With the extra time I have now I started working on my book again. My goal is to have chapter one finished before our local writers group meeting and have it proof read. Um not sure I am going to make that deadline. Of course I have been procrastinating but that is normal. I just came onto the realization that I need a name. The name I need will play a big role in one of my characters path through the story. The problem is. How do you pick a good name? The bad part is I know where I want to go, and what I want to tell for the rest of chapter one but this simple name has me blocked. I am in the process of name storming but it is going slow… Dang it I wanted to present this to our meeting the 19^th since I won’t be in town next month when the group meets.

My goals after finishing chapter one is to use December to work on my synopsis. This will allow me to better plan out the rest of my book and what I want to accomplish in each chapter. We will see with all the distractions we have in our world today it is hard to just sit in front of the pc and just type.

I had a tough choice to make this fall. I ended up having to drop from class for the semester. It looks as of now I have to drop till at least next fall. I don’t have in my bank nor will I have $1200 for next semester’s tuition.

For now I need to concentrate on me. Last fall I put on a LOT of weight. I am just now getting back to a regular schedule for my working out. It is so easy to stop but so hard to start. It is the same with losing weight it is easy to put it on but so hard to take it off.

I can gladly say as of this week the book I started back in high school is making good progress. My goal is to have chapter 1 finished and reviewed and edited for the writers group meeting in November.

The last time I posted on my block was April 11, 2009.

Since that time I have finished my English 101 class with an A. This makes me so happy last time I took this class I got a D. This A has really helped me with my confidence. With all the encouragement from my instructor and my writing friend I have become a better writer. I know I have more work in need to do with my writing but that will just take time and practice. I have enjoyed my summer time off it has been nice. I start back to school the week of the 18^th of August. I will be taking English 102 with an excellent teacher from the last year. I will also be taking University 106 this semester for a total of four credits for the semester.

I have officially walked away from my world of warcraft game. I just don’t get why people have to cause so much drama. I can now take the focus that I was putting on it and use that energy on other things.

I am currently working on a plan for my fall semester. Along with taking English 102 and University 106 I plan on using the Aleks website to work on my math skills. I hope to be able to use this fall and spring to improve my math skills. I was told when I went back to work on my CS degree that I would qualify for the higher level classes. This was with the stipulation of my math scores where high enough. Of course my math scores were not high enough. If I can test out of Math 15, Math 25 and Math 108 that would make me very happy. We will just have to see.

I still need to decide what English I want to take in the spring. It is too bad that I can’t take another class with this same teacher I have really enjoyed the way this teacher engages her class. We will just have to see. I see my future is bright just going to struggle through it. 

Well now that I have more free time I can work on my original plan. As of a month ago I am now up to four book idea’s that I want to work on.

The last time I posted on my blog was December 11, 2008. It is now April 9, 2009. My intention was to post at least once a month on my blog. You know how intentions go. To recap I finished English 90 with an A in the class. It is too bad that the class was a no credit class. Oh well I am so glad I took the class, it has helped me take my writing confidence to a new level.

During my first semester back to school I relied heavily on my editor writing friend Stefanie. Once I would finish writing a paper I would send it over to her for review. Every paper last semester was reviewed I even got her expert help on the final drafts. I was so happy to see I got out of a total of 100 point 95 points. To get an A in a college class has helped my writing confidence level.

As of today I will be turning in my final new work for my English class. I was lucky to get the same great teacher this semester (Melissa Keith). She has helped me so much with her always positive attitude. She suggests to us to find topics that interest us, because if a topic is not interesting to write about it won’t be interesting to read about. This semester I did something different were before I would use my friend to review my papers. This time I did not seek her advice on the papers. I know that the first draft of the 2 papers I have turned in and the paper I will turn in this afternoon are my own blood sweat and tears. I truly thank my friend for helping me become a better writer. She is not off the hook yet. As I work on the final works for the portfolio I will be working with her on it.

I am really happy with the progress I have made over the last year and a half. I have come a long way but this was not a one man band. If it was not yet again for the support and encouragement from all the people around me I would not be back in school at 33 years old. I am ready for a break this summer but will be back with Melissa this fall for English 102. I also hope to take some time and work on improving my math skills. I do need to take a couple of months off to just chill this working full time and taking a class takes a lot of energy.

Until next time.

The last time I posted I talked about working on my final paper for the semester. That was over a month ago. I have gotten my paper back from my English teacher, I can at least say I received full credit for the paper. This was a difficult paper for me. I struggled through the writing of this paper but I learned from this writing. I received some very good feedback from my instructor.

I have commenced working on the revising process to polish and prepare both my papers for the portfolio due the 18^th of December. I have made what I feel to be a really good revision to the paper I wrote at the first of the semester. Extending, and flushing out missing details in that were missing or lacking the paper it is now 5 total pages in length. I discovered while revising this paper something very cool. In the paper I talked about Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks. I needed to do a comparison between the two writers. First I talked about how Brooks writing style was write smaller 3 or 4 book series and then start a new series. Where Jordan he was working on the one series. While going into some detail I put in a part about Jordan never finishing his book because of his passing away. In the past I would have just put the detail in and not cared or really knew how it affected my writing. A loud pop occurred as the light bulb came on over my head, in the context where this tidbit of information was placed. I was able to see that it was not relevant to the surrounding writing. Being able to see this huge leap forward in thinking on writing for professional, and for the book I am writing.

Tonight I get to take the other paper that I am going to revise. This one needs much more work it met the minimum requirements of 4 pages, I see I need to do a LOT of work before I will feel confident in the work to turn it back in. Being a reflective paper I know I jumped to a conclusion way to early after talking to my teacher. I now need to reread the paper and do some shuffling to make the paper flow better.

I am so proud, and grateful for all the encouragement that I have gotten from my friends, and family. If it was not for this I would not have gone back to school. I would not be making all the progress with my written communication. I see even now I need work but the more I write and get feedback the better I will get it will just take time.

Thank you all for your encouragement.

It’s November 4th in nine days I will be able to register for spring classes. I can’t believe that in little over a month, fall semester will be over. Having completed two papers; the first paper I went into detail on what made me to be the writer I am today. This paper went over pretty well, I know for the portfolio, I will be going back and making an edit before turning it back in. My second paper was an observational paper; at first I was concerned about this paper. I know I did not put as much effort into this paper as I should have, this truly was a draft paper. My first paper I actually took the time to write it, I made many revisions before turning it in. This second paper, I didn’t start working on it till Monday before it was due. I did not finish writing it till the evening before it was due to be handed in.
 
I knew this was not my best work. The paper contained grammar issues; I could have caught if I would have reread the paper before turning it in. Live and learn I guess this is what it means to be a writer; your writing work is never done. You can make edits till the sun goes down but you will still find issues with your own writing.
 
We are nine days before our next paper is due; this next paper is a reflective paper. I have a couple of topics to reflect on, but would like some feedback from my instructor. I think I have enough content to make the minimum page length of 4 pages, but I have concerns on yet again on my writing. I could be making a mountain out of a mole hill out of this paper we will see how it turns out.

The day of this post you know what night it is, I can proudly say I voted. I put my two cents in, and gave my opinion on who I thought we be the best leader. I just hope we get the right person in office to do the job. This is the first election that truly scares me; at least one candidate for president scares the hell out of me. The other candidate would be the lesser of two evils. We will see by the end of the week, if we are going down a very uncertain path or towards the light.

This last week I completed my first English assignment after about 10 years. This first assignment was fun, we were asked to write an essay showing in detail. The events in our past that shaped us into the writers we are today.

My background and the environment I grew up in, this was therapy for me. I feel that I have moved past my difficult past, I was so excited to get feedback from my fellow students. Thursday afternoon in class we took the time to peer review other papers. Spending most of the class period I reviewed two of my fellow classmate’s papers. This was a new experience for me; I had never in the past read another classmate’s paper to give feedback on. The feedback I received from my fellow classmate’s made me feel so good. I now wait with baited breath to see what my English teacher has to say about my writing. After I finished this writing assignment I was feeling really good about my writing.

I am looking at our next unit of writing coming up in my English class; I have some big apprehensions about this next section. We will be writing an observational essay, writing about my personal history is easy, interviewing or observing a group or a person or a place scares me and I don’t know why. It might be because most of my interests don’t put me in a place where lots of things occur. I like to write software, I like to read for pleasure, I like to write as time allows in the book I am working on. So this next section has me a little on edge, we are to investigate the world around us.

 I hope over the next couple of weeks while we are doing our explorations. I can come up with my own topic that fits my interests that I can observe. We will see, only thing I can do is just hang out and see. Knowing me I am making a mountain out of mole hill, I just want my return to college to be more than successful I want it to be fun and rewarding experience It was not before.

Me and school

It has been almost a month and a half since I last posted on my blog. I started back to college the 25^th of august and have been very busy since that time. I decided this summer late spring that I was going to go back to college. Most of you know that I have been working on a book manuscript for a little while; I just got so frustrated with my lack of writing skill that I decided to go back to school. I have enrolled at Boise state university as a degree seeking student in computer science. My goal is to on the side seek a minor in writing.

I decided to take English and math this first semester back, at the end of the first week of math class I decided to drop the math class and take a self study course online. I was just getting too frustrated with the math class, I had not formally studied math since probably high school. Now that I am doing the self study class online I am actually enjoying math. The cool thing is that I am actually now enjoying math, I can also see how math relates to the job I am working at.

I am now working on my first English project for the class that is due the 18^th of September, in the past I know I would have procrastinated and not started my paper till closer to the due date. Not this time I spent a good portion of yesterday September 13^th working on my first revision of my paper. I then spent this morning making a revision to it. Thank fully I finished that pretty early, I have sent if off to my friend for a review. My goal is to have the paper done by the first of the week, so that when we do our feedback session this next week I will have made multiple revisions.

Me and reading

I just finished another very good book, the name of the book was called hells gate. The book was written by Linda evens and David Webber, the multi universe concept is very cool. I really like the idea that there could be multiple universes out there that are just a little bit different that ours. I think something like that would be really cool, but my analysis side of my brain is asking why these portals were opening. Is that part of the multiverse coming undone and going to just unravel or just merge into one universe? This is just another good book I would recommend to my friends to read.

I am also in the process of reading the new terry brooks book that was released recently. This book completes the circle of how the Shannara series actually came to be. All I really have to say is a big thanks to terry for writing this series. I know that if I had not come across those many years the Scions of Shannara I would not be the person I am today. His style of storytelling showed me that reading can be enjoyable.

Just recently I was introduced to a great authors writing, in the past as I would stroll down the aisles at my local Barnes and nobles book store. I had seen a lot of books written by David Weber. Every so often I search b&n’s website seeing what new books are coming out to see if anything would catch my eye, a while ago I ran across a book by the name of Hell’s Gate at the same time another books title peaked my interest. The title in question was Off Armageddon Reef.

At first I was not too sure about this book, this was the first time I had ever read a book by David Weber. I picked up the book and very please, the book I feel was very well written. The way that Mr. Weber developed and maintained all of the individual characters in this book is just amazing. The transition from space age space battles to old style ocean sea battles was just amazing. The detail in how the ships worked, and how artillery would take the wood the ships were made of and make it into projectiles was just awesome. When I finished the reading Off Armageddon Reef I was just blown away, the cliffhanger that he left at the end of the book left me wanting the next book. I went online and found out that the sequel to Off Armageddon Reef was due out the 22^nd of July.

That was 5 days ago; well let’s just say that as of this evening I just finished reading the sequel By Schism Rent Asunder. What another great book Mr. Weber did it again if you have read the first book this continuation helps fill in more of the story; it also helps you understand better why the king the first book was not worried about Merlin’s visions. In Off Armageddon Reef when the android first is activated after 850 years, her commander long dead tells the android with the memory imprints of Lt. Cdr. Nimue Alban, that it has been over 800 years since they had been established but the colony had been subverted by the mission leader. In the second book they go into more detail on some of the back story about what happened.

In short all I have to say is Mr.Weber has done an awesome job with this book; I can’t wait till next spring to read the third installment of this series. If you have not yet picked up this series do, you won’t be disappointed.

It is amazing when you are growing up how you let little things affect your life. Take for example having a negative stepfather, no matter what you do it is never good enough, or when you do something the person does not like they verbally attack.

I at 32 years of age have come of mental age, when we were growing up my stepfather made it sound like us school was a waste of time and just busy work not really worth the time. You can only hear the negativity so long before you start to believe it, at an early age you believe what your parental figures say even when they are not really in your best interest; you get into a mindset that something is just too hard or not worth the time to do it.

I have come to the realization that the reason for these comments was that my stepfather never did them, so he did not think we needed to do them. My mother was always working so she never was around to hear these comments; she was always the bread winner for the family. I feel that if I would have had a little bit of positive encouragement when I was growing, that I would have accomplished more and been a better student, but that is neither here or there.

I always thought in the past that, I had ADHD or a mild version of it, know that is bull shit I just was never really shown how to just sit down and focus on something that was important. It was always do what my stepfather wanted me to do even though I would get in trouble in school because I didn’t do my home work. When I went to college I was still in the environment of school is a waste of time, I see now that was a part of my problem. The problem was not with my learning, it was the where I was living at the time. I see now living on my own and not having to deal with my stepfather, and his negative attitude that I can accomplish anything.  That is why I am going back to school this fall, plus working on my book, now on to the reason for my post.

I have been on a reading feast that last couple of months. Reading a lot of different authors and story arks, starwars, 2 different series from Arthur C Clarke(Space odyssey, The Rama series). I just recently just finished reading Off Armageddon reef by David Weber, what an awesome book I can’t wait for the next one to come out on the 22^nd.

I never really understood when I was growing up what book reports were trying to teach, it was not until recently what they were trying. Yes I know they were making sure that we were actually reading the books, but they were also trying to get us to analyze the books the plot the characters and so on. I see now that and I understand that they were these were exercises enhance our analytical skills for later in life. I missed so many things growing up, that I plan to get by going back to school and learning how to do it the right way.