“Sick, Sick, Sick,” or “Why I haven’t written dick-all in a week”

I’m home today, sitting in the library with a kitty on my lap, and the lap dog taking up the majority of the floor.

Mrs. Wesley had been out of commission Tuesday and Wednesday with the Crud, and now I’ve got it. Coughing, hacking, sniffles. The whole nine. And I’ve completely lost my voice. Like, the only sound I can get to come out above a whisper is when I’m wheezing or hacking up a furball.

I would have written my 1,000 words Tuesday, but Mrs. Wesley needed to be cuddled, and therefore we watched the remainder of LOST Season 2 on DVD.

I would have written my 1,000 words yesterday, but, quite honestly, I was already sickipoo and vegged in front of the TV while Mrs. Wesley needed to use the computer anyway. I think I went to bed at 9PM.

Ironically, I may very well write my 1,000 words today, when I’m sick as a dog. There are some things I really want to get down in response to the book I read (and mostly completed) this weekend: a collection of Max Brand’s (mostly) non-western short stories. Like how most of them are built around just five scenes, or how strong his female characters are. I mean, almost all of the stories I read were from 1934-1936, and they were GOOD. Well-plotted, well-paced… well-written stories with well-drawn characters.

It’s a shame that Mr. Faust hated them so much. He may not have been a great poet, but he was a fine writer.

1,000 Words: The Coyotes of Silver Moon

Starting out with just a little under three hundred words to begin with, so there’s that. Don’t know if I’m going to hit my target for today regardless. I mean, I will, there’s no doubt about that, I’m just not sure any of it’s going to have anything to do with the story.

See, Mrs. Wesley and I had another chat tonight, about how I’ve shirked my responsibilities with LCT this year, because I haven’t listened to the music—which I haven’t—and haven’t gotten in touch with the others on the team I’m supposed to be leading—which I haven’t.

It wasn’t so much a discussion as her telling me what she thinks I need to do, and me understanding it, even if she sees it differently. Unfortunately nothing is ever easy. Instead of her saying her piece and letting it go—which, admittedly, she’s done several times in the past. But each time I was ready to leave, she would ask, “so what are you going to do about this… tomorrow?” That turned a five minute lecture into a 45 minute cold war. She asks questions that demand answers, and I just don’t have them in formats that I can express or that she can understand.

Even as I write this, I’ve had to stand up and pace around and vent at least three times, wasting maybe 15 minutes because I can’t concentrate.

Okay, four times now.

That’s part of the problem with how I write. I have to clear my head before I can get into the story. I’ve got to put everything in my head down on paper. And everything in my head right now is my frustration with the wife and how I feel about the whole LCT thing.

Here’s the fact of the matter. I don’t really want to do LCT anymore. It takes up too much of my energy year after year. I enjoy being a part of it… sometimes. But the truth is I don’t often enjoy being there. That’s not true. In the past, when I was a cast member, I had often thought about dropping out, and there were years I did bail out completely, or nearly so. I just wasn’t having fun in rehearsals or performances very often.

Now, I’m in charge of them. I think I can really bring something new to the process. Hopefully, at least. But now it takes up even more of my energy, and I’m not really up for it this year. I mean, I have a couple of ideas to take the burden off my shoulders. An internship program where I would pick a few people to follow me around and learn a little bit about what goes on in the making of these programs. And then I’m going to ask the high school seniors to take charge of the younger kids.

750 words and counting. I’m tired and frustrated and scared and upset.

How am I supposed to enjoy myself this weekend now? We might as well not go, because I’m not going to be able to concentrate on anything except LCT now, am I? Right now I’m thinking about how that CD with all the music on it for the program is sitting on top of my CPU, and I’m here writing about how I don’t have the time to do anything with it, because I need to get my thousand words in.

But here’s the thing: LCT doesn’t do me any good for my writing. If I’m supposed to be a writer, if I’m supposed to be writing, then any time I spend working on something other than my writing is not time spent efficiently. Therefore, any time I spend fussing about LCT is really just wasted writing time.

I’m thinking right now that I should just can this weekend and devote it to storyboarding for LCT. That would be the rational decision. I’m not going to have any fun this weekend now.

I don’t have time to read. I don’t have time to write. The only thing I’ve done for the past two nights is watch old episodes of LOST that aren’t even that good, when I should be doing something else.

…and that, dear reader, is how to finish my 1,000 words on a low, low note.

1,000 Words: The Coyotes of Silver Moon

I’m going to try to get this cranked out while at work today. I probably should have started an hour or more ago, when I got back from lunch and everyone else was out. Now people are starting to come back, and I’ll have to get back to work shortly. So I may have to pound this one out as quickly as possible.

Still working on the Coyotes of Silver Moon. I’ve still got the germ of the idea: three outlaws discover a belt that turns the wearer into a coyote. I’ve still got the US Marshal and his posse tracking them down. But I don’t have much more than that.

I want the outlaws to be genuinely afraid of the Marshal, but I don’t know if I want the Marshal to be a bad guy. It would be so easy to make the marshal a corrupt cop stereotype, but that would make him a stereotype, wouldn’t it?

Wait, I may have just had an epiphany. What if I took a page from O Brother, Where Art Thou? That movie was about three convicts on the lam, followed by a Marshal who was truly frightening. Even though he had no ulterior motive, just the fact that he was always there, just a step or two behind them, and his presence was so ominous that the three convicts often escaped by the dumbest of luck. Of course, that was a part of the charm of the movie. But I think I want that kind of relationship between my characters. Once the outlaws discover who’s after them, they’ll be jumping over each other to get away.

But I still don’t know what to do with the belt. Which is just kinda important to the whole story, don’t you think?

I think I need to go to the bathroom and stretch my legs (and hips) for a moment. That’s what I think.

620 words to go.

But I’ll get to the belt in a little bit. Let’s take a look at the outlaws. I know I want at least one of them to be severely injured, probably dying, wounded in the shootout resulting from the botched robbery.

Gutshot. Something that produces a lot of internal bleeding, but won’t allow the person to die for several days. Like, in the kidneys or something.

But why not just leave him behind? Maybe he’s someone’s kid brother?

Okay, I’m getting a real vision of Déjà vu here, and I don’t know why. Is it something about the kid brother that’s setting this off? I don’t know.

What other reason would two of these outlaws have for not abandoning the gutshot outlaw? Younger brother… what else? Maybe he’s the leader of the group, and they’re loyal to him. Maybe he’s holding a secret of his own, like a stash of gold he’s been hoarding for years… or something else. But my gut tells me that the kid brother idea is the winner. I like the idea that one of the outlaws is trying to save his brother—maybe not even a kid brother as much as his TWIN brother… hmmm…

They’re all going to be young. In their 20s, at the oldest. I don’t know that any gunfighter outside of the famous lawmen like Wyatt Earp really lasted past their 30th birthday.

The other two outlaws… I don’t think either one of them should be the ‘leader’ of the gang, the mastermind. One may outrank the other because of his familiarity with the gang leader, but, hey, if the boss gets shot and killed or captured, I think it’s perfectly reasonable that the foot soldiers start fighting amongst themselves.

Sorry about that. Got distracted trying to come up with names and ended up looking at county maps for California. Such is life.

The twins will be August and Alexanander Luther. Well, crap. I just realized—Alexander Luther—Lex Luthor. Can’t use that, can I? Or can I? Well, why not. As long as I –

Hold on, just realized something. I changed my mind. They’r—Alex and August—aren’t going to be the Luther boys, they’re going to be the McHenry boys.

Okay, how about this for a little bit of conflict. Luther Slope, the third of the outlaws, was maybe second in command of the gang, or maybe one of the ranking lieutenants, while August and Alex were a bit younger and hotter tempered. August was looking to make a name for himself and his brother—the McHenry Boys, and he wanted to start up his own gang. So it was something August did that caused the robbery to go south, and yet he gets away. I like that. Lots of conflict. The McHenrys boys, August specifically, were causing trouble within the ranks, disagreeing with the way things worked. Maybe they were more educated than the others, graduated high school. That’d be fun. The McHenry boys are more schooled than the rest of the gang, and August flaunts this as much as possible, challenging decisions and plans and such.

And Luther Slope was an older, high ranking officer.

Scratch Alexander—How about Julius? Julius and August McHenry. Okay, THAT sounds like a couple of city slickers brothers who get in over their head. I like that a lot. Julius and August.

And they were all members of the Rollie Pierce gang. Julius and August McHenry, Luther Slope and Rollie Pierce. I like that a lot.

Now, what actually happens in this story? How do they find out about this shaman? And more importantly, what do they do with this belt—and maybe most importantly, and what will define this story, will they get out of it alive?

I know I DON’T want to show the actual robbery going bad. That’s beyond the point of this story. I want to start with them on the run, being chased by the Marshals.

NOTE TO SELF: I really need to pick up (again) The Writers Guide to Life in the 1800s (or the Old West—I forget which).

I may work on this more tonight, just fleshing out some ideas. But as of here, I’ve got my 1,000 words.

1,000 Words: The Coyotes of Silver Moon

Okay, a couple of things before we get started for my 1,000 words today.

1) I really don’t want to do this right now. I realize that not wanting to do it and doing it anyway is one of my rules, but still. I came home from work early because I wasn’t feeling well. I’m still not. When Carrie calls and asks what I’m doing, I tell her I’m reading, and she asks why I’m not writing. I tell her I’m not up for it and she gets all huffy. I wanted to write later on tonight, because that’s what I’m good at. But she’s getting the second season of Lost on DVD tonight and has already gotten that set in her head, so here I am, clacking away, when I’d rather be reading or playing poker (which, by the way, I was doing for a while when I got home—cleared 4,000 points, which ain’t bad).

2) I’ve missed my goal of 1,000 words by approximately… 1,000 words since last Thursday or Friday (I’d have to check to make sure, and maybe I’ll do that later, but I want to get these words out right now). Been busy around here. I figured out the math earlier today, and since Friday Mrs. Wesley and I have had 8 people and 4 dogs at one time or another during the weekend. Plus we were working on the barn all day Saturday AND Sunday, which almost never happens. But, Mrs. Wesley reminded me that even when we don’t ‘work’ on Sundays, she still has a lot to do and doesn’t get a day off, which she really wanted. The ultimate point is that the barn is finally clean and clear of almost all debris. The stuff that’s left needs to be kept there as late as possible because it’s either machinery, shelving, or something else that wouldn’t do well in wet, rainy weather.

3) Finally, I have given up on the original idea of Coyotes of the Silver Moon entirely. I liked the idea of the Fultons and the Coyote Trickster God, and was going to go back to the drawing board with the characters intact, but with a different way they’d interact, or a twist. But that didn’t come. What did come was something else entirely, something that is much closer to the original ‘pulpy’ feel I was going for. Hopefully I’ll get back to the Fultons in some other form, because, even in the rough outline form I had them, I thought they made for some nice interactions that I never got around to writing. In the meantime, the following idea came to me pretty much whole (up to a point), and I spent a little time jotting down notes that I want to dig into in a bit.

NOTES:
Three outlaws, one of them badly injured and dying, are making a getaway from a robbery gone wrong when they come across an old Indian hermit shaman with a belt and coat that can turn the person wearing it into a coyote. They kill the shaman, and then try to use the belt to get the upper hand on the Federal Marshal and posse that are chasing them down.

DIALOGUE:
“I thought it was supposed to heal you are something.”

“Where on earth did you get that idea?”

“I don’t know. It’s magic, ain’t it?”

Okay, maybe it isn’t much, but that’s what I have so far, and I think I like it. Stay away from the deeper elements or discovery, and keep it a straight adventure story with lots of suspense. That’s built in with the idea of the Federal Marshal chasing them down. I think it was Alfred Hitchcock who said something to the extent of: Suspense is putting a ticking timebomb at the feet of the characters, and having the audience (or reader, in this case) know it’s there, but not letting the characters themselves know it’s there. If I do this right, I could have them realize the Marshal is closing in on them, but not know how close. Or something, I don’t know. At first, I was thinking I don’t want to break up the viewpoint or split it between the outlaws and the Marshal, but now I’m not so sure. I think if I keep the Marshal’s scenes quick and purposeful, they could be very good.

Okay, the outlaws, and the robbery. What kind of robberies are there in the Old West? Train robberies, sure. Bank robberies. Stage coach robberies, home burglaries, what else? They could try to rob a US Fort. They could rob a riverboat. That’d be different, and pretty fun on it’s own, I mean as a story on it’s own. That might be something I want to keep in my hip pocket until later. They could try to rob a gold mine—that’d be different, too. Or silver mine. Copper, whatever.

The Marshal… he’s got to be 300 pounds of pure mean. Somebody that the outlaws DON’T want to tangle with, at least, not most of them. The kind of guy Terry Benedict was in Ocean’s Eleven. They kind of guy who’ll “kill you, and then go to work on you.” And if these guys steal something that belongs to him (or he believes belongs to him) he will stop at nothing to get it back.

A whorehouse robbery? Again, that’s something that’s pretty fun in it’s own right. I may keep that for something else.

What would the Marshal think is his enough to go after these guys… well, it’d be his job regardless, but they steal something he wants so badly that he’s willing to REALLY go after them, in a mean way. And is that even necessary to get the story rolling. All you have to know is that he’s a bastard and they’re scared of him. That’s what’s important, so it could be nothing more than a payroll check. A bill of claim on a mine—a plot of land or something, maybe he discovered gold on a tiny plot of land—but why would the paperwork have to travel by train or coach, when there was probably a small surveyor’s office nearby? Well, maybe he had to send an application off to a territorial office somewhere else.

Meh, I’m not liking it.

Okay, how about this? He could be dirty. I’m not sure I want him to be dirty, but there you go. He could be dirty and he’s got his own gang within the Army. He’s got a train scouted out that he wants to rob for his own purposes, but this other gang gets to the train first and makes away with whatever it is he wanted. Of course the three outlaws are the only survivors of the ensuing battle at the train.

I’m not sure. I don’t know how sympathetic I want these outlaws. They are outlaws, after all. I don’t know that I want the US military to be the bad guys here, that’s so overdone right now, especially in reference to the American West.

I have to think about this some more. Luckily, I have that opportunity because, hey, that’s my 1,000 words for the day!

1,000 Words: The Coyotes of Silver Moon

Got my swiss ball all inflated and am just raring to go here. Would have been working on this earlier, but Carrie called me out to mow the lawn as soon as we got home because we really don’t need more chores on Saturday, and it may very well rain tomorrow. Plus, I want to go to CABS (that’s the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society, for those in the know) tomorrow night. Whatever, I think tomorrow is going to be a good night.

Which reminds me, this thing on SparkPeople about helping you to stay motivated, one of the daily goals is to remind yourself that you’re going to have a good day today. I did it this morning, and I forgot about it. But then, I had a pretty nice day. It’ll be different if I have an absolutely horrid day, but it’s good to remind myself that I don’t necessarily have control over what is going to happen to me on any given day, but I can control how I react to it. Or if I react to it. I’m a reactionary kind of person by nature, and I am reading this book, I know I’ve mentioned it before, Unleashing the Warrior Within. It’s about focus and reaching potential. In particular, it’s about using your personal focus to reach your personal potential in whatever goals you may have. I don’t know if it really works, but the stuff it says makes sense. It was written by a Navy SEAL, and some of the things I’ve learned from it is to examine problems head on, get stuff that distracts me from my goals out of my way, if I have something that isn’t important to me, or can’t help me reach my goals, get rid of it. That was very empowering and important. And it makes a lot of sense. I learned that – what else, I learned that I can achieve more in a bad situation if I plan for it ahead of time. I can do better in a good situation the same way. Instead of focusing on everything that can go wrong, which generally leads to worry and fear and disables me from moving, anticipate what might happen and see how I can turn it to my advantage, like in job interviews, how you always practice questions you might get so you’re comfortable with your answers, so you won’t be nervous when you go in for the interview. Instead of being surprised, you can be ready and prepared, and even if you are surprised, you’ll be more apt and able to roll with the punches because you did prepare and you aren’t nervous.

Tomorrow I’m going to put it to the test when I hand over writing samples to a possible new boss unexpectedly. I’m viewing it as a mission to get in, make an impact and get out with the minimum of resistance. I’ll keep you posted.

Over half way there. I better get started on the story. I’ve kind of painted myself into a thematic corner here. This story may not last much longer, so it may time that things get a little weird and wacky. May be time to bring in that man with a gun, you know?

Okay, to sum up where we’ve gone thus far and where we are now; Coyotes are terrorizing the small town of Silver Moon, South Dakota in the years leading up to Custer’s last stand (REMINDER: CHECK OUT CUSTER’S LAST—forget it, do it now. I’ll be back.

–George. General George A. Custer.

My Swiss ball feels decidedly lopsided. That may be bad.

When John Fulton discovers that his young son Roswell has become a were-coyote (as it were, no pun intended, but certainly enjoyed) himself, he and another of his sons, Custer head out to a local tribe of Lakota Indians to see if they can do anything (you know, this now strikes me as immenently silly, a man and his son setting out alone to visit Indians they have no relationship with, without any escort at all. I may have to rethink this entire thing, honestly. Just roll with it for the time being, though). So they are traveling to this tribe, but on the way they interrupt a buffalo hunting party and Roswell is taken from them. When they reach the camp, they are given a vision that tells them of Coyote the trickster god of the Indians, and what his plan for the white man is (this also sounds silly now, considering what comes up next). Then they meet Henri and Mary Garoup. Mary is a Lakota, married Henri, who is a French Canadian trapper. They escort John and Custer from the camp, where they see the Indian who took Roswell. When they chase the Indian, they lose everything they have over the embankment of a ravine. What is not known is that Henri is really Coyote himself, toying with them.

I’m really beginning to think that I need to rethink this entire story from the ground up. Reminds me of all the false starts I had with Unlicensed Magic before I found a good direction. This isn’t the story I wanted at all. I mean, it has elements I like, and I really like the fact that Coyote is known to me, but a lot of it is based on stuff that really makes no sense whatsoever in light of a little reality. There are logic holes and the whole tone of the story isn’t what I really wanted.

Yeah, I think I’ll go back to the drawing board tomorrow. Punch it up, make it pulpy, the way I wanted to in the first place. I need this to be a ‘Weird Western.’

Well, it was a long road, but I think I’ve made progress today, even if it isn’t necessarily positive progress. Even scientists have to prove something won’t work before they find the answer they’re looking for.

A nice way to end my 1,000 words for the day.

1,000 Words: The Coyotes of Silver Moon

It is 10:01 PM on Wednesday night. My goal for tonight is to blow through these 1,000 words as quickly as possible instead of harranging myself over how something sounds or whether or not something makes sense. And I’m starting with almost 1,000 to go, certainly less than 900.
Just to sum up a little bit. I’m going to continue plotting the story I’m working on and polishing it until I have a full treatment of the story. If I don’t like it at that point, I’m going to let myself off the hook and write a pulpier story that I originally intended.
Having said that. Right now things are getting pretty exciting. John and Custer have left the Lakota camp, heading back to Silver Moon with Mary Tree and Henri Garoup the French Canadian trapper who also just happens to be Coyote, the Lakota trickster god. They’ve seen a Lakota warrior who took Roswell during the buffalo stampede off in the distance. They chase him down, only to have him mysteriously disappear in a ravine so closely ahead of them that they can’t stop. They lose their horses and cart, and they have to rely on Henri to help them out.
That’s where we are right now. Got all that? Good.
6,266, 10:06PM. Not bad. Here comes the hard part.
The math. 1,000 minus 266 is 734 approximately 15 words per minute. I should be able to do that easily. I think at that speed. I can type almost 60 words per minute. So this should be a snap.
I’m going to update this periodically when I have nothing else to say.
6,327, 10:10.
So we have Henri pull them back up to safety with a giggle behind his lips. He’s the kind of man who always seems to be on the verge of laughing every single minute. That’s got to become important later on. On one hand he can be like the weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit or the Hyenas in The Lion King, who are in danger of laughing themselves to death.
You know, there’s an idea. Maybe this doesn’t have to have a bloody, Clint Eastwood style ending. Maybe it can be more African in nature, where the Fultons beat Coyote at his own game. They trick him somehow. But I don’t know if I want that. I like the idea of the old western, Mexican stand-off at the end of the story, or some bloody massacre at the end, like the Fultons trapped in their farm surrounded by hundreds of coyotes. But I want to keep this in mind for anything else. Perhaps they DO try to trick him in some fashion, only to have it blow up in their faces, literally.
Just an idea.
This reminds me of nothing, but just a reminder to myself, I need to re-edit all this later so I don’t have to double-return after every paragraph. It’s faster, and now while I’ve pulled the formatting out of the blog, I keep finding myself double returning and having to go back and delete one before going on. That’s bringing my time down.
I’m not going to check the time again until 10:20. I promised myself that much.
Okay, so Henri helps them up. Then what? Bring in a man with a gun? The idea has merit, but I don’t think so.
I could bring back the man who has Roswell, but for what purpose. I like the idea of not knowing myself yet if this Indian is a real person or just an illusion created by Coyote. That intrigues me.
So what we have is John and Custer without their cart, horses, or, just for the hell of it, any firearm that wasn’t strapped to their sides when the cart went over. And, again, just for the hell of it, let’s just say that, for whatever reason, John had pulled his gun out and started driving the horses with it in his hand when they started chasing the figment, but dropped it when he realized they were going over a cliff. So it’s gone as well.
So John and Custer have nothing on them except the clothes on their backs, and whatever knives they may have with them, and ammunition to guns they don’t have.
That’s pretty dire straights.
6,774, 10:20. That’s going better than I could have imagined.
They’re up off the ground, pissed that they got tricked that way, pissed that Henri seems to be amused at their tragedy, because horses aren’t cheap. At least I don’t think they are, I’ll have to research that. Rifles aren’t cheap. Six-shooters aren’t cheap. Carts aren’t cheap. They’ve just lost the equivelant of thousands of dollars, and still don’t have Roswell.
Henri places it in their heads, almost as a joke more than anything else, of course, that maybe the Indian who seems to have Roswell is none other than Coyote himself. And Custer wants to believe him.
NOTE TO SELF: Find out what General Custer’s first name was. I think it’s William, but if it’s John, I’m going to have to change one or the other of the names.
NOTE TO SELF: appropo of nothing, remember to check the TV listings of channel 28 to see what’s on at 11AM. That show is really beginning to intrigue me as I work out in the morning, but since I can’t hear it, I really don’t know what it is. Looks like a relationship/psychology kind of show, a la Dr. Phil, but on the cheap, because it’s, you know, channel 28.
Okay, back to The Coyotes of Silver Moon, already in progress… I really gotta do a story where everytime I get stuck, I bring in a man with a gun. That would be a heck of a story, don’t you think?
…And THAT’S my 1,000 words. No, not much got done today. Maybe I’ll be able to get more done tomorrow.

1,000 Words: The Coyotes of Silver Moon

Okay, I’m writing this (or at least starting it) from work, because I really don’t think I’ll be able to manage a full 1,000 words tonight at home, for a couple of reasons:

1. Mrs. Wesley and I have a meeting at church, and I probably won’t be home earlier than 9PM. That in itself might not be a big deal, but…
2. My back’s hurting. I’d like to minimize the time sitting erect in front of the computer as much as possible; and a corollary to Number 2…
3. I’m friggin exhausted. I’m stiiing here at work, barely able to type, I’m so tired. And this is me just back from lunch, without any carbonated beverages in a week or more. On the other hand, it’s also me right after sweating like the oldies for a half-hour. I’m whipped.

So, insomuch as I can, I’m going to try to get as much of my 1,000 done now. I may not be able to finish the entire thing, but anything helps, and I’m sure if I can get done most of what I need to do, I’ll be able to muster enough energy for a 30-minute, 500 word push.

And look, only 800 to go.

I’ve been thinking about that piece of advice (I know there’s a better word for it, but I’ll be durned if I can think of it at the moment—syllogism, maybe?) that when you get stuck or when the plot bogs down, bring in a man with a gun in his hand. And I’m wondering if maybe that’s the tack I should have taken with this story. It’s definitely become more… well, it’s just become more EVERYTHING than I was expecting. I was originally intending for this to be a rollicking, pulpy kind of story. Maybe even a shoot ‘em up. What I have now is this treatise of the werewolf as metaphor for Indian resistance.

There’s part of me that wants to go back to the beginning (“Go back to the beginning, you said, Vinzini. Well, this is where we got the job, so this is the beginning”) and start over with the idea of werewolves in the old west, and pack it more full of action than it is currently. Not that what I have is bad at all, considering that I’m not done plotting. But it is rather… bigger than I had anticipated, and it’s definitely taken a few twists and turns that I hadn’t anticipated either. The whole story is just rather more… thoughtful than I had originally planned.

The other part of me wants to forge ahead. I like the idea of the Sioux Coyote Trickster God being behind it all, and even being in the story in human form. I like that quite a bit, actually. I’m just afraid it’s taken a long, rambling ride to get there.

What to do, what to do?

Oh, I know, I’ll hit the word count again!

494. Half way there.

Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I will finish out the next couple of days with the plot of the story that I have, until I have a complete outline. Then I’ll go back and check the structure and plot out the actual scenes to see if they have any drama, suspense or punch. If I don’t like it, I can always go back. I mean, it’s not like I don’t have a month to turn the story in.

On the other hand, I only have a month to turn the story in.

Alright. One more bathroom break, and then I jump right in for the next 400 words.

*

And, again, THAT’S why you stick to the plan. When I returned to my seat from the above paragraphs, I was asked to embark on a large project that took me about an hour and a half. Now I have approximately 40 minutes to hit 350 words. It can be done (and I will do it—oh yes, I WILL do it), but it puts me in something of a crunch.

Alright, we’re leaving the Indian camp, heading back to Silver Moon. There’s John Fulton, his son Custer, the French trapper Henri (we’ll call him Henri Garoup for the moement, but that will change), and his wife Mary/Sings in a Tree.

So, what happens next? Bring in a man with a gun. No, no, no. I can’t do that just yet. Maybe later.

Got to establish that Henri is a maybe a little more than he seems. Maybe a little nuts. Maybe a little Powerful. Maybe a little desperate to destroy the white man whom he’s masquerading. But how?

They’re riding along, John and Custer in their wagon, Mary in hers, and Henri on his horse.

Ah, yes, the fake out. This may be a good time for a fake out. But it’ll have to be good. I hate an obvious fake out. The four of them will be riding along, when they’ll hear Roswell shouting out for them, way off in the distance. They’ll see him and the Indian who picked him up dash off on a horse. The Fultons and Henri will go chasing after him, and strangely enough, considering they’re in a wagon, almost catch up to him. Roswell and the Indian will bound off the next hill, and John & Custer will—oh, what the hell—they’ll go over the next hill, only to find it’s a steep ravine or a cliff or something. They’ll go barreling over and lose their horses and wagon. They’ll barely survive themselves, and Henri, who was alone on horseback, will be trailing them. I point that out because, being alone on a horse, he should be able to go a lot faster than they would. He’ll help them climb back to the top of the ravine, but will smiling as he does so.

And off in the distance, they’ll hear a coyote yip and howl.

Hey, wouldja look at that? I actually made my 1,000 words with a half-hour to spare! And nearly 200 of those words actually apply to the story at hand!

Probably Shouldn’ta Blogged Last Night.

Yesterday I had an appointment with my chiropractor. It was the last one for a week, and now I’m phasing off the big machine that stretched your vertebrae (they say it’s a ‘decompression table,’ but I know what it really is: a medieval rack with a chrome finish).

I should have just camped out on the couch alternating between heating pads and ice pads, but I promised myself I’d write my 1,000 words, and then proceeded to hem and haw for an hour-and-a-half before I got to it, goofing around on the internet instead.

And now I’m paying for it. I could have stretched out, but I didn’t, and now my lower back is groaning. Hopefully I’ll feel better in a few hours, after I hit the gym, but I’ve got a meeting at church tonight, and I won’t be home until 9:00PM at the earliest. If I don’t feel better by THEN, I’ll HAVE to take it easy on the couch, which means I won’t be able to write at all. And THAT means I guess I’ll have to write my 1,000 here at work, and that’s NEVER fun.

Let this be a lesson to you. THIS is what happens when you deviate from the plan.

1,000 Words: The Coyotes of Silver Moon

Okay. After yesterday’s little trip to Neverland, it’s time to get off the crapper (as it were) and on the ball (as it is), and get back to South Dakota (as I will do right now).

Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty.

…

Yeah, okay, so I suck. I just spent the past… what, maybe an hour… trolling the internet, seeing if I could find old friends on MySpace (what a waste of bandwidth THAT is) and generally avoiding work (which is, after all, what I do), when I should be here trying to figure out how John and Custer and Roswell get out of the situation with the Lakota, and then playing a few hands.

And my Suisse Ball needs inflating.

Okay, John and Custer are in the Lakota camp. Roswell is missing, and they’ve had a VERY trippy night wherein they were led on a merry romp by Coyote, capital C. When they awake, Roswell is still missing, but they will see a Lakota woman in a tailored American dress. Her name is Sings in the Tree, but her American name is Mary Tree. She is a serious woman with a broad, flat face, and looks unnatural wearing the dress. She lives an American life with her husband Henry, but was raised Lakota. She will act as liaison between the Fultons and the Lakota, but basically, all she says is that Coyote has been visiting many people recently, and the Lakota refuse to do anything because Coyote will do as he will. To do anything else would be to unbalance the natural will of Mother Earth.

So basically John and Custer leave worse off than they arrived, with no idea how to stop these were-coyotes, and now Roswell is gone. Nobody in the camp seems to know who might have taken him. Definitely sounds like a Lakota Indian picked him up, but nobody is missing from camp, so what can they do.

They let John and Custer leave with an escort of mary and Henry, but also with a warning: There will come a time when the Lakota will not let the White Man herd or pen them the way He has the buffalo. And maybe Coyote is tormenting the White Man because of the White Man’s torment of the Lakota. Maybe that is why no Lakota has been affected, but local towns and trading posts have.

Okay, I think maybe I have my bad guy right here. Or bad guys. Or bad guy and bad girl: the Trees. I got a feeling I’m going to have to change that name to something or other. Garoup or some such.

Okay, I don’t know where I’m going with this, but let’s say that Henry Tree is not just a French Trapper (okay, maybe it should be Henri Tree), maybe he’s also smoething of a medicine man of himself. But, maybe, just maybe, he’s also the Lakota Trickster God Coyote himself, doing exactly what other have said he would do. Maybe he’s making the White Man pay for moving so many of his Coyote (capital C) brothers around, forcing them to make war on each other while the White Man simply takes what he wants.

Henri would have to be something of a scrawny fellow, himself, but be able to dress his woman in fineries of the American fashion. He’d think that’d be funny. He’ll even join them on their quest to find ‘Brother Roswell,’ while in fact controlling things from backstage.

Mary Tree would, of course, know who he was, and be terrified out of her mind. He blames her for not giving him any heirs, but she knows that Coyote (Henri) is dying. His time has come to an end because the White Man’s Sun God is moving in. He’s calling all of his children to him, all of his natural born and his chosen, who will lead the attack against the White Man’s God.

My problem now is how to dramatize that.?

And more importantly, what am I supposed to type for the next… 241 words?

I’m exhausted. Whipped, really. But I have to get past that 1,000 word mark. I can’t even think straight right now. I’m about THIS close to just cutting and pasting “All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy,” out of The Shining. But I’m going to try to stand firm, if for no other reason that I’ve already copped out the day. I just want to crawl into bed, but I’m not going to resort to cutting and pasting or doing something cheap like that because, well, I’d like to consider that I have SOME standards for myself. So, instead, I’ll just ramble for the next 100 words or so (123 at this point, to be exact).

Or I could ramble on about another project I’d like to get started someday, called “Superman: Truth, Justice…” where good old Clark gets back to his Golden Age Roots and realizes that The American Way™ ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s about him rediscovering his role as an avenger, a righter of wrongs, and someone who will severely kick your ass and damn the justice system if they can’t get it right. That would be something I would buy, because there are so many writers who only see Superman as the pawn of The Man, the guy who enforces the Status Quo for Middle America.

Yeah, that’s something I’d like to read, but that’s nothing more than fan fiction, and right now I have a short story to finish and submit in the next few weeks.

But I’ll do that tomorrow, because THAT’S my 1,000 words for tonight. So there.

1,000 Words: The Coyotes of Silver Moon

I really don’t want to do this today. I’d like to get that right off my chest to begin with. It’s Sunday, there’s a movie I’d like to watch on TV (The Rundown, ask for it by name), my back is killing me from the barn cleaning-outing that we did yesterday, I need a nap (again because it’s Sunday), and I want a snack (see last whine).

But, no 1,000 words, no online poker. Them’s the rules. I didn’t make ‘em, I just enforce them. Well, actually, I did make them, so I guess I kinda havta sorta, you know, FOLLOW them. I’ll be the only one to follow them anyway, so I guess it’s important that SOMEBODY do it.

Can you tell I’m padding? I’m padding, because I don’t want to write. See those two parargraphs up there? That’s what we in the business call padding.

That last paragraph was, too. This one as well, for that matter.

Doggone it, if I didn’t enjoy online poker so much, we wouldn’t be having this problem, now would we?

This is not made any easier by the fact that my back is really just twisted around backwards and my knuckles are sore and swollen.

Whine whine whine. Expect a lot of that for this entry. I’ve been putting this off all morning. Didn’t even go to church today because I was too sore and Carrie worked herself sick yesterday, so she’s in bed upstairs, taking a nap.

Lucky bastard. How I envy her.

So, long story short is this: I’ve been procrastinating getting back to the Coyotes of Silver Moon all the live-long day, and I really can’t put it off any longer. Plus, since my back does bother me, I don’t want to take any longer than I humanly have to, so I doubt there will be much in the way of my internal editor getting in the way. He’s complaining too loudly about his hips and the swelling in his knuckles. I’m telling him that the less he complains, the less time this will take. The less time this takes, the sooner we can get back to doing something else, like napping or reading the new Spider-Man novel. (which reminds me, I have to develop a series of rewards for myself for losing weight, rewards for hitting each of my goals, that sort of thing. I need to talk that over with the wife when she wakes up.

Anyway, I have to establish what kinds of goals are valid and which are off-limits. Food, obviously is off-limits, as well as anything that has to do with food. “Oh, hey, I just lost 10 pounds. Only 80 more to go! That means I get a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, right?” So, I can’t reward myself with food. Also can’t reward myself with, say, going to the movies, because, at least for me, I don’t think that should count for a couple of reasons: 1) Going to the movies is something I’d do anyway, at least occaisionally. If it’s something we both want to see, like Pirates of the Caribbean, there’s a good chance we’ll see it within a week or two of release. Rewards should be something that I wouldn’t normally have.

But the thing Carrie’s going to argue about (and I know she will, because that’s what she does), is money. She’s going to say something like, “10 pounds, 10 bucks. That’s fair, right?” And, unfortunately, that’s a good point. Problem is, it’s not much of a motivator. If/when I get down to 250 and I’m really struggling, waiving a sawbuck at me isn’t exactly going to get my motor running.

I’m looking at the Heroscape game. That looks pretty darn fun, but it’s $40 bucks at most places. Not exactly cheap, but it gives me something to shoot for. But maybe I should look for something that would be more appropriate for someone who’s working out, looking to lose weight. Like a new Ironman watch. Mine hasn’t worked properly for nearly a year now. I think that’s because I kept taking it into the steam room at California Fitness (now Lifestyle Family Fitness Centers, ask for it by name). You’d think a watch named after the premiere triathlon event in the world would have a little more staying power. But, then again, what can you expect for $35? I think I can talk Carrie into letting me get another Ironman watch. It’ll help with my walks and such. I could time my walks, either up or down.

And maybe for my final reward, the one I get when I hit my goal of 200 pounds, I could get a new bike. Not that the one I have right now is bad at all. It’s just not appropriate for the kind of workouts I want to be doing. I need a street bike. Not some high performance bike that costs more than my truck—necessarily, just one that was built as a road bike. Something with a lighter, more aerodymically designed frame than the off-road Target monster Ihave right now. And my bike is fine, like I said. It’s just not of much use to me anymore. Especially sitting out there in the barn like it is now, semi-exposed as it is to the elements, it’s rusted, and there’s no good way to inflate the tires. I’d keep it in the basement, but it’s too heavy to reasonably lug up the really step cellar stairs.

So, a new watch for 10 pounds, and a new bike for 90, and Heroscape somewheres in between. Maybe.

Hey, would you look at that! I’ll have to get back to the Fulton’s tomorrow, because that’s my 1,000 words!

(Now, where did I put that link to the online poker site?)