hail call to GATOR

[ScottyLee]

missed reading all of the blogs about the season, carving, magellan etc... did you give up on the writing all together? you gonna fire it back up anytime soon?

[teul2]

Someone put an umpalump on his keyboard and he had to shoot his computer.

[crow]

I was afraid the clown apocalypse got him!

[RedEyed Duck]

[stang67]

[gator]

scotty, thanks for the interest in the blog....

This past season was a perfect storm fo sorts in that i had the single most abysmal duck season i've ever had and found it more and more difficult as the season went on to find any inspiration to write about it. I actually called it quits after 5 straight days of slugging through timber in 70 degree weather (in mid-january) saying i was done until it got below freezing.....it never did on a day i had off. couple that with a pregnant wife - had our second child, a son named dean - and it became hard to justify the time/effort i was putting in and the results. I know, I know, heresy AND never thought i'd get to that point. I also, for the first time in nearly a decade, didn't go travel anywhere to hunt which really made for a bad season - i learned my lesson and will not make that mistake again.

as far as "have i stopped writing"? no, i'm actually writing more than i ever have. Sometime this past spring i finished writing a novel and am currently about to finish the second novel in a trilogy. The first was 27 chapters long and my goal was to finish this one in 35 but i'm in the middle of chap 35 now and still have a bit more to add before it's done. I've heard that 90% or better of the people that start to write end up getting bogged down and never finish, so having finished (or very close to it) 2 novels in just under 3 yrs is something i'm pretty proud of. I'm going to take a break from the series to work on copy edit and the publishing aspects along with another storyline/novel that i want to write about.

as far as the carving, i really haven't done much of it lately either for nothing more than lack of time given the above. i've got a mallard sitting on my bench (and it's been there for months) that has the best head ive ever carved adn one of the crappiest bodies. I'm probably fixing to make fire wood out of the body and start over

this season has started out a little better than last season so i'm hoping something will happen that will get me back to writing a bit more about hunting, BUT i noticed last year that my phone stopped getting called when folks learned i didn't have any ducks and couldn't find them......not sure if that says more about me or them

anyhow, i say all that just to illustrate why there's not been more energy in the blog over the last year or so.

gator

[ScottyLee]

[Take 'em]

+1, I will be interested in picking up a copy as well. Any insight on what these said novels are about?

[gator]

Take'em, i've actually been a little leery about posting the details for no other reason than the genre is one in which 95% (or more) of the population here would find funny, if not down right weird.

bear in mind, the whole thing started out as a bedtime story for my daughter which over time grew into what it is now......for over 2 yrs i've barely had a day in which i wasn't writing or laying down further outline for the story. as luck would have it i left a way for a sibling to move in as when i started it all my wife and i were talking about having a second. The main protag's a young girl named Alil Stonecypher (Lila is my daugher's name and of course, Alil is lila backwards) and without getting into the storyline - b/c i could talk about it all night - if you took the magic of the harry potter series, the philosophy of Jedi knights and samauri's with some ninja tossed in, and combined with with the folklore surrounding the mountain men of the rockies and ancient apache/navajo folklore regarding skinwalkers/skinchangers and put it all in a blender and hit puree, what you poured out is what I have been after in the series. there's an ample amount of my twist on the contempory ideology of vampires and zombies - with different/cooler names and twist on the way they are viewed today, along with a lot of father/daughter interaction where the dad has to deal with a headstrong girl, her coming of age, and them both realizing just how "powerful" she is.

the whole thing is set in an imaginary land in feudal/medieval type times. I've spent the better part of 3 yrs in teh land of Tarkraik and eventually had to sit down and draw out a map of the place to keep things together - which was fun.

like i said, weird stuff that most here wouldn't probably enjoy, but it was something i wanted to do for my daughter (and my son) and it grew from that.

gator

[bigwater]

Gator
U might not be the worlds most interesting man
But ur damn sure mississippi's

[msbigdawg1234]

+1 on that...specially in the parking lot at WB at 3am ...lol...good job Gator...u gots ya sites set on the right things ...ya kids

[ScottyLee]

[RedEyed Duck]

I'll second both of the last two motions!

Maybe u ought to just send that ole sorry looking mallard up my way save him from the fire pit. I could have y artsy fartsy daughter paint him.

[Take 'em]

[PWS]

I would love to read your book. I am a huge fan of Robert Jordan, JK Rowling, and JR Tolkien. I read above where you finished your first book have you published it yet?