A Time For Everything

As of Wednesday night, they made it to the Eastern Conference Final-- There's a Western Conference Final too, and the winners of each play each other for penultimate hockey award: the Stanley Cup.


So this last series the Pens played against the Washington Capitals was a tough one and it took all seven games to result in a winner. (All playoff rounds are best of seven.)

During the regular season, I watched only Stars games. They didn't do so great and every game was a nail biter, hoping one of two things would occur: they could hold onto the lead they had or they could rally enough in the time left in the game and win it.

Since the Stars didn't make it to the playoffs and my second and third favorite teams did, I've continued to watch hockey. In the first round, said second and third favorite teams played one another, so it didn't matter much who won. I did have a preference, but it wasn't that big of a deal. Watching the games wasn't stressful. It was just fun to watch.

Once the Pens won that series and took on the Washington Capitals...well...it was a whole new ball game and every minute of play seemed to take three times as long. The last half of every third period felt like half an hour instead of ten minutes. This time for similar reasons to Stars games.

These two teams are long-time rivals. Last year, the Pens beat the Caps in the second round in six games. This year, the Capitals wanted redemption, the Penguins want a repeat.

I know that one minute takes sixty seconds, one hour takes sixty minutes and so one, no matter what's going on in life or on TV. It's just interesting how it seems to bend depending on what's going on...

Time expands when (maybe) you're watching an important game of some random sport. Alternately, time contacts when you're spending time with a cherished guest or family member. Like when Sonshine comes home on leave. His ten days go by in a flash.

Is there a point to this post? Maybe to cherish every moment, because you can't get back time.

Have a great weekend.

As mentioned on Monday, I went to Nashville last week. In addition to MIKE ROWE, I heard a guy named Larry Winget speak. He's marketed himself as "the pitbull of personal development" and "the world's only irritational speaker." He was funny and personable, but most importantly he was real and realistic. (Much like Mike Rowe...)

In fact, he poked a little of fun at some of those other inspirational messages. He points out that some of them don't even make any sense. For example...

1) You can be successful if you give 110%.

-->Larry says you can only give 100%. That's all there is.

2) If you can think it, if you can say it, you can achieve it.

-->Larry says he'd be Halle Berry, if that really worked.

3) You can be anything you want to be.

-->Larry says short, overweight people will never be runway models or ballerinas. Just. Ain't. Happening.

And so on.

What he does say is that honesty, integrity, and just plain old hard work will get you so much farther than just believing in feel-good claptrap. (That's my paraphrasing, he didn't put it quite that way.)

Everyone wants to believe they can get something for nothing. Everyone tries to get more for less. Even me. Probably even you.

But if you want to be successful at whatever you're trying to do, you have do it right/be good at it, be nice, and keep your word. Easy to say, easy to aspire to. Not always easy to pull off. C'mon, let's face it, we're all human.

And even though he was speaking to a roomful of IT guys, his point was applicable to everyone. Even me as an author.

Now I can't be as good a writer as Shakespeare or Hemingway. Patterson or Brown. ROWLING. Roberts or Steele. But I can strive to be the best writer I can be.

There's always something to learn and I'm still trying to get a grasp on plot. Some plots come easy, some don't, so for the foreseeable future, I've got to figure out how to consistently cobble out a decent plot.

So...the point of this post? I don't even know, other than if you get a chance to listen to Larry (check YouTube maybe?), you should.

And try to be a better, nicer person. Me, I mean. I need to work on that.

Hope you're having a great week!!

I traveled to MUSIC CITY last week-aka Nashville, Tennessee-with DH. Which was why there was no post on Friday.

And the reason I went to Nashville was to see... MIKE ROWE!! You may be familiar with him strictly by name or you may know him by his voice. He's been narrating Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" for twelve years now. He's also been host of "Dirty Jobs" and "Somebody's Gotta Do It."

So not only did I get to see and hear Mike Rowe in person, I got to hear Mike Rowe sing opera, and I got to take my picture with him!! Sadly there were a lot of people and limited time and I didn't actually get to chat with him during the picture session except to say "Thank You" for so much more than his talk earlier in the day.

I'll share pictures and opera and some of the meat and potatoes of what he said later...for now, have some random pictures of my visit.


About 2.5 hours into the drive, my car asked me if I wanted to take a rest. I really did, but kept driving for another hour before stopping for gas. :)

This is obviously the AT&T Building...I however call it the Batman Building. It made me laugh during my first trip to Nashville in 2013, and it made me laugh again.

Being the hockey nerd I've become, I wanted to see the Nashville Predators' arena up close and personal, so a trip to the fan shop was in order.

While Bridgestone Arena was just up the street from the hotel where DH's conference (and Mike Rowe) was being held, The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is attached at the backside to the hotel. And actually, the photo was taken from right outside the fan shop!

I didn't go through the museum this time, though I did the last time. I ducked into the gift shop to buy a little something for DD. Here are my pictures from the last time, if you're so inclined.

And last but not least, the Mississippi River as we crossed over on the way home, leaving Tennessee and entering Arkansas.


More from Nashville coming Wednesday and Friday and possibly even next Monday.

Have a great week.

Or, rather, the sound of instruments.

Often, I have to listen to plug in my earbuds and listen to something when I go to bed because, either, I'm too awake to fall asleep and I really need to, or my brain won't stop even though I'm super tired.

On occasion, I listen to Benedict Cumberbatch narrating an audio book, because he's got a great voice.

Mostly, though, I listen to the soundtrack to the seventh Harry Potter movie. Even after the dozens of times I've listened to the first handful of songs (I'm usually asleep after three to five of them, so...they serve the purpose), I still listen carefully and try to identify which instrument creates which sounds and effects. Some are easy. Some not so much.

Several years ago, the Led Zepplin song "All Of My Love" came across my radar via the radio station I was listening to at the time and there's a musical interlude somewhere in the middle. I would have bet money that trumpets (or some sort of brass instrument) played a big part in it.


Except, when I had Sonshine listen to the song, he claimed it was a pipe organ. Which--huh-- During subsequent listens, I could hear how, yes, it could be a pipe organ. But, then again, it still sounds like trumpets to me.

Anyone else, play that sort of game with music?

Last Friday I mentioned I was having issues making progress on my book. Churning out books is still new to me even though this is the six one of the series. Books three and five were already written, so they just needed some adjustments. Major adjustments to be sure, but I wasn't coming up with everything from scratch.

Now's the time when things are going to get hairy...having to write books from the ground up, if you will. Having to plot and pull the story together start to finish in a designated amount of time.

On Friday, I put out a call to my chapter mates for some brainstorming help, and one dear soul offered to help me talk through some of my issues. Was I ready to write once we'd signed off? I said 'yes' but was thinking 'no.' I had a few 'a ha' moments while we were chatting, so that was definitely good, but I still didn't feel ready to dive back in.

Did I have a choice? Not really. I didn't get to write at all Friday because the day ended up getting chewed up by a lot of other things I needed to get to done.

So Saturday morning I got out of bed and plopped myself in front of the laptop. I started reading from chapter one, armed with the new info I had and the decisions I'd made about one of the characters. By the end of the day, I'd added just over a thousand words to chapters one, two, and part of three. My daily goal is nine hundred words, so I achieved that, and my first two chapters are stronger and better than they were before.

Sunday morning I skimmed chapter two to get back into the character head space and moved on to make headway / finish chapter three. Did I succeed? Not as well as I'd hoped, but progress was made.

Sometimes having to stop for the day is bad for the momentum. You're in a character's head. You know where he or she is coming from. You're on a roll, feeling good. But we authors can't always write all day every day. Also I refuse. I've mentioned being a slave to the process and I don't want to be that.

Right now, it takes me much longer than I like to get those 1K words everyday. I'm trying to polish my plotting skills because when I know what's going on with the characters and the plot, I can actually write pretty fast.

Anyway...the point of this post is that sometimes you just have to ram your way through. I've often had to just sit myself down and say: You have to do this. You don't have choice. You can do this.

And you know what? I do. It might not be great, but it's something. There's a saying in the writing world: You can't fix a blank page. So some days I just have to get words on the page and not worry about how crappy I think they are or the fact that it's all dialogue and I may not even know who's saying what.

But then, once they're on the page, I can add to them or change them. I have a starting point. I can enhance. I can add in the emotion. I can sort out who says what. I can make them say what I really want them to say.

So--that was my weekend. How was yours??