R.M. Ridley's Blog, page 34

AHHHHHHHH!

Yes – this post is about water. Feel free to skip this one.

Called Company ‘A’ to come pull out old well system and install brand new. ‘A’ came next day – looked at it and said “can’t do it – call Company ‘B’.”

Called company ‘B’ took them two days to be able to come. Came with equipment – guy looked the whole thing over said…”can’t do it call Company ‘C’.” I said -”you call them so I know they know just what they are dealing with – no surprises.”

He called. Discovered I’d need to clear the snow and broken concrete (which I have  to help fill in a trench the power company had us dig so they could lay new lines two years ago.) before he could get his rig in to do the job.

I went to neighbour who has a back hoe to see if he would be kind enough to do that job. He said “yup – sure. I’ll help you out with that.” (By the Gods I Love living in country.. sometimes, in someways).

Called Company ‘C’ and left a message saying the path to the pump house would be cleared by Monday.

Waiting for a call back – and I confess I am expecting that Company ‘C’ will come out Monday and say…

Well, you know.

Filed under: Homesteading Tagged: frustration, plumping, pump house, water, well

More or Less a Writer

I’m not sure if I feel more like a writer when I’m chastising myself for not getting any writing done in a day, or when I when I do get words down.

I have been writing for long enough that doing so is a sort of second nature. When I am writing, it is simply what I do.

Now there are times when the words are flowing, and the story is sizzling, and the whole experience is like chocolate covered, roller-coaster, orgasm. Those times I know I’m a writer.

But it’s is not always those times. Sometimes it’s just easing the words onto the page like spreading peanut butter on a cracker – do it just right and you have a tasty snack. Do it wrong and you have crumbs everywhere and sticky fingers.

But when I am not writing… well then I feel it acutely. Even when the idea’s are not flowing and if I sat down it would be nothing but me and the mocking cursor – I still miss it. It is said it is the absence of a thing that truly makes you appreciate it. Is that yearning that truly defines the breed?

Today, I wrote more in the fourth Alvey novel, ‘Corrupted Souls’. I hit my minimum thousand words per day quota but I haven’t for a number of days previous. (yes – because of water stress mostly – and no it isn’t fixed yet). But was I more the writer yesterday, saddened by my lack of progress — or am I more the writer today because of those words.

Perhaps it is the bitter sweet combination of the two that marks the calling. One way or the other, I know myself. I know I am a writer.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: bitter sweet, chocolate covered roller-coaster orgasm, Corrupted Souls, cracker, current work in progress, Jonathan Alvey, novel, paranormal private investigator, peanutbutter, progress, scene, story, thousand words, Tomorrow Wendell, Urban Fantasy, word count, writer, writing

An Indie Author Debut

What do you do when a killer can hide behind his dreams?

What do you do when a murder weapon ceases to exist?

~*~

Washington

District of Columbia

United Republic of Earth

2712

Twenty-three-year-old Adem Adamend has it rough. His name is ludicrous. His friends are few. And the only thing his “kid genius” status has gotten him at the Interdistrict Bureau of Intelligence is a boatload of extra work with no credit in sight.

Then hotshot lawyer Victor Manson is burned to death in his own back yard, and Adem finds himself using his unique skills to piece together the strangest crime he’s ever seen. Strange because the only possible suspect Adem can pin the murder on…is a mythical beast. A dragon.

Before Adem can unravel the mystery of Manson’s death, the Bureau loses jurisdiction to the secretive EDPA, an organization that investigates weird and deadly events. But Adem isn’t one for giving up, so he takes it upon himself to delve deeper into EDPA’s machinations, into the series of unfortunate events that led to Manson’s demise.

And what he finds may change the way he views the world — and himself — forever.

____

What do you do when a killer can hide behind his dreams?

What do you do when a murder weapon ceases to exist?

And how do you stop a villain who can conjure up nightmares and burn you from the Earth in the blink of an eye?

Adem Adamend is about to find out.

Purchase Echoes:

At Amazon

At Barnes & Noble

BIO:

Therin Knite is a 22-year-old college senior who occasionally writes speculative fiction and has the odd delusion of literary stardom. Knite lives in a humble little place known as the Middle of Nowhere, Virginia and spends every possible second of free time reading books and writing what may possibly qualify as books. Echoes is Therin Knite’s first novel in what will be a futuristic sci-fi/mystery series.

Filed under: Book Release Tagged: Echoes, murder, mystery, novel, Sci-fi, Therin Knite, writer, writing

No – Don’t Tell me How Much

So I came home yesterday And got right to work on the water pump (I know – you’re sick about reading about my water issues. Stay with me a little longer)

I hooked it up in a different way – running water straight from pump to house – and it broken the actual pump casing.

So today I called to have a professional come in and tear out the old and put in a whole new system. He thinks he might be able to do it in a day … I’m not holding my breath on that one.

So he gave the original estimate, ball park, round numbers, best guess. It was a number that had three zero’s after it. Then he realized I wanted him to pull the old system out, for which he doesn’t have the mechanical means right at the moment. He asked if I could wait a bit. (HA!) I said I’d prefer not to. He said he thought he could get it done using man power (he must employ people who have been exposed to gamma rays) and told me the hourly wage (now I want to be exposed to gamma rays). I said all right – see you tomorrow morning.

I called my father to break the bad news as he’s the one whose bailing me out. It really feels that way. Like I’ve been in lock up and now with now plea bargain offered, I’ve had to turn for him to foot the bill to bail me out.

I appreciate, and am grateful, that my family both can, and will, do this for me. But I hate that they have to. I truly wish I could have done this myself. I wish for running water more though, and so does my wife.

May tomorrow this awful ordeal can simply be another thing to try and forget about this interminable, offensive winter.

Filed under: Homesteading Tagged: bath, family, frustration, gamma rays, money, plumbing, water, water pump, wife, winter

A Much Needed Escape

Today I get to go into the city to get away from it all, and release some steam… literally.

There is a ‘Vape Night’ tonight. Friends and fellow vapers gathering at a bar to have a few drinks, try new vape flavours, and sing some karaoke.

Well, I won’t be doing the karaoke part. I don’t dislike anyone enough to force them to listen to my tone deaf voice destroying perfectly good songs.

Its a good time and I also get to spend some time with my family before going out. It has quickly become a nice tradition to go in once a month, have dinner with my family and drinks with some friends.

My only regret is that the get together is not really my wife’s thing. She wouldn’t enjoy herself and thus she doesn’t get to come out and get rid of some stress. She needs to have chance to just ‘get out and get away’ for a few hours too. Hopefully something will come up for her soon.

But tonight I’ll put all worries and troubles aside for a few hours and start the week, and it’s troubles, refreshed.

 

Filed under: MIscellaneous, Vaping Tagged: crazy, dinner, drinks, e-cigarette, family, frustration, night out, relax, Vape, wife

Of Words, and Water, and Wood

I wrote today, only a thousand words but it has been a couple days with no words, so those thousand feel good. I am very near to the end of ‘Corrupted Souls’ – well near in the scope of things . . . probably 30 thou left to write.

There is no way I will have the first draft done before I start the heavy edits on the first novel ‘Tomorrow Wendell’, as those will begin in about a week. I never expected to be done before the edits, in fact I am surprised I have gotten as far as I have. That is why I have been striving to make sure I write a little each morning, to set the routine and habit of getting some done everyday, even when the rest of the day will be dedicated to editing.

The water was running but now it is doing nothing. I am thinking that maybe the motor has given up the ghost. It has been on there since before we bought the place and that’s just over a decade. I know they burn out on pumps like mine from the constant starting up. It could also be that there is a problem with my reservoir which is causing the motor to run more than it should…making ‘burned out’ even more likely. I will have to rewire it to check if it is still good. If it is — I’m at a bit of a loss as to what is wrong this time.

We also ran out of wood yesterday. I had planned yesterday to go and collect another few days worth in the afternoon, but what I hadn’t planned on was the rain. Hard to tromp through snow and use the chainsaw safely if it is pissing down rain on you. So I’m a little cold this morning, though due to the nice weather no more cold than I was on the coldest days of the season with the heat running. Still – this afternoon I will have to go collect up wood, even knowing it will all be soaked and not want to burn.

I really can’t wait for summer. Granted in summer we wouldn’t have had the snow to convert into water, but it would have been easier to survive all this – and changing the pump has to wait for the nice weather now anyway.

So yeah – I hate winter and this one has been a spectacular bitch to me.

Filed under: Homesteading, MIscellaneous, Writing Tagged: current work in progress, edits, frustration, heat, Jonathan Alvey, motor, novel, paranormal private investigator, plumping, Tomorrow Wendell, Urban Fantasy, water, waterpump, winter, wood, writing

I Took A BATH!

I took a bath in my own tub. I lay there surrounded by hot water that was pumped there my my water pump.

It isn’t without fault but water is getting to the house…for now. (knock on wood)

I have to do something about the reservoir – maybe a value replacement will carry me through to nicer weather or maybe I should just bite the $400 bullet and do it now.

It was nice to take that bath though.

UPDATE: Yup – that lasted long. Now it just isn’t turning on at all.~sigh~

 

Filed under: MIscellaneous Tagged: pluming, water pump

New Book to Check Out!

A new book by Amelia James – Home is Where the Heat Is

 The Twisted Mosaic’s reader favorite, Claire, has some twisted fun of her own.

This incrediablly hot cover is from Mallory Rock

Dependable paralegal Claire O’Connor knows the man of her dreams is out there waiting for her, and she’s ready for him. Imagine her surprise—and delight—when she discovers not one but two men who lust for her. One adores her; the other challenges her. One makes sense; the other is a gamble.

Despite the family tragedy that shaped his past, JT Luck has only known professional success. His personal life, however, is a failure. He doesn’t want a relationship, and while his ‘let it ride’ attitude keeps most women at a distance, Claire is eager to roll with him.

But when she finds out Kurt Langston, the office’s resident computer geek, harbors a secret crush for her, she wonders if he’s the safer bet. Kurt doesn’t get close to people, and his feelings for Claire make no sense in his carefully ordered life. His unexpected bond with JT pushes him to take chances he never imagined.

Go all-in or go home? Either way, the heat could be more than they can handle.

  BIO:

I got hooked on trashy romance novels in junior high, but my mom took them away from me, But she couldn’t stop me from daydreaming. After I got married, I wrote some of my naughtier daydreams down and sent them to Playgirl magazine. Two of them got published. I kept daydreaming and writing stories until my dirty stories turned into trashy books.

I live in Colorado, but I’ll always be a loyal Wisconsin Cheesehead. When I’m not lusting after my next bad boy hero, I’m looking for inspiration in sci-fi and action movies, football players, morally ambiguous lawyers, muscle cars, and kick-butt chicks.

You can find me on Facebook, and on Twitter I’m known as Trashy Writer. I call myself a trashy writer because I want my readers to know that I enjoy mindless escapism as much as they do. I’m not out to win a Pulitzer Prize. (But I’m an award-winning finalist in erotica, USA Book News 2012.) I just want to help someone relax and get away from it all for a little while. I write romance, erotica and trash for fun and pleasure.

You can find Amelia James at any and all of the bellow links!

Her Blog

 Twitter

Facebook

Google +

Goodreads

Filed under: Book Release, Writing

Introducing… The Top Leather Gaskets!

So I have been struggling to get my water pump working and get water flowing to my house for days (and days).

Today, the weather was nice and tomorrow I have to go into town anyway, so I took apart the last possible thing that could be causing the issue – check the top leather gaskets (doesn’t that sound like some S&M accapella group?)

So I took the whole pump apart, pulled that piece, and carried it inside to dismantle – only to find the leathers were not there, nor the brass washer/nuts (this post is sounding far too dirty– maybe it’s because I have no water)

So I panicked, then retraced my steps through the snow …nothing. Back into the pump house. Force my hand down into the piping which carries the water up.

Into the near frozen water I forced my hand, crushed together until I was up to the mid-point on my forearm – worried I would never get it out again.

And there I felt the smooth round washer. I wiggled my fingers until I could grasp it, then slowly and carefully pulled my hand out.

I got it!

Now I only had to do it three more times.

It turned out to be four times because I just couldn’t believe that the leathers themselves were simple gone -  they are.

But luckily I have the more expensive, harder to replace brass pieces.

Tomorrow I will hunt down replacment leathers – put the pump together and … still not have water because the resevoir needs rplacing and that is going to be something the S&M accapella group  would find too dirty and awful to crone about.

Filed under: Homesteading

Pen by the Bed

If you are a writer, or live with one, you have a pen and notepad by your bed.

It is just a given.

Why, all you non-writers ask? Because it is after you have gotten comfortable, are drifting towards sleep, ready to turn off your brain for a few hours that inspiration comes knocking.

Great snippets of conversation from you character, or a flash of a essential scene flood your brain just at that moment and you MUST write it down.

You can tell yourself that you’ll remember – that it is too perfect or awesome to forget but you only do that once. Once – because the next days weeping over that perfect moment you lost during the slumber is the most bitter.

I got that moment again last night. I hastily scribbled down the conversation and, with a smile, sighed and laid my head back on the pillow.

This morning I transcribed it to the computer, fleshed it out some and even added more.

The only sad part – the part that made me shake my head just before it settled on to the pillow – the scene is for a short story. A short story that I really don’t have time for.

I am finishing up the fourth novel, I have plumbing yet to do and soon the blizzard outside will be nothing to the blizzard of edits I’ll be entrenched in.

Still -  better an over active Muse than a silent sullen one.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: current work in progress, edits, inspiration, Jonathan Alvey, muse, novel, paranormal private investigator, scene, short story, Tomorrow Wendell, Urban Fantasy, wierd thoughts, writer, writing