power steering

Privilege and Edenlancer

Hello again!  Happy Friday.  I'm usually not one to yearn for Friday to come, but this week was definitely an exception.  On the book end, I'm seriously considering going with a PR company to help promote my book.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that are pulling at my budget at this point.  I'm hoping at the start of 2018, I can go ahead with it.  In the meantime, I'll keep drawing (which I need to post) and working on the side story (which this has been a bad week for).  Hopefully I will have more news later.

On the personal side, this week I gave a presentation about architecture and the industry to a group of high school students.  It was hard with some, as it is with all teenagers, to gauge their interest in pursuing a field in construction whether it be laborer, tradesmen, contracting, engineering, or architecture.  The industry is vast and has a lot of doors to go through.  I'm hoping that got something from the presentation and design activity.  The biggest thing I hope they understand is that none of these doors are locked to them.  It will definitely be hard for some of them, but it's not impossible.  I had to work three jobs in college and go to school full time to just make my rent and basic things.  It'll probably be harder for some of them than it was to me.

With the above paragraph, it ties into a word that's constantly circling around the media.  Privileged.  While some of you may roll your eyes to this, it's an important thing to consider.  Something I hope my book touches, even ever so slightly.  I'm privileged.  While my family definitely isn't anything wealthy, we always had a home.  My immediate family has always been supportive and functional.  I went to school with a full stomach and good night's rest.  I was never targeted because of my color, at least by officials.  And my parents did well to shield me from drugs and violence even though it was right outside.  What I am getting at is that even those things, that may seem basic, are my privileges.  The fact that they may not seem like privileges to some, is also another privilege.  I'm a white, straight, male.  I can turn off any radio or news outlet and forget about things.  Others cannot.  That's my brief spiel about privilege.  I hope my book touches on it enough to show the privileged life of seemingly everyone compared to Zanba and Hamman.  Even their good friend Rammorah has an extremely good life before his career.

Anyway, this weekend I'm changing my power steering rack and pinion.  That should be fun.  I'm hoping to do it Sunday, roughly align the wheels, and drive it to the shop down the street for an alignment and finally, after 2 years, get this car passed in Maryland.  We will see.  Hope all had a great Halloween, my son went as Blaze from Blaze and the Monster Machines (for those of you who do not have kids).  It's honestly the best show out of all of his shows.  It teaches him stuff I didn't learn until High School.  Seriously, try to remember when you learned the actual definition of inertia and electro-magnetism.

Well, sorry it is a bit long.  Hope all of you have a great weekend!

Cities and Voice for Short Story

I remembered to post this time!  I hope everyone is having a great week.  Mine has been another busy week with pushing out a project.  Anyway, things on the book end are slow.  I've been talking to a PR company to see how I can boost my audience and hopefully share my story with more people.  Hopefully I'll be able to act on that soon if my car will hold it together for a little longer.

I apologize for my short story taking so long.  I've been working on two things for it: cities and voice.  As I was writing the story, I realized that some cities were created after the Dragon War, therefore our hero, Junak, would not be able to go or know of those cities.  I had to pour over pages of notes and mark down which were around and which were not so I didn't have any continuity errors.  I've also been working on the voice of the story.  I have been re-reading a lot of older stories like Gilgamesh, Iliad and Odyssey, and more recently Dante's Divine Comedy.  I like how everything is so verbose and grand when writing.  I think I want to experiment with that for this short story.  One thing I found interesting, especially in the Iliad and Odyssey, is that everyone had a name and history.  There were not a lot of non-descriptive characters.

I have been drawing some images up, but it has been placed on hold, I'm hoping to do more on it soon.  I had my reasons for the style I chose to draw in the book, but for the website, I would like it to be a little more realistic.  Unfortunately, a more realistic product takes a little more time to get right.

On the personal side, we carved pumpkins!  I'll post some pictures.  We carved three, a scary, happy...and a sad one.  My 3-year old was intent on having a sad pumpkin...so we have a sad pumpkin now.  Did I finish my bathroom?  No...I've been trying to get my car to Maryland tags for some time now, but every time I bring it in having fixed the last problem, I get a new one.  In order to save money, I do things myself.  Unfortunately, that takes time.  Last time I had a list of problems ranging from brakes to power steering pump.  Fixed them all.  Now it's down to 3 items: wipers, headlights...and power steering rack.  The wipers and headlights are tivial, but the rack and pinion is a whole other story.  I can do it, but should I let the shop do it and get it over with and just bite the bullet?  We'll see...

I hope everyone has a great weekend!