head, she starts verbally grumping at me. If I continue to make eye contact and do not make with the head scratching, it progresses to howling and crying. If I ignore the two green eyes staring at me, in about five minutes, there is a 32lb pit bull lying next to me licking my face and one paw is over my kindle screen so I can't read. I can say stop and she will quit with the kisses. I can move the paw off the kindle screen, but I'd better make with the back scratches if I have any hope of getting through the chapter I'm on. If I stop scratching the back to turn the page, the paw goes back over the screen. They don't advertise when they are trying to pass pit bull bans that they are manipulative cry babies that don't let you read unless you are giving them pets at the same time I'm at the point in my novel where the ending can go either way. I have to make a decision. I've put off writing for three days because I don't want to make it. I've also spent the past 3 days dyeing my hair per the previous post. My amazon dye came in, but I didn't want it to do nothing, so I bleached my hair with some left over bleach, and I'm not sure if it came out blush, bashful, or pink and pink. It was very Steel Magnolias in my house. The next day, I put the Amazon dye on and while I was shooting for a light copper, it came out nuclear orange and there wasn't enough dye for the amount of hair I have so there were bleachy pink sections. I had to hunt and gather like that (push a buggy at target) and obtain food and more hair dye. Some kid and target loved the nuclear orange and said I should werk it.
I'm up two hours late last night watching cartoons and I finally make the decision about ten minutes before I absolutely need to be getting in bed. I get as much writing done as possible and go hop in bed and read. Of course, I cannot concentrate on what I'm reading and hardly got any sleep at all. Add to the fact when I did start getting sleepy and thought I would be able to sleep, my small neurotic dog decided it would be a good idea to explore under the bed. I've been up and rearing to write for a while, but I'm waiting for work so I can get some hours in before I start writing. I've decided on the ending and it's going to change the beginning. Such is life. I needed to edit anyway I've had Christmas with my family and am now home. Champagne bottle uncorked and I thought someone was shooting? Check. Anti Government conspiracy theories? Check. Obama is coming to take our gun? Check.
We opened presents youngest to oldest and the entire family seemed to forget I am older than both my brother and my brother in law. Probably because they are both married with kids and my hair is bright red and my parents bought Christmas gifts for my cats. My sister in law also inquired as to the original color of my hair and everyone laughed because no one knows, including me. I've also dropped an unexplained thirty pounds my medical team can't seem to explain, so my entire family got me diabetes for Christmas in the form of chocolate everything, which I am not complaining about because I was hungry about an hour after I got home and chocolate is delicious I was chatting with my dad and he just started a new job and told me with his first paycheck, he intends to buy a new laptop. I know what is wrong with their current laptop. It's full of viruses and malware. It just needs to be cleaned, which I can do. I asked him to hold off on the new laptop and let me take it home and work on it and it will be another Christmas present from me I've been at home piddling on their laptop and I'm having a hard time not calling my mother and screaming at her like Gordon Ramsey "You put so much malware on here, you made Bill Gates cry." It's getting fixed and I sent my dad a text selling him the virtues of Windows 8 or 10, where my mum and nephew can get things from the windows store instead of installing things from all over the wide web. I know when I got my laptop, ,he was pretty anti Windows 8. So after this virus scanner gets done running and I get more potential malware uninstalled, I'm putting Windows 8 on here because it's an older laptop and I don't think it can handle 10. Tomorrow, I will be teaching my mother how to use Windows 8 and hopefully filling up on left overs My normal day involves waking up, feeding everyone, working, then writing. The girl cats have decided they will no longer dine with the boy cats and demand their food be brought up to be. I do this because one girl cat is tiny and the other is thin and they can't afford losing weight.
I work at home and my hours depend on the availability of work. Lately, there has been a shortage. I did, up until a few months ago, go to an office for work. I'm trying to find another office job in my field. While I was at my previous office job, they did not really care about tattoos, piercings, etc, as long as you could do your job properly and not walk off the floor. It's a high stress job. So I dyed my hair fire engine red and all was fabulous. Then I got laid off. I had a job interview with a new company and I did not know the culture there and I didn't want to bleach my hair again, so I dyed burgundy over it. I did not get the job. After looking at the burgundy for a few weeks, I now hate it and it makes me look like Satan or at least, an evil overlord. Maybe I didn't get the job not because they didn't like my answers to the bizarre questions they asked me, but because they thought I would start collecting souls? I had two boxes of a color that my hair was for the majority of college that does not make me look like I want you to eat that apple, but it didn't take. I was at the grocery store and found a color I like, but they only had one box and it takes two boxes to do my hair. So I just grabbed the next color and dyed it. Now my bathroom looks my evening activities are along the lines of the television show Dexter and I still look like I tempt people in exchange for their immortal souls. I got on amazon and attempted to find the color I'm looking for. Which I did, but it's an add on item. So I ordered two boxes to do my hair and another box to do my roots just in case this actually works. I'm not quite sure why my hair has decided to rebel against me. My hair has been almost every color and there's been some bizarre colors that were easier to get out than burgundy. So since there's no work for me right now, I'm going to go dye my hair and sit here with a target bag on my head and hit refresh and see if work reloads while I'm being held hostage waiting for work. I may finish my novel this week. I'm really close. I made the difficult decision and I'm sticking with it. If I finish and decide I can't live with it, at least my hair color may be right I'm so conflicted on what I want to do with this character. I'm almost finished with this novel and I have to make a decision soon.
I created this character when I was fourteen. I finished the novel at seventeen. I began rewriting and changing the story at eighteen. While decades may have passed without me writing about these characters because I was either in school, getting married, or I decided I wanted to focus on another art form, I still thought about them. Every night, when I would get in bed, I would think about what rewrites I would do. The character has totally evolved from when I was fourteen and I think more realistic now. The character has gone from close to my age when I started writing the novel, and now that I'm almost finished, she's younger, but closer to the age I am now. She really kind of grew up with me. I know what her fate is in my first draft. I'm conflicted on if it's going to be the same in the final draft. I like to torture my characters. This character has been through a lot. There have been a lot of bad times and now some good times. There are two different parts and narrators in this novel. The first part of the novel is told from the view point of a journal by the character I'm conflicted on. Then it switches to the view point of her mother and we don't get to see what goes on in her head while she has to deal with all the issues I throw at her, we see how much it hurts her mother. I don't plan on switching back to the view point of my original narrator because it doesn't make sense. I'm now conflicted on this characters fate. Is it a good one or a not so happy ending? After everything I've put both of my narrators through, does it all work out for them? Does it all come crashing down on their heads? After living with this character for decades now, this decision is really in my hands and I'm going to have to make it soon and I am totally dreading it
After getting several nasty viruses, including one that shut my computer down 5 minutes upon booting to blue screen of death with a phone number to call that most likely wanted my credit card number (I kicked that virus in the ass), the password cracker I was running was having no luck cracking my password on this found novel after several days. And of course, my cats like to shut the laptop down while I'm sleeping, so sometimes I need to start over.
Basically, if you forget the password on a work doc, you need to bork the formatting on the doc file, try to open it in word with the repair and open option, and you will find the password. And I found it and have no idea why I set it as the password back in 2000. Perhaps I intended on using it as a characters name? I don't try to understand how my mind works. When I set my mind that I'm going to do something, I get super frustrated until I get it done. Hence all the viruses. But I got it done and can now edit this novel when I get around to it. The kicker is that I nearly killed my laptop with viruses to crack this password and apparently I had only written one paragraph back in 2000, set a password, and forgot about it. I remember the plot and where I'm going with it, but there are 2 novels I'm working on that I could have spent a few nights working on instead of obsessing about this file. I was going through my documents. I have separate folders for things I'm writing and musical compositions. I still have some of my college papers, including one I am proud of about the importance of dogs in Northern Dutch Renaissance painting before the existence of social media and Facebook profiles for pets.
I noticed a word document that I remembered was a novel I started 15 years ago, but had no idea what it actually was. I used to share my computer with very nosy people, so I used to password protect my novels. I remembered all of them and now that I'm the only one on my computer, I removed the password. Thing is, I have no idea what this novel is or what it's about. I have 2 sleep disorders and also have lucid dreaming. It's annoying when I dream about something that could actually happen and spend the day wondering if it really did. But sometimes the dreams work out that I can write them down and expand on them for fiction. Like the one I'm almost finished with was a dream I had when I was half asleep and half awake trying to wake up from tonsil surgery at 14. I wanted to know what was in this document and if I was interested in picking it up again, as I am almost finished with one novel and have written an additional fifty pages on a second when I took a break from the main one I'm writing. Several Google searches later, Microsoft has no way to retrieve a password on an office document, but there are password crackers that exist. I tried one and I know this password is basic because it's just a word doc and it's probably just a character from the novel that I no longer remember. The few I tried could not locate it. I found one that was able to remove the password and show me the first paragraph, but to actually get the full file, I would have to pay for a program and have it uploaded to a server, which I did not want to do. So I think I now know what this novel is actually about and I would like to continue working on it, but I actually have to be able to access it first So I wound up downloading a big gun, that has been running about eight hours by now and has not cracked the pass word. What it did do, however, was give my PC a few viruses, some malware, and bork chrome enough that I had to uninstall it and reinstall because developer mode was not showing any hidden extensions I know are there. Luckily, I have a mother and a grandmother who are experts at infecting their machines with viruses and a family members suggestion to that is to format the hard drive and start over, so I've managed to get really good at removing that kind of thing. I'm going to let this password cracker do it's business while I go to bed and hopefully, I will have a password when I wake up in the morning. I know it's a name, I just have no idea whose. It's been a pretty frustrating day on the work from home front, so I decided to build a website. It was also a frustrating night writing wise. I foster special needs cats, mostly with biting issues. The current resident foster does not have biting issues, but I think if he had opposable thumbs, he would actually attempt to write for me. He's disrupted my electronics enough times.
Last night, I was attempting to write, and word was telling me everything was spelled wrong and my keyboard was not cooperating. After fiddling with my computer, it was determined that he had changed the language on my computer from English, to Spanish. He's plotting world domination next. He's looking for his forever home and would love to play with your electronics too. I did have a wonderful opportunity a few nights ago on Facebook. Someone asked for feedback on something they had just started writing, so I put down everything and we just chatted over messenger for about an hour after she sent me what she had done so far. I've assisted taught and solo taught dance and I miss teaching. I do not miss being out numbered in a room full of four year olds in tap shoes, but I miss teaching adults. |
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