And the lyrics behind the cut:

You’ve been around for such a long time now
Oh maybe I could leave you but I don’t know how.
And why should I be lonely ev’ry night
When I can be with you oh yes you make it right.

And I don’t listen to the guys who say
that you’re bad for me and I should turn you away.
’Cause they don’t know ’bout us,
and they’ve never heard of love.

I get a feeling when I look at you.
Wherever you go now I wanna be there too.
They say we’re crazy but I just don’t care.
And if they keep on talking still they get nowhere.

So I don’t mind if they don’t understand
when I look at you and you hold my hand.
’Cause they don’t know ’bout us
and they’ve never heard of love.

Why should it matter to us if they don’t approve?
We should just take our chances while we’ve got nothing to lose.
Baby, there’s no need for living in the past.
Now I’ve found good loving gonna make it last.

I tell the others don’t bother me
’Cause when they look at you they don’t see what I see.
No, I don’t listen to their wasted lines
Got my eyes wide open and I see the signs

‘Cause they don’t know about us
and they’ve never heard of love.
No, I don’t listen to their wasted lines.
Got my eyes wide open and I see the signs.

‘Cause they don’t know about us
and they’ve never heard of love.

I wonder what Tracey Ullman’s doing nowadays. She was big for a while back in the ‘80s and then vanished. At any rate, I think this song (and video) makes for some awesome story inspiration — comedy, yeah. Too many angst-ridden stories have already been written with this theme.

Here’s the map of our route, courtesy of our Garmin Edge (click on the image for a closer view):

It’s a gorgeous route that takes us through Morgan Territory, passing behind Mt. Diablo and then to Pleasanton, Blackhawk, and then back to Mt. Diablo via the South Gate road, which intersects the North Gate entrance and back down to our car. *phew* I took a handful of pictures, but some of the best scenes happened to be in the long descent past Morgan Territory and into Alameda County (er — I need both hands on the handlebars, yeah?). Nothing but miles and miles of golden hills, a handful of scattered ranches, and occasional horses and cows chilling in the grass.

I’ve love to go back and do that ride again, but I’d rather wait till autumn, when the temps are lower. After a long day on the saddle, that long ascent up South Gate Road in the summer heat nearly did me in.

Final data: 56 miles, 4700+ feet climbed. Tan situation: way darker. Epic, man.

By and large I’m pretty much okay as far as simply being myself when it comes to my posts. Right now I’m trying to limit my posts to 200 — 250 words. But what I monumentally suck at involves my blog theme, and you know that I tend to switch blog themes a lot.

I guess my main problem when it comes to blog appearances is that I tend to gravitate toward minimalist designs. To what extent that reveals something about my character (boring?), I’ve no idea, but I certainly would like to see my tiny corner of cyberspace look a little spiffy. Or spiffier than it is.

I am looking at three-column designs that have some color because I’d like to showcase my books’ covers on my sidebars regularly. Hopefully I’ll find something — two or three columns — that’ll work more nicely in giving off some kind of character to my blog.

So I’d like to kinda sorta give this blog a bit of an overhaul in terms of posting length. By and large, it’s pretty much the (self-placed?) pressure of sharing lengthy nuggets of wisdom or plain jabber that’s currently my day-to-day online albatross. Anyway, if you notice my blog entries shrinking into single-paragraph lengths (or two…three with blockquotes, maybe), it’s because I’m trying to retrain myself here — as well as relearn the value of communicating simply and effectively.

Yesterday, I thought I wasn’t going to top Monday’s writing frenzy of 2,600+ words. I managed to write 3,000+. Tonight, I didn’t think I was going to top that. I managed to write 4,000+. So, yes, I cracked my goal of 10,000 words written for the week, and it’s not even the end of Friday.

Wollstone now officially stands at 20,000+ words, which makes me giddy all over, considering the angst that this WIP gave me for two months. July on the whole might suck, but it’s ending on a more positive note than I first hoped.

There are a number of things I’ve written so far that I don’t care for, with some of them being almost like fillers while I figured out how to connect X scene with Y. So I’ve got my work cut out for me when the revision process rolls around. What I have been doing on purpose is take my time expanding the setting because it’s a boarding school fantasy. So there’s a lot of description so far, which I’ll be trimming down when I revise, but I don’t plan on taking out too much. This story depends on the world building for it to succeed, especially since the school has a more sinister purpose to it.

So I’m stoked! I don’t have a set goal yet for next week’s writing, but I’ll figure that out sometime during the weekend. If my luck holds, I’ll shoot for another 10,000 words, but I won’t pressure myself. So, yeah — woohoo!