Moving Former Blog

For all of you out there who don’t read me (I know I have no fans, and that’s OK – this is an exercise in sanity), I’ve decided to move all of my also nonread stuff from LiveJournal to here, so that it’s all in one place. So in order, here are the original posts, and their corresponding dates.

As tomorrow is Friday the 13th, I’m staying home and getting out the Halloween decorations. The kids don’t have school, so it will be fun. We will be having a movie marathon of Universal Monsters to entertain us as we decorate with Orange and Black.

Oct. 13th, 2006 08:35 pm An exhausting day!

As I said in last night’s post, I stayed home from work today to get a little Halloween decorating in, with it being Friday the 13th and all. My youngest thought she would get to go Trick-or-Treating tonight! She’s only three, but I believe she may have something there. What a shocker that would be if suddenly people started showing up at your door on Oct. 13, asking for treats and warning of the requisite trick if not properly paid.

We started off the day with a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs smothered in cheese that is still sticking to my arteries, sausage, hash browns, and awesome pancakes specially
prepared with vanilla extract. After that the work began for me down in the basement, where we keep all of our holiday decorations. I put a wonderful movie in the DVD player down there. It is called Horror Hotel, and features a young Christopher Lee. It is pretty scary stuff, with witches, sacrifices to the devil, and other cute hijinks. My son said it was so scary he almost wet his pants. Not many almost ten year olds will readily admit.

So I got out all the stuff and then my son and I carried all the boxes upstairs. We put the movie on up there, and then after some mandatory cleaning and moving of items, we decided it was time for lunch, which once more was chock full of health food. We ate Franks in a Blanket, the ever popular Schwann’s frozen pizza, and jalapeno poppers stuffed with cheddar cheese. Because the kitchen table was full of pictures, knick-knacks, and other sundry things that I’ve never noticed before, we ate in the living room and watched Charlie Brown’s Halloween show. After it was over we put in the Star Trek Episode Catspaw, which was written by the author of Psycho, Robert Bloch. Trick -or-Treating is mentioned a couple times in the episode, so even Star Trek can be quite seasonal and a real mood
enhancer (and somewhat less addictive than what they used in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).

For your inquisitive minds, I’ve posted a few of our decorating pics.

Oct. 15th, 2006 08:54 am Finally finished Dracula

I’ve finally finished reading Dracula, the day after I turned 44. I think because I’m getting older that I feel an obligation to read certain classics that I’ve never read, and Frankenstein isn’t far behind on my reading list. About a year ago I read The Scarlet Letter. This came as a surprise to many that I hadn’t read it yet, because I received my
degree in English Education, and most people can’t escape high school without being subjected to Hawthorne at his supposed finest moment (I prefer Young Goodman Brown, a witch/devil worshipping little delight of a short story). More thoughts later on this…

Oct. 16th, 2006 07:33 pm Very productive day

I completed seven pages of my novel today, putting it to around 115,000 words. It’s really a monster, but it’s almost complete. Today I really worked in some good science stuff and had to do a little perusing of the Internet afterwords to make sure I didn’t say anything stupid concerning theoretical particle physics. Much to my relief, what I wrote was in tune with conventional theory, and I even found an article about an experiment that Swiss scientists did three years ago that support what I had occur. Although what I put in is obviously something that can’t really be done, but where’s the fun in making it all real?

At any rate, I am so close to being finished that I can taste it! Going to Context 19 in Columbus for the last day was a big influence in driving me to get this finished, specifically getting an opportunity to talk with Gary Frank for a few minutes. Gary, if you ever read this, I just wanted you to know that yes, it is a big deal for us nobodies to get to talk to you published writers.

I was first told I could make a living as a writer by an English instructor at Ohio State, John Wanger. That was back in Winter Quarter, I believe, of 1982. And ever since then I’ve produced well-written papers and articles, going on to get my degree in English Education, and eventually becoming a journalist in the Army. After that I went the corporate route, and have been a professional writer for a financial institution for nine years. I took Writer’s Digest novel writing class, and my instructor, John DeChancie, said that my book has the potential to be big, and I’ve entered works and an excerpt from the novel in progress into writing competitions at the Mid-West Writer’s Conference. A couple times I made the top ten. And now, what I want most of all, is to get this novel completed and published. And I’m so close that I can taste it…

Oct. 30th, 2006 08:13 pm It’s been a long time…

OK, it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted here, but what difference does it make? (Now I sound like Yossarian from Catch-22.) No one reads this claptrap but me, yet this could be a good tool to keep me on track with all my writing. My biggest recent change came in my book title. I now have all three titles of the trilogy worked out. They all start off saying, “Dreamworld, Book One (or Two or Three),” followed by “Prometheus Stumbles,” “Chronos Yields,” and “Tartarus Beckons.” I’m very excited about the whole thing, yet I still haven’t wrapped up book one yet.

Oct. 30th, 2006 08:22 pm Library Thing added

I’ve added a link to my Library Thing profile (http://www.librarything.com/profile/ed_gosney). Check it out and check out my library while you’re at it. I own around 5,000 books, so it’s going to take a while to add them all.

Nov. 7th, 2006 06:22 pm Novel Title Changed

For those of you keeping track (which, by the way, is just myself…so far), I’ve changed the title of my now almost complete novel. Originally it was entitled Dreamworld Book One: Charybdis’ Passage. But in a spate of creative energy, research, and sheer madness, I changed it at this late date to Dreamworld Book One: Prometheus Stumbles. Book two will be Dreamworld Book Two: Chronos Yields, with book three being Dreamworld Book Three: Tartarus Beckons. It all makes perfect sense to me, considering the plots of the three novels. Now I just have to finish the first one.

A few days ago, with nothing added but some instant coffee and a fear of death before completion, I wrote 11 pages, which is probably the most I’ve ever written on this novel in one sitting. I was quite proud of myself, because besides the lengthy output, it was pretty good stuff! Excited as all get out, I figured that I would be able to finish the first draft the  next day. But no, I entered the dreaded realm of laziness. Not writer’s block, but laziness. I know what I have to write, what needs to come next, at least in a big picture sense (yet somehow my work takes on a life of its own sometimes and surprises me in both delightful and dreadful ways), but I don’t want to do it. Instead, I’d rather flounder around in the middle somewhere, changing sentences and telling myself that I’m actually working. Well, I am, sort of. But that won’t get it done.

Jan. 19th, 2007 10:01 pm It’s been so long…

It’s been SO long since I’ve written here, but life’s been busy. But as for my book, it is close, so close, to having the first draft complete. I’ve been doing a lot of editing along the way, so minimal editing will be needed once this draft is finished. Currently I’m up to 556 pages.
Unbelievable. I really can’t believe how thick this has become, but it’s been necessary to put this work together the way I needed to.

Feb. 20th, 2007 06:56 pm The End Is Near!

I feel like celebrating, though I still have a ways to go. I’m within a few pages of finishing  my book, but I have a lot of fixer up sections. Several pages worth of notes, as a matter of fact. Sorry that I haven’t informed all you fans of my progress, but I’ve been rather busy  with the book and life in general.

Hey, you’re right! I didn’t disappoint anyone on here. What a sense of relief. No one reads  this but me anyway, so the only person I could possibly let down is myself. Now I can go away without feeling so guilty.

Until next time…

P.S.
– I took the picture of the fireworks at an Akron Aeros baseball game last summer. I took several and they turned out pretty cool. I got some snaps of the Goodyear blimp too, if anyone really cares.