On summer break.

Got two A's for my Literary Criticism and Seminar in Drama classes. *yeah!*

Had a great interview with Tracy Hickman (of Dragonlance fame) the other night. First half is transcribed and will be appearing in the July Penumbra issue. We cover Tracy's career as a game designer and media tie-in author. In the August issue, we'll continue the interview and talk about his original series (with Laura Hickman and Margaret Weis) as well as how he gives back to the writing community through his on-line webinar series and his award-winning podcasts. If you're a fan of Tracy's, I think you'll really enjoy the interview.

Aside: Takes a while to transcribe a one hour, forty minute interview. *le sigh*

More to follow soon.

Sorry I haven't been posting real regularly, but at least, I am posting.

Got my grades back on my mid-terms - 2 A's. *yea!*

Now the hard part starts - well, actually continues. I finished reading Dracula and am now going through the supplimental books I have picked up to get the pull-quotes I need for my paper. Next weekend, it's back to the Bowie State Library to start pulling stuff for my "Midsummer's Night's Dream" presentation and paper. We are supposed to do a 10-15 minute presentation in Class on May 7 and the final paper is due May 17. I'm figuring no more than 6 PowerPoint slides (That should be almost 15 on the nose, considering the first slide is the title slide and then the three-minutes-per-slide that a lecture should take.)

Read White Noise by Don DeLillo for the criticism class. It is an odd little novel - very surreal in its own way but not quite Dadaesque. We had a good discussion about it this week and were able to apply many of the "philosophers and schools of criticism" to the book. I guess some of the first half of the semester stuck with me.

Also, kicked around an idea for my upcoming thesis with Dr. K. More on this as it develops.

What I was really kicking on the past two weeks was the rewrite of Harbinger of Darkness. I wound up rewriting the first five chapters completely from the ground up. However, after that, I felt the back part of the book still hung together pretty well, so while there was some serious cut, move, rewrite, shift, redirect going on, I finished the rewrite three nights ago. Spent the last couple of days working on the query letter and now have the query letter out with some people for comment/critique.

(Personally, I'd rather write six papers for college than one query letter. Trying to condense a 100K story into three paragraphs and have it capture the essence of the story is not for the faint of heart. *sigh*)

So, that's where things stand now. Busy with school, hope to start shopping Harbinger off to agents by the start of summer (may give it one last review after finals . . . just to be sure) and then back to work on some short stories I'm hoping to pitch.

Oh yeah, and I still need to do the May submission for Terra Incognito for Penumbra.

OH, and speaking of that. I'm definitely looking forward to my July column. I'll be interviewing Tracy Hickman, of Dragonlance and the upcoming Wayne of Gotham novels, for my world-building column. We're going to delve into world builidng as well as the differences in world building for media tie-in and original fiction, among other topics.

I am SO stoked.

Midterms have come and "almost" gone. I say "almost" because we still have to do the essay section for my Literary Criticism class next week. We were supposed to do it last Tuesday, but another class was going to a film festival and their professor requested their attendance. So, Dr. K agreed to do the closed book portion (10 questions - short answer) and then release the class to do the open book essay section the week we come back from Spring Break.

We did have the midterm test for the Seminar in Drama class on Monday. I think I did pretty well. I wish I had known it was open book because it might have been nice to actually slip in some quotes (and page numbers) in my answers, but I think I hit all the important points on my essays. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Yes, even though it's technically still Winter, we start Spring Break tomorrow. Of course, there's a difference in Spring Break for undergrads and grad students. All Spring Break means to me is I don't have class for a week. That's just more time to work on the papers I have coming up at the end of the semester (as well as the reading I need to do for class. It's not quite as relaxing as I remember break being 20+ years ago when I was getting my degree in History.

But, luckily for me, both of my papers are going to be on topics I'm extremely excited about. For Literary Criticism, I'm doing a 10-page paper on Dracula and for Seminar in Drama, I'm doing a 17-25 page paper and a 20-minute in class presentation on A Midsummer's Night's Dream. Yep, you can do fantasy in Grad School -- it just has to be OLD fantasy. *grin*

Went to see John Carter today. I must disagree with the critics. I enjoyed the movie. No, it's not a blockbuster and no, there's no "great deeper meaning". It's just a very fun retelling of a 100-year-old novel. I enjoyed the heck out of the animation and watching Carter deal with Mars's lesser gravity was pretty funny (and probably pretty darn accurate as far as the falling and stuff). It's too bad that Disney had no clue how to promote this movie. If they lose money on it, it's their own fault, not the source material.

Just finished the first draft of The Mountain of Night. Going to give it a little time to percolate and then it's time to start the never-ending joy of editing. It came in around 10,300 words. By the time I get done trimming and stuff, I hope to get it down to 8,000. Like most of my first drafts, there's probably some flab and some repetition in there that can easily be extracted. But, I need some time away from it first.

I think I hear the children of night calling from my Nook, though. Time to get back to Victorian England and a certain Transylvanian count who's visiting.

Quick catch up note:

Studying for two mid-term tests (Monday - Seminar in Drama and Tuesday - Literary Criticism). Feel pretty comfortable about Monday's test. Not quite as comfortable about Tuesdays. Stuff has been coming at a high-rate of speed in Criticism. I'm OK with the possible essay questions, but the short answer questions could be tough. He's got a ton of possible terms to choose from and I'm just hoping I pick the right ones to really concentrate on.

Starting to work on my end-of-term papers. I have to do  a 17-25 page paper and an oral presentation for Drama at the end, with a specific focus on desire and/or jealousy. My topic is a Mid-summer's Night's Dream by William Shakespeare and I'm hoping I can focus on the interaction between Oberon, Titania and Bottom, but I'm preparing to discuss the entire play if required. Lord knows, there's enough characters in that one to fill a paper. *grin*

For Literary Criticism, I'm doing my paper on Dracula. I'm going to take a critique of Dracula based on one school of literary criticism (say, Neo-Marxist) and then deconstruct that critique using the focus of a different school of theory (say feminist, or New Historians). This way I can show I understand multiple schools as well as understanding the book itself.  Waiting to hear back on the instructor's approval of my topic, but I already have 17 books in my possession or coming in on inter-library loan for this topic.  (Yeah, once an over-achiever, always an over-achiever.)

Starting to get feedback on The Full Moon Affair from my Alpha readers. Good news is the story holds together pretty well. Bad news is I need more scene description in places. Feels like the story is floating in mid-air. Good thing to hear up front - it's easier to add in scenery in the first rewrite than after I've "tightened" everything up after the third or fourth pass.

Oh, yeah, and along with studying, I'm working on finishing up my Terra Incognito column for Penumbra magazine. Now that I've created a world, it's time to create some countries and tribes to inhabit it as well as beginning to start naming features to give the world a more realistic feel. I'm having fun with the column and I hope the readers are getting something out of it.

Oh, and other news here in a moment, but I wanted to give it its own post here.

I've never been to one of these SFWA events before, so when I saw it was being held in my neck of the woods, I jumped on it.

So, the weekend of 17-20 May, I'll be hanging out with a whole bunch of people with more publishing credits than I have *grin* at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City (2799 Jefferson Davis Highway (Route 1)), Arlington, Virginia 22202. I had to sign up for a couple of the tours too. I'll be visiting the Library of Congress and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and attending some interesting panels. The Icelandic Myths one looks like it could be really cool.

(Yeah, yeah, I know. Live here in the DC area for 14+ years and still haven't been to the Library of Congress. Course, I still haven't been to the National Archive or Gettysburg yet either. I've been a bad local resident. I DO love the Smithsonian though.)

So, I'm a tad excited about this. Almost doing some fanboy geek-out here, but I'll try to be a suave and "been there, done that" when I get there.

Hey, quit laughing. I said, "try".

The family went to see this yesterday and I came out of the movie completely enchanted. The art was incredible. There was a lushness in the scenes that you just cannot get with CGI/3D. I loved the voice actors chosen for this movie.

Would I have liked maybe a little more meat on this movie. Yeah, maybe.  But, sometimes it's nice to just sit back and be taken along for a ride without there having to be huge, earth-shattering consequences or life and death situations. Sometimes, a story about unexpected friendship and finding out you can do more than you think you can is a good enough adventure in itself.

Yeah, I know some people liked Howl's Moving Castle or Spirited Away better. However, given the way I've been feeling the last month or so, I found this was just the movie I needed to watch.

Miyazaki for the win!

(Definitely on my Christmas wish list.)

Not a lot to report to be honest. Basically been going to work, going to class and then sitting around the house writing and listening to iTunes.

The Seminar in Drama class was cancelled tonight. I have to knock out a 3-5 page paper by Thursday on Trick the Devil. Last week, we did The Importance of Being Earnest, which was a fun play and M.Butterfly, which was not a fun play. I was concerned where the conversation might go, but it turned into a really interesting discussion in class.

For some unsurprising reason, the professor and I have different remembrances of certain events in history but as with my Rhetoric professor, it's easier (and probably safer for my grade) to agree to disagree. *grin* I think it's safe to say that history taught on the East Coast in the 60s and 70s was somewhat different than that taught in the Mid-West during that same time period.

However, while talking to my Rhetoric professor before class last Monday, I found out we both have an interest in jazz and the blues. It was fun discussing something where I didn't feel I had to "watch what I said" around my professors.

Let's say, being a minority student is a learning experience.

My Literary Critique class is going fairly well. We finally moved out of the Neo-Marxists and are getting into New Criticism. This week's critical response was a lot easier for me to write than the last couple have been. Hopefully it'll do as well as the earlier ones. Also need to start developing my Research paper. I'm suggesting doing a critique on a critique of Dracula. The idea being finding a critique and then reviewing the critique based on a different school of critique theory. (Say a Marxist view of a feminist critique of Dracula), so I would do be able to review portions of the book from the Marxist view and also address where the feminist view coincided or conflicted with the Marxist viewpoint. Not 100% sure he'll buy off on it, but we'll see.

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I finished the first draft of The Full Moon Affair today. It weighted in at 25,009 words. Now it's time to set it aside for a bit and let it rest while I start back on The Mountain of Night. Hopefully, I'll have the edits done on FMA by the summer and can start shopping it around. Not sure there's a ton of places that take novellas, but it can't hurt to look.

And at least it's out of my system. Unless I get a wild hair and decide to add some sub-plots and maybe more explosions/deaths/betrayals and turn it into a full-fledged novel.

Nah. Got enough novels waiting for their turns in the revision pipeline. No sense adding another one.

Yet.

Last night I went with my sempai, Chris, to go see They Might Be Giants in concert at Rams Head Live in Baltimore. I really had no idea what to expect, but the person Sempai had originally invited backed out, so I tagged along instead. I'm familiar with their music and I've liked what I heard, but I couldn't probably name more than three songs they've done.

That's going to change.

It was an incredible concert. It may have helped that Rams Head is a smaller, more immediate venue than say Merriweather here in Columbia, but wow, what a fun time. They put a lot of energy into the show and they have a very devoted following from what I could tell from watching the crowd's reactions.

But, the part I really enjoyed was when the two lead singers stepped off stage to do the sock puppets, known as the Avatars of Them. Now, it was a little hard to hear what they were saying over the milling (and somewhat inebriated) crowd, but when the Avatars broke into doing Black Sabbath's Paranoid, I nearly fell over from laughing. It was so surreal and yet, somehow, so appropriate.

So, TMBG has converted yet another person to their fandom. I plan on investing in some of their albums (or at least the best of) next payday.
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On the writing scene, I'm up to just under 14000 words on The Full Moon Affair. I'm not writing every day due to college and such, but I have been able to average about 2000 words a writing session, so that's a good thing. I think I've turned the corner in the story, so I'd say we're probably looking at 25,000 for the story, pre-edits. And then it's back to The Mountain of Night and other stuff.

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College week #3 has come and gone. I got an A on my first paper for Literary Criticism and survived the New Frankfurt Philosophers. This upcoming week - the Neo-Marxists. If I'm still writing coherent sentences by the end of this semester, I will count this a victory, regardless of my grades. However, I may have settled on a topic for my paper, since the professor suggested a critique of Dracula would be acceptable. I just have to decide what school of criticism do I want to base my critique on or do I want to do a paper deconstructing someone else's critique of the book, which is what I'm leaning more toward.

In my Seminar of Drama class, we finished our discussion of Othello and reviewed C. Bernard Jackson's retelling of the story in Iago. As soon as I read it, I mentioned to Wishweaver that it was written in the late 60's/early 70's. I was off by a few years (1978), but it had that feeling of social commentary that was prevalent when I was in college the first time. I'm going to be settling in with The Importance of Being Earnest and M. Butterfly this afternoon.

Oh well, time to finish my coffee, gird my loins and hit the books. Ah, the whirlwind life of a graduate student. *grin*

Wow. It's been a productive day for writing.

I finally completed my Terra Incognito column for Penumbra. I'm going to want to edit this one more time before I send it out tomorrow, but I'm pretty happy with what I've come up with this month.

For this session, I worked on actually building a world to set the small story I'm writing to go along with the column in. I've created a rather large island with some satellite islands set off the east coast of a larger continent. We've placed the major mountain ranges and identified the major rivers on the island.

Next session, we'll work on building towns and countries on this island and we'll add more details as we go into other sessions.

First off, I love starting with a map. Probably because, I just love maps, the older the better. My father worked for the State Highway Department for 42 years and he always brought home the new state highway map as soon as they were released. He taught me how to read one almost as soon as I knew how to read, so that would have been between three and four. My map reading skills came in handy in high school and college considering I was a History major, and doing the map reading portion of the Common Tasks Training for the Army was a breeze. I wound up teaching that portion of the training with my Drill Sergeants in basic training to free them up to work on other areas that needed "reinforcing".

Once I've created a map, the world my characters are going to interact with becomes alive. I can see where the trade routes are, where the major cities should lie and what the different types of terrain they're going to encounter if they travel overland. I also know approximately how many days they'd be at sea to travel from Point A to Point B., and what they might encounter en route. If my story is predominately set in a city, it's useful to identify a few prominent buildings or businesses the characters might pass on a daily basis. It doesn't have to be a major story plot point, but sometimes those little touches bring a scene alive for a reader.

Along with getting the column at that 90% completed stage, I also added another 2000 words to The Full Moon Affair. Also, I finally broke down and wrote up a quick synopsis of the characters (just a small bullet list) to make sure I'd covered everything in the story. I don't want to get to the big reveal and find out I'd forgotten to introduce the villain and how he was connected to everyone else. While this is a bit more action/adventure than a true mystery, there are still conventions that should be followed.

So, between Terra Incognito and The Full Moon Affair, I've written 3864 words today. Now that's shaking off the rust. *grin*

Tomorrow is final edits for Terra and then it's time to hit the college books again. The cycle of work/college/writing continues ever onward.

Been a less than exciting past couple of days. worked, did taxes, vegetated, worked, and oh, yeah, did a little writing.

Added 3,850 words to The Full Moon Affair over the past two days. Definitely have left short story-ville and am wondering if I'm going full novella or will stop at novelette with this one. I'm suspecting novella. Then again, I tend to run long on first drafts.

Really didn't mean for it to run as long as it has, but one, I'm having fun introducing characters and two, when trying to capture all the stuff that goes on in a radio drama and synthesize it into pure written word, there's a lot more exposition that needs to happen. Sound effects and music can push a radio show along when it may take me an extra three or four sentences to properly set the scene.

Sure, some of this may come out in the editing, but for now, I'm just seeing where my private detective and his client are taking me. And we haven't even met Mr. X yet. (cue evil laughter here.)

I meant to post before now.

Really I did.

But for my Literary Critique course, I had to read about 90 pages this weekend.

Pfeah. 90 pages. I can do that on my head.

Yeah, 90 pages of Marx and Freud and Nietzsche. Oh, and I had to read Othello for my Drama class for Monday.

I think my brain melted somewhere around 6:30 Sunday night.

But, I managed to recover, knock out the paper for my Tuesday class,survive the first two days of work this week and do "reasonably" well in class both Monday and Tuesday night. Luckily, I only have about 40 pages to read for next week's Critique class.

Plus, I'm 66% done with my column for the March issue of Penumbra, I've added another 1200 words to The Mountains of Night, a companion piece to The Demon's Head, and today, I added 2100 words to The Full Moon Affair, a short story I'm developing after listening to too many Sam Spade, Boston Blackie, Green Hornet and "A Man Named X" radio shows. If you're familiar with 50's radio, this should sound as if Howard Duff is reading the part of the lead character. If you're not familiar with the old radio shows . . . then I highly recommend that you spend a little time getting to know them. There's some really good stuff out there for the Theater of the Mind.

So, I feel good that I'm able to knock some writing out in and among the college stuff. Let's see how long I can keep it up.

And tomorrow night, it's time to meet with the accountant to do 2011's taxes. Oh, goody. </sarcasm>

I think this is going to be a good semester.

My Seminar in Drama class is going to focus on the themes of desire and jealousy as we examine the 14 plays we're going to be reading this semester. Right now, I'm up to my elbows in Othello, which somehow seems entirely too appropriate. (Course, I have to admit, I'm hearing Captain Sisko when I read this for some reason. *grin*)

The Literary Criticism/Theory class may not be as bad as I was afraid it might be. Sure, we're still going to get into a LOT of theory and schools of critique and stuff I find separates those of us who enjoy literature for literature's sake and those who "enjoy finding the deepest meaning in a piece of literature". Me, if I'm entertained, then I like the book. If it bores me to tears, I don't care what hidden depths it is plumbing, I'm probably never going to read it again.

If this makes me an uncultured philistine, then I wear that crown with pride.

However, talking to the professor a few minutes after class allayed a few of my fears. Unlike many of the English professors I've run into over the years, he is a big fan of fantasy and science fiction. In fact, he said if I want to do my final paper by doing a scholarly critique of a SF/F book, he's cool with that.

It took a few minutes to pick my teeth up off the floor after that comment. Given that kind of challenge, I may just take him up on that. I think I'll avoid LotR (been done to death by people a lot smarter than me), but there are some very good and insightful SF/F books out there that I suspect I could sink my teeth into.

Luckily, I don't have to decided on a topic or book for another four weeks, but now's the time to think about it.

However, just glancing through the syllabi, I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in reading this weekend.

(My conscience - "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Rich.")

. . . when he's not writing fiction?

Somehow, he winds up writing articles for magazines. *grin*

I can now announce that I am writing a column for Penumbra Magazine, an e-magazine produced by Musa Publishing. The name of the column is Terra Incognito and it will be a monthly column focused (as you can probably guess) on world building.

I'm going to be designing lands, cities, religions, trade, and cosmology, from the ground up - literally - as we go through the monthly sessions. The first session is was released today in Penumbra #5, which is simply an introduction to my methods for building different worlds. Whether I'm doing it for a fantasy realm, for the Starfleet Intelligence base I used in Echoes of Coventry, the world I didn't get to use for Demons and Devils, (which was the SCE story that never was), or taking the world of Gauntlet Dark Legacy and turning it into something that "could exist" - there are certain techniques and research methods that are pretty universal. I hope to touch on many of these in my column.

However, don't think you're safe. *grin*. I know there are some authors who occasionally stick their nose in here to see what I'm babbling about. I may be pestering a few of you over the next few years to grant me an interview on how YOU do world building. I am not so vain to say I am the end all and be all of world building - though I'm close *grin*. So, I'm going to see if I can weasel some of your secrets, your favorite research sites, your go-to books, etc., for my readers.

Consider yourselves forewarned.

Well, after my web session today, I spent some time enjoying dinner and then visiting with a friend. Planning on going to see Red Hawks next Sunday with him. So, not as much time spent on the writing, but I still reached the end of Chapter Three in Harbinger of Darkness. Added 682 words, which brings my two day total up to 4,253.

Not shabby for someone who's knocking off the rust.

Now it's time to go print out the old Chapter Four and see what's salvageable from it and get all my stuff together for Spring Semester 2012. Class starts at 1655 tomorrow.

Oh, I'm taking Seminar in Drama and Literary Critique at Bowie State this spring. Classes meet on Monday and Tuesday after work. I have no clue what the workload is going to be this semester, but I do know we're covering eleven plays in my seminar class. Only two books for Literary Critique -- but the one is nearly four inches thick. What a brick! I just hope we actually use it. I so hate buying college books and then never using them.

Now where did I leave that schedule . . . ?

The talk with the Musa writers and staff went very well this evening. A few minor glitches with the Skype connection, so we're going to do a supplemental version later in February for those who were unable to get in. Wound up taking about an hour and forty-five minutes (which included getting everyone logged in and the Q&A periods).

There were some very good questions asked and I hope the listeners enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed presenting the class.

Now, time to sneak in some writing before calling it a night.

Worked on Chapter Three for Harbinger of Darkness this evening. Knocked out 3571 words today. O.K., admittedly rewriting is somewhat easier than writing - I'm not having to stop and really "think" where am I going next. Now it's: "Does this really belong here or should I move that elsewhere or should I drop it completely?"

So, yeah, it still takes some planning to do a rewrite. Plus, this is an actual rewrite, not just cutting and pasting in old stuff for new. The fingers are on the keyboard and words are being typed. Some sentences do make the transition, but most of them have been massaged from the original. Plus, I've dropped one subplot and am adding in a different one, so I have to make sure I set the groundwork for the changes early.

Ah, the whirlwind, glamorous life of a writer.

Yeah, right. *grin*

Still, words got created tonight. That feels good.

While no real writing was done today, I did spend some time working on edits.

Began initial edits on two short stories I'm working on. The first one's working title is The Mountain of Darkness, which is a follow-up short to The Demon's Head. I'm working up a small collection of shorts, which could basically be described as "The Man with No Name meets Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser". It kind of fun writing about a (mostly) amoral protagonist, and I'm picking several interesting folktales from different countries to base the stories around.

Since most of the regular SF/F publishers are either on hiatus or (like Realms of Fantasy) closing their doors completely, I'm kicking around the idea of trying to sell some short stuff to some e-publishers. However, I think a collection of shorts would probably sell better than single short stories - so I decided to take The Demon's Head and see if there were more stories that the protagonist wanted to share with me. Turns out there are, so we'll see what other trouble he can get into here in the near future.

The other short I'm putting together I blame completely on the Sam Spade and Boston Blackie radio shows from the 40's/50's I've been listening to on my iPod during the morning drive to work. This short story is entitled The Full Moon Affair. I'm definitely channeling my inner Dashiell Hammett for this one (and a little William Spears - the writer of the radio show for pacing). I have no clue what I'm going to do with this story, but it's just too much fun to NOT write it.

And, tonight, I've started working on those novels I've been talking about for a while. Time to get serious about them, so I've knocked the dust off of Harbinger of Darkness. I'm two chapters into the rewrite and getting ready to go take Chapter Three upstairs for some serious redlining before I call it a night. I think I've got a new angle to take on this book - re-purposing one of the antagonists, which I hope will make the payoff even better when things come to a boil in the City-State of Sagras.

I have an interesting session coming up this weekend.

Celina Summers, (Publisher - Musa Publishing) has asked me to do a presentation for her staff and authors this Sunday. I'll be doing an on-line presentation of the talk I've done at several conventions/writer's workshops for them. I may have mentioned it here before - I title it "How NOT to Get Published".

While I've done this before, both solo and with Ann Crispin, I've never done it on-line where we'll be talking and typing via Skype with around 40 people. Since we don't have blackboard capability (that I know of), Celina will be sending my slides to the people ahead of time. This will give them a chance to read ahead and think of questions.

Afterward, they'll be putting together a transcript and I'll be writing up some "notes" to go with my slides. She'll make them available for her people after the fact.

Thank goodness it's not a video conference. *grin*

Time to get back to this blog after a significant vacation.

Quick catch up and then we'll move forward.

Since my last post (yeah, it's been a while), I've:
a) celebrated my 20th anniversary
b) been accepted into graduate school at Bowie State University
c) had "Echoes of Coventry" come out in a dead-tree version - What's Past
d) been promoted in Kendo to Nidan (2nd Dan)
e) began wrapping up my current contract at work and waiting to see what comes next
and finally
f) been offered and have accepted the position as a columnist for an on-line magazine. (more on that in a bit.)

So, no, I'm not dead. No, I haven't quit writing. No, I haven't sold any original work *yet*.

I'll post more about my new position later.

But, for now, we're back and ready to hit 2012 with a vengeance. I'll also be directing the people interested in my Kendo to Nightwolfkendo. I'll try to keep my writing blog and my kendo blogs separate and both up-to-date.

Anyway. Happy New Year to everyone and looking forward to hearing from those people who haven't given up on this blog quite yet.

You know, I thought this stuff was supposed to get easier. *grin*

Just made it to therapy in time. Wound up staying just a little longer at work than I had intended. Plus the fact that the shuttle bus was almost 25 minutes late this morning made my plans for leaving early fly right out the window. I don't understand how a trip that used to take 10-12 minutes back in 2008 now seems to take the driver 15-20 on average. Just very odd.

Still, I made it, got changed and hopped on the stationary bike to start. 10 minutes later, I was cruising through the machines. I thought things were going swimmingly until I got to the squats. The lunge squats were difficult, but I'm trying to focus on squatting with my back straight instead of leaning out over my knees. It uses a completely different set of muscles than I'm used to abusing, so even though I'm only doing twenty of them, I can really feel it when I get about halfway done.

The balancing on one leg and using the large rubber bands to do balance/strengthening work are going pretty well and then today, we got to my nemesis, the wall squats. You'd think just sitting down and standing up while keeping your back against a wall should be a piece of cake.

You'd think.

Well, I obviously did something wrong last Saturday, because halfway through the squats, the outside of my right foot felt like it was on fire. The trainer on Saturday couldn't spot what I was doing wrong, although my primary trainer thinks I may have been twisting my foot to compensate and putting most of my weight on the right leg instead of coming up evenly. When I went to do the squat and hold at the end, I was able to squat, but I couldn't get back up and wound up nearly taking a nose dive.

So, tonight, we just did the twenty squat and stands at the wall and they decided to wait and do the squat and holds until Friday.

I've also scheduled my next visits all for the evening. I think my knee needs a little more time to wake up than the rest of my body, so doing PT early on Saturdays is probably not an experiment I want to try again.

We finished by icing and doing the electric stimulation on my knee again. It's a weird, but somewhat pleasant experience.

I saw the doc yesterday and he seems pleased with my progress, so that's a good sign. Just fussed at me to stop limping. *grin*

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In other news, the contractor is moving on the house, we have working AC and everyone seems to be happy with the work I'm doing in the new office, so besides the knee, life is going reasonably well.

Still not excited about wishweaver leaving for eight weeks for a workshop this Sunday. Don't get me wrong, I really encouraged her to go for it and I think it's a fantastic opportunity. Still, I didn't enjoy going TDY for long periods of time when I was in the Army and it's gonna be awfully lonesome here (even with the daughter-unit).

Hopefully, between Kendo, Therapy and doing some writing, time will go quickly.

Well, sometimes you just have to take that big boy pill.

It's basically coming down to going to conventions or getting the house remodeled. After all the stupidity with the first contractor, even more stupidity with the banks and the inability to borrow my own money from my 401K in the quantities I desired or over the time period I wanted, we have finally secured a good contractor and sufficient funds to at least accomplish most of what we want to do with this house.

Plus, we HAVE to get the AC fixed. Pronto. It's melt city here.

Unfortunately, that means sometimes you put aside fun stuff to do adult stuff. (Not that kind of adult stuff . . . get your mind out of the gutter. *sheesh*)

So, it looks like FantaSci and Archon are going to bite the big one this year. Just money I don't need to be spending with my medical bills and with the house remods. I'm hoping this should be a temporary state of affairs, but better to be safe than sorry. I apologize to the hosts of the two shows but family has to come first.

Today was going to be a day for rushing around. I knew that and I'm still whupped as I call it a day.

Got to work early so I could get off in sufficient time to pick wishweaver up at the Airport. Actually, got off too early and had to kill an hour waiting for her plane to arrive. Get to the airport to find NO Southwest flights listed on the Departure/Arrival boards. What the . . . ? I went to the counter and they verified that there was an issue with a Southwest computer but yes her plane was actually ahead of schedule and would arrive shortly. Finally caught up with her and she filled me in on the convention she attended in Milwaukee. Sounds like she had a great time and met some very cool people from not only around the States but a number of European countries were well represented at the "Bead and Button Show". It's apparently a really large show (10th anniversary), which is sponsored by "Bead and Button" magazine (hence the name).

We hurried from the airport to get to my physical therapy session. The therapists were pleasant to visit with and they definitely put me through my paces. The only real issue I had was the 10 minutes on the stationary bike. It's a recumbent style of bike and my feet kept slipping on the pedals. For some reason I seemed incapable of keeping my feet centered. BUT, all things said and done, I made it.

They had me do some leg presses, the adduction and abduction machines to work the side muscles in my legs/groin area, then we worked with balancing exercises on my bad leg, worked with resistance bands and then finished up with a series of deep squats with my back pressed against a wall. I could hold the bend, but the therapist had to help me get back onto my feet. We did 20 initially of squatting and then pushing myself back up the wall, then we did several with me getting into the squat as low as I could and holding it for X amount of time. That was the killer.

After we finished my battery of exercises, they did a couple of stretches on my legs and then hooked up a machine to my knee and shot electric current through my knee. Four electrodes surrounded my knee and I could feel the system going from one node to the other, sometimes straight across, other times in a circular motion. They were happy with my initial attempts but have warned me, now that they have a baseline, the exercises will get progressively more difficult.

I hurried from PT to Kendo practice. Sensei is in San Antonio testing for his next iaido rank and most of the other sempai weren't going to be able to be there, so Sensei asked if I would come on Wed and lock up. I arrived a bit later than I had hoped and the beginner class was nearing completion. Sempai Ken (our new student from Michigan), was working on footwork and timing with the beginners as I put my swords together and started stretching.

We only had four people for the advanced class besides Ken and myself (two shodan, two non-ranked kyus). Ken did a good job rotating them through and still getting some practice in for himself. He explained the differences between big waza and small waza. Then he walked them through various techniques so they could see how they felt and when each style was appropriate. He also had them work on some basic waza before having a jikeiko (sparring) session toward the end.

We finished up by doing kata. I was much more confident with Katas 1-3 and concentrated on 4 & 5 tonight. I'm going to keep pushing myself to get these five down pat before I worry about learning 6 & 7 (which I will have to be able to do for nidan testing this fall). Even though my two partners were much "quicker" than I was, I was able to match them on the kata, so we actually looked like we knew what we were doing out there. *grin*

It's really frustrating watching practice and only being able to ghost along on the side, but my physical therapist was pretty adamant that I was not ready to really push off with my left foot and definitely not ready to "lunge" for a point - and I totally agree. Even doing the ghost moves, I can feel it in my knee occasionally. Still, half-speed kendo is better than no kendo.

And now, off to bed.

1) Got a new assignment at work that I'm absolutely loving. It's so cool to actually look forward to going into work. Looked up and realized I'd worked an hour and a half past quitting time and hated the idea of having to wait and finish what I was doing in the morning. This is why I took this job 10 years ago. *grin*

2) Made a minor milestone today. I actually walked up stairs today like a normal person instead of step, pull the other foot up to that step and then step again. I mean I walked up right, left, right, left all the way to the top . . . three times. *grin* Yeah, it's weird how little normal things are so cool right now. Still having issues with going downstairs. I can do it normally, but it makes both knees hurt, so I'm holding off on that for a bit.

3) Woke up this morning and my leg felt great. I was worried I might have overdone it a bit at practice last night but considering I "stood" from 6:45 until 10:30, it was great. It actually was more problematic after I'd sat too long at work than from moving around last night.

4) wishweaver gets back from her beading and jewelry making convention in Milwaukee tomorrow evening. The cats have been completely confused by her absence. They're really going to freak when she goes to her workshop in Albuquerque later this month for eight weeks. (Come to think of it, forget the cats, I think I'm gonna be a basket case by then.)

5) It's 2329. Definitely time for bed if the alarm's going off at 0550.

Night, LJ.

Well, I went back for my first kendo practice post-operation. I was cleared to do kata but not to put on bogu quite yet. So, my sempai Chris picked me up a bit after six and we headed out for practice.

Had a good showing for the beginner practice. Beside Eitel-sensei, we had two nidans, an ikkyu and a couple of others who'd been there for a while along with five people not in either bogu or even the keikogi or hakama. Sensei had my buddy Chris lead the warm-ups and Chris emphasized to the new people especially that the warm ups weren't just for warming up the muscles. It was an opportunity to work on making each and every swing with the shinai as perfect as they could make it. I think he was really trying to get them to think that practice started the second they walked on the floor of the dojo, not when warm-ups were over. It's important to get in the proper mind-set as soon as possible and use the warm-ups to develop good techniques and habits. Sloppy warm-ups tend to lead to sloppy kendo.

For the most part, I stayed on the stage and worked on Kata's one through three. I have to have katas one through seven for the upcoming nidan test, but I figured I'd start slow and get these down pat first and add to my routine as I go. However, after a bit, they split the beginners up and Sempai Chris was working with the non-bogu people. I went over and worked out with them because Chris was doing footwork drills with them. I figured it would do me good to get some work in and stretch my legs a bit.

Advanced practice started and I returned to the stage (had a good crowd to night - nine advanced students and Sensei. I alternated between working on kata and ghosting along with the practice. I tried out some of the new techniques they were being shown tonight, but it was more like shadow boxing for me. I did big, slow and deliberate moves rather than what I wanted to do but I figured it was much safer for my knee this way.

The last fifteen minutes of class were devoted to kata and I got a chance to practice with my dojo mates. It was a bit strange - on stage I had the katas down cold, but as soon as I got with a partner, things didn't go so well. I think it's because I was trying to match my speed and intensity with my partner and allowed myself to concentrate on that instead of the moves I was supposed to be doing. It's not that my partners weren't good, it's just I was used to practicing at my speed and the change of pace threw me off a bit. I wound up over-thinking the situation instead of just doing what I knew I needed to do. Luckily by the time we had to line up, I had managed to get re-focused and did a nice run through the series.

After practice was over, Chris and I visited with one of the new members, Ken, who started coming to practice the week I had surgery. He's studied with a university team in Michigan so he has some different experiences and techniques than the local group has had. This makes discussing Kendo with him a lot of fun because he's got a lot of good information and a different way of looking at things which forces me to think about some of my philosophy about what is good kendo.

Chris and I dissected the practice on the way home and now more than ever I can't wait to get back to practice. However, until the Physical Therapist clears me, I'm going to be a good patient, no matter how badly I don't want to be.

Beware the halls of academia.

I hadn't heard anything about my college application, so I gave Bowie State a call. Apparently, it was a good thing I did because somehow the e-mail regarding my application's status from the English Dept. to the registrar's office had gotten misfiled. The gentleman I was talking too hadn't contacted four students (to include me) to inform them of what was going on.

However, he had good news for me.

I am now a proud student at Bowie State (MD) in the Master's of English program.

I'll be receiving a letter next week with information on what I need to do before the fall semester. Specifically where and when I need to sign up for classes, what classes are available this fall and any prerequisite courses I need to make up (since my Bachelor's is in History, they may have some undergrad literature classes I'm going to have to take before I officially get on "track".

However, I was doing the Snoopy dance once I hung up the phone. Well, in my mind. My knee informed me that acting out on my impulses was a poor choice.

So, now, I get to figure out how to juggle work, grad school, kendo, writing and family.

I know, I'll just give up sleeping. Just wasted time after all.

*grin*

Wow, where does the time go?

I had my surgery on the 14th. Arrived at 7am and met with the nurses, anesthesiologist, doctor and the med tech before my scheduled 8am surgery. The med tech told me he'd be spinning the tunes for me and asked what I wanted to hear. I told him, I'd have to go with some AC/DC after watching Iron Man II. We spent some time talking about comics, Marvel movies, etc. before it was time to go to surgery.

Just as I was wheeled into the operating room on the gurney, "Back in Black" began to play over the computer speakers and I saw the med tech sitting in the corner with a big grin on his face. He wasn't kidding about the music - he had a ton of iTunes stuff on the computer.

Surgery went quick (well, I slept through most of it) and about 9:15 I woke up and felt pretty good. I had my crutches but didn't really need them (leg was heavily wrapped in an ace bandage). Went out for breakfast with wishweaver, came home, lounged around a bit, dozed on the couch. We picked up my prescription for pain meds but I didn't think I was going to need them.

Then Saturday rolled around.

Let me say, there was no more "walking around without the crutches" for a while. Oh my goodness. My knee didn't "hurt" as in the throbbing type of consistent pain. However, to give you an example, I was laying on the couch and one of the cats jumped off the back of the couch and landed on my belly button. I instinctively jerked my legs up and to quote Bill Cosby "the pain . . . was tremendous . . . ".

I spent the next week at home a) learning how to maneuver on crutches and b) re-learning how to take care of myself. As the week progressed, I went from using two crutches to one crutch and I learned how to go up and down the stairs with my crutch and a handrail. Finally, Friday rolled around and I went in for my evaluation. The doc showed me all the beautiful before and after pics of my meniscus, *ewww*, and then wanted to know why I was still on the crutches?

Uh, mainly because you didn't say not to use them?

So, I haven't been on the crutches since the 21st of May, but I'm still not 100%. Go figure. I went back to work on the 24th and made it through Thursday. However, by Thursday, my knee was swollen from all the walking I'd been doing all week, so I took another day of leave I didn't have and stayed home on Friday icing my knee.

Went back to work this week and so far, I'm walking with a little less limp although the knee does get weak at times and it'll give out on me at the worst times, like in the cafeteria right after I've paid for my food. Luckily, neither I nor any co-worker has worn my lunch yet, but it's still a helpless feeling as I'm hopping, balancing, grabbing onto a rail and avoiding being run over by the people around me.

I have my physical therapy diagnostic tomorrow night and they'll be helping me develop a stretching routine for Kendo, as well as telling me when I can resume. I'm hoping to at least start doing some kata since that's a) done a a very deliberate pace and b) non-contact next Monday. We shall see what the therapist thinks though.

Drove a car with a stick-shift for the first time tonight. Not too bad. Not quite ready to get the Miata out and go cruising anytime soon though.

Do have some other news though. We have a new contractor working on our house. It turns out our original contractor was "less than honorable". I would have to say all the money we'd spent on him was pretty much wasted. The new contractor is redoing about half the stuff this guy wasted almost three years our our lives doing. However, apparently there are about 50 other people in line in front of us trying to get money out of him, so I'd say our chances of recovering anything are pretty much shot.

However, the new contractor is pulling on the bit wanting to get going on our house. We already have a new deck and he's about 50% done with the basement remodeling. Apparently a lot of the guys on his crew have worked for or with him since he learned construction from his father back in the 70s. They don't waste much time. Get in, get going, get done and move on to the next assignment.

wishweaver has gotten a plum assignment at work. She's attending a workshop out in New Mexico for eight weeks and it sounds like she's going to get to do some really cool cutting edge work out there. The daughter-unit and I have never spent that much time without her to referee, so this summer is likely to be an adventure in more ways than one. *eeep!*

And of course, in the middle of the heat/humidity that Maryland has visited on us, our AC unit has broken.

But hey, the month's over, I didn't kill anyone, I still have a job, I'm walking (mostly) without pain and I'm still breathing. So, all things considered, life isn't so bad.

The doc had good news and bad news.

The good news is no damage to any of the ligaments (some old damage to my ACL, but unrelated to my current situation).

The bad news is, I have a torn meniscus.

I currently am scheduled for arthroscopic surgery on the 14th of May.

Which is good. The quicker I get this over with, the quicker I can get back to doing stuff. Plus, with wishweaver going to New Mexico for a school for eight weeks starting late June, I should have just enough time to complete my recovery phase before she takes off.

So, it the words of the immortal bard, "It coulda been a lot woise." *grin*

I have to get my pre-op physical done, some blood work done and an EKG before the 14th.

Oh, the other good/bad thing is I will be missing at least a week of work. The good thing - I have no excuse not to use a lot of that time toward finishing Steel on Target and trying to work off the backlog of Anime DVD's I have. The bad thing is, I can't go on short term disability until I use 40 hours of leave, so if I only miss a week of work, it comes out of my leave pile. If I miss more than a week, I still lose the first 40 hours, but then short-term covers any other days I miss.

Based on this, I've canceled my appearance at Marcon. The doc wasn't 100% sure I'd be ready to take an eight-hour drive that soon, much less stand up and/or deal with conventioneers for an entire weekend.

I'm also canceling my trip to Seattle for the AUSKF Summer Camp. The doc says in a week or two after surgery, I should be able to attend practice and work on the kata since they're nice and slow, but I won't be up for getting into armor and pushing the leg for at least six weeks. Technically, Summer Camp would be after the recovery period, but attending something that intense so soon after this kind of layoff is just asking to re-aggravate something. So, maybe next year. (Darn, I sound like a Cubs fan *grin*)

And that's where we stand.

Went back to practice tonight. Yes, I know I haven't had my visit with the doctor yet (that's coming up on Wednesday), but it seemed important to me to get back after missing last week. So, four big glasses of water, a couple of Aleve tablets and fingers crossed, I grabbed my gear and headed out for practice.

( More Kendo stuff hidden for the non-sword typesCollapse )

All things considered, it wasn't a bad practice and I finished practice tonight without having to drop out and take a break. I did have to take a few times to stretch a knot in my right calf, but I only missed a couple of spots in a rotation. I have to admit, even with the knee being wonky, it felt pretty good out on the floor tonight. I'm not 100% sure the doc would have been too happy, but I don't think I did anything to aggravate my knee (still feels pretty good three hours later), so all's well that ends well.

Oh, and yes, this is still primarily a writing journal. I have been doing some writing and hope to post something tomorrow . . . O.K. later tonight . . . about Steel.

Thanks for indulging me in my kendo habit. *grin*

. . . and at this rate, I may never be.

I'm sure you're all tired of hearing my talk about the tournament.

However, I now have photographic proof that I will never be mistaken for a samurai.

First Team Match (1/2 half)

Second Team Match


Also, if you watch the following video, my individual match against Kevin King (the nito player) is in the background of my sempai Chris's match.

Sempai Chris (foreground) and Me (background)


Oh, had my MRI on Thursday. 45 minutes of laying in a tube, trying not to shift around. Not really exciting stuff. Now, we wait for next Wednesday before I see the doctor again and we find out what it wrong with my knee and how we fix it.

I have the dates and the information for the AUSKF Summer Camp in Seattle for July 2 - 4. However, I want to hear from the doc before I make plane reservations and such. Call me crazy, but somehow I don't think buying a non-refundable ticket at this point and time would be wise.

Just got back from the doc's. The results:

1) Something definitely wrong with my left toes but nothing shows on the X-rays and he doesn't think it's worth doing an MRI. Recommended some stretches to physically manipulate them. He agrees they should still bend, but because it happened so long ago, nothing he can really do now.

2) Right knee probably has an early touch of arthritis. Doesn't want to MRI it now, but he doesn't rule out it having to be scoped in the future.

3) Left knee definitely has something wrong. I'm scheduled for an MRI on Thursday morning for it. More to follow.

*le sigh*