Writing in Public - Year 1, Month 1, Day 3

This marks my third day in following Dean Wesley Smith's Writing in Public challenge (or as some might say, stealing his idea).  Dean's a good guy.  I'm pretty sure he'll forgive me.  (But if not, Dean, you have my email address...)

Tonight, I was worn out after a day at work.  There were Adobe Flash Player patches to push out to 2,000 systems, a Google Chrome update to finish up on, and a few stragglers for another software product to update.  All this on top of the usual demands on a desktop administrator's time.

During my lunch hour, I began doing a mind-map for my Introduction to Application Repackaging book.  I originally brainstormed it when I was packaging for Windows XP.  Now that we're using Windows 7, the whole idea seems to need an update.  That will also inspire some articles from my blog for the book.

I came home and took a three-hour nap, because I haven't slept well the last few days.  It helped, but I still feel a sleep deficit.  Writing will take a back seat to sleep tonight, I'm afraid.

I also took some time to read.  I re-read part of Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist book, which often inspires and encourages me.  In the part I read tonight, he recommends absorbing all you can about favorite artists and authors.  Then read the artists who influenced those people, and so on.  It's like building your literary family tree.  Harry Harrison is one of my favorites, so I decided to read a little about him on Wikipedia.  I learned that he ghost-wrote a book for Leslie Charteris' The Saint series.  I learned that with Kindle Unlimited you can read that book (and others) for free.  I read about 20% of the book.  I recognized Harrison's work on about the fifth word.  His style showed through for me.  It's kind of like a more-refined, less chauvinistic version of The Stainless Steel Rat.  His inspiration for that character, perhaps?  I wonder.

I have been wanting for a long time to successfully brew a clone of the famous Belgian beer Gulden Draak.  On Sunday, I captured the yeast from four bottles of the brew and fed it to a starter wort.  Monday night I moved it to a second starter.  Tonight, it finally showed activity!  I may be able to make a good clone yet, using their actual yeast.

Tomorrow evening, I plan to get a lot more writing done.

---

TODAY'S WORD COUNTS

• This Blog: 411 words
• Columbus Beer Scene:  336 words
• How to Write Fiction: 153 words

TOTAL WORDS FOR TODAY: 900

---
DECEMBER 2014 WORD COUNTS

Novels:

• Fully Invested: 860 words (notes and backstory)
• The Alliance (series): 0 words
• Alien Love Story: 0 words
• Driven To Kill: 0 words
• Local Gods: 0 words
• The Black Eagles: 0 words
• The Old Hotel: 0 words

Short Stories:

• None in progress at this time.

Non-Fiction:

• Introduction to Application Repackaging: 0 words
• Troubleshooting Windows Applications: 0 words

Blogging:

• Columbus Beer Scene: 972 words
• How to Write Fiction: 2,624 words
• Introduction to Application Repackaging: 0 words
• Windows Desktop Administration: 2,009 words
• This Blog: 2,116 words
• Guest Posts for Other Blogs: 0 words

Opening Lines, Paragraphs, Pages:

• Opening Lines Written: 0
• Opening Paragraphs Written: 0
• Opening Pages Written: 0

DECEMBER - MONTH TO DATE WORDS: 8,581