Master Plan « D. Moonfire

Crunch time is over! Well, the boss is heading to the West Coast to sell the product I’ve been putting overtime into. I did poorly on one of my homework assignments during that week, apparently doing all that extra and burning myself out doesn’t work well with high grades. Well, 89% which is a low grade for me in night school. Specially on a simple, two-page paper.

I was getting discouraged on my job search. Part of me was telling myself that the company is doing much better now and that I should just stay with it. This has happened before, the main reason I’m looking for a job, I need some consistency in money. I already talked to Fluffy about it and we have a plan if I have to stay in Illinois for a few years (two homes if we can afford it). But, as I was about to give up, a friend wandered in and reminded me of the pain I was going through a few months back, the entire reason I was looking. So, I’m happy.

And I got a nibble. The job search looks right, a good match. I’ll tell the recruiter on Monday to submit me. And next week is perfect if I do have a job interview, boss is out of town at the convention.

I’m learning the fu of trees. The dao of twigs and the de of leaves. Well, or at least a Lsystem for generating 2D trees. Very hard, actually, since it is hard to visualize something while you are writing it. I threw together a little program that starts, but it has a long while to go before it can really produce a nice-looking tree.

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Woke up yesterday thinking about Itrifore, Fedora, both of my unpublished novels, and everything else in the world. Stress is a really crappy thing, you know?

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Last night, I think I hit an interesting point. Fluffy and I had a long conversation and I think it is time to look for a new job. Various factors, but I simply can’t just accept things as they are now and I need to take care of her. And that is something I haven’t been able to do for a while. Plus, I’m not exactly happy at work anymore. There are a bunch of other reasons, but I think it’s finally time.

In slightly more cheerful new, the home improvement project I started in August is finally done. I just finished putting up the last two curtains (the only two things left since November) and we are now officially done. *cheer*. Now, I can open this sparkling white grape juice that has been sitting on my desk to remind me for the last endless months.

The next contingency plan on Ponies Among Us also started up. Most of my projects with a deadline have these risk plans, and I’m simply not getting enough done in time. This means some of my major plans, dynamically generated world without loading screens being the largest, is being put aside until after the contest. I broke the world down into 29 stages so far, including where I’m randomly hiding crystals, building up characters, and refining the skill sets.

I also started to draw out the first stage and hit a nasty road bump. I suck at drawing vector trees. So, that pushed me back a bit and I’m working on a tree maker program to speed up that process. I should have something workable by Thursday and I hope to have some screenshots for you (if you are interested) on Tuesday. First, I have to educate myself on L-systems in relation to making a semi-realistic looking tree. Simple, I’m sure. Version one… was not pretty.

Scroll of Lands update (38%)

Schoolwork night last night, plus Evyl came in and we talked about future plans. Mostly about her moving in to help save up money to buy our house and to let us save up money to buy a new house. I’m looking forward to it, we just have to iron out those little wrinkles that need to be said ahead of time and get everything on paper. I’m big on paper agreements, mainly because I’ve been burned more than a few times by friends and family. And I worry about things not working out, either we find something we can’t agree on or something we didn’t think about. Not that I think any are really big ones, but I still worry.

I have 85 days left for 4E6. I have 15 days until Kitteh Braik goes into contingency plan. I am hitting a wall right now. I hate that wall of these large projects, when you stare up at them and find anything else in the world to do besides that. There are a bunch of them, right now, some that really scare me and others that I just don’t want to do. Right now, I’m trying to find a polygon library so I can merge some polygons to get the physics shape. If I can’t figure it out by Sunday, I’ll go to plan three. I also need to get the graphics in and get a damn figure to stand up instead of having his body parts explode in all directions.

One person formally withdrew from 4E6 that I was looking forward to seeing their game. But, the reasons were echoed in myself, and that is the annoying part. I want to succeed at this. I gave up 4E5 because I had to make a choice between Wind, Bear, and Moon and the game. I ended up picking WBM, but I wanted so badly to do this. Part of me wants to burn myself out to finish it, to stay up long hours and work until I figure it out, another part wants to just curl up in the blankets and surrender.

I read a pretty good blog post about writing a novel in two months. Some of the points they made were the reasons I feel that I failed Case of the Morning Zombies. Another project, but long after 4E6.

Kitteh Braik (12%)
Scroll of Lands update (35%)

The last ten days have been a series of rejections. This is both a good thing and kind of a depressing thing. There is a high point though. First, the rejections. Four stories I submitted were rejected. Three of them were for a short story anthology (1,200 words or less), but “any genre” does not apply to fantasy. Long story, but it makes sense when she wrote the personal email back to me. There is something to be said when the editor of an anthology says, “You’re writing is lovely. I’m definitely a fan, it just isn’t right for this anthology. I hope someday we can work together.” She is holding back one of the rejections for a different anthology, so that is closer to 3.5 rejections this week.

The other was for Dark Recesses in their deja vu werewolf contest. Huge number of submissions, check the front page to see if you were accepted. I wasn’t. So, I posted Another Werewolf’s Tail on my website. I thought it was a cute little story, but oh well. I’m also marking it as a “story on the site” despite writing it last year. The goals are kind of vague to start with, but I don’t have much waiting from the prior year.

In other news, I think college is taking a greater hit than I planned. Fluffy is feeling neglected and I haven’t been paying enough attention to her. So, looks like I need to drop a few more things to make sure she stays in the front of my life instead of behind it.

Just not exactly sure what. I suspect Glorious Saber is going on hold, I haven’t gotten many comments on it, so I don’t feel too bad. I do have the next entire arc already planned, just need the 12-20 hours to illustrate it.

Kitteh Braik (9%)
Scroll of Lands update (7%)

I kept thinking about the car. Well, mainly what I have to do to afford it. I know, it’s a silly thing, but I know I can. Or, more accurately, I should. I know how much I make and I know how much I pay in bills, it is the space between the two that is rather cloudy when it used to not be. Our lifestyle has increased to fit my salary and I think it finally got out of control.

Fluffy and I talked, and while she doesn’t seem happy with it, I think she understands that with the current plans, this year is a transition. We have to reign in some of our expenses and really save up for Iowa, this new car, and basically getting ahead before we enter the very scary world of tiny little spawn (i.e. children) running around at our feet.

I don’t want to be in the same situation that I grew up in. I don’t want to worry about food from week to week and I don’t want to have the constant feast and famine that I grew up with. Fluffy is close to me on that, we were both raised with single mothers for about half our childhood and most of that time was really scraping to make ends me. I think that is why I worry so much about taking care of Fluffy and making sure she has what she needs.

Since I needed to do something, I created a planned goals page and pulled off the projects I haven’t started. And, I also redid the graphics for my progress bar into something that fits my personality and current image theme a bit better. I took the lunar eclipse image from my main site (moonfire.us) and created a bar out of it. I like it a lot better.

Character Builder (91%)
World Builder (2%)
Kitteh Braik (7%)

I start college tomorrow. I’m terrified and excited at the same time. I need eight classes to get my Masters in IT and eight petitions. Naturally, the petitions will be in the areas that I have a lot of strength in (programming and databases) while I focus my classes on the stuff I want to get great at (management).

Well, on Monday, I managed to pry Fluffy out of bed and into a car to visit my dad for the holidays. Fifteen miles later, I was on the side of the road with a smoking engine, a temperature gauge beyond the high mark, and deciding that it was time to retire my twelve year old car. I am less than happy. Actually, I’m quite upset as I try to figure out how to juggle a new car payment.

We also had a talk with one of our good friends. She wants to buy our house when we move to Iowa, and it would be great if she did. But, there are enough things hanging out that will require a bit of expert level juggling. One of the suggestions was to let her move in early, help cover some of the payments and work on paying for the house long before she has to get a mortgage. I’ve done this before and it will require a lot on all three of our parts, but if it works out, then everyone wins. She knocks money off the payment of the house to make it easier for her to get a mortgage and we have a bit of money going on to help even the inconsistent incoming we get from work. Plus, I really need to pay down some of my debt before the house thing.

It also means, baring me getting a great job in Iowa, the move itself probably won’t happen until 2009. I’m still going to look, but if I do find something, it just means I’ll have to get an apartment in Iowa for a few months while also paying for the house. Um, basically been there, did that, it just isn’t fun.

So, 2008 is already looking to be an interesting year.

Saw a little speed typing test on liz-dejesus’s journal. Had to do it myself and I actually got a pretty good score: 93 words per minute.

93 words

Touchtyping

(Second try, of course, first was 85 wpm).

Character Builder (91%)
World Builder (2%)
Kitteh Braik (7%)
Case of the Morning Zombies (Edit #1, 0 of 37 chapters)

Hard to believe I’ve been blogging for two years now. I started this journal about a month after my other, in-character one. Originally, it was just there to comment on friends, but I started posting one or two things on occasion. Now, as my brother said, “I’m a pretty good blogger.” Or at least I do it fairly consistently and I’ve gotten a few compliments on letting everyone in on the trials and joys of my life.

This year is probably the year I started to really blogging on two of my major themes of life: writing and programming. I will, of course, blame the the other Dylan for getting me into writing about writing. After meeting with him at GenCon 2006, it really pushed me to finally take that step toward trying to be a “real” writer again instead of just hanging my hat on my one relatively minor success. I’ve been a lot of really cool writers in this last year and I’m pretty thankful for making that step. Now, I just have to follow their footsteps and get published again. On the programming/gaming side, I haven’t really done much with networking, but I blog about it almost as much as my writing. Even if I occasionally give “too technical” details as more than one said. Oh well, just who I am.

The end of the year is the time when I look at my major projects for the year. I plan them ahead of time, sometimes even figure out when I’ll work on it, but mainly it is a framework for my personal projects throughout the year. I also like to remember what I have succeeded at.

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Yesterday, I sent out a submission for Muddy Reflections to Alondra Press. It was an electronic submission. Today, I got a very polite and nice response. They apparently are swamped and can’t even consider another book for two years. So, one more rejection and one more piece of paper for the folder. And I put it on my InterestingDates note to ask again in two years, if I haven’t gotten published by then.

That does reflect my view of things. I think I’m very patient. At one point, I wanted to learn Reiki. It looked like the right thing for me at the time, so I kept an eye out for it for the better part of two months. When I was in Iowa City one day, I noticed a flyer for Reiki attunements, so I called. I just missed it by a few weeks and she wasn’t going to do one for another year. She was very sorry and offered to point me in a different direction but I told her I’d wait. And I did. Eleven months. It was five years later that I picked up Reiki II where most people seem to get it two days or two months later.

The same thing with with the Master Plan™. Fluffy and I have actually be going through this goal for close to five years now. Trying to get money saved, the mortgage paid down, getting our degrees so it would be easier to move and get a job. Five years we’ve been working toward it and I haven’t really been that impatient. I’ve had doubts, but it seems right for me.

It also shows up with how I’m submitting things. I don’t feel comfortable sending out two or more query letters. I don’t know why, it just seems so rushed and I’m afraid (probably wrongly) that two people would accept it and I’d have to say no to someone. Given the number of rejections I’ve had, that really isn’t an issue but it still worries me. So, I send them out one at a time, and wait for each feedback as I go.

Since it wasn’t that interesting, I moved my waiting for progress to a status page. Naturally, I added a bunch of other stuff I need to finish in the next couple of weeks. Around my programming, that is.

Summer Biking: (236.7 of 400.0 km)
Change of Honor (2,334 of 9,000 words)
Another Werewolf Tail (0 of 2,500 words)
Commissioned Work (0 of 10,000 words)

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Summer Biking: (203.5 / 400.0 km)

I am still working on this home improvement project. Fortunately, it looks like the end is in sight at least, which always brightens my day. One out of three rooms done, just a bit of grouting repair, and cleaning up and things should be much easier. We are going to try doing the base painting coat in the dining room but otherwise not much else tonight.

Originally, I planned on working on Debian work I owe people, but apparently they need 25 days for the process, so I couldn’t do anything while Fluffy was at Hapkido. So, I putzed around instead of doing something productive.

But, I did have very good news. After the two years I’ve been working on Wind, Bear, and Moon, I actually got some good feedback! Scienceprincess, who deals with children in that age category, pointed out some really good things. I’ll get a better list of suggestions later, but I’m just so happy I got something! Now to clean up the English that is technically correct but not really “young reader.” Apparently, I’m a very formal writer (which makes sense given my past) but I use informal stuff in speech (as my old writing teacher told me to do). Reminds me of the comment of someone reading my first novel: “Are you capable of using contractions?” Its the strangest thing, in writing, I actually have to make a point of using contractions since I typically write “cannot” instead of “can’t.” We won’t even get into if the period should be outside a double quote (“).

So, still moving forward on this home project. I need to do some coding projects in the next week, to handle my obligations on the computer side of things. My csharp-mode needs a bit of love as does my MediaWiki CategoryCloud plugin. I’m glad I don’t have to do much with the Debian stuff, but I really should work on Getting Things Done(tm) before I get horribly distracted by GenCon.

I am so looking forward to GenCon.

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Summer Biking: (203.5 / 400.0 km)

Life seems like it is on hold. Coming off a lovely vacation (well, mostly lovely), we jump right into this project removing carpet, repairing walls, and tiling. This is day nine of what I thought was a four day project. I’ve managed to take off 4.5 days from work (Friday was a half day), blow up to a grand on extra stuff that I didn’t remember/realized/wanted to get. Fluffy, in her lovable wisdom, has been pushing me and pushing me to get complete; we both started winding out of steam probably two days ago.

But, the tile is down, 3/4ths of the grout is in place and we just bought a whole slew of little things like baseboards, plates, curtains, and everything else to make our new room a room instead of a playground for Inigo. Fluffy’s fear that Smokey would hate the floor was blow away on the first day we put in tile when he kept getting on the tile, off the tile, on the tile, off the tile for hours at a time. We can barely keep him off the tile. So, that one little worry point gone.

I do worry a lot, even with the hump of the project over. Tiny little things, like the premix cement we used on the last six tiles not drying nearly as fast as the two hundred pounds of stuff we made for the rest of the room. Two tiles out of nearly 580 are popping up, which threw a wrench in our plans for getting everything done by Sunday.

But, we are getting close to the end. A few more days (I swear) and we will be done.

Then, a week before GenCon and back to my game and book. *cheer*

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Summer Biking: (203.5 / 400.0 km)

Got a cool package in the mail. It was my three (two frigates, one galleon) boats from Dragonfire Laser Crafts! Very pretty, laser-cut wooden boats perfect for setting up on miniatures. Too bad the next few adventures are going to be entirely land-based. But, I was reminded to finally pick them up (since I’ve been lusting after them last year’s GenCon) when they got nominated for the Ennie Awards. I wish them the best of luck and I love my boats.

Too bad I didn’t get to play with them. Instead, I spent about four hours removing carpet from the living room. 600 square feet doesn’t sound like much, until you are on your hands and knees, peeling them off 30 years of history. Tonight, I get the joys of removing tack strips, repairing about three meters of pet-ruined drywall, repairing a ceiling, and getting ready to paint tomorrow. No plan survives an encounter with the house in this case. I was hoping to have painting down tonight, but we probably won’t even start until tomorrow morning.

I just keep telling myself: “It will be worth it.”

D. Moonfire

{ "writer", "programmer" }

Tag Archives: Master Plan

Inspiration and a breather

Tree-Fu and Altered Plans

Boiling Pots

Alternative Plans

Brick Walls

Rejections

Juggling monies…

The Threshold of Faith

Looking Back and Forward from 2007 to 2008

Another rejection for Muddy Reflections

Feedback!

Am I there yet?

I got boats!