Tag Archives: Reading

Thought of the Week: The Second Person to Ever Call Me Beautiful

beautiful-blogger-awardWell, after so many years of looking in the mirror, I knew someone would eventually.

There’s a rather wonderful person called Factorymaid who has been following me for a little while now, and I ashamedly had not really even paid attention. No Freshly Pressed excuses; it’s just plain rude. (To everyone else I also haven’t checked out yet, I’m sorry too!)

Factorymaid, as it turns out, is (by her account, anyway) a brilliantly smart and successful person with a lot of hurt underneath and insecurities in the background. I read a few of the chapters of a book she’s working on, and they’re gut-wrenching. I’ll leave the rest of her tale up to her, but I’m rather glad she did this, because now I know someone new in the world whose acquaintance I’d be sorry to have missed.

Factorymaid believes I’m worthy of the Beautiful Blogger award. It does make me wonder: is it the blog or the blogger that’s beautiful? (Well, there’s no doubt about the blogger, of course – the dashing hunk of manliness.) I do try to infuse the world with something less than ugliness, though I’ll admit that words sometimes get a little twisted on the way, but I am the kind of person who prefers to see beauty in things others might not consider. To me, the only things ugly are those that are thoughtless.

Factorymaid certainly isn’t thoughtless.

Anyway, as usual I will obey the commandments of the award with my own stipulations. I won’t put any new blogs down here – there are far too many excellent and deserving people out there. Those that I’ve formed a special connection with are listed at the bottom of every post; it would, of course, be wonderful to check them out. (Factorymaid, you might be going down there.)

I will, however, attempt to entertain you with seven (7) interesting things about myself:

  1. I recently discovered I’ve been averaging 4-5 hours of sleep a night. It turned out I was tired a lot.
  2. Because of this, I drink a lot of coffee. My wife recently got me a mug that says, “Coffee makes me poop a lot.”
  3. It’s true.
  4. I can headbang in seven different languages.
  5. I have four computers in my room. Three don’t work; hence the fourth.
  6. My son now knows his multiplication tables better than I do.
  7. Sometimes, when no one’s looking, I sneak a cookie from the jar on the top shelf.

The Redemption of Erâth: Hiatus

Dear readers,

At the beginning of the year, I began work on the second book of The Redemption of Erâth, Exile. My intention was to follow the pattern I set last year of writing a new chapter each week – thus completing the book in about 25 weeks.

It’s now the 9th week of the year, and I’ve written 5 chapters. There are several things that have gotten in the way of this goal. For one, the chapters have become inherently longer (some as much as 150%), which takes more time to write. There have been a number of events in the past couple of months that have taken time away from my writing as well.

However, the most important reason I need to slow down is for my own health. Since I started looking into sleep disorders and had a polysomnography done, I’ve realized that my perpetual exhaustion may be more than just “the way I am.” My UP band (which has been simply wonderful) has helped me to realize that I am sometimes getting as little as 5 hours of sleep a night, which for me is not nearly enough. I am now consistently dozing off whilst driving to and from work, and I am going to have a serious accident if I’m not able to keep my focus on the road.

So in all of this, something has to give. My typical day starts at 6:00 AM, and I don’t have a chance to sit down and write until about 9:30 PM at the earliest. In the past, I would spend until midnight writing before going to bed, under the assumption that I’d be getting my minimum of 6 hours of sleep.

I was talking about this with a colleague at work, and I mentioned that if I went to bed earlier, I wouldn’t be able to get as much writing done. In her infinite wisdom, she pointed out that I wouldn’t get much writing done from a coffin either. It’s a fair point.

So for the immediate future, I will be slowing the progress on Exile so that I can focus on my health, and hopefully get an extra hour of sleep or so each night. I will still write on my days off, and if I happen to have an early evening, I’ll be working then, too. I want to apologize, because I feel equally anxious to find out what’s going to happen to Brandyé next. For now, though, the next part of his story will have to come more slowly.

I appreciate your readership, your support, your kindness and your patience. We will get there – and find out exactly what’s going to happen to the world of Erâth!

With the deepest affection,

 

Satis

Sleep

The Devil’s Details: F-ing Handwriting

It’s so easy these days to create legible writing using a computer keyboard that it’s easy to let legible handwriting fall by the wayside. I have become such a typist that I can’t actually remember how to write in cursive:

I haven't written in cursive since the fourth grade.

I haven’t written in cursive since the fourth grade.

I did need to write by hand of course throughout school, and when push came to shove I found I could print faster than I could write (cursive). It’s still not anything I’m terribly proud of, but at least I can (mostly) keep it in a straight line:

"This is an example of my handwriting at its neatest." For those who still can't read it.

“This is an example of my handwriting at its neatest.” For those who still can’t read it.

My history exams came out looking a bit like that bottom line. There was a kid in that class who could write ten pages in the time I wrote two…he got an A.

Now Little Satis has been having quite some difficulty forming letters, and his handwriting is difficult to read at its best. If he’s patient and takes his time he can actually write quite well, but he’s eight. The odd thing is how he has learned (or taught himself) to write:

Left: Standard writing direction. Right: Little Satis' writing direction.

Left: Standard writing direction. Right: Little Satis’ writing direction.

Rather than starting at the top, he starts every letter at the bottom, and traces it up from there. This particularly causes problems with descenders, since they too start on the line, and not below it:

"Qountem and the Apocalypse Theif", for those who are struggling.

“Qountem and the Apocalypse Theif”, for those who are struggling. Don’t ask.

However, although his handwriting is in dire need of attention, check out the F:

What a lovely F!

What a lovely F!

Isn’t it pretty? How did that come out of…well, that?