I finished the audio books for the Game of Thrones series last week. I feel like I should be calling it “A Song of Ice and Fire” since I think that’s the actual name. I think everyone knows it more simply as “Game of Thrones,” though, so I’ll just go with that.

The super short version: I loved this series.

Slightly more verbose:
The first three books were amazing. Book four was really good, but something of a let down after book three. Book five was a little bit better than book four. I enjoyed all of it, though.

I like how George Martin uses his characters. He gives them consistent personalities with relatable ambitions and quirks. At the same time, he uses them as a craftsman uses tools, with disregard for their well-being, scraping them against rough places until those rough places are smoother.

Listening to the books, I felt like George had a plan, and I felt like I could trust him to execute that plan to the completion of the series. By way of comparison, somewhere in the middle of the Wheel of Time series, I felt like Robert Jordan’s plans had been muddied somewhat. I started to get a little bit worried during A Feast for Crows. I’m not worried, now.

I want to mention Roy Dotrice’s reading. Roy Dotrice did an outstanding job with the whole series. For the most part, he gave the different characters consistent voices. The pronunciation of a few names did change, and that was jarring occasionally. I did have one observation, which is juvenile but funny, and that is every time Roy Dotrice said the word “breast” or “breasts,” it was like he was in a rush to get the word out. It almost sounded like he was barking the word out. It amused me every time, so that little bit had me constantly amused.

So in summary, I found it to be an excellent series with a few minor imperfections creeping in at the fourth book. And by “imperfections” I mean, something unfolded in the story and my response was, “Oh, fuck you, George!” and I shut off the book for a while.

I think it was Pol that first introduced me to the idea of a higher self and a lower self. I’ve read about the concept in some self help books, and I might have it totally wrong now. The basic idea is that the higher self is all about doing what’s right, and being responsible, and getting stuff done. The lower self wants to play games, eat pizza instead of cooking, and basically just goof off. Maybe it’s id and ego. Maybe it’s the rider and the elephant. I think the idea is the same across several different concepts. It just depends on what you’re reading.

Something I used to have a tendency of doing was clamping down on my lower self. I’m good at following rules, and when I give myself limitations as rules, I can usually follow them to my despair. That’s how I’m able to drink only water. It’s how I was able to give up caffeine. For a while, when I was working somewhere else, it was how I managed to wear a tie every day to work. When I give myself a set of rules, especially prohibitive rules, I’m able to follow them.

To an extent, that’s how I’m able to proceed with this October exercise of creating a post every day for the entire month. The rule is, I don’t go to bed until I’ve made a post. I can follow rules.

The problem is that we need to be able to let our lower selves have their way, or we become miserable. We need to cut loose and play games, eat some junk food occasionally, or take a day off.

One of the things I really appreciate about where I work now is that they let me do whatever I need to do in order to get the job done. They’re looking at the results I’m producing, rather than what’s on my screen. That’s a good thing, because when it comes to programming, I’ve found that I can honor my whole person at the same time.

It’s easy, as a programmer, when the environment lets you do it. I can entertain my lower self with some music, while I focus on writing code. I can read some news article while I’m solving some logic issue in the back of my mind. To some outside observer, it probably looks like I’m screwing around half the time. I’m not.

At the end of the day, I’m exceeding the expectations put on me. That’s what’s important, and that’s one of the reasons I really appreciate working where I work.

On Facebook today, I mentioned how I was going to head to Starbucks to “wrestle some words out of my muse.” My friend Pol asked if that was really the kind of relationship I wanted to have with my muse. I then let inspiration guide me in describing my muse as less of a fragile cherub and more of a hard hitting thug. This all amused me very much.

It did get me to thinking about how my writing process has changed over the years, though.

It used to be that I’d sit in front of the computer and just sort of let the words roll out of me. I wouldn’t necessarily have a plan or an idea of what I was going to write. I might get some ideas of where I wanted to go after I started, but those were just guidelines. The experience was just like reading, only the words would appear as my hands and eyes made them appear.

I can still allow that type of writing to take me. That’s how my blog posts form, most of the time. I’ll have some inkling of an idea of a subject, but the form and message presents itself as I’m typing.

When I’m working on my novel or a short story, though, it doesn’t really work that well. I have to give myself a little more structure, and a little more thought about plot. When I let it just wander, it tends to wander into nonsense, or form into something I don’t like enough to finish.

The writing process these days very much is a matter of wrestling. I have to force myself to put my butt in the chair, my hands on the keyboard, and then move the story in a direction that is coherent.

I still get inspired, and it doesn’t always feel like work. Usually, the story idea itself is a matter of inspiration. There is still room for me to be surprised by what I’m writing, but only within the confines of the structure I build out of words. That construction is difficult, and it often makes me tense. Some days, I’m able to wrestle the muse down and get some good writing out of it. Other days, the muse defeats me, and chases me off to do something mindless, like a video game or a Star Trek marathon.

Today, I played with my band at the airshow here in Sacramento. We were tucked way off in the corner, and I think there were less than 20 people that stopped and listened to us. I’m sure that every one of those people listening had some family member or relation in the band. We played well, though, and because we were performing, I and my whole family got in for free.

It was really strange, though. It felt like the band performance and the airshow were very separate. When we got there, I asked several people working the airshow where the band was playing, and they all seemed surprised that there was a band. Bryanna and I wound up wandering around a bit aimlessly for a while until Bryanna spotted some blue shirts.

Once we were done performing, we could stay as long as we wanted and watch the show. We stayed for a short while, but not very long. For my own part, I found the aerial display interesting, but not compelling. I think it’s because I lived on an Air Force base for a while, and I’m somewhat numb to it.

I had every intention of getting some writing done today, but instead, today became a day of rest and laziness in the Buhl home. Tomorrow, I’ll probably need to head out to a Starbucks or something and really get some writing done. The end of the month is approaching too quickly.

It’s getting to be my bedtime, but Blog-tober demands a post, so here goes. So here’s my spoiler free review of Gravity.

Melissa and I just got home from watching Gravity. The joke running through my head all week was that I was going to convince Melissa that I was taking her to a Sandra Bullock film. You know, a chick flick, like The Proposal? She knew enough about Gravity in advance that she wasn’t going to let me get away with any of that. But I joked anyway.

I had heard that the movie was beautiful. I’d also heard that it was fairly accurate, with some exceptions that aren’t sufficient to ruin the movie. Even though I’d heard these things, I was still struck by just how beautiful it was. Gravity looked amazing, and at no point was I pulled out of the movie so much as to think she wasn’t in space.

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney both gave fantastic performances. We saw it in 3D, and that was done really well. The sound (or lack of sound) was handled perfectly. The score was perfect.

I honestly don’t have anything bad to say about this movie.

This is one of those movies that I’m grateful that I saw it in the theater, but I only need to see it once.

If you have a chance to see it, I recommend it.

I met up with Michael last night per usual, and while we were catching up before writing, Michael mentioned that he was participating in…

… so I guess I’ll do the same.

Unfortunately, I’ve already failed, in that I didn’t post anything on October 1st.  So maybe one of these days, I’ll do two blog posts in a day.  I guess we’ll see.

Last night, I made another break through in my book.  I was really unhappy with a scene I’ve been working on, mostly because it felt like I didn’t know what I was doing.  I was going in one direction, and I didn’t like it.  I changed directions, and managed to add another 1300 words or so, and I’m really happy about it.

Tying word count in with the ultimate blog challenge, I think that I will probably keep my posts a little bit shorter this month.  Something I’ve noticed is that my posts tend to be near 1000 words each.  That strikes me as funny, because when I’m working on my book, 1000 words feels like an accomplishment, and I feel a little bit tired afterwords.  I can throw 1000 words into a blog post easily, though, and sometimes feel like I didn’t say enough.

So here goes… a post every day this month (2 on one of these days), and I’ll keep my posts a little bit shorter.  Let’s see what happens!

I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about politics on this blog, unless its the fictional politics going on inside my stories.  This blog is supposed to be here to help me work on my writing.  Someday, I’m hoping this blog will be a valuable resource for my fans, once I’m rich and famous and ruling the best seller lists from a golden throne.

But this is my blog, and I want to rant for a little bit about the shutdown, and the behavior of the Republicans in Congress.

I am not a Democrat.  I identify more with the Libertarians, honestly.  I’m financially conservative, socially liberal, and I believe that the vast majority of the power should be at the state level, making for a smaller, leaner, more efficient federal government.  I believe that the Constitution prescribes what the federal government is allowed to do, and everything that is done beyond that is either bonus, or criminal, depending on what it is that’s being done.

So now that I’ve described my general views, let me say that I believe that the behavior of the Republicans in the House is reprehensible, and I think that the dispute is not being represented very well in the media.  I’ve seen several publications put the blame on both parties.  I’ve even seen some people throw some blame at Obama for this.  The blame for this manufactured crisis should be fully set upon the shoulders of the Republicans in the House.

I like analogies, so I’ll use one.  Imagine two small children sitting at a table, working on their homework.  One of the children is diligently working along, trying to get his work done.  The other was working on his homework, but then stops, puts his pen down, and then tries to wrestle a hotly disputed toy from the other child.  Their Dad comes in and says, “Knock it off!  Your homework isn’t finished!” The obstinate child protests, “No!  Not until I get this toy!”

That’s what I see happening in Congress.  It’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s close enough.  The republicans have manufactured this crisis by picking a fight over something that doesn’t have anything to do with the budget.  They’ve started a fight, and have dragged everyone down to a low level.

How can the democrats respond?  How do you compromise with someone that’s willing to go immediately to holding their breath and throwing a tantrum?  And yet, if they don’t try to compromise, they’ll look as bad as the republicans.  They’ll look like the ones unwilling to fund cancer research or the space program or the World War II memorial.

This is a no-win situation for everyone, and it was created by the Republicans in the House.  Blame doesn’t help us get out of it, but I dearly want people to see what’s going on here, and remember.

This last week has been a bit busy and hectic.

I did all the normal work stuff, which I won’t talk about too much here.  I’m a programmer.  I programmed.  That’s about all we need to say on that, other than this week, I did more documenting and experimenting than actual programming.

I taught the Computer Club at my kids’ school this week as well.  While Monday was only so-so, Wednesday was fantastic.  I gave the kids an extremely easy task, then added more complexity through the club time to the task until at the end, the kids were all able to make their own program that would accept input and display the input back to the user.  It doesn’t sound like much, but since this is basically the third week of the club, I’m pretty proud of the kids.  Even better, the kids stayed engaged the entire time, and seemed to have a lot of fun.  I’ll have to continue with that style of teaching.

Bryanna and I went to Band practice.  We turned in a bunch of music and site read a bunch more.  That was a lot of fun.  The only problem with band is that it’s Monday evening, which means that my Mondays are ridiculously long.

Tuesday evening, I went to my kids PTO meeting and presented the board with their new mailing list and website.  I’d been paying for the hosting of their domain for years, but no one ever really did anything with it, and it was expensive.  When it came time to pay them again, I kept my wallet closed and moved the domain to one of my servers, and I spent most of last weekend getting it all set up for them.  Tuesday evening was my chance to present it to them, and it received many ohs and ahs.

Wednesday evening, I went to Starbucks, met up with Michael, and did some writing.  I’m not fantastically happy with my book right now, so it was progress was very difficult.  I fixed a couple of things and added another 500 words or so.  It was a productive evening.

Friday, I attended a “Shut up and Write!” even at a different locale, hosted by a different individual.  It was at a restaurant near downtown that used to be called Crepeville.  It looks the same, and still offers the same food.  I couldn’t see the name of the place, and someone told me that it used to be called Crepeville, so I assume it’s under different management.  As a venue for sitting down with strangers and writing, it was only okay.  There was no free wifi, and the only long table available was sort of short, so I wound up sitting at a side table with someone else.  It was from 6PM to 7:30PM, so I wound up eating dinner while trying to write.  It meant that I only added about 400 more words to my book, which is a little disappointing.

After Crepeville, I walked across the street and visited my friend Dael.  I hadn’t seen Dael in ages, and it was really great sitting down with him for about an hour and a half, catching up.

If I stop at Friday, then I think it’s safe to say I had a really great week that was fully, busy, and productive.  I didn’t get as much writing done as I would have liked, and I didn’t get any blog posts up all week, but my well-rounded activities were edifying.  If I stop at Friday, I can say it was a really great week.

I have to include Saturday, though, which is the fly in the soup.  Maybe it’s the flaw in the diamond?  No, because it came at the end, and it didn’t make me value all the days that preceded it at all.

Saturday morning, I was supposed to go to another Shut up and Write event, which was a workshop on using the five senses and juxtaposition in description in fiction.  I was looking forward to the event, but the way they set it up made my teeth hurt.  In addition to signing up in advance (which is normal), you also had to pay in advance.  There was a strict no refund policy listed out, and to pay, you either had to show up to one of the previous Shut up and Write events and pay there, or send a check.

I don’t write checks.  I learned a long time ago that it’s not good for me to write checks.  I use my debit card or cash, and I use my bank’s online services for paying bills.  Most of the time, I don’t know where the checkbook is, and I don’t even have a checkbook for my personal account.  So writing a check and sending it by mail was out of the question in general, for me.

That meant that I needed to go to one of the other events.  Unfortunately, they’re mostly on Monday evenings and Wednesday evenings, which don’t work for me.  This week I wound up driving downtown to pay at the event on Wednesday evening.  I then immediately got back on the road and drove out to Roseville to meet up with Michael.  I didn’t appreciate fighting all the traffic, but I got them the money and secured a spot.

Saturday morning, I got to the event on time, and as I was putting down my laptop bag, I said, “Next time, you should put up a Paypal.” Two other attendees immediately said, “Yes!” The person hosting the event (not the presenter), decided to argue with me, and turned it into a confrontation.

She then took me aside and said “Every time you come to these events, you complain.”

I frowned, blinked, and tried to figure out what she was talking about.  I’d only been able to make it to one other event, and I told her that.  To which she said, “Yeah, and you complained about the scheduling.”

I recalled that I had mentioned my difficulties with the scheduling, but that was only in the context of answering the question, “How long have you been with the group, and why haven’t we seen more of you?”

I told her that I hadn’t been complaining before, but by that time, the damage was done.  My emotional response was going into cascade failure, and I had to leave.  I told her, “You know what?  Fine.  I’ll make it easier for you.  I’ll leave.” She tried to give me my money back and I said, “No.  Keep it.  Spend it on something nice.” And I left.

I wound up coming home.  I watched a bunch of Star Trek episodes on Netflix, played Solitaire, and brooded in my garage until 1AM.  At 1:30AM, I went to meetup.com and unsubscribed from the Shut Up and Write list.  Then I went to bed and tossed and turned for an hour.

I feel a little better, now.  I don’t need that group.  I wound up letting one person chase me out of it, which is bad, but I’ve got a good thing going with Michael that’s giving me what I needed from the group already.

I guess that’s enough rambling.  Today, I’m going to try and be productive.  That might mean doing some work for my job, or it might mean working on my book.  I really need to get to a place where I enjoy my story again, so I can finish.