Well, I managed to get back into the swing of work without costing people millions of dollars, so that crisis was averted. I have only one more vacation week planned: 10/28-11/5 and after that, I will need to have someone call me in as dead if I need a mental health day. How much is zombie powder on the black market? I’m asking for a friend, of course. I am also trying to get a head start for the one convention I am going to go to next year… and I might even expand it to two. One: there is NecromoniCon in Providence, RI – in the heart (that dark, pulsating thing keeping the time of madness with every flex of gibbering cardiac muscle) of Lovecraft Country. I am going to go there because I am a Lovecraft fan and it affords me the chance to walk the streets that one of my major influences took to when he had the notion. I will also consider this a part of the ‘get this guy more sociable‘ program I am putting myself through. Going to a place that is so far away from my house and anything else familiar will (theoretically) push me to interact with others. Also – I want to get an idea as to what’s expected of me when I start trying to sell my books at conventions. The other convention I want to go to next year, and this one is going to be fairly closer to home – GenCon. I’ve wanted to go to this since I started playing RPGs when I was nine. I can’t go this year (even if is a hop, skip and a jump from where I am – I have no cash to get passes), but I am going to go next year. Anyway – enough of that…

The novel continues along merrily. I began the Second Act yesterday and I am sometimes amazed at how little things just seem to spontaneously start with some characters. There is a minor character named Dasya (casting note: J. K. Simmons) who acts as the Master’s assistant and he appears, for the time being, to be giving Tyro some assistance. When I was working on his in my head Dasya was just there – a face in the crowd. Now he has a personality, lines and motivation – something I never gave much thought about until recently when he pushed Tyro against a wall and gave her what for. I don’t know if this is something that other writers have to deal with – I’m not complaining about it, mind you – but it would be interesting to see some other responses.

Someone posted a quiz on whether or not you are a professional writer. John Scalzi wrote a response to that quiz, which I am going to post a link here. I am also going to recommend his book Old Man’s War. I thought for giggles, I would partake of this quiz…

1. Is your home/work place messy because that time you’d put into cleaning it is better spent writing?
   

   
   
   
   

    

   I reek of Professionalism… and three day old socks. Next question.
   

    

2. Do you routinely turn down evenings out with friends because you need to be home writing instead?
   

   No. I plan my writing so that I can still go to work and socialize on the weekends. Besides, I am a bit of a homebody anyways – most of my socializing is done online.
   

    

3. Do you turn off the television in order to write?
   

   Yes, and I turn on music when I write.
   

    

4. Would you rather receive useful criticism than praise?
   

   Yes.
   

    

5. Do you plan vacations around writing opportunities (either research or networking potential)?
   

   No. I plan vacations around the idea that I am getting away from everything to relax. I do most of my networking online, and on the rare times when I am talking to people face to face, I focus on them, not on writing.
   

    

6. Would you rather be chatting about the business of writing with another writer than exchanging small talk with a good friend?
   

   Small talk with a friend. I can talk to writers all the time since I hang out with them mostly, but friends I only get to see once in a while. I am sensing a disturbing trend here…
   

    

7. Have you ever taken a day job that paid less money because it would give you more time/energy/material to write?
   

   No. I don’t choose between writing and work. I write in the morning and I go to work in the afternoon. While yes, I am now at ‘part-time’ status in my company, but that’s not for writing, but for reducing the risk of burn-out.
   

    

8. Are you willing to give up the nice home you know you could have if you devoted that time you spend writing to a more lucrative career?
   

   You obviously haven’t seen my house. I’m writing in an effort to get that nice home.
   

    

9. Have you done all these things for at least five years?
   

   I have been writing as a way of relieving boredom and dealing with issues since I was 7. Only 10 years ago did I start to consider this as a viable career. 2 years ago, I put out an anthology just to see if I could do it.
   

    

10. Are you willing to live knowing that you will likely never meet your ambitions, but you hold to those ambitions nonetheless?
    

    Fuck you.
    

     

     

This is not a quiz about being professional – being a professional means your time is compensated with money. This is a questionnaire that tells you if you have an

unhealthy obsession with writing. Don’t believe me? Substitute ‘writing’ with ‘video gaming’ or ‘drinking’ or any other perceived vice. Yeah – if you substituted ‘drinking’ and you answered yes to more than seven of these questions…you have a problem.

Well, speaking of professionalism, I should get back to the novel. I’m sorry that this blog entry ran a little long, but I wanted to get this quiz in there and tell the author of the aforementioned quiz that there are some very good counseling options available.

Y’all have a good day now.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

… because the vacation is over. The very vacation I don’t think I got paid for. When I got paid last Friday, I noticed that my paycheck was a little less than what it should be. I’m going to have to talk to HR and more than likely find out that since I am now technically ‘part-time’ (working thirty hours a week) I no longer get the perks of paid vacation. If that’s the case, then I am going to speed up the process of getting out of that rat hole I call work. I am seriously considering going back to temping again just so that I can get some money while trying to get the novel finished – more on that later. Right now, I am getting back into the work morning routine: web
comics, Facebook and dread. However, I managed to get some pictures from Fandom Fest, so please enjoy them.

On to better news! The First Act is finished! Took me the majority of the vacation, but I didn’t want to spoil the stress-free days I had with stress of a different sort, but I pulled it together at the last minute (as all good writers do…) and finished the act strong: 23,121 words (out of a total budget of 85,500) and left it with a suitable cliff-hanger. I am also willing to make this offer. Those of you, who are curious what I have been writing thus far, feel free to e-mail me and I’ll send you a copy of the first act. All I would like is an initial impression – no editing yet. I have an editor to hire for such a thing. The second act is going to be the beginning of the rising action – escape. This is where the stakes are raised and hopefully the novel will become the white knuckler that I want it to be until the end. I also hope that the premise won’t seem too hackneyed. I had one image from the novel in my head when it was a scene for a role-playing game (I’ll let you know which one – the scene, not the game. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you should know what it is). I am still excited about this project. I might even finish it!

I didn’t get a chance to go to the movies during vacation, but I got a couple of films on iTunes and watched almost the whole season of Hannibal. Wow… that is a good show. Yeah – it’s a little gory at times, but if you can get past that it is a great study on a manipulative mentor (something I want to do with ‘The Pentateuch of Abel’) and for me, it sets up Silence of the Lambs better down the road. I can’t wait for the second season. I’ve also dusted off Fallout 3 and I am enjoying it completely – I was getting a little bored with Borderlands 2 and I thought I could stand a change of pace… and wow is it.

Well, I have a heroine to imperil, so I bid all of you adieu until next time.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all – day 2 of the vacation and I managed to eke out about 600 words yesterday. My back was giving me problems early on, so I decided to end it and start looking for a new chair. I might also get a new desk and try to move all of this into the study/office (right now, I’m huddled in my living room). I just need to get a comfortable chair where I can sit for hours at a time and not get backaches. Regardless of what happens today, I am going to hit the 3,000 word mark. With any luck, I can finish up this chapter and act by the end of the vacation. After all, this is the last chapter in the act and (hopefully) the most exciting. Just need to finish it… and take myself somewhere to celebrate.

Now, some of you might be asking what’s so important about the chapter. We get a payoff from the earlier stick-game chapter in that Tyro learns that she can pick up bits from the Book and absorb them into herself. This is where she gets the concept of freedom put into her and she gets the notion that she can free herself and the others. Hopefully, this won’t come across as some cheesy scene, but rather something that is a good way to close the act and carry the interest over to the next act, which is the planning and the escape. When I first wrote this outline, I was going to give Tyro some powers, but the more I thought about it, she already has one decent ability – she can get better access to her other memories than the others (which is something I will need to bring up in the chapter before the escape, just to let everyone know – and the way I can introduce it is cool!). I can’t wait to get to the chapter with the flight and getting them to freedom. This is going to be a good book.

Well, this vacation is going along well. Then again, any vacation is better than work. I’m just going to write and maybe play some games – which reminds me, I need to call Bethesda Games and see if they can fix my copy of Fallout 3: Game of the Year edition:

Get up – the mutants aren’t going to kill themselves.

The problem I’m having (maybe someone has run into this and will be able to tell me how to fix it) is that the game is not progressing past the initial load screen: the birth scene. Thankfully, I got the number to Bethesda and I am going to call them after I get my 1500 today (splitting up the 3K into two batches of 1500). Thankfully, they have a tech support line for their games – I’ve been looking forward to playing this game on the PC for a while. I got it on Xbox, but it’s hard to aim the weapon with an Xbox controller. A mouse and keyboard will be a lot easier. Playing Borderlands 2 with the keyboard and mouse is fantastic – even made a long headshot with a character that I wish I could have recorded.

Well, I got to get to Tyro and her memory issues.

Have a good day, y’all.

Sincerely

Seething Apathy

Well, Fandom Fest has come and gone. There were pictures taken. All in All it was a decent experience, but holy cow, were there issues:

1. The scheduling was horrific. Events were pushed back (or in the case of the panel I really wanted to see, cancelled outright. Thanks, Stan.) or moved about to the hinterlands of the KICC (Literary panel? We have those? Seriously?). I am going to skip out of next year’s convention and try going to one that seemed to be put together a bit better and give them a shot.
   
2. The people doing cosplay were very generous with their time as I was trying to get used to the new camera. There are some photos that didn’t get captured by the memory (Someone dressed up as the Pyro from TF2 – I wanted that picture badly) but I was able to find some of the people and get some second photos.
   
3. Adrian Paul is impossible to shoot because he won’t stand still. Seriously.
   
4. John Barrowman is hilarious. I didn’t get any pictures of him because my battery was low, but I got some recordings of him and as soon as I figure out how to get them upright, I’ll put them on YouTube.
   
5. The stars there walked around in the crowd. I bumped into Jason Momoa (Khal Drogo from ‘Game of Thrones’) and crossed paths with Norman Reedus five times during the course of the convention. Seriously – I think I might have to take out an order or something against him.
   

As you also might have noticed – I haven’t gotten a thing done all weekend. It was also the first Saturday in a while that I got a full eight hours of sleep. More than likely all the walking I did. On a scale of 1 to 10, this convention was a solid 6. It was good, but there is definitely room for improvement.

Enough of that – on to other things. I saw Pacific Rim and I don’t know why this movie isn’t getting more press. Yes, I wasn’t very happy when Guillermo del Toro said he was bowing out of The Mountains of Madness, but seeing this movie made up for it. Now, I would still like to see his version of the Lovecraft classic, especially seeing how much detail was put into the kaiju. I still hope that he will come back to it as some point… maybe after doing another Hellboy, maybe? I am planning on going to go see The Conjuring and maybe The Wolverine Friday. We’ll see. Right now, I have to get back to the novel and hopefully double my output for this week and try to gain some lost ground, or better yet, get some wiggle room.

Hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

My workplace has training for something this week, and I got tomorrow picked for me. I’m not upset about training – hey, it’s paid time for just sitting and listening to someone drone about something that is not going to be used for another year (yes, that’s happened as well). What I am slightly miffed about is that it’s on Thursday – the day before vacation and in the morning. 9 AM to be specific. Some of you are more than likely thinking: what’s wrong with that? Nothing under normal circumstances…but I work from 6 PM to 12 AM and I come home about 12:30 AM, finally going to sleep at 2 AM. I wake up at 10:30…ish…kinda, but I am ready to go by 5:00 PM and did a post and wrote my 1,500 words. So, in order for me to get ready for work at 9 AM, I have to be up at 7. So if I want to get enough sleep, I need to go to bed as soon as I get home tonight. I still have to work at 6:00 PM – travelling back home isn’t an option just because it’s an hour to and fro, not really worth the gas expenditure. So, I’ll have some time to myself in between training and work. What I don’t understand is that why they don’t have training during the normal third shift? I’m not the only person getting the training; there are people who are normally on the floor getting the training at the same time. It’s not about losing efficiency – if that were the case, they would have a slide show presentation and a test (just like our much-needed sexual harassment training) that we could watch in between calls. Besides, the third shift is slow after 8 PM – especially on Thursdays. It’s that the higher ups seem to think that because people who work third shift can just skip a day’s worth of sleep. I would love to find one of these trainers, get them out of bed at 12:30 AM, set them down for 8 hours about terminal repair and then tell them to go to work a full day. I’ll bet someone will change their tune.

OK – enough about my one of many work grievances, on to better things. I finished the third chapter (well, the second half) and started the last chapter in the act. With any luck, I can finish it before my vacation ends and come back with renewed vigor as I get to the second act: escape. I am really looking forward to this part as I get away from the Masters and I let the ushabit loose on the big, wide and largely unsuspecting world. Everything is going to get ratcheted up. As far as the character development goes, Tyro in my head is changing slowly by the circumstances in the next-to-the-last chapter (the one I am finishing up) and I am liking it. Can’t wait to get started!

So, with that said, I should get started. I apologize about the work rant, but I needed to get that off my chest.

Have a good day, y’all.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Maybe it has something to do with the music I wake up to in the morning? The song I am using right now, and I am thinking about changing it is “The Fire Rises” from The Dark Knight Rises soundtrack. It’s a rather loud and sudden, so I am waking up to blaring brass horns. So I am jolted awake, almost falling out of bed (a mercifully short drop) and stumbling to my desk on auto-pilot. I sit down still in a daze as I go through my webcomic / Facebook routine. I’m wondering if it’s just the adrenaline rush wearing off from the blast of music. Maybe I should try something a little softer? Then again, I don’t think I have anything softer unless I want to wake up to Origa. Come to think about it – that’s not a bad idea. I might make a change today and see what happens. First – more caffeine for me. Feel free to grab yourself some coffee.

The stick game is almost over, and I cannot be happier. While I liked the idea, it just seemed to drag on for me and that was only one half of the chapter (again, see my previous post). The first half is going to be worked on after the end of the act. I don’t like going backwards, but there are some changes in the stick game and I want to put them in before I forget them (just a reminder: stone hoops for goals about six feet above the ground). After the end of the first act, I get to move on to act two: escape! This is what I am looking forward to since this is the real meat of the story. That and more crazy Nysa. I have to admit that I like writing her dialog:

“Then I leave you to your fate. Nysa, are you ready to run?”

“Go as long as the water brings it to the fresh forged metal, the fire will.” Nysa shifted to face Tyro. Tyro whistled long and hard. The creatures lumbered towards her on either side.

Yes, I am cheating in using this website, but it works and it keeps her sounding odd enough to fit with what the character
type is.

Anyways – I am also counting down to Fandom fest: 3 days and counting. I am looking forward to the body art show and finding some cosplayers. I love cosplay, but I have no talent for it at all what so ever. If I were to take a needle to thread, I’d probably end up putting out an eye – if not mine, then someone else’s by accident. Most of the pictures I have in my computer are of people like Ya-Ya Han, Linda Le and Meagan Marie (in fact, I have downloaded a picture of Meagan Marie as Wonder Woman and using it as a visual reference for the antagonist in Tyro’s second novel. I’ll put it up here.)

I hope she’d be flattered in being inspiration for a character, but more importantly, I hope she won’t sue me.

Well, I have to try to end the stick game and get to the next act before Friday, because nothing is going to get done at that point. I’m not being pessimistic, merely realistic.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Four days remain, and I cannot tell you how happy I am to say that. My last vacation was for the release of Bioshock: Infinite (a game that I highly recommend and one that I need to replay soon) in March, so I am due for one. Also – and completely coincidental, I swear – my first day of vacation is the beginning of Fandom Fest. I got my tickets and I am calmly counting down the days. This is going to be the longest four days of my life. When I am not geeking out to the likes of Scully, Khal Drogo and Captain Jack – I am going to get some writing done. I am hoping to finish editing one novel and hopefully get to the end of the first act in the other one.

As much as I have been enjoying writing the first novel… I am so ready to finish the stick game half of the scene and write the first half of the chapter. Yes, I did it out of order because I was tired and thinking about the original outline… the one that got nuked by my writing program. I was able to recreate it in on paper and if you ask me, this one is a little better because it doesn’t have a lot of detail in it like the last one. I am going to get it loaded into the computer (Office 2010…you may begin to impress me for my amusement) and save onto a flash drive for safekeeping. Once it is done I am going to divide it up into 2K chunks and present it to my writing group for their analysis and subsequent loving demolishment. Out of that ruin shall rise a stronger novel that will get put on Amazon and hopefully earn me a few dollars – maybe enough to go full time, or at least enough to get the bathroom floor fixed. I have also begun to outline the second book in a similar fashion in my common book. I like how this story is developing in relation to the first one, but as far as the third one, I have little idea what to do beyond a single scene and a theme, but I am sure I will something will turn up soon. My second novel started with a single scene of the antagonist Siva screaming “YOU WILL NOT ABANDON ME!”

I haven’t been keeping up with the summer movies this time around. I saw Evil Dead and Star Trek: Into Darkness… and that was it. There were a lot of movies that came and went that I wanted to see, but either shifting finances or just not as interested as I thought I would be, or at least interested enough to get out the door. Vacation will hopefully change that since I am getting paid that Friday and hopefully will have the time to go catch a matinee. Perhaps I should have dinner and a movie to celebrate my last day of freedom – any takers? I was going to go to dinner at Cheesecake Factory and check out the new cinema in Mall St. Matthews.

Well, I have to get back to the stick game. I hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all. I am alive, believe it or not. I am still trying to get into the groove of consistently writing both blog and novel. I am hoping to get some feedback about a pattern I have been noticing lately. I will have a good writing day (the words come steady and my back doesn’t hurt as much) and I pound out the 1500 with no problem. The next day becomes a different tale. I struggle to get out even half that amount and my back bugs me. Never fails me that I’ll have a  good day followed by a bad day or two (Tuesday is completely my fault, I acknowledge that.  Today?  No good reason) followed by a so-so day. Is it a matter of habit or just that I need to plant my rear in a chair and just crank something out?  More than likely the latter, one would assume.

On other news, FandomFest is coming here and I am a day away from (hopefully) getting the VIP tickets. I procrastinated in getting the tickets and I hope I am not too late. Since they’re advertising the event on the radio, I am hoping it is a good sign. Gillian Anderson is going to be there and I am getting a new camera for the event… not that I need a new camera or anything like that. The last time I went and used my phone’s camera the pictures of Bruce Campbell looked horrible. Since then I got a new phone and will have VIP seats. I am also taking the Friday off to attend all three days. God willing, next year I will be there as a vendor hawking my wares.

Nothing new here, to be honest. Trying to keep everything together as best I can without melting in the summer heat.  Hope your weather is a little more tolerable.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

I know that I have been away for a while, but I assure you that I am still alive. I’ve been trying to get 1,500 words done a day on my novel, so I’ve been doing that first thing in the morning, and after that I have only enough time to get a shower, lunch and get dressed for work before I head out the door. So, I think I am going to work on the blog in the evening, when I have so much more to say… or we’ll see how this works in the long run. So far, I have been fairly good about it, only had a couple of days that I couldn’t make the whole 1,500. I’ve even managed to finish a whole chapter and my mind is still working on the character in parts (I had a really good idea about her), so I have a lot of high hopes about this novel.

On some other writing news, I got my hands on a copy of Photoshop 7 and I still have the books when I thought I could handle learning it so long ago… and I think I am going to try it again. I’m hoping that through sheer chutzpa I can figure how to use it. No guarantees, but who knows? Maybe with some trickery, I could finally become something of a half decent artist. I mean, I learned to write from practice and reading books about it (seriously, no formal training at all – just reading and writing is all I’ve done), why not this? I still have some manga books in the back room, so I can try that. After all, the worse that can happen is that I show people a picture and tell me it’s a wonderful house… and then I tell them it’s supposed to be a woman. Well – OK, humiliation is the worst that can happen and I can live with that.

As far as things over here go – there has been little to mention. Just trying to get the novel finished by the end of September and I am trying to start up correspondence with a pen pal from Canada. Other than that, there is nothing really big going on. Oh, as some people may have notices – the hyperlinks in some of the past entries have been a little hit or miss… especially with .gif files. I got that taken care of – from here on out, every blue link will take you somewhere interesting and not just the Internet shrugging its shoulders and saying ‘I have no idea‘. Go on ahead and try them out.

Well, I should head off to bed, so I can get up and see just how clever Tyro can be under the most desperate of circumstances without any spiffy ushabit powers save stubbornness and memories of other people. Have a good morning, all.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Good morning all! I went to sleep last night at 3 AM and woke up at 7 AM. Since I can’t get back to sleep right now, I am going to do this, try to finish up an act in my outline and see what happens with the rest of the day. The Tiny Tina DLC comes out today… and my prepaid Xbox subscription happens to run out at the same time. Nice. I guess I’ll have to wait until I get paid to get it and try to avoid as many spoilers as possible. Yeah – good luck with that, I know.

I am still working on Tyro’s outline and I will finish the first Act today. I got about 85% of it done on Saturday and a little yesterday. The first act is four chapters long and (spoiler) and will end with Tyro getting some of The Great Book imprinted in her mind – setup in chapter 2 and 3. So, if I can really put my nose to the grind stone and hold off reading my favorite
Tuesday
web comics until work, I should get this act done. I like how everything is turning out in my head. Tyro is taking a different look to her from the earlier versions I had of her. I’ve got a good feeling about this one. I should – I’ve been working on her since ’97. I wonder if I should put up pictures of the people I have cast in my head for the series? Too spoilerly? We’ll see. First, I need to finish the outline. I also need to review Pixar’s Guide to Writing as I am writing the outline just to see where I can make some unexpected choices.

Yesterday was crazy slow, so I am not looking forward to today. Tuesdays tend to be more hectic (pro-tip, if you have to call into a call center for customer service, pick Thursdays or Mondays) for me, but at least it’s the last week of the month, so it’ll be a little slower…until it’s my break time of course. Well, it could be worse and they’d have me working the whole six hours. I could do that, but I would much rather get my fifteen in at the halfway point. I just wish they’d hurry up and close the shop down like the rumor says they’re going to do. Seriously, if I am there at Christmas, I will be stunned. I’ll also probably be on a suicide watch at that point as well. We’ll see.

Oh – I tried a service on my Blu-Ray player called Crackle. It’s fairly decent – it has The Dresden Files, which looks like it gets close to the series without going over (I recommend the books highly). I see some movies that look interesting and best of all – it’s free. There are some self-serving commercials, but really – they’re only 30 seconds at best and easily ignored. Check it out.

Well, I should get to the outline. I hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy