First Guitar Lesson: Solo Grimace

December 18, 2009 by Doug Sharp

First Lesson: Getting the Solo Grimace just Right - Tomorrow I learn a chord!

I am working to regain some of the skills that I lost during my years of intense seizures. Making music and drawing became intensely painful. I am going to do my neuroplastic exercises while I draw and play to see if I can build happy new neurons.

I want to recover my ability to draw so I can finish my graphic book, “Bk.: A Not-So Novel”:

From the chapter "A Child's Garden of WWIII"

I learned a bit about my current brain as I got ready to draw today. Just organizing my art supplies completely destroyed me almost to a seizure level. All I did was straighten out a box of pencils, but my brain hates that sort of stuff. Tomorrow I actually USE the pencils to draw.

Corpse in Party Hat, Faceless Worker attaches coffin to ride, Coffins Spin - panels from "The Amusement Park for The Dead" from "Bk.: A Not-So Novel"

I’ve always wanted to learn to play the electric guitar so I tuned up the old Hohner Rockwood and downloaded some chord patterns. I apologize in advance for any music of mine you may hear.

Next week I plan to start juggling.

First Walk on the Lake

December 17, 2009 by Doug Sharp

We took our first walk on Lake Almira today. Brook reported that ice fishing shacks are out on the big lakes so I know my lakes are pretty safe as long as I don’t walk near the beaver lodges.

There were areas of slush on the lake where water had seeped through. Most of these surround otter holes but one was caused by a predator cracking open a muskrat den:

I just had a great 5 day break and am raring to sell Hel’s Bet. Brook came to The Pad yesterday and we plotted the next few moves in agent hunting. Hel’s Bet is being read by a lot of new readers and I’m hoping that it spreads into the Singularity community. I am fishing for blurbs for the query letter.

Two days ago the dogs escaped – my hands were cold and I missed Mika’s collar with the leash snap. Mika took off for a 2 hour run with Travis tagging along. It was a bitter cold day with 3 inches of new snow on top of 6 inches of fresh snow. I spent an hour following their tracks. Mika’s radio collar battery was dead so I had to wait for them to return or for a call from the farm family the dogs would eventually “ask” for help. I was quite relieved when I heard them come through the dog door. I worry about coyotes.

They slept like corpses that night – it was a mighty wander breaking lots of snow trails. Mika has a new battery in her radio collar.

Ogre Island Out of Reach and Frozen Otter Hole

December 12, 2009 by Doug Sharp

The ice is too thin to cross to Ogre so we walked along the shore of Martel Lake today. We just got 6 inches of new snow. Some patches of lake snow were flooded and frozen.

This patch of ice flowed from an otter hole that  has frozen over. The ice is very thin and I broke through up to my ankles once walking along the shore. My boots kept me dry.

The lake was low last summer so there is a lot of grass along the new shoreline.

Boats hibernate until ice out.

I am taking a four day weekend completely goofing off from Hel’s Bet and chores.  I feel relaxed and I’m getting scruffy.

First Sledge of Winter

December 10, 2009 by Doug Sharp

The last 200 yards to my cabin aren’t plowable in the winter so I sledge out my trash and dirty laundry and sledge in groceries and sweet-smelling socks:

I pull it with a belly band. It’s great exercise to break trail with the sledge after new snow.

Mika pulls me and I pull the sledge.

We got 6 inches of soft snow so I was sweating and breathing hard at the end of each haul.

I’m carless until I sell the book so Brook picked up groceries and laundry in Luck.

Sledging supplies makes The Pad feel much more Wildernessy ;^)

Brook was great as always – he was happy with the progress I made in the last week straightening up the cabin. My day started with frozen pipes – I turned up the crawlspace spaceheater and they thawed before Brook arrived.  Brook crawled under the cabin and discovered that our resident snowshoe hares had knocked out some insulation to let cold air straight into the pipes.

I am going to take the next four days off to goof off hard. I’m not going to do any chores. I’ll get out every day for a big walk with the dogs.

It’ll be a few weeks until the ice is thick enough for walking. Until then Ogre Island is out of reach.

I am getting some great first reactions to Hel’s Bet from new readers. Next week I’ll meet with Brook to start work on the query letter and synopsis. I’ll be well rested after my long weekend of eating bonbons by the woodstove.

I saw an ermine hunting today

December 8, 2009 by Doug Sharp

I walk 3/4 miles one way to my mailbox. The last half of the walk follows the edge of a farmer’s field.

We are snug inside from the first real snowstorm of the season. It was snowing lightly this morning as we walked to the mailbox. I saw a  brown mouse running over the snow in the field. And then I saw the ermine chasing it. I saw its black tail tip first and then the tiny white weasel hopping quickly after the mouse. I wasn’t quick enough to take a picture so here’s an ermine from the web:

The ermine  saw my dogs and turned back to the weeds from which it flushed the mouse. Neither dog saw the white ermine against the snow but both of them saw the mouse. Travis ran straight to the mouse and killed it while I watched the ermine streak back into the weeds.

This was only the second ermine I’ve seen in my life. Devoted followers of my blog (Hi, Mom!) will remember Herman the Ermine who moved into Margaret’s closet the winter she lived at The Pad. The dogs chased Herman but never caught him. Margaret caught Herman on video, however:

I hope this is an otter winter. I’ve only seen otters pop out of a hole in the ice twice.

Finished!

December 7, 2009 by Doug Sharp

Pshewww!

I am proud of finishing the third draft of Hel’s Bet. It took me 15 long and often painful months but I kept on writing.

I am confident that this draft will sell.

It’s appropriate that I limp across the finish line burnt out and aching. My late summer spurt of writing was crucial to getting HB done but it broiled my writing lobe. I’ve been absent from this blog because I put every word on the page.

During the last week of rewriting I vowed to jump into Martel Lake at dawn if I didn’t get the book rewritten by 11/9. That was great motivation and I wound up writing all night to escape a cold morning dive. I took a break and did a final readthrough before I started circulating the manuscript.

After I finished the rewrite I took the dogs camping in the woods:

We were planning to camp for 2 nights but Travis had other ideas. I slept 12 hours the first night and was raring to go the next day. We did an epic circumnavigation of Lake Almira through bogs and thickets and open forest and when we were 3 miles into the 4 mile hike Travis flushed a pair of deer and was off to the races.

We were hiking in an unfamiliar area so I was a tad concerned but Travis was chasing the deer back toward Martel Lake. We followed him calling “TRAVIIIIS!” When we got to Martel I was surprised to see a couple guys by the Haunted Trailer wearing green shiny vests. I asked them if they owned the trailer (never met the owners) and they told me they were clearing branches from the powerline but was I missing a dog because one just ran by chasing a deer into the lake.

I ran to the shore and sure enough there was Travis halfway across Martel swimming slower and slower. The deer was long gone. Martel is cold:

I yelled at Travis to swim to Ogre Island and he turned around and paddled to it while Mika and I ran to get the canoe. The lake was iced over between the dock and the island. We broke ice out to Ogre and rescued shivering but happy Travis. I took him to the cabin to try to dry him out and warm him up but it was obvious he was in no shape for another night in a tent. And I didn’t particularly want to snuggle with an icy dog. Travis slept like a rock.

I am taking a week off from HB work. I need to recuperate, straighten up the cabin, work on some of my lost skills, and plot strategy for getting the best agent I can.

I am circulating the manuscript (just during December 2009) so if you want to read a little story about kickstarting the Singularity by stealing a space shuttle give me a shoutout.

We’ve got the first longterm snow of the season and are expecting more. The lake froze over but it will be a month before the ice is safe for hiking.

Every month I send my patrons and friends an update letter. This month’s letter:

Friends,

I finally finished the damn thing! I beat my deadline and avoided having to jump into the lake. I celebrated by taking the dogs camping.

Hel’s Bet is a 190k monster of a book that I am rather proud of. Finishing this draft is by far the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. It took 15 months from the time I got my critique of draft 2 until I finished this draft. I started incredibly slowly – last March I had only finished 50 of the 880 pages. My late summer writing spurt was wonderful but ground down my writing neurons to a nub.

I’m only glad that a novel can’t crash. The last month of bug hunting before putting any game out the door always soured me on the game – I couldn’t believe anyone would play it without a gun to their head. Hel’s Bet still amuses me.

Now I get to find an agent and a publisher. This month I’ll work with Brook to write the query letter and 1 page synopsis. We’ve already made a target list of the 10 agents who did the biggest deals in speculative fiction recently as our first prospects. 

While we work on the query materials I will circulate HB in the Singularity community trying to score blurbs for the query letter.

I’d love to hear what you think of Hel’s Bet. I couldn’t have finished it without your help.

I finished stacking my firewood today and am ready for the big snow. It’s great to have a new roof on the cabin.

Thank you,

Doug

As I search for an agent I will post regularly here.

Here’s a thumbnail review of Fall at The Pad.

Loon vs Bald Eagle and 100 pages from the end of Hel’s Bet

September 22, 2009 by Doug Sharp

I continue to pour all my words into rewriting Hel’s Bet . I am going to finish it within 2 weeks! I meet tomorrow with Brook to outline changes in the final 100 pages. A lot of the writing in the final pages is pretty solid as is.

The loon parents have headed South and the two chicks are on their own. The older chick has already fledged its adult black and white feathers and is exercising its wings by splashing along the surface of the water.

Bald eagles constantly harass the loon chicks. I canoed for about 2 hours today and a pair of eagles flew by 4 times and a young eagle stopped by as well.

Bald Eagle on the left side of one of the Martel Lake beaver lodges. He just flew by the loon family.

Bald Eagle on the left side of one of the Martel Lake beaver lodges. He just flew by the loon family.

Whenever I hear the loon chicks make their warning call I’d look around the lake and see the eagles. They like to fly in low behind an island and try to hit the loons from behind while they aren’t looking. When they pass close to the loons the loons splash the water and dive.

I wonder if the eagles keep trying because the younger chick still has its brown baby feathers. It should fledge into its adult feathers soon – see if the eagles hang around then. I don’t remember them harassing the parents.

The maples and poplars are turning. I finally lost my plucky little camera so here is a shot of Martel Lake in a previous year:

Miller Camp Lake, which is the only lake that drains into Martel. A trumpeter swan family is raising a cygnet there this year.

Miller Camp Lake, which is the only lake that drains into Martel. A trumpeter swan family is raising a cygnet there this year.

Can’t wait to finish Hel’s Bet and sell it.

Jack Sharp’s 80th Birthday

August 19, 2009 by Doug Sharp

My father would have been 80 today. He was an amazing Dad, an example and inspiration. He was a kind and generous man, a liberal firebrand, an Air Force Colonel, a peace activist, a scientist, a professional counselor, a national champion gymnast, a skeptic, and an author. He was a wonderful husband and loved Mom with all his heart. He never stopped learning and he was always excited to be alive.

Dad and Me. Dad loved to play with kids. Part of why I became an elementary school teacher.

Dad and Me. Dad loved to play with kids. I got that from him and became an elementary school teacher.

We all miss him terribly.

Here’s some of what I said at Dad’s funeral:

I will talk about some moments I shared with him, moments that I cherish because in them he so much himself and I had the privilege to be there.

Fishing and Justice

Dad was very tolerant of my love for fishing. He disliked pretty much everything about it – the worms, the waiting, the fish. But out of love, out of duty, once or twice a year he would load me and my gear in the car, find a lake and indulge his son’s perverse angling passion.

The first fishing trip I remember happened in my third or fourth grade, around 1960, Tallahassee, Florida. We went to a city lake set in a small park surrounded by working class houses. I am pretty sure it was just the two of us. I don’t remember whether I had a single nibble or caught a fish.

What I do remember is two black children, boys about my age fishing just down the shore from us. A police car stopped and the officer got out of the car and talked to the black kids. They were far enough away from us that we didn’t hear the conversation. As the officer returned to his car the kids began to pack up their fishing gear.

Dad said, “Let’s go talk to them”, and I put down my pole and followed him. Although he knew the answer he asked them what the policeman had said.

“This lake is for white folk”, the older said, not looking at Dad, continuing to pack.

“That’s not right. Stay here and fish. You can fish with us.” Dad was angry.

The boys gathered their last things up as Dad tried to convince them to stay. They walked away from the lake leaving Dad outraged and leaving me with a memory I am so proud to remember and to share.

What a superb example to give me. Dad saw an intolerable injustice and he didn’t look the other way. He went right at it and did all he could to set it right. It was exactly like him to be naive about what it was possible to accomplish, what it was possible for two small black children to do in Tallahassee in 1960; he did his best to instigate an act of civil disobedience. It was the law that the lake was for whites only, the law was evil, therefore he had to encourage others to break that law.

Dad and Mom were very active in the civil rights struggle along with the UU churches we attended growing up in the south and Washington, D.C. He took me to civil rights marches as soon as I was old enough. I remember marching with him to mourn the little girls blown up in the black church. He attended the March on Washington and heard Martin Luther King give his I have a Dream speech.

The Glorious Handstand

A very different moment from five years later. Junior high in Oklahoma about 1966. I was talking to some of my friends about my dad. Dad has always been a little hard to talk about to others that don’t know him, because pretty much anything you say about him sounds like you’re bragging.

That day I was bragging; I was telling my buddies about a gymnastics trick that Dad could do and they didn’t believe a word of it. So I took my buddies to find Dad. He was in our living room sitting in a high-backed upholstered chair. I told him that my friends didn’t believe me, said that he couldn’t do the trick. So he put his hands down and gripped the arms of his chair, raised himself off the seat, and without touching the chair with his feet curled himself up into a handstand and held it.

It was a delicious moment for me, my friends were astounded, my bragging was vindicated, and the glory of my father was unarguable. He later told me that he hadn’t done that trick in many years, wasn’t sure he could do it when I asked him, and that he never did it again. He was about 36.

The mirror

A memory that will be tougher to tell. My family had a great long visit with mom and dad this past Christmas and I had the opportunity to work with Dad on his last woodworking project.

It was such a Dad project. He set himself a goal that was almost impossible to attain in his weakened state, to build a large hanging mirror for mom in the Tudor style of their bedroom furniture. He underestimated the time and effort it would take but threw himself into the work with absolute faith in his ability to finish it to his satisfaction.

In the week before Christmas we spent hours in his basement workshop working with his power tools. Part of the gift was the fact that it had to be a surprise to mom, not only what it was, but how big a project it was, so we stole hours to work while she was running errands.

It was sheer joy to work with him. He got intense pleasure from every stage of the project – designing the piece, cutting the wood and shaping it, assembling the parts, sanding and staining. As the final piece became visible he often smiled in satisfaction and talked about its beauty.

On Christmas morning we still had a few hours of work to do. And so at midday when it was ready, we had mom close her eyes and carried it up the stairs and he presented the gift to her. It was a moment of blazing joy – joy in Dad’s pride in his work, joy in Mom’s surprise at the what he had created and her appreciation of his loving labor, joy in Dad’s delight at mom’s reaction to his gift. Inga video-taped the giving of the gift and caught a beautiful image of their kiss in the reflection of the mirror.

Dad’s favorite Winter

In my last days with Dad we had a chance to talk for a few hours the way he always loved to talk. We talked about his book Cold Fronts, and he dictated captions for the last few photos he wanted added to the book. We went through a pile of mementos and filed them in various drawers.

He saw me looking at a pile of paper on the top of his bookshelves. He said, “That’s the winter of 83. Those are the weather maps. Did I ever tell you about that winter?”

No Dad, you never told me about the winter of 1983.

And so he launched into the last long monologue about one of his favorite subjects – the weather. Weather was one of the big loves of his life. It was filled with beauty and drama. It engaged his love of rational analysis and predictions based on physical principles.

He gestured a lot when he talked, and as he told me how the the high pressure ridges formed and diverted streams of bitter cold arctic air into the Midwest his hands curved through the air to mime the vast meteorological shapes of fronts and jetstreams and their movements as the temperature dropped to record lows. He was so proud of how his predictions caused millions of tons of natural gas to be rushed on time to Minnesota and how he called to the hour when his company should restrict the flow of gas because of approaching warmer air.

As he talked about the details of that winter he was totally engaged, filled with enthusiasm and intelligence, delighted to share such a wonderful phenomenon with a fascinatedlistener.

Dad and I shared many things; our shared love of science was one of the most profound and satisfying. Dad didn’t believe in God, didn’t believe in an afterlife, but he believed deeply in the holiness and beauty of the physical world and he had a profound respect for the rigorous honesty of scientific inquiry.

Some of his most beloved heroes were scientists – Feynman, the quantum physicist, Dawkins, the evolutionary theorist, Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA.  He loved science and of all the sciences meteorology was his passion.

And so though I’d heard the story of the winter of 83 many times it was a privilege to watch and listen to Dad as he articulately and animatedly related once again the story of his favorite winter.

The Dad word

In his final months there were times, especially when the chemotherapy was biting deepest, when Dad could hardly say a word when I talked to him on the phone, so drained of energy was he. The few words he said were words that I was left to think about.

During those tough conversations there was a word he said again and again. I would tell him something about what I was doing in my life, a project at work, gardening at home, some sweet thing that Margaret had done, and he would say, very quietly and slowly, “Wonderful.” And sometimes he would say it twice, “Wonderful, wonderful.”

At this time when he was hurting, so much of him was given to me in that word. A word that contains so much of his value and values – the world is full of wonders, it is our job to wonder, the world is good.

Of all words it describes my father best – wonderful.

Dad visited me when I taught 5th grade. Picture in front of the finch aviary Sam Ross and I built in our double classroom

Dad visited me when I taught 5th grade. Picture in front of the finch aviary Sam Ross and I built in our double classroom

Win a copy of The Shifter by making fun of poultry

August 13, 2009 by Doug Sharp

Janice Hardy, the first in my writing group to get a book deal, is running a contest on her blog.

Just send her your funniest chicken joke and if it’s the funniest submitted she’ll send you an advanced reader’s copy of The Shifter, her YA fantasy which is being published in October.

I can’t wait to see her book on the shelf!

I’m struggling with the spacesuited fight in the shuttle bay. Wrote 4 good pages this morning and am now taking a break. Unfortunately, it’s painful to write, but I can recover quickly so I move ahead.

The loon chicks are almost as big as the parents but still have their brown immature color.

Back to working on Hel’s Bet.

Forward!

August 9, 2009 by Doug Sharp

I realize I’ve been letting Facebook cannibalize this blog. I post daily updates on Facebook – it’s been a great social hub for me – and updating the blog just never happens. So here goes – the Recent Life and Successes of Droog:

My health continues to improve! I am working on dealing with the pain caused by my kryptonite tasks as it happens and am having some success.

I started jogging a few weeks ago and it’s been great for me. I run to the mailbox – 1 1/3 mile roundtrip – every other day:

Yesterday I went on a 4 mile hike/run on a beautiful stretch of the Ice Age Trail along McKenzie Creek with Brook and it was exhilarating. I love trailrunning! I now enjoy exercising again – after 10 years during which it was just too painful.

I am well over halfway through my rewrite of Hel’s Bet! I’m on page 507 out of 805. I had a breakthrough week last week – 106 pages – because I ran into a streak of chapters that needed only light rewriting. I am going to try to finish the book this month. I am confident I will sell it.

My amazing writing group continues to kick booty. Aliette de Bodard got a 3 book deal with Angry Robot.

We’ve had some bear problems at The Pad in the last few months:

Travis treed 3 bears in the last 2 months

Travis treed 3 bears in the last 2 months, this one just 100 feet from the cabin.

I can’t leave my trashcan out on the road the night before the trash truck comes or a bear  munches on it.

The loons have 2 chicks! They are already about 2/3’s the size of their parents and confident divers. The parents are constantly on guard because of hungry Bald Eagles:

This Bald Eagle was hanging around on Ogre Island watching the loon family. The parents hooted warnings and kept tight with the chicks.

This Bald Eagle was hanging around on Ogre Island watching the loon family. The parents hooted warnings and kept tight with the chicks.

The Tamarack Bog has been dry and the pitcher plants have sent up their weird little flowers:

My new used Jeep Cherokee, Casey, is a champ! It’s a solid car:

I’m doing great and plan to do even better once I get this dang book out the door.