Thaddeus Nowak's Blog: Thoughts and Observations, page 28

Where'd that week go????

Wow, wasn't it just Monday?

Well, Monday's kind of suck most of the time, perhaps I should wonder where Tuesday went.

It is amazing how busy someone can get and still not manage to get enough done.

First off, I've added a couple of dates to my KC Ren Fest schedule. In addition to today, I will be there tomorrow (23 Sep 2012) and Sunday 7 Oct 2012. If you're in the area, come out and we and can talk. I'll even sign a copy of Mother's Curse for you (booth 531).


Back to my missing week. This last week felt so busy and I was mostly trying to catch up. The weekend prior I was on holiday and that shifted everything around. Of course, I can't complain about being on holiday and I really had a great weekend. We didn't go too far, just took a trip out to St. Louis Friday night and got in some hiking on Saturday and Sunday, then drove back on Monday.

This was me at Hawn State park:


On Saturday, we hiked 10.5 miles on the Pickle Creak and Whispering Pine trails. Then on Sunday, we put in 7.5 miles between Castlewood and Hawn state parks.

Also had to stop by REI. That store is as bad as a book store for us. Definitely will not leave without buying something.


The weather wasn't great for photos (cloud filled skies), so you won't see much from us. However, it was perfect for hiking. Not too hot and a little bit of drizzle dropping from the sky to make things interesting (note, I do like hiking in a light rain).

Here is what the sky looked like most of the time:



On the writing front, I did not get much on paper, but during the 6 - 7 hours on the trails, I was able to mentally flesh out more plot details of the book after the one I am currently working on.

For me, that is the one greatest part of hiking. We were well away from most people (only seeing a few others on the trails at Hawn) and just enveloped by the peacefulness of the trail. Stress just melts away and you can relax outside of your daily life. It gave me lots of time to think and simply enjoy the day.

Now that I am back in front of my computer, I need to get back to putting words down on paper. Another exhilarating pass time that I don't think I can ever get enough of.


Well, now, off to Fest....huzzah!

Appearances in Sep and Oct

Just wanted to mention a couple of appearances I will be doing.

For those in the Leavenworth area, I'll be doing a book signing at Scrivner's Creative Center from 1100 to 1400 (time updated) on Sat 11 Aug 2012
http://thaddeusnowak.com/index.html


Also, I will have Mother's Curse available at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival (http://www.kcrenfest.com/), which runs 7 weekends in Sep and Oct. I won't be there every weekend, but I'll be out there many of them. I'll post more details as it gets closer.

Energized

I'm usually pretty good about motivating myself. (Last week wasn't so good for writing because I got caught up reading, well, it happens).

However, I had a very good book signing for Mother's Curse at my High School Alumni Dinner/Dance. Seeing other people excited about my work can sure energize me. Back to working on the next book in the series and getting ready for another book signing in a couple of weeks.

When a hard drive starts clicking ...

For anyone who knows me, you know I like backups. (I keep them in a safe deposit box just to make sure they don't get lost.)

Unfortunately, the inevitable happened to me and I lost a hard drive. Well, it was just one drive and I have a couple, so it was not too bad. (Plus I really didn't lose any files I need, because I take regular backups.)

However, what I have lost is time.

Oh, the plans that mice make are probably better then those of men, but I decided if I need to replaced a drive, I was well overdue for an os upgrade too. I estimated it would eat a day watching my system get rebuilt.

Well, the whole weekend is over and I have my new os and some of the redistribution of files done, but now I am working to fix a number of other things that broken because I have a new os.

I suppose this is why I had not upgraded my linux system since 2008; I've got too much integrated into the system for just a couple hour upgrade.

The net effect is I ran out of time to do anything other than this blog post this week. Hoping I'll have something more interesting to say next week.

Book Signing for Mother's Curse - 14 Jul 2012

On the book front, I have a book signing coming up in on 14 Jul 2012 for Mother's Curse.

I will be at the Book Barn in Leavenworth from 1000 to 1300 (1 pm) during part of the Month long festivities for the Where's Waldo 25th Anniversary activities that will be taking place in Leavenworth.

Projectile Snot (Dollar The Scholar #3)

Dollar (The Scholar) knows what he likes, and it is not getting his face washed or brushed. Frankly, he just doesn't like getting a bath. We tend to end up just as wet as he does.



For the face brushing, he's perfected the art of projectile snot. He claims it is all the small hairs and dust that get up his nose, but he holds it back until he can get you point blank in the chest. The only way to avoid his powerful nose blowing is to stay out of his line of sight for a while or feed him treats. He'll forgo covering you with snot if he's been bought off. He's a clever one, got us training.

One thing we had always wished we could do with Dollar was take him trail riding in the mountains. Unfortunately, he's old enough now to be retired, so that will not happen with him. But here is an image of a trail we enjoyed when hiking Mt. Hood:

Writing Royalty in Fiction

I've made an observation when working on Daughter's Justice (the sequel to Mother's Curse). When writing fiction about royalty, there is a lot more to keep track of.

I am trying to be true to the story and avoid the "crowbar plot twists" Eddie Izzard has joked about in some movies. Which means I want to keep track of the back story and underlying plots that would be impacting the world around the characters. In most of my prior writing, the actions of the main characters have limited scope for the world. In those cases, I could simply make general assumptions about how the country and politics played out and bend them to my needs.

When writing about royalty, or anyone who's actions impact politics at a larger scale, the characters will be interacting (directly or simply causing reactions) with people who have the power to change significant aspects of the country and politics as a whole. However, those secondary characters may not have any direct visibility to the reader.

For Stephenie's story, I found the need to tracks the motivations, timings, and actions of many people who are minor characters in the story, but who's actions and motivations would potentially be seen in how the country is run. It adds another dimension to the writing process. Normally, I would simply make note of these characters. However, since they are "powerful" in the world, their reactions can trigger events that drive the main characters.

My goal is to make the country and politics behave as realistic as possible. Perhaps even thinking about it as a character itself; a character made up of many different individuals.

My goal of course is to keep a lot of that complexity from the actual story, focusing on the main characters and their actions. However, having the richer back story I hope will allow me to paint a more engaging picture of the world.

Tales of Dollar the Scholar #2 - Horses and Their Tools

One day, the lady who owns the barn where Dollar is boarded was driving past the outdoor arena where he was turned out. What she saw scared her. Dollar, it appeared, was hung up on the starting block. The starting block, in this case, is made up of a large six inch steal tube that stands around two to three feet off the ground and forms an "L" shape. It is used when they are practicing roping.

Dollar was standing over the starting block, his chest rubbing the top of the tube. She rushed into the arena and carefully coxed him off the block. Dollar calmly complied and looked at her with an "okay, what now" expression.

Relived he was not hurt, she left him turned out and kept an eye on him as she headed back to her chores. Once she had left the area, Dollar walked back to the starting block and side passed back over the top of it. He then proceeded to scratch his chest against the top of the tube. When he was done, he slid off the tube and went back to his normal routine.

I've had the pleasure of seeing him do this myself, where he'd watch me watching him and then give me a look as if to say: "Ya, what are you looking at? Haven't you had an itch before?" Followed immediately by: "Did you bring me anything to eat?" For him, he's got a back scratcher (taking a nice roll on the ground), but to get a good belly scratch, he needed a tool.

Tales of Dollar the Scholar #1

The other day I was out at the barn taking care of my horse Dollar and stopped to chat for a while with one of the ladies at the barn. We got to talking about all the things our horses had done over the years and she couldn't understand why I had not written anything about the crazy adventures that had ensued. That got me to thinking that I probably should document some of these little episodes of life. I'd like to think Dollar would get a sly look in his eyes over people hearing about him.

To start with, for those who have not been around horses, with some rare exceptions, horses are clever little buggers that are curious, conniving, and downright troublesome. Most of them are too smart for our own good and with their loveable behaviors, can manipulate many people to get what they want. With that said, they are well worth the effort at friendship, as they do all have very distinct personalities, likes, dislikes, and most of the time, you can't help but smile at what they do.

Dollar, or more officially Silver Dollar as his original owners named him for the round white mark on his withers, is a large chestnut quarter horse. His antics (such as learning to open his stall door) earned him the name Dollar the Scholar. Just about everyone has a story about him and his lovable personality means he makes friends everywhere he goes.

He turned 23 this May, and while generally healthy, he's been retired for a number of years because he has arthritis in his hocks. Most days he's sound, but occasionally he gets sore and is lame even at the walk.

Dollar has always been cleaver and you can see it in his eyes when he's working out a decision to determine if the reward would be worth the risk. One day, a couple years back, we were bringing him in from the outdoor arena. It was a pleasant spring afternoon, the birds were frolicking and the grass was green and sweet.

As we had done hundreds of times before, we had his food and treats in the feed bucket in the stall. At the the door, I took off the halter and waited for our 1300 pound "Big Guy" to walk on in to get his food.

Well, as is normal during most of the year, the large doors at the end of the barn were open to allow for a cool cross breeze. Dollar glanced down at the far end (his stall was pretty much in the middle of the barn) and paused for a moment. He looked back at me, holding the halter in my hand, still waiting expectantly. He glanced into the stall, noting the food, then looked back at me as if to say "Sorry". He took off, trotting down the isle and toward the open doors.

Standing for a moment with my mouth open (having uttered a choice curse) I took off after him. When I reached the open doors, he was just a few feet away, dining on the young grasses. He kept me in his eye as he quickly gobbled up everything he could get his mouth around. As soon as I got close enough to try to get the lead rope around his neck, he took off, cantering away.

A few more choice words and "Dollar! Halt!" uttered multiple times had no effect. He stopped only when he judged he was far enough away to get a chance to eat before I would be close enough to catch him.

Pigging out, he gobbled up the grass until I got close enough. We repeated this, with him trotting, cantering, and even galloping away, over fields, boggy marsh near some water, and around the barn, just as if he was perfectly sound. Every time anyone of us trying to catch him got close enough, he'd look us in the eye, say, "ya right, you think you can get me?"

Eventually, he climbed up a steep slope, crossed a field, a gravel road, and went through an open gate into a neighbor's pasture. He continued to eat as we all huffed our way over to him.

By this time, he was ready to be caught and we could tell by the glint in his eyes he had enjoyed the chase. We chewed him out as we led him back to the barn (because they really do understand us, or at least the tone) and he had the decency to look admonished. And now that the chase was over, he threw in lots of limping, barely managing to get back to the barn. I think it was in the hopes it would get him out of trouble.

This time, he got led into his stall and he stood there just looking at me with his large brown eyes; his brows peaked to say, "sorry, it was just such a nice day, I wanted to have some fun."

Despite the frustration and fear about him crossing the road, I could not truly be angry with him and I think he knew it. He also knew he was going to get the grain already in his stall, so he had calculated he would not lose out with that little adventure.

That is just one tale of our Dollar the Scholar. We call him the "over glorified lawn ornament", but he is part of our family for life.

Here's a picture of the "Big Guy".

Book Signing Event

For anyone in the Kansas City area, next Saturday, 26 May 2012, I will be at the Longview Horse Park to do a book signing for Mother's Curse at the horse show.

Looking forward to the event, watching the show, and talking with people.

If you cannot make it, Mother's Curse is available both in print and ebook from a number of places.