Grumpa Joe's Place

Today, I treated myself and got lost in my workshop to test a new toy. As a treat to myself, I bought one of those genius spot heaters that are supposed to save the world. My workshop gets very cold, and I have to add a couple of layers of clothing when I work there. Why not add a space heater? Anyway, the heater works fine, but only winter will tell. Currently, the temperature outside is in the sixties, and the basement is still warm. Now that I know the thing does function, the real test will come when it is zero degrees outside.

When I finished my Libre project, I closed the shop and went away to do other things, like writing a story that will become a book. Libre is the title of my last Intarsia work depicting a Bald Eagle in descending flight. Libre and I were fast friends from January until August, when I finished the work and hung it under the spotlight. Since then, I’ve learned that three and a half months is sufficient time to get over a love affair with wood. This month (November), I secretly began a new project, but today is the first time I cut wood again. I have decided to use Zebra wood, naturally light-colored wood with brown striations running through it. It is costly, and I learned it is scarce. It is expensive because it is scarce, or it is scarce because it is costly. It doesn’t matter; I only know that I shelled out over a hundred dollars on wood and must go shopping for more.

This is the first Intarsia project I am making that is relatively flat, allowing me to use thinner wood than usual. The thickness will enable me to cut faster. The half-inch Zebra cuts like a hot knife through butter. The problem with cutting fast is that I struggle to stay on the line. The more wiggles there are in a piece, the harder it is to match the wiggles of an adjoining part. So, the benefit of using thin wood is lost because I must cut slowly to get the precision I need to make the art piece look good. I can’t complain because this is why I do what I do. It is a hobby, so it is supposed to take time. After all, what else do I have to do, write a book?

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A walk into town this morning revealed lots of activity. It is special for me for two reasons. First it was my first walk into town this year. Usually, I walk this walk several times a week beginning in January.

Second, the annual Frankfort Fall Festival rated in the top ten craft fairs in the country, begins on Friday. Today, however, is the set up for the entertainment venue and food court. My Lions Club will arrive at 5 this evening to set up our Wurst Fest venue. The Wurst Fest kicks off the Fall Festival on Thursday evening with German themed entertainment, food, drinks, and lively fellowship.

Everyone is invited to join us. All it takes is to buy a raffle ticket good for two people to enter. In addition to the grand prize of $10,000 and six lessor cash prizes we will have 50/50 raffles and chances to win any number of liquor baskets and more.

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Since I finished my Intarsia project, I have not been in my wood shop, but I have jumped into the next project on my bucket list, i.e., write a book, or should I say write a half book. This project began in 2013 and was shelved in 2014. The story was taking on a life when I had a second story burst through my brain membrane. Walla, book number one, took the back seat. Space Rod lost out to BAC. Sadly, both books were tabled by 2015. Peggy began her journey with dementia, and I decided she was more important than any of my stories. In this return to book writing, I have decided to focus on completing one. Space Rod is a story that has been playing in my mind like a movie so it will be the one I finish this year.

An important lesson I have learned is that picking up a story almost ten years after it started is not as simple as I thought it would be. The initial enthusiasm that I had when I began is deeply rooted in the memory sector of my brain, and it requires a lot of coaxing to get it to resurface.

I began by editing the part I had written so long ago. I made another decision to use an editor program called Grammarly to assist with my shitty punctuation and phraseology. My logic was that if I edited the twenty-three chapters I had written, the story would become refreshed in my mind. It worked.

What hasn’t worked is recalling all the ideas I had to finish the story, like how it ends, and simple stuff like that. I am now at a point where I must go forward and struggle with what to write. I have reverted to my BLOG system of if I don’t have an idea of what I want to write, I should just start, and the words will flow. It did work for one chapter in which I tried to describe a character with all her wonderment and flaws, but when I go back to the story, I hit a wall because I don’t know how to blend the new stuff in with the prior stuff. When I BLOG and just begin writing, the flow carries me toward an eventual point that makes sense. Does that make sense? No? Not to me, either.

Another step that has consumed me is researching for the Space part. Back in 2023, when this idea first germinated, I thought the reader would believe any bullshit I wrote about space travel because space travel is a relatively unknown entity. What has happened in the past ten years is that Space X, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic have come into existence and are making space travel seem like it will be commonplace, and available very soon. That tells me that my readers will need to be convinced that what I am writing is within the realm of possibility. Up until now, I’ve taken the attitude that all things are possible, and I don’t need to answer questions about how they are possible. Anyway, this is a Fantasy Fiction story so maybe my first plan of making the reader fill in all the gaps can still work.

As I’m writing this Fantasy, I am also researching how to publish. The traditional method of submitting a manuscript to the major publishing houses seems no longer workable. These big guys are so inundated with material that they can’t handle it all, so they have trumped up an intermediate step of recommending that writers use an agent. The writer must convince the agent to read the story and to decide if he can make money on it. If he deems it worthy, the writer signs a contract to include the agent in any and all income derived. A alternate system to use is to self-publish on a platform like Amazon. Either way, the work of selling the book resides with the writer. Marketing is probably 99% of getting the public to read the story.

As I write this tome, I am considering establishing an Author BLOG or website dedicated to the book. Another BLOG will no doubt steal my effort from writing BS on this BLOG and spending all my effort on the book-selling BLOG.

The bottom line is I am better off making pictures out of wood. At least I can use the finished product to heat my home by feeding the works of art into the flames of a fireplace.

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Beautiful but Brief

Beautiful but Lethargic

Beautiful and Stimulating

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