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In Cypress Slough Redux

July 8, 2022 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

A painting of the head and shoulders of an ivory-billed woodpecker. Text reads: "In Cypress Slough. Written and Narrated by: Christopher Gronlund"

In November 2020, I intended to release a short story about two deadhead loggers who discover an ivory-billed woodpecker in a slough off the Neches River in southeast Texas. At the time, I was busy with contract work and opted for a story that wouldn’t require as much research. It would be another year before getting back to it…

In Cypress Slough

“In Cypress Slough” was released on November 24, 2021. When I started working on the story in September 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was considering delisting the bird (and 22 other species) from the Endangered Species Act due to extinction. (Of course, this didn’t stop many news organizations from saying the agency listed the bird as extinct.) It was strange writing a story about two long-time friends finding the bird on the brink of its possible real-world declaration of extinction.

“In Cypress Slough” ended up being one of my favorite stories I’ve written. It’s a story about friendship, the past’s effect on the present, industry, and the environment. Most of all, it’s a love story: to nature, to friendship, and new beginnings.

Back in the News

Two days ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a six-month extension on the final decision to delist the ivory-billed woodpecker from the Endangered Species Act.

Since the release of “In Cypress Slough,” I’ve received Google notices I never cleared about the bird: people claiming they had compelling photographic evidence of a female, calls, and other new footage. Looking and listening, nothing seems conclusive, no matter how much spotters claim their proof. But it all seems enough to open another 30 days of public comment.

The Future…

Who knows what will come of the extension; who knows if the ivory-billed woodpecker ends up officially declared extinct…that it actually is. Obviously, I hope the bird is out there. (Woodpeckers in general are badass!) That’s what I loved so much about writing “In Cypress Slough” — it’s a story of hope.

I’ve not listened to “In Cypress Slough” since sitting down with my wife on November 24, 2021 with a celebratory drink for its release. I think it’s time for another listen…

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: In Cypress Slough

Chopping Away: In Cypress Slough Released

November 28, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

Christopher Gronlund standing on rocks in a small stream...

First, I hope everyone in the U.S. who celebrates Thanksgiving (however you celebrate the day), had a nice time with (or without family)…eating whatever it is you eat, and being thankful for things in your life. The stories behind the holiday always seemed a bit hyped to me as a kid, so it was always about being with family for me — not about pilgrims and stuff ’cause I was never a fan of those guys.

Today, it’s much of the same, but on a smaller scale (my wife, my mom, and me) and with different foods. (This is Thanksgiving #23 or #24 without turkey. I went vegetarian on a dare in my early 20s, and I had a few meat-less Thanksgivings then. I went back to vegetarianism in late 1999 and vegan in late 2000. Since then, Thanksgiving’s moved up in my list of favorite holidays.)

This year, I’m also thankful for another cycle of Not About Lumberjacks.

The response to “In Cypress Slough” has been great; in fact, in 36 hours, it had as many listens as a full week of a new release…and in a handful of days, it’s passed the total listens of “Calling Out of Time” since its release several months ago!

The Rest of the Year

The remainder of 2021 will see the Behind the Cut episode for “In Cypress Slough,” which will likely be about the care I think writers need to put into writing characters who have experienced hardships they’ve never personally faced. And then, of course, December will be the annual handful of micro fiction and a Christmas story.

What about 2022?

I already have handfuls of stories roughed out for 2022, including the mystery I set aside for “Milkboy.“

I’ve mentioned that I’ve considered starting a Patreon account for Not About Lumberjacks, and I’m still back and forth on the idea. But…since it sticks around, it’s probably best to stop talking and do it!

* * *

So…that’s the latest!

I’m proud of the stories I released in 2021, and plans for 2022 indicate that’s not going to change.

Thanks to everybody who’s listened to and supported the show…I have fun putting stories out there, and I love that people find something in the things I write…

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process, chopping away, In Cypress Slough

Chopping Away: Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

Pumpkings and brambles surrounded by various candles.

Happy Halloween…or blessed Samhain if you celebrate! It’s my favorite day of the year; in part, because it’s also my wife’s birthday. But fall is my favorite season, and no day seems to sum up autumn better than Halloween.

How’s the Writing Going?

It hit me last Tuesday that I hadn’t written an update about the previous week. It became a busy week at work, and there wasn’t much to say other than, “Still writing…”

This week, things are more clear…which is good because it’s almost November, and I’d like to release “In Cypress Cove” on the 26th. (Or even earlier that week so people in the U.S. have something to listen to if traveling for Thanksgiving.)

The problem with the story is not really a problem — just decisions to be made. Because there are jumps in time, I’m working at making those leaps not seem jarring. But for those who insist all writing must be shown…time in fiction can be a funny thing. Sometimes, to show things develop can be boring (“While the story is waiting for THIS to occur, everybody worked and did normal things…and this is not very interesting to read…”).

Sometimes small info dumps are vital, and seeing which storylines matter most need to be decided.

“In Cypress Cove” could easily be a novel. But it’s a short story. So, I’ve been writing random scenes, and this week things have come together. (Now, it’s a matter of filling in the gaps and some editing.)

What Else Is Up?

Not a whole lot of other things going on. Work and writing have kept me busy…and just the usual hanging out with loved ones and enjoying cooler mornings in North Texas. Hell, it was 38F yesterday morning, even though it climbed into a “cool” mid 70s on a sunny afternoon I know a lot of people loved…but I look forward to complete cooler days on the horizon.

I guess, since it’s Halloween, if you’ve not listened to “The Hidebehind,” it’s a good day to do so. Also, if you’re doing NaNoWriMo this year, be mighty, and have fun!

Other than that, all I’ve got are some food pics…

Hot sauce bottles: Yellowbird Plum Reaper, Bliss and Vinegar, and Super Serronic.
I might need an intervention when it comes to limited/seasonal Yellowbird releases. (Their other exclusive/limited sauce, Hitchhiker, is an REI exclusive right now…so I COULD be worse…)
Onion, carrots, celery, and Sweet Earth faux chicken in a pot.
Celebrated my wife’s birthday last night with my mom. Made vegan “chicken” and dumplings…
Vegan chicken and dumplings simmering in a pot.
The addition of broth and dumplings!
Dinosaur kale with dried cranberries and pistacios.
My mom made a yummy kale salad!
Bananas, blueberries, and almost milk whirring in a Vitamix.
I splurged and got my wife a Vitamix for her birthday. (She’d been wanting one for yeeeeeeears! First run: smoothie bowl for breakfast!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process, chopping away

Chopping Away: “Short” Stories

October 20, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

Rays of light from a sunset illuminate the sky at dusk. A crescent moon adds to it all.

I used to get in and out of stories quickly. Three thousand…maybe thirty-five-hundred words was plenty.

Today, that old “normal” has almost doubled.

Even something as seemingly basic at the start, like “Milkboy,” became more than a basic story.

It’s not that the stories I now write are bloated; rather, it seems I have more to say. I consider the ripple effects of actions more than when I was younger. (Not that I explore every possibility, but I’m not as focused on one thing as I once was.)

I suppose, with age, I take time and put more into the things I do.

In Cypress Cove

I’ve talked enough about November’s Not About Lumberjacks story, “In Cypress Cove,” that you know it’s about two guys who reclaim sunken timber in East Texas spotting an ivory-billed woodpecker. I planned to share the story last November, but I knew it would take more time than I had in 2020.

Younger me would have established the woodpecker spotting, and then likely made the focus on the main characters battling a timber company told to shut down its operation to save the bird. But even a small area in East Texas being shut down for a conservation effort would have a bigger effect on the area.

With a confirmed sighting of such a rare and magnificent bird, small towns in the area would see a flood of birdwatchers. People settled in the area for generations might see restrictions on their own land. Maybe new friendships begin or old rivalries reignite. (Say…a former high school bully now owning a timber company returns to his old ways in a battle against the two people he gave the most grief decades before).

Suddenly, that 3,500-word story can grow to 5,500 words with little effort. Probably even a bit more…

Last Week

Last week was a good week for Not About Lumberjacks. I released the Behind the Cut episode for “Milkboy,” and it’s doing better than any other Behind the Cut episode in its first few days of release. Hell, it’s doing better than most full stories…and people keep listening to “Milkboy” as well. (Granted, the numbers for Not About Lumberjacks have never been worthy to merit the effort I put into it if I saw the show as something more than a thing that keeps me busy writing stories I like.)

“In Cypress Cove” has hit that point where I’m seeing its shape much better than I was at the start. Hell, I think I even know how it ends!

Still…there’s quit a bit to still write, and the sounds needed for the episode will take a bit of an effort to make.

Perhaps I got spoiled with the two-week turnaround in getting “Milkboy” written, recorded, and online. But…it’s given me a bit more time to ensure however long “In Cypress Cove” ends up, that it’s the story it needs to be…

Sunrise rainbow in pink skies...
It was a good week for North Texas skies…

* * *

Also, for no reason (other than she’s cool), here’s a photo of my mom’s little pot-roast of a cat, Preeda…

A napping Siamese cat.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process, chopping away

Chopping Away: In Cypress Cove

October 12, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

An Audubon painting of an ivory-billed woodpecker.

Not a lot to report this week. My work week was extremely busy, so only a little progress was made on the next Not About Lumberjacks story, which is tentatively called, “In Cypress Cove.” (And most work on that came on Saturday.)

But it was a good week.

For those interested, the opening of the next story:

A journal resting against a sculpture of a ceramic bird on a wood branch.

Handwritten text reads:

A journal leaning against a sculpture fastened to a thick piece of mohogany. The journal rests against the smooth branch of mulberry. On the branch is a glazed, shining gray bird made of clay.

Handwritten text on journal page:

The blur of colors in the trees changed everything: red, black, and white in exactly the right places.

"Did you see that," Ramón said from the front of the jon boat.

Kade shook his head. "See what?"

"That bird."

"Lots of birds out here."

"Yeah, but that one shouldn't be here."

"You mean, like, it should be someplace else?"

"No. I mean it shouldn't be here at all. It shouldn’t exist."

Moments before, Ramón was telling Kade about the early efforts of over-water oil drilling up north on Caddo Lake. And then, there it was—so clear that it could not be disputed.

“Turn back,” Ramón said.

“I’m not turning back for a bird.”

“You’re not turning around for just a bird. I swear on everything I hold dear in life: I just saw an ivory billed woodpecker.”

Behind the Cut

I really love the Behind the Cut episode for “Milkboy.” It’s written, but not recorded. I’d love to release that by Friday.

What started as an essay about writing without a plan ended up an essay about friendship and struggles. In a roundabout way, that runs with the original idea…and I think you’ll like it.

Random Things

While it came out on September 28, I didn’t pick up Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land until last week. It’s a departure from All the Light We Cannot See, which I like. (You may have noticed I like different kinds of stories — even from the same author. It’s kind of the reason for Not About Lumberjacks.)

With things slowing down, I hope to spend evenings, at least in part, reading. (But, admittedly, there’s a lot of writing to be done between now and the end of the year. To that end, I think I’ve decided on the short short stories for the Christmas episode.)

The cover of Anthony Doerr's CLOUD CUCKOO LAND.

Another cool thing about last week? A bottle of my favorite hot sauce arrived!

Yellowbird’s habanero sauce is exquisite, but there’s something about the umami kick from trumpet mushrooms in this sauce that makes me happy they brought it back as a limited release!

Bottle of Yellowbird Super Serronic Spicy Tonic hot sauce.

The Rest of the Week

While last week doesn’t seem exciting when it’s all written down, I was able to get into the part of “In Cypress Cove” where things really heat up. But writing about writing can be a bit drab, especially if you try not to give too much away.

I hope everybody’s week is off to a good start…and that you do something cool along the way. For me, it will be releasing the Behind the Cut episode for “Milkboy,” and losing myself to a cypress stand in the Big Thicket of East Texas…

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process, chopping away

Chopping Away: Milkboy’s Release

October 4, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

First: You can go listen to “Milkboy” right here!

As I mentioned last time, I finished putting “Milkboy” together last week.

On Tuesday, I listened to “Milkboy” with my wife. This story turned out so well…especially for a 5,500-word story written one week, and then recorded and put together the following week.

I’m not sure I’ll ever see another two-week turnaround on a Not About Lumberjacks episode, but it felt great! It would have been soooooo easy to skip October when I realized “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” was taking longer than planned.

Background Sound

There was a little problem when listening to “Milkboy” on Tuesday: background sounds were light. Music and sounds seemed distant. The story sounded great, but it became clear to me that something was wrong.

I figured it out on Wednesday. I’m still getting used to a new editing process, and…I leveled out the narration track after I’d already already put in all the sounds. So…when the narration track increased in volume, all the background tracks needed to be increased.

A quick fix, and I’m happy to report that a test listen to the opening in our living room on Wednesday (with two fans running, and the dishwasher chugging away in the kitchen), confirmed everything came through loud and clear.

Promoting Milkboy

I’ve largely been taking a social media break this month (well, a break from Facebook and Twitter). I say “largely” because I broke the break a few times to promote things friends were up to. I’d have liked to promote “Milkboy” more, but I still tested an idea that works with the theme of Not About Lumberjacks and sharing a bit of what upcoming stories are about.

A cross section of a 4-inch thick tree is placed on a full-sized tree stump. Written on the small round of tree: "Milkboy. "Mark had a Tandy 2500 386 SX computer (with an 85 megabyte hard drive), and we put it to good use the night we created Milkboy."
Milkboy
Coming October 2 on
nolumberjacks.com

Granted, the new opening line ended up being, “This is a story about the shittiest thing my friend Mark and I ever did to our best friend, Tim,” but this line hints about two friends creating a fake online persona to mess with another friend.

In the future, I’ll probably use a thicker marker and then include a short description about the story on the other side. (In the case of “Milkboy”: “When two friends use a bulletin board system to create an online persona to tease their best friend, they get more than they have coming to them for their deception.”)

I like the look of a little round of wood placed somewhere outside. (And to keep them varied, it means varying our outdoor activities as well.) My wife took several different versions of this piece, and I like them all.

Bonus: these can either be given away to fans of the show or…just tossed into the fireplace when cooler weather arrives.

I already look forward to November’s pieces. I’m seeing canoe paddles and bald cypress knobs…

Milkboy’s Release

“Milkboy” was released on Saturday. Thank you to everyone who’s listened. It had it’s best first day of downloads of any episode of Not About Lumberjacks.

I’ve shared before that that show usually gets 45-50 downloads in its first week. (And I’ve also shared that most people would not put in 40-60 hours an episode for something that might top out between 200-300 listens in time.)

I almost hit 45 in a day, and it’s at 50 downloads right now.

More than that, though, around its release — other episodes have seen about 45 listens. Slowly, people are making their way through stories on the site, and that’s cool.

Also cool was zipping over to my friend Tim’s place on his birthday Saturday.

Tim Czarnecki and Christopher Gronlund posing together with their arms around each other.

I’m not kidding when I say “Milkboy” is based on a true story. Tim in “Milkboy” is my real-life friend…and our friend Mark and I really did create a fake online persona on a bulletin board system in the late 80s/early 90s to mess with Tim.

(I’m happy to report we’re all still friends.)

“Milkboy” was written as a birthday gift to Tim, and without giving too much away, I’m glad my wife and I showed up at Tim’s place right when the story really takes off. It was a blast listening to the ending with Tim and his wife.

Bonus: I also got to see this butthead for the first time in over a year and a half (stupid pandemic!)

A Jack Russell terrier rests its head on Tim's couch.

So Now What?

With “Milkboy” out there, up next is the behind-the-scenes episode supporting the story. It’s written, but still needs to be recorded.

And I’m happy to report November’s story is in the works. (It has the potential to be one of the most NOT Not About Lumberjacks story yet…)

A Jack Russell terrier staring at the camera while resting its head on Tim's couch.
One last photo of Boon…

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process, chopping away, milkboy

Chopping Away: Milkboy is Done!

September 27, 2021 by cpgronlund 1 Comment

What a busy week it was!

Monday found me up late, chatting with the hosts of the Canadian Politics is Boring podcast about Canada’s big election last week. (I came in at the 4:24:00 mark and chatted [mostly] about healthcare for about half an hour.)

Speaking of Canadians and podcasts, Michael Howie did a stellar interview with Tomm Moore, one of the directors of Oscar-nominated Wolfwalkers.

But What About Milkboy?

It was a busy week at work, with this coming week looking even busier. Which meant I wanted to get as much done on “Milkboy” as possible so I can release it on Saturday, October 2.

I’m happy to report it is finished! (Well, I still have to do the bloopers, but that doesn’t take very long.)

Because of some road construction in our area, we were pretty much locked in for the weekend…so I put it to good use and finished what might be the most involved story I’ve put together for Not About Lumberjacks.

Inside a make-shift recording tent made out of a laundry hanging rack and acoustic blankets.

Just Write!

The past handful of stories on Not About Lumberjacks were started with no endings.

I had no idea where I was going, but I started with the the challenge of releasing another episode.

It’s safe to say the last block of stories are among my favorites, and “Milkboy” is no exception.

I’ll be honest: I thought it would be a cute enough story, but kind of something not living up to recent episodes.

In its own way, “Milkboy” is one of the best things I’ve released on the site.

Yes, it’s beyond stupid, but it ended up going in directions I didn’t plan, and in the end it’s quite a heartfelt little tale.

I can’t wait to release it on Saturday.

Okay…I’m wiped out…so…time to sleep!

Spectral frequency display from a section of Milkboy that had a little clicking artifact in the sound.
Spectral frequency display with an arrow pointing at the offending click in the sound. Just paint over it, delete, and BOOM!…offending click is gone without degrading the audio.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process, chopping away, milkboy

Chopping Away: Enter Milkboy

September 20, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

A hand pouring milk into a glass from an old-fashioned milk bottle.

A bit of a change this week…beginning with a new name for these weekly updates. “Chopping Away” sounds like a good thing to name regular progress updates, so there it is.

But why not another Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal entry?

I don’t want to hurry the story.

A rough draft is done, and I quite like it. But as involved as the story is, I’d hate to rush it for an early October release. I’d love to have an expert proofread it for procedural accuracy, and that can take time.

So, does this mean no October Not About Lumberjacks story?

Absolutely not.

What’s this Milkboy Thing?

Milkboy is another based-on-truth Not About Lumberjacks story. Others include:

  • Pride of the Red Card
  • Bobo (almost autobiographical)
  • Memorial Park (Very loosely based on truth)
  • 7 Stories (the last story in the first Christmas episode)
  • Christmas Miscellany 4 (the last story among the others)

“Milkboy” is about creating a fake online persona before that was really a thing. (Prior to the World Wide Web or even services like America Online became common, a friend and I used a Bulletin Board System (BBS) to create Milkboy, a fake person who had a a lot in common with our dear friend, Tim.)

In every way, Tim could have ended his friendship with me and our friend Mark for getting his hopes up about a cool person he met online, but decades later we’re all still best buds. This is a story about all that…

“Milkboy” should be out on Tim’s actual birthday, October 2.

Day by Day?

So why no day-by-day account of this week?

Mostly because my new job deserved my attention, and what little time I had to write was spent writing the first draft of “Milkboy.” A daily account would have been a cut-and-paste thing where each day’s entry would be, “Worked on ‘Milkboy’ during lunch break.” Perhaps one of two entries would have read, “Worked on ‘Milkboy’ during lunch break…and a little in the evening.”

Friday: “Didn’t work on writing ‘Milkboy’ during lunch break…I started looking for music for the episode. Went to bed early, and worked on the story in the middle of the night when I woke up for a couple hours.”

Saturday: “Worked on ‘Milkboy’ a bit during the morning. Went to bed early, and worked on it some more in the middle of the night when I woke up for a couple hours.”

To try padding those updates out would be tedious for all involved, so just know I knocked out a 5,500-word story during a very busy week at the new job.

What’s Next?

With a rough draft of “Milkboy” complete, it’s time for some editing and planning. I hope to record the story on the 24th or 25th, and then put it all together for an October 2 release date.

This should be a more interesting week, so here’s hoping next week’s update is a bit more lively than this one!

Until then…be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process, chopping away

Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal (Week 8)

September 12, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

It was a rather busy week, but that didn’t mean progress on “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” stopped; in fact, it was a good week despite the rush of days.

9/5/21 – Sunday

The day saw some good writing progress and reorganizing how some scenes in “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” fit together.

More timelines were made because…well, it’s more involved than the other mystery “short” story I wrote, “Under the Big Top.”

9/6/21 – Monday

It was a three-day weekend in the U.S. because of Labor Day, and that meant — while I didn’t do day job work — I was still productive.

I always try making sure that I accomplish something toward personal goals on Labor Day, and today that meant making a sound blanket tent (my wife figured out the best way to handle this), and recording lines for a friend’s audiodrama. (You can find a trailer, here…not with anything I read, though.)

It was a lot of fun because my wife also recorded lines…and, as always, did a great job. (You can check out the Not About Lumberjacks Talent page and look for Cynthia Griffith for all the stories of mine she’s narrated and acted on.)

9/7/21 – Tuesday

I started a new job today.

It’s sort of an old job…but not really.

An explanation: in 2019, I started contracting with a company, writing online help for a cool group of people. When that ended, there was a need by a group working with my group to bring on a technical writer, but…COVID hit.

I ended up unemployed for almost half of 2020 until landing another contract at the company…with a completely new group. My contract with them was in jeopardy of ending on Friday (9/10/21).

Fortunately, that old position became available as a full-time job, so I’m now back with the first group.

I share all this because I find it nice when writers share how they stay busy writing, even when life gets busy.

At the very least, there are always lunch breaks (I guard them in a big way, even when I’ve been in the office), and that’s enough time to get some writing done. Which is exactly what I did…

Oh yeah, today is also the 12th birthday of The Juggling Writer! (My writing blog.)

9/8/21 – Wednesday

I wrote a bit before work and during lunch break.

I thought about writing more in the evening, but I’d bought the new Iron Maiden album and it had been sitting a few days.

But because my wife was sleeping, I didn’t want to play it in the open, so…my first listen was on YouTube, where the band’s shared all the songs.

While I know I look like a metalhead if I take my glasses off, I’m more likely to be listening to chill background music, classical pieces, brown noise, or even a 30-minute ambient thing I made in my living room of a fan running while the dishwasher chugs away in the kitchen.

But Iron Maiden was a huge part of my life as a teenager! (I could go on about how much they influenced me to get writing, but I’ll spare you that.) Still, the last Iron Maiden album I bought was Somewhere in Time, in 1986.

I figured, with 25-years between that album and this one, why not throw some money their way (because as one of the most successful touring bands in history surely needs the money, right?!), and see what they sound like now.

In much the same way I listened to this after such a long gap, I also like picking up books by writers I’ve not read in a long time. My hope is that what made the writer [or band] appealing to me when I was younger is still there, but…that they also changed over the years.

The writers who influenced me when I was younger always seem to hold up, and Iron Maiden’s new album did as well.

It’s not really the kind of thing I listen to anymore, but I’m glad I picked it up — and if COVID ever ends and they come through town, I might even geek out and see them live. (I only saw them once, in 1984, up in Chicago for the Powerslave tour.)

(I’ll stop geeking out, now…)

9/9/21 – Thursday

The usual bit of lunch break writing has almost brought me to a rough draft of “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.”

The evening saw me hanging out with two of my dearest friends*, playing a weird map-building role-playing game-like thing called Beak, Feather, and Bone.

Players divide factions in a town and draw cards—and the draw determines information about a building in town. Players then claim a building on the map and create a story about it. There’s obviously more to it than that, but it seems like a great way to get a group into role-playing games to create a town in which adventures for the group are based. (Or, you know, creating a location for recurring short stories…if only I had the time!)

Snacks were dehydrated habaneros and [I think] bhut jolokia peppers. I might have eaten too many, but…sooooooooooo good! (Also seen here: one of the 1-12 soft drinks I have in any given year…)

* Speaking of those dearest friends, 2022 will likely see a Not About Lumberjacks tale based on a true story about them…

9/10/21 – Friday

I had to run an errand before lunch, which meant a shorter lunch break.

This was my zero day for writing this week.

(But if you’re watching Ted Lasso, how great was today’s episode?!)

9/11/21 – Saturday

I have what I think I can officially call a rough draft of “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.”

The last several Not About Lumberjacks stories have not gone down as smoothly as most, but…the last couple stories are among some of my favorites.

I don’t know if “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” will join them (just based on what it’s about), but it has the potential to be the Not About Lumberjacks story I’m most proud of.

I can’t wait to get it finalized, even though the urge to contact someone who can read it from the point of view of an actual detective is appealing. I might have to chat with our local police at the very least…

(I’d love to record it next weekend, though…)

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process

Godspeed, Crazy Mike Journal (Week 7)

September 5, 2021 by cpgronlund Leave a Comment

Converging colored lights (purple and blue) create a dark purple shade where they overlap on a wall.

No day-by-day update this week. It was my last week at the contract I’ve worked for over a year, and prepping to start a new job this coming Tuesday.

I wasn’t quite as focused on capturing what happened each day of the week, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t busy…

Godspeed, Crazy Mike

I still don’t know if “Godspeed, Crazy Mike” will end up longer than “Under the Big Top,” but it will definitely be the second-longest Not About Lumberjacks story.

I’m seeing the end coming into focus, but there’s still a ways to go. With a new job starting up this week, I’m not sure how progress will be affected, but I don’t think it will have much of an effect on my schedule. It would be nice to get a good first draft this week and begin editing so I can soon record it.

As long as it is, I’m sure recording and editing will be a bit of an effort.

Choose Your Own…

Last time, I mentioned one of the things I have planned for next year is a sort of choose-your-own-adventure story…at least based off the way the books were put together. The books I mentioned ordering arrived, and I spent about 15 minutes jumping around to see how the story maps out.

The Island of Time Choose Your Own Adventure book on a flow-map of the story. Handwritten notes about what pages contain splits in the story.

I’ll probably end up creating two stories for that episode…one to record, and one readers can truly choose how it all plays out…

The September Silence

Each September, I take a month-long social media break. (Okay, so I still check out Instagram because it doesn’t feel like social media in the way Twitter and Facebook do. I know it can, but I mostly follow jugglers, animal sanctuaries, vegan cooks, and hikers on Instagram.)

It’s already five days in and it’s been nice.

A laptop, lantern, and metal coffee mugs on a wooden tabletop. Behind it, a window gives way to a forest at dusk.

One thing that seems to come with September are wasps occasionally getting into the apartment. So…ye olde Ziplok bowl and a piece of paper are out so we can catch and release the little boogers when they get in…

A wasp under an over-turned plastic bowl.

Television

Most of what my wife and I watch on TV are YouTube channels we subscribe to (mostly science and cooking) and science stuff on Discovery+.

But we also have Apple TV+. (We got it for Wolfwalkers and stuck around for Ted Lasso and a couple other things.)

I started watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Mr. Corman in the evenings.

It’s…uhm…well, it has its moments.

That might sound like I’m not a fan of it, but I’ve watched six episodes…so it’s doing something right. It’s uncomfortable, and I can be very hit-and-miss with things like that — but there’s enough going on that it’s not sent me away.

Out of nowhere, these strange little asides just happen: Mr. Corman floating through the clouds toward the moon…which comes to represent a human egg; a musical interlude with his mom, played by Debra Winger; a fight scene that is just bonkers.

A human body floats through colorful clouds. His outstretched hand reaches for the moon.

If nothing else, Mr. Corman is a reminder of how much mood and vision can shape a story.

(I know it doesn’t sound like it, but I really like the show…)

Time to Write

Well, I woke up rather early this morning and wrote this before getting back to “Godspeed, Crazy Mike.”

Time to push this out and get back to the story…

(Here’s to a great week ahead!)

The Not About Lumberjacks lumberjack logo on the face of a clock that hangs in the office.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: a-peek-at-process

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