Day 19: Too Hot to Handle

I'm going to keep this brief, because even though it's half eleven at night, my room is still uncomfortably warm. That said, once I'm done writing this I'm going to get tea. I'm a writer, I'm Irish, deal with it.

Let it be said, the following complaint about the heat is not because of my fair complexion or the ginger in my hair. No, I would be complaining about the sun if that were the case. I'm just uncomfortably hot pretty much all of the time right now, even when I'm indoors, in the shade, with a cold drink.

Productivity levels have fallen to an almighty low. Needless to say, I'm thankful for the "encouragement" I had to write and post the flash stories this week, or I might not have written a single word. If this heat keeps up, I probably won't finish writing The Blood of Leap until August.

Yes, it's looking like I won't reach my Camp NaNoWriMo target. To be fair, I set it expecting an Irish summer. We usually get temperatures in the late teens, three days max if we're lucky, and separated by at least as many days ridiculously chilled, cloudy or raining (though the rain usually comes when there's clouds.) I expected to be indoors and trying to keep warm. Or at least not looking for the coldest room in the house. (Downstairs toilet, in case you're wondering. Pity it's not exactly office material. Nowhere for a laptop.)

That said, I do intend to keep working on. My aim all along has been to write the books, and write them I shall. Next week, if this heat persists, I'll move the laptoparoonie down to the kitchen again on a daily basis.

Anyway, I did do some writing today. The latest flash story. Entitled Helping Hand, it's the last of the four stories that celebrates the release of The Hounds of Hell by filling in the gaps in "normal" people's lives since the events of Balor Reborn. While one story is set after The Hounds of Hell, the others are all beforehand. Today's story actually takes place during the same time-frame as Balor Reborn, which was fun, and addresses a missing element a friend of mine pointed out.

You can read it here: http://modernirishmyth.com/helping-hand/

Tomorrow, I've got a lot of other business to attend to, but you know I'll still be blogging. In the meantime, we're into the last eight hours or so of the giveaway of Balor Reborn and Old Gods Returned. You can find the obligatory links below. I hope you enjoy the read.

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Balor Reborn (US/IRL):https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008S1FGFW
Balor Reborn (UK):https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008S1FGFW

Old Gods Returned (US/IRL):https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00963VXXA
Old Gods Returned (UK):https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00963VXXA

You can also buy The Hounds of Hell at either of the links below:
US/IRL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DYQNTZA
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DYQNTZA

Day 9: Blame it on the Sunshine

Today, I had good intentions of writing a chunk of The Blood of Leap. This was to accompany today's task of getting the book trailer online. Unfortunately, neither thing happened.

As it happens, while sunny weather has a tendency to bring about storms - which can knock out power - the heat can also cause machines to slow down to the point of being useless. This is especially true when working in the attic. My bedroom is a sauna, and my laptop doesn't appreciate it very much. Though I admittedly spent quite a long time doing the artwork for the book trailer, putting the finishing touches on them on my laptop proved nearly impossible.

Most of the work is done, but the last bit, that I'm not even sure I'm sticking with, needs a tiny bit more attention. If it wasn't taking half an hour for the laptop to do anything, I'd have it all done, by now. Long story short, with this weather it's going to be difficult to finish up.

I'll have to bring my laptop down to the kitchen tomorrow to actually finish up, and to do some work, because I don't think either it or I can handle my room another day, even with every window in the house open. Heat rises, and it can't get out quickly enough. The end result: Paul roasts alive. The end.

I had hoped that by the time I finished up with the last image, I could write some of the book. Unfortunately, my laptop is giving up on me. Writing on it tonight is not going to happen. I've resorted to using my tablet to write this post, but it's much more difficult to do so, and to keep track of how much or how little I'm actually saying. I usually leave this for when I'm too tired to turn on my laptop to write a blog post.

Tomorrow, I'll try get done what I had initially set out to do: write a lot of the book, and upload the trailer. Since it's also New Comic Book Day, I'll be heading out early to ensure I get home early. If I manage 3,500 words, I'll be happy. It'll keep me on par with where I need to be with Camp NaNoWriMo, and it'll take a chunk out of the book. It's about four hours' work, though, if I'm calculating that correctly - and I'm probably underestimating myself - but I think I can manage it. The main priority is the trailer, though.

Right now, it's all just good intentions. The weather could very well kill my laptop again, and with it my progress. Time will tell, but hopefully I don't have a repeat of today on my hands.

It's Hot Out

Record high temperatures of the year, and where was I? In work. I know. It sucked. Now, normally I don't mind my job. I actually rather like it, when there's something to be done. But after the trolley was emptied and the kids' section cleaned, twice, there was nothing left to do.

Add in the heat, and you lose not only fluids, but customers. I got home at four, not knowing whether or not I'd get a chance to get in the sun. I asked my friend Eithne is she was at home, in Offaly. No, she hadn't gone home. She was still in Dublin.

Naturally, we went for a walk in the park, and had a little chat. Well, more than little chat. We talked about all sorts of things; fights we might have to prevent, people who are annoying, people who are sound, things we have to try do with our time in future summers. Eithne's one of the people I know I'm going to be in touch with years down the line. I really hope she's not the only one. People like Liam and Aidan, who I've spent ages talking to of late, and all the brilliant friends I became close to at the start of the year, rather than just knowing who they were, a bit... I don't know what I'd do without them all. And there are so many of them! I'm lucky to have that job for all the birthdays! Third year will be expensive for all those - so many 21st birthdays to go to, presents to buy for them, drinks to buy for them...

But I still plan on escaping somewhere. America. I'd like to go to America. In the meantime, I have work to do back here. I need to get qualified to teach, and I need to get my novel sent off, and actually finished. The second draft will be longer than the first; I explained this yesterday, about how I was suddenly realising I had so much more to write on than I had for my first draft of Meet Sam. And on Monday, I have to submit my poems to a group of people down in Limerick. Hopefully they'll like a few of them enough to want to publish them. And hopefully they don't get too depressed by them all! Subject matter... lost love (result of death), suicide, crappy life, guilt and death. Not exactly the most inspiring bunch of poetry, though you might argue they inspire deep emotions of pain and sorrow. My friends joke, when I tell them about these poems, that I'm going to be the really depressing poet on the Leaving Cert somewhere down the line that they're going to be forced to teach about. I would love that!

Right, time to leave you and love you, my dear readers. There's tea to be read and a novel to be edited! Goodbye and God bless!