Friday, April 14, 2017

On the utility of algebra...

Who I am, and who I am tomorrow, are ever so slightly different. But the
me of tomorrow would not exist, were it not for the me of today. The path I
tread, today tomorrow and forever, is the only one that leads from the
path I took to get here.

Fed by the bits and pieces of the universe of paths that I might have taken.

The interesting part here is that I could, with a little effort, recall
every choice, between here and tomorrow, and retread that path. I could,
in effect, stand still. For a day, perhaps. But the focus needed to see
the choices starts to get a little heavy, and the number of choices I have
to recall from, large, the more steps I take.

Can I ever come back from where I will be, if I lose track of where I've
been?

And what on earth does any of this have to do with algebra, you, dear reader,
ask?

Maybe the question really is, what sort of story this is leading to...

Ah. But that would be telling.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

I guess there's a little bit of power in a streak, however short it be...

I came about this close (fingers held apart just a bit) to throwing this
over tonight. I've been wrestling with formatting, getting things ironed
out. That last little bit that seems like it takes forever, just before it's
finally time to hit 'submit'.

The details tend to reach out and grab me. So, when I got to the part where
I was 'brain full, tilt' and ready to close the computer... I tabbed over
to my browser and set about writing this.

Three days in a row, it ain't much. But it's a start. I know I won't be doing
anything this weekend, in terms of writing. So putting this out may be a bit
of subconscious refusal to go lightly into the realm of getting nothing done.

Down the road, I'm really not going to interested in these sorts of inside
baseball posts. That doesn't mean I'm not going to be doing them. I owe too
many other writers who went before me too much not to talk about my journey
when I think it's useful.

But I'm also not going to spend all my time on it. That's just where I'm
at, here at the beginning of this here thing.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

On the occasion of my second blog post ever!

Right, dialing it down. Inside voice.

As you might be able to tell, these posts are, at the moment, placeholders.
To give you the full picture, at the moment, I'm in the middle of formatting
my first book, a novella that's the introduction to a longer series.

However, I've got a day job, so that process is taking its own sweet time
getting going. Such is life, and anyone with family and job and dogs and cats
and a yard to keep up with...

Yeah, you can imagine how much free time I have on my hands.

Another thing I have to factor in here is that my day job is working as a
programmer/analyst/science writer. So I already spend a pretty significant
amount of time on the computer. Putting in extra time, however worthwhile,
is part of my learning experience as a fiction writer.

Gotta build up my chops, basically.

So, the blog is my way of doing a couple of things, at least right here at
the beginning. I need a good way of keeping mental track of what I'm doing,
and I need to carve out just a little bit of work-not work that's devoted
strictly to my fiction writing.

Over the next little while, then, I'll be explaining what I'm up to, so far
as getting my book out (current project), what other stories are in the
queue (for getting out as soon as this one's published), and whatever
floats my boat after that.

Oh, and I'll be up front. Mickie (or M.K.) Dreysen is my pen name. It's
nothing nefarious. Two particular reasons. One, it tickles me. Mark Twain,
O. Henry, George Sand, Richard Bachman, the list of writers who've plugged
away under a pen name is remarkable, ridiculous, and most importantly, it's
one of, I think, the little joys of a scribbler's life.

Second, remember, at this time I have a day job. I sort of owe it to my
colleagues, bosses, and the rest of the gang in that world to make sure that
someone with google-fu finds my daytime work where they need it, and my
fiction work where they need it, and never the twain shall meet.

And no, not because I'm writing my friends into the thing, either. I simply
want to make sure that the two different types of writing I do are easy to
distinguish. I don't want to trip people who didn't ask for it, that's all.
It's exactly the same thing as authors such as Nora Roberts, who also writes
as J.D. Robb (among other pen names) depending on which type of book she's
writing at any given time.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Testing, Testing, Testing....

No, wait. This is a computer, after all. Right, I know what I'm supposed to do for that.

*cough cough*

"Hello World!"

Right?

Ok, fine. First post, so I'm playing. It's in the handbook, this is supposed to be fun, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. So, here we go, fun right off the bat, and let's see where this thing takes. Us. Takes us.

Right. Um, hang on tight, folks, this might get a little bumpy...