Bastion Grammar Jr: Blog

I have a confession to make. I've worn glasses for almost my entire life...and I have HATED every...single...freaking minute of it. Waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to tell what time it is...watching television in bed and not being able to go to sleep for fear I'll lay on my glasses and break them...having glasses fall down my nose when I'm sweating...I just couldn't stand it any more. So...a few months ago I decided to bite the bullet and have my eyes lasered.

Lasik has become incredibly advanced in recent years; they no longer need to manually cut a flap in your cornea, for example -- the laser can do it all. I was very excited to get my eyes done -- the allure of never needing glasses to see was so compelling...and Lasik is perfectly safe for 99.9% of the population...

I'd like you to meet one of the .1% of the population...ME. Oh, it wasn't a horror story like I've heard since I first had Lasik surgery -- but it was bad. I could see 20/10...but my eyes became INCREDIBLY sensitive to light and so dry my eyelids started to stick to them. Even worse, the glare from my computer monitors made me nauseous and dizzy...and computers are what I do for a living...

Anyway, long story short...5 surgeries later (including a tear duct surgery) my eyes are back to some semblance of normalcy. I have to wear a special kind of polarized lenses with yellow tint when I work on computers but I can see most any other time (I still have some problems in very low light).

Now you know why I haven't been writing lately (and why I've been remiss in answering my e-mail); I literally had problems sitting in front of a computer screen (or watching television, go figure). Now that I'm back, I hope to kick out a chapter or so very soon -- but give me a bit of time to get back to work as well...

Have you ever had one of THOSE summers?

I have a rather large nuclear family (rather large for this day and age, anyway) and we decided to take a vacation this year - a large vacation; 6 weeks (I've saved time from previous years). A rather expensive vacation (hint: a certain Mouse with big ears in Florida and then up North to visit family and family-in-law). We've been planning the vacation for close to 9 months and, honestly, it went off without much of a hitch.

It was a great vacation...except for one thing. I honestly thought there'd be some down time where I could sit back and write chapters for this story.

I was wrong...but not for the reasons you'd imagine. It turns out that spending time with your family is really addictive; the more time you spend with them, the more you WANT to spend with them. My teenage daughters were actually PLEASANT to be around (which is a miracle in and of itself).

We got home a few weeks ago but there've been a few 'Honey Do' projects that I've been putting off and I've been spending most of my free time on that...because - shocker - I WANTED to. When I wasn't doing a project, I've been STILL spending time with family. Vicious, vicious addictive circle...and I never believed I could become addicted.

Anyway, it's not that I've gotten any less addicted but...things have slowed down and most of my home projects are fairly complete. Plus, the kids are gearing up for school and are morphing back into their annoying (but lovable -- I really do love my kids...even if I have to remind myself of that once in a while) personalities. SIGH

Anyway, I'm starting writing again today. I'm hoping to get the next chapter finished and to my editor (if he's still talking to me -- haven't communicated with him in a while) sometime in the next few days.

I know that it's been a while since I've posted a chapter of the story or a blog entry. I have to apologize but I've been (and actually still am) vacationing with my family. It means that my writing time has dwindled to next to nothing but I HAVE been writing. I'm working on getting chapter 9 ready to post so I hope that will be up soon. Chapter 10 will, hopefully, not take as long. I hope that you will all be patient with me while I spend some quality time with my wife and kids.

Thank you for your patience,
Bastion

Well, you can't say I didn't warn you. I knew that something would come along and throw my rapid writing/posting pace into disorder. Lo and Behold, so it is written and so it shall come to pass...

My day job has been kicking my tail lately and a few family commitments have kept me away from my keyboard. Fear not, however, I'm still trying to write...I just don't get time to do more than a paragraph or two a day. It'll still get there, just going to take a bit of time.

For now, I've posted Chapter SEVEN for your reading amusement. I hope that you enjoy reading it 1/100th as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Until next time...fear not, for this too shall pass...

It's a sad state of affairs that I've written more blog entries than story chapters. Of course, that just means that I have to catch up. I like catching up.

First, I'd like to thank 'Paul' who caught out my secret. He pointed out to me that in the early chapters, Chance's sister is Lana but later becomes Lena. I came up with a whole mythos-appropriate response detailing the subversive nature of Buck's dream memories and how he 'mis-remembered' the name and...well, it went on for two pages and didn't make a very good story.

The truth is...I screwed up. I went and checked my character notes (prepared before I started writing) and Chance's sister WAS named Lana Pestle. Somehow, my mind warped that and she became Lena Pestle (I blame my cousin Lena who wrote a hilarious e-mail to me which I read during a writing session; normally, I refuse to read anything while writing but Lena is a special case exception to any and all rules). So...do I choose Lana or Lena? I decided, in honor of my cousin, to go with Lena. I've updated the main story document and I'll update the posts later.

Finally, I'd also like to thank 'Steve', 'David', 'Um' and I'm probably missing three or four dozen who've shown me a few places where my English grammar has failed (seriously, why does the English language need three different versions of one word? There, their and they're?? I feel this is more a failing of the English language than any comment on my ability to throw random letters at the keyboard and come up with legible words -- with Rob_3324's help, of course).