Commissions

A Little Give

2022-06-24T05:00:00Z

One of the things I learned during my late teens was that all things pass, no matter how horrific, no matter how much it feels like there is no chance for hope, it will pass and things will clear up. In a lot of ways, Sand and Blood was a lot about putting those ideas into words, to never give up.

When I'm anxious, the best thing to do is write. But, at the moment, I've been beyond the ability to sit down and really write something, so I'm using less satisfactory methods of relieving pressure, which is to say I'm festering, complaining, and whining a lot.

Looking Back

But “it” gets better. The pressure can't build forever. Fortunately for me, the last few weeks have been things resolving or completing instead of getting worse. The biggest are three major threads that I have seen as part of my entanglement.

Commissions

I finished a commission that I started last year. It was a nasty one, at least in terms of complexity and it was a big one to start with (50k words). It ended up being about 20k words over that, but I basically wrote a short novel. Now, as much as I love getting paid to write (commissions are pretty much my only writing income), there is just too much else going on so I asked the commissioner to hold off on the next request until 2023.

Now, there is another commission still undone but that one is half in limbo and half haunting me. In other words, the commissioner is willing to wait and I'm basically triaging it. They are aware this is happening because I finished the original commission but there was something they weren't happy with, so I'm trying to go back and make them happier but it isn't simple as switching out a Diet Coke for a Diet Pepsi, it was rewriting close to thirty thousand words.

Appliances

The other good news that has come my way is that the dishwasher was finally repaired. That was one of those “please make it simple” when it became something bigger. But, six weeks after we bought it, it works and has worked for a week. And it actually solved the problem that we were having with the old one which was to say it actually cleans dishes instead of just splashing water on them.

Projects

I'm also finally “done” with a big project at work. Not quite, there are a few minor left over and I still need someone to review close to ten thousand files, but I'm able to move to the next thing.

I'm so close to an item I really want to work on because it would benefit the entire application as a whole. That will remain out of reach for a few more months and I'm fighting upper management to keep it.

I only hope it benefits us as much as I hope it will. It's hard to keep the faith when struggling.

Looking Forward

There are still a lot of things left to get done, but most of them are “stable” in that they are pressing but not getting worse. That ends up being a big category.

Derecho Repairs

The last major derecho repair is the gutters. I found a place that I thought would work, but then they turned around with a “we'll show up randomly” things which I'm really not fond of, but getting household repairs has always been very messy and difficult.

I figured I'll give it another month before poking them to do it, or start looking for a new gutter replacement service. I have the money to pay for it but I'm always worried something is going to go horribly wrong and I'll need liquid funds for that.

Related, I need to finish up my mother-in-laws shower stall, remove the carpet from our basement, and start to clean up my office.

Flight of the Scions

I'm waiting for the sensitivity reader for Flight of the Scions. It was supposed to be only a few weeks but things have gotten off track. My hopes is to get it done by ICON this year so I have a book on the table.

And that leads into the other big task for Flight of the Scions: redoing the cover. I wasn't happy so I've been messing around in the last few weeks to try coming up with something new. Not sure if it will work (not sure where to get a good critique on those type of things), but I want something that fits all my books, past and near future. I'm also trying to use LCH/LAB colors so they have the same brightness which was always glaring to me.

Larger Thumbnails

Creating covers is difficult because I'm mostly doing it in a void. I haven't found a good place to ask for critiques. More importantly, ask for iterative critiques. Obviously, I want somethin appealing but I'm also getting closer to my skill as an illustrator with some of these.

The main ones are the Flight of the Scions and Second-Hand Dresses covers. I learned a new technique for doing fires and I really like how the bonfire of Sand and Ash turned out.

If you want to give me feedback, please do.

Nitride

I also want to finish Nitride because I need to convert a couple websites, including https://fedran.com/. This is “blocking” my writing because I'm having trouble getting new stories to wire up properly, so I want to fix it properly but switching to the new static site generator I wrote to solve the problems.

And I need to get Allegro done by September.

Leaning Back

Coding projects like Nitride are peaceful for me, as it working on the covers. I'm also playing a lot of Satisfactory despite the fact my laptop can't actually handle anything other than 90s era graphics in the game (I have everything dialed way down).

Tweaking my website's generation is also fun.

Gitea and Gitlab

I also spent my anniversary weekend learning about Digital Ocean and switching to a private Gitea server. I didn't really plan on doing this, but GitLab is switching to a new business model (e.g., reducing the number of hours for the CI/CD servers) but the way I organize things doesn't fit it.

I had this problem earlier when I tried to pay for a higher end a few years ago. I was a major fan of GitLab, including answer questions on Stack Overflow and telling everyone about it. But the fact I organize things into groups (one for accounting, one for Fedran, one for Measured Stars, commissions in one, one for each major OSS project) doesn't work because you have to pay “per user per group.” Well, that would mean I would need to get 6-7 user licenses for just myself. They also don't have a good mechanism for handling commissions, a single user who shows up for a few months and then goes away. They want me to pay for each one.

So, spinning up my own Git server. It's been a fun adventure and I have a while to go, but it was a trade-off of personal time verses having it managed. When I had the CI/CD minutes, it was not really a need to decide but there is little ground for me where I go from “the free tier” to “a few hundred a month.”

I could use the self-hosted GitLab, but with their recent push to limit services, I honestly don't know if they are going to do the same thing for self-hosted, so I decided to look for different pastures entirely.

Trauma

I'm still experiencing a lot of PTSD and trauma with all of this, mainly because I still have a lot broken that I can't fix. It's little things, like expecting the dishwasher to stop working, or the house to fall apart, or “something” to go wrong. I can't just look at a completed project and go “this is done and I am happy.” Even the new siding is still “new” to me.

Eventually, this will also pass. Things will stop being novel and just be the norm. But the scratches and bruises of the last few months make it difficult to look past those.

It just takes time.

Changing Gears

2017-08-07T05:00:00Z

Well, my vacation is all over and I had a blast. I was up in northern Wisconsin for two weeks with coming home in time to do an author event at the local mall. I got a lot done, but time to change gears and focus on commissions for a week or three.

I haven't done a “long” vacation in a long time and it was strange. However, with EDM going into school properly (first grade starts in a few weeks and they are seven next week), we can't do the 4-day weekends throughout the year as much. Not to mention, with the drive time, we really need to stay for a number of days to settle in and explore instead of drive up/stay for a few meals/drive home which has been our pattern previously.

It was also the longest either of the boys had been away from home. It was going pretty good up until day ten or so when we started getting a lot of meltdowns. That was one of the signs it was time to head home.

While on vacation, I got a number of things done. As usual, most of them were writing related but not all writing.

I caught up on edits from the writing group on Flight of the Scions. Overall, I think it's a pretty solid piece even though it is older than Sand and Blood, so I can see some places where I've improved over time. Since I've been working on this novel for over a decade, I don't think I'm capable of seeing which flaws are out there. I'm still looking for beta readers for this (it's gone through the group twice now). Patrons can read the entire thing as part of their subscription. Beta readers will get a free year as a patron in exchange.

I managed to write and rewrite five chapters of Second-Hand Dresses, my Regency-inspired romance set in the same world as the rest of my work. I'm pretty happy with the results, though I have a bit of backfilling once I finish the novel. Everyone will see those over time, it is being shown as a weekly chapter with updates on my website (but probably not Wattpad).

I also wrote an autocorrect plugin for Atom, my current writing platform. This handles things like “teh” being turned into “the” as I type along with double-capital words. Something minor, but it slows me down. Eventually, this will tie into Author Intrusion so it can handle the accented names (such as “Rute” being expanded into “Rutejìmo” and “Jimo” being expanded into “Jìmo”). I'll also eventually use Atom's snippets to handle a list of characters in the novel, which would also be fun once I get there.

At the author signing on Saturday, I had a little snafu with my Sand and Blood books being in a different city but it was resolved pretty quickly. I sold a few things, got to talk with 15-20 other authors, and generally had fun networking and chatting for six hours.

I was reminded that I had to follow up with a few things related to ICON this year, mainly trying to get into readings and join a panel or two. We'll see if I did. At least I remembered to get the email in for the Barnes and Noble signing on the Thursday before. Like last year, I have a table so the rest of the Broken Typewriter Press authors and I will be there in addition to any panels we may be on.

In a fit of being overly complicated, I also redid the mailing list for Broken Typewriter Press with the intent of also doing one for Dusty Typewriter Press. I also shut down my forum website because no one was visiting and I'm going to switch that to an announcements-only mailing list. If you want, you can subscribe the BTP one on the bottom of the pages for that website.

Now that all that excitement is passed, I need to focus on commissions and obligations for the next few weeks. I originally said I was going to stop, but two factors came up: three people asked me to write four commissions in the same few weeks; I want to save up to get Flight of the Scions and Second-Hand Dresses properly edited and out the door.

If you like my writing, consider becoming a patron, reviewing my books, or encouraging me on social networks. Thank you.

Mechanical Writing

2015-07-20T05:00:00Z

I work in phases: a bit of writing for a few weeks, a bit of coding, a lot more writing. I'm just coming out of a programming phase where I spent the last two weeks working on a new implementation of Author Intrusion.

Author Intrusion is my attempt to get around my writing flaws. I've done quite a few attempts at it, but this is both the most extensive and least expansive version I've written. But, it also has the same pitfalls that every other version provided.

The biggest one is the mechanical nature of the analysis. Say I mark things as being overused if it shows up more than ten times in a hundred words. There might be a place where that is actually useful, or important or intentional.

“If you want to be called Max, Max. Max is what I'll call you.”

One of my favorite lines (half-forgotten so probably not accurate) from the Norby series by Issac Asmoiv.

I've decided to show close words as warnings and very close words as errors. The programmer in me really wants to get rid of all warnings and errors, but with this tool, it is just highlighting what might need to be fixed, not what must be fixed. Though, the goal is to have the errors become the points I really should fix it.

“To” is used 7 times in 57 words.

In the first chapter of Sand and Blood, I overused “to” once. When I read it, it seems okay, but just knowing it is there would have caused me to rework it at least a little.

This is one reason Author Intrusion won't ship with a set of grammar. Because writers should know their own flaws. I know I overuse gerunds, so I'm writing a rule (once I finish coding it) that will highlight occurrences once I get over a certain density. Same with echo phrases and words. These issues might go away, but there will be other ones. If I can at least highlight them, maybe I can improve my writing.

While I won't ship rules with Author Intrusion, that doesn't mean I can't create a forum to talk about it, including letting me and others come up with sample ones.

Still having fun with working on this version. It feels better, mainly because it is broken into smaller parts and easier to manage. But, at the same time, I still have to write. So I'm going to use what I've written so far and work on a commission and Second-Hand Dresses, my romance novel, for a little bit.

A lot of little things going on

2014-03-10T05:00:00Z

I think if I had to come up with a word to describe the last week, I'd go with "scattered." I still have too many projects open at the moment, but I'm limping along because of other obligations.

Writing

I need to process the edits for Sand and Blood. They are reasonably extensive, but the "Track Changes" caused Libreoffice to choke. That means I have to switch over to Windows and Microsoft Word to integrate them, which makes it just that much harder.
I'm mostly done with Sand and Ash except for a short stack of feedback from the writing group. Once I get through those, I'm going to let it marinate for a little bit before finding/reusing an editor.
Because the writing group didn't have enough submissions, I (foolishly) started working on Sand and Bone, the third and final book of the series.
I also submitted a short story for an anthology I was asked for. That will show up this Thursday, which gives me a day to integrate feedback and get it in before the deadline.
I still have a commission that I keep not finding the time to do. I did tell the commissioner that I was going to be overloaded for a few more weeks, so this isn't critical. I just don't like procrastination.
I'm still trying to get the swearing and insult stuff done, but I got distracted by reformatting my conlang's dictionary into YAML.

Support

Outside of writing, I had a little bit of IT support at home. SMWM's laptop stopped booting on Tuesday. After messing around for an hour or so, it looks like she trashed her hard drive again. I was bemoaning the lack of SSD of an appropriate size when a coworker said that there were 750 GB SSDs on sale. So, I snatched up a 750 and a 250 (for myself since my computer was also locking up) and installed them on Friday. Unfortunately, I forgot to check my hard drive size so I ended up going from a 320 to a 250. Which is fine, I had too much crud on my computer.

Development

Somehow, in the middle of reinstalling my entire laptop, I also did a little bit of work with docbook2odf 2.1.0 and mfgames-writing-make. It now generates an error-free Smashwords documents and fixes most of the outstanding issues. That means that I don't have to do any manual editing on the resulting document before uploading to Smashwords.

This means that in a single command (make all), I generate the print-ready PDF in A5, the Kindle MOBI, the Smashwords Microsoft Word document, and an epubcheck-verified EPUB. And the PDF handles proper hyphenation for my conlang, drop capitals and epigraphs, and even building the "also by" section.

The system is still badly organic, but it "works for me." Eventually, I'll get it cleaned up, but I have so many other things, I'm limping along with this system until I can do something else. But, still nice to be able to have everything in 10 seconds and know there won't be any errors (in the technical side).

On the cusp of commissions

2012-10-04T05:00:00Z

I had two requests for commissions this week from two people I have never met before. One was a highly packed plot crammed into 15k words. The other was 5k but I'm not comfortable with it, mainly my trust of the person requesting it verses the content they are requesting.

I also working on a 15k word commission (currently at 30k!) from someone I trust and is a repeated (and loyal) customer.

Commissions are a hard thing to work with. As I mentioned before, you are privy to people's innermost secrets. Most of the commissions aren't general fanfic, such as two characters from a movie getting it on or an expansion of the plot. Instead, I get wish fulfillment ones. I've gotten ones where people putting themselves into a movie or story. I've gotten requests for scenes with two people (one obviously being the commissioner) including a very lovely romance that ended up with them growing old and dying together. I've also gotten requests to expand on secondary (or even background) characters, turning a 5-8 second anime clip into a 10-20k word story.

I have never asked for a down payment on a story and I've been pretty accepting of commissions in general. I'm fulfilling fantasies and I know it is fiction. However, whenever I encounter a new commission, there are always fears. Will they pay me? Will they be high-maintenance and ask for constant revisions? Are they cops trying to trap me with a law I don't know?

Sometimes, it works out very well. The repeat customer from above is almost about to hit the 200k words commissioned, all in 10 and 15k word requests. The repeat business also means that they get 30-50k word stories out of me... and they seem to like it. But, at one point, they were also that new person that I'm hesitating to accept a request. I still remember my finger over the enter key, deciding if I should hit send or not.

I'm doing the same for these two commissions, but I'm not only hesitating on accepting them, but I'm also considering dropping commissions entirely.

On one hand, commissions are pretty much the only income I get from writing. On a good year, its about a grand or so, on a bad year, a few hundred. Despite it being relatively low amount of money (and depressing when I put it on my taxes), it paid for all of my writing, editing, and my nifty laptop.

With the left hand, there is the fear and doubt. I always worry that my story will end up in the news or I'll get in trouble for it. It doesn't matter if it is a fanfic of My Little Pony or Harry Potter (though I was told repeatedly that I wrote a good Dumbledore), there are thousands of lawyers out there that seem to enjoy suing people. And, a fanfic is one thing, but getting paid to write that makes me feel like I'm putting myself more in risk.

(One point is that while I think I'm writing everything legally, the political climate, the brutality of "Big Content" enforcement, and my own position as the primary money-earner in my family, makes me nervous. I can't know everything... as much as I want to.)

There is also a chance that by stopping commissions, I could get better at my other writing projects (you know, for more than one person). However, turning down commissions for a few months means it will probably take me years to get back up if I wanted to resume.

Giving up on commissions is scary. I like writing other people's ideas. It gives me insight into characters of my own. But, I have a naturally guilty and fearful mind, which makes that "send" button that much more terrifying.

A parental visit

2012-04-17T05:00:00Z

This weekend, my dad came to visit. It was a lot of fun to see him, but the Thursday before says a lot about our relationship. He called with an agenda of things he wanted me to teach him and fix on his computer. Of course, there was some "squid pro quid" in there too but we have a lot in common. Apparently, he does make my obsessive-compulsive issues with solving problems look mild.

Mostly, we got a lot of things done. I was just planning on entertaining him and not much else. He, on the other hand, kept asking what I needed done around the house. I mean, I wasn't expecting him to visit and work. But, I made the mistake of saying that I was going to network my office (so I could finally get my computers up) and the main television so the Roku would work smoother. Next thing I know, we're at Lowes picking up networking supplies (ran out of faceplates and jacks). I did most of the wiring work, but he helped plan it out and fish the wires. And I have networking in the basement! I still have a bit of clean up left (stapling wires to the ceiling and the node-0 stuff), but otherwise it is a pretty solid job.

I usually get lectures from him. Remarkably, the "disadvantages of being overweight" one didn't show up. I usually get that one every visit. Instead, I got some concern that Author Intrusion is a waste of time. He seemed to be happy that I'm swamped with writing projects right now. Last Sunday, I had my weekly serial due and a submission for the writing group. The same for this Sunday. I also got a commission for 15k words while he was here.

I did get a lecture about how I really should get a Kindle book online. :) I'm working on that one, but it seems to be taking longer than I wanted, mostly because the commissions, serials, and writing group submissions take precedence to the side project of getting a longish (20-30k) story online. But, hopefully BAM will be a fun fantasy story. It has running!

The only other major thing was that he brought DVDs of his old Super-8 and 8-mm videos while I was growing up. So, Fluffy, he, and I threw it up on the home theater downstairs and we watched the first few years of my life on video. Lot of fun, but Fluffy just started laughing and laughing. Because I had ears. Huge ears.

A commission in a china shop

2012-03-19T05:00:00Z

I just sent out the first draft of a commission back to the commissioner. It ended up being just over 40k words out of a 15k word request. In other words, I blew past the word count and added almost three times the length just to get the story out. So, I think to say as a commissioned writer, it was a failure, but as a person who loves fiction and longer stories a general win.

So, how did things go so terribly wrong?

We'll start with the commission itself. It was original a 10k generic story about 4 friends who get on a roller coaster and end up in a magical world with a talking loli unicorn... wait, not quite. The commission was the basic X people have Y adventures in Z setting. Now, the number of people always varies in this commission, but for my commissioners it is almost never below four and I've had requests for twelve in a 5k word story (I said no to that one, they said how about 15k, I said yes). I don't know why, but this is always a multiple story and they usually want a good amount of character development for each one. The commission in question was five people. Now, I roughly need a thousand words to develop a character in a story and handle their individual "side quests" if you will.

If one of the character really resonantes with my own personal interests (in this case, "one of the girls gets a magic bow" and my obsession with archers), that makes it really easy to create their story, but then I feel the need to give the others an equal amount of development. (Despite not having an awesome archer powers. Seriously, I have a thing for fantasy archers.) In this commission, there were two such characters.

Thirdly, the story was the third in a series. The first two commissions were 18k and 12k respectively. Like most writers, it seems like the sequels just get larger and larger. I had the basic setting of the story set pretty well and what would be a logical conclusion ended up having a lot more detail put into it because it was so developed.

Finally, I moved. I know it sounds strange but usually I work on a commission over a couple weeks and I'm done. I get a fatigue, as it were, because of how I write which helps naturally come to a conclusion. In this case, I wrote a little, packed a lot, wrote a little, went to work, wrote a little, played with EDM. Each time, I get a refresh of ideas and new ideas. A simple scene that should have taken 200-300 words ended up taking 1000-1500 simply because I was playing with it in the back of my head.

In the end, I knew it was building up to blow past the word count. During the entire time, I was emailing the commissioner because I was behind schedule and it is polite. If you do commissioned writing (or art), giving status updates really helps with encouraging them to do it again. During the weekly emails, I gave updates including rough word counts.

Even with that, why did I keep working on it?

The first was easy: the story is as long as it needed to be. A cheating answer and one that has frustated me with FOTS because it was so long. But, I came up with a story in an established setting and it just... fit the request (which was a single paragraph, by the way).

Also, the commissioner is a repeat customer. A well-paying customer who likes my stories. In a side project that has erratic income, someone responsible for a quarter of my commission income in the last four years deserves a bit of slack. It will increase the chance they will use me again.

Probably the main reason is what I'd akin to interia. I got a great idea for the story and wrote it. As it started to get out of control, I felt the need to keep moving because I thought they would like it. So, I just moved forward and didn't worry about the word count as much. (Related, I don't give up on books either, if I start, damn it I'll finish it.)

I won't get paid for the extra words. I also won't be able to ever show this story to anyone else. Once I write it, it will pretty much cease to exist except on the commissioner's computer. It is a little flash of excitement and then it's gone. But in that flash, I wrote a story I could be proud of.

A general set of just getting things done

2012-02-07T06:00:00Z

Sometimes, I look forward to the end of the weekend. Not just because I love my job, but also because that is the point I frequently look back at everything I did and just say "I feel good about this...." This weekend was one of them, mainly because I got this overwhelming deadline loaming at the end of the month. So, either I finish all those little things littering my office, or I have to pack it up and move it.

The big things on my plate (besides playing with EDM, spending time with Fluffy, and cleaning) was writing. As usual. I'm still trying to maintain the one posting per week schedule. This week was a painful one because I couldn't quite get my words on the page and the deadline was getting rather close. It ended up being a 10k word chapter. The next chapter is going to be smaller, but then followed by another huge chapter filled with epic plot revelations, hopefully some tears, and generally quite a few hours to write.

Now, this would be perfectly fine except for that whole "house moving" thing. Packing is a serious undertaking for anyone and for me, my office is the big thing. Actually, it's a flat out horror of what happenes when LEGO and DVDs wage war against my books. Sadly, the books won and the carcasses of their opponents are strew carelessly among the tables, bookshelves, and everything else.

I blame my obsession with creating dramas with my toys.

I'm also a slob.

My current hobbies take up space. So that also means that I have a lot of boxes to pack. Weeks one and two of this month is going to be dedicated to packing my Stuff That I Don't Really Need. I got through the first ten boxes yesterday and it feels good to see a neat stack of boxes slowly growing in the center of the room.

I also started on a short story for the writing group in three weeks. This is going to be an experiment with Amazon Kindle sales. My plan is to write a short 10-20k word story and throw it up on Kindle and see what happens. The current plan is to write something in the same world as Flight of the Scions but self-contained. Call it world development or my desire to have a dramatic knife fight on the back of a horse.

Finally, I have my commission. That is due in four weeks (pretty much the week of the house closing). That one is going to be somewhat detailed (15k word minimum). I'm still in the planning phases for those (yay for my 5 km lunch walk), so I'm not planning on really starting that until after I finish the short story.

Somewhere in between all of that, I added some functionality to my chan2atom web application. This is to convert imageboard postings into an Atom feed. Mainly I can see comments on some of the stories/conversations I enjoy. It's pretty much alpha right now, but it does much of what I needed it to do.

I also squeezed in taxes, though didn't file because I like to wait a full day before posting.

And, just because I wasn't doing nearly enough, I decided to figure out every commission I've ever earned. Not entirely sure why, since it is a depressing number compared to people I know. But, I think it would be cool to graph the money side of my writing career in the future.

So... a good weekend.

Random thoughts

2009-08-06T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (6.8 of 14.7 kg)

Commission (10,027 of 15,000 words)

MfGames.Tools

Haven't really been posting a lot, I know. I have been posting a bit more frequently on Twitter, mainly because it is a must more free-form medium and doesn't require heavy thoughts. Not to mention, I can post from my IM client which makes it easier.

Probably the main reason that I haven't been posting is because I don't think I have much to say. Yeah, most of it is emotional going on, but I think I'm finally getting tired of being a wannabe, but at the same time, I'm not actually doing much to not be a wannabe. It doesn't matter if it is a programmer, writer, or anything else. I keep saying I want to be something, but I'm focusing on getting through college and just getting through the weeks, not on really creating anything new.

GenCon does this to me. There are so many talented people out there who have done my dream. I see their books on the tables, chat with them on occasion and I love doing it. Even the people who write books I don't care for, I still put on a pedestal. They got there. They wrote something to put on a table. They sat on the table and did my dream. But, I can't help feeling that I'm just dancing on the edges. It reminds me of the old drumming circles at the festivals I've gone to. I spent so much time standing on the edge of the firelight because I was afraid to take that plunge.

Fluffy says it isn't nearly that bad. I've had almost continual writing commissions this year. It is actually the second best year I've ever had with commissions and she, repeatedly, tells me that I should be proud of that fact. Steady, repeat business writing. But, somehow, I still don't think I'm a "real" writer.

While unpacking my office (11 boxes and 5 meters worth of books left), I found two copies of MG in a box. One was the original publication and the other with the cover I commissioned myself and absolutely and utterly adore. It is like a medal sitting on my desk, a reminder that I did it once and I can do it again. Its a nice feeling, more so when Fluffy asked me to read it out loud to her at night.

I really try not to give up. And I'm not giving up. I'm still writing every week but I still feel that I'm not really doing anything.

Blocks of time

2009-07-31T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (6.4 of 14.7 kg)

Commission (4,227 of 15,000 words)

MfGames.Tools

Been a busy week this week, mainly because of a self-inflicted need to do better at work. I hate putting in estimates for 100+ hours on a single task when everyone else is putting in 8, 12, even 40. But, having the only one over 50 and having it so much higher gives me a tiny little lurch in my stomach. More so when I'm justifying to the VP of Development. It doesn't matter that it is an honest estimate, and probably a bit low, it still sucks when I have to do it. True, the 100+ hours is broken into a rather impressive WBS, but still.

I like breaking things into smaller blocks. Most of my personal projects are done that way. The MfGames.Tools is just one step toward my current programming goal of having a new version of CuteGod out. I just need to get the command line tools, unit performance, updater, BooGame, and a ton of other things. I decided I need to really focus on a single programming project, so the "main goal" is getting CuteGod polished. Then I'll play with Tablet of Words (WordPlay, my other "official" game), Ceimaha and other ideas.

I don't expect any of those to be done before GenCon, which I'm seriously looking forward to. I think the next week or so is going to be dedicated to working on homework and finishing up the petition which I promised by Auguest 9. I'm thinking about also stopping doing book reviews from GenCon this year, or at least just doing it when I feel like doing reviews. I don't know if they are helpful in general, but I feel bad since I don't give glowing reviews... ever. I don't even give glowing reviews to my own book. Like the review my brother did of MG (rated 4 out of 5 stars), I really try to be brutally honest but I hate the imagined conflict I get when I do them.

While I'm not entirely sure why I did it, I finally joined Twitter. Amazingly, my account is the same almost everywhere else: dmoonfire. No clue how long I'll use it, it seems to be as unfocused as everything else in my life. But, that is who I am. I don't focus on one thing in general and I kind of like it that way.

Distraction powers, activate!

2009-07-24T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (8.3 of 14.7 kg)

Commission (4,227 of 15,000 words)

MfGames.Tools

Well, Friday has come around and I can't say I got everything done that I hoped. Not that I ever seem to finish my entire to do list when I have weeks like this, but I got a reasonable amount of them that I don't feel that I completely and utterly wasted the weekend. Given the number of times I got distracted over at Armor Games and Kongregate, I'm going to say I got to the "fun" things. Just not the ones that I planned on enjoying, like playing on the PlayStation or programming a game. Oh well.

My commission is kicking my ass. Four days of working on it and I can't say that I've gotten more than a quarter done. And I'm not exactly happy with the bits I do have, but I'll keep plugging on it.

I did get pretty good progress on a theme framework for web applications (I'm calling it WTF for web template framework). I have a DokuWiki and WordPress themes that use the same centralized style and it seems to work out pretty well. It even has a test page to test the style.

Tonight, I'm going to dinner with the in-laws and tomorrow we have board game night (*squee*), so this week is pretty much over for projects.

Struggles

2009-07-01T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (3.3 of 14.7 kg)

Commission (0 of 15,000 words)

DG Edit (3 of 34 chapters)

This is the point where I declare that Fluffy has been slipping and it is entirely her fault that I gained weight two weeks in a row. Naturally, it is, I mean, all she did was take care of me in this last week, despite my constant efforts to get up from the couch and work out. I knew, I mean I knew that I had to do it, but she absolutely refused to let me off the couch. And fed me constant chicken nuggets and milkshakes despite my constant efforts to eat healthier and work out.

... believe me?

No, I didn't either. This last week was not a good one for me. Gained nearly a kilogram in the last week and my excuse last week turned out to be nothing but an excuse. I need to focus on it, but it is hard to keep on something like this for such a long time. But, I guess I just need to do it.

Same thing with DG. The first three chapters aren't quite right. They are almost there, but it still feels so weak when I write it. I'm going to work on it for a few more days, I have an idea of completely gutting the first chapter and seeing if laying it down fresh gets me over this little descriptive block. The story is fine, I just can't seem to get the right feel for a horror novel. Well, without it being completely a cliche or just coming off lame.

Oh well, if it was easy, someone else would be a famous writer instead of me.

Predictions

2009-06-21T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (4.8 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (2 of 4)

MfGames CIL (22 of 22 tasks)

A few days ago, I made a comment to Fluffy that I wanted her to park in the garage when she comes home first. I don't know why I can get cranky after getting home, but in that case, it probably came off harsher than I wanted to. She, naturally, asked why and I said that I felt uncomfortable parking underneath the tree since some of the branches looked dead.

The next day, as I pulled into the driveway, I saw a huge branch sitting right where I parked the day before. No one got hurt of course, but it felt strange sitting at it, realizing that my gut feeling the day before was a very real thing.

Kind of cool too.

Not very productive this weekend so far. I finished cleaning up my code for MfGames CIL and a ton of documentation. I am seriously and utterly tired of documenting my library and I probably short-changed the last few pages because I just couldn't do it anymore. I plan on getting the release out probably on Tuesday or so.

I also consolidated my emails a bit. Now, I only have my two spam collection ones (which people keep on using though I ask them not to), and one for each byline I use. It will be interesting to see how it works, but I need to have less boxes lately. I don't check my Yahoo or Hotmail ones at all these days, unless someone tells me to. Too much spam, pure and simple.

Getting anxious to write again and I'm planning on it for this coming week. I need to ignore code for a while, except for random banging on the keyboard, and start working on my two commissions. I also need to work on my personal projects a bit, too many books that need editing (um, 4) and one to write still.

Happily moving forward

2009-06-16T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (4.8 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (2 of 4)

MfGames CIL (2 of 22 tasks)

There is something to be said about hearing the weight loss for the entire room and getting ten percent of it. Lost about 0.8 kg last week, mostly I suspect from happily obsessing about programming and playing games that I forgot to eat. That means this week will be even harder because I need to maintain the weight loss into next week.

Found a neat feature on my tracking system for Moonfire Games. It lets me see the progress toward a release. Since I was hoping to do a MfGames CIL release this weekend, I decided to put in all the tasks that I need to complete and use that roadmap to show my progress. It is in the progress bar, for those who are interested.

It looks like a lot, at first, mainly because I didn't enter what I completed. But, my major goals this week are to work on the petition and get MfGames CIL out the door. As soon as I get this release off my progress reports, then I'm planning on switching back to a writing project. I have two commissions sitting on my plate now and one of them is due in three weeks.

Another weekend ends...

2009-06-08T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (3.7 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (1 of 4)

A very enjoyable weekend, right up to Monday morning when I didn't want it to end.

On Friday, I had a couple of hours, so I putz around with working on cleaning up my commission for the second round editing and sending it off. Got a response a few hours later--they absolutely loved it and thought it was worth the wait. It didn't hurt that I remembered all the discussions I had in the last five years with this person and put in those little hot buttons that really make it personalized. I also ordered the DVD the next commission is based on; the remaining four commissions are all based on 15-40 second clips of random animes from the 80's.

The other commissioner from the one I finished two weeks ago came back with money sent via PayPal and a request for another one. Utterly awesome since, well, I like writing and this gives me a bit of structure while I work on other stuff.

On Saturday, I worked on Prebuild and got the 32/64 bit switching working with NAnt and Visual Studio 2008 targets. This is one of those annoying things that hung around for better part of a year and I think I got something rather elegant completed. Also fixed a few minor bugs along the way.

Rob Loach, who got me into the project, sent me a quick IM to give me free reign to do what I want with Prebuild. The request I posted on the forum got another "yeah, cool idea!" and a third developer doesn't really care. So, it sounds like Prebuild is going to find a new purpose in life.

I also worked a bit on the Unit Timing library, mainly documentation and some code clean up. My programming goal for this week is to get the command-line version up and running so I can actually do some performance testing. That will hit my MfGames library for the tool, but I still won't require it for the attribute marking since I want to minimize that.

I'm considering splitting Unit Timing into two assemblies, one for annotations and the other for the framework to run the tests. I'm not sure if the trade-off of simplicity and code-size is worth the annoyance of two DLL's.

I don't really having a writing goal this week, so I'm going to stick with mostly programming. I have some editing work with prior works (DG, Flight of the Scions) or I could actually start working on Glorious Saber again.

Speaking of Glorious Saber, I'm going to mess around with graphic styles a bit and see if I can come up with a different version that is easier to work with. The Thing Thing style is nice, but I can't help feeling that I'm missing a lot from there; of course, there is something to be said about the style I currently use. Abstracts are great for many things.

My goal for that is to finish the GS arc by GenCon this year.

Another first draft

2009-06-05T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (3.7 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (1 of 4)

Commission (6,349 words)

Oh, that high when you can write the words "END" at the bottom of the page and mean it. It is my only drug and probably one of the reasons I can't drink alcohol or anything even remotely stronger. No chemical can come close to the buzz of finishing a story.

This specific high comes from the first draft of the commission that took forever to start. It came out to just over six thousand words, which is less than the ten thousand I aimed for, but I knew it might. This is actually a set of commissions, with a 50,000 word limit; mainly for a +100% bonus for giving me money when I needed it desperately. I have the first five stories requested, this being the first one, and I might go into a sixth or seventh by the time it is finished. It might take me a few months, but I'll be damned if I don't fulfill my obligations. I got paid and I will finish.

I'm also excited because I just took a 49 second clip of an anime and turned it into this story. And for those--not just the person who asked for this--who read it, it has the potential of turning that minute into something far more intense.

And that, to be honest, excites me just as much.

I'm enjoying this moment.

A sigh of relief

2009-05-27T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (1 of 4)

Commission (1,300 of 10k words)

I just got back from the doctor's office. It wasn't a fasting blood sugar test, but the pin prick and the ac3 tests were both positive. After eating less than a half hour before, my blood sugar was 102, which is very good for my situation. The 126 is still the magic point and the doctor apologized about the expensive tests from last month and suggested I come back in three months to see how the ac3 trend is doing. The ac3 test was also positive, 6.0 when 4.5 to 5.5 is "normal". So, slightly elevated, like the 102 mg/dl glucose results.

I'm very relieved about this. I was terrified that it would come out at 10+ for the ac3 and 130+ for the stick test. Having those somewhat sane levels means I'm doing the right thing: exercising and eating healthier.

In other news, I submitted my commission to the person asking for it and immediately put the one I've been stalling for the last nine months on the list. I need to finish this one, if anything because they pre-paid me. It doesn't help that they keep telling me "whenever" but this is something I need a structure for.

I'm also dropping one petition since I don't have enough time to get it done before my classes. So, I'm going to take one of the classes properly and just do four petitions instead. It's frustrating, mainly because it puts me more in debt and takes longer, but I'm still on track for graduating with my masters this year.

I love the first draft

2009-05-25T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (1 of 5)

Commission (12,191 of 10k words)

I love when I finish the first draft of stories. In this case, I managed to finish up the first draft of the commission at 12,192 words. The word count is less important, as long as I reached the minimum of 10,000 words. Joys of being paid by the word, but I also reserve the right to go over when I think it is appropriate. Most of the time, I usually give them 10-20% more because the story needs it, but there are times when I almost double the length of a story, just because I need to the story out.

This commission is a good story, I think. But, it makes me feel really great when I can finish that first draft and check it into Subversion for an off-site backup. I'll let it sit for a day or so, then clean up the bad English and smooth out some of the sentences before sending it over for review.

This is what makes me feel like a "real" writer. It is crude, writing for money, but it still feels good because I'm creating stories. I love taking someone else's idea and wrapping it into something polished. Putting my spin on it and knowing that they'll be reading something familiar and strange at the same time when they get my PDF. And the emotions they put into making the request, and the anticipation of seeing it in their mail box, will make it so much more intense when they read it. These stories aren't for sitting on a shelf at Walmart or in a grand bookstore. They are creations that are written for one person and one person only. And it will, at least in part, fulfill only one person's dreams.

I have to say, that is a "real" writer to me. Someone who can make a fantasy become just a bit more real for someone. Yes, it hasn't made me famous or rich. Actually, it is also easier. I don't have to please agents, publishers, and buyers. I just have to please one person at a time. While I'd love to inspire the fantasies of thousands, or tens of thousands, like the writers of my goals, I'm perfectly happy to do it one person at a time.

Now, just to get to the point where I always feel like a "real" writer. Instead of this flash of emotional high that, like all drugs, passes way too fast.

Come, weekend, throw me what you shall

2009-05-22T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (1 of 5)

Commission (2,943 of 10k words)

There are days when I hate to walk alone.

Yesterday became one of those days. I didn't bring Inigo out on a walk because of the temperature. Keeshonds are absolutely adorable dogs, but they also have huge furry coats and can suffer from heat exhaustion. The last time I walked Inigo, alone which means about half again faster than Fluffy, he got so hot that I saw drool pouring out of his mouth. When he got home, he pretty much collapsed. When it gets hotter, I can't walk with him, not and feel that he will be safe.

Fortunately, Fluffy walks him in the morning, where it is cooler.

Unfortunately, Inigo doesn't understand the connection between so hot that he almost collapses and walking outside. So, five minutes after staggering home, he is ready to go again. Pretty, but not so bright.

That means I walked alone.

It gives me a chance let my mind wander. Which usually means thinking about some story I'd really like to write if I wasn't walking. Actually, it was nice, I got to work out the entire plot and realize that, somewhere around chapter 15, I simply couldn't get it to work. That is the nice part of walking, getting to work out those story ideas and filter out the ones that won't.

The hard part is when I get a story I want to write. Like Flight of the Scions, Peg and Sue, and everything else. Ideas get ironed out faster than I can write them. Then again, I always had that problem, so I can't honestly blame college, exercising, or anything else. In fact, it just seems to be who I am.

I have a busy weekend planned. I'm late on my major homework and I need to compress 38+ pages down to 20 or so, plus include my own work. I also need to do all that icky lawn stuff, get more boxes out of the garage, repair the electrical on two outlets, and finish my commission. It is also the weekend we are celebrating our anniversary.

I really, really need to finish that commission.

What else does a boy need?

A writer by any other name...

2009-05-20T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (1 of 5)

Commission (2,943 of 10k words)

Today, I was blind-sided by an event that I didn't even know was coming. A royalties check. In an envelope from Lulu. I didn't even know they wrote one out, so it was a happy surprise that got me bouncing happily.

In the year since I republished MG, I managed to double the sales I made in the first four years. And mostly by word of mouth and not much else. This excites me, though it is, by far, a long shot from being what I would call a "proper" professional writer. Yeah, like a few digits short and a lot less fame.

It is also kind of depressing. I always hoped, in the back of my mind, that my writing skills for commissions would translate into a publicly published book that sold well. While I have a decent business writing commissions, it really isn't translating into public sales or book offers.

I'm simply not there yet.

I want to be and I don't want to give up on that. I love writing, that is to be true. But, being "awesome" for a commission or a story to a friend is so far away from being the indescribable awesomeness to get into the shelf at the book store or a table at a convention. I can't help imagine Anton Strout staring at his book on the shelf (probably giggling a few times) or Dylan Birtolo re-reading his name on a panel at GenCon. I also was excited for Melanie Niles because she actually got something she could show off at a convention, though that sadly didn't work as shining as either of us hoped. But, all those trials, all those things make it so much better for me. Because it is so real, and it is something I could easily see myself standing in their shoes. As I said, they are further along the path than me.

I'm almost envious of those writers who make it. But, I've always been horrible at feeling jealousy and envy. Instead, I just see it as a goal. I consider the writers I follow on LiveJournal to be those goals, mainly because I've seen the beginning of their careers and got to know them as a person. They are far ahead of me, on the path I want to take, but it is a path that is reachable. I've seen that doubt and fear and how they got through it. I haven't gotten there yet. Standing at the furthest point I can see is Ursula K. Le Guin and Elizabeth Moon. They are probably one of the few people I really hold on a pedestal, mainly because they got me loving writing. But, I'd rather reach their point not as a fanboi but as a peer.

Now that is aiming high.

Good goal though.

Now, I want to write... too bad I have homework instead.

Commissions

2009-05-18T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (2.6 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (1 of 5)

Commission (2,943 of 10k words)

Got a bit of writing done after yesterday's post. Actually, almost 2,500 words worth of writing. Which is great, because it gets me closer to being done with the commission and also because I could park myself on the couch next to Fluffy and write as she watched TV. And, I'm sad to say, I'm enjoying Castle a lot. Well, and the Red Green Show also. I missed Iowa, they actually know how to show the Red Green Show properly. You know, with good quality sound and audio.

This is a splatterpunk (horror) commission, so it was fun to watch Fluffy alternating between looking at my screen with curiosity and asking me to turn it away in the squicky parts. Even knowing there is blood and gore on my screen, she still reads it. Fun to watch her though. Occasionally, I'll write, "You shouldn't be reading this, Fluffy," and she'll laugh and turn away.

Sadly, I apparently lost my last commission check (money order actually). I set it aside to bring to the post office and I can't find it. Yeah, it was one of the half off commissions, but still, money is money. I'm also going to change my discount structure a bit. I'm considering 1% off for every 10,000 words.

A weekend in review

2009-04-27T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss (1.6 of 14.7 kg)

College Petitions (1 of 5)

Commission (0 of 10,000 words)

Another weekend has passed through my fingers. slipping away like sand and water and me without my panning bowl. It was a good weekend, filled with many good little things, but it still felt like a wash for me.

I finished the first draft of the Unit Timing (today's name for UnitT on Friday). I got it up and running using MethodInfo.Invoke, but it was running so slowly that I switched over to using dynamic methods. Then... realized it ran slow because my test case had a Thread.Sleep(250) or a quarter second. When you run 64 of those, it takes--amazingly enough--16 seconds to complete. But, now I have a nice version with dynamic methods and caching, written entirely with the System.Reflection.Emit classes. I even put in a pretty robust little notification system for getting status. It is usable for the command line, XML output, and even a GUI front end.

Sadly, the precision on the timer isn't that great. There will be cases when I'll have to do a ten thousand or a million runs to get any reasonable number. But, the entire point is to test this for things that may be that efficient.

I also started working on the new theme for Moonfire Games. It still looks a bit plain, but I'm going to add more graphics on the page so start filling it out. I think I'll continue the angled theme for the various artwork too. The entire site is built using the Tango palette but probably not all the guidelines. I'm planning on using the diagonal lines as the general theme.

I had to go to server-side processing though. While client-side XSLT is a great idea, and works beautifully in Firefox, it crashes all the other browsers on my machine. Great idea, just have to wait for it to be implemented properly. Until then, I'll just implement the various theme engines for the tools I want.

On the writing side of things, I got another commission two days ago. From one of my prior commissioners and it is a half-off price offer, but a ten thousand word story is still a story. I like this person's commissions. They come up with good ideas, try to supply as much information as possible including pictures of who they want it to look like, and a fairly detailed setting while leaving most of it for me to fill in the gaps.

I also got a request for my MediaWiki theme for my old Moonfire site. I'll have to package that up properly and send it over in the next day or so.

Other than that, not much else. Slept in, read New Tricks by John Levitt (I'll review it this week), walked a few miles, got depressed on perceptions of food, homework, and generally cleaned up a bit. It seems remarkable, but I still came out of it feeling half done this weekend.

Commissions, BooGame, hardware, and creativity

2009-04-20T05:00:00Z

Weight Loss: 14.7 kg (32.4 lbs)

College Petitions (1 of 5)

Got an email out of the blue last night about BooGame. It was a simple question of "can I do this", but it also got me excited about working on the project again. Like writing, I always work better when someone is going "ooh, how pretty!" Call it vanity, but I write for audiences. It doesn't matter if it is programming, literary, or research reports.

(Side note, I'm going to use the official Weight Watchers weigh-in on Tuesdays to update the progress bar on the top. It is there to annoy me and remind me that I have something hanging over my head.)

I got distracted in the last few months from BooGame and the rest of my projects. Plus, just a general blah when it came to writing which I highly suspect was writer's block. I did write stuff, mostly commissions, but there is a strange thing in that I can write on demand very well, but I can't always come up with my own ideas. With commissions, I get the idea in paragraph form, so the "hard" part is already done. All I have to do is make beautiful words.

Though, while I'm experiencing writer's block, I have to schedule my writing instead of relying on the obsessive need to pound words into the keyboard all hours of the day. I miss that, when it happens, but I have 12d6 worth of Obsessive powers.

Speaking of commissions, I got a really nice compliment from my latest commission. You know, the usual "you do fantastic work" and "I don't think other authors could treat this topic so well". Yes, it isn't entirely true I'm that awesome, but still. It helps my ego swell by three sizes for reading them. It is like not getting a rejection letter from a publisher. True, only one person is probably going to read it. Well, the hordes of anonymous people once I sanitize the names, but it was written for a single person who loved it because they got exactly what they wanted. Knowing that I'm writing what they want, even though the topic is not my own, makes me feel proud. I can write well without having a strong emotional attachment to it.

That's passing now. My commission "season" is pretty much over at this point and my creativity is coming back because my life isn't as chaotic. Given that, I think I'm going to focus on BooGame for a little bit. Knowing someone is interested will drive me to finish and maybe I can get another chunk done before life hits me in the head again.

I've had a very busy weekend. I got my new drives (two 1.5 TB), cables, and memory sticks. I upgraded a bunch of machines, got my MythTV back-end working, but not the front-end. I also split out my Windows and my Linux machines into two separate machines which involved reading a 54 digit number over the phone three times to get it reactivated. But, it should make life a bit more stable when it comes to do school and business work. Not to mention it gave me room on the Linux machine to put in the second 1.5 TB drive as my new /home partition. Mmm, space.

I also worked on the new theme for Moonfire Games website. It is bright and cheerful, with more white than the old one, but I think it is also easier on the eyes to read. Well, except the font which needs to be seriously looked at again. This is also a pure XML/XSL stylesheet. If it works out, then I can make a generic "theme" for the site and use client-side XSL to format it; might make life easier.

Remarkably, I also manage to exercise every day except for Saturday. MiL took us on a "short" walk of 30 minutes. Damn that lady walks fast, but it also means I have a lot to go before I can catch up. I'm trying to get at least 4 activity points (another Weight Watchers thing) a day and then move it to 5 and maybe 6 at some point. We'll see if I'm making a small step toward weight loss tomorrow. Here's hoping.

Hindsight

2009-04-01T05:00:00Z

When we scheduled the repairs to the Saturn a few weeks ago, I didn't really think this week would be so complicated. In hindsight, I probably should have waited another week before getting the car repaired, but I don't like driving with a caved in corner of the car. Actually, I don't like driving the Saturn because it is short, but that isn't it.

As such, the current move is going a bit rough. Too many things to do in Illinois and Iowa and our only car is trying to wind its way through Illinois' construction season to get to Iowa in time to pick up the key to the house, talk to the utilities, and start the moving process.

Originally, we thought she would have some energy to maybe move some of the boxes while I was at work, but at this point, I'm going to say... no. A couple frantic hours tonight of moving and I may be located in a brand new location; without Internet, phone, or any form of entertainment besides my wits.

So, probably just moving stuff until I pass out.

Whee!

Tomorrow, we head back to Illinois for that part of the move. I already have a guilt trip with my mother planned on Friday and an emergency tree surgery for a fence later in the day. Oh, and a haircut that I desperately need. Then, a party where today's count of the guest list is nineteen. Fluffy is popular and going way is hard. She claims she doesn't make friends, but there is still going to be almost two dozen people at this party (I'm including myself and 21 is close to 24). It will be hard for me too, because I'll be saying "goodbye" to friends twice, once last year, once this year.

In other news, I finished the second draft of my commission last night. Sending it out, I hope they like it and there won't be a third. If there is, it will have to wait until after this move is over. Then, new plans!

Low-grade OCD

2009-03-27T05:00:00Z

Worked on my commission last night and managed to get through the rewrite of one of the scenes. Just one more, which is much harder since it is going to end up a two page mental battle of a man tied up in a basement. I'm not so great with inner monologues; regular dialogs yes, even trilogues I'm good at, but not monologues. I probably would be terrible at pentalogues though, just because it gets confusing at that point.

I'll probably get that Sunday and Monday night and send it out right before we move. Or, at least that is the plan as of now.

EDIT: I also got 4 GiB RAM that I ordered last weekend. With that, I upgraded my machine from 1 GiB to 4 GiB and suddenly things are working a lot smoother again. Apparently KDE 4 is a bit too much of a memory hog for just 1 GiB. Not to mention, I can open up an extra 60 windows, just like I like to. And no swapping! Well, at least until I get used to it. RAM with computers is like a bed with cats, sooner or later, it always gets filled.

Fluffy is in town again, just not here. She originally had a photo shoot today, but it got rescheduled for Monday morning. So, she spent the night in the hotel as originally planned and I'm going to visit her tonight for two days of hotel goodness and destressing of the wife.

In anticipation of her playing Scrabble on her phone, something we both like to participate, I got my n810 up and running with some games. So pretty. The problem is, I got it almost working somewhere around 21:30 and messed around with a half hour before I realized I had the "chinook" distribution and not the "diablo" one that most games used.

In frustration, I gave up and took my shower. As I was getting out, I realized I wasn't letting it go and decided to upgrade and install all the games I wanted and could find.

Somewhere around 00:50, I realized I really, really had to get to bed. I'm tired and exhausted, but I have a bag full of clean clothes, a swimsuit, a n810 to play with, and a stack of book as tall as my hand. And I got paid today.

I'm good.

Yep... I'm good.

I hit the OMG point!

2009-03-25T05:00:00Z

Last night, while working on my commission round two (need to expand two scenes), I hit that point where I had to sit back and realize I don't really have time to do anything more. If I want to move a week from today, I'm going to be packing and finishing up this commission. I'm going on a mini vacation with Fluffy since I promised her a hotel visit with me for a weekend and she asked for it to be this weekend. So, if plans go well, I have basically today, tomorrow, and Monday to pack up.

Two weeks of moving two houses across two states starts today.

Yah, memories!

It nets out to neutral

2009-03-20T05:00:00Z

Today has been a relatively good and somewhat frustrating day at the same time. A bit long and wandering though, both the good, the eh, and idle thoughts.

I decided to mark my Critters membership as inactive, which I hate doing. I like critiquing, but I feel that if I'm not posting something new at least every few months and letting my critiques slip, I'm not really participating. I figured once I get back into writing heavily into topics they deal with, I'll active my membership and get right back into the mix.

I also sent a letter to my landlord telling them I'm leaving in a month or so. I don't feel I have to, we have a legal contract and it ends in 40 days. There is no auto-renewal clause, there is nothing beyond it. But apparently it's one of those excuses the landlord takes for not giving back a deposit. It doesn't matter if it is polite or not--I already planned on doing it--I don't like when I have to, despite the fact my understanding of legalese says I don't.

Oh well.

I also talked to my brother. In these discussions about what we would do with the economy, one of my opinions is that the auto makers (and their unions) should be reminded that they have a business model that needs to drastically change. One of the consequences of this, sadly, might result in one going under or really close to it. It is hard when you have family in that industry, more so when you find out they were laid off. Me and my brother both like plans. We have our "master plans" for the future (though he doesn't call it the Salmon Plan like me). Both of us have been hit with some really nasty distractions on that aspect (one of them has the potentially of really throwing a wrench into my plan). But, when compared to my misery of the flood in Iowa, being laid off in Detroit is devastating. I really hope he gets back on his feet and his wife, also in the car industry, manages to survive this.

Even with all that, it didn't really temper the email that gave me the results of my first college petition.

...

One down, four to go. They accepted it without any comments, which makes me feel really damn good about it. Apparently, I write at an appropriate level of a master's course and I can prove it with supporting documentation and well-reason arguments.

Yah, me!

I've been focusing on this move in the next two weeks. Instead of relaxing and playing a video game, I ended up filing the last of my DVD's into the filing cabinet. I know have just about every DVD I own entered into the computer... for the week at least. I'm also working on getting my finances entered into the computer, sorting my LEGO toys, and generally knocking things off my TODO list.

I did do one naughty thing today. For the last few (i.e. five including all my commission income) months, I didn't spend my entertainment fund because I kept using it to pay bills. With the refinance and everything, I actually got it back and decided to blow it on something I wanted: a Nokia n810. No, I don't need it. But, I know I'm beginning to forget what books I really want to pick up, what DVD's I'm missing (like having 1-5 and 8-10 of a series), and a list of addresses. It's a little PDA, a bit pricey, but I think I could use it. Plus, it would be just like Fluffy when she plays Scrabble in bed on her phone... I too shall have a hand-held computer to play games. And mine will be Linux! Bwahahaha!

Yeah, I want to write a game for it.

Speaking of games, I'm beginning to want to write a game. A massively single-player online RPG (MSPORPG). This is frustrating, mainly because I had that self-imposed desire to finish CuteGod and Baby Squid God. Not sure of those really should just be trunked or not, though. I want to finish, but you know what, I should also learn when to let things go.

Surprise! No sleep.

2009-03-10T05:00:00Z

Fluffy has a job interview later today. Last night, while we were talking, she mentioned that she might come last night instead of today, mainly so she doesn't have to rush around.

Somehow, I thought she would be coming, so I ended up staying up later than I normally do (23:00 three nights in a row, bad Dylan) and had trouble sleeping. I managed to drift off around 00:30 or so.

Near 03:30, Fluffy came through my door. I suspect she hung around for a few hours, trying to make a decision, then finally decided to head on over. I could never do that, midnight driving isn't for me.

I'm always happy she is here. We didn't really talk at all, mainly because I had work in a few hours, but it woke me up enough that I didn't get back to sleep until 05:00 or so.

It's going to be a tired day.

I managed to finish the second draft of my commission last night. I'm not exactly happy with it, but for this commissioner, I'm never happy with the story but they are. I sent it out, with the usual offer to expand on it. Hopefully they'll enjoy it.

Knowing I have to move in four weeks is pushing me to finish all those little things that I've been stalling on. I still have a few more hundred DVD's to enter, a dozen books to finish reviewing, and petitions to blow through. I finished sorting through my LEGO blocks last night; I need to not buy any new toys until after the move.

It is change.

Not fond of it, but it is what it is, so I'm going to do it.

Scary baby steps

2009-03-05T06:00:00Z

Yesterday, we took one of those really scary little steps toward me moving out of this apartment and into some place I can have all my family visit: we applied for a new rental house. Not really that impressive, my lease is up April 21 (I've been here almost a year, wow...) and it's about time to step up and not have Fluffy visiting every week or so.

When we first started, it was every two weeks, alternating between Iowa and Illinois. Through various factors, she is coming more often and staying a week at a time.

Which is lovely except I simply can't get anything done. No homework, no commissions, hell even the thirty minutes for my Critters obligation is a struggle. Couldn't even consider homework. I can't wait until we get into the same house, where we have a nice schedule and life turns into, well, a rut. Because I like having a schedule I can commit to. When I can plan more than four weeks ahead, I can get into a RPG game or plan out my writing night since I have a novel coming up.

We don't know if we'll get the house yet. The landlord had multiple applicants, so its ass-kissing and buttering up that will decide who gets it.

Here's hoping I kiss good ass.

Monday morning yawn

2009-02-23T06:00:00Z

Another Monday has rolled around, surprising me with a cat who wanted attention and that sharp burst of "oh shit" as I accidentally turned off my alarm clock. Fortunately, I could reset the alarm and go back to sleep for my precious nine minutes.

Actually, a very productive weekend. I wrote about 10k words on my serial, 5k words to finish the first draft of my second commission, and did two Critters critiques. Oh, and taxes, dishes, most of a petition, my resume (for the petition) and playing with my LEGO pieces. I also managed to watch six movies. I also found a toy that I really want now. Do it yourself hand-held gaming... yummy.

I like being productive. It will make up for my complete lack of productivity when Fluffy comes into town in a few days. My life is ebbs and flows when it comes to writing. Something I'm sure will normalize at some point. I also got to thinking about my novel for the year. What topic to write? What tone? Should I go with the cowboy in the fairy land that I wrote a short story idea previously? Peg and Sue go into space? Another steampunk? Does it have a chance to get published? You know, the usual.

When I finish my serial (technically about 10 weeks from now, but I doubt it), I'm either going to finish the Glorious Saber arc out or work on the novel. Just not sure.

GenCon Spending and Bunny Bois

2009-02-19T06:00:00Z

Week five and I've managed to avoid growing bunny ears from eating all this salad. I'm still trying to decide if I'm glad, disappointed, or a closet furry as I made my salad this morning. Just the usual for the last week: green peppers, tomatoes, and grapes. I don't use salad dressing, not even in the beginning, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Of course, that also means no magical weight loss either. I need to force myself to exercise more, which is actually the hardest part. All I want to do is go home and play on the computer. Or write on the laptop while watching really hideous movies. You know, movies that their previous owners thought were so bad, even the two dollars they get from the pawn shop was something to get back for one to two hours of their life.

Been doing a lot of writing lately. Got back the feedback on one of my commissions. No changes requested and do you want money, sir? Very happy about that one; hopefully I'll be getting a bit of cash (via PayPal) this week. It will help make up for the overboard spending we did for GenCon this year.

Registration was last Sunday. Not a big deal, they increased the price, but frankly, that isn't a bad thing. Still won't touch the VIG package with a four meter pole. Housing opened up on Tuesday at 11:00 my time. I managed to forget for various reasons until 19:00 or so. When I went on, there was... only one room open for the dates I normally do. A single, which doesn't really work out of we have our usual 5-6 people in the room. Two if I showed up the day of the convention which I'm not fond of because I like relaxing before the big show. It decided to try out the schedule outside of the housing block. Only for the Sheraton, which I happen to like, and found a king sized room for the days I wanted.

We decided to go forward with it. About thirty seconds after I hit "submit", the fine print on the bottom registered. "... will be charged on 2/17/2009". Ignoring the slow shudder I felt for not using ISO dates (2009-02-17), I realized I better make damn sure I have enough on the credit card now. It went through, so I guess we're committed. Balance on credit card? $2.

Minor note: Their email used 12-AUG-2009 which is just slightly more offensive. Why can't people use international standards?

Oh well, I'm stressed for spending that much money in the middle of this economic times, but I guess I'm glad it's over. You never know what happens in six months.

I will admit, despite my worry about the bank account, I "accidentally" went through the LEGO aisle at WalMart yesterday. I was perfectly fine windowing browsing until I found the 2009 Pirates box with the octopus.

Can't resist the cephalopods.

I'm named her Chris.

Never again...

2009-02-10T06:00:00Z

Every time I stay up until midnight working on a story, I end up having a horrible time getting out of bed the next morning (go figure). And, almost every morning, I tell myself I'm going to stop working so late and get more sleep. Somewhere around the fifth and sixth snooze alarm.

And... every time I get a good story, I end up staying up until midnight or later working on it.

Last night, I did that exact thing. Working on a commission, I ended up going just over three thousand words past the ten thousand point somewhere around midnight. I won't get paid for the extras, but the story needed that little bit more. Even then, I rushed it. Actually, if I had this idea and wrote it myself, it would end up about 20-30k words in length to really do it justice. A great little story that got my imagination working. I can only hope the commissioner will love what I create.

I love it when a commission fits me perfectly. It is always easier to write when the story fits your own world view or personality. More so when I'm just given a paragraph, an idea, and a picture and told "write this".

I get harder ones also. The next one on deck is one that doesn't quite fit my personality. The commissioner doesn't like some of the literary aspects I use frequently, so I need to avoid them. Harder, but I'm apparently doing it right since they keep asking me to write more stories. I go over the word count with them just on principle, they have been good to me.

The third is harder in two different ways. One, I was prepaid for the story and they said "whenever". I have learned, because of this, I hate "whenever" prepaids. Actually, I think I'm going to say no to getting prepaid commissions in general, but I was desperate for a bit of money at the time. It came at a good time, but I'm struggling because I don't have that carrot.

It is also harder because it is taking a seven second clip of an anime and building out a ten thousand word story from that. The saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is very true. I'm taking a single scene and basically creating the characters (they are extras in the anime) and giving them a history, personality, and depth. A reason for them being there and, hopefully, an emotional connection that make the scene more powerful.

Needless to say, this morning has been a struggle to do anything on time. I ended up being much later to work than I'm comfortable and I kept getting distracted playing music, making lunch, and everything else. And I have a sleep headache from not enough sleep.

I don't swear to never do it again. That would be pointless because I know, sooner or later, probably sooner actual, I'll be writing at midnight, watching a cheesy horror movie on the screen (Pitch Black last night), and pounding away at the keyboard.

Not a bunny

2009-02-06T06:00:00Z

Week three of the new diet and while I haven't quite turned into a rabbit, I definitely from. In my efforts to cut out starch (I don't do much sugar so harder to cut that out), I switched from two sandwiches, a Nutty Bar, and Cheetos for lunch to a half gallon (it feels like it) of salad and a can of soup. This dietary change is hard, mainly because I love the starch like some people like their crystal meth. I'm dreaming of hashbrowns, then sighing in frustration when I find out McDonalds serves breakfast at four in the morning (who knew) after pulling a 19 hour work day. Pulling out of the drive through, I was hashbrownless and wondering when I would feel proud of resisting.

Sadly, this isn't much of a writing week so far. I still have the three commissions and my serial to work on, but I figured I'll do that on the weekend. I've been a bit too tired to really work on any of them, though I had an offer of a beta reader for my serial to find some of the worst of the typos before I post it. I'll probably do it, mainly because I haven't had a beta reader for more than a month on my serials. Either I go too fast or I write too much.

I did, on the other hand, do the minimum for Critters. Apparently, I am severely behind schedule on this and need to move my rear to keep up. And, move to write stories I can post there, so I feel like I'm working toward that "get published properly" goal.

Exhaustion

2009-01-30T06:00:00Z

I took half of Tuesday off to find a new family doctor. I never realized how much finding one is like blind dates: you don't know what you are going to find, if they have a good bedside manner, if they are going to rant endlessly about your weight, or any other thousand things.

Fortunately, this was a good blind date, so I think I found a doctor. I'm a bit heavier than I thought and an inch shorter than I realized. So, my goal of 16 kg this year is going to put me at 136 kg at the end of the year. Well, still working on that.

Had an enjoyable conversation with my brother, who reads my blog. I keep forgetting that, but it's nice. He and I talked about the attempt in the 70's to convert to the metric system and all the push-back. But, we both agree that if we stuck with it then, we would have just gotten through it.

Back to my date. To avoid taking vacation days for it, I had make up the time. I ended up working until 19:00 on Tuesday, which meant I got home and could barely bang away at the keyboard. Then, last night, I didn't get home until 21:00. Release weeks are fun, but they also make it hard to write. I've only gotten off about 6k words this week. They were a good 6k (a chapter in the serial and about a thousand on the first commission).

Fluffy came into town about 01:00 this morning. This means I got up to talk to her, get her situated, and well, that kind of killed my sleep there. In other words, I'm exhausted.

Little bit of creativity

2009-01-27T06:00:00Z

Got the details for my third commission this weekend. It's going to be hard, but doable. Only about five thousand words. The second one is ten thousand words, and the first is... well, they have a fifty thousand word limit and all the commissions they want until they expend it (giving money when I'm desperate is a good thing). And I have three weeks to finish that and the second one, so it's going to be a very busy two weeks mixed in with college, work, and that "relaxing" thing. I'll probably skip the relaxing thing as usually.

Actually, I tried to skip the relaxing thing. But, I got to this point where I was deciding if I should sit down and program, sit down and write, or read a book. So, in times of that, I did what I usually do: roll dice. Big old handful of HERO system dice, because they are pretty... and green. Of the dice, 80% said "read a book!" so I did. I'll probably review it later, not sure. I wanted to read the PDF book I have from a friend, but the idea of staring at a screen for four hours... well, I realized I needed to sprawl out in a puddle of sun, drip myself into my blankets, and just... do nothing.

I both hate and absolutely love doing nothing.

The nice bit is that I'm enjoying the writing. I haven't even tried to program lately, because I don't really see a need to, or a desire. I haven't done my Critters obligation though, really need to catch up on that. I also need to get Victim of Love updated and resubmitted. Between that, commissions, and my serial, I'm pretty and happily busy.

I keep thinking I should submit stories, but commissions are holding me pretty well and I know that they are seasonal. In a few months, I won't have any so take everything I can now.

Writing and Classes

2009-01-14T06:00:00Z

Doing a bit of writing. Last week, I had a few seriously down parts and it managed to pretty my lynch my creativity for the week. But, this week, I got a bit of writing done and things are moving forward nicely.

I finished my commission. It came with the best payment ever--money from PayPal and another request. Yah for another commission. I'm working on a prepay commission and it reminds me exactly why I hate being prepaid for my commissions. Knowing I would get paid at the end is one of those motivators and when I don't have that, I find myself working on other things instead.

Classes started last week. Compared to the struggles I had before this, I'm not having a lot of trouble with this one. Week one... make a website. Week two? Make a website with multiple pages and links! *squee*

Overall, I'm having a good week this week. I won't be blogging probably as frequently as before (last week again), but I'm hoping to get into "real" writing (i.e. stuff that might get me published). I'll see, these first few months of 2009 are going to be transitional.

Goals for 2009

2009-01-05T06:00:00Z

Every year, I believe the year with a bunch of new goals. My record for achieving them isn't the greatest, but I'm usually pretty good at least making a few of them. This year, after some playful ribbing from Fluffy, I have five:

Writing: Finish Flight of the Scions. This was last year's goal also, but I hit writer's block for most of the year. I'm not including writing a novel this year, because after so many years of doing it, it's more of a "well, duh" item instead of something remarkable. I'm going to write a new novel this year, it just isn't a goal.
Programming: Join and complete 4E7. I've had a nasty time with game writing contests last year. I'm going to not join any game writing contests until 4E7, then work on that one. I want to finish, damn it. Now, that said, I'm still going to work on CuteGod, Baby Squid God, and Wordplay when I want to write a game.
Health: Lose 16 kg (35 pounds). I need to loose some weight. This is actually the hardest one on the set. I'm not going to set a goal of a certain number of miles on a bike or walking, or the stairs or anything. I just want to be 16 kg lighter by the end of the year (and ideally not through projectile vomiting or amputation).
Family: Be living with Fluffy, our cats, and dog in the same house by the end of the year. I'm tired of living across two states, really, really tired of it.
Education: Graduate with a master's. I'm on track for this one, but I need just a little push...

I do have some secondary goals. These are goals that I want to get done, but I won't feel guilty of I don't:

I have a second novel that needs an edit round and self-publication. I won't get the artwork done in a reasonable time, but I can everything prepared for the artwork.
Get at least one story published.
Finish up the book of poetry I've been working in my spare time for two years.
Finish Baby Squid God.
Finish CuteGod.
Finish the Glorious Saber arc and get closure on that project.
Get more commissions.
Stop being a wanna writer and programmer.
5 ascensions on Kingdom of Loathing.

I love writing and movies

2008-12-29T06:00:00Z

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.

Holiday writing

2008-12-24T06:00:00Z

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?

I be a writer

2008-12-22T06:00:00Z

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.

Not a good start

2008-12-19T06:00:00Z

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.

Progression in writing

2008-12-17T06:00:00Z

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.

Is it better to feel sick or to feel like a writer?

2008-11-13T06:00:00Z

An interesting question, I think, but yesterday, I kind of did both. I wasn't really feeling on top of the world, so I called in sick. Somehow, I still feel guilty about it, like I was just faking it to avoid work, but when I woke up against five hours later, I suspected that I might have been actually sick. Today... not much better, but I'm back at work.

Besides sleeping way too much, my day consisted of working a bit on Baby Squid God and homework. BSG is slowly moving forward, but the code I'm writing is Not Pretty™, actually, its a horrid mess but it is working, so I'm just moving forward and hoping to get to the fun things again. Most of these last bits are getting a new editor up and running so I can actually see my character being posed.

Homework is a struggle. I'm bouncing between 85% and 100% for the most part. This class is hard, a challenge, but I don't feel like the teacher has abandoned me. I'm honestly not getting it to the degree he is looking for, which is fine but depressing. I'll get a B for sure though I'm still aiming for an A.

I also got to the last part of the commission I've been struggling with for two months: the getting paid part. Yep, I got some monies. And, to my surprise, they liked it so much they added an extra one-third on top of my minimum asking price for the story (I always set the minimum and tell them to pay more if they think its worth it). I thought that was damn cool and more so that they liked it so much, they asked for a second commission which will be about the same price. I know I was considering not working on the commissions for the rest of the year, but I'll do this one anyways. Makes me feel like a writer or something.

Writerly and gamerly trudging

2008-11-04T06:00:00Z

Had a pretty fun weekend, though a bit too much work and self-inflicted stress. Worked on Baby Squid God for most of it, after cuddling with the kitties (7 more days and they go home). Managed to get a bouncy baby squid on the screen, but not much more. Last night, I managed to get the beginning of a stage displayed, but again, not much more. Its going slow, but its moving forward. Kind of like NaNoWriMo, I just have to "keep on swimming". Instead of 1,400 words per day, I'm trying to average about 200 LOC a day.

In writing news, I got some feedback from Drops of Crimson. And the news is... wait until December. They got swamped and never got to the bottom of the slushpile I'm assuming. December should also tell me if White Wolf liked my story submission I gave back in September. I also worked on expanding my commission and got that out, hopefully they'll be happy with the response and I'll get some precious monies. So, it was definitely a writerly weekend despite the game writing.

Revamped my wishlist yesterday, mainly updating and removing the duplicates. Not that anyone buys me much, but occasionally someone uses it and I felt the need to clean up. And Fluffy hates getting me anything on the list, I have to give her special requests that no one else knows about. Not entirely sure why, but its part of what we are. And I love her enough not to bitch about it; just not sure what to ask her.

Random thoughts

2008-10-16T05:00:00Z

This week has been a nice busy one. I managed to finish the second draft of my commission on Sunday and sent it out Monday (always one more day for the OMG, did I write that? moments). Got feedback.

They loved it.

Four little change requests which I'll get out tonight and then I'll be "done" with that commission. I think I should also put a hold on commissions for a while, just until I'm struggling less with them. These last two were killers; I haven't had that much trouble putting words on a page in years.

Still feeling guilty about stopping Scroll of the Lands. But, in a contrast, I'm looking at Glorious Saber and wondering if I could actually finish that up in a reasonable period of time. Trying to seek closure I guess. It also got me to thinking about another comic idea I had while driving back from kitty cuddle time (flea population is 0.1% of last week's, so I actually wanted to cuddle). The new comic idea, if I do it, would be fun, since it would be a fictional diary for me and Fluffy's attempt to have children. Of course, if I could actually pull it together, that's a different story. Or if I have time.

Baby Squid God is advancing in my thoughts. I considered doing pixel artwork, but I'm hesitating. The other I'm looking at is doing it in the same style as Glorious Saber. I already have some code to use this style and I've also spent six months working on the skills to make it, which means less to learn when trying to write the game. So, here is my quick sketch idea of the baby squid god:

If you are curious, here is the pixel version:

I'm also trying to upgrade my artwork style a little. Mainly with the dual-layer hair (i.e. so they look different based on what direction they are looking at). And the hands. Not entirely sure what to do about it, but I might lean toward circles when they aren't do anything but something while they are holding things. Any opinions?

And, I'm heading back to Illinois this weekend. Not accusing Fluffy or anything, but the phone system has completely died at the house and the MythTV box is misbehaving (I think it misses me). So I'm going to go for a different type of kitty cuddle, picking up paperwork, and fixing the technical things.

... and maybe spending time with Fluffy. :)

Horrible, evil monkeys...

2008-10-09T05:00:00Z

Had a monkey night. The type of nights where you manage to get into bed on time, get all nice and comfortable and then, instead of drifting to sleep and nice dreams of food processors, you end up staring at the ceiling and thinking. While I love to think about things, it gets annoying when you can't sleep because of it. I call it the monkey, since its your consciousness chattering away like a pissed off monkey.

Things I thought about:

I got another five thousand words on my commission. Almost done with this and I'm very happy about that. Plus, it means I'll get a bit of money hopefully in the near future to help relieve the stress of...
Not having enough money. We'll just leave that one in the box, shall we?
Ascending on Kingdom of Loathing and writing my own version of KOL Mafia, despite not having enough time or energy. Not to mention way too many projects to do already. I tried to bribe my thoughts by getting up and playing my 40 (well, 137) turns but that didn't help.
The brownies in the fridge. Tried to bribe myself by getting up and eating all of them, but it didn't help either. They were good though.
Ultra Mega Super Premium Mall and if I should use crayon-style images to distinguish it from Kingdom of Loathing, which its obviously inspired by.
Flight of the Scions, but mostly to berate myself for not working on it. But, also working out some of the outfits and dresses in the book. And if I really should have a specific kissing scene in book two.
2D scene graphs. This was the bulk of my distractions since I think I found a good way of organizing my various code projects between BooGame and MfGames.* to handle Baby Squid God and CuteGod equally. Of course, it requires me to rewrite things again, but I think I needed to do that anyways. Plus, I inherited BooGame and need to clean that up and make it more useful.
Wondering why I still can't find a good generic C# game engine that works with 2D? Likewise, wondering if I really should create yet another vector/matrix library just because no one else will work together? I want someone else to figure out all this hard part. Its thankless and probably why I'm doing it.
Are there fleas in the bed? I'm pretty sure I got rid of them, but when you are lying there with nothing else, every little twinge and itch seems to bring up the idea that there might be critters with me. Having a cat clean herself for two solid hours on your chest doesn't help. Even if that is what she normally does.
And finally, just wondering what life is going to be like in the next three months. I have absolutely no clue. Utterly no clue, not even a hint of what I'm doing in month, much less the end of the year.

So, busy night. And I overslept and was two hours late for work.

Oh well, its a special day.

Productive weekend

2008-09-29T05:00:00Z

It was actually a very productive weekend. I worked on some story critiques and cleanup stuff. I also wrote just over ten thousand words on the two commissions, so I feel like I'm actually a writer again. We'll see if the trend continues in the next week, but it feels good to really get into a story and just... write.

One of the problems with writing on commission is that you don't always write what you like to write. Sometimes, the requests are just slightly different than what you prefer. A good example is one person once asked me to keep the descriptions to a minimum, which is nearly impossible for me which is why I turned down the commission. But others are doable on the surface, but when I get into writing it, sometimes they just don't click with me and I find myself struggling. One of the commissions was like that; it didn't quite mesh with my various interests and quirks and I just couldn't get myself into it. It was like talking to someone who just doesn't agree with me.

Wrapping your head around another's imagination is sometimes very difficult.

I saw that on Saturday, actually. I went to visit the kitties and ended up watching a football game. I have no clue why, I'm really not fond of it, but it started with a conversation with FiL about random things. At one point, the announcer used a really wrong word--"semantic maneuver" instead of "technical maneuver". It a common mistake with people who use thesauruses in school but happens in speech too. At that, FiL declared that the announcer obviously was illiterate and basically incapable of reading over a fifth grade level. I highly suspect since the announcer was black factored into this, but it really annoyed me. Its hard to be a professional announcer for anything without being able to read. The fact they were also a coach in their prior job, and a graduate of college both imply at least a bit better than fifth grade reading. But, it was "obvious" to FiL from the announcer's word choice (also the use of "hes has" which I call an accent/dialect, not a sign of literacy).

That event, which was probably one of the few times I almost walked out on him, really rammed home a point: you stick to like minded people. I don't hang around people who assume that all black people are uneducated, and social burdens. And calls them niggers to make that point. I also don't think the same about Mexicans but FiL does. If it wasn't for my cats being there, or the months because of the flood, I really wouldn't make a point of visiting him. He is too politically, socially, and religiously different from me and his assumptions are just one reason.

Interacting with him is a good thing. While he is so different than me, it also forces me to see another point of view. I don't agree with it, at all, but I also know he is a good person. Its just the little things I can't comprehend, like bigotry and intolerance.

It also means that when everything is done with the Master Plan, I probably won't visit nearly as much. The same thing that makes him interesting also make me want to avoid him. I don't want to interact with people who different from me, who don't share the same values as me or even the same religion.

I'm also trying to see how to put this into my characters. I like this conflict on an intellectual level, just not in person. It is a good thing to write about though, I just haven't really figured out how to be intolerant in-character.

Commissions

A Little Give

Looking Back

Commissions

Appliances

Projects

Looking Forward

Derecho Repairs

Flight of the Scions

Nitride

Leaning Back

Gitea and Gitlab

Trauma

Changing Gears

Mechanical Writing

A lot of little things going on

Writing

Support

Development

On the cusp of commissions

A parental visit

A commission in a china shop

A general set of just getting things done

Random thoughts

Blocks of time

Distraction powers, activate!

Struggles

Predictions

Happily moving forward

Another weekend ends...

Another first draft

A sigh of relief

I love the first draft

Come, weekend, throw me what you shall

A writer by any other name...

Commissions

A weekend in review

Commissions, BooGame, hardware, and creativity

Hindsight

Low-grade OCD

I hit the OMG point!

It nets out to neutral

Surprise! No sleep.

Scary baby steps

Monday morning *yawn*

GenCon Spending and Bunny Bois

Never again...

Not a bunny

Exhaustion

Little bit of creativity

Writing and Classes

Goals for 2009

I love writing and movies

Holiday writing

I be a writer

Not a good start

Progression in writing

Is it better to feel sick or to feel like a writer?

Writerly and gamerly trudging

Random thoughts

Horrible, evil monkeys...

Productive weekend

Monday morning yawn