Ah, the time of year when I have to make decisions for the next twelve months. No, I’m not talking writing or programming goals, I’m talking… insurance and medical benefits. Like most of my jobs, I have to make binding decisions on what type of insurance I want and how much to throw into my 401(k) plan. These decisions can only be changed if I get divorced, married, or managed to spawn.
The Life Experience Test |
| Overall, you have partaken in 115 out of 169 possible life experiences. Your average life experience score is therefore 68%. The average score is 50%, making your experiences more than 92% of the people who have taken this test. Broken down by category: |
| Take the test and see how YOU compare |
I thought this one was a bit limited. A lot of small number of questions they could have really broken out nicely. But, it was fun to take.
Just finished a four-day weekend. Yeah, it involved holidays, but I only had to do two family things. One of them I actually did, though I was a bit late. The other is deferred for a few weeks to let the weather get better. Fluffy also pushed back her visit so instead of a Christmas wife, I got one one for the weekend. And, since we didn’t have any family things, it pretty much consisted of lying on the bed and watching movies. All four of them.
I enjoyed a lot of movies. A coworker who has managed to borrow about half my entire collection since I started working there in April gave me the gift of 10 movies from the pawn shop. $3 each. That was fun. I like pawn shop DVD’s. I don’t care about cases since I transplant them to slim-line CD cases anyways. Which means, if they play, I’m happy. And I love bad horror movies. And I got a lot of those.
A very happy boy.
Between the movies, entering about 90 DVD’s in the computer, playing on the PS3, and sleeping, I also got lots of writing done. I finally opened up my petition questions for college, then made a very high-pitched eek noise. They changed a lot in a few years, and I’m actually struggling to write out something useful for the 23 questions. I’ll do it, just takes a bit of time. And a lot of screaming.
I also got feedback on my commission. Two sentences: “rewrite this sentence” and “expand these four sections”. Oh, and a “I love it” comment which always makes me all happy inside. I finished the expansion, added another 3k words to the length, and sent it back. If things go well, I’ll either get a bit of money in a few days or another short request.
It took me half a year to finish my first book for Lulu, a print-on-demand (POD) printer. I’m not saying it took half a year to write it–that was actually a much longer journey and happened four years before. No, it took me six months of taking the formerly published novel in its rawest form (individual files converted at least six times based on the Format of the Week™) and getting it ready to be published by Lulu in a manner that I could feel proud of it.
A bit of time and I’m on vacation. Its kind of exciting thing, though I don’t really celebrate the holiday, I do enjoy spending time with family, chatting, and exchanging gifts. Tonight, I’m probably spending time with my honey (well, kind of hoping I am) and into the next day. And probably doing the gift wrapping/packing thing for my side of the family.
Beyond that, I’m enjoying writing. I finished my one commission last night. Came to almost exactly to the word count. I’ll get feedback in 3-4 days, then make any changes. I have one already in the works, a fan fiction request, and one coming soon. Technically, I have four others in the hopper, but its from the same person as the next one I’m working on, so I’m allowed to spread those out.
This weekend, I’m hoping to work on my serial. I missed this week (I try to get one out by Tuesday), so I “owe” the site a double next week. I also have to get Victim of Love edited again and resubmitted, it’s a “bit too long” is the feedback I got. I asked for specific areas, but I’ll trim it down by a quarter and then send it back through Critters or something.
I’ve been also thinking about the next year. I usually plan out my year in the beginning, kind of a rough schedule. This year was… not good for the plan, but I suspect it was because of the new job, moving, flood, and everything else. Next year, I already know I’m working on finishing up the self-publish of my second book and probably finishing Flight of the Scions once again. I also have a book of poetry that I’ve been working on for the last few months. I’ve been trying to write a novel a year since 2002, but I’m not sure if Flight will count as my book for the year. Successfully so far, but I’m not published “properly”. I keep working on Flight, though. I love the story, the question is how to write it so others love it too. Beyond that, I have about 12 novels on my list of things to write, some classical fantasy/steampunk, a comedy sci-fi, and a few urban fiction (Morning Zombie or even the selki romance). Maybe I’ll plan on writing one of those in this coming year?
Worked on my commission this weekend. Took about 12 hours on Saturday, but they were highly distracted hours since I kept getting phone calls and IM requests. And don’t forget the half hour conversation with Fluffy that kept ending with “stop being so interesting to talk to so I can visit you!” All four times.
In the end, I finished the first draft of the story and I’m pretty happy with it. It came at just over 10k words and needs a bit of polish before I can send it out. I should have it done by Tuesday and then a week of editing and I’ll be done. *squee*
I also got another commission request. Its a pretty easy one and they are my best customer so I’m not going to turn it down. So, yah for writing!
I also did a release of Prebuild and got to learn more about the Sourceforge file release process.
Somewhere down the line, I managed to also upgrade my forum, sign up for next quarter’s classes, and start considering writing my petition for the class. Oh, and have a nice conversation with my dad about the nature of the holidays and gifts.
Iowa has a pretty good snowstorm going on right now. The roads are slick and people are driving half the speed limit, but my bad day started before any of that. It started with me waking up, because I was utterly convinced that an intelligent cockroach was trying to learn how to program while I slept, but kept hiding under my pillows when I woke up.
God, I love strange dreams.
However, I had to crawl into the side door of my car to get into it today since someone parked maybe 20 cm away from my door. I scuffed my pants, was late for a conference call when went down twice during said meeting with India. I feel… not very graceful at the moment, as I cleaned off my pants with a damp paper towel and hoped no one would be staring at the wet mark centered on the zipper. And my mat on the floor is covered in sand. Yeah, its going to be a good day. Half my co-workers have already called in snowed.
My lack of productivity last night isn’t helping. I got in about two thousand words on one commission over four hours, then just watched Cars for the rest of the evening before going to sleep. This weekend, I’m hoping to be really productive and actually get at least half of my TODO list done.
I’m going to make it a good day though. I have a cup of Earl Gray sitting on my desk, strawberry oatmeal, and I’m going to finish at least one commission, if not both, this weekend.
Though, I liked some of the suggestions the cockroach gave.
Last night, barring the long discussion with my mother, was pretty much dedicated to watching Pirates of the Caribbean and working one of my commissions. I have two in the queue right now, but I think I can finish one by the end of the weekend. Its only ten thousand words, simple, right?
It’s a strange thing, writing on commission. I get 3-5 paragraph request, usually character names and appearances, then asked to turn it into a 5k, 10k, or 15k word story. Sometimes I get pictures for inspiration for the location or the characters, but those are always the hardest to integrate. Other times, I get 1-3 scenes from an anime or movie that someone would like expanded.
I don’t always get excited about writing commissions, but I enjoy writing them. When you create a short story, you know the characters intimately. You know what they like, or can determine what they like. When you use someone else’s ideas, you are writing another character. A fan fiction, of sorts. I have no doubt that some of the names and descriptions are of people in the commissioner’s life. In others, it is pretty much a straight fan fiction for someone else. Remarkably, my commissions based on a scene usually focus on a secondary or background characters instead of the main ones. Giving a name to the nameless (and not a member of SAG).
But, that unfamiliarity is also an exciting part of it. It’s solving a puzzle. There is some work in writing a plot where all the words are already defined or the actions are determined. Fitting with a personality with my writing style is part of the challenge. And I like that challenge, it is hard but enjoyable.
Very pleasant night last night. After spending way too much at the grocery store (why, oh why do they have LEGO bricks there? *whimper*), I spent the night writing. Got the chapter done for the serial. It wasn’t perfect, but I’m pretty happy with it. Working on my passive voice problem with this serial, its hard to retrain myself to avoid certain words but I’m beginning to get uncomfortable when I use them, so that’s probably a good direction to aim with. I highly suspect I’ll be writing a program at some point, just to help keep me on track of my flaws.
I also finished my Critters obligation (one critique a week). I’m hoping to send a story over to them this week, maybe to submit it somewhere in the beginning of next year.
And finally, started working on the new Moonfire portal site. The graphical idea I have is sound, just… complicated. And if I do it right, it won’t look complicated at all. There is a certain art in making good websites. This idea I have is a bit more complicated than most. I suspect it will take a few days to even get something that looks reasonably good.
I had a very busy and interesting weekend, filled with in-laws, programs, and getting my grade in college (an “A”).