R. Leib's Blog: Dream State, page 3

To Do or Not to Do

Wow. Almost two months since my last blog entry. I did not mean for it to be that long. It is just that I have not had much to say lately. Goodreads has kept me rather busy. I am now a moderator in a fairly active group. This is my first time moderating a Goodreads group, and I want to do it right. So there has not been a lot of progress on the "Tourist of Infinity", but I will be getting back to it soon. Right now, I am doing one of the things authors need to do, read. I just finished reading and reviewing DragonFly Part I: To Hell and Back and The Inverted World, and I am starting Well Oiled: A Mayberry Multisport Adventure and Deneb.

First Draft is Finally Done!

It's hard to believe, but the first draft of the "Tourist of Infinity" is finally done. It took me months more than I planned, and I am disappointed in my poor work ethic. I'm going to have to concentrate on my writing to bring it to a publishable state. It needs a lot of work. So the rewriting begins tonight. Wish me good prose with a touch of poetry.

Slice of Life Humor

If movie theaters really wanted us to enjoy our experience, they would stop offering bags of popcorn on the easy payment plan.

Optimist/Pessimist Joke

An optimist sees a glass that's have full, a pessimist sees a glass that's have empty, and a New Yorker wonders why you can see through the water.

Building a Cyclotron

When I was in college (I think it was in the early Pleistocene), I worked as an electrical assembler on a 160 ton cyclotron being built by the physics department. It spanned two floors of a seven story building. To allow for the placing of the D's (large brass components shaped like arrows), four of us lifted the 80 ton top half of the magnet using hand-pumped hydraulic jacks. It took us an hour and a half to get it up about a foot. There were gates wired to a safety system on every floor. If a gate was open, the cyclotron could not be activated. We all wore photographic exposure badges that were developed every Friday to see if we had been exposed to too much radiation. Magnetic switching units routed the stream of particles to various experimentation rooms. These were really big. The six-inch thick steel double doors for the largest room were delivered already mounted in their frame. We had to weld them shut, because a visitor was almost crushed, when he tried to pull one of the doors open. Without being set in the wall, opening one of the doors would shift the center of gravity for the whole assembly causing it to fall forward. Since it weighed a ton or two, this would be bad. Most of what I did was point-to-point assembly of control circuitry. I was good at soldering, paid attention to details, and validated my work. We lost a good portion of the control circuitry and all the hair off the side of my boss's head, when the 12 volt control line was accidentally crossed with the high amperage D current. I never saw the cyclotron in action. When all the control circuits were completed, my job was done.

Back on Track

I've lost some time, but the first draft of the "Tourist of Infinity" is moving forward again. It will probably take another month to complete it. Then the reworking and editing starts. But it will be nice to have something done even if it still needs a lot of work.

Why I Haven't Blogged Lately

To be honest, I am not having too good a time lately. I have stalled a little on my novel, "Tourist of Infinity". It is not that I do not know what to write next; it is that I am having trouble motivating myself. I have had a few personal setbacks, as well. So I am a little depressed. But I am not giving up. Tonight I am putting myself back to work. (I am nocturnal; I write at night.)

On the occasion of my birthday

It is my birthday tomorrow. I am reticent to tell you how old I am, but suffice to say that I feel old. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to accept that, at best, less than half of the stories rumbling around in my head will be written before I'm gone. I guess I am feeling my mortality this evening. I always knew I would die, but the idea was a nebulous one until a few years ago. Then it struck me how many paths I had started that would go no further in my lifetime. The older I get, the more I feel like a snail racing against a clock that might as well be calendar. Oh well. Back to writing. Cake will have to wait for tomorrow.

To All The Aspiring Authors Out There

Bit'n Book Promoters is a nice group of people on Facebook and Twitter who are willing to promote your book in exchange for a like. I thought it was very little to ask for what they were offering, and they proved that to be true several times over. It does take a little patience. (These are hard working people just like you and me. I am embarrassed to admit that I got impatient, and wrote back to them. They were even nice about that.) When it was all said and done, I got a fine promotion of my book on their blog page and a lovely review. Their Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/BITNBOOKPROM....

I definitely recommend them.

Life First

In a dystopian society where the state determines how its citizens will serve its "Life First" mandate, Kelsey finds herself divided between what she has always been told is her duty and what her conscience tells her is right. The true nightmare quality of this injustice is only a principle to her, until the full weight of this system is turned against her.

R.J. Crayton has crafted an intricately thought out and well written novel that makes it easy for the reader to root for its heroine. It is nicely paced and thoroughly engaging.