Where's my Coffee?

5/4 Update - It's good to have friends

2009-05-04T10:24:00.000-06:00

It's been a little while...

Lessee... Amazon contest, first. Drained out with a workman-like pitch, not exciting enough for the pool of folks who review such things. I don't think I'll enter this contest again next year, it's too much like "American Idol for Writers". For what it's worth, none of the writers I know who entered made it past the pitch/review stage.

Okay, now to the motorcycle racing. March races at Arroyo were cold, and I was even colder. I was as bad as I ever was the start of an Amateur season, at 1:17 pace, frustrated as all-get-out, not feeling the traction, and showing it in my laptimes. DFL in every race but one. Ugh, that was harsh.

April races were only slightly better. I ran off the track in one race, just screaming in my helmet, mad that I blew braking so badly - my glove pinched my throttle, and I tried to brake with the throttle open. This is a setup issue, normally fixed by relocating the perch (mount), if there isn't lever adjustment left. I chose to sulk over it instead of fixing it... another really crappy weekend.

So, it's good to have friends. C-Bass (Sebastian), my pit-mate for the season crashed last fall, also. Both of us had a really bad start to this season, and it was entirely due to lack of confidence. The track owner in New Mexico would rather have both of us competitive and happy than not, and so we were able to rent the track (C-Bass and I) for some laps with the owner last Monday. With a little 'push' from the track owner, I made some suspension geometry adjustments that helped a lot, too. Only a few laps into it, on a warm April day, and both C-Bass and I were suddenly in the 1:15's, and I got down into the 1:13's. Hallelujah, and pass the ammo, Brother.

May races were much better. Now I can be mad at myself for mental 'race management' issues - failing to block one turn in a race I led from the green flag resulted in getting passed on the last lap without enough track left to catch up again. That got me mad, but in a different way, encouraging me to flog the bike. This had a really cool effect: I really began to feel the tires again, and the suspension action, and began seriously putting power down to drive out of corners while still leaned over - all things you HAVE to do to go fast. I haven't seen the laptimes from that last race yet, but I think I may have equaled my personal best.

This makes me look forward to next month.

I'll probably do a trackday in Pahrump, Nevada (Spring Mountain Motorsports Park) in late May, to keep the feeling current.

Feb 2nd Entry - ABNA Madness

2009-02-02T09:46:00.002-07:00

Whew.

Seriously. Getting Specialist Sparks ready for the ABNA was a serious drag through broken glass, barbed wire, and antipersonnel mines. Okay, it was just painful.

I started three weeks ago with a MS that was 91,000 words, but only two acts of the story. I brought in some material I had from the sequel - completely unedited - for the third act (my friend Terry Mixon suggested a while back I use the traditional screenwriting three-act format. I've used the three-times rule in a lot of the subplots, but now applied it directly as the macro-plot). I added 23,000 words doing that.

Then, I added 4,000 more, for the 'pinch scenes', where I remind you, the reader, that there's a threat brewing over the horizon (in this case, in the Southern Hemisphere...) and that rust never sleeps... I won't ruin the story for you. This left me at 114,900 words.

The genre - Action/Adventure - wants less than 100,000 words, as close to 90,000 as a first-time novelist (I have no prior sales to point to to justify a longer book). This caused me to have to edit...

I lost about 2,000 words right off the bat in kicking out unneeded or too-heavy-handed-repetition-of-a-theme scenes. Yeah, we know Sandy's a great soldier, one scene's enough, not three... that sort of thing.

I then got painful, and got rid of some cherished scenes developing a relationship between Kate and Sandy, and trimmed even more from two really key monologues. That was painful, because they were strong, but the story still stands with weaker monologues.

Feeling bad, I then shifted the attack to wordcount, and started trimming descriptive clauses. Stuff that really wasn't needed - characters looking at scenery, wondering about inconsequential stuff. Figure I lost about 9 words a page that way.

Next, a purely mechanical attack on passive voice and contractions. I also broke up complex, multi-clause (run on?) sentences, making them no more than three, mostly two, clauses long. This lowered the Fleisch readability score a bit, too. I finished with 1% passive-voice: there are some phrases you cannot, especially in dialogue, make active. These include "the formation was dismissed", if you don't want to spend words on who led the formation (think a class graduation - the leader isn't part of the story), and "Sandy was shot". Oh well.

This got me down to 99,400 words.

More painful elides and minor scene/sentence edits.

98,700.

Then I got to write a bio, pitch, synopsis, anectdote, and other impedimentia for the contest.

The pitch was tough. This would cut the contest entries by a factor of 20 - from 10,000 possible entries to 500. I did my best to answer the points they asked for - and spent less on the synopsis than I might have. I also used the pronoun "I" in the pitch, something most other people avoided - but they wanted to know my motivation and qualifications for writing a novel, and who I aimed it at.

After the submission period's over, I'll post up the pitch here.

Anyway, after the game yesterday (there was a game? The Superbowl...), I hovered over my keyboard, and at 10:00 AZ time, got my entry into the 2009 ABNA contest in.

Whew.

A drag through rocky riverbeds, thornbushes, and pine forests. But I'm done... now I just get to wait until 16 March when I find out if the pitch was good enough.

More later...

Where did December go?

2009-01-06T17:11:00.004-07:00

December, the holidays, flew by. November ended, with me not having a lot of words written on my NaNoWriMo project (Ilse). I shelved it for December, since work got busy.

Along with work, I had a lot of social engagements in the month (it's the holidays...), and I had a bike to repair for the races in Fontana, which were very early in January this year. My gym closed with only one week's notice, and I had to find a new one. I'm not sure I like the new place that much - it's about seven miles from my house, six miles further than the old one. My oldest daughter had dance performances all month long, which kept us running from place to place most evenings.

I haven't even had enough time to update my website!

What's new? Well, it's a new racing season. Please see my schedule page if you're curious about my plans. Also, Amazon has a new ABNA contest, and I'm rearranging SP4 Sparks to enter into the contest - I have only a few days' free time this month to get that done in.

Should I fail to get my entry into the ABNA in time, I'll post the story online.

What else? Races at Fontana! It was a hectic, and tragic weekend. See the Results page for the laborious details.

The Kids go back to school next week - can't quite come soon enough (sorry, Kids) for Mom and Dad. It's a good thing they like school - all three are A students - and a return to normalcy will be much appreciated.

Wow, it's November, and...

2008-11-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

It's National Novel Write Month (NaNoWriMo).

It's been a really tough month for me at work, and I really worry about the viability of my employer. Others in the industry aren't doing real well. This is distracting me quite a bit, and I'm afraid I'm not going to get 50,000 words of the proto-novel Ilse done in November. I do have 13,000 and a few thousand of another novel underway, though. I'll work on it when I can.

SP4 Sparks will be my entry into the new Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, coming up on Feb 2nd. I'll have made it into a three-act plotline, and I'll have to cut a bunch of words in order to fit some words from the sequel in. It won't be super-hard to do - I have enough time. I think this (the new ABNA) was what I was holding out for (subconsciously) with this story. Wish me luck!

It's November, and at least one of the organizations I race with has promoted me to Expert (I expect a letter in the mail from the other sometime this week). This is really cool, since all my writing needs is another distraction ;). Seriously, I need to have the bike repaired and painted by Jan 3rd, my first race as an Expert, at Fontana, California (AutoClub Speedway).

All the parts are ordered for the bike, I need to get some mechanical repair done (a broken frame slider bolt extracted, and a broken swingarm spool lug ground off and a new one TiG welded on).

Then I need to get busy with fiberglass, filler, and, ultimately, new paint.

And I get to order a new helmet and leathers - the leathers not due to crash damage, but to me losing over 80 lbs since January last. This is the scary thing for me - I have the cash, but I'd rather KEEP the cash in this environment. See what I said above about employment...

Buy a novel, ye Agents who lurk. Sparks is a good one.

Well, I was riding my motorcycle... until I wasn't

2008-10-17T19:26:00.001-06:00

What an expensive weekend.

First, let me apologize for not posting in a month... I did fairly well in my September races, and my weightloss has been proceeding apace into October.

First lap in practice last weekend for racing, I highsided at 15 MPH. A highside is a low-speed crash where the wheels of the bike become out of line, then the slide of the rear wheel is arrested - usually by regaining traction - and the torque vectors produced by the wheels try to precess (turn around each other). Violently. This typically throws the rider some distance forward, while the bike flips over.

My apex was about 12 feet.

I now have a 'permanent injury', a type-III separation of my left shoulder, which translates to a bump on my shoulder where the collarbone ends, and practically not much else. A whole lot of pain this week and next while the blood from the internal bleeding goes somewhere (goes necrotic inside tissue and then is ultimately cannibalized, but you probably didn't want to think about that...).

I have about $700 in damage to the bike, more if I want to repaint it. Plus a $600 helmet to replace.

It's a season-ender for sure. My next races are likely to be in 2009 as an Expert, with WERA, at Fontana, the 25th of January. We'll see what the blown shoulder feels like then - it'll likely be my first time back on the racebike (it's not street-legal...). If I can't ride or stand to brake from 165 MPH on that track, it'll be a REALLY expensive way to find out; maybe I'll try a trackday in Phoenix in early Jan.

The economy sucks, you don't need me to tell you. I promised my wife a new washer/dryer, and I have no pile of cash to do both - appliances and bike. She wins on this one, so I may not make Fontana. Such is life.

The way out, of course, is to supplement my income. I've been trying to do that (you may recall :)) by selling novels.

Hell's Own has been roundly ignored by the latest agency - you try to be a nice guy and wait out the 16 weeks they ask for before hounding them - and before you know it, four months have gone. I may try to put it on Amazon's Kindle list, or something else, I don't have a firm plan for it now.

I signed up for National Novel Write Month (NaNoWriMo), and will try to complete 100,000 words of Ilse in the 30 days. This is the story of a Wendish/Saxon girl and her brother, on the eve of the Northern Crusades. Ilse commits suicide with a family heirloom (a black dagger), and immediately comes to regret it. With her brother's best friend, Ilse and her brother agree to return the heirloom to it's rightful place - in it's original world. Opening a tale of vast panorama, the novel shows how the fugitives from a harsh culture find a place in the sweep of history rushing toward war and revolt against the established order of an old, old world.

Sounds like fun to write. It'll be in my usual style, with elements of sex, tragedy, comedy, humanity, betrayal, trust, redemption, death, life, and all kinds of good stuff to keep pages turning.

Darned thing better sell.

That's it for now,

dave the one-shouldered (I jest)

One month later...

2008-09-01T18:01:00.002-06:00

August was something of a quiet month. I had the races at Fontana (just saying the name brings a smile to my face...), and some dirt riding.

Ach, dirt riding. I have this big YZ426 motocrosser I tried to convert into a motard, but the darn thing is a bike-shaped money pit. It's not ready to race this weekend...

Whihc brings me to this weekend. Back to racing at ASMA after the summer break, and the Unlimited Superbike (ULSB) Amateur Class Championship is mine to win - Jim Wolkens and I are tied at 130 points apeice. Whichever of us finishes ahead of the other two out of the next three races will be the class champion - to me this is about as exciting as it gets.

Doing what I can to improve my chances, I've been in the gym doing cardio a lot this month, over 45 minutes a day, with light weight training, a lot of core-muscle stuff. I lost a whopping four pounds in August, which isn't getting me to my overall goal - but - I converted 9 lbs to muscle, improved my oxygen-transport (cardio) score, and lowered my body-fat percentage another two and a half percent. I'm running on a pretty high level of resistance on the elliptical for 45 min, and have a LOT of energy. This really looks good for me racing - I should have a lot of reserve and able to push hard (harder than my fellow racers, I hope) in the last few laps. It'll still be over 100 degrees in southern New Mexico (and it'll still be at 4100 feet) this weekend.

Back to the literary front - the last agency I sent Hell's Own to revised their response time to 12-15 weeks. Mid Sept will be 12 weeks, when I expect further rejection :)

SP4 Sparks will have to be my Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest entry this year, and if so, I need to get on my horse and alter the story some, bring it more in line with the Action-Adventure genre. Yeah, I slacked all summer, kinda starting a bunch of projects (novels) but not really doing much on them. So - get busy, Dave...

I'll post next weekend after the races.

dave

2008-08-04T20:53:00.003-06:00

Well, it's been a little while. July was a slow month...

Not really. It only seemed that way.

First, on the literary front: I've sent Hell's Own Ride to another agency (one declined as too busy). I expect a rejection in two more weeks :)

I've started another novel, called Ilse, about a Wendish girl and her brother, whose father and uncle are trying to get them to blend into Saxon Germany on the eve of the Northern Crusades... but historical fiction it's not. Ilse makes a bad decision and kills herself with a family heirloom - that won't let her die. It's the beginning of a fantasy epic novel, about 190,000 words. You know how bad I am at early estimates of size, so... we'll see.

Okay, on the personal front, I'm down about 55 lbs on this weight-loss adventure. That's translated into some direct performance on the race track.

July races at Vegas were hot, hot, hot. My boss from Chicago and his nephew were visiting Vegas, and they came out to watch and offer moral support... very cool. I took fourth, ninth, and first in A-Superbike, A-Superstock, and HW Senior Superbike.

The bike had started making a rhythmic chunking sound - usually a sign of chain stretch. But what caused the chain to stretch? I changed the bearings in both wheels and the chain and sprockets - noise fixed. The bearings weren't terribly worn-feeling to my hand (but we're talking about 160 HP to a 10mm-wide by 20-mm outer bearing), but I tossed them. The bike feels way more stiff - and paradoxically feels like it's sliding more (because it is stiffer). That's a neat feeling, and yeah, I guess riding in the dirt helps me feel more comfortable when it happens on the racetrack.

So, the bike's nice and tight again, and I go off to Fontana - 50 lbs lighter than when I sucked wind there back in January and decided I HAD to lose weight. Wow, what a difference...

I couldn't afford practice time there this weekend. As it was, it was a $670 weekend between diesel & gas, room, and entries. If I'd practiced one day, it would have cost me another $270 for trackday fee, plus $410 for tires... two days, and I'd have been around $1500 total. Not really in my budget right now, because of the 426 motocrosser/motard project I committed to in June.

So... no practice. Sunday morning, there was water on the track from a leaky sprinkler, and we didn't have the first practice session. Only one practice session (made slightly longer, thanks WERA), and I was running 1:43 laptimes - two seconds faster than in January.

Ugh. Not much hope... the track felt strange, slick to me, no grip. My pitmate Tiras threw a digital pressure gauge on my tires, and suggested I add a pound to each. Thanks, Ti, that was the ticket...

First race, A-Superbike. I suddenly had the sensation of speed drop away from me, and I got a good launch - up into the first grid (it was a 'gap start, meaning there was a gap in the grid between the two classes on the track), and from there, it was an exercise in getting used to sliding leaving corners on my old tires. Something clicked for me, and I began to drag knee around the track - a good sign that my head is extended and shoulders out. Once again, the bike became alive under me, and the sliding predictable... by the third lap, I think I have figured out I'm braking too early for the turn 12 - and get passed on the brakes as I started to move my braking marker up (brake later). Yep, I was braking too early.

I couldn't recover the grid spot - made a run for it in two laps, and some debris (cones) on the track let me close right up under a waving yellow (no passing allowed if it's waving), but just couldn't steal the spot back.

Back in the pits, I see I ran a 1:39 in this race, then see I had four very consistent 1:39's. I'm a bit happier.

One race to rest before my next start, then I'm out again. This was A-Superstock, and I'm pumped up, excited by the improvement in laptimes last race. The flag goes up, and I'm WAY deep in the front by the turn-3 chicane. Third gear through the chicane, and I'm into fifth by the turn 5/6 carusel, and I slot in nose-to-tail, dragging knee hard, gassing hard in third, sliding the bike on the exit. By turn 12, I'm braking WAY deep, and THIS TIME I have the turn one chicane on the banking Figured Out.

Turn One. You're doing 160 MPH, looking at it... the secret is downshift early, point the bike to the bottom artificial curb, and bury the throttle while you dive down the banking, then muscle the bike through the chicane. I had the rear spinning all the way to turn three... wow. No sensation of speed, just accomplishment, and I finish this race in third, ahead of a few Experts (they're not in my race but in their own). Very consistent 1:38's - low 1:38's.

Immediately, I grid back up for my last race - HW SSB (over 40, over 749cc). When the flag goes up, I ran away with the race, and nearly caught the back of the Expert pack (this was a two-wave start, we started about 30 seconds behind the first wave) by the end of the race. I'm 14 seconds ahead of the next guy to cross the finish line. Consistent high 1:37's, and not at all bad - I'd like to be in the 1:36's, but that would have taken more practice and fresh tires.

But what it really means is, I am the points leader, with an insurmountable lead, for HW Sr Superbike, and an honest-to-goodness class champion. I will be promoted to Expert next season.

Back at Arroyo (ASMA), I am a threat in every class I'm in - but I lead the Unlimited Superbike class by one point. It's between me and Jim Wolkens - as long as we both finish fourth or better, whichever of us finishes in front of the other two of the next three weekends in that race wins the championship.

I WANT that championship - it'll have been one I really earned against very equal competition - three other racers as fast/faster as I am, and one pretty darned close.

I'll try to update again in two weeks.

An update...

2008-06-20T19:11:00.002-06:00

Well, it's official. I'll update my website to show that Hell's Own's status has changed, and not to 'sold'. I got a rejection, after 14 weeks of partial-hopes. You'll recall I went to a writer's conference and chatted up a publisher, and he suggested I send it.

So, I'm free to query/shop the story around, and I'll do that.

On the motorcycle racing front, last weekend was a good weekend - not utterly fantastic, but pretty good. Fourth, second, third, and third place finishes. Adam Rogers is still a second faster than I am, but I was half a second faster on this configuration of the track this month than I was in April. The last three races were kind of boring - the order we went into turn three on the first lap is the order all three races ended in.

The first race was kind of cool - I watched Adam Rogers run off the track in front of me, and then chased down a couple of Expert-class riders in front of me and Jim Wolkens. Last turn, last lap, I've got Jim set up dead to rights, and I push the front (it slid a little off the line I intended for it). This is an incipient crash - right on the hairy edge - and I saved it with my toe and knee sliders (I love my new boots). But when I picked up the bike (straightened out of the turn) I lost my drive, and lost the chance at second place - and then Adam, who'd caught back up, snuck his front wheel past mine, and claimed third place. That's racing...

A big part of the reason why I'm improving my laptimes each month is the weight I've been losing. Today, I'm halfway to my goal (which I'll express as 'Size 34 waist by Christmas'). Yeah, it's impressive - I've lost 43.4 lbs since my first race this season at Fontana, where I could not breathe well enough to race for more than three laps. That was pretty alarming, and so I undertook some drastic measures.

Losing the weight is keeping me from writing a lot (there's no alcohol involved, which, it's true, helps one be a writer. I can give countless examples...). I'll start working on a new novel this weekend, a Fantasy about a girl who commits suicide, then comes to regret it ;)

dave

2008-05-31T21:52:00.003-06:00

Another busy few weeks.

On the literary front: no news on Hell's Own Ride. I checked to be sure the publisher was still posting on the web - yes - so I'll let the clock tick for two more weeks before pinging again. On the positive side, this means still no rejection. On the negative, I worry my submission wasn't ever received.

I started another novel, another fantasy. This one's got ghosts, and some cool stuff... the fire to write it hasn't really caught yet, but it's percolating. I imagine I'll really get hot on it during the summer racing break.

Today I took my youngest riding in the dirt again. Since I'd last posted, I'd de-restricted my (pit/dirt) bike's intake and exhaust, and rejetted, giving it a whopping 12 or so HP - but they're really useful ponies... Rachel's still too small for a bigger dirtbike (a KLX-110's the lowest seat height, so we looked at one and it's too tall for her still) with bigger wheels, which is too bad - she turfed about 20 MPH today (tough kid) when the 10" front wheel on her JR50 got caught in a rut.

Dad (me) had a blast, though, using the unleashed horses. I had the bike a few feet in the air, and was sliding around everywhere - I even found some mud to roost in a few times. Good stuff.

I hadn't been blogging much about it: losing weight during the race season is something I've been working on (and succeeding pretty well, thanks, over 35 lbs so far). Along the way, I decided I'd start riding my old bicycle again anywhere I needed to go that was less than six miles away (Wal-Mart, Albertson's, the gym, Walgreen's, etc.). To that end, since the riding position was so extreme (road bike, nearly a racer), I stopped by a bike (bicycle) shop and they hooked me up with a decent stem and some advice on raising the bar for a more relaxed riding position. Props to Paragon Cycling of Mesa, AZ, readers in the area, please consider them if you need repair or parts.

Back on the roadracing side of things - I had planned to go to Miller Motorsports Park (Tooele, UT) next week, but events conspired against me. Scuba Dave and I decided it wasn't worth the cost to us to go with just the two of us, and so the June 6/7/8/9 WERA West weekend we're scratching. We'll probably pick Fontana (Aug 3rd) up to replace it.

Thus, the next race weekend for me is June 14/15, at ASMA.

Talk to you all later,

dave

2008-05-12T20:57:00.002-06:00

Wow, it's been a busy two weeks. Just catching up, now.

ASMA races weekend before last, I did well, but not as well as three other racers who've stepped it up. I ended up with two third-place finishes, a fourth, and a fifth.

I raced at Buttonwillow in California last weekend. Wow, what stiff competition - first and foremost, I had to overcome myself.

When I last raced there in 2006, I was really slow, about 2:09.50 laps for my best. I thought for sure I'd be under 2:00...

I quickly got down to 2:03 in practice. And stayed there. I honestly don't know where I was losing time, only that I did, in fact, have slower laptimes than other people.

It's frustrating. I watch video of other, faster racers, and I believe I'm faster in most corners than they are, which leaves braking and top speed in the Riverside and "Sweeper" corners as the likely suspects. I think I need to get to WFO in the Riverside corner sooner, and enter the Sweeper faster.

But it's not a track I'll see again until next year. And, frankly, I didn't get faster every time on the track, and that bothers me, a lot.

Okay, the next races are in Miller Motorsports Park, Tooele, Utah. That's another fast, big, high-horsepower-needed track.

No news on the literary front, between work and racing I have no time to write. I'll fix that soon :). No report from the publisher on my submission "Hell's Own". I'll ping the publisher again in three more weeks.

dave

Racing next weekend, other thoughts...

2008-04-29T21:12:00.002-06:00

I really hope my prospective publisher is swamped - that means he's doing well.

I took my youngest back out into the dirt to play on her bike twice this weekend, and she's doing great. I can see we'll be getting a bigger bike by the summer's end for her, which makes me actually kind of happy.

I'm racing again this weekend, in New Mexico. I haven't looked forward to something as much as I am this weekend since Ski Season back when I was in my teens...

That's it for now.

dave

The Next Generation (of riders, that is...)

2008-04-21T20:49:00.002-06:00

My youngest daughter and I went out to the State Trust Land a few miles from our house this weekend.

She had her little JR50 and I was on my small TTR-125. The girl has no fear.

Once she started going, she picked the trails, and just kept on trucking. I was in second gear following her, and she just picked her way around the smaller rocks, and dove right into the whoops, washes, and gullies... she showed a deft hand on the throttle, too, testing it and seeing it could indeed get her out of trouble.

She can't wait to go ride again.

I have to say, the reactions of other riders on the trails, seeing her tiny bike and the small girl (she's seven), were priceless.

I'll ping the publisher who solicited Hell's Own next week, it'll be seven weeks.

Stay tuned,

dave

Race Results, 4/13

2008-04-14T18:06:00.001-06:00

Well, it’s funny. I no longer really have a sensation of speed on a motorcycle. I didn’t crash or suffer a head or ear injury or anything like that. I’m just really used to it, I think, and am looking for, straining to feel secondary things – how much is the front fork loaded, how much grip is the back tire offering me, where’s my foot on the peg?

It’s as if I have enough time now to sense all these things, and the confidence to make the minor corrections, unrushed, unhurried, while a part of me works on the bigger problem, how to get the bike around the guy in front of me. The main part of my attention’s on the small stuff, and there’s all the time in the world to make decisions about managing the race.

How did I suddenly get here?

I worked on my forks between March and April, replacing the oil. The manual said about 470ml a leg… I got 480 from both, together. Increased oil height in the fork tube acts like a rising-rate spring, as the tube compresses under braking, it squishes the air remaining in the leg. As it gets close to bottoming, the air acts like a spring, becoming quickly stiffer to resist the bottoming, but not really being a factor before that point. With my too-low level, I would expect the forks to bottom quickly under heavy braking. This is exactly what I experienced!

With the forks compressed under hard braking, every bump and ripple on the track surface is transmitted to the frame, without a cushion to absorb it. This translates into the rear wheel hopping and skipping, side-to-side. Not exactly the way you want the bike to be before tipping into a corner!

Since the bike wouldn’t be composed under braking, I had to brake earlier and lighter to compensate, and that led to being passed, or not closing close enough to pass in tight technical sections of whatever track I was on. Very frustrating… and my laptimes seemed mired in a plateau.

So, I did something about it, and replaced the fork fluid. I also set the oil height correctly, and replaced one of my fork springs, raising the spring rate slightly to help combat the bottoming issue.

What else happened? I’ve lost a few pounds, on a diet. I’m on a crusade to be size 34 waist by Christmas. To do this, I’ve had to commit to a 1400-cal-a-day diet (basal rate is about 3900 cal). That deficit should equate to about .22 lb/day weight loss.

It means I can’t drink alcohol and meet the goal. So, no drinking on Saturday night after race practice, which in turn, means a really restful night’s sleep. Who’da thunk it?

Saturday, in practice, the bike felt great. Composed, solid, planted, all good steady words. Predictable, and confidence-inspiring would be good words, too.

But I wasn’t using all the fork travel. I was turning the same times I’d ever turned in races, but in practice – which is usually good for being a second slower than your race laps. I had a lot of confidence in the coming races… still, I wasn’t using all the fork travel. I took a mm of preload out, and the bike felt even better a little lower on its nose.

Too much oil height? Naw… if the bike is behaving, try braking later. And harder.

Wow. The concept had me giddy, but it was time to change out the tires for new rubber, and there was no time on Saturday to experiment further.

Sunday dawned, finally. I woke up, really excited to get to the track, but it was a strange excitement – I was eager, but in no hurry. I mean it. Scuba Dave even mentioned something about it later, on the ride home: we had all the time in the world Sunday morning, and we were completely unstressed after breakfast. We arrived at the track in great time and in great style.

The first practice session arrived, and I took a click of compression damping from the front end. That’s the total adjustment I’ve made now – one turn of preload out, and one click (one quarter turn) of compression out. I ran quickly – but there was no beacon out, so I have no idea what laptimes I ran. But it felt great, even in the morning coolness.

My first race was ULSS (Unlimited displacement super-stock). The flag goes up, and I’m fifth into the hole (turn one). A good launch, but I can make it better… and I quickly motor around 4^th place in the carusel turn, and get behind third place.

The four of us in the lead quickly pulled away from the rest of the field. I’m giddy because I’m in the lead pack and no one is getting away… I tried like heck to pass Ken Skripkar, but he’s not having any… he gets by Jim Wolkens, and I’m on the exact same machinery as Wolkens, and can’t quite find a way around him. For that race, I’m in fourth. I wasn’t quite frustrated yet…

After the race, I see I’ve run 1:15.4, and I’m not thrilled. I really thought I’d do better as good as the bike was feeling. In Timing and Scoring, Jim and Adam Rogers see me there – Adam won the race, with a 1:13.9 fastest lap somewhere during the race, and Adam tells me not to worry, I’ll hit 13’s soon.

Prophetic words.

The second race is Formula-40 (old-geezers, only requirement is you’re over 40 at time of entry). Last month, this race had a bad crash that took Tom Savoca’s leg and laid it open like a sharkbite. (Tom’s fine, but mad he’s missing races while he heals.) Yecch… This time, I get a clean launch, and I’m fourth into turn one, behind Tom McFarland and Jeff Smith, and Greg Talbot. Talbot, last month, was showing off and passed me sideways, the back wheel locked up, on my old bike (my old 636). This month, I just let go the brake handle and passed him into turn 3 off the back straight, and never saw him again in the race.

McFarland had some difficulty with the kink (turn 1) in the third lap and runs off, and then tries to reenter the course as I’m coming around the carusel at 97 MPH. Tom missed me, but barely, and the race is redflagged as they clean up the mess (gravel) that ensued when Greg and Ken Skripgar bail off the racetrack to avoid McFarland.

On the restart, I’m second behind Jeff Smith, and I am working to keep him in sight – but the race ends with him about ½ the racetrack ahead of me.

As I pull my helmet off, Troy Gammill tells me I’ve run 13.9’s in that race and finished second.

It hasn’t sunk in yet, after lunchtime. I’m full of energy (Monster energy drink…) and ready to go. The next race is Formula Arroyo, ULGP (Grand Prix, a purse-paying class).

The flag goes up, and I get a good launch. I’m chasing Jim Wolkens again, and Adam Rogers outbrakes me into T3, but flubs the corner. I get by Wolkens a moment or two later, leaving the carusel, and a redflag is thrown for a crash (Rob Richie) in the busstop.

On the restart, I grab another good launch, and am again following Wolkens when the race is stopped again, for another crash in the bus stop.

Once more, we restart, and the same thing – me, Adam, Jim, and the race is stopped for a crash in the horseshoe turn. On the restart, Jim had forgotten he turned the bike off in second gear – and I stole the holeshot – the race goes to the ready. Adam is a few seconds behind me, and I’m feeling really good, but a little out of synch in the esses. For some reason I target fixate on the edge of the track leaving the 111 turn, and let Adam by as I’m trying to get back on… giving Adam the lead and first place, plus $30 difference in tire money and $50 in the payout for the class.

I’m such an idiot.

I got back on the track, and lay down some scorching 13.2’s to get back in sight of Adam, but no dice. Finished second.

Last race. ULSB. I get a great launch, but Jim Wolkens’ is better. I show him a wheel into turn 3, and then follow him for another lap. Jim’s been braking early for the kink (turn 1) and I get up inside him and show him a wheel there. I keep the pressure on him, drafting him on the straight, and getting inside him on T3 again, and again on the busstop. I let him open up a little in the Yucca turn so I can then set up to drive into the horseshoe, and show him a wheel AGAIN in that corner. I back off for the kink this time, planning to drive by him on the outlet of the carusel, but Jim runs off the track in the kink, and JUST LIKE MCFARLAND, throws his bike at me trying to get back on the track.

Jim’s aim is better. This was way closer. I made it through the gravel and dust, ducking Jim’s helmet, and, no surprise, meet a red flag at the 111 turn.

On the restart I launch well, and lead the rest of the race for my first Arroyo Seco victory. It was really nice that my friends in the corner stations knew I was winning my first race here and clapped for me as I went by. The starter congratulated me personally, and honestly, it was a really nice moment.

I gotta say, I’ve seldom ever felt so in control, so at ease on a motorcycle as I did last weekend. Seldom have I felt that good off a motorcycle, either.

At the awards ceremony, I was a bit choked up, but it felt good, too. I told everyone I was going to keep eating salad until Christmastime if losing weight helped that much in a race.

ABNA Contest declares a winner

2008-04-07T08:34:00.001-06:00

Fresh Kills by Bill Loehfelm is the winner of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Congratulations, Bill.

I'll enter this contest again next time. I think I learned a bit from it, and especially from the messageboard/forum Amazon had associated with the contest.

One of these days, I'll get back to writing... Editing is hard, part IV

2008-04-04T11:36:00.003-06:00

Well, let's see...

Editing the daylights out of Sparks, turning it into an Action/Adventure novel is an adventure. It's at 92,600 words, which is the upper limit of the genre for now.

I'd like to trim some middle sections, and get 20,000 words from another story into this one, but I don't really see it happening. Therefore, I'll have to get a professional judgment on the story (and that costs $).

On the motorcycle front - well, I cross-threaded the cap on my TTR's fork, so I'm waiting for parts. I'll set up an orange-cone obstacle course for my youngest to navigate on her JR50 in the high-school parking lot, which ought to be photo-op gold.

Racing next weekend (12/13 April) in New Mexico. It's been four weeks already since I was on the racebike, so I'm really looking forward to this one.

Still no peep from the publisher on Hell's Own. That's a good thing, I think... no rejection yet.

The ABNA contest officially ends Monday. I can't wait for the next one... I've got some stuff ready to go.

Maybe in two weeks, I'll get back to writing the Fantasy novel I was working on over Christmas break. Then, I have another one I've been germinating... that one, I think, will be fun (as opposed to work, like editing is work...).

TTFN,

dave

Distractions...

2008-03-28T21:38:00.002-06:00

My youngest daughter (sorry, no pictures) is nearly seven. She's riding a JR50 (a tiny Suzuki motorcycle), and wants to go ride in the dirt before the carpool boys get bikes... competitive much?

So, Dad, being a good Dad, goes and gets stiffer springs for his (slightly-larger) Yamaha pitbike (it's a TTR125, for those who know about such things), so he can go putt in the dirt and generally supervise while she crashes a lot. Or something...

Meant a lot of wrenching today, and since the forks on Dad's bike are tiny, Dad had no clue how much oil to put in... meaning I may have a 'field adjustment' in my future (drain some while at the parking area of the trailhead).

Sandy (Sparks) is getting through the first pass. This pass, you'll recall, was mostly plot tweak - I'm fixing it to 'better fit the Action/Adventure genre'. A few other things I didn't really like, but was too wrapped up in the story before to want to tweak got tweaked, and I'll make a couple of desultory spot-edits in phrases or whatnot.

Next week I'll begin the deathmarch-edit, like I did on Hell's Own. That'll be the "each sentence in a microscope". Thank Heaven this story's shorter...

Then comes the 'print it and read it like a book' pass. And, this time, I'll probably ask a professional to judge the first few dozen pages.

I would really like this book to sell, since it's sequel is such a great story. If I can't sell Sparks, I'll have to redo the beginning to Lenore (the sequel)... and that'll be harsh.

Anyway, have a great weekend, and I'll try not to break any bones keeping up with my youngest girl on the trail...

dave

Rebuilding Forks Can Be Messy

2008-03-23T08:21:00.002-06:00

So I got the bright idea of pulling the cartridges from my forks (my racebike's front end suspension) and changing the oil.

Suffice it to say it's a messy job... I think I've cleaned up the spills and 'incidental contact'.

Back on the literary front, I've submitted Hell's Own, but haven't heard a peep yet (natch). Also, I'm reworking - I've lost count of what iteration this is - Sparks. Busy busy busy!

That's it for now. Maybe more later...

dave

Editing was hard

2008-03-18T16:52:00.003-06:00

By the title, I hope you, dear reader, will conclude I sent the novel I'd been working so assiduously upon to the publisher.

I'll be working on Sparks now.

Meanwhile, in my other life, Julie Ann Shapiro's been asking me if I'll play a bigger role on ABNA Books. I also have my racebike's forks disassembled while I rebuild them, and will take advantage of the slower pace now that Hell's Own's shipped out to finish the rebuild.

And it's Spring Break. No rest for the virtuous.

dave

Editing is hard, Part III

2008-03-15T07:51:00.002-06:00

So, if you write a novel, and someone suggests that, after you think you're done, before you send it to the publisher, you print it out and read it...

Listen to them, okay?

What works on the computer screen looks way different on the printed page, especially if you print the page like it'll look in a book. You find you can suddenly live with shorter sentences, and chop off lots of dialogue tags ("Go to Heck," he cursed. The tag is the 'he cursed' part)

I'm profoundly sick of this novel. The words don't seem like my own any longer... I want to send it to the editor and practice my awards acceptance speech (into my pillow, of course. My 11-year-old daughter assures me it's safe) instead.

But I'll finish the slog. This weekend is it for this novel, I'm shipping it Monday morning.

If I survive.

Race Results March 8-9, ASMA, Arroyo Seco Raceway

2008-03-11T19:56:00.001-06:00

Unusual for me, my first race of the day was my best, and even more unusual, the first race of the ASMA season, after not having been on the track for a long time (November 11 last year), was a good and fast one. Even though it's not my favorite direction, anti-clockwise was good to me this time.

I ran 1:15's in the first race, Unlimited Superstock (ULSS), which made me pretty happy. I don't remember Ken S getting by me, but he did, and so I took fourth (thought I'd passed Jim W for third). That was a great pass... I'm smiling as I type this. On the brakes, tucked under the inside of the Yucca corner, I let go of the brake sooner than he did, and on the gas faster, and bye-bye Jim.

Second race was star-crossed. Formula 40 (unlimited displacement, unlimited mods, racers aged 40 and older) should be a pretty sedate race, really, clean, lots of experience and wisdom triumphing over aggression. I was 3rd in the grid, slot 1C, and held the position in the launch. Tom Savoca passed me as we got close to Turn 1, and I was just slotting in behind him and Jeff Smith when I felt my back tire give a lurch. Immediately, I knew what had happened (a racer hit my tire with his front tire), and looked to my outside for an escape, but saw another racer's head and upper torso sliding past me there. Look inside (to the left), and watched the crashed racer's bike, spinning on it's side, careen five feet past me and take out Savoca like a bowling ball. With nowhere to go, I rode straight off the track, into the desert, safely. I turned around, and immediately signaled for the redflag, as I could see inside Tom's thigh... Tom's one hell of a tough dude, but I could see he'd need a bunch of medical attention. The race was restarted after they flew him to El Paso (he'll be fine, it was mostly soft-tissue/fatty damage, not muscle). In the now-shortened (7 laps was too many to fit all the other races remaining into the remaining daylight, so we did 5) race, I got passed on the last lap by Greg T, who wanted to show off, since he was riding my old ZX-6R. I think he clenched a little seat-leather with his sphincter on that pass, as he entered the corner sideways... Finished 4th.

Third race was F-Am (Unlimited Gran Prix/ULGP). This is usually a long race, but today was 8 laps, I think... we didn't make all of them. The weather had changed to be a lot colder, and rain was falling around us, rendering track and tires cold. My bike didn't like the cold... it would miss randomly between 10,000 and 10,700 RPM, and I kept moving backwards on the straights (giving up ground). We think it's the kickstand safety interlock, and I'll be yanking the part out of my bike tonight. Nonetheless, I got passed by three riders driving out of one corner, and mercifully for me (but not for the rider involved), Stacy S (a guy) broke his collarbone, ending the race. I only finished four laps in this race, and got, maybe, 5 points in the class.

Don't get the idea that there's tons of crashes in a raceday. This was really unusual.

My last race was Unlimited Superbike (ULSB), and I gave it heck. Okay, maybe I gave it a mild curse. It was cold, I was tired, and I ran 1:16's, a good pace, but only good enough (with the bike misfiring) for fifth place.

Not a stellar weekend, but not a bad start.

Friday, before a race weekend...

2008-03-07T18:06:00.002-07:00

I'll be racing Sunday in New Mexico (ASMA).

The start of a new season is always an adventure, and I have great hopes for this season. Lost a few pounds, plan to lose more, plan to win a couple of championships.

I'll let the world know on Monday how I did!

dave

Editing is hard, part II

2008-03-03T21:54:00.003-07:00

Wow. I have to tell you, after two weeks of intensive editing on Hell's Own, it's a lot more readable, and, I hope, publishable.

But my brain feels like white-noise mush.

Every sentence, every clause: does this add to the story? Do I need this? Can I snip it and not destroy the feel? Can I say this simpler?

Big chunks of the story were eliminated. The ending is better. Two more days, another couple of read-throughs, and I'll ship it to a few friends for sanity-checking (typos, partial sentences caused by cuts, etc).

---

Today they announced the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award top-ten. Good luck to those writers! I'll reenter the contest next time around, with an action/adventure novel I suppose, not a literary work, but one that should win some more attention.

That's all for tonight,

dave

Holy Smokes, Webpage-building can be hard!

2008-02-29T22:16:00.002-07:00

Or, "how I learned the hard way".

Dreamweaver isn't cooperating. Div tags and cascading styles just won't do what I want. I've fallen back on tables... sort of.

The current webpage is sort of a default accident. I think it looks cool, so I'm living with it for now...

More later,

dave

A little perspective goes a long way...

2008-02-25T12:11:00.003-07:00

Hell's Own was a story I was moderately proud of when I finished writing it. I'd written it in 6,000-word chapters, chunks, really, and I'd read and made edits to each for a day or so after writing.

Well, I entered it in the ABNA contest. I made the first cut, whoo-hoo. I should have made the second cut, down to 100, it's a great story. At first I thought it was a bias against SF/Fantasy in the contest that kept me out... but no.

I attended the writer's conference I went to last weekend, and heard things, and saw things that made me wonder...

So I used a macro or two to highlight words in the manuscript. Words such as 'was', 'by', etc. that indicate passive voice, or helper-verbs or linking.

Wow. I found tons of passive voice. Tons more helper/unnecessary words. Even more sentences with FOUR or MORE linked clauses... especially in action scenes.

Whups.

I spent an intensive four days scrubbing 130,493 words. I trimmed 5200 extra words unpassive-voicing, separating, deleting. Just in Pass One!

Pass Two will have me delete whole sections of unneeded plot, and move whatever plot I need to keep to a different section. I'll also add sensory detail (not just weather, but texture of the floor, internal sensations, grain of wood, that sort of thing). This will probably have me add 1,000 words but delete 3500, for a net reduction of 2500.

That'll bring the 130,453 down to about 121,500 or so words. Almost without trying.

I clearly had a lot to keep me from advancing in the ABNA contest, and I now know I have more work to do on my other mss, plus more to do before I EVER think of querying.

It's important, since Hell's Own goes out in 3 more weeks.

Pass Three will be a repeat of Pass One, looking for more passivity, too-long sentences, redundant clauses.

I'll get to 120,000 words or someone's gonna die (probably an unneeded character :) )

later,

dave

2008-02-22T23:20:00.002-07:00

Editing on Hell's Own proceeds apace.

My time's kind of committed to McAllister just now, except for work - I don't have time to get a webpage up yet. It's tough trying to be an author, it's not all drinks and canapes.

That's enough for today... more detailed posts someday, if it all ever lets up (I jest).

Hello, World

2008-02-18T21:38:00.002-07:00

Hello, World.

I'm overhauling my old publications - blogs, sites, stuff. Welcome to the new bloggerspot.

Exciting things in my world! First, the Southern California Writer's conference. Look, if you're a bipolar person, don't be a writer. The business has enough ups and downs to make your head spin - I went through about two dozen this weekend. I found that Sparks may be in the wrong genre, and that McAllister has a pretty good chance at piquing a publisher's interest (please, let it be true). I met some really cool people, some who will be friends for life, I think, from all around the world. I got to hear some styles and genres I don't even see when I go by them on the shelves (blindspot, I know). Just a great time.

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest may or may not have a publicly-visible cull down to 100 authors' submissions this Tuesday (tomorrow). Keep your fingers crossed for McAllister's Redemption!

One more note - Every real (read: self-respecting) redneck with a sand rail or quad was in the Imperial dunes this weekend (Glamis, Winterhaven, CA). When I was driving home on I-8, I passed a desert carpeted in Toyhaulers. I got stuck behind the guys who left early - approximately 10,000 had the idea to leave early - and the Border Patrol checkpoint between Yuma and Gila Bend was jammed full - a three mile backup of toyhaulers. There's something humorous in there, but I wasn't feeling it at the moment...

More posts to come.