Weekly Wrap-Up: April 23

What Is This?

Every Friday, I document the happenings of the past seven days. The original (and still primary) intent is to track my progress in meeting my writing goals. Increasingly, I’ve been discussing more than just writing. For example, I’m a sports nut, so occasionally I’ll throw in a sports tidbit. I may talk about World of Warcraft, do-it-yourself projects, travel, food, or beer and wine. I think potpourri fits very well. *grins*

Writing

Weekly Word Count

My weekly goal is 2,000 words. I use an Excel spreadsheet to track all my work by category (blog post, copyediting work, creative writing) and item. So all I need to do is add up the “words” column and I’m good to go. Blog posts and creative writing count full credit. Copyediting for other writers is counted at ten percent of the starting word count for the document; style sheets for that copyediting will count twenty-five percent. Editing my own work, if and when I get to that point, will count fifty percent of the starting word count.

This week’s word count: 2,048.

• Blog post, “Weekly Wrap-Up: April 16″ – 641 words
• Blog post, “The Obsidian Throne” (TOT) – 969 words
• Background and notes for TOT – 488 words¹

Writing Exercise

I took part in the 50-word-edit exercise at Miss Snark’s First Victim. Obviously, I didn’t learn very well from the 25-word exercise last month. However, I realized when I woke up on Thursday that my entry wasn’t very good; in fact, I correctly and accurately predicted the tenor of the critiques. I tried to include way more information than is necessary for an opening “hook.” I’ve since rewritten that little bit (and will doubtless rewrite it again, once I actually start…you know…writing TOT. *snicker*

One thing I noted this time around: Generally, I thought the quality of the submissions was substantially below that of last month’s exercise. In fact, there were only two or three that really hooked me, and I have to admit, the best I saw out of the fifty submissions was Iris Harper’s. It had me totally hooked; the next best only had me “mostly hooked.” I think I may not have been the only person who was trying too hard. (To be fair, many of the submissions are in genres I don’t have any interest in; but still, I think I can recognize something that should grab a reader.)

At any rate, I’m definitely looking forward to the next opportunity to throw something up!

Potpourri

Home Office

Ekornes Stressless recliner, Senator model (sand and teak)

I abandoned the idea of building a new computer desk after doing some rearranging this week. *groan* First, I moved the computer desk portion of my desk to the left of the writing desk/hutch. That was relatively easy, as far as the moving furniture went. What took a lot more time was taking everything out of both desks, so I could move the large desk flush to the right wall. Then I put everything back. On Tuesday, my new chair arrived, which is what spurred the rearranging. I quickly realized that having my desk chair backing up into the new recliner was not going to work. So on Wednesday, I repeated Monday’s furniture move, only this time, I moved the computer desk flush right, and positioned the large desk and hutch to the immediate left.

This was almost a disaster: I tried to move the desk with hutch still mounted on top, and managed to pull off the right leg panel. Not completely (thank heaven!), but enough that it gave me quite a scare. Suffice to say, I will probably never move that desk again. I figured out how to single-handedly get the hutch down, then moved each piece independently. Even “magic sliders” weren’t a lot of help: That desk is damned heavy! The other mistake I made was not taking a couple Advil before bed Wednesday night. *groan again* Rectified that Thursday morning – almost instant relief from the aches and soreness.

One of the reasons I had intended to build a new desk is that the top of the iMac is a few inches above my eye level. This isn’t very ergonomic, and I find myself getting a stiff neck after extended computer sessions. So I was going to make the entire desktop at a height of about twenty-five inches (keyboard height). Instead, what I intend to do is remove the iMac’s sexy aluminum stand, and support the computer with some sort of jig (cooling vents are on the bottom, and it’s not balanced well enough to simply sit on the desk – especially when our cats tend to jump up on the desk). Conveniently, the chair came with three pieces of foam packaging that may serve extremely well to hold the computer, at least until I can create something better. Now all I need to do is clear enough space on one of the desks to be able to lay the computer face-down so I can remove the stand.

Signs I’m Growing Older

Growing older, but not up! We spent a couple hours on the phone with our youngest son Wednesday night, discussing the offer he was about to make on a one-bedroom condominium in Brooklyn. Our oldest son has been a home-owner since he left the Army and moved to Tampa with his wife and daughter about five years ago. Our middle son bought a house here in Rapid City shortly before his wedding. And now the youngest is about to become a “former renter.” His less-than-600-square-foot condo will cost more than both of the houses we’ve bought, combined. Ouch? Nevertheless, we’re glad to be able to help him out a bit with the down payment, and proud of him for taking this huge step in his life.

TTFN

Now that I have my office set up the way I really want it, I should be able to be more focused on “other stuff” – like this blog and my writing. We’ll see what the week brings!