Has it been that long?

Okay, so I admit I’m not that good at keeping a blog up to date, but it has been a busy few months since my last post. I still keep up with the CSI’s and Shark, though the latter may be dropped if I get to a point where there are too many shows to keep up with. I’m trying to catch up on 24 and Battlestar Galactica but my DVR erased a few of them so it’s going to take a little more time on them. American Idol is another current favorite. There are no clear favorites this year, but this week the girls blew the guys out of the water. Lakisha’s performance was by far the strongest, however, and if she can keep it up she’ll be a major contender for the final prize.

Another contest that has no clear favorites for me is the 2008 presidential race. The Democrats seem so desperate to claim the White House again that they couldn’t give us a break after the ‘06 election finished. The Republicans had no choice but to respond in kind and now there are so many candidates that 2008 promises to be a very messy race. It’s probably best to save any further thoughts on that until the crowd of candidates thins out a little bit and we know where things are headed. I’ll just say I’m definitely not for Hillary or Obama, and not for any prejudicial reasons. Margaret Thatcher proved a woman is more than capable of leading a superpower nation, and there’s no valid reason to claim a person of any minority would be any less fit because of ethnicity. Seriously, if the Democrats can find a good candidate with moral values that match mine, I will absolutely consider voting for them.

Of course, my novels are the main reason I have this blog in the first place, so I should probably update you on that, too. Fallen Sparrows is not finished, but as of today I am one or two sections away from being finished. It’ll probably be just one, as I think I can wrap what’s left up in one section, so hopefully I can knock that out really, really soon. After that, I think I’m way overdue for a main site redesign that will tie into this blog and my Flickr account. Ideas are still shaping up very nicely for the next story, which I’ve now titled Knights of the Blood. I’ve even got a great logo designed for it, but haven’t had time to scan it into Paint Shop Pro and touch it up. Once I do, you can be assured I’ll share it as I don’t put that kind of work into something that only I’ll ever see.

On the gaming front, I just picked up Crackdown a few days ago and have been having fun with that. I got a Wii for Christmas and sunk about 60 hours into the new Legend of Zelda game and loved every minute of it. In my opinion, anyone who has an Xbox 360 and a Wii simply doesn’t need a PS3. Blu-Ray may be ahead in the format war, but it’s still better to wait for the price of regular players to come down. I’m still waiting to see which format gets Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

A much longer update

This has been the first update in exactly seven months, but it has been quite a busy seven months. Unless this is your first visit, chances are you’ve already noticed the biggest change. The format of the site has changed, including new custom-made graphics. Some pages now no longer use frames, but they never really needed them, anyway. The Feedback section still sports the old color scheme, but changing that involves more work and time than I can give it. Since it works well enough on its own, I’m just going to leave it for the time being.

Another huge update lies in a whole new section based on my new work-in-progress, the novel “Fallen Sparrows”. Work has actually begun on it, and it is the main reason a major site overhaul was necessary. As of today, I have almost two chapters completed. The portion of the site for this novel hasn’t been built yet, but you should be seeing it fairly soon. The hardest work was converting the rest of the site, including checking all the links, and most of that is done now. Of course, work on the novel is top priority, but updates are a lot easier and more convenient to do than redesigning a web site.

The “To Every Thing a Purpose” portion of the website is down for the moment, but that is coming next. My apologies to anyone visiting the site wishing to download the novel to read. It will be back up very soon, I promise. It is people like you who keep me encouraged and excited about writing. Trust me, this newest story is going to be awesome.

I’m also going to be expanding each of the novel sections a little bit. Each will have a page talking about the various main and supporting characters. These pages won’t contain any spoiler information, but if anyone’s wondering who some of the real life people are that inspired certain characters, this is where you will find it. There is also going to be a “Deleted Scenes” page for each book. Usually a feature you see on DVDs, I do have a couple scenes from each novel so far that have been scrapped entirely. In the case of “Fallen Sparrows” they have been completely rewritten. These pages are where you will see what was originally written and be able to judge for yourself if I made the right choice in tossing them. They’re more curiosity pages than anything, but someone may be interested.

The most subtle update to the site is an icon with a link in support of the reelection of our President George W. Bush and our vice President Dick Cheney. This is not a political site, so I won’t debate why Bush is the right choice and Kerry isn’t. There are plenty of sites for that, and that is not the purpose for this one. This is a personal site, so I limit my politics here to simply stating that George W. Bush is the candidate I support.

Anyway, keep checking back for all the updates and news regarding my writing and efforts to publish it. God Bless!

Edit: The deleted pages wasn’t so great an idea in retrospect and was just too much in light of everything else I want and wanted to do. Fallen Sparrows is still a great story in my opinion. I haven’t finished because I haven’t been able to get the creative juices flowing at the same time that I’ve had time to write. That and ideas have been coming fast and heavy for the next story.

Also, now that this is a blog, I won’t mind posting political items from time to time and maybe even allowing comments for them (moderated, of course).