I have no title for this week (Patreon)

The driving for the week went well. I know I went to Laredo, did a couple of deliveries for them, and then did my pickup. They had it scheduled for Friday morning, but I told them it wasn't goign to happen. When they asked for an ETA I said 3pm. Now I said that while being under the impression the trailer was already loaded and in the yard. Then they said I had to go do the pickup, but it would be quick.

the loading took 2 hours. So I returned while they figured out if the customer would take me on Saturday, because I called them while still at eh customer to let them know Friday wasn't going to happen at all. It turned out the customer would only take me on Monday, but that worked out since it let me take my reset.

I did drive through a small snow storm on Saturday morning. which shows my weather gut isn't working since I was sure the east coast was done with heavy snow until fall.

This morning I rewatched Star Wars, The Force Awaken. I gave my review for it in December, when it came out, so this time around I'm going to talk about one plot point in the movie that bugs me a fair bit.

The map.

In this movie, the McGuffin is the data thing with a map to where Skywalker is hiding that BB-8 is carrying and that everyone wants. When our heroes finally get BB-8 to show the map to them, we find out that it’s a partial map, a cut out from a larger one, and that they have to take it to the resistance because they’ll know what to do with it. Only, when we get there, they look at it and go. Well, it’s incomplete, there’s nothing we can do without the rest.

And that’s where I have a problem.

Today, we can map the sky and plot the position of each star we see, and a lot that we can’t see with the naked eye. We have the computer power to take that information and make 3D maps of the sky. The resistance (sorry, the writers) want me to believe that with their science that is so much more advanced than us, and access to multiple PoV since there are a lot more planets to take the readings from, they don’t have a map of their galaxy? (because where R2D2 does pull out the map it is of a galaxy, not multiple ones.)

That’s what I can’t buy. And then they want us to believe that R2 just happens to have the right map with the right cut out portion of it? Let’s not talk about the convenience of R2 waking up just as he’s needed to provide the right map with a perfect cutout for the missing piece.

Look, I get the writers had to make sure the lowest common denominator would get it, but please, I can’t be the only one who felt that was spoon feeding the audience to a point we were gagging.

And it’s such an easy fix to keep the movie going once they map reaches the resistance. (really, can’t we say the rebellion?) You have them go, okay, that’s a really small part of the map, we don’t even know in which direction it fits, so we’re going to have to run it through a lot of permutations until we can find points of correlation (okay, that word might be too big for the common audience member). And the map is so big that only the computer on this base can process it, and darn, don’t you know it, we’re about to get destroyed, so if we want to have any chances of finding Luke, we need to blow up that base before it blows us up.

Voila, the doomsday clock is still going, and we don’t need the Deus Ex Machina of R2D2 showing up in the movie at all. (I don’t dislike him, I just hate having a character in a movie for no valid reasons. Yes I’m looking at you too C3P0.)

Well, that’s my thought on that.

On to the writing.

The week, I’ve been plagued by some low level dread. I finished The second draft of The Society on Monday, and as I said I’d do I set to work on Crimson… Only to discover that nothing would come. I spend that evening going through what I had and trying to writing something, anything. Barely a dozen words came, and I didn’t like them, at all.

The next day, instead of spending another day not producing I started on Book 2 of The Society, but while I drove I couldn’t shake this feeling that maybe I can’t do this. If I can’t produce needed sequels, because I need to write Crimson before I can move on to book 3, 4, and 5 of the Tristan series, maybe I just can’t to this writing thing professionally. Maybe I’m asking too much of myself and I should just close my Patreon up and stick to driving a truck and writing stuff just when the inspiration strikes.

Okay, I am not going to do that. I mean, I know why I have that problem, and it goes all the way back to school. I was a bright student, I mean really bright. I was regularly a few exercise book ahead of the others. I barely listened to what the teacher said and still got really good grades, but what I didn’t get because of that, is a study method, and consequently I never learned to apply myself to a task and work through it. This became apparent as the years passed.

My scored slowly crept down. Never to a point where I was worried, although my mom had a few moment of ‘what are you doing in school, you’re much better than that. To be honest a few of my teachers felt the same, but I was a teenager. I really couldn’t care. These were passing grades, what did it matter if it was a bit on the low side, I was passing. Even Math, which I loved back then was taking a hit.

College was when it became obvious I had a problem, but by then I was fed up with the school system, probably a mix of never understanding what was being thought because I couldn’t study it on my own and the fact that back then the mentality in that school system was the education was about brainwashing, not teaching. I don’t brainwash, if you doubt me, I can give you the name of a boyfriend who tried to do it and got laughed in his face.

And that brings me to now, and while it might not be too late for me to learn how to force myself to do the work, It’s going to be a whole lot of work, and I have no idea how to go about doing that.

So in the meantime I’ll work on the stories I actually know where they’re going.

So, as I said, I finished the second draft of The society

Part 11

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vQ-LxGi-e4MWJwaFlSZ1BlYUk

And for those who want to read it all in one file, the entire story is here

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vQ-LxGi-e4Y3p1T2tlQ0FoZ1k

I also worked on Book 2 of The society, where Denton needs to adjust to no longer being a cop, as well as some of the responsibility that come with being the only member of his family line. And I’ll see about throwing a mystery in there. And I need to find a title, the best one that was brought up when one of my Alpha reader and I brainstormed was ‘a dark secret’ but I don’t quite like it. There is a secret, but I’m not comfortable with the dark aspect such a title would bring up

Part 1

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vQ-LxGi-e4NjZPOHEyamRBaGc

I finished part 4 of Dietrich’s Loss. And it’s the final part of the story (I hope). I’m fully aware that taken as a whole, it doesn’t quite work. That’s because part 1 was written on its own, part 2 and 3 as their own unit and part 4 as a separate thing again. If I ever do a rewrite I’ll have to make sure all of that melds better.

Part 4

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vQ-LxGi-e4aGk5c1RZdnBUN2M

and for those who want to read it as one file, it is here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vQ-LxGi-e4ZFZpR0RNdWYtcW8

On the editing side, still no news from the artist for the cover of Wasteful Death. It’s a good thing the book got delayed for other reasons.

And that’s it for this week. See you next week. (and I remembered to write this in a word processor first, so no losing the text before it’s posted)