A Splintered Mind

Subscriber numbers go up and down over time. They peak during the week and drop over the weekend. Sometimes, glitches will knock several hundred subscribers off the count. It's a good thing that I don't base my self-esteem on that stat. However, when I saw 599 people subscribed to my blog yesterday, I was pleased. I had been hovering around 550-580 for months. To top that with 619 subscribers today is just wonderful. There are six hundred and thirteen people reading my blog? That is humbling and amazing. Thank you, all of you. The number could drop again by Monday so I will not read too much into it, but for the moment I am excited. I've come such a long way from my lowly beginning 5½ years ago. Some of you have been with me the whole time. Thank you. I hope that you enjoy what you read here and that I don't waste your time. I took a chance at the beginning of the year to switch my focus from writing about ADHD & Depression to charting my progress w...

What follows is a lengthy account of my experience with iBooks and an eBook riddled with errors. You have been warned. Being an early adopter of new technology usually gives one a few bumps. Often, those can be goose bumps; sometimes they are less thrilling. It's the trade-off you make for stepping in early before the kinks are worked out. This is why I haven't been upset with Apple because their iBooks app hasn't been the perfect eReader from day one. I figured they'd fine tune the app over time. Recently, they've released updates that improve the reading experience nicely. Although they still allow anybody to post a book review & rating regardless of whether they bought the book or not—which is causing false ratings for most political books—and every update resets any organizing you make to your library, the bookmarks work better now, PDFs are supported, and I like being able to double tap on a graphic and see it larger. The Disney picture books I bought for m...

Found this in my mailbox this morning from a Mr. "Penis Enlargement". HELP! I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia xyzrxyz penis enlargement xyzrxyz and being forced to post spam comments on blogs! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. xyzrxyz penis enlargement xyzrxyz They’re coming back now. Please send help! I feel bad for him and his sister, "Breast". What awkward names. But I'll give him bonus points for an original sales pitch. Regrettably, I won't be sharing his link with you.  

I am trying to not be discouraged, but I have run into a wall. The wall is rather hedge-like in its height, just perfect for tripping over, and made up of good intentions with a clueless hue that gives it an almost blushed appearance. Since I've tripped over it so often this past week, I've had quite a bit of time to think about it. @jamesscottbell wrote the other day: "Evan Hunter/Ed McBain wrote through heart attacks and cancer. He never stopped. True grit." I have mixed feelings about statements like that. On the surface, it is inspiring as it points out the unstoppable creativity of others in the face of adversity. On the other hand, it frustrates me because many of my obstacles are a bit beyond my control. No matter how much pluck, grit, and will I apply, I can't stop being disabled. As I have shown in the past, when setting large goals I can offset my ADHD with adrenaline & hyperfocus IF I can engage my motivation high enough. I had hyperfocus for ...

What a singularly bizarre, but wonderful night. We weren't able to discuss my Splintered Books Project as I had hoped, but it was a good time spent regardless. My wife & I don't date enough. We work, care for kids, clean, rinse, and repeat, but we don't date.  First, the bizarre. The venue the concert was at was a bit wild. My wife and I haven't been to a club in over ten years. She stood wide eyed, and I was bemused, by the antics of the youthful twenty-somethings around us. The majority of the patrons looked as if they were the rejects from a Jersey Shore audition. Most of the guys were in tight t-shirts and jeans, the girls in shimmery slips. In fact, I overheard one gentleman complaining that he had never seen so many "guidos". The club was a veritable meat market, complete with hundreds of dollars of complimentary cologne lining the bathroom mirrors. And here we thought we were just going to a concert.  Apparently, it was an unofficial gay night ...

Just a quick entry before I crash for the "night". I've written in the past about how helpful talking to myself is, even recently here . Last night I stared at my story in progress and realized I had no idea where I wanted it to go. Things were happening, but I just wasn't sure what I wanted to happen next. I decided to go for a walk in the park and have a good conversation with myself. Ever done that? No? Well,I do it all the time. It's not that the conversation is scintillating. After all, I know everything that I'm going to say. However, speaking out loud helps me formulate ideas and work out problems in a clarifying way that thinking to myself cannot compete with. My walk & talk last night helped me see how thin my plot was. I spent an hour and a half in the park pacing and talking until half of the book had been reoutlined and the other half was beginning to flesh out. Perhaps I'll return to the park tonight to finish it. As silly as it seem...

Today I used the word "frangible" in my blog over at ADDaboy!. My editor thanked me for the post and for teaching him a new word. I laughed because sometimes in my heady pursuit of new words that tickle the mind I forget that not everybody knows the words I'm using. Just ask my poor wife and family. Frangible is a lovely word, combining in my mind both fragile and breakable. Of course, I didn't always know what it means either. It's not a common word. Most people just use fragile and leave well enough alone. As a 12 year old in 7th grade, I remember needing a dictionary to get through a book on Project Bluebook . It seemed such a sensible thing to do that now I always read with a dictionary on hand. Today with the marvelous world of electronics, I carry a dictionary and thesaurus in my pocket. Some eBook readers have built in dictionaries. All you have to do is click on a word. What a wonderful world. I still love language, and as a budding novelist I study ...