Richard L. Fricks

Sanity Snippet: Biking & ‘Reading’–11/25-26/21

As of October 24, 2021, Sanity Snippets are snapshots of my daily life, those things I’m doing—such as reading, writing, biking, photographing, and gardening—to maintain sanity while living in the most regressive state imaginable. Alabama.
Richard L. Fricks

Yesterday, I made a seventeen mile round-trip on my bike to my mother-in-law’s for Thanksgiving lunch. This afternoon, I made a fifteen mile round-trip to the post office and learned I have the wrong type of gloves for such cold weather.

Tonight, my left side is hurting. Hopefully, the Bengay will help.

Here’s a seven-minute video from today’s ride. I know, I know. I need a better camera and mount.

Sardis football stadium to Bama Buck’s

While biking, I’m still listening to and enjoying The Hunger Games by Susan Collins.

Read the abstract, and if it suits your fancy, grab a copy and start reading or listening.

Abstract of The Hunger Games from Amazon

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to death before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Still, if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.

Scrivener—An Introduction (Lesson 1)

I’m certain I never would have written eleven novels since November 2015 if it hadn’t been for the wonderful writing software known as Scrivener. It is the best way to simplify the complex process of writing, especially an extensive work.

In this post I’m making my first attempt at using Screencast-O-Matic’s screen-recording software to provide a brief introduction to Scrivener.

To watch, click the following link. The video is only sixteen minutes long.

https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/crXTfIVIpN5

I’m sorry about my Civil War ignorance. Yes, I caught my error. Gettysburg is in Pennsylvania, not Virginia.

Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.

Sanity Snippet: Fresh collards from our garden

As of October 24, 2021, Sanity Snippets are snapshots of my daily life, those things I’m doing—such as reading, writing, biking, photographing, and gardening—to maintain sanity while living in the most regressive state imaginable. Alabama.
Richard L. Fricks

Collards from our 2021 garden. — Picked. Awaiting washing, rewashing, and cutting.

Collards from our 2021 fall garden. — Straight to the pot

Homemade pepper sauce 2021. — 2021 homemade pepper sauce

The collards (with a few stems of unexpected lettuce) turned out scrumptious, especially over Donna’s magnificent cornbread, along with our homemade tart and tangy pepper sauce. There’s no better eating than straight from your own garden. It’s a lot of labor, but worth every minute.

Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.

Beemgee/Character/Action

In early September, I started a series about Beemgee’s story development tool. Although I no longer provide book coaching services, I still wholeheartedly encourage you to write, particularly, a novel. From my experience, writing will change your life.

In hopes you have an interest in learning the craft of fiction writing, I will continue this series but limit my posts to what Beemgee provides without injecting my thoughts, comments, and opinions (well, maybe a few every once in a while).

Now to Beemgee/Character/Action.

“The action is what the character does in response to the task. The action is usually the character’s attempt at solving the external problem. Action here refers to acting as in doing (not in the sense of pretending to on stage or screen, and not as in action-movies either). The reader/audience gets to know and care about a character through what the character does. Action might be representative of the archetype of which the character may be an example. This means that while a character does lots of things in a story (i.e. performs a succession of individual acts), there might be an overriding connection that can be summed up in one verb. As in, the good guy FIGHTS the bad guy. Usually the action leads to conflict, even if it is peaceful, like loving, because it is in opposition to another character’s action. Often for main characters, there is one central action which is indicative of their true nature. For a protagonist, such a key deed is well-placed in the centre of the story, at the midpoint.”

If you want to read Beemgee’s, “The Character Action that Pivots the Plot,” click here.

Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.

Sanity Snippet: Biking & ‘Reading’–11/22/21

As of October 24, 2021, Sanity Snippets are snapshots of my daily life, those things I’m doing—such as reading, writing, biking, photographing, and gardening—to maintain sanity while living in the most regressive state imaginable. Alabama.
Richard L. Fricks

My new bike continues to perform admirably. Today’s ride was 10.56 miles and took 1 hour, 10 minutes, 52 seconds. Here’s a portion of that ride. Again, I’m sorry for the quality, and lack of editing. I’m filming on an old Motorola cell phone.

Path: Happy Hill Cutoff Road & a hundred yards or so on Cox Gap Road.

I love to ‘read’ while I’m biking. Okay, I’m listening to a book through the Kindle or OverDrive App. Today, I continued listening to The Hunger Games by Susan Collins. So far, I’m enjoying the story by this talented author.

Read the abstract, and if it suits your fancy, grab a copy and start reading or listening.

Abstract of The Hunger Games from Amazon

Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.

Sanity Snippet: Biking & ‘Reading’–11/17/21

As of October 24, 2021, Sanity Snippets are snapshots of my daily life, those things I’m doing—such as reading, writing, biking, photographing, and gardening—to maintain sanity while living in the most regressive state imaginable. Alabama.
Richard L. Fricks

I’m really enjoying my new bike. Yesterday’s ride was 11.11 miles (a current record for me!) and took just seconds shy of 1 hour 9 minutes. Here’s a portion of that ride—sorry for the quality, and lack of editing. Also, I’m filming on an old Motorola.

11/17/21

I love to ‘read’ while I’m biking. Okay, I’m listening to a book through the Kindle App. Yesterday, I finished Robert Dugoni’s fifth novel in his Tracy Crosswhite series. Man, I aspire to be such a talented author. Read the abstract and start reading or listening to this series through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited.

Abstract of Close to Home from Amazon:

New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni’s acclaimed series continues as Tracy Crosswhite is thrown headlong into the path of a killer conspiracy.

While investigating the hit-and-run death of a young boy, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite makes a startling discovery: the suspect is an active-duty serviceman at a local naval base. After a key piece of case evidence goes missing, he is cleared of charges in a military court. But Tracy knows she can’t turn her back on this kind of injustice.

When she uncovers the driver’s ties to a rash of recent heroin overdoses in the city, she realizes that this isn’t just a case of the military protecting its own. It runs much deeper than that, and the accused wasn’t acting alone. For Tracy, it’s all hitting very close to home.

As Tracy moves closer to uncovering the truth behind this insidious conspiracy, she’s putting herself in harm’s way. And the only people she can rely on to make it out alive might be those she can no longer trust.

Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.

Sanity Snippet: Biking 11/14/21

As of October 24, 2021, Sanity Snippets are snapshots of my daily life, those things I’m doing—such as reading, writing, biking, photographing, and gardening—to maintain sanity while living in the most regressive state imaginable. Alabama.
Richard L. Fricks

New bike. Tired of being fat and out of shape.

Beemgee/Character/Perceived Need

In this post we’ll continue to consider Beemgee’s character development process. Perceived need is the next attribute in our quest to build our protagonist.

Recall, our hero has an external problem. He’s been thrust into a situation or he’s been assigned a mission. Either way, along with this problem comes a desire or want. Succinctly put, our hero desires a solution. In essence, he wants another state of being, one free from the external problem. This naturally yields a goal, what he has to achieve to reach this state of being. Most often, a goal consists of a number of tasks that must be performed in order for the goal to be achieved.

This leads directly into the topic of today’s post, the perceived need. Here’s Beemgee summary:

“The perceived need is what the character believes she or he needs in order to reach the goal. If the goal is the apparent thing that ought to be achieved in order to solve the external problem, then there may well be certain knowledge, objects or people that the character needs to find or attain first in order to reach the goal. A character may have to do a number of things before it is possible to reach the goal. Attaining these needs marks stages or phases of the story journey. What stages are there in this story?”

In a more detailed article on this subject, Beemgee offers several examples. I’ll use one. Say the goal is to reach a certain place, one too far for an easy or strenuous stroll. Obviously, our character needs some form of transportation. Let’s say he decides that he needs a car. Quickly, the issue of access and availability arises. Where and how is he going to get a car?

Examples like this illustrate how plot (events in a story) develop. Of course, after acquiring the car and driving to the intended destination, the hero may learn things have changed. He’s now at a port city and learns the treasure has been moved. It’s now on an island. How does he go there? Well, a boat of course. Obviously, you see where this is going and all we’ve considered is the issue of transportation. We haven’t yet discussed the equipment he will need to open the golden-laden chest.

It’s critical to note that these perceived needs and the journey(s) they create deal only with the external story, not the most interesting and reader-grabbing internal story. That is where the real story gold resides. That’s where the hero is battling his psychological problems, including the why he needs to find the treasure. In the best and most powerful stories, this ‘why’ won’t be for the hero to increase his net worth. It will be something deep, like he needs the money to pay for his only child’s heart transplant, or to show his father that he’s not a lazy, good-for-nothing idiot.

All great stories are built on character arcs, usually of the positive kind. The hero starts off believing a lie and over the life of the story discovers the truth and winds up in a better place, at least psychologically.

In sum, the external plot mirrors the hero’s internal journey, the ‘road’ he travels to a better place, a state of being where he may or may not have achieved his external goal, but certainly one where he’s resolved his inner need (assuming a positive character arc is the author’s intent).

Perceived needs could be described as the power source that moves the story train down the tracks while allowing the hero inside a passenger compartment to deal with more personal issues.

Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.

Sanity Snippet: Prodigious Peppers

As of October 24, 2021, Sanity Snippets are snapshots of my daily life, those things I’m doing—such as reading, writing, biking, photographing, and gardening—to maintain sanity while living in the most regressive state imaginable. Alabama.
Richard L. Fricks

Prodigious as in “causing amazement or wonder” as per the first Merriam-Webster definition.

I picked these jalapeño and bell peppers yesterday and am still in awe of the productivity given their mom’s slow start last May. It seems the tiny three plants I purchased at the local feed and seed store grew steadily for the first few weeks. However, the fruit producing stage took months. But, once it kicked in, we’ve twice and sometime thrice-weekly harvested the best peppers ever. Just last night, I sliced one jalapeno into a bowl of homemade vegetable soup. It really spiced things up. Wonderful.

Question. Are you anything like these peppers? I know I am. Often (maybe all the time), I’m a slow starter. Maybe because I’m cautious by nature. Or I could be downright scared. Of what? Of failing? Yes. More narrowly put, I fear not measuring up to others. They aren’t slow starters, are they? They don’t spend weeks and months reaching that ten-mile biking goal. They don’t take a year to complete a novel. No, as soon as they ‘set-out,’ they produce.

Oh, okay, let’s admit you and I aren’t the only ones who take a little time to produce. And that’s okay. In reality, our only competition is ourselves. We each determine our goals and develop our unique paths.

It’s that way in my writing. Most days I’ll do anything to get out of sitting down at my computer and putting words on the page. This morning, I even swept and mopped the floors (well, part of the floors). Now, that’s desperation.

Back to those amazing peppers. Look at the photo again. Now, look at my first five paragraphs. What do you see? Not so fast. I know the peppers are more beautiful. But, to me at least, I’ve just been productive. Yes, I’m a slow-starter, but I stand dead center of my productivity journey. I’m close to completing my eleventh novel since stepping onto this path in 2015, with the next one in the composting stage.

That doesn’t mean I’m ahead of you or that I’m anything special. We create our own meaning. We set out our own plan[t]s. We choose what’s most important.

If you want to grow some outstanding peppers, you can. If you want to write a sentence, a paragraph, a short-story, or a novel, you can. Nothing is easy. Everything takes time and focus. And a bushel of determination.

You are a prodigious pepper. Take your time. Be patient but consistent. Before long, fruits will emerge.

And when that happens, please don’t forget to celebrate with a bowl of homemade vegetable soup.

Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.

Sanity Snippet: Bike videos #1 & #2

As of October 24, 2021, Sanity Snippets are snapshots of my daily life, those things I’m doing—such as reading, writing, biking, photographing, and gardening—to maintain sanity while living in the most regressive state imaginable. Alabama.
Richard L. Fricks

Chain problems.

I posted this because I couldn’t email this video to customer service, so I sent the rep the link and he viewed it that way. I’d purchased my bike at Walmart in August and it has performed admirably ever since. Until two days ago when the chain came off during a seven mile ride. I reinstalled the chain but to no available. While peddling, the rear wheel would not turn. It seems the rear seven-cog mechanism is swiveling on the axle, preventing the wheel from turning.

On the bright side, I was able to contact the customer service department from a phone number on the bike (and owner’s manual) and was quickly transferred to a helpful rep. The warranty repair process was activated by my detailed reply to the rep’s initial email.

My Genesis model V2100 bike.