Sorry I’ve been out of touch. My life is now busier than ever, and the fact is that baseball season/work isn’t even around yet, so I can’t imagine how busy it will be when that time comes around. I can’t wait for it though. Photography has kept me busy, as it’s now a class I’m taking. Maybe I’ll put some photos up.
My writing has slowed to minimal, which is the way I want it till I offically kick into high gear again Feb. 1st. That’ll also be the day I’m launching my new myspace for my authorial self, hopefully building up some hype for me as an author.
So stick around till then. For now, take it easy and if you’re in LA, stay dry!
I’ll be trying to update everyday, and it’s going to be an in depth look at what it takes to become a writer and my long road ahead in regards to being published.
Hopefully it’ll become something big, but only if you guys help me out!
After seven months of development, including two whole months devoted to creating a theory on the relationship of infinity and zero and a month on the idea of “superperspectivistical thinking”, I have finally unleashed what I’m hoping will be my “breakthrough” novel onto FictionPress.
If I get it published, it’ll obviously have to be taken down, so read it while you still can!
Ah yes. It’s that time of year when it all begins to get into gear. Everything is falling into its perfect place, and I’m as happy as can be. With the weight of needing the Angels to win the AL West off of my shoulders, I can sit down and have some good ol’ Jared time.
That means a lot of writing.
Lately, things haven’t been going well. Call it a combo of lack of focus, writers block and zero inspiration. A triple threat. But alas, a savior always seems to make it’s way, and this time it’s in the form of music.
I mentioned the band “Godspeed You! Black Emperor” before, as to how beautiful their music was.
Right now I’m really into their song “Terrible Canyons of Static”, especially the first 4 and half minutes. It’s so hauntingly pure as it twists up and down. Music like this needs to be spread to everyone.
When I listen to their music it’s like I’m back in my early days of writing. That same feeling of elation is there, which seems to have burnt out slightly nowadays. I’m glad to say that I’m slowly getting that feeling back, along with anticipation of new experiences as I write.
I’m finally healthy. My toes are still tender from their surgeries, but I can now put my full weight on each foot and feel no pain. Now, let the training begin.
October 14th is the Long Beach Marathon Bike Tour, and I’ve been planning on riding it since earlier this year. This will be my second time riding this particular bike tour, and it’s still my favorite.
So earlier this week I began to psyche myself up to begin training again tomorrow. That gives me three weeks to train. That may just be on the verge of rushing the training, but I’m not one to back down from any challenges that get thrown my way.
Unless it involves water falling from the sky.
It’s apparently been looming for two weeks now, and a storm that meteorologist are calling “freakish” is headed our way. I’ve also heard “A December storm hitting in the middle of September”. So what I gather from all of this is the obvious: a storm like the one about to hit tomorrow is not suppose to happen until the dead of winter, not the tail-end of summer.
It’s already 15 degrees cooler than average. I’ve busted out the jackets, but the stubborn California within still demands that shorts be worn. Estimates are putting the storm at dropping an inch of rain starting tonight, thru Friday and into Saturday morning.
So it’s now up in the air as to whether I will begin my rehab/training tomorrow, but if you needed to take odds, I’d bet in favor of me riding rain or shine. It all stems from my three years of running Cross Country at my high school. When the weather sent even the football players diving for cover, we were out there running in it.
It actually feels better to do anything in the rain. Rain naturally cleans the air. This allows for more oxygen to make it into your lungs supercharging your muscles and promoting the release of endorphins, or “happy feeling” hormones. That’s one of the main reasons why I remember every time we ran in the rain. Even though those raindrops after a while begin to feel like cold knifes being stabbed into you, you’re on such an endorphin high, you just don’t care.
Course, what you don’t realize is that you’ve now allowed yourself to contract bronchitis by doing this exercise.
Well, at least that happened to me. Then again, running short and a t-shirt aren’t exactly going to keep you warm.
So my point?
Tomorrow, rain or shine, I will be out there tearing up the asphalt as only a bike can with more than a t-shirt and running shorts.
Yesterday’s minor surgery on my left big toe went very well. It ended up not being an infected ingrown toenail; it was just a normal ingrown toenail. It had grown approximately 1/8th of an inch into my toe, and in order to cut it out my doctor had to remove some of the skin surrounding it.
That’s what made post-surgery yesterday so much more interesting than last week’s post-surgery Friday.
Last week all I had afterwards was the inability to walk on my foot and a feeling more of annoyance than pain. But last night, it was something completely different.
Thanks to the fact that skin had to be removed, the annoyance was gone and the pain had checked-in for the evening. I have a tolerance for pain that is well above average, but for whatever reason or another, the pain of this surgery was nearly unbearable last night.
It was a sharp pain in my big toe that would spread down my foot and into my heel. It felt like someone had stabbed my toe with scissors and dragged it slowly down my foot. It was bad enough to cause me to have problems sleeping (plus, having to keep the foot elevated put me in an awkward position. I’m a stomach sleeper, not someone who can get to sleep easily on their back), so I ended up taking some Tylenol PM. I didn’t end up sleeping anyhow, but at least I wasn’t in pain for a few hours.
Couple this with the Formula 1 team I’m pulling for, McLaren, losing all its Constructors Championship Points this week after they were caught spying on Ferrari and the fact that I haven’t been able to write decently for the past month and a half and you’ve got one frustrated Jared.
Jared mad!
Jared smash!
Jared is confused: he has hurt himself in his confusion.
But, if there is a silver lining to all of this, I’ve had a lot of down time to look inward and be my former self of introspective thought. Boy, did I find a lot of thing I need to change and fast. Bad eating habits, cursing, getting my patience back and some other things are at the top of my list.
“Invisible” passed 100 hits on fanfiction.net. Huzzah!
If there’s another thing I’m happy about, it’s some damn good music I stumbled upon. A group with the peculiar name of “Godspeed You! Black Emperor”. They’re an instrumental rock band much like “Explosions in the Sky” but have been around for longer than them.
They make some unbelievably beautiful music. They write their music in movements, much like how classical music is written.
I’ve got a blog in the works talking about all the different cars I’ve used in my stories, so be ready for that.
Well my friends it’s that time again where I come in and talk about things in the world I write about.
It’s been a long time since I blogged purely about writing, so now I’ll make it a short time.
Chapter 2 of “Invisible” went up about 24 hours ago, and it was nearly 2,500 short of my target word count. I figured it had been nearly a month and a half since the last update, and I didn’t want to make it two.
500 words per day was my original target, and I haven’t been able to reach that point. I could blame it on work, college and could go as far to say that since I’ve now been able to control my ADHD off of my medication, I have lost just enough focus to prevent me from writing.
Yes, I have ADHD, and yes, I use to take medication for it. I was allowed to stop at the beginning of August thanks to the progress I showed in several trails of not taking my medication for a week.
But no, I’m not going to pin the blame on anything but myself. I have not motivated myself enough to sit down and should be doing a better job. It took me a month to realize this, but now I’m back in a groove and have written at least 300 words tonight towards “Invisible’s” next chapter.
All it takes is that little voice in my mind saying, “Lazy! Get yourself in gear! Like, Ferrari gear!”
So here I am now 200 words away from my daily goal.
Progress on “Invisible” hath resumed.
Today was the first day in a long time where you didn’t sweat while outside. In case you don’t live in So Cal or live here and under a rock, since the beginning of last week, temperatures have pushed passed 100F. Monday was the peak, and it hit 107F on the mercury where I live. Downtown Los Angeles was near our mark on the mercury, which even temperatures over 95F are rare in summer. It’s now about 25F cooler during the day, and at night you can actually describe it as “chilly”.
Tomorrow I’m visiting one of the guys who got me out of my shell when it came to writing. I use to be very quiet about writing, but not after I took Creative Writing and had him as a professor. So a visit was in order anyhow.
The Angels are sticking it to baseball like never before. I’m saying we now have a 85% chance of reaching the post-season. So If we don’t, it’ll be a shocker.
The day after tomorrow is the beginning of Formula 1’s visit to Monza, Italy. It is the fastest track on the F1 circuit, with the cars peaking out around 235mph several times during the long straight-aways that dominate the course.
Here’s a video of Felipe Massa’s qualifying lap from last year’s race at Monza. Hopefully this will give you an idea of the speeds, technicality of the driving and the sheer g-force a driver goes through during this race.
I seriously have no clue what to write anymore on this blog. I mean, my writing’s progress has slowed to a bloody halt because it has. I’ve gotten nothing accomplished…until today.
It was a typical August for me, which means it wasn’t fun at all. August is usually the month that my “high on life” ends and I have to end up taking the next few months to rebuild it.
The inactivity in my writing also carried over into running/cycling. Course, I’ve now contracted my second ingrown toenail in less than a year. It’s frustrating because I’ve literally done everything and them some of what I was told to do to prevent it from returning, but lo-and-behold its back. What makes it even more frustrating is that I can’t run.
Yeah, I should be riding my bike, but alas, the front rim is warped, causing it to rub against the front brakes when it rotates and slow me down considerably. The way I ride is much like how Lance Armstrong rides, which is with a high cadence, which is the cycling term for the revolutions you make with the pedals. Armstrong on average is somewhere near 120rpm on his pedals, and I aim for that when riding, but I can’t since my bike is semi-busted.
I’ve also made up my mind to invest in a decent road bike. I’ll be dropping a little over a grand into a bike, but its well worth it.
A video of Lance because he rawks so amazingly.
Been listening to a lot of U2, Explosions In The Sky and Boards of Canada again. I’ve also gotten into Kanye West thanks to his song “Stronger”. He was kind enough to collaborate with Daft Punk for the song, and included them in the video for the song. Anyone who uses Daft Punk and recognizes them like that is on my good side.
So yeah, writing hasn’t been all that good lately, but I thinkbroke through my mental barrier today because I drilled out about 300 words in less than an hour, which in case you don’t know much about writing, that’s quite a burst.
I want to talk about how I’ve been feeling lately, which is purely amazing, but I think I’ll save that for a later blog so I can get back to writing.
Uh, I’m still trying to figure out what to put here. I mean, my blog is about me and a pursuit of my dream: to become a published author.
You’d think for someone wanting to be an author, I could write a simple description here. It’s quite simple: I’m blogging about becoming published, which hopefully people will want to follow along. Hell, maybe this’ll help out others with the same dream as mine. You know, kinda’ like a “Follow the same path” kind of thing, but not so heavy on the philosophy. Who knows, people may read this just because they find it amusing, interesting or completely repulsive. Either case, I hope they like it.
It’s going to be a long road, as my goal is being published by the end of 2008. Whether I make that dream a reality or fail to do so, I’ll be here letting you know what it’s like to try.
“Have Adrenaline — Will Travel” refers to my philosophy on life, which is summed up in a single sentence:
