the mario blog

to live an interesting life

Day 20: 2158 Words and a Girl Who Loves Flower Water

Since Otto is working as a babysitter in the valley and I can't risk my brand as a guy who posts pictures of cats, here are a couple of pictures of my parents' cat Sophia. 

Also, a quick book update. 

The reason I've been writing well over my daily target word count is that I am trying to complete my initial target word count of 30,000 words by this weekend. I am now confident that I can up my total target word count to 40,000 words which I am planning to get done within my 30 days of writing. 

Then I'll tweak and make some smaller additions throughout September, before shipping the manuscript to my editor in October. 

So far, I have written 26,370 words.

(download)

Day 19: 2181 Words And The Circus Hotline

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Today was a good writing day. Not easy, but I accomplished my goal. Writing this book is actually pretty similar to training for a marathon or Ironman. You got to do it every day, some days are easier than others but what's important is that you consistently put in the work. 

Then you need to reward yourself when you're done. 

Fortunately for that there are all kinds of telephone hotlines that you can call in Germany, allowing you to converse to what I am sure are beautiful naked women who'll talk to you about topics ranging from "playing doctor" to the kind of the things they'd like to do with your feet. There are entire TV channels dedicated to promoting these hotlines. All of which I get. 

Personally after a good stretch of writing, I just like to sit down on my balcony, with a good glass of wine (good = very cheap but surprisingly ok tasting)  and listen to the Circus Hotline.  

Day 15: Wordless and a video on how to candy pecans

I wrote zero words today, which is not good. I feel like I am letting you down. 

So here is an instructional video that Amanda agreed to make public to teach people like you and I how to candy pecans. Please ignore the background music and candlelights as this video obviously led to some crazy making out. 

As my father always likes to say: "Focus on the pecans, people." 

Day 11: 1051 words and 540 minutes with my grandfather

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I got my writing done today, and spent most of my day hanging out with my grandpa. A walk, followed by a visit to the funeral home (RIP Dad + Grandma) , followed by a visit to his sister's house, followed by lunch at the senior citizen's home (where he doesn't live, he just likes the food), followed by a leisurely drive (20mph below the speed limit at all times) to my grandpa's first apartment, second apartment, third apartment, first house, first factory and second factory.  

This is the man who brought the Schulzkes to Plettenberg from East Prussia (now Lithuania) after wandering around our new country alone for two years looking for his mother and sisters (note: East Prussia is about 1,200 miles away from Plettenberg) after being injured and captured in World War II (at the age of 17). 

In a way, he is still wandering looking for his family as he would have never expected to lose two sons and a wife and still be here. Pretty alone again. 

Appreciate the life you have, and appreciate the people who worked/fought/struggled so you get some of the chances they didn't. 

Just don't let them drive.