Baby time over.

So ends February 07 my month home with Jordan. It's been nice.

I miss the hustle and bustle of work. I consider myself somewhat fortunate for having a job with many challenges and great people to work with and at the end of the day I can feel like I did something good in the world. I'm looking forward to going back. But as much as I like my job, this fatherhood thing is where it's really at. This is the real job and what I do to earn money is just something that allows me to do this real job. But just as I am going to have to give a little, Little J is going to have to give a little. Maybe she's still too young to understand what she's losing by starting day care tomorrow. Maybe she'll be fine as long as she gets fed and has a place to sleep. She'll probably handle it better than her parents.

It's the plot stupid.

I just got back from spending another two hours in a local cafe. J was agreeable enough to sleep in her stroller as I sat with two yellow pads of paper and attempted to outline. From the writing guide I've been looking at you should have 90% of your plot generated before you get into it. Sadly enough, I'm not there. Not even close. Part of me senses that a novel may be too big a project. Short stories seem okay. It's just about getting from point A to point B. Novel writing feels like it requires points C, D, E, F and G too. At least that much. It may take me longer than I thought to get a plot that I'm really happy with. If anyone's got any burning story ideas that they want to share, let me know.

In other news, congratulations to little J who marks her 4th month today. For her each day of the last month has been roughly 1/120th of her life and 1/12,800 of my life. Yet, I'm sure it's left a greater impression on me than on her.

Early in draft.

The bookwriting guide I'm looking at has some very interesting thoughts. It can't write a book for you and it isn't as easy as it sounds, but some neat organizational tools nonetheless.

1. Chapters for anything should be around 10 pages. For a novel 35-40 chapters.
2. For each Chapter find 3 conflicts.
3. For each conflict find 6 thoughts or things you want to say.
4. This should give you 18 things you want to write in your chapter. Elminate your weakest 3.
5. Write 15 questions for your thoughts. Order them. come up with key words for each question.
6. Take the first question and write for 5 minutes. Move on to the next one. In theory you should be able to write a first draft of your chapter in about an hour.

I think there is some food for thought here, but I think the big assumption is that you have all your ideas fully worked out already and you know your thoughts will be interesting enough to carry over into a full novel.

I'm jotting notes and keeping a lot of this in mind and it helps a little with the brainstorming, but it's not quite working for me yet either. I feel like I need to take a start or two-beat the blank page a little before I know if I'm an the place in the story that I want to start. But I'm experimenting with two different chapters. In the morning I've been scribbling for Chapter 1. In the afternnon, I'll move on to Chapter 2.

First day of the novel.

This book writing guide has several unique exercises. I'm working through some of the exercises and I am determined to be organized and have things thought out before I actually start writing. Today, I spent a couple of hours at Starbucks thinking about things. For a few minutes writing a letter to my readers so I could state what I'm trying to accomplish. This is probably as specific as I'll ever get about my project.

Dear Reader:

Do you ever wonder why life is so unfair? Why is one born a poor Hutu in Rowanda subject to genocide when another is born with a silver spon and access to all the riches and comforts life has to offer. Where is the justice in a talentless Paris Hilton earning millions for whaever she does? Religious people will cite ultimate justice, that there will be justice in the next life, but how will this work?

In this story I will try to explore the ideal of ultimate justice. That in the end, we will all share in the entirety of human experience. We will all know the life of Paris, as we will know the life of Che Guevera, as we will know the life of Bill Buckner. That all of human experience will belong to all of us. All sin belongs to all of us. Thus, you should be as kind as possible to everyone else in this world, because ultimately, their suffering is your suffering.

Stegasaurus and Writing

Does anyone have any thoughts on what kind of noise a stegasaurus would make? Old McDonald is going to have an especially large assortment of animals on his farm as far as little Jodi is going to know.

I've been thinking about trying a novel again. It's a much larger take over life sort of project that short story writing. And I'm not sure I'm ready just quite yet. I'm just pushing some ideas I have around in the old noggin.

I've recently looked at one of those guidebooks on how to write a book in 2 weeks or less. I can't put together a good short story in that time, let alone a novel, but it does offer some nice tips on letting you know when you are ready to start writing. First off, you should have at least 10 really interesting things to say about a subject. I've got a bout five. I need to brainstorm a few more.

Secondly you need at least two but preferably three significant things to say.

So in the next two weeks I'm going to see if I can organize some thoughts enough to find some interesting and significant things I could throw into a novel.

Year of the Golden Pig

Happy Chinese New Year. It's now 4705. People are generally familiar with the Chinese horoscope which designates one of twelve animals ever year. It's based on an old tale of a great animal race that was held. The rat won by cheating. He rode on the water buffalo and jumped ahead right before the finish line. The rat also cheated by not inviting the cat. Which is why rats and cats don't get along even to this day.

And yes, the boar of which I am one, finished deadlast in the race. I guess pigs are supposed to be slow. Anyway, this is an especially auspicious year for boars because its elements line up so that this is a golden pig year. It only comes every sixty years. So I'm hoping for continued good fortune and Chinese moms are busy pushing for offspring or grand offspring this year. Maybe there will be a small population explosion out in Asia this year.

Anyway, I guess Little Jodi was born in the year of the dog. I guess it means she should be loyal.

ER adventure

I went after the wrong rebound Tuesday night and ended up with an elbow in the face and a pretty deep cut on the left cheek, right below the eye. The doctors playing ball with me recommended that I go by the emergency room to have it checked out.

I'll be okay. The attending physician's assistant gave me the choice of a sutre or dermabond. In either case I'd probably end up with some mild discomfort over the next few days and a little scar.

Emergency rooms treatments could be long drawn out affairs. I spent over two hours at the hospital for about five minutes of actual treatment. But as much as I'd like to blame someone I don't know if there is anyone to hold accountable. Hospitals are just not always going to be the most efficient places and that's because they should have better priorities.

But emergency rooms are facinating places. Everyone walks in with a story about how something happened to them with the result being some sort of suffering or pain. I overheard them treating a woman with constipation, another with chemical burns and a one year old boy with a bit of a fever. (Yes, they all got treated before me.) I can see why television shows have returned to this sort of medical theme over and over again, be it General Hospital, St. Elsewhere or ER. Though I don't think I could ever right a hospital story. I'm squeamish enough as it is and having absolutely no experience I could never make the story my own. I'll have to find something else to occupy my writing.

Lack of Credibility

It's really hard to say if Iran is helping out the civil war in Iraq. It would certainly fall within their interests to do so. But I can't get over that gnawing feeling that it's another Junior driven setting the groundstage for war. The lies were easy to expose before the Iraq invasion. The gaming of the UN, the failure of our European allies to support the cause, the dreamed-up bioweapons facilities, were all implausible. But Junior wanted his war no matter what Hans Blix or anyone else could substantiate in fact.

And even if he is right about Iran, it's very hard to believe him right now. This is the damage he has done to the office of the President and the world at large.

Catching up on Baby Time.

So I've been at it a little longer than a week at this point. It's a complete change of pace being away from the office and serving as caretaker to the little one. I've changed a lot more diapers than I'd care to count, and mostly it's been okay. It's just every once in a while, where she cries and there doesn't seem to be any earthly reason that it gets sort of frustrating. No one ever wants to hear their little baby girl cry. It tugs at you. It stresses you out.

Party of me welcomed this time away from work as a nice little sabatical. Maybe in the hours she was down, I'd be able to work on my writing. That really hasn't happened too much. I think part of it is just switching gears from little baby to big story. I think part of it is just the lack of stimulation from being at home. I'm watching some television, but there's not a whole lot of talking and listening or interacting with adults. Maybe that's holding me back a bit. I haven't quite figured it out, but I'll see if I can get more into it before this part of my life slips away.

One on one.

Today is the first day of my one month paternity leave/sabatical. I've taken care of her before, but this will really be my first solo without a much more competent mommy person to look after the baby. The little girl will probably never remember that I took a month off from work just to spend it with her and take care of her, but I will and maybe that's the important thing. Yesterday, somebody told me what I was doing was commendable. True, there is some fear of the work that's already accumulating on my desk and the many diapers that lie in my near future, but commendable seemed like a strange way to look at taking time away from the office. Maybe that says something about how we work too hard. The baby and I are just feeling each other out today. I think tomorrow, I'll start figuring out if I can really accomplish any writing or anything else in these days off.