Hello, everyone!  I was able to make it to the office and managed to crank out three thousand and five hundred words — meaning I covered the word count needed for today, covered Sunday and started working on yesterday.  If I can manage another day like today, I can get back on schedule.  If I do two more days like that, I can get a little ahead…which is what I need to do badly because there is no “get ahead”, there is “get less behind”.  If everything can work out the way that I want it to, I can get it done by the end of June and begin the editing process.  I am aiming on getting this novel out by the second half of the year.  It’s only going to be a 55K word novel, so it shouldn’t take that long to get finished.  I just need to buckle down.

That phrase should be on my coat of arms: Ego ipse applicare debet.  My standard will be a red mule trying to buckle a belt in a field of silver.  It only seems appropriate.

At least I am maintaining this blog a lot better than I did two weeks ago.  Technically, this is the second post for the day, but I’ve always considered the day ending when I fall asleep: GMT be damned.

The writing today was really good.  I was able to really get into the main character’s self-loathing while on the date with Jennifer (a place holder name, honest).  I should get that done tomorrow and continue sailing into Act Two — where the conflict really gets ramped up and one of minor protagonists may or may not get a bloody nose.  I still have some enthusiasm for this project, so I am confident that this one will get done on time…ish.  Let’s not lose our heads over this, OK?

One more thing I need to do is get together a list of conventions in my area beyond Fandomfest (I think the tables have been sold out for that one).  If anyone reading this blog knows of a fantasy, or bookseller’s convention in the Kentucky are, please let me know in the comments.  One of the things I really, really need to do is get myself some more exposure.  So, it’s either hit conventions or marry a Kardashian.  I’d much rather learn about conventions, but if I have to bite that bullet…hey…it’s what I have to do.

Next time, I think I’ll depart a little from the updates and maybe gab about a show, or how I would have done that show differently.  I really should talk about the WWI / Dracula project.  I haven’t touched that in a while, and it’s an idea that has stuck with me for a while.  I’ll read some of my older posts…cringe a little and try to pick back up where I left off.

Well, thanks for dropping by, and I hope to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello everyone.  I’m a bit bummed today, and I have noticed that there is pattern to my productivity:

1) The apex — I can do this. Two thousand or three thousand words is no problem,  I can make this work.  This phase lasts for a couple of days…a week at the most.

2) The negative grade — I can get out two thousand words, but my focus is a little scattered.  I can still make this work, but it’s gonna be work.  This lasts for a couple of days.

3) The bottom — Why am I deluding myself?  Getting a hundred words is a miracle.  Two thousand?  Right… Am I making a mistake in chasing this? Nth is lasts for a couple of weeks, then I begin the long climb up.

To quote Jim Butcher: I don’t have a muse. I have a mortgage.  I’m the sort of person that needs to have everything in its mental place and a mental place for everything.  I’m not big on surprises or uncertainty.  Right now, I am taking all that I can with this job change (pro writer) and getting settled into a nice routine.  I’m hoping that with the routine set, I can free myself up to write, get a couple of books finished and maybe expand my financial base (more on that later).

Sorry that this isn’t the sexy writer talk that I usually come up with, but this blogging process is more than a roundabout way for me to hawk my wares.  It’s to get into a good routine and get my headspace sorted out.  It does take some training for me to put my thoughts on paper.  I do tend to hold things close to the chest, and that at times might hinder the creative process.  For example, the main character in The Lard Of Love is getting ready to have his second encounter with the female lead, and it’s a little nerve wracking to write because I am drawing from my own experiences, so I’m having to relive some personal and embarrassing memories.  It’s all good — if I can make the main character’s unease palpable then it will be worth it.

Changing topics — I watched a documentary about the Magic: The Gathering Pro tour (I think it’s called “Enter the Battlefield”) and I was watching these people play a game and work their up the ranks to be the best in the world, I kept feeling that there was a story to be told there.  Whether it’s a piece of fiction or following someone from the local card shop all the way up…there is a story there.  I can’t explain the feeling only other with saying that my brain was saying over and over again “This would make a great story.”  I’m sure some of you have felt that feeling.  That mental itch that burrows down past your consciousness and takes up residence in your subconscious.  I am going to toss this one and the way back burner.  Right now, I have to finish my current project and get to the one I really want to do for this year.

Well, I should get some sleep since I have to get up early in the morning to make my routine work.  Thanks for reading this, and I promise that my next post will be a more pleasant read for you.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Edited with BlogPad Pro

So…I woke up this morning with the notion that I was going to head to the office and make up the missing 2,000 words from yesterday.  I was going to shower, fuel myself with some strong coffee and make some progress.

Instead, I snorted, rolled over and fell back asleep.  I’m fairly certain this is not how Stephen King starts his day…or maybe he does.  He can certainly afford to do these sorts of things.  After all, didn’t he say he was retired?  I think he did.  Well, he’s still cranking out books, so I wonder if his definition of retirement and mine are the same.

Speaking of being productive, I did manage to get down to the office and get about two thousand words done, and I managed to get the First Act completed.  Now all that needs to happen is the main character (Kevin) needs to go on his first (not-a) date with Jennifer.  Yes, these are placeholder names for the most part.  Kevin is a little close to my real name to be comfortable to me, but I can’t keep on using ‘protagonist’ in the rough draft.  All in all, I am still liking this book enough to not ditch it for any of the other ideas I have.

For anyone here obsessing with my maintaining this blog (just me, right?), I will try to have at least six days a week.  Sunday was a mess because it was Sunday and Saturday was a little complicated because that’s the only time I have to do any chores (if you saw my place, you’d understand…then call the heath department to have it condemned).  So, I am still going to try to maintain this little slice of surreality.  Five days minimum, but if I get a Saturday or a Sunday in, sweet!  Any suggestions on topics will be appreciated…except politics.  If you’re really, really curious about my stances on any and all hot-button issues not related to writing, please reach out to me through e-mail.  This is strictly a writing blog (ha-ha-ha).

Speaking of writing, one of the things I am having to consider is how I am marketing.  Right now, it’s an easy thing to consider: I’m not doing it.  Yeah, I have a Twitter account, but it’s chock full of friends, book tweeting services, people who I wonder if they’re just not just grabbing people randomly and various stars.  I might be projecting my own disdain for this onto my own efforts.  I just see these ads for books and think: meh.  Then again, I also tweet out that I have books, and I don’t see a bump in sales from it.

As you can see, I am a horrible sales person in a job where being a sales person is the only way to thrive.  I honestly don’t know how to generate sales, and frankly — I’m afraid to ask simply because I’ve already been taken for a ride about these sorts of things once.

Well, I’ll look at all of this fresh in the morning.  Tomorrow is another day to change for the better.  A fresh start!  A bright new day…to snort, roll over and fall asleep again.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

…who sang the song “Slave To The Grind“.  I’ll look that up after I’m done with this.  It’s my fourth day of 2000 words a day, and I know have new respect for people who can maintain that pace for more than a month.

Because today, I was not really feeling it.  Even though I was caffeinated thanks to the office it was hard for me to stay on task.  I’d write a few words, stare at the rain (that might have had something to do with it) for a few minutes while listening to music.  I usually listen to the local radio station, but that kills my phone battery and I need my laptop to be fresh for the writing.  So, today I pulled out an old .mp3 player and loaded it with a bunch of music and Hardcore History (which I recommend highly).  I drove to the office (or the local Starbucks, whatever) because it was looking overcast.  Setting everything down and getting the usual drink (vanilla iced coffee with cream and sugar), I turned on the laptop and waited for it to start up.  On the upside, it doesn’t take that long because I changed out the hard drive for a SSD drive and that has not only made the battery life double, but the start up is now about twenty seconds from a good three minutes.

Anyways, I was looking out the window while I was trying to get going…and I wasn’t in the right headspace.  That’s the only way I could explain it.  I would write a few sentences and stop.  A few more sentences, maybe a paragraph and stop.  I would sip my coffee, watching the sky change from grey to light grey to rain.  I haven’t gotten any sort of payment since the convention…and I left a really good job for this.  I’m one of those people that’ll find something to worry on…and worry on…and worry on.  I’ve got some reserves of cash, but…this is a gamble.

This could be a one-time thing.  I do have bouts of depression every now and then, and I tend to bounce back.  More than likely, this is just from the weather.  It has been a few days from the convention and I’m coming back to normal.  Tomorrow is going to be better — a little warmer, a little more sunny, so I might go back to the office and see how I feel.  I might try to set something like a tip jar either here on the site, or a sticker to slap on the laptop.

However, I have started the bible for one of my future projects “Drinker, Flirter, Jester, Spy”, so I might do that down the road.  It might be after November because I want to make sure I get all the details down.  So far?  I’ve got the name of the main characters and who I’ve cast in the movie:
1) Jolly Jehanna (real name: Jelena Sirotske, the aforementioned Jester/Spy): An orphan from Tarjen (Yes, that Tarjen) raised to be a spy and her assignment is to get close to the Duchy of Comyna and scout about.  Why is she doing it?  Not really sure.

2) Vitenka: Jehanna’s handler — the poor guy assigned to keep her out of trouble and under control.  You’d think that he’s the aforementioned ‘Drinker’, but he’s not…so far.  This is still in the planning stage, but this is what I am going to be working on after I get the 2,000 words for “Lard of Love”.

Well, that’s all for now.  Feel free to leave a remark, or check out the books on the right hand side.  As always, thanks for reading and I wish you well.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

It’s the first time on the other side of the table!

I am happy to report that I survived my first con experience as a vendor.  I sold three books with only the strength of my personality (or in spite of it, as some might say), and I can confidently say that I am on the right career path…finally.  Sure, I’m starting over at a time when other might start winding down and looking forward to a retirement in ten years.  I’ve also learned some thing about setting up and tearing down:

1. I need a banner sign:  Here’s my set up.  You’ll see what I mean almost immediately:
   
   To be fair — this is my first time.
2. I need to be a lot more steady on my elevator pitch:  I got the one for The Dreaded Day Job down, but I flubbed The Quietest Heart and that might have cost me a sale.
3. I need more signage: sure — there’s a lot going on there at my table, but I need to also tell people that I have an Internet presence.  Y’know: the Facebook page, the Twitter account and this blog.  The person across from me had a banner that had QR-codes with her Twitter and Facebook pages set up.  I need something like that by the time I get to the next convention…whenever that is.
4. I need more books!  Holy cow, even though I was selling three books –2 paperbacks and an e-book (which didn’t really sell at all), there were people there selling seven or eight books.  I need to really, really buckle down and crank out some more stuff.
5. I’m not going to stand all day.  I thought I could.  After all, it’s only five hours.  While I stood about maybe four hours total, I did end up sitting for a few minutes.  I noticed that more people came by when I was sitting.  I really do need to relax at conventions.
6. Roadies would be nice.  Just sayin’

I had fun and got to talk to a couple of people.  I even posed for a group picture.  I am definitely going to try to find other conventions to go to, I’ll focus on local ones first and when the funds get bigger, then I hit the out of state ones.  I thought I was going to be a whimpering wreck halfway through (I’m not what one would call ‘comfortably sociable’), but I managed to have a good time.

I am working on a new romance novel called “The Lard of Love”.  I am not going to release any more information about it until it’s done.  I have a bad habit of spilling my guts about what I’m working on, and then I don’t want to finish it.  So, I’m going to shut up about it and show everyone what I am working on this year:

1) Lard of Love — should have the rough draft finished by the end of next month at this rate (2K a day!)

2) The Marvelous and Mysterious Doomsday Medicine Show — I can’t wait to get this one started.  This one is in a shared universe with several other projects.

3) Money-Man / SuperCapitalist — This is the NaNoWriMo project inspired by The Gun by C. J. Chivers.

That should be enough to keep me busy for the year.  If not, then I have so much more to do — a sequel to this book, and another romance / fantasy novel with the working title of “Drinker, Jester, Flirter, Spy” (actually, I like that title…).

Well, I am going to try again to make this a more steady thing.  At least three times a week — even when the Olympics come to TV, I will try to maintain this one.

Amanda…stop laughing.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy.

Hello everyone, I’m still going through the audition files for “The Dreaded Day Job”. This one is OK…he has the same vocal patterns (stressing the same words) as the first one who is so far the front runner. I might put his audition up on YouTube is I can’t make a good decision. I was thinking that I would continue the audition process until the end of next week and then start getting things together as far as getting the script together, getting it read and out there. Of course, I have no idea how to do that, so it’s going to be a learning experience for everyone involved. Much like everything else as I am discovering.

Speaking of learning experiences, I would like to take the time to say that vodka and food poisoning don’t really mix well. I think I got a total of three hours sleep. When I get into the cups, I tend to lose track of time, and when I’m in my cups and playing Borderlands 2…well…I finally tore myself away from the cups and the shooting to get a couple of hours of sleep, then having to go to the bathroom with an alarming frequency. I will spare you, Dear Reader, with the gruesome details. Needless to say, the hotdog from work I ate had a vendetta against mankind. What’s worse is that it was a good tasting hot dog. Oh, well – I guess I can’t win everything.

I’m sorry if it looks like I’m rambling, but I think I am going to call it a day. I promise that tomorrow I will have something worthwhile to read.

Thank you for your patronage and patience. I will try not to wear it thin in the future.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello everyone, it’s me and I am currently going through the auditioning process for my novel.  So far, I have three people auditioning.  One sounds really good, the other sounds OK and the third wants $500.00 up front.  I like the first one because he has the timing that the novel needs.  I wish I could put them up here and let y’all listen to them, but neither this site nor Facebook would let me post the .mp3 files.  Right now, I’m trying to get them put up on YouTube and see if that works.  If not, then I don’t know what to do.  Anyways, the first one I listened to really had the snarky tone down.  He sounds a little older than I picture the main character to be (I see Evan as in his late twenties to early thirties).  So far, he’s going to get the nod unless I find someone better be the end of next week.

I must admit, I am being bad.  I haven’t written anything in a while.  I should get back on the horse as it were if I want to finish a novel by the end of the month.  I’m still plotting along with the Regalia novel, and I should e-mail myself a few mines from The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show so I can do that at work with the long stretches of time in between calls.  I mean…5 whole minutes!  I can do a lot with that time.  Kinda.    I can get a couple of sentences done, I just need to get over the notion of having outlines ready to go.  With this work, I’m just going to wing it, as it were.  Which would be good, if I had a little more than some zinger one liners and plot points.  I’m still trying to find what really works for me as far as a balance between pantsing and plotting.  When given a blank canvas, I tend to go on and get sidetracked by all the sparkly little plots.  When I follow the outline, I sometimes feel like I’m letting some good opportunities flutter by.  Oh, well — we will see what happens.

On a tangent, another thing I need to get back into is photography.  One thing that strikes me is what called “abandoned porn” (no, not that).  I like seeing how someone can get into an abandoned building and find art among the ruins.  I’m trying to find places like that here, where I live.  There is an abandoned building that I did take a couple of pictures of a year ago, but I would like to make it back there and poke around inside.  I need to work on photography so I can make some better book covers.

Well, that’s all for now.  All the caffeine I drank is starting to wear off, so it’s best I wrap this up now before I just collapse on the keyboard.  Thanks for reading, and hopefully I’ll have some audition material for everyone to listen to and gently prod me into using.  If you’re a voice actor and reading this — feel free to go to acx.com and send me an audition tape.  There is a section to be read.  Who knows?  You could be the voice of Evan for at least three books.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, everyone — thought I would try to squeeze in a quick blog about what’s going on before I watch a speed run of BioShock: Infinite (which is one of the story-telling games ever) on gamesdonequick.com.  Please take a look at it and feel free to donate to Doctors Without Borders.  It’s a good cause and where can you see someone try to play a game that took me almost a day to do in three hours?

I’m still working on some things in my head for “Mind of Man” — there is going to be some advanced tech, but I don’t want it to look like something out of Shadowrun.  Not a whole lot in physical modifications…no metal plated skeletons and things like that.  Neural computers?  Maybe.  Smartlinks?  Yes.  I’m thinking that anything in the head is tightly, tightly regulated.  Given that the last time there were computers slipped into someone’s brain — all hell broke loose.  If the Main Character has a computer in his head, it’s not going to be all that powerful (keeping in mind the times).  Something more than likely to look over the programming and see what’s salvageable and what can be discarded.  Maybe something like the headspace version of a mobile phone.  The real stuff is back in the universities and our Main Character’s private lab that’s going to house the future AI.

I’m still trying to figure out the threat that the AI is going to be in the story, which I guess is going to come back to the themes of this book…which is something that I am working on.  Normally, I’ve got the themes down at this point and I’m working more on the arrangement of the dock chairs.  Not this time, and the reason is a fairly simple one.

I don’t want to re-tread themes.

With most of my books, it’s man vs. society.  Society sometimes taking the form of your evil boss and the crappy company you have to work for, or an honest-to-goodness society.  I’m trying to find something else to rail against in my fictions.   What do I want to say with the AI?  What do I want to say with the Main Character?  As my professor would ask: what is the universal theme?  When I was in college, the universal theme was: alcohol.  I’m afraid I’m going to have to change that up a little.

Well, the AI was constructed to help people, but it got out of hand — especially when it was closed away in the arcology (I may or may not keep that, who knows?).  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and all that.  Particularly if someone really, really wants to do good and something keeps that from happening.  Think about it: you want to help others.  It’s in your DNA (heh) and every time you try to do something good, someone or something gets in your way.  Would drive you batty after a while.  heck — might even drive you to murder?

Can I machine be struck with hubris?  I think this might set everything up fine.  It’s also one of my favorite wallpapers.  All I need to do is think who’s the king, who’s the god and who’s the unbeliever.

Ooh — the speedrun started.  Thanks for reading and y’all have fun.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all — I’m continuing on with the brainstorming for “Mind of Man”. Last time, I talked about the main character’s profession a little: information archaeologist. Now I’m going to run some ideas by y’all about the world that the main character and why the idea of AI is a problem.

What I’m looking for is something that would put a screeching halt on AI research — to the point where actually trying to recreate AI would be seen as a cardinal sin, but I really want to avoid “AI War 4.1.5” or anything else like that. Yes, war is horrible, but it’s been overdone. I would like to think that something would happen in which AI is strictly verboten. I’m considering something along the lines of “…and history turned into legend“. Something that would put AI on the brink of annihilation and dragging Mankind along with it, but trying to avoid the usual routes that have become rather ham-fisted as of late.

Well, if I wanted to draw a link between “Game of Chinese Whispers” (Facebook stand-in + Direct Neural Interface + Paranoid Schizophrenic = Societal Meltdown), the extrapolation of this would be that the crude sort of AI that came out of that particular computing kerfuffle would be quickly shut down. After that and a few tests, it was discovered that there is a critical mass to sapience (a term I am going to use rather than intelligence for the purposes of this posting).

After that, it was decided that there would be a hard limit on processing speed, numbers of nodes in networks, number of running networks, number cat pictures allowed at one time — all the important things.

Of course when anyone sets a limit to something, there are going to be people who are going to say “You’re not the boss of me!” These are also the same people that usually yell “OK — I was wrong! Help!”, but we can get to that later.

So, in the far future of this particular little world, computer systems are much regulated. Trust me, piracy is the least of IT’s issues. Networks are watched very carefully for that tipping point…which makes the information archaeologist a useful profession in as far as trying to retrieve records from the past — getting clues as to what information technology was like before everything went severely pear-shaped. In academic way, this is vital to keep society from having to re-invent the wheel every time someone decides to hook up their computers in parallel and an interest in keeping the past alive – unlike what those ass-hats in ISIS tend to believe.

In a mercenary way, there is a black market for Pre-Page Wave programming (Page Wave is what I’m currently calling the event. Those of you who have been reading this for a long time know that I’m going to go through five or six names before settling on the right one). Programming in “Mind of Man” is set up to be purposefully limited. Yeah – it can do great things and even mimic human intelligence, but it’s not going to be able to make value choices without a lot of preset functions…kinda like today, but a little better. I’m toying around with the notion that by this point we have trinary computing (-1,0,+1 rather than 0 and 1) so computers can do a lot of fuzzy logic, but they’re still running programs just like the PC I’m working on.

As far as how the soon-to-be sentient and sapient computer AI comes around, it’s going to need a specific set of systems. Another thing that Information archaeologists are looking for are what sort of old hardware can be cribbed. Modern archaeologists do this in re-discovering old ways of doing things. Information archaeologists are out there too, combing through old scraps and lost sites for a clue to what’s going to be the “Holy Grail” of this time period.

Trinary quantum computing. The difference between trinary quantum and regular trinary is power useage (making systems smaller and depending on less power to function would be great for exploration and/or military applications) and… you know, I’m going to end up having to do a lot of research into this, but this particular iteration of Trinary Quantum Computing could bring about a Sapient and Sentient AI.

So – I hope that I didn’t bore the heck out of you with this. It helps to just talk about stuff here when I’m working out the kinks for the novel.

Thanks for reading, y’all have a good day. Tomorrow, I’m going to continue on with the main character as a person.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

I’m having technical issues, so there will be no blog today.

Seething Apathy (except when it comes to my computer breaking down)