2007-05-31

Babies and HDMI cables

Filed under: Family,Technology,Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 16:41

I wrote a couple hundred words for My Father’s Bike, but forgot to check them into so I can’t get an updated word count. Hard to write when you are babysitting. At first, I thought it was because it was the first time, but yesterday was the second and I had the same problems. So, I guess I won’t get much writing when I babysit the little one.

I got an HDMI to DVI cable ($80 for 2 meters!) and it worked perfectly. Too bad I use a DVI cable for my computer, so I couldn’t use the same monitor I use for work. So, I guess I have a plan going forward. Get a HDMI switch or stereo that works with RCA cables (so I can use my DVD player) and buy another monitor. As long as it upscales to the new resolution, I should be in pretty good shape. I saw a used (maybe slightly broken) one at Best Buy yesterday for relatively cheap. Maybe I’ll grab that.

» My Father’s Bike: 0.167 (13,347 / 80,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Edited: 0.250 (3 / 4 weeks until 2007-06-15)
» Muddy Reflections Query: 0.083 (11 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10)
» Summer Biking: 0.161 (64.6 / 400 km)

2007-05-30

In the writing groove

Filed under: Technology,Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 20:12

Had a pretty good night writing. Got the first chapter up to around five thousand words, which is going to be my goal for the chapters. That way, if I get sixteen basic topics at five thousand words each, then I’ll have my goal for the novel. Most of the expansion came on a few new ideas and expanding on some of the flashback parts of the chapter. I also changed the formatting a bit, as per Fluffy. Overall, I still think I have the right tone of voice and it should be topical, not chronological. This is actually a very hard piece of writing to do.

I’m babysitting a newborn today while Fluffy, Evil, and a friend go on a bike ride. I’m also hoping that I can grab a HDMI to DVI-D cable and be able to hook my PS3 up to my main computer monitor and get a 1080 image. If that is the case, despite it being much smaller, I could enjoy the games at the resolution that the game is written at instead of what my television can handle. Regardless, I want to write a bit more this week. My goal is to hit twenty thousand words by Sunday night, but I don’t think that is entirely possible at this point.

» My Father’s Bike: 0.167 (13,347 / 80,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Edited: 0.250 (3 / 4 weeks until 2007-06-15)
» Muddy Reflections Query: 0.083 (11 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10)
» Summer Biking: 0.161 (64.6 / 400 km)

2007-05-29

Weekend Fun

Filed under: Family,Games,Writing — Tags: , , , , — D. Moonfire @ 21:17

Didn’t get much writing done at all this weekend. Maybe a thousand words on Friday and not much else. Fluffy wasn’t up to exercising so, for the first time, I went to the health club by myself. Despite being sick and unable to swallow, I actually did a decent 1.45 miles in 30 minutes. And I can pull at least eighty pounds without too much trouble.

On Saturday, I had a great gaming session. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it, but I actually talked for nearly ten hours solid without too much trouble. Thank god for cough drops and lots of liquid. And way too many cans of Diet Coke. I had a lot of fun and everyone laughed throughout the game, so frankly I consider that the important parts.

Most of Sunday, I played Wii until my arms hurt and PS3 when they did. Fluffy dragged me out to go tile shopping and we found some lovely pieces of tile we might be putting in our living room. Though, the saleman thought that tiling the floor of a living room was very “strange.” Anyone seen it before or have opinions on putting tile down in living rooms? Monday was the same, except for the fourteen mile bike trip that Fluffy “inflicted” on me. After that, it was PS3, a movie, too much sushi, and moaning about not wanting to get up.

Fluffy read the first two chapters of my book, My Father’s Bike and had some nice compliments. It jumps around too much for her, since I made it topic-based instead chronological. I might consider switching it, but the formatting conventions aren’t there yet. I also found out Machine of Death is extending the reading time by a month, so I won’t hear any results until July.

Other than that, I’m going to write a bit this week, play a few games, and maybe get in a bit of programming. Fightertype told me that I did her Itrifore world in Hero System 5th Edition, she’d run it, so I’m playing around with how to set up her world to fit that game mechanic.

» My Father’s Bike: 0.144 (11,485 / 80,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Edited: 0.250 (3 / 4 weeks until 2007-06-15)
» Muddy Reflections Query: 0.083 (11 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10)
» Summer Biking: 0.161 (64.4 / 400 km)

2007-05-25

Retrospective: Okami

Filed under: Games,Reviews — D. Moonfire @ 12:41

Gorgeous game, Okami. I finished it last night. I had a moments hesitation when I considered getting all 100 beads in the game, to unlock the really powerful special, but then I didn’t. Instead, I went through an hour of boss fights and cut scenes to get to the final boss fight which took thirty minutes alone. Didn’t even need to cheat on that one, the conventions of fighting were very well established at that point and I enjoyed it right up to the end. Even the end credits were beautiful.

I will admit, I like non-photorealistic rendering (NPR). Okami is a case of NPR where you use a few tricks on a 3D model to make it look closer to drawn. Realism has its own issues, called the Uncanny Valley, but it is also something I’m not fond of. Give me a fast game that looked sketched and I am absolutely happy. This is also why, if I ever do it, I want to write a 3D rendering engine for NPR. To me, realism isn’t needed for a good story. Style is.

In the end, I pulled Okami out and set it aside. I put it on its side to remind me that there is still more to the game, and if I get bored for some reason, it might be a fun game. The “new game plus” starts you over at the beginning, but with almost all of your equipment, brush strokes, and some new toys. And you can skip the cut scenes. If I do end up playing it, just to get 100% completion, it will be much faster the second time.

As much as it will be hard to resist putting in the next game, I should probably write tonight and prepare for this weekend’s adventure. I’m not entirely healthy, but I think I can run for at least five hours of my normal ten. Knowing me, I’ll try to run all ten of course. I just miss gaming. A month break makes one start to doubt the story and consider other systems as viable choices. :) That might also be since I’m working on writing up fightertype’s Itrifore world as Hero System 5th Edition.

» My Father’s Bike: 0.127 (10,169 / 80,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Edited: 0.250 (3 / 4 weeks until 2007-06-15)
» Muddy Reflections Query: 0.083 (11 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10)
» Summer Biking: 0.105 (41.8 / 400 km)

2007-05-23

Miserable but not yet

Filed under: Family,Writing — D. Moonfire @ 15:11

I got sick. Well, still sick. My bronchtius seems have cleared up right at the point I got a throat infection. I’m hoping to be better by Thursday, but just in case, I won’t announce my gaming schedule to the group until then. The doctor has me on Codine cough syrup and yet another -cillin. Talking doesn’t seem to be much of a problem, but swallowing is. Oh well, I’m just worried because I haven’t been this sick for this long on many, many years.

On the writing side, absolutely nothing! I’m almost at the end of Okami, so I’m pushing to finish that. And the drugs make it hard to concentrate on anything solid. I spent about a hundred dollars getting both the PS3 and the Wii hooked up to the network. I originally tried the wired connection for th Wii, but it simply wouldn’t work, so I got a wireless access point instead. That works beautifully. As soon as I finish Okami, I suspect I’ll be playing Resistance: Fall of Man or Dark Kingdoms. Not to mention, Rayman every night on the Wii with Fluffy, she really likes that game.

I’m going to add a few patches for New Girl from the Steam Punk Magazine. Mainly stuff that was in back story but not in the story itself. Already have an idea for the next one, depending on their theme. Lots of ideas, just no ability to focus long enough to write them.

» My Father’s Bike: 0.1210 (9,683 / 80,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon: 0.000 (4 / 4 weeks until 2007-06-15)
» Muddy Reflections: 0.000 (12 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10 query response)
» Summer Biking: 0.105 (41.8 / 400 km)

2007-05-21

Writing, PS3, and Wii’s

Filed under: Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 19:38

Interesting and fun-filled vacation. I got a PS3 from my mother for helping her with a problem. Picked up a couple of games, then promptly ignored them to play a PS2 game. I also got a Wii, which is an utterly fun time and Fluffy loves greatly. We ended up spending a couple hours playing it, even when I should have been writing.

As for writing, I encountered a few problems with Bike, I figured I was about half done with the topics of the book, but that would only put me at 0.25 of the book instead of 1.00. So, I’m going to change it around a bit and see if I can get a slightly more interesting tone to read and also a little bit more narrative. This is an unstructured project, so I’m not too enamored with word counts, but I’m going to keep it until I “finish.” I did get some really great feedback on New Girl. Good encouragements and very observant dislikes that I didn’t see. I did find one little bit I forgot to do, Staple got her age wrong but since the story was from his point of view, I forgot to have her correct him. And a couple other points. Overall, I’m very happy to get the feedback and just as happy to take it in mind to make a few corrections.

I’m also getting sick again, I think. It hurts to swallow, so instead of waiting my usual week to see if things get better, and given the light of me being sick the last couple weeks on something else, I figured I’ll just go in now and see if there is anything or if my doctor thinks its normal.

» My Father’s Bike: 0.151 (9,683 / 80,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon: 0.000 (4 / 4 weeks until 2007-06-15)
» Muddy Reflections: 0.000 (12 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10 query response)
» Summer Biking: 0.105 (41.8 / 400 km)

2007-05-17

Bikes, bones, and old game systems

Filed under: Family,Writing — Tags: , , — D. Moonfire @ 17:58

It has been a busy and complicated set of days. Two nights ago, fightertype hurt herself greatly during Hapkido. I drove her home and offered to take her to urgent care. The next morning, I got a call at six asking if I would take her to the hospital. Six hours later, I finally made it home. She has a potential fracture in her arm. Seeing her in pain made me want to take care of her, and I did. I also got a package from my grandmother, pictures of my mother when she was young and a ton of her cards and young childhood notes. It was actually very nice to read about my mother as a little girl and as a baby. My mailbox also had a $100 money order from a story commission that I did, which is just damn nice to make a little bit of cash writing for people. Sometimes, it gets frustrating that I’ve made over two thousand dollars from commissions but only $23 from royalties.

I also talked to my neighbor this morning. They had a yard sale and I figured I’d be up front and friendly. She mentioned that their computer was dying because of her children’s games, so I offered all the old game systems that I had in a box under my desk. I wasn’t playing them and there were games that they haven’t seen with it. Even if they only play them for a few hours, it would be a few more hours of life for things I stopped using years ago. Plus, I’d always rather give something away to someone I know will use it instead of just trying to sell it for a few pennies.

And the last bit. I finally started My Father’s Bike. The problem is, while I’ve been thinking about writing this for two years, I missed a few things. I knew how it started and I knew exactly how it ended. What I forgot to do was figure out the middle. My original plan for organizing it wouldn’t work, I simply didn’t have enough months (I was going to do it as a set of realizations that I experienced, broken up by the months I rode my bike). Instead, I went with a slightly different approach. I’m also making it up entirely as I go which means I don’t really have a measure of completion besides words. Even starting it is bringing up emotions I wasn’t expecting and I think it is going to be very hard to finish this. But I have to. It is something I just have to say.

» My Father’s Bike: 0.054 (4,300 / 80,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon: Sending to Editor
» Muddy Reflections: 0.000 (12 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-07 query response)
» Summer Biking: 0.104 (41.6 / 400 km)

2007-05-15

New Projects and Wind, Bear, Moon editing

Filed under: Writing — Tags: , , — D. Moonfire @ 19:12

My Wind, Bear, and Moon rewrite went much better than a thought. After spending a few days away from it, it actually didn’t seem as bad as I thought it would be. I cleaned up a few things, go rid of the Voman references for Dyfan, and changed it to an OpenOffice master document format for inserting (apparently chapters 1-3 and 17 didn’t get inserted properly before). It still sits at 87k words, but I suspect that its going to be a drastically short novel, from my point of view. I just hope it is a good short novel. But, self-doubt has always been my curse. In hopes of keeping my formatting, I’m going to at fightertype’s mother to edit the individual chapters in RTF format. Hopefully, that will handle the fact that everyone in the universe uses Microsoft Word but I use OpenOffice.

Other than that, I’m hoping to get a lot of writing done this week. I’m considering starting Peg and Sue or My Father’s Bike, but I’m not sure which one. I want to write both novels, but I seem to work better with only one major writing project at a time. I suspect Bike will come first, so you might see that being added to my progress status.

You might notice I started using additional icons for my postings. I figured why not, but I was getting just a tad tired of the “Mf” moon. But, you’ll notice that I’m sticking with the moon theme, just because I like it.

» Wind, Bear, and Moon Rewrite #2: 1.000 (15 / 15 chapters)
» Summer Biking: 0.104 (41.6 / 400 km)

2007-05-14

Red Lobster

Filed under: Family — D. Moonfire @ 15:40

Fluffy became my friend somewhere in 1995 or so. That means I’ve known her for twelve years thought we still joke that I don’t remember meeting her for the first couple of months. I was very shy and didn’t talk to people, things have changed. Oh, they have changed. In 1999, I proposed in probably the most awkward and least romantic way possible. A year and a day (plus a bit), we got married on May 13, 2000.

When I think of our relationship, there was a single point in time where we stepped over the point of being just friends and became more than that. It was having dinner at Red Lobster in ’96. I won’t go into details, Fluffy asked me not to many years ago. Because of that one spark, we have always gone to Red Lobster on our anniversary. One of those little rituals we picked up. Four years ago, because of our efforts to eat healthier, we found we couldn’t actually finish a meal at Red Lobster, so we mixed it up. We started getting the entrees to go and just ate appetizers and dessert there. Over the next couple of days, we actually finish our meal.

It is one of those things that just reminds me how much I love her. Seven years of marriage, I still have the same passion and love for her as the day I agreed to change my name for her. Just as much as the bittersweet day we got married, stumbling over the two words I actually had to say, and everything since.

This weekend, we pigged out a bit too much, watched lots of children’s movies, and I turned the entire bedroom into one large blanket tent. Now, back to my regularly schedules week-long vacation.

» Wind, Bear, and Moon Rewrite #2: 0.000 (0 / 15 chapters)
» Summer Biking: 0.104 (41.6 / 400 km)

2007-05-11

White Wolf submission, posted New Girl, married 7 years!

Filed under: Family,Games,Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 15:02

Hah, I bet you thought I missed a day since I actually skipped one and didn’t post anything. Actually, I didn’t do anything productive the day before yesterday, so I figured you didn’t want to hear about my new game (Okami) and Fluffy starting the process of buying a new bike.

Well, I submitted my story, A Father’s Choice, to White Wolf, but I think this might be pushing it. Apparently, they did request a word cap of 2,000 words and… I couldn’t get it under 6,631. When I sent the letter, I thought it was still at the 3,000 word point otherwise, I would have just not sent it at all. So, they’ll probably rejected it because I can’t honor word counts. If they do that, I’ll post it since I was pretty proud of the story.

I also decided that I would post The New Girl on my website. I haven’t gotten feedback from Steam Punk Magazine, but I’ll update it anyways when (and if) they get back to me.

This weekend, starting today, is my seventh year anniversary of the day I married Fluffy. And I still find myself in love with her. Has promise for the next forty-three years. We decided when we married that it would be a fifty year marriage, then we’ll decide if we want another fifty.

» Wind, Bear, and Moon Rewrite #2: 0.000 (0 / 15 chapters)
» Summer Biking: 0.104 (41.6 / 400 km)

Older Posts »