I find my lack of writing disturbing

I was thinking about my short stories today. I’ve written some decent ones, some poor ones, and some that had good potential.

Lately, I have been in a bit of a dry spell for new stories. It is not that I’m stuck trying to think up stories (I have one that I have pretty well outlined and another that I have a good start to). I am having trouble actually getting through the writing of the story.

Today I realized why I haven’t been writing as much as I want. It is actually a combination of issues.

First, my wife is currently an English major in college. This means that pretty much every night she is on the laptop for the majority of time. Limited laptop time for me means limited writing time. Of course, I could fire up the desktop, but I feel so isolated when I use the desktop.

The second issue is that I have been hooked into video games and other free time wasting activities. Lately, I’ve been using up a lot of my time playing Mass Effect. In addition to that game, I have spent a large amount of time watching TV shows. Also, with the holidays, we have done several family gather type events that eat away at the free time.

 The last object in the way of my writing is my work situation. The way my current job is set up, I spend a decent amount of time each day waiting for work to come my way. During the lulls, I have an abundance of free time. While normally this would be condusive to writing, I find it a bit inappropriate to spend my time at work writing fictional short stories.

The good news is that the first to obstacles are going away soon. Patti is finishing off her semester next. Also, due to the Writers’ Strike, the TV schedule is going to start becoming barren. Hopefully I will feel the drive to write come back and you will get some new stories soon.

Writers You Should Know

I’m planning on doing a series of posts that put the spotlight on the screenwriters. They, usually, deserve most of the credit for how good a movie/TV show turns out. Yet, they are mostly unknown except some rare cases.

We’ll start off the series with a pretty much unknown writer, Charles Beaumont. His credits include the 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and a ton of great Twilight Zone episodes.

I just saw his Twilight Zone episode, “Person or Persons Unknown,” last night. It was among the best of the series. It has a unique “what if” start. Then the story progress and it ends with a cool (but kind of predictable) twist.

In addition to the episode I saw yesterday, Mr. Beaumont had written several episodes that struck me as good to great writing. Each time, I would see his name at the beginning and be a little disappointed that it wasn’t a Rod Serling written episode. Then after the episode played, I’d realize that it was actually really good. His solid writing in the series turn me into a fan.

Today, I decided to see what else Mr. Beaumont had done. It turns out that in his short life (he only lived to 38 years old due to a brain disease), he wrote mostly for the Twilight Zone, but also did the underrated adaptation, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.

If you get the chance, take a look at some of Beaumont’s work. If you are at all interested in Spec-Fic, you will be greatly pleased with what you find.

Stat Line of the Night

Check out this line that Juwan Howard of the Mavericks put up last night:

BENCH	MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	PTS
Juwan Howard, F	4	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

This would be considered a “4 Trillion.” The trillion comes when a play logs a minute or more in a game and has no other statistic (i.e. number of minutes followed by 12 zeroes). ESPN does their stats a little different, so this is actually a 4 followed 15 zeroes. But if you sum up the first three categories, it still works, kind of.

Anyway, it’s not good to get a Trillion. It is terrible to log a 4 Trillion. No wonder the Mavs lost last night.