{nule.org}

We had a Halloweenie party last night. It was aiight except that a number of people didn’t show that said they would. I’m debating on posting pictures of it here. Drop me a note if you want to see them.

In the midst of everything else I have going on I cleaned out the closet, dusted off the resume and posted up here. That’s more so I don’t lose it (again) than for any other reason. It’s kind of thrown together and not polished to the point where I’d submit it for a job, but then again, I’m not looking for a job right now anyway.

So feel free to take a look and write me to tell me how wonderful I am.

I spent a few days last week in Texas and I have only some sunburn and a hangover to show for it. That officially makes it a good trip.

It was a first trip to Texas for me and it was quite a bit different than I expected. Despite the heat it was surprisingly green and though the sun was brutal, it felt less hot than the thermometer seemed to indicate. The weather was a mix of partly cloudy skies, interleaved with sudden intense thunderstorms. The temperatures were in the 90s to 100s.

We started and ended the four day trip in Houston, where going to the mall and finding a nice BBQ joint to eat at were the priorities. In that sense it was just like Ohio, except the highways were wider and people drove faster, and of course, there aren’t any BBQ joints.

The main focus of the trip, however, was a jaunt to San Antonio, where we explored the River Walk and took a tubing excursion down the Guadalupe River nearby. We had some fantastic Mexican food in San Antonio, and found some nice clubs to hang out in the evenings.

The tubing excursion was perhaps the climax of the trip, where we spent four hours in the blistering sun with nothing to cool ourselves with but cheap beer. The first three hours were very entertaining, the last – well, I don’t remember the last hour. The next thing I recall is being in the car on the trip back to the hotel, wondering why the hell my thumb hurt so bad. How exactly does one sprain a thumb anyway? Guess I won’t know until the next time I’m drunk and floating down a river in an innertube.

Update! Gallery pics are posted here: http://nule.org/gallery/album04

Here’s an auspicious omen: sitting in a coffee shop, listening to the powerful finale of Holst’s Mars, The Bringer Of War as we sat and discussed the rough first draft of my novel, set to take place on that very same planet. Here I was, a humble computer geek without any formal training in writing and a real, published author was looking at my labor of eighteen months. She liked it.

The occasion was the Imagination writers conference at Cleveland State University. The week long conference featured a number of published authors and similarly illustrious people that presented lectures on various aspects of the art. In between we would meet in groups to discuss and workshop our own pieces or meet one on one with various authors to have our work critiqued.

All in all I met with two authors individually, and in a workshop with eight others and an author. There was also a public reading of one of the chapters of my book. The concensus seems to be that the piece was widely enjoyed, despite the rough edges that would be typical of any new author.

Here’s another omen: right in the middle of the conference J.K. Rowling’s newest book comes out. The Harry Potter books, more than just about anything else convinced me that I wanted to write a book in the first place. They’re not flawless books by any stretch, but she’s a great story teller and she clearly has fun with her work. Enjoying her work made me want to share the stories that were already in my head.

So where does this leave me? I have nearly completed the first draft of the novel. Many months of polishing it up to produce the second draft are ahead of me. By that time I think that it may be good enough to start showing agents. Who knows. Whether or not it’s good enough to show anybody else, I enjoy doing it.