Having fun

That is a Victoria Crown Pigeon. Somewhat rare. The picture is from my zoo collection, of course.

The writing, while not leaping ahead in great numbers, has been pretty good lately. I have ideas for three new books (and three different genres, too), and the two novels I'm working on now are doing very well. Serendipity Blues is a slow book to write. Russ, who has been reading the new pages every day (at least the days that I get to them!) says the only problem with the plot so far is a lack of 70's references (which I elude to but haven't done in detail) and that I'm writing it too slowly. LOL.

Kinship gets nice great leaps now and then, but it's been a pretty steady 1000 words a day so far. Fun book to work on, too.

Yesterday I finally settled the question of the Yard Dog Press novella I agreed to do last May. This is to be half a Double Dog book with Jim Burk in the other half. I'm taking something I wrote last year -- Farstep Station -- and cutting it down to the size I need. I've been reading through the first draft and it just rambles and repeats a lot of stuff anyway, so I get the feeling this is going to be far easier than I expected.

I am waiting for word on something with Ada Nish Pura, and then I'm going to be doing a serious bit of work on it, and probably drop about everything else when I get to it.

And now... an amusing look at life through journals.

Like just about everyone else who has a blog or LJ (or whatever) on line, I do sometimes go off and look at those of others. Some I read regularly, some I just bounce into on occasion. Some I read because I like the people, and some I read because the people amuse me for one reason or another.

I've noticed something about attitudes that I find totally amazing.

First there are the people who will constantly complain about someone because they don't like that person's attitude. Here's a clue -- stop reading the journal that annoys you. It will not affect your life in any way in the future. Oh, and another clue -- everyone is entitled to their opinion even when it is not the same as yours or of whatever leader you've attached yourself to. Attacking a person for an opinion you don't like is childish. Attacking them over something you don't even care or know about is worse. It's pretentious and awfully damned obvious that you aren't going to like anything they say. So stop reading. And if not, expect to be mocked for acting like a child.

Oh, and another one that just totally amazes me sometimes -- if you expect people to respect your (usually unorthodox) religion, then you need to respect other people's beliefs as well. This especially includes not writing parody's using their Gods and religious beliefs. If you want respect then you need to be willing to give it to others.

There are so many others -- the whiners who never do anything but whine about their lives (the ones who have no reason to, or who are unwilling to do anything to change it because they couldn't whine then -- as opposed to those who really do have problems), and the others who do nothing but complain about everyone else's life. There are the younger ones who can surprise you with their understanding, and the older ones who obviously never grew up (for good or bad). The clueless ones who try desperately to sound like authorities, and the authorities who can teach you something in just a paragraph or two.

Journals are wonderful arenas for finding characters for stories. You can find people writing about just about any subject and quite a few of them are willing to share their opinions. It's fun. Even the people like those above are fun because sometimes they're so obvious in their pretensions.

We live in an interesting age where we can look into other people's lives so easily.