Number Four, In Which the Author Discusses an Incomplete Hastag

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.  ~Douglas Adams

If you have been reading this blog or following me on Twitter, you know that I attempted an idea I called #writehome for my return ride from Seattle. The plan was to take the time of the flight to write an entire short story (about 5,000 words or so). Being relatively new to applying deadlines, and for myriad reasons (including a long ascent, a late flight, and the effect of Lorazepam that I take for flight-related anxiety), I was not successful in completing this story. I also incorrectly assumed that I would be able to update to Twitter via mms on my phone during the flight, but there is no signal for flights and thus, no updates were possible. Duh.

Anywho, I've been sitting on the story now for a couple of days. Part of the reason is that I started a new job on Monday (yay the life of a working stiff and writer), the other is pure laziness. I plan to work on this over the next couple days, assuming I get the opportunity (like now, I suppose) and then I was thinking I would attempt to get it into some form of literary magazine. This is a story concerning a minor character from one of my novel ideas, and it fits mostly into the fantasy category (you could call it Americana fantasy, Indiana Jones-style fantasy, etc.). It is set in the Columbia River gorge of Oregon, which is a place we visited during the trip and I thought would be fitting for a story. I'm enjoying it so far, and think it should be a fun read when it's done. I'll keep you all updated.

In other news, the trip was great and we had a lot of fun. We saw a great deal of Seattle and some of greater Washington and Oregon, including Astoria and the Goonies house like I mentioned before. I'm thinking of setting a short story in the Pike Place Market, but I have to work out exactly how I will do this and what the elements will be. In other words, it's in the works. Also, I'm going to start planning a weekly word count completion of 10,000 words. Not a whole lot, but with other jobs, it will at least move me along.

Number Two, In Which We Are Privy to an Idea of Sorts

At this very moment, I am blogging from the comfort of an Extended Stay hotel in Bellevue, WA. My family and I are vacationing in the Seattle area and visiting much of the sights and scenes out here in the Pacific Northwest. As an example, we found ourselves in Astoria, Oregon, and I totally geeked out at the prospect of visiting the Goonies house. It turns out, the people who own the home are cool with pedestrian visitors walking up and taking photos and truffle shuffling and whatnot around their home. Pretty cool.

In addition to this, my wife wanted to visit Snoqualmie Falls which, I must say, was dramatically awesome. As we approached the viewpoint, I looked out and noticed the Salish Lodge on the cliff. It seemed rather familiar and I finally realized that it was the hotel from Twin Peaks. Looking around the town of Snoqualmie, I recognized several places that were obvious shooting locations from the show. Needless to say, I had a couple of good fanboy moments.

Anyway, as we were out and about today, I had a thought. I decided that, on the semi-lengthy journey back from Washington to Minnesota, I could very well have enough time to write a story. Thus, I am planning on focusing my time to completing an entire 5,000+ word story to be submitted to some lit-mag at completion. I'll be updating occasionally about this venture on Twitter via #writehome, assuming everything goes to plan. I'll let you know what I'm writing about, as well as the process of submitting it. Let me know what you think of the idea.