Hello all.  This might be a shorter than usual post, since I am writng this at work (hence the ‘behind enemy lines’ tag). I woke up this morning to Barky Bark and the Furry Bunch, tried to start something on my computer, but I was too tired, so I ended up taking a nap (remember when you were little and swore when you grew up you’d never take a nap?  Yeah, neither do I). After that, I had enough time to get showered dressed and get to work. When I get lunch, I’ ll upload this at a wi-fi hotspot.

I’m going to finish the novel this Saturday (I know, I’ve said that this before, but this time I mean it) since I’m almost done with one scene and have a major scene to write and a minor one to pad a little.

I’ve got to get this finished for the second best game coming out this year (hate mail from Borderland 2 fans in 3…2…1…).  Don’ get me wrong, I love the game but Halo 4 has got more of a story arc as far as I can ferret out from the promotional material

.

Well, I should wrap this up.  I gotta be nice… or fake it really, really good.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

I just got the preliminary sketch of one of the characters in the novel from the artist Bindi van der Linden:

Holy Freakin’ Cow.

I can’t wait to see what Rhona is going to look like! I like it when good events like this sweep me along – lends credence to the whole “I don’t believe in fate, only destiny” idea. All I have to do is finish one scene and re-write a couple to give more Rhona time and to try to develop her character a bit more. As I have said before, I’ve felt that Anya has overshadowed Rhona a little in the novel. Can you blame her? I mean – look at her. Anyways, my goal to get this book finished and out the door is the weekend, since I am going to be completely unproductive this coming Tuesday and I’ve got the writer’s group next Saturday. The pickup scenes should be rather short – one with her assisting in the duel and the other in the final scene (don’t want to give anything away). I might just elaborate in the duel, but give her a big shining scene in the end. Who knows? Frankly, I just want this over so I can move on to the next piece. I am actually beginning to understand pregnant women in the final trimester (cue angry letters in 3…2…1…).

I/O Error continues to be worked out in my head. Right now, I’m working on the background events leading up to Gail’s discovery. I’m also doing a little research into quantum computing. I think that’s the only way to have a computing system fast enough to mimic human thought (a key element in this story) but still not be something so cumbersome that it can’t be feasible. Yes, I know – its science fiction so I don’t have to go into details about how it works, but I want to know in the event that it comes up in the story, or someone asks me a question. I’m not that much of a discovery writer – I try to nail down as much as I can first before getting into the main story itself. Thanks to those long nights in the John Rolfe garage, I learned the importance of planning and story-telling. I also learned how messy paper-mache can be.

So, there are a couple of movies coming out this month that I can’t wait to see: Dredd and Looper. I can’t wait to see Dredd because of this guy. He’s a great actor and maybe this will wash the bad taste of the earlier movie out of my mouth. As far as Looper goes, I’ve read a little into it and I am intrigued by the premise and I want to see how they explain away the inherent paradox. I can’t get too into it, because it gives away plot points, so after it’s premiered and I go see it the next day (comes out on the 28^th, I’m going to see it on Saturday), after that, I’ll report on what happened.

Well, I need to get going and get that scene finished as long as Daft Punk is playing on Pandora.

Have a great day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

… and no better music to do that than “Why So Serious?” from the Dark Knight soundtrack. This is the last full week I have to work, and then I get a couple of days off for National Midget
Face-Shooting Day. Another month and a half, and then it’s the big vacation for a week and a half (my birthday falls in there somewhere) and the release of Halo 4. So, yeah – I’m pretty jazzed up about the next couple of months. Even more so when the novel gets finished and sent off for the serious editing – I did find a bit of software online to help with the onerous part of edit: finding repeated words, clichés, etc. It’s called Smart-Edit and I tried it a couple of times. It works as advertised: highlights words used a lot, hunts down adverbs and clichés for you to decide which one gets used. A lot of useful stuff is out there, thank God I found it.

One of the issues I am having while plotting out I/O Error is the idea of emotion being shown-but-not-shown. The androids are made to be as human as possible, even to the point where they’re talking to each other rather than using wireless links to send data (a point brought up by someone in my writing group). They have varying levels of interaction based on their function: Gale is going to be the most ‘human’ out of the group because of her role in Guest Services. I’m thinking the least would be Selma in Engineering – not around humans that much and the ones she is around would be more interested in her as a machine than a person. Anyways, Gale can fake the emotions when needed and this is part of the conflict between her and the others. After all, when someone acts odd for an extended period of time – we try to put some distance between them and us (unless you’re a fan of the ‘Jerry Springer Show’, then its wedding bells and fistfights). The same thing with the androids, which leads me to the ending that would look great in the movies, but I’m still working on it in my head as far as getting there. I supposed the theme of the story is going to be ‘the outsider among us’. I think this project is going to be harder than the current project because with Rhona and Anya, I can show emotions (and that’s the crux of the conflict) easily with them. In I/O Error, they’re very polite and firm about what is protocol and what isn’t. The climatic meeting in the middle of the novel is going to sound more like a passive-aggressive Parent/Teacher Conference. I’m wondering if this is a good idea or not.

Anyways – I’m flipping my .mp3 player back to “Why So Serious?” If there ever was a sound for crazy, it’s the beginning buzz in the music. I played it on a loop when I was writing the final fight in the novel. I liked how the song was paced: moments of frenetic motion followed by patient stillness – which is how I imagined the final fight between Anya and her opponent (I don’t want to give anything away). Well, I should actually get back to that so I can finish it. I know that I am going to be nothing but unproductive next Tuesday. Have fun everyone.

Sincerely

Seething Apathy

Some people may be reading this blog from my other social media site… and could be shocked over what they are reading – so, an explanation is in order.

When I started this blog two years ago, it was what would be called by Mike a ‘secret public journal‘ – I was giving voice to private feelings, grievances and joys while trying to maintain a certain level of anonymity. Hence why I rarely if ever gave names and places (except for that one time) that could be linked back to me (or, maybe more than one time). Certainly, there were some things that I have said that would cause other people to look at me differently, or not to look at me at all. If you read over the whole length of the blog, you’ll see that I start to come into my stride. It becomes less of an online bitch session – of which we know there are so few remaining in the world – and more of a reflection of what is happening in my life. Reading some of those earlier posts have made me realize that I have come a ways from what I used to be as far as being a blogger. Will I continue my upward spiral? I certainly hope so. Will have people along for the ride? That would be nice. Part of the reason I continue this blog is to keep myself motivated in the writing process I hope to make a living out of one day – captive audience and all that.

It’s 2 AM right now. I can’t sleep very well, and I thought I would use that energy to write this and maybe do some thinking about the novel. Once of the problems I am having is Anya running away with the whole darn thing. So, the solution is to write more about Rhona in is: especially the scene with the carnival and the final fight scene and the aftermath – especially the aftermath. When originally written, it was just with Anya and the Scholars – it would be more powerful if Rhona was in the Scholar’s Seat and speaking on Anya’s behalf. Anya makes several changes in the story, but Rhona stays Rhona, and I don’t think that’s really a good idea. Anya’s changes certainly make for some excellent drama; it doesn’t seem fair that Rhona kinda just blithely skips along. So, once I finish the pick-up chapter, I will go back and touch up some scenes – moving the expected date of completion from ‘the end of the week’ to ‘shortly before I die’… again. Not a complaint, but since this is going to be for all intents and purposes my first novel, I want it to be the best effort I can put forth. Of course, as I have been told ‘good art is not completed, it is abandoned‘ – so I expect to finish this thing and move on to the next one.

Well, I am starting to finally get sleepy – yes, I just accused myself of boring myself to sleep. I will trundle off to bed and try to get some more work done tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

To be honest, I didn’t think I would stick around this long for this point. Yeah, I have a horrible track record about these sorts of things, so to make to 100 is a sign… of what, I have no idea. Fortitude? Stubbornness? Well – I have to thank all of my fans (the both of you), for helping me keep on with this. What started out as a private journal has become… well, a semi-private journal – since I lead a boring, non-shocking life, I can put it out there for people to see if they stumble over it on accident.

I will again say thank you and I look forward to getting to the 200 mark. Even if I have to dragged kicking and screaming. J

Sincerely, very truly sincerely

Seething Apathy

Right now, I’m watching the gold medal game between Spain and USA (don’t spoil it for me) and with that, I will have finally gotten all my Olympics coverage done and out of the way. I am seriously considering getting another DVR for the Winter Games just so that I don’t miss anything this time. It’s going to be nice if I can swing it – but since we have this cable provider, I am a little dubious about whether or not I can pull it off. We’ll see. It would be nice to have a second recording device just so that I can’t miss some shows because of software issues in the device I’m using.

Anyhow, I did some writing on the novel yesterday and lo and behold, I might have to re-write a couple of paragraphs in the following chapter. I know I am going to have to do rewrites anyways, but in the chapter that might have to be re-written I have some great lines for Anya – who is beginning to eclipse the main character Rhona. Now, I know that some of you are going to say ‘Just make Anya the main character‘ and that’s one tack to take, but that’s going to take even more re-writing and that is a joy I would rather not take. More than likely the best bet is going to be to let the editor hash it out and see if there is a way to let Rhona take a more prominent role in a couple of chapters. While my goal is to keep the word count fewer than 70K, I can live with a 75K or even 80K at the very most. Anything above that and I’m going to have to do some deep cuts, but I don’t think that should be a problem.

Of course, the bigger news is that Borderlands 2 is going to be released in a couple of weeks! I was able to finance the pre-order and I got the two days off from work. I’m letting you all know this because there’s going to be a day in which my blog posting may consist of nothing more than ‘Playing Borderlands 2.’ So, don’t think I’ve lost my mind and am prancing about in a tutu for a couple of days. Monday, I’m going to spend the whole day writing something so that I can spend Tuesday shooting
something in the face several times. I also need to get Halo 4 pre-ordered, I’ve been dithering about that and I should get that taken care of the next time I’m paid. The only big disappointment this year was Bioshock: Infinite being delayed, but if they say that the game wasn’t ready, I am willing to wait. Bioshock and Bioshock 2 are two of the best games out there. These two great games that explain the underlying philosophy and the perils of Objectivism without getting wordy while demonstrating the ability of video games to effectively tell a story.

Well, speaking of enduring torture – I need to get ready for work.

Hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

You might have noticed there were no blogs on Saturday or yesterday – Saturday was consumed with trying to end my novel and the characters keep telling me ‘wait! Wait! We have more to say!‘ as if once everything is finished they’re going to be out on the unemployment line… which is not the case, I’ve got at least another two or three ideas for this pair alone. Not to mention all the other novel ideas I have, so there is going to be no change that anyone – fictional or otherwise – is going to be holding up a sign at the corner of Main reading ‘will put self into interesting situations for food’.

This is worth… what? Three minutes with a colicky dragon maybe?

This news article is getting a mention because one: it’s neat and it happened when I was about 5 years old and two: it kinda ties in with my current sci-fi project as they both have to go through the heliopause. I am watching this with great interest just because I want to make sure that the science for the most part is going to be accurate. It’s not going to be hard sci-fi like the works of Ben Bova, but firmer than Star Trek. I just have to get through the first novel to get to the second one to get to the third and so on and so forth. I’m really looking forward to I/O Error just because it’s allowing me to establish a mythology with another story. I love things like that – Stephen King especially with Randall Flagg and how he’s woven him (it?) through so many other books beyond The Stand. I’m not going to say anything else – I want people to eventually puzzle it together.

Oh – I saw the movie The Skin I Live In and I can safely say this: all the notions I had of what personal revenge are kindergarten in comparison. It’s a good movie if you don’t mind reading subtitles or can understand Spanish fluently. Really good movie. Wow. Continuing on with the TV theme, I finally got to watch the gold medal game for women’s soccer between USA and Japan. I knew who won before I watched the match (thank you, Internet – next you’ll tell me Rosebud was a sled), but it was nice to see how everything developed. Next up is the gold medal game between USA and Spain in men’s basketball. After that, I get to hunker down for two years until the Sochi Winter Games. To be truthful, I like the Winter Games a little bit more. But hey, it’s the Olympics. Another TV thing: this is a guilty pleasure. I have admitted it. It now has no power over me… until the next episode. Oh, God – what is happening to me? Well – I have only one criticism of the show: are there no straight black men in Hollywood? Seriously – how can this one guy get lucky so often?

Well, I should get going. I have to shower and get ready for work. Y’all have fun.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

… wow – next time I figure out when my vacation I’m going to have to look at more than just when my paycheck falls. Without divulging too much – it not only hit the fan, but the A/C and the heating unit as well. Yeah. It’s pretty bad and I caught the trailing end of it when I returned yesterday. Ahh… work. I need to get around to avoiding it full time again.

I’m getting ready to start I/O Error ahead of finishing the current project. There are six androids, each of them have three functions that they can perform: primary, secondary and tertiary. The main character is name Gale – each android’s name is an acronym for their functions. Gale’s is Guest Relations (primary), Life Support (secondary) and Environment (tertiary). You may ask what the difference between Life Support and Environment is: Life Support keeps oxygen in your lungs; Environment keeps that oxygen from freezing. A somewhat fine distinction considering you’re a billion miles from the nearest station, but I needed something to go with the ‘L’.

It’s now 10:30 – I have been at this for about 2 hours and only gotten this far. I think I’m going to call it an early day and close my eyes for a few minutes. Sorry, everyone – I think I am still trying to recover from Tuesday/Wednesday. I’ll do better tomorrow. Really.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Well, I go back to work today, but at least I just have two days and then I have my weekend… and they’re slow days (typically). I didn’t finish the novel, but I did make a sizeable dent in it (about 8,000 words) and I am down to the crucial scenes – it’s going to be Saturday or bust. Don’t worry – I am gravely disappointed in what I did, but beating myself up isn’t my job (it’s someone else’s – accepting volunteers). This is going to be finished, it’s going to take a while longer than what I had expected. This is part of the job that I should anticipate. Of course, I did that all-nighter and I started to break down at around seven p.m. and finally went to bed at nine p.m., woke up briefly at midnight and slept soundly until eight a.m. – yeah, I was out. Really out.

OK – I am not going to talk about the current project, we know what’s going on with that. Right now, I am going to talk up the next project: I/O Error – my first foray in science-fiction and horror. The basic plot can be summed up as Data wakes up aboard the Flying Dutchman and channels Haley Joel Osment. Sounds spooky? Weird? WTF? Hopefully, I’ve gotten two out of three. Let me explain: we all know that sometimes cameras pick up the images of ghosts while people don’t see them. How about a robot? If we go along with the idea that a camera picks up ghosts because it’s not a living thing with built-in filters to perception, then a robot – the marriage of filter free observation and the human ability to react – would be the perfect thing for a story. Now aboard the Shepherd, which is a transport vessel to a colony far outside the solar system, there are travelers who are put to suspended animation/sleep once they pass Jupiter and the crew who are put to sleep once they pass Sedna. Six androids and a main operating system called MILO (Multi-system Internal Logical Opsys) run the ship until they arrive at the colony. One of them starts seeing apparitions of crewmen and a pair of black-eyed children when there should be no one awake and giving commands. Anyone familiar with the Laws of Robotics can extrapolate where the wackiness ensues. I got the idea from watching an episode of Ghost Adventures in which a picture is taken and while the other people claim there is no one else in the room, there is clearly a form that could be considered human and is not a shadow (note: I said claim – I am not above considering that these shows might have some… help). There are other things that go on in the novel, but I don’t want to reveal too much right now. I can’t wait to get started with this one, but I told myself I wouldn’t start with anything new until I finished the current project.

Well – speaking of projects, I should get back to the current one and make some more progress in it.

Have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

This is the high point of my vacation. Tomorrow will start with the sobbing, the panic attacks and the uncontrollable urge to ask for something called my ‘go bag’. On the upside, I will have the novel finished tomorrow. Seriously. I was having some problems today with getting the characters to the next scene, so I walked away from it and picked up my Nook and started reading. That’s one of my go-to activities. The others involve games and screaming at whatever computer I’m in front of at the time. Well, once I got settled in and started reading it hit me what I needed to do to get to the next scene – nothing. Just have the characters continue on the road to get to the building where the next plot point resides, waiting to be used. I think I should save any battles for the times where they matter: the big spar with the Teacher and the final fight with Everthirst. Any sort of side battles – even if they are harmless – do nothing more to advance the plot. We know about Anya’s background as a fencer, and we know she lives a dangerous life… heck, she was almost killed by poison. It would be a good idea to have some peace and focus on the other dynamic of the group: Anya and Rhona.

Well, today is an important day in my personal history. I can safely say that if this day didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be the person you know today. Whether that is for good or for ill remains to be seen — handsaws, hawks and winds notwithstanding. I will not say anything more about it, as I have said enough in previous entries. Maybe one day I will spell everything out, but not right now.

So, my vacation is winding down. I’ll go back for Thursday and Friday and then have the weekend off. I resume my normal schedule on Monday (Labor Day here in the US with a 10:00 – 6:30 shift) and keep going until September 17^th when I get it and the 18^th off (Borderlands 2!) and after that it’s a month and a half until my next big vacation for my birthday week and Halo 4 release. After that, it’s another long weekend in December and after that I am done for the year. With any luck, I will be able to give people a better idea as to when the novel will hit the shelves, but right now it’s looking like closer to the end of the year with good fortune on my side. If not, then let my year of triumph begin in the auspicious date of Two Thousand and Thirteen. After all, if the Mayans said we were going to perish in 2012 and if we don’t go up in a bog ball of flame and winged snakes – how much worse could 2013 be?

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy