Sheryl’s fingers jammed the power button on the remote before tossing it on the couch. With a disgusted sigh, she looked over at her older sister cowering in the corner of the padded pillows, a makeshift fort built from cushions, a blanket, and one very annoyed-looking cat.
She spoke with a voice that brimmed with annoyance.
“It’s over.â€
Mary peeked up around the tabby, “R-Really? What happened?â€
This weekend, I submitted Victim of Love to Drops of Crimson. A few days later, they announced their first issue. Naturally, I checked it out just to read the stories but there was always this growing hope they loved my story and put it in.
It was like checking the White Wolf quarterly or Steam Punk Magazine in hopes to see if you had a story accepted. That excited anticipation as the page loads, then the dishearting scan of the table of contents and incredible lack of your name on it. One time I did, I scanned that table of contents and saw my name, but since then, it really hasn’t happened.
It seems like I’m not getting accepted lately (most of this year) which is rather discouraging. Probably one reason I’ve been focusing on games, or it could be an incredible lack of focus I’ve been going through lately. It starting to show up on my current projects to. Glorious Saber was my first comic attempt and, while it wasn’t perfect, I enjoyed it. But, when using the same style of graphics, I’ve just been getting a bunch of comments that it looks like immature Flash programming art or something that beginners do.
Its kind of like getting that critique, “learn to write”. This week, it was “learn to write”, “learn to draw”, “learn to program”.
I keep moving forward, but its getting really hard. :(
This isn’t a meme, but it was still pretty fun. Fightertype always says that I can see colors that no one else can see. In specific, I’m pretty good at telling the difference between various shades of blue, but I never had an idea of how good I might be. So, in a chat, someone pointed out this test.
So, how good are you at telling differences in colors. The lower the score the better (it’s the number of ones you got wrong). I managed to get an 8, so I feel pretty damn awesome. And it kind of shows that I do have pretty good color perception.
My week of critiques is finally over. All in all, I got eight of them including the one that suggested I learn how to actually write before posting something again. Even though it isn’t that large of a group, it was far larger than I had before (by the way, thank you, Anton, for the suggestion). Five of the responses suggested I trim down the length of the chase sequence and six of them found little bumps of English that I need to play around with. Fair enough, they were really good suggestions. Seven of the eight wanted to know why two people in their 50′s were able to do what they do, which is kind of contrary to how I write, but at that point, I probably should explain it. I like leaving it open to questions, but oh well, statistics have spoken.
Its kind of cool. Of the eight, most of them independently found the same basic three things wrong with the story. Obviously, that would be a pretty good thing to focus on.
I’ll edit it and start sending it out again. I did notice that Drops of Crimson is looking for submissions (before Sunday morning). It isn’t a paying market, but it might not be a bad place for this little piece. So, I think if I get it done by Sunday, I’ll send it that way.
Kind of neat being a writer sometimes.
Going to be a day of quite a few posts, but they are greatly differing in their content, so I’ll spread them out over the day. The first is, of course, my current obsession that I’ve been working on during my lunch breaks (because I had to finish homework first). This is my current attempts at the baby squid god.
Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test…
13 Ukiyo-e, 1 Islamic, -7 Impressionist, -9 Cubist, -6 Abstract and -5 Renaissance!
Ukiyo-e (浮世絵, Ukiyo-e), “pictures of the floating world”, is a genre of Japaneseand paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries. it mostly featured landscapes, historic tales, theatre, and pleasure. Ukiyo is a rather impetuous urban culture that has bloomed in popularity. Although the Japanese were more strict and had many prohibitions it did not affect the rising merchant class and therefore became a floating art form that did not bind itself to the normal ideals of society.
People that chose Ukiyo-e art tend to be more simplistic yet elegant. They don’t care much about new style but are comfortable in creating their own. They like the idea of living for the moment and enjoy giving and receiving pleasure. They may be more agreeable than other people and do not like to argue. They do not mind following traditions but are not afraid to move forward to experience other ideas in life. They tend to enjoy nature and the outdoors. They do not mind being more adventurous in their sexual experiences. They enjoy being popular and like being noticed. They have their own unique style of dress and of presenting themselves. They may also tend to be more business oriented or at the very least interested in money making adventures. They might make good entrepreneurs. They are progressive and adaptable.
Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy
Here is my new and improved baby squid god.
And a slight animated version with stubby legs.
Opinions are, as always, highly appreciated.
Today, I earned the right to bitch about the president and congress for another four and two years respectively. In other words, I voted. With all the stuff going on with the flood, I decided to do an absentee ballot. I got it on Friday, got to see all the candidates, look them up online, and and send my ballot out this morning. Kind of cool, I’ve never tried it before but I think I like doing it this way. I was also surprised to see eight groups for the presidential list, which is six more than most people really think about and three more than I thought was on the list. I won’t say who I voted for, but I’m really glad I had a chance to add my 0.000000004% contribution (estimated, I don’t know how many registered voters there are) to the next four years.
It was an interesting weekend. Went back to Illinois to spend time with my honey, discuss our future, and spend six hours in a car entertaining myself. In this case, I got to thinking about a novel I’ve wanted to write, so I sketched out the chapter outline. It is about a retired hero of the world who’s grandchild ends up following in his tracks. Just the idea of writing about a man in his seventies who used to be the most powerful warrior in the world just seems appealing to me. Just the idea of what happened after “happily ever after” appeals to me. And it has a great ending, I think.
I came home to notice that the Lovecraft Commonplace Competition started while I was enjoying time with the wife. And I have six weeks to figure out something. Which is really cool, since I’m ignoring the contest’s basic rule (use a phrase from the commonplace book) and going with something I think will be fun. Not that the phrases won’t be awesome, the screenshots and mockups are great. I just want to write Baby Squid God. Time will tell. I also got feedback from my old gaming group (they are old because I haven’t played in six months). Good feedback on the squid I posted, ideas on how to advance, and they are starting all these fun games without me. Oh well, makes me almost wish I pushed a bit harder to do something new at the beginning of last arc. There are times when putting things up to a vote ends up not the way you expected.
Finally, Fluffy and I are switching gears on the house. Today, we are going to pull the house off the market and wait out this credit crunch. If things go well, I can juggle monies for a while I try to get things a bit more even (secret plans!). It is… painful to do, but realistically, I don’t think we are going to sell for the next four months, so why spend all that time keeping the house presentation-friendly. It also interrupts some of our (secret) plans on cleaning up the finances. Okay, not that secret, but one involved my old boss and shouldn’t be aired. It also means two of my kitties are going back to Illinois for human contact and interaction. Paks is staying with me at the apartment; I almost have her toilet trained.
No, I’m not going to work for her.
I was going to write about the kid being arrested for writing a zombie story, but decided to let others be offended by it. At the initial discussion, I decided I hated it, but since I’ll never get the full story, I just didn’t feel right. I mean, in today’s age, it seems like doing anything beyond being the norm can get you in trouble. I wrote disturbing stories when I was a high school student. Hell, I probably freaked out more than a few teachers, but thankfully they weren’t in a hyperactive sense of zero tolerance and fear that I didn’t get my own fifteen minutes of fame (and possibly a felony conviction like this kid).
(EDIT: Apparently that was old news dredged up, which is one reason I try not to rant on things until they show up for a while. But, it reminds me of the general trend of things happening with writing, including a kid getting in trouble for writing disturbing stories in Illinois a year ago or so. And, it still didn’t change the fact that I was a weird one when I grew up. Also, it is a plausible story in today’s age, which is probably why it spread out so fast.)
(EDIT 2: News sites really should put dates on their things. It helps keeps context for this things.)
I highly respect your decision to make a choice in picking a candidate. That part is great because I truly respect people who actually vote and make a decision instead of being apathetic about the entire process. I also know that you, as someone willing to get into a call center and call a ton of people to ask them their political affiliation must be a mind-numbing task and probably a miserable one since you really are going to get “yeah, I already agree” or “rot in hell” response, since most people already made up their minds.
But, as a program, I view a list as options. And when you give me this:
… realize that I, as a programmer and who I am, will probably take offense at all three of your questions. I also know that I’m violating your script, but when I say the “fourth choice”, please do not be hostile about it? Also, while I’m in the middle of explaining that Iowa does have a Libertarian and Green party both on the presidential ballot, please don’t make a disgusted noise and hang up in the middle. If you are going to call me to give me a lecture if I don’t agree with your party choice, you better damn well be willing to get a lecture in return about your unwillingness to acknowledge more than two parties.