I Don’t Like Asking Permission to Sleep

Okay, so yesterday was a productive day at the library even though I was forced to move half way through. Okay I wasn’t shoved out of my favourite spot, I lost it fair and square. 

Around about lunch time I usually pop out to Wanda to make a bit of lunch. Since I am not about to leave my laptop and all of my stuff setup in the library, I pack up and take it with me. 

Usually my spot is there waiting for me half an hour later, but yesterday it wasn’t. To make it worse all of the other spots up in the quiet study area were taken too, well all the ones with a power outlet.

Ah well, I just moved down to the main floor and set up on a tiny table with a power outlet at its feet. I had just enough room to put the laptop and mousepad on it. Call me old-school but I like a mouse with my laptop okay. It was okay as I was just editing but it was more public an area than I am used to working in. 

Around the walls of the main floor are art hanging, for sale I think. So there are always a number of people walking back and forth behind me looking at the art. Up in my usual spot, it is a quiet study area so the only people moving about are fellow quiet studiers. 

I did get to edit and fatten two chapters (two passes each) and ensure that they were the specified ten pages long. It is fun to add in the extra bits to tell you a bit more about either the characters or Tanea in general. It is not non-sequitur stuff, it relates to what is happening in the chapter at that moment.

After the library I decided to run Jenny and stay the night there as my bank was not far. It seemed like a logical decision and this mall has not given me any grief before. 

Well, I had just fired up Jenny when a security pickup truck pulled up. I gave him my usual greeting “Hi, do you want me to leave?” Let’s face it that is what these security types always say to me, never has it been “Wow, that’s a great RV, can I look inside!” 

The security guard was polite and told me that I didn’t have to leave but I did need to get a permit and “register” with security. I said fine and turned Jenny off, locked up and went off to get my permit. The Security Guard went his own way too.  

I was in the mall, on the escalator down, on my way to the security office when I wondered what information they would want. I kept thinking of things like: Name, Address, phone, driver’s licence, social insurance number, you know, the lot to make sure I am not a criminal.  

I understand and respect that security has a job to do and they were doing it. They were not mean, nor were they on a power trip, or out to get me, it was their job and they were polite about it. 

I just decided that I really didn’t feel like giving them any information just to park there overnight. I probably could have just put down disinformation on the little piece of paper. You know, have fun with it “Jimmy Hoffa.”

 Lying just isn’t my style. If I am a guest in your hotel or campsite, I begrudgingly give you that information, but just to park in your parking lot? No thanks. 

Since the parking lot of the shopping centre was personal property and I do respect their right to specify their rules to stay on their property, I left. I packed up and went to my favourite spot in my “western home” and was not bothered all night. I ran Jenny for two hours to charge up the batteries. 

I have some errands to do today as today is payday, so that means banking a bit of shopping and then back to the library for more work. I know it may be silly as it was just a piece of paper so who cares right? 

I am not a criminal or hiding from the law, or do I have anything to hide. I just still feel that my personal information is that, personal, I don’t want to hand it out for a cup of coffee or in this case, for no reason at all. 

Comfort is Important

I had forgotten that, I have lived in cramped quarters for so long that I had forgotten the nice luxury of a bit of walking space and a bit of extra heat. I have spent so much time surviving the cold and never putting the slide-out out that I have forgotten how nice my trailer is. 

I know that most people have kitchens larger than my house but I wonder how many people have slashed their unsecured debt by a third over the past year, or will eliminate it completely in the next eight months either. 

I went up north and had my walk around and reminiscing of what my little townhouse and old neighbourhood looked like. It was nice and interesting but I couldn’t stay up at the shopping centre there as they had massive signs saying no overnight parking. 

I decided to then to go and park by my favourite library and stay there tonight. I even ventured enough to put the slide-out out. That was nice as it means more space inside and something I don’t usually have . . . floorspace and walking room. This morning I didn’t have to shove my table back and forth, to and fro and just slip by it. 

I really need to find a regular parking space, close to work where I can do this. I also know that in the really cold weather I will not dare to put the slide-out out, but in the warmer weather of a Chinook, I can and will enjoy the extra room.

The weather will warm up to above zero today and should dance above zero most of the week. I will take it and revel in it. I also know that it this warmer weather will not last and that the -30C is coming again. Yet even that shall pass and the spring will come again and I will be back in the warm weather. 

In the less-than frigid temperatures this lifestyle is nice and even delightful. I will have to budget for a camping weekend a month in the warm weather, a delightful delight worth the expense. Now that the celebration of a year in on this journey is over I can focus again on keeping myself on the path to Debt Freedom. 

The lesson I learned today, that I am passing on to you is that a bit of comfort is important, it will help your journey go nicer. It can and will also help improve your mood. 

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Yes folks, boys and girls it has been one year since I made the concrete decision, and took action, to get my credit card debt in order. As such today will be a reflective Blog entry. 

One year ago I was over $17000.00 in debt on various credit cards. I will admit that that may have been either an exaggeration or I was over my limit on one or more cards. I am not sure, as the maxed out limit on all of the cards and overdraft was $16,250.00. 

Also a year ago I planned to either rent a room or buy a camper for the back of the truck and then once this odyssey was over, buy a house.  My situation has improved and the goal of debt freedom is still alive but my dream of buying a house is on hold as I plan to move and pursue a career in: writing, making films and television projects. 

As I reflect on the time in my life that was a year ago I remember stressing over my finances and a few things happened to make me ponder this lifestyle. 

The first of which was my boss ranting about the various frustrations of being a small business owner and considering packing it in. This forced me to wonder what I would do if such a thing were to happen? 

If for any of a thousand different reasons I was suddenly employed, could I maintain my lifestyle? Could I easily find a job to maintain this lifestyle? The answer was no, this caused me to wonder about where my life was heading and if the direction was wise. 

I also wondered what I would actually do if I was suddenly unemployed. I wouldn’t just lay down and die, that is not me. I knew that I would radically and quickly alter my lifestyle to meet my current, seriously reduced, financial situation. 

I then thought that if I was capable of living on less, if I had to, why not live on less because I chose to. That way, with the freed up income I could get ahead. If I did that, I could stop paying everyone else’s debts and start paying my own.  

Then a song on the radio “Tracy Chapman’s Fast car” played and the line in it “leave tonight or live and die this way,” hit me. I then realized that there was no good or bad time for change, there was always and only the now. Either you change your life, here today, or the inertia of time will force you along and years will pass by and you will be in the same rut, in the same situation. 

That was it, that was the moment when I decided to change my life and do whatever it took (legally, ethically and morally) to get my debt under control. I would radically alter my lifestyle to get ahead. I wouldn’t just pay my credit cards off, I would build up a savings and get myself on a better financial footing. 

So how am I doing, one year in? Well, I would have been doing better if I knew then what I know now. Now that I have hit my stride and have (somewhat of) a good idea of what I am doing, I am making great gains. Early in the year it was hard going as I transitioned from living in a townhouse to living in a room to buying and living in Wanda. 

As of today I have $11,175.14 of credit card debt. Compared to an estimated 17,000.00 a year ago that means that I have knocked $5824.86 or about a third off of that total debt. Sure I have gone much deeper into debt to buy Wanda, but she is a house (of sorts) and an asset, not just unsecured debt. 

I also am on track to eliminating the remaining two thirds of that debt by July of next year. Then I will refinance Wanda so that when the payments are done, they are done, with no balloon payment at the end, as it is now. Of course I will also build up a savings; I am looking forward to August. 

All in all I am in a much better place both financially, emotionally and stress-wise than I was a year ago. I do not regret doing this; I just wish it had not been such a steep and steady learning curve. With adventures and odysseys, that is to be expected and yes, part of the fun. 

As far as writing goes I have finished the fattening of Chapter One but will give it another go over before I move on to chapter two and do the same with it. I will slowly go through the book and add a chapter where it feels like it needs it, perhaps near the end.

I will drive up to the old neighbourhood tonight and have a walk and look around as I reflect on my life. I will go out for a simple meal at a local pub, just to celebrate. Such events need to be celebrated, and you can’t spend your whole life paying down bills, thirty bucks won’t kill me. 

No Wonder the Book Was Taking so Long

So there I was, happily click-clacking away, writing in my spare time, whenever I could manage to do it. I was wondering why it was taking so long to convert my one screenplay into a novel. 

Yesterday I was curious how far along I was in my quest for a novel. I did some research and found that a novel is between 55,000 – 175,000 words long. Fine, but I have never been one to count words, I just write and gauge my progress by the number of MS Word pages. 

So I took one of my chapters which was at its target of ten full pages, and did a word count, it was 3900 words. Okay take that and multiply it by my target of 25 chapters and you have 97,500 words. Given that a few chapters are and will be a few pages longer than 10 pages and I have, or will, cross that 100,000 word mark; just in “Part One.”

What that means is that my “Part One” has become the first book in this very long novel series. So I have gone back to the beginning and I am now: editing, expanding and fattening each chapter up until it is at that ten page mark. I will then go back and edit it a few more times to make sure that it is passable before I let another human read it. 

I do need to find an editor willing to work with me to help make this the best it can be. I don’t want someone to just edit it and hand it off to a publisher, as it has to be my work, not theirs. It needs to remain Tanean and not Canadian or English, if that makes any sense to anyone but me. I keep thinking of Tolkien constantly editing (behind the editors) The Lord of the Rings to change “Dwarfs” to “Dwarves.” 

It is encouraging to find that I have made more progress than I had thought as I was 3/4rs of the way through Part Two. I had already figured out how to extend it and end it in a shocking way that would allow me to extend the last part of the original screenplay into yet another book. After that there is the TV series to make into books . . . 

Come on people, buy the book already so I can make a living doing this . . . oh yeah, need to finish writing it and then publish it . . . I had best get to that. Now that I know that I have already “done” (almost) Book One, I am eager to get it ready to go to the next phase of being shopped around. 

It would be nice to have Book Two “done” and me working on Book Three by the time book one is released. (Gee, this is where that Editor/Wife would come in handy . . . gotta get me one of those.)

As far as staying in the trailer is concerned things are going fine, yet I do seem to need to plug in nightly. Since I run my furnace in the mornings and in the evenings and when I am asleep, that fan on that furnace seems to suck the juice out of Wanda’s batteries. I mean in the summer I can go a week or two without charging, now it is nightly. 

Again, I have my warm clothes and Jenny so I will be fine. Last night I thought I would try to see if I could make it through the night with just running Jenny for a bit. I ran her for an hour and a half and that got me through the evening and most way through the night, by about the time I ran out, the furnace stopped. 

I will plug in tonight after I spend the evening at a coffee shop as I wait until I can plug in. That way I can be warm and still edit, or at least try to. The one overriding theme of this journey is that I can and will both survive and adapt to whatever comes my way. 

I am finding that I am more resourceful and heartier as well as not as stuck in my ways as I once thought. In the warmer weather I do like this lifestyle, in the colder weather it is the cost savings which keeps me here. 

If anyone was to do what I am doing, I would plan and prepare and wait to start out on your journey either on April 1 or May 1, depending on your comfort and braveness level. Remember, that if you are moving out of a place you must commit yourself over a month before you do move, so be sure that you really want to and can do it.  

While I do not particularly enjoy winter, I can endure it and see it through. I keep my eyes on those paid off credit cards and my books being published. That is what keeps me going: the dream of Debt Freedom. 

Editing, Revising and Fattening

Work is still work and I am continuing my efforts to do the best job that I can, and only time will tell how fruitful those efforts become. I will do my best, hold my head up high, and somehow survive, always survive. That is another matter and while I try to push it out of my mind, it is ever present. 

Okay, so when it comes to the book, I have been going back to edit and revise what I have done. I have also been adding scenes so that each chapter is within my target of 9-10 word pages for each chapter. It is not just to make sure that each chapter is the same length or because I am that retentive. 

What it does is allow me to tell the reader something interesting, but not essential to the plot yet somehow related to the theme of that chapter. I get to show you something about Tanea and the characters that you may not have otherwise seen. We shall see how it works out. It is a challenge and one that I am having fun with, even though I scratch my brain on what to write for those few pages. 

Another thought has started to emerge, that is that perhaps each “Part” is in fact a separate novel in this long novel series. I will check tonight to see if they are long enough to stand on their own. Already they do have their own story arch and storywise could stand on their own with each novel picking up where the last left off. We shall see how this develops. Another thing I will always do is write. 

The world was not so cold yesterday and for the last two nights I have slept in my bed and not in my arctic sleeping bag.  It is nice to have the luxury and the furnace did seem to keep things warm enough. I also bought some new dish soap and did my dishes. It is a small sink so it doesn’t take long for them to pile up. That and with only a few dishes I need to do my dishes on a regular basis so I have some to use. 

I am looking forward to tomorrow as the weather starts to warm up and by next week it should be up to above zero, even for the low! Woo Hoo! Maybe I can thaw a few things out, like that blue jug of ice that should be my fresh water supply. Naturally I will not reactivate my plumbing as a Chinook is not spring, it only feels like it.

So the moral for today is that work for today, plan for the future but be mindful of the moment. You cannot change the future or the past, only the now. Dream and plan for the future as you reflect on and learn from the past but work for and be mindful of the now, for the now is all that you have. I do not know what will come, I only know that I will face whatever comes but do my best in the moment. 

Stay The Course

Okay so I learned Four things yesterday:

1) My Credit Limit Increase Went Through.

While I don’t plan on using this extra amount of credit, I know that it will prove useful in the future if I plan to start any sort of business. Cash flow is key and this will help with that. Again, credit cards are like guns, they can save your ass or blow it off . . . it’s all in how you use them.

2) My Credit is Obviously Improving

I got my first offer for a new card in years. Well this one is to upgrade a current card, but I don’t see the need. I like, or don’t hate rather, the one I have, so I will keep it, for now. 

I don’t want an extra card to balance, nor does collecting “travel points” appeal to me when I don’t’ have a passport (they kinda insist on the ‘SWAT Team Address’). It is nice to receive ‘nice’ letters from credit card companies for a change, though.

3) I Need to Up my Game at Work

It seems that I have not had my mind properly focussed on my work and have been making a few mistakes. I don’t know the exact cause, it could be the routine (such that there is), the fact that I work myself 7 days a week on two jobs, one is my writing and the other is work.

I work twelve hours a day, four for me in the morning and eight for work. I then rest in the evening and try to get up the gumption to edit a bit. On the weekends I work at least eight hours on writing both days.

Or it could be a number of other reasons, whatever it is, I need to focus on work and do a better job. I am paid well, I like my job and my boss, he deserves better. This I will do, I will do better, for: myself, my pride, my boss and yes because I can’t afford to lose this job.

4) I Need to Stay The Course

My plan is working. I am paying things down. I am able to adapt to new challenges. My life is steadily getting better. While winning the Lotto would be nice, it is unlikely. 

I only have the resources that I am given to solve the fiscal problems of my own making. This bizarre way of living is chipping away at my debt and getting me out of this hole. 

I will get off of this damn hamster-wheel of debt slavery yet. For that I need to . . .

Stay the Course

(and do better).

I Sleep in a Freezer, But Live in a Fridge

That pretty much seems to sum up my life over these past few days. Don’t worry, I am fine and am sticking it out. I have been through it this far, I can and will make it through winter.  I would be silly and a wuss to back out now, I have already seen -30C. 

When I get home I usually see this.

When I sleep at night I am plug, so I just run the electric heater. Since I am in my sleeping bag I am nice and warm, even though inside Wanda ranges from -5 to -10C (depending on how cold it is outside). This way I save the propane, as the bag heats just me.

When I am up and about I set the furnace to 5C and it seems to manage to keep up okay. At 10C it is running constant and can’t make it to 15C. I am dressed in my cold weather clothes and am okay as I putter around Wanda at 5C  I am able to be okay and that warm hat with flaps is my new best friend as while it looks silly, it is warm. 

I can get used to just keeping myself warm but the problem with living in a fridge/freezer is that everything freezes, as in EVERYTHING! Here is my dishsoap.

Ever opened up and tried to get the contents of a frozen can of pasta? Trust me, it’s fun. 

Then there is the little trick of putting my frozen bottles of water in front of the furnace so that the near constant warm air blows over them. 

It worked. I was able to get enough water defrosted to have coffee this morning. (Don’t mess with my morning coffee). 

I am at a loss what to do about my frozen milk . . . Should I bother trying to melt it or just consider it spoiled.

The upside of all of this is I am saving money not running the fridge . . . at all . . . seriously, what’s the point.

Lastly there is this little trick that I never thought I would have to do . . . 

(I’ll give you a hint, that is a jar that I need to empty, so I can fill it late at night).

What I am doing there is the same trick I used when I was making chocolates in my younger days. What you do is boil water in a pot and put a jar or two in the water, (empty and dry on the inside). You then put the chocolate chips or what you want to melt in that jar. 

This way the jar is heated without damaging the jar, it gets indirect heat. This works quiet well for melting the contents of whatever frozen jar or other glass container that you need to defrost, yet not shatter. 

I have now learned that when it gets really cold that I have no choice but to get dressed, go outside and find a thirsty tree, when I need to pee . . . oh the joys of being over 40 (le sigh). 

The ironic thing about all of this is that I hate the cold. I despise winter, I really do. I don’t “play” in the snow. I don’t ski. I don’t frolic about in the cold like one of Santa’s helpers or some dancing imp. Yet here I am choosing to live in this RV all winter because I am just too damn stubborn to give up . . . I can’t let winter win . . . there, I said it, I’m tougher than winter! 

(Logic: 0, Stubborn Determination: 1)

On a literary note, I did get a couple of chapters done on the book yesterday and I have begun to shape “Part Two” into a nice form. It looks as if I will be able to stretch the story that was this movie into another book. I am thinking of altering the ending of Part Two. It would be more accurate to say that I am just taking a detour in the story, so as to stretch it out. 

If I do that, I will call this book done and move on to the next one. I kinda like having two parts in one book, something I learned from Tolkien. It provides a nice little break in the action and two different, yet joined stories in one book. In essence it is two ‘episodes’ in one book.  

This is where the: magical/mystical/editor/marketer/publicist/loving and devoted wife would take over and edit (while cursing at me) the first book as I move on to the next one . . . right . . . there is only me.

Best get back to it then.