House is sold

My agent has notified me that the buyer has completed their home inspection and has waived all conditions. This means my house is now officially sold

They had one condition in their offer that struck me as unusual - the condition that they will be able to get insurance for the house. It turns out that this was a roundabout way for the buyer to assure themselves that they weren't buying a growhouse.

They also wanted me to repair a crack in the basement, which I agreed to do. My agent referred me to a company, called The Crack Doctor, that does this work.

What an irony it is that I have a buyer who is concerned about buying a growhouse and I hire a contractor called The Crack Doctor.

An offer I won't refuse

I got an offer on my house that I can refuse, but I'm not going to.

I had been at the house doing some clean up work in the basement, and I just got home from that, when my agent called me. "All your work has paid off - I have an offer for you," he told me.

The price is lower than what I'd like but it's still in my range. The lower end of my range. It's a very short closing - only about three weeks away. I have to get the rest of my furniture out of the house by then, and I'm responsible for repairing a crack in the basement.

I'll be meeting my agent tonight to sign the paperwork.

Learning all about life

I had an interesting conversation with a young girl at church on Sunday - she's about 4 or 5 years old. It was during the hospitality part of the service, and she asked if I could please help her butter her bagel.

I told her that of course I would, and because she said please I would be most delighted to.

She said, "In my house, we never get anything we ask for unless we say please."

It made me happy to hear that there are still people in this world that value courtesy and are teaching it to their children. I replied to her, "Well there you go, now you know everything there is to know about life," I told her.

She paused for a moment and then said, "Well, maybe not everything."

What a precious gem.

Painting is almost done

I've almost finished painting the bedroom, as I mentioned in my previous post.

The room in question and I have spent a lot of time together in the past, particularly when I painted it the first time. Going back there this week to paint it again was like a reunion. I even felt the spirit of my first cat, Smudge, roaming the hallway and I missed him. I remember that I discouraged him from going into that room when I painted it the first time, because he once peed on the drop cloth.

First offer on house

I got an offer Saturday on the house I am selling. It was a low offer. I tried to meet him halfway but he didn't want to come up much from his price, so I let the offer go.

I've been getting comments that the house looks tired. One of the bedrooms is painted in a kind of psychedelic fashion - it was an experiment in creative painting I did a few years ago. I like it, but I think my potential buyers may be getting turned off by it and seeing it as needing work. So I plan to paint that bedroom in a more conservative colour this week.

GarageBand.com - next step

In considering the reviews I received on GarageBand.com from the song Yesterday Seems So Far Away, I have decided my next step will be to post an instrumental version of another song I wrote, called The Great Escape.

I want to do this as an experiment. Since I received so many negative comments about the vocals, I want to post an instrumental version so my reviewers will be able to hear the music and not be distracted by the vocal performance.

I have some ideas of steps I can take to improve the vocals on future recordings, but so far I'm kind of holding myself back from acting on any of those ideas. I guess one of the things that is holding me back is not having a clear sense of priorities - do I want to focus my energies on my music or on my creative writing? The truth is I want to accomplish in both areas - and so I end up puttering along on both fronts yet taking great strides in neither.

Greatest accomplishment

I've experienced my greatest accomplishment of the year. Perhaps of my lifetime.

J's brother is visiting us this weekend with his family, including their new baby. She was sleeping in one of the bedrooms. When she awoke, she started crying and neither her mommy or daddy were around. I picked her up and held her and rocked her and talked to her and sang to her - and finally she stopped crying.

I got a four month old baby to stop crying. I am so pleased with myself right now.

It's my birthday and I'll pfft if I want to

It's not the talking you need to worry about, it's the bad breath.

If someone had asked me yesterday how old I was, I could have said fourty years and three hundred sixty four days. Today, I am a little bit older (for those who aren't good at modulo math, that would be fourty one).

Here's a birthday horoscope I found:

Your self-confidence has suffered some damage. This year, however, marks your entry into a new and exhilarating phase of your life, bringing a most welcome change in your fortunes. It can only benefit you greatly at every level. Happy birthday to Matt Damon, 35.

How about that - I share a birthday with Matt Damon.

Well, I for one, am looking forward to this new and exhilarating phase. Last week I published my 100th blog post, and I am looking forward to the next 100.

Contracting work almost done

I went by the house I am selling earlier this week and saw that the contractor I had hired to do the face work was almost done. He had repaired the cracked wood and was in the process of painting it a couple of days ago. I am sure he is done by now.

Meanwhile, there continue to be showings at the house. Lots of showings so far. This is good - this part of the marketing pipeline is working well. But I want to get something to the next stage of the pipeline - an offer. A reasonable offer.

Building blocks, heros, and ensembles

I was searching on the internet the other day for story writing software. I was curious to learn what kind of software is out there for this purpose. I came across one application called John Truby's Blockbuster. There was a 15 day trial version available; I downloaded it in order to give it a spin. This fifteen day trial period will probably end before I've had a good look at it though.

This application is based on a model that uses 22 building blocks for developing a story. Building block #1 is Self-Revelation, Need, Desire. This is what the manual has to say about this building block:

The self-revelation, need, and desire represent the overall range of change of your hero in the story. They are the structural "journey" your hero will take. Therefore, it is important that you determine these elements first so that all other steps in the journey will lead you where you want to go.

I have been reluctant to identify a protagonist in Mission: Dawn because my vision for this story has been to create an ensemble cast. Must I have just one protagonist?

I looked up protagonist on wikipedia. It says In an ancient Greek drama, the protagonist was the leading actor and as such there could only be one protagonist in a play. Hmmm, okay, but Mission: Dawn is not an ancient Greek drama. I guess I need to do some more thinking about this.


Some articles I have found about story writing:
Protagonist - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How To Write A Novel - A Simple Procedure to Follow by Paul Saevig
A Novel Idea - First of a series of columns by John Ravenscroft as he writes his first novel, in public