Category Archives: Writing in Idaho

Funny Word Pamplemousse

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I like silly words.
Doozy.
Lollygag.
Brouhaha.
And my personal favorite, snog.

When I find silly words in unlikely places, it makes them hysterical.
My oldest, Xander, calls sparkling water static. And as it sizzles down the throat and plinks it’s can, it really does drink and sound like static. It’s a funny word that fits.

Today I restocked our static stash. You can buy it in pure fizz or flavored varieties that, depending on the mix, taste refreshing, or like Pledge or a bad imitation of something good that went very wrong.

I bought La Croix Apricot, Cran-Rasberry, Mango, and Pamplemousse flavors. Why was Pamplemousse not in English like the others? Great question. But it is a silly name. It could be a sidekick in a YA Mystery as in, “Pamplemousse, it’s time we tell the widow Jenkins who murdered her husband.”

It could be a good guy or a bad girl, or part of an incantation, or Grapefruit in French. Who knows?

I ponder the possibilities while I gulp down the last tittynope of Pamplemousse still in my glass.

Ice cubes clink, and I wonder.

Bill Riley

I Really Wanted Catgirl Maids…

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My wife found me sitting on the floor in the kitchen, drinking coffee — sighing.  

“What’s wrong?” She said. 

Looking around, things weren’t terrible.  The house was in good order, dishes were done, everything was clean, and mostly picked up.  I couldn’t really complain.  We have a great housekeeper who takes care of all the big things every other week.  All we have to do is clean up after ourselves, but…I was in the middle of a new book, and at that weird point where I start fixating on things that, truth be told, no one else really notices. 

It’s a sickness that straddles the backs of both writer’s block and procrastination.  One where I find myself walking from point A (anywhere) to point B (the scene I’m in the middle of that I already know how to finish), when “Bam!”  I have to immediately stop and do something completely random, inconsequential, and stupid — that’s, for no reason,  sudden the number one thing on my to do list.  And I can’t look away, or stop.

“Cat hair.”  That was how I answered my wife’s question.  “Cat hair’s everywhere.”  We have two cats and some was, and the dark hardwood floors we have were a little dusty, and bits of garlic parchment — forensic evidence of the dinner I’d made the night before, clung hidden from sight against the cabinet baseboards.  In a place that only I could see, while sitting on the floor, drinking my coffee, and sighing. 

This wasn’t an unknown problem.   It was a simple equation I didn’t even have to solve for “X.”  Animals + dark wood floors = more vacuuming/more tolerance toward hairy floors.  I wasn’t either, and my teenagers weren’t consistent enough to make the problem I was fixated on go away.  

“What do you want to do about it?  I could call one of the boys to vacuum?”  My wife asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee and pulling out a kitchen chair.  It disturbed the undergrowth and I watched a dust bunny chase after her chair followed by a clump of cat hair pursuing the bunny.  My wife sat in the chair, sipped her coffee, and split her time between updating Facebook and watching me.

I sighed.  “No.  That won’t solve the problem.”  I thought about it.  “What we really need are catgirl maids.”  I said it without really thinking about it, or their care and upkeep.  A brigade of cute, semi-furry professionals.  Well versed, and experienced, in cat hair containment.  

What I was thinking of was something like this:

I was still lost in thought thinking about finally getting up off the floor, and getting another cup of coffee, when Jodi said. “Catgirls aren’t really a thing.  If they are, you can’t buy, adopt, or enter a service contract with them, even with Amazon Prime.  So, sorry babe.  Plus, even if they were, you’d be too distracted to finish your new book.”

I couldn’t argue with that.  Sigh.  

“How would you feel about a robot?  And stop sighing.”

“I would actually feed good pretty good about a robot, if the right technology is finally here.” 

I had warm childhood robot memories that looked something like this:

Five minutes later, Jodi ordered me a robot.  I was actually excited enough about it to get up off the floor, and get back to writing.  The next day a small box arrived, and my wife gave our robot it’s first charge.  It was nothing like the maid-bot I was looking forward to, but my son Xander took an interest, programmed it, and set it loose:

Xander named my new robot maid; Steve.  So, from Catgirls to Robo Steve.  Sigh. 

Well, that’s what I want to say.  I was skeptical, but Steve actually does a great job.  He’s no Rosie the robot.  He’s a mostly autonomous dust-buster, floor polisher, and carpet vacuum.  He cries for help if he gets stuck, but otherwise he does the job, quietly everyday.  My cat hair problem is gone, the floors are never dusty, and even when I sit on the floor there’s no under counter cooking debris.  Really, they look great.  So great I returned to my office to write a blog.  But worry not.  I’m getting back to my book, after I hit post.

If you’re interested, there are now a lot of robot floor cleaners on the market.  For us DEE BOT seems be working well, for not a big investment after holiday discounts.  I don’t get a commission, but I do think the technology is pretty cool.  

I’d rather have Catgirl maids, but Jo’s right, when that time actually comes, I probably won’t write as much.  So, until my next ridiculous fixation, I’m back to work, and I’m really happy with how my new story is coming along.

Thanks for checking out my blog.

Bill Riley

Check out what’s happening at www.billrileyauthor.com

 

A New Book Is Born

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Good Writing, Good Whiskey

Hello again.  It’s been a while. 

Since my first book Baghdaddy is still under pre-publication review, by the ever-vigilant boys and girls at Langley, it’s time to do what writers do – get cracking on my new book. 

For those of you who know me, I’ve wanted to write this book for a long time.  It’s a young/new adult thriller about how absolute power corrupts, and the real power of family.  Even if those family members tend to fight like cats and dogs. But after my parents passed away Baghdaddy just wouldn’t stand in line and wait to be written.  So, the time is now.

The working title for my new novel is CYPHER 1.0 – Ashur’s Tears.  It’s a story that blends “what if” science with magic, and I’m watching the Payette River wend through a snowy forest, from a toasty room – as I work the kinks from my plot. 

The view from my window

Writing a book is a lot like making a baby.  A glint of an idea.  A raw attraction.  An enthusiastic week (or two or three) of plot debauchery – the fun and exciting positioning of “what ifs.”  Then, a lot of time goes into what fits where, and what works and doesn’t. 

Even after you figure it all out, a happy, healthy dose of flexibility, patience, endurance, and vigor is still required to make something new, and mostly wonderful, that didn’t exist before.

For Ashur’s Tears, I’m using several of Blake Snyder’s screenwriting methods to help better visualize my story, and to improve my writing efficiency.  If you’re interested in writing a novel his Save the Cat! series of books are well worth reading.  His method of organizing a plot not only gives a good breakdown of the “what goes where” in a movie, but he also looks at plot points as a series of “beats” that, like a drum, drive the rhythm of a story forward.    

With a little luck I should have my plot worked out, and most of the scenes written for the first act, by the time I come back down from the mountains in Lowman, Idaho after the first week of January.

A Birdhouse on Birches

But now, I have to go.  I left the Cypher children, my main characters, in a perilous place and I have to check in on them to see what they’re up to, and figure out what happens next.    

 

More to follow.  Visit me at www.billrileyauthor.com