I made it. 400 kilometers in a single summer. Yeah, I had given up on it, with 30 km from the end of the goal, but a poorly-timed argument with Fluffy and I took the 2.5 hours to do all 30 km in a single day. Very nice getting my goal, mainly because I didn’t give up. Well, I did, but I didn’t. Next year? 500 km.
In the next week, I have a ton of short stories to write and finish before NaNoWriMo. Mostly to get me up to speed and mostly because I’m a submission-slut who insists on writing a story to submit to any and all places that look interesting.
My garage door committed suicide last night, burned out the motor in a explosion of smoke and the side guide rail is twisted so you have to really force it to open up. I think I hit the side of the garage with my car, but I keep forgetting to check out the damage. Other than that, just trying to keep moving forward as money gets tight, gaming gets fun, and I start writing again.
Best Laid Plans (0 of 3,000 words)
Hidden Room (0 of 1,000 words)
Thomas the Baker (0 of 5,000 words)
Commission (0 of 5,000 words)
Amazing how you can pack so much in three days. On Monday, I was sick as I mentioned before. Inigo also went into the vet to get neutered and be tagged. Since then, he has been absolutely miserable since then, screaming out in pain with every step and crawling into a ball instead of moving. The formerly excited puppy has turned into sad eyes and it reminds me of Dante so much before he died. I know he isn’t, he is just miserable and in a few weeks, he’ll be fine, but it hurts to much to hear him yelping.
I got the second alpha for CuteGod out. It includes installers for Windows and a binary package for Linux. THere are some burps with some of the Linux platforms, but Windows works beautifully and I’m damn proud I got so far. I sent a copy to Danc, who proposed the challenge, and he gave me a lot of really good feedback and compliments. I won’t be able to do much for a few weeks with NaNoWriMo, but it is actually getting close to being a real “game” and something I’ve been trying to do for twenty-six very long years. Please, download it and tell me what you think.
I’m also winding up for NaNoWriMo by writing some short stories. Struggling a lot with trying to “remember” how to write. It’s that horrible state where I know the words, but I lost that skill where it comes out so quickly, so easily. I’ll get there, but I have to context switch between programming and writing and its hard. It really points out that you can specialize or you can be generic, but a specialist will usually do it faster and easier than the generalist.
Fluffy is out of town this weekend so I get to be a bachelor. Ah, the fancy times of wild parties, staying up late, and basically reliving the non-existent days before my second decade. So, what did I do in this restriction-free environment?
Got sick.
Yep, food poisoning. Started feeling bad on Thursday and it went right into Friday, getting steadily worse, and finally tapered off this morning. Woke up only a few minutes before noon, which is remarkable given the puppies not waking me up more than once. But, I feel much better. The strange part, I’m craving sushi which is what I suspected gave it to me in the first place.
So, between the rounds of being sick, I worked on the surprise of all surprises, CuteGod. Fixed a bunch of bugs, got more prayers working, and just admired the fact it is beginning to look like a real game. My goal this weekend is to put out a alpha release for Windows and Linux. The Windows one might not happen, but at least I can get the Linux version out and start getting feedback and stuff I missed type of things. Here’s hoping.
I created a LJ feed for Glorious Saber for those who are interested in adding it to your friends page. Not sure if it is working properly, but I’m hoping to get more exposure.
I’ll be removing my bike goal probably in a week or so. It is getting a tad chilly to ride and I’m hoping to get those last 30 km in before then.
Summer Biking: (370.2 of 400.0 km)
I got to thinking about editing, mainly because of some conversations. Lately, I haven’t been writing much, mainly because I have a packed schedule for the next three months and writing isn’t for another two weeks. Mostly, I’ve been obsessing about CuteGod and getting it done before November 1st. Writing problems is like writing novels. The difference is that it is, in a way, more compact but more complicated. In a story or novel, you know how it ends, in a program, you have to plan for all the possibilities. You have to test data and, in most cases, let people do their own thing. In a way, running RPG games is the mid-point of writing and programming, at least for me. :)
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Worked only a little bit on CuteGod last night. Mostly I spent the night working on Glorious Saber to get strip #13 out. Still struggling a bit with it, but I gave up on the mouths for this strip and went back to the original look. There is little bits here and there, but I’m feeling more comfortable doing it. I’m also thinking about posting when I do work on Glorious Saber, mainly to troll for comments.
.
Of course, that comfort was shaken a bit when I posted it on the White Wolf forums. It was feedback, pretty good feedback, but not the type of stuff I can change easily. I mean, Glorious’ speech patterns are easier to mask and make more English but the artistic style, while abstract, may not be easily changed until I get better at my artistic skill. Not to mention, I’m working on libraries to generate the avatars for Ponies Among Us and Glorious Saber at the same time. And the trees (the L-system library from yesterday) and a few other things.
I aim big, you know that?
I also desperately need to write a story this weekend. Even if it just to post instead of sending out to one of many places that want it. Honest, they do.
They just don’t know it yet.
Summer Biking: (357.2 of 400.0 km)
Well, should have been writing or at least working on CuteGod. But, I had to get my L-system mostly working and now it is. Apparently, I accidentally got contextual working in the process of doing parametric ones. So, I bet you are wondering what is the difference? No, didn’t think so.
Gonna write about it anyway.
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Last night, I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with the Rifftrax, so I couldn’t do much programming. So, I decided to write up a little L-system library. I’m not entirely sure why I did this, other than I thought it might be useful for Ponies Among Us or even CuteGod. It isn’t optimized for use, but it at least does a context-free L-system with simple regex operations. In theory, this would let me do something with city building, tree creation, or something neat with character appearance. Most of these are for Ponies Among Us. Naturally, I really should focus on getting CuteGod done but sometimes I have trouble focusing on the game issues and not trying to do the polish one. I mean, I don’t even have a main menu yet and had to remove features (*pout*).
Well, tonight, tonight I shall code! And the code shall be good!
… maybe.
Summer Biking: (357.2 of 400.0 km)
Another day of torment. Well, not really. I spent a lovely morning waking up with Fluffy and reading books well into the afternoon. Other than that, I basically did nothing productive except read books, comics, and go grocery shopping. Oh, I did decide to take out the bugs for CuteGod instead of going back and fixing the engine. It will never get done if I start over on something as critical as that.
Summer Biking: (349.9 of 400.0 km)
Hit a roadblock on CuteGod and Sprite3. Apparently, my psuedo physics engine can’t handle the bugs (the final stage penalty in the game) without a lot of screen breaking and really screwed up quirks. So, I need to go back and review how I built up the PlanetCute block engine and see if I can fix it without too much work.
In other words, I registered for NaNoWriMo. Yeah, I don’t need to do it, but I just wanted to this year. Plus, it really comes down to the question if I can write a good novel in a third of the time I normally take?
Fluffy made me work out, which is good, but I hate that I still don’t feel good after I work out. On the other hand, I can fairly comfortably walk 4 miles per hour for 10 minutes without going over 135 heart rate. A far improvement over the 150 heart rate for going 2.5 mph from the beginning of this year.
Summer Biking: (349.9 of 400.0 km)
Had a pretty productive day last night. Worked on polishing up CuteGod and it is starting to look very nice. Probably the most unimportant, but critical, thing I added was a proper loading screen. This let me get something up on the screen as fast as possible, then to load the rest of the textures in the background. Otherwise, there was this 5-10 second on this computer (10-15 on my laptop) delay before the screen started up.
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