Hope and Inspiration

Back to the 52-week blogging challenge. I'm getting close to the end of it. Today's prompt is "Hope + Inspiration." Or should that be read as "Hope and Inspiration"?

Hope? I hope to sell books. I hope to write books people can't put down. I hope to inspire a few people with my writing.

Inspiration? Who knows where inspiration comes from as a writer? You have an idea (how? why?) and it turns into a novel because you have the inspiration to type it out and make it as good a novel as you can.

So I try to just keep writing. Doesn't always happen. I'll take breaks of days or even weeks. When I'm busy with freelance stuff, I won't write fiction at all because all my energy goes to the paying work.

But I try (don't always succeed) to "Just keep writing."

What do you hope for and what inspires you? Let me know in the comments below.

Home

Back to the 52-week blogging challenge. I'm getting close to the end so then I'll have to find something else for prompts. Today's prompt is: "Home."

People say "Home is where the heart is." Which is probably true (cliches are often true). I work out of my home so I spend a great deal of time at home. But I rather like it that way. I've always been a home body. I'd rather stay home than go pretty much anywhere. I do leave home daily for Starbucks (if I don't, I go stir crazy). And I like to leave home for vacations to places I haven't been before. But sitting in my recliner reading or watching TV is probably one of my favorite activities. When I travel, one of the best parts is coming home to my chair, my bed, my shower.

So what defines "home" for you? Let me know in the comments below.

Radio Interview Today

Today at 4:00 PM EST (1:00 PM PST), I will be on Red River Radio's "What's Write for Me" radio so, being interviewed and reading from one of my novels. It's going to be fun and you're not going to want to miss it. To listen, follow this link here: Red River Radio.

Color

Time once again for the 52-week blogging challenge. Today's prompt is "My colour is .." (that's exactly how it was in the list).

Well, first of all it's "color." I'm an American and we don't put in superfluous "u"s.

But what is my color? I like white. One of my cars is white. I may not buy another white car because every third car in the parking lot is white. Maybe blue or maybe even red.

I seem to like yellow. Another of my cars is yellow. And my house is yellow. When I bought this house, it was kind of a peach color. And I thought it would look better as yellow. So when it needed painting, we went with  yellow.

I had a yellow Schwinn 10-speed as a teenager (until I got my driver's license).

I like hot pink. With my color blindness it's about the only pink I can see. Don't ask me why I like it.

Hot Pink

I'll deny it.

So what's my color? Maybe red for my (formerly) red hair.

But I think I'll stick with yellow.

What's your color? Let me know in the comments below.

All Work and No Play....

Back to the 52-week blogging challenge. Today's prompt is "Work + Play." I'm not sure if that's supposed to be "work plus play" or "work and play."

I talked about rest here. But resting isn't playing.

Ever since I left the corporate world, work and play are a lot a like. I get to my hobby as work, i.e., writing. Now, sometimes writing is hard work, especially freelance writing. But I love doing it.

I guess my only pure forms of play are watching movies and driving. Although lately I haven't been driving as fast as I used to. I've sort of lost my desire to risk jail for the joy of going over 100 mph. (Of course, now that it's winter, driving fast is out of the question). I've thought about returning to the racetrack, but it is so damn expensive. Not the fees so much but you can go through tires and brakes in a couple of days. And tires on my car are very expensive. Plus I think I'd need to buy a new helmet.

But I am so thankful that I get to do what I love as my work. Just wish it paid better.

What do you do for play, and who does that relate to your work? Let me know in the comments below.

The Huskies are #13

The final AP college football poll came out yesterday after the CFP playoff game (I find myself happy that Alabama lost). And the University of Washington Huskies ended the season at lucky #13. This is an improvement over last year when they ended the season at #16. But it's way down from 2016 when they ended at #4.

Washington lost their bowl game to Ohio State which ended the year at #3.

The only other Pac-12 team in the top 25 was Washington State. They were #10 after winning their bowl game. (I don't want to talk about it.)

I've said it before, but back when the Huskies sucked (like in 2008), I said I had four criteria for a good season:

1) Win at least 8 games (and they did, winning 10)
2) Beat Oregon (they didn't)
3) Beat WSU (they did)
4) Go to a good bowl and win it. (They went to the best bowl, but lost).

Well, I'm still happy with my Huskies and will be their fans no matter what.

Now we just have to wait until August 31st when college football starts again.

College Football Post-Season

The college football post-season play is almost over. There's one last game, tonight, the FBS national championship game between Alabama and Clemson. No surprise there. If you care, it's at 5:00 PM PST on ESPN.

The bowl season was almost exactly what I didn't want. Teams I wanted to win lost and teams I wanted to lose won.  I basically cared about Pac-12 teams. I wanted all of them to win except Oregon and Washington State. Here's table of what happened:

As you can see, the Pac-12 went 3-4 in post-season play. There was only one upset: Utah versus Northwestern.

The Rose Bowl (Washington and Ohio State) was fairly close and a lot of people were expecting a blow-out. The final score was 23-28. If Washington has played the entire second half the way they played the fourth quarter, they would have won.

The college football regular season starts August 30, 2019. A long wait until then.

Culture

Time once again for the 52-week blogging challenge. I'm getting close to the end.

Today's prompt is "Culture."

I used to work with bacteria cultures such as the one pictured to the left. Good times!

Culture is an interesting thing. Corporations say they have a "corporate culture" and that's why they succeed or fail. Countries have cultures and that's why some have lots of problems and some don't. Culture isn't race based, it's usually location based. There can be micro-cultures (my term) inside a larger culture. There is an inner-city culture and a suburbs culture. There's a drug culture in the U.S. And a gun culture.

Culture often determines how you live. If you dropped me in the middle of an New Guinea tribe that's had no contact with the outside world, I would have to adopt their culture to survive. Which would be tough since I was raised and live in a totally difference culture. If you took someone from that culture and dropped them into the U.S., they would have to adapt to it or they wouldn't survive.

And interesting movie about culture clashes is The Gods Must be Crazy. Which unfortunately, isn't on Netflix disc or streaming.

What do you think about culture? Am I nuts or am I right? Let me know in  the comments below.