Writing, Football, and Light Fixtures FTW

This was a good weekend. With the single exception of a recalcitrant piece of trim we have to put up on our porch ceiling, this was a very productive weekend. I wrote the introduction / final bit for a biography I’ve been working on. I wrote several thousand more words on the Nanowrimo novel, Heart of a Dragon, bringing that total up over 58,000 words for the month. I revised a few more chapters of “Path of the Meteor,” which I am certain needs a new title…maybe just Meteor. Time will tell on that. I installed the new front porch lamp and replaced the two side lamps…nothing exploded, no fires, and they all light up. Then it was topped off by watching my San Diego Chargers pretty much pummel Denver, in Denver, to take the first place spot in the AFC West (where they belong)

My one regret about the new porch lamps is that, apparently, the dozen or so large spiders that drop down at night and line the inner front ceiling of the porch don’t come out with the lights on. Friday there were a dozen or more, and last night? None. Spooky. I mean, where did they go? It was a weird weekend all around for spiders, I might add. In my last post you met the Venutra Orchard Spider, a critter I’d never seen nor heard of before, harmless, but very pretty – as spiders go. Yesterday, in the photo-stream of local artist I. M. Lowry, I saw that he found exactly the same type of spider and got a gorgeous photo of it. Since people on Twitter were tenacious enough to ferret out what kind she was, I passed the knowledge on.

The writing is coming along well. It’s nice to be on the far side of that fifty-thousand word border. It hasn’t slowed my pace or enthusiasm, but as anyone who has played the Nanowrimo game knows, it just feels better. I have a little over ten chapters to go, and that rough draft will be complete. On the Path of the Meteor revision – I may put out a call for about five readers to read the file for me, help me finish cleaning / revising – and help come up with a more marketable title. It’s a fairly traditional vampire novel with romance, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll. No sparkling.

And the San Diego Chargers. I’m not going to say much about that. I watched the game in blurry live-stream glory from some fan over in Australia. It was interesting seeing Cricket match commercials in the middle, but at least I got to watch the win. I also watched my NFL Redzone, so I saw all of the scoring on the big HD screen.

On a side note, my vote for play of the season goes to Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions. First off, he had a heck of a game. Still…that game mattered to two teams, and their fans, and that was it. He went back in there with a shoulder injury, knowing full well he might get his clock cleaned again and really get hurt, and threw the winning pass. He won the game with no time left…he’s a freaking hero, and that’s when football is fun again…when I can watch a quarterback on a team I don’t care about, not hear anyone mention fantasy football, or Nike, and just see something amazing on the field, I’m a happy fan. Here’s to you, Mr. Stafford. Nice pass.