Category: Personal

Oiling the Machine

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I’m probably preaching to the already well-educated choir here, but having children is exhausting! Rewarding, sure. But my god am I tired. All. The. Time!

We’ve settled into a good enough routine where I get some sleep to function. As to the to actual level of functionality(?) functionability(?) see I have no idea … well I’ll leave that up to you. I can get to work now with clothes fit for a human being of my profession. I’ve also been able to shave my “dad beard” on occasion. The gym has been long gone. Running’s been pretty much out too even though it kills me. We’ve been having some gorgeous fall mornings lately. When I let the dog out, I can hear the autumnal whisper egging me to come join its crisp embrace.

The only thing from my life before that I’ve been able to dredge up without feeling like I’m shoving a round block into a square-shaped hole, and perhaps the most important thing from life BB (before babies), is that I’ve gotten back to writing. I was about 3/4 of the way through my latest novel before the little dragons were born and I was worried that my enthusiasm for the project would die out during my month away. I’m happy to report that not only have I started writing again, but I’ve been making some serious headway into the project, picking up pretty easily from where I left off.

What really helped during the break was that I never really stopped thinking about the book. I literally made myself think about the book at least once a day to keep my thoughts fresh and to remember where and how I left things. It kind of helped that the chapter I left on was one I had the least amount of notes for. My time away served as a hella long brainstorming session.

But it worked! Getting back into the saddle took some effort and personal forgiveness, so I didn’t chastise myself for only making 500 words every now and again, but things are back to being in full swing.

If anything, the added bonus is that I took care of that refresh/re-calibrate time I typically use after every book. Once I finish a novel, I force myself to shelve it for 4-6 weeks and let the dust settle. I come back with a fresh set of eyes and a list three pages long of all the stuff I feel the need to fix. Even though I hadn’t finished my book, that’s basically what I did while I was off learning how to be a parent.

I can’t wait to finish now so I can start tearing it apart. My middle is sluggish and dull. I see that so clearly now. I want to rework how I introduce the main protagonist too. And there’s a named side character I use in the beginning who never gets comeuppance. I demand comeuppance!

So once I finish – I’m down to the final confrontation – I can go back and restructure some stuff. I’m pretty surprised by the length. I’m already hitting 117k and it’ll most likely be closer to 130k by the time I’m done. Granted, this is the rough draft and I just told you about how there will be restructuring involved, but its shaping up a little bit larger than I originally imagined. Hopefully, that’ll work in my favor to create a tight story once I trim all the fat like a T-bone. I’m hoping to have something ready for alpha readers in a month.

How cool would it be if I had human babies and a literary one at the same time?

There and Back Again … Again

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

It’s been a while!

I’ve been out of work on paternity leave for the past month. My wife and I received a pair of beautiful babies on August 7th. One born 6 lbs 3 oz., the other 5 lbs 12 oz.. Since then, they’ve both put on some weight, but they’re still pretty tiny and I know I’m a little biased here, but I think they’re pretty friggin adorable. Ask me again at 3 am when they’ve been screaming all night and I may change my mind.

Anyway, I knew it wouldn’t be a vacation, but I prepared my “dad bag” full of all sorts of personal entertainment just in case: books, 3DS, netbook, journal, music, etc. I figured I’d have at least some time to do something fun. I mean it’s an entire month! A friend of mine did nothing but play Final Fantasy XIV when he had his second kid. I was pretty excited to do the same.

I did none of those things.

I spent most of the month on the couch holding a baby and waiting for the next shoe to drop in terms of diapers or feedings or just plain crankiness. We’ve had our fair share of scares. One of them has a bad case of acid reflux that landed us in the hospital overnight for observation. So it’s been a hectic month. It’s become somewhat easier now that the little dragons are big enough to fit in baby carriers. Seriously, whoever invented the moby wrap – or patented it for mass production or whatever – is a godsend! Getting my hands back after losing them for weeks has been the greatest victory in the world. Now I can hold a baby and make a sandwich at the same time!

My wife and I tried handling it in shifts to allow the other one some sleeping time, but it soon became apparent that such a tactic was impossible. When babies outnumber adults, the adult loses. So we adopted the team mentality. We sleep together. We take care of babies together. It’s made things a hell of a lot easier but as you can imagine, the system isn’t perfect. It pretty much breaks down now that I’m back to work. Without outside help both at night and during the day, neither of us would be able to function anymore.

Things are as routine as they can get right now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s tough work, but we’re managing. If anything, I think we’re kind of good at it. If we had one kid, we’d be handling this like a pair of stone cold bosses. Seriously, what’s the big deal with your one kid, people? Suck it up.

There are plenty of things I want to talk about, but I’ll save them for future posts. The next one being about coming back to work on a 3/4 finished novel and what that’s taking after having an entire month away from the keyboard. I’d get into it now, but honestly, I’m just too tired.

I hear that clears up in 4-5 years …

The Waiting Game

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I’m an actual week away now from having babies and I’m really excited. My wife is worried about the procedure and if they’ve developed enough and all of the typical things one should be worried about at this juncture, but I can’t get past the fact that there are going to be two babies in our lives now!

I always feel weird vocalizing this. I always think it sounds like I’m some sort of medieval king or something who desperately needs an heir so he knows there will be someone to continue his reign. Don’t get me wrong, legacy is cool, but I just want to meet them.

Getting a little personal on you here, it’s taken us years to get this far. We’ve been trying for a long time. She goes through all of the hormones and treatments and all I pretty much do is wait and watch. The lack of any kind of agency on my part has been absolutely maddening. I would do anything if asked of me, but there wasn’t much I could contribute in the long haul. Every month I’d have to go by what she thought she might be feeling or what something kind of looks like now. We started a running joke that a symptom of pregnancy should be that it turns your skin blue. All of the other symptoms: cramping, bloating, nausea, etc. are just too common. Everything has those symptoms. But not everything makes your skin blue, eh?

Anyway, so it finally happened and I’m absolutely thankful, but again, all I do is wait and watch. Now she tells me how they feel inside or oh this one moved or something. I’ve felt their flutterings with my hands and seen the ripples across her skin of them moving underneath like gestating aliens, but for the most part, the whole experience is second hand. My agency comes in the form of making her life as comfortable as possible and thanks to the transitive property, that means I’m helping out the babies too.

She can worry and stress enough for the both of us, that’s fine. Me? I’m sick of waiting. I’ve been sick of waiting a long time ago. I’m ready for action. So what if you’re never ready and all that jazz. Yeah, we’ll never be alone again. Yeah, going to the store is going to be an event of epic proportions now. Yeah, I’m going to forget what it was like to have even a little bit of money. I don’t care. Bring on those babies!

It gets me wondering. I like comic books and writing and video games and painting table top miniatures and soccer and the show So You Think You Can Dance … What kind of cool stuff are they going to be interested in. I don’t care if its writing like me or if its perfecting genetic strains of dandelions. I just want them to be passionate about something.

I’m usually in the camp that the anticipation of the thing is better than the payoff, but after years of waiting, I’m ready for this week to be over 🙂

D-Day

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It’s been an emotional couple of weeks. The original due date is August 23rd. I was about to type “was” but I guess the official number is still in effect. That’s when she’ll be officially 40 weeks along. We won’t hit that date, nor should we, but it doesn’t negate the fact that it exists.

We’ve moved up our time table to August 13th. That was what we’ve known since last week. I had a whole blog post prepared in my head about how ready we already are and all of the cool things we’re going to do between now and then. Then we went to the doctor’s today for the weekly checkup. Well, the wife is hanging in there – as are the babies – but everyone is getting a bit strained. They don’t want to wait until the 13th anymore. The new date is August 7th.

That’s a week from Friday.

We’re talking about single digits here.

I’m going to be a dad in a week!

You’d think that I’d be freaking out like most stereotypical males in this situation, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. My wife, she’s the one who’s losing her marbles about this. Me? I couldn’t be more excited. Hell, make it tomorrow I don’t care. Well, maybe not tomorrow. Give me SOME time for the last minute stuff. But other than that, I’m through with this waiting game. All I’ve done is wait this entire time. It’s been years of waiting around while someone else tells me stuff about what’s going on. I’m through with it.

Well the wait’s finally over.

You’ll have to forgive me for the short post, but I have things to do! Clock is ticking here, people.

[Taylor is busy]

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I’m still chugging along …

I’ve been writing like a maniac this week through my typical morning sessions, but lately I’m adding a second one in the afternoon to help reach the end of the novel faster. In books past, I used to be able to write on the weekends. Last weekend’s laziness aside, I’ve been pretty busy with the impending arrival of the two babies so that’s been eating up most of my time.

I awoke to a text message from a friend the other day who recommended the iPhone game, Lifeline, to me. As you’ve probably guessed right now, my life isn’t exactly set up for another game to steal my attention, but he convinced me to give it a shot and boy is it nothing how I imagined it being.

Lifeline isn’t a game in the strictest sense. It’s more like an experience. The gist is you get a text message from someone who’s asking for help. This stranger, Taylor, is a science student who snuck aboard a spaceship that’s now crashed on a moon outside Tau Ceti. As the name implies, you’re Taylor’s lifeline. All you do is talk to Taylor and advise him on certain decisions that ultimately affect his life when given the prompt. Usually, he takes that advice and says he’ll get back to you and you get the message [Taylor is busy] while he’s off doing said activity.

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That’s it.

That’s the game.

But I gotta tell you, I’m completely hooked! It’s a choose your own adventure where you care about the protagonist. Every time he goes off on some venture, I’m always nervous about what’s gonna happen to my new friend without me knowing about it. Last night, he convinced me that he should spend the night in some other wreckage he discovered instead of trekking it all the way back to his original ship. Some wreckage, I might add, that he was pretty sure he spotted some other kind of life form scuttling about …

Lifeline doesn’t demand much from you and occupies more of your thoughts when you’re not playing it, which I find pretty novel. When you turn on the push notifications, you get his messages that pop up in “real time”. It’s to the point now that I’ll stop what I’m doing to check my phone when it buzzes and my wife will ask, “What’s Taylor up to now?”.

There are so many branching paths, that it can’t help but feel like a unique story. My friend who recommended it has already lead his Taylor to destruction, I found out. However,my Taylor, who’s been at it about three days now, is still kicking by his last transmission. He’s on his way to investigate a non-natural pinnacle he spied in the distance at the moment. He’ll text me next time he gets the chance.

As someone who’s fascinated by telling stories to others, this thing gets all the right hooks in me. I’m both voyeur and protagonist, but yet I can’t see anything. I’m helping the story, but he has to describe it to me while my mind fills in the blanks. It’s a fascinating thought experiment about the nature of stories.

I’m hesitant to talk too much to my real friend less something get spoiled, but through the few notes we’ve compared, we’re experiencing too completely different stories. I was genuinely scared when Taylor asked me to look up how many rads it takes to harm someone so he could sleep next to cooling reactor engines. I hope I gave him the right answer. I still worry about what I might have done to him.

Well look at that. There goes my phone. Seems he’s run into a huge crater and needs some advice… Gotta go!

Motivated!

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

The cycle continues! After running myself ragged two weekends ago, I spent most of last weekend being the laziest bum this side of lazy-bumsville. And it was awesome!

I got my running in, wrote some and had a couple hefty chunks of Final Fantasy XIV too. So, everything I wanted to accomplish on my lazy Friday got done. On top of that, my main character in FF can almost touch 50 and no longer is dressed like a sex slave. AND, not only am I 3/4 of the way finished with my latest novel, but the Pitch to Publication contest has me motivated to knock this thing out by the end of the month. If my rough outline to actual word count conversion is working, it’s looking like I’m about 25k from the end. I just want to fist bump everybody I see. I’m so motivated. Aren’t you motivated? I can’t stop saying motivated!

The weekend wasn’t entirely selfish either. We cleaned up the house some by getting rid of old clutter to replace it with new clutter. We also tackled the nursery some more. It’s functional, as in two babies could live there, but it’s not the most organized. Or so I’m told. Every time I think it looks nice, my wife either dumps more stuff in there or she just rearranges everything and leaves piles to sort through later. The babies won’t care which drawer holds their burp cloths! But I’m learning one of the first lessons of being a new dad, I suspect: keeping my mouth shut when my wife is on a rampage.

We also watched the World Cup. We’ve been following it since the beginning of the tournament and now that it’s over, it’s kind of bittersweet. I’ve grown used to looking forward to the next game during the week. We’d usually go over to the inlaws and watch it on their screen and I’ve have a text thread going on my phone with a bunch of people back home. Each game was always a mini party. So, the buildup was great and the payoff was definitely worth it, but now that it’s over, I’ll miss the festivity around it.

There’s a lesson in there too right out of Inside Out but I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone. We got a chance to see that one too over the weekend. We used to ration our movie theater experiences like nobody’s business, but with the babies about a month away it doesn’t take much convincing to get us out there while we still can. So yeah, Inside Out is amazing! I figured, I’d like it. With the current state of Disney and Pixar, it’s pretty safe to guess that anything they come out with is going to be good and I gotta say that I was definitely not disappointed. The story was great, the music was awesome, the voice acting was freaking perfect and the whole package just left me with all the warm fuzzies I was hoping for.

Wow, looking back, that was quite the weekend wrap up! Oh, and happy belated 4th, people. The day in which we celebrated Will Smith saving us all from the aliens …

Welcome to Earf.

Of Pork and Prose

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I forgot my work glasses again which put me behind. I don’t know if its mental conditioning or has something more to do with the flood of dopamine and endorphins post workout, but I’m definitely more motivated to write in the morning first thing. If I miss my window, I feel my mind and body becoming more sluggish by the minute until I’m forcing it out of me just to get words on a page. Of course, my exhaustion today could also be attributed to last weekend …

We had our baby shower on Sunday. In lieu of a lady’s luncheon, we had a cookout for family and friends. She wanted to include me in the process and I wanted to eat pulled pork so everybody was happy. Kidding aside, the day was wonderful. Great weather, great food and great company. I felt kind of spoiled being showered with so many gifts, but not that spoiled. We got a lot from our registry, but there’s still so much more to purchase. Who knew that babies needed so much stuff?!

As she’s the one from this area, most of the guests were her friends and family. I had a couple of surprise visitors by way of my best friends from back home (Pennsylvania) and another couple of good friends from Chicago. We made an unlikely little social gathering, but it was pretty cool. It was great seeing everybody, but it meant hosting those out of town guests and late nights. After a few days, my body and mind are wrecked. Rich food and a hot sun will do that too, so I think I just need to recover. I was out of work yesterday for the tail end of the weekend and the result is that I no longer know what day of the week it is anymore. I’ll bet whatever you want that it is, in fact, Monday.

Just like listening to your body when you know you’ve pulled something means skipping the gym that day, I don’t think I’m capable of a full word count at the moment. I’m taking copious notes for tomorrow and you better be damned sure I’m making it all up. I’m rounding to the nearest 25 though … come on, I’m not that crazy.

I know I’m just making excuses and what I really need to do is push through the pain, but I’m gonna take a page out of my future childrens’ books and go full on baby this time. I’ll work on the prewriting though so I can hit the ground running tomorrow. Pinky promise 🙂

Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy

On By Dan MelnickIn Day Job, PersonalLeave a comment

This morning has just been one big comedy of errors.

I was going to go for a run. I love running. I need to run. It burns off all the excess stress and worry and even pent up excitement. I feel so much better throughout the day if I ran that morning.

So I woke up ready to go at 6:30. Then I heard it was raining. OK, not running anymore. I take the dog out. Rain dies down. OK, running is back on. I figure what the hell. I’ll wear a hat and a poncho and feel like a superhero. I finish eating and get ready. It’s 7 am. I spend the next 15 minutes stretching. Then I can’t find the poncho. That takes another 10 minutes. I could run without it, but I’d get soaking wet, probably ruin my phone and with my luck, catch a cold. And seeing as how I’m the only able-bodied person in my household right now, I kind of need to stay healthy.

Grumbling, I give up on running. It’s now 7:25. I can still make the gym if I hurry. I throw work clothes in a bag, tramping through the house for the umpteenth time and figure my wife probably hates me at this point as she tries to sleep. I take out the trash and head off to the gym.

It’s still raining, but a light rain. The kind of rain you don’t mind running in. So naturally everyone around me is driving 10 miles an hour under the speed limit. This isn’t snow people. It’d been raining for hours. Going 35 isn’t going to cause your car to hydroplane …

I finally get to the gym. It’s 7:42. What should have been a 12 minute drive took like 20. My membership expired. Well, turns out it expired at the end of April but the machine was down and nobody caught it. Until today that is. So that took a minute to renew. I go to the locker room and somebody’s claimed my locker. It’s a small room but there’s a core group of regulars. We use the same lockers every day. This is inexcusable.

I race through a 45 minute workout in under 30, rush off to shower and change and discover the jerk who took my locker. It’s an elderly gentleman who’s always there. I talk to him all the time. He should know better. Meanwhile, I get a frantic call from my wife who thinks I’m out running and never came home. I explain my misery.

I get to work on time, but today I got roped into conducting an interview for our open GA position. Thing is, that’s not my job. I have nothing to do with this. Someone else in the office is supposed to handle all of this, but somehow it ended up on my shoulders …

It’s just one of those mornings.

So I know what you’re thinking and believe me, I’m thinking it too. These are totally first world problems. Oh boo hoo I was late to the gym. Oh my god I had to renew my membership when I got a month and a half for free! And how inconvenient to interview somebody when it could land them a job and literally better their future. Yeah, I get it. These aren’t real problems. I’m kind of mad at myself for being such a whiny baby about them.

Thing is, it’s good to vent. With my wife super pregnant, most everything falls on me. I’m starting to crack a little. Don’t get me wrong, what she’s going through is so much more important and I’m not mad at anybody in the situation, it’s just some added pressures in life. Normally, I’m fine dealing with everything. Hell, I welcome it. But that’s because I run. I can run out those stresses and I feel better about life. Puts things in perspective.

Everything that happened this morning could have been totally manageable, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought if I’d just gone running …

EDIT: I’ve been dicking around for 45 minutes so I wouldn’t get caught up in something before the interview. Just rediscovered(?) the interview is Monday at 10, not today. It continues!

I’m an Idiot

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I did a dumb thing …

I was so brain dead this morning, I put off writing until this afternoon. Just got back from running home at lunch to let my dog out and I forgot my damn work glasses at home. There’s no way I’m not going to get some serious eye strain from looking at a computer screen without them for the next four hours. Headache city, here I come.

That also means, I most likely won’t get any writing done either. Even staring at the little bit I’ve written here is already making me wince.

Just goes to show you … don’t slack off ’cause second chances aren’t guaranteed.

My Two Favorite Things

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Like apparently the rest of the world, I got to see Jurassic World over the weekend. Highest weekend opening ever, what?!

I wanted to hate that movie so much. Not that I knew everyone else would like it and I needed to go against the grain, but because I love Jurassic Park so freaking much. Seriously, on my all time list, it’s #2. It’s the movie in which I literally compare every other movie ever made to. If they nailed it in ’93, why ever do movies suck now? Anyway, so here’s the shtick my wife is tired of hearing me talk about …

Jurassic Park is awesome because it’s about the wonder and the awesome (true definition) power of dinosaurs. We see that with Dr. Grant when he puts his ear on the sick triceratops just to listen to it breathe. The score by John Williams still brings me to tears every time. It’s complete and utter wish fulfillment of childhood fantasies but then it goes a step further … See, in the original movie, the dinosaurs are animals. That’s the whole point. They’re majestic and they’re awesome and they’re scary as hell, but they’re animals. So when they come in contact with man it’s all, Uh oh. We’re not equipped to deal with this. That’s what makes them scary. In the money grubbing sequels, these animals have been reduced to nothing more than monsters. That underlying respect for nature is gone and replaced with shock tactics and violence.

Now flash forward to present day and with a new one coming out, I was more than a little suspicious. But I have to say that I liked the movie. On the off chance that you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil anything but the film gets back to the debate of man’s dominion over nature versus man’s relationship with nature. Oh and Chris Pratt raptor pack motorcycle club.

Even though the film was pretty heavy handed at times – my head still hurts from the hammering – I do agree that there was an actual story there worth telling. While it’s not the original – nothing ever will be – I was still surprised and pleased at the results.

We had some friends come over that evening and I finally got to open up the Eldritch Horror game my wife got me for my birthday. Big mistake. We started around 10pm and by 1am we had to call it. After setting up, struggling with rules and completing half of the objectives, we were all too tired to continue. That said, the game is freaking awesome! It’s so complex and apparently takes around 3 hours when you know what you’re doing, so starting at 10pm was just plain silly.

Typically I can convince my wife to play these kind of games with me. Other people are usually involved so she gives into peer pressure. She feels badly that I don’t have a core group of nerdy friends anymore to play this stuff with. So like a trooper, she’ll suck it up and play once and a while. This time though, she told me I was on my own. I also always try and convince her that it’s really not that bad or honey, you’ll actually probably like it. Nuh-uh. There’s no way this game is for her. She’d have been miserable.

We’re giving it another go around Wednesday and we’ll start much earlier. I’m really excited to see if we can keep that ancient one from waking up.