Fun in the Summer Sun

Up here in Canada, the sun has finally come out cranking the heat up. This makes it muggy in the house with no air conditioning. Lucky for my, I live a short walk to the ocean and a beach. This allows me to spend days sitting on the beach reading a book or swimming. Why spend my time inside my sweltering apartment?

This is the advantage of living on the west coast. I live in the only area of Canada below what I call the frost belt. (North of the frost belt receives a proper winter.) So rainy dreary “winters” and hot long summers. This one has started later than usual.

For someone who spends his time sitting in front of a computer telling stories to himself and writing it down, the human interaction is well needed. Sitting on the beach it is inevitable someone talks and a conversation ensues.

The hot sun is draining and the cooling wind saps the strength. With the threat of spending much of the rest of my day hacking at the word mind, I think it is vital for an introvert to get out.

It is also good for the kids to spend a few hours in the water swimming. They need the excersize and being able to meet other kids.

For me, I need to get back to work.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Wow. Where did the time go?

So things have changed for me and my family. But first I would like to apologize for the months of radio silence. I didn’t intend on it, but it happened.

You see, we have moved. Down south, on an island. Near the ocean. My family and I have moved from the cold north of central BC to Vancouver Island. To Nanaimo to be exact. Why you may ask?

Blame my wife. She applied and got accepted into VIU and is now a university student. Her instagram account and her wonderful art can be seen at the link below.

https://www.instagram.com/gracepedde/?hl=en

My kids are going to elementary school. Here is a pic of them on picture day. I have to get them ready all by myself. That was the best that I could do…

Me, I am still writing. I am currently prepping for NaNoWriMo this year. If you are doing it, add me as a buddy. My name is N A Pedde. Just mention that you saw my blog.

Here is another pic. This one is my book board.

Each card is a novel or novella or a short story that I am working on. Each column is the different series that I am working on. The line on the right are all of my story ideas.

There you go. In a nutshell. Well, not really. There is more to tell. But that will have to wait on a future blog post.

Hopefully it won’t be as long as this one was.

Until next time.

Ramblings: A story of how I manage to write novels while living with children

So I am a dad. More specifically, I am a father of two. I have a six year old boy named [REDACTED] and a five year old girl named [REDACTED].

My kids are great. I am not sure how it happened, but these kids are nothing like I was as a child. I was the child playing in the mud, ALL the time. I didn’t want to be inside the classroom, I wanted to be outside playing. I had multiple run ins with the Special Needs Teacher because they thought that I had a learning disability. It was just that I didn’t care, I knew the stuff, and I passed all the tests that they threw at me.

What can I say… I wanted to be outside.

My kids, however, love learning. They love doing things that expand their minds. My son, [REDACTED], loves science, math, and reading. He plays the piano and he practices for a couple hours a day. He is in grade one and is currently reading the 2nd book of Harry Bloody Potter. My daughter is a dancer and loves reading and drawing. She is the arty one out of the two of them.

Me? I have been writing for as long as I can remember and  I am pretty prolific. Not to brag…but I have a pretty high word count (more than some writers that I know). I manage the word count by writing whenever that I can. I  don’t have an office… I write my works in the middle of the living room  (which acts more like a study).

Often I find myself writing to the sound of Paw Patrol. (If you are a parent, you know what I am talking about. If you are not. Google is your friend. Watch a bit of it.) Thank God it is not Cailliou.

Now that you know the back story, I can tell you what is going on with my writing.

My son loves watching me write. He’ll sit beside me on the couch and watch me hack away at the words appearing on the screen. Now that he is reading Harry Potter, he is able to read what I am writing.

Word for word.

That makes writing sex scenes a little harder at times…

About 3 months ago, my son approached my with a bundle of printer paper, folded in half and stapled together. He was going to make a book. I encouraged him, and told him to write away. It didn’t last long. He got bored with it. He is six.

A couple weeks later, I caught him sitting on my laptop, on Scrivener trying to open a new project. He still wanted to write a book. He wanted to write with the keys as it looked easier.

He wanted to do what I do. I write novels, so he should too.

At that point I knew that there was nothing that I could do to get him not to write something. That’s not my way as a parent. I don’t believe in putting up road blocks to get my kids not to do something that I may find annoying, but isn’t harmful to anything but my sanity. (Sanity abandoned me on the roadside ages ago. It went on strike due to poor working conditions.)

And having [REDACTED] work on creative pursuits is not harmful in anyway. He isn’t climbing and jumping out of trees. Or eating mud. Or hitting his sister with sticks.

Like I did at his age. (Although, all but the hitting are still good past times)

So there was no way (in good conscience) that I could tell him no. He is too young. Or whatever lame excuse that I could come up with to get him to leave me alone so I can get another thousand words down.

My solution to this problem: Encourage him more. That’s right, I kept encouraging him, The same thing that got him wanting to write a book in the first place.

Now…My son, being six, has the writing skills of a six year old. He is advanced in sentence structure, but not that advanced… He is six…So I decided to do a collaboration with him. I sat him down and we started to brainstorm a story…

He decided the genre.

The setting.

The plot.

He named all of the characters.

All I did was be a guiding hand to keep it somewhat logical. I am the one that does all of the writing, but my son is the one that is in charge of the plot. We are constantly brainstorming ideas.

The book, temporarily named ‘Space Courier’ is now being written as a serial. Each book will be 25k in length, and we plan on 6 books for the first season.

That’s right. He wants multiple seasons.

In conclusion. I have created a monster.

May God have mercy on us all…

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