June 2012

Took some vacation time and spent some of it in deep reflection... when I wasn't playing Fallout: New Vegas. I did finally get a word count on what I've written so far this year and I blew past the half million mark sometime last month. I think this will be the last blog post where I talk specifically about my progress though.

In January I didn't trust myself to really write at capacity and stay on task. In July, a half million words later, and as I get ready to write the draft for my seventh book, it's lost all meaning. This is just what I do now, and I don't need to quantify my work by holding myself accountable on a blog anymore.

I know when I depart my two weeks vacation on Monday I will immediately resume my schedule. My game accounts will once again go largely innactive, books I hoped to read for pleasure will get set aside, and the quest will continue. My new book will have a draft in about 2-3 weeks and I'll be able to commence going back and editing the two in the series that precede it.

It all feels normal now.

My partner in crime and I will be pulling together a game for the Windows 8 platforms and I've already begun the design work. Our other game languishes on that old (by mobile standards) platform Windows Phone 7. We surpassed a 1000 downloads a while ago and I'm not sure where we are now.

Also, totally normal.

What isn't normal is the feeling that all this is normal. That is a wondrous sensation and that all that remains is to edit, create covers, and self publish... a process that will also come to feel normal probably by the middle of next year. It has me asking myself a question I haven't asked myself since 2009.

What will I do after this?

Standing Desk, 9 Months Later

Posted about my standing desk about nine months ago. After talking with my brother I felt like I should post an update for those who still haven't taken the plunge.

My post from last year is here.

I spend anywhere from 6-8 hours per day at my standing desk, and it gets used for work exclusively. I've stopped any sort of gaming, mostly for lack of time, and I've taken to drawing on my tablet there as well. It's where the majority of my work gets done, unless I'm ill or something.

The desk I'm using has a keyboard tray which is handy for storing my tablet, external hard drives, extra mice, and so forth. I highly recommend rotating keyboards and mice to keep your hands and wrists from getting to used to one or the other. I don't know about the orthopedic benefits, but it helps me stay focused and aware of my posture at the standing desk.

Edit: It's worth mentioning the importance of shoes. Nothing makes my back hurt like working at my standing desk barefoot. Wear good shoes when you're at your vertical workspace.

Pros:

It's easier to maintain my weight. I don't feel like my weight is in constant flux. While I haven't shed mad pounds or anything, I do stay pretty much the same.

My mental health has improved, and I'm more focused. I'd actually like to figure out a way to have more table space for my notes and such. I'm not getting rid of my bust of Odin though.

Reduced pain in my hands, wrists and shoulders from long hours at the keyboard. Posture is really important and you've got to stand tall, back away from the desk, and avoid leaning on it to get the benefits I think.

Cons:

It helped me sleep better for the first few months, but now I think it does the opposite. The pair of twenty five pound dumbbells sitting by the desk help.

My back hurts a little bit if I forget to take breaks and walk around. Sometimes I'll just disappear into my own little world making text and come out of it with a back ache. If you do a standing desk, make sure you take a break every hour or so. Walk around the block, rake some leaved, trim the shrubs, take out the trash, something.

Conclusions:

If you find yourself fighting with your weight and being sleepy at your desk, I would recommend giving a standing desk a try for three months. I'm not a healthcare professional, and I would recommend consulting a doctor if you've got any condition that would mess with you as a result of standing for long hours before trying a standing desk.

It doesn't have to be expensive. My standing desk was a cheap $80 desk you buy at the office big box store and $15 worth of cinder blocks from Home Depot. There are plenty of far more expensive solutions out there if you think the cheap will clash with decor.

Twenty Percent

I've been going back and forth with my credit union talking about loan modification, refinancing, extensions and so forth. The whole process has been enlightening and made me think about the financial decisions I've made over the last ten years. Buying a home and using it to manage your debt is the biggest financial decision a person generally makes in their lifetime.

The best advice I think I could give someone else is simply this: plan to have at least 20% down when you decide to buy a home. In saving up that 20%, give yourself no longer than 5 years to that end. During that 5 years, live within your means and avoid unnecessary financial liability. This assumes a 30 year mortgage being the product you'll be shopping for eventually.

If you can't save 20% of the value of the home you're looking at over 5 years, you probably couldn't afford it anyway. If the value of the home might come down to where what you can save in five years equals 20% of the value, it might not be a good investment. You can prepare for tomorrow, but good luck predicting it.

If you can afford to save up the 20%, you'll probably be able to afford the home and pay it off over the 30 years of the mortgage. Yeah, that math would indicate that if you could save 20% in five years, you should be able to pay it off in 25 years all things remaining constant. Don't forget that you'll have to pay property taxes, fees associated with the loan, homeowners insurance, and maybe even flood insurance. Homes have lots of hidden costs, hence the 20% over 5 year metric I employed.

Depending on the size of the loan, your closing costs could be $3000 or more.

Banks used to require 20% down for a home loan until their own greed (and our government) encouraged them to lend to people for 5% or less. This is extremely dangerous in my opinion because it robs people of the perspective and personal incentives needed for such a purchase. It's my opinion that the cost of a person's lifestyle can't be factored in until they've actually tried to save up that 20%.

A lot can happen in 5 years while you're saving up that 20%. The value of the type of home you want could go up, but so should your earning power. That 20% figure should be reevaluated every time you get a raise, switch jobs, or incur long term financial liability like student loans or kids.

That's all I got, good luck.

Healing

I'm printing out a manuscript I deemed unworthy of edit or finish back in October 2009. I wasn't doing very well back then, and may have even described that project's demise in my blog at the time. I wasn't well when I wrote that book, nor when I passed judgement upon it. Because I'm doing better, part of me thinks the book might read differently to me now.

Maybe I can even heal the work with a dutiful editing of its content? I guess we'll find out.

I didn't edit any of my own work back then. My wife had time, and I felt better about asking for help. I think this hurt me as a writer, at least with regard to assessing my own work. I need to go back to what I wrote in 2009 and edit everything forward, with my own eyes and by my own hand.

Hopefully, I can garner some perspective and a skill I sorely lack.

Quiet

Noise is marketed, packaged and shipped like so many other things in this world. It's hard to go anywhere without finding it in high quantity and low quality. Movies and television shows are just orchestrated noise with some expensive visuals synchronized to play along behind it.

To that end, I'm making a new commitment to silence. I think it's an important virtue that so many people fail to exercise effectively and consistently. People think it takes courage to speak up, and sometimes it does. It takes wisdom to know when to shut up.

So, do not spread the word. Do not tell anyone about this new movement I'm starting, and certainly don't talk about it.

Just be quiet. Thank you.

Elephant Ears & Corn Dogs

Been hitting it pretty hard this week.

The rate at which I am able to edit text is frustratingly slow. It's maddening in equal measure to how rewarding it has been. I've been moving quickly to generate content but it's clear I'm not so patient when it comes to going back and doing revisions. I want to eventually give this polish to all my projects.

I want to embody the patience that makes a good craftsman. Right now!

Livestrom and I went feature complete a couple weeks back and we're quickly approaching the completion of our initial offering of content. My Thinkpad e420 is probably confused as heck. It's seen more action than my Macs have this week. Live told me his sister was surprised that we were coming to the end of it. Given how hard it has been to hold that project together, I'm not surprised she's surprised.

We started with a half dozen folks committed to the project and eventually ended up with just Leaf and Live rocking the remainder. I love working with other people that possess the same work ethic I do.

I've done one complete edit on one of my novels and I'm slowly working through my Storytelling Sciences book. It's bigger than my first novel, pushing nearly 100k words. By far, the editing of that project has been the biggest mountain I've had to climb in the two years I've been doing this.

To everyone that has insinuated that self-published authors deserve less respect than commercially published ones... you don't know anything about anything. Writers that take on the task of writing, editing and promoting their own works are titans that come to the craft in the way it was meant to be.

Meanwhile, I have several ideas for novels I'll write next year. I've already done a couple 40 page outlines for each and the concepts are beginning to spawn dreams and impressions while I sleep. This is one of a few ways I know I'm ready to tackle a new piece of writing, when my subconscious is getting in on the game. There are so many landscapes I've had the pleasure and horror of visiting while I slumbered that made for great scenes in my writing.

By the end of the year I hope to have one Novella, one Novel, one RPG Book and one WP7 App (TBS Game) ready for the marketplace. I figure at this point that I've only got about 40 working days remaining. I feel a little bit better about my prospects for reaching my goals now than I did three or even two weeks ago. This week has been awesomely productive put in the proper perspective.

I was complaining to my wife the other night about how it seems like I've done so little in two years. Then I stopped and made a quick mental list of what I'd done and how many new skills and tools I had to reach out to along the way. I spent most of August being my own worst enemy, with an internal monologue that basically kept me going through the most difficult part of chemical depression, my old friend apathy.

My Hunter LARP has been kicked to one side, neglected for the last month. I've been told that the people participating are patient folks that are ready to play when I'm ready to run a session. I hate not being able to do everything I'd like to do. I've written what will probably be the beginning of an epic Classic (1983) D&D game when I shut my Primordium Table down for maintenance.

I have to begin serious play testing for my SS RPG next year and I'm already nervous about whether I'll be able to gather together enough of the right folks. My anxiety makes me feel worthless, and like I should just quit everything and find a nice safe job doing something for someone else that slowly kills my brain. Why are there so many people selling elephant ears and corn dogs beside the low road?

All the best and most noble things in life are the things we do for their own sake.

Looking For Words

The english language seems to languish on the pages I've written recently, but the words are flowing in the right direction. It's like fishing in a canal, you won't always like what you catch or see float by, but water is water. Even when you're doing what you love, it isn't always roses and blue skies.

I beginning to see the value of editing your own text. There is so much in the conventional realm that teaches that we're better off letting someone else alter our writing in the aftermath of writing it. As distasteful as it might be, there is some value to cleaning your own fish, even if it was caught in a canal.

I'm beginning to see words and the structure of my own language differently. Mostly, I'm just disappointed. I've got very little rhythm, but I see myself having improved a lot since 2009. My writing before that was pretty stagnant. It's true what they say, if you want to get better, you need to make a lot of text before that will happen.

Giving myself the time and space to write in bulk has been really valuable. Looking at the sum of my work, it's clear most of what I've written in that time is pretty underwhelming. I'm glad.

People always wish for this sort of instant success, to win the lottery of life, while discounting the journey. They, who were never amateurs relative to their craft, have no stories, and no perspective on their professional identity. In having to be humble about what I've done, I'm probably avoiding a gut punch by way of hubris later.

It's going to be a peaceful winter.

Wayne Static's Pighammer

As of today, I used to be a huge Static-X fan. Their last two albums very gently shoved me away. I really liked the idea of the metal crowd reaching across the gap to something with an obvious industrial influence. Their early stuff is very inspired, much the way Fear Factory was in the early 90s.

On to my point.

Wayne, Static-X's front man and song writer, has gone ahead and done a solo album. I went ahead and read the reviews and interviews relative to the release and listened to some of the tracks. I half expected it to be like picking up Fear Factory's "Mechanize" album and the music would sound like a moment of clarity.

It wasn't.

It does sound a little better than Wayne just fooling around in the studio for a weekend, but it doesn't fill me with confidence that either he, or Static-X will ever return to the pre-"Start a War" album days. Wisconsin Death Trip, Machine and Shadow Zone are amazing albums that defined a time in my life when I was mostly out of control, endlessly angry, and conflicted as a creative.

I'm better now. I promise.

If you're a hopeless fan of Static-X, it's better than Cult of Static and most of what's on their Cannibal Album. I think it will probably do well in that regard because the fans have been craving something closer to the Static-X's first four albums. In that regard, Pighammer delivers, and I may still pick it up to support Wayne.

Tomorrow is, after all, another day.

Thank You Steve Jobs

I spent yesterday morning in my bed using my iPad to generate text using the WriteRoom App. I didn't know yet that Steve Jobs had passed away. It wouldn't be until later when I'd pop open Safari and see Apple's site that I'd receive the news, and again when a friend called and left a message on my phone.

My good friend Dan suggested that we have some sort of gathering of our friends, with our Macs and iPads to reminisce about the fruits of Steve Jobs' labor. It felt silly for a moment, I mean it's not like I actually knew Steve Jobs. Then I thought about how much Apple's products had really changed my life.

I got my first Mac in 2009, at Elle Phillip's recommendation, a tool that would be integral to my personal metamorphosis. What a difference it is to have devices that will work as hard as you do. Tools that were crafted with the same care as you would craft things. My work in the last two years is a testament to that synergy.

In the last two years I've written close to a million words (I'm almost there) toward my books, rendered hundreds of hand drawn images, communicated with dozens of colleagues and peers, and done hours and hours of tireless research. My iPad and my Macs helped make those things possible by being incredible tools that redefined my workspace and my workflow.

Steve Jobs is responsible for the company that provided me those tools.

I remember vividly the day my iPad arrived at my home. I'd wanted such a device since there'd been even a hint of them, outside the boundaries of science fiction, back around the turn of the century. Steve and Apple understood what it would take to make such a device "Magical" for me. It wasn't the screen or the user experience delivered by iOS on a tablet, it was the 10 hours of battery life that would allow me to go anywhere I wanted and generate text and images without worrying about finding a outlet.

There are a great many people who do not understand Apple as a company or the type of person Steve Jobs was. The more callous of those folks make jokes about cult-like behavior on the part of their customers and Steve's own ability to warp reality. I think that if all you do is surf the Net, check email and play games, one can appreciate a Mac.

If your work ethic is such that you generate thousands of words of text and/or hundreds of thousands of pixels worth of visual content in a year, you'll come to more than appreciate a Mac. You'll depend on it. When you push your own limits as a creative person, you need tools that have no limits.

For me, Steve Jobs and company provided. I am hopeful that he's planted a seed at Apple that will allow them to continue to provide folks like me with the tools we need. I think for the foreseeable future, his legacy is secure.

-- Sent from my Tech Envy Generator, using the BlogPress App, edited on my MacBook Pro

Junk Drawer

Everyone has one and every writer should have two. All the things I've written that go nowhere often help me climb otherwise impossible creative obstacles when reviewed. Hindsight is twenty-twenty when it comes to creative things. There are so many things you can do right in the present if you knew what you did wrong in the past.

Make sure you keep what you did in the past, no matter how terrible or malformed.

(Edit: It occurs to me there's two ways to read that last sentence, comma arrangement notwithstanding, both work...)

Artist Evolution

Clickorz pic to embiggen

When I was a kid I couldn't figure out which of my hands was the dominate and it wouldn't have mattered much because I couldn't tell my right from my left most of the time. Writing a sentence was a challenge until a few of my teachers got together and spent considerable time helping me retrain my chaotic mind to control my limbs. I still suck at Street Fighter.

I've been working on doing the Artwork for a game for the Windows Phone with a friend. I've been a doodler since I was small because I was told that anything I did to train my hands would help me overcome my disability. I wasn't very imaginative back then so it was all Transformers and thinly veiled replicas of my favorite comic book heroes.

I was talking to my business partner and friend last night about the progress in the game when he told me he'd handed it off to someone he works with. Every time he does that my heart sinks a little bit because like most creatives I thrive on the thing I fear most, criticism. So far, including what was described to me last night, everyone likes the artwork for the game. That's a big deal for me because I've only been doing digital artwork for a year.

My cousin posted a blog to his google plus stream that had been maintained by a gentlemen who started at ground zero and eventually transformed himself into a remarkable artist. I haven't posted a lot of my work because I'm self conscious about it, but the blog made me go back and look at the work I'd done in the last year.

I've painted/drawn/rendered Master Red, a character in our game, dozens of times trying to get him to look right. I wanted him to portray magnetism and intelligence like so many of the good people I associate with on a daily basis. I wanted he and the other two masters to be inspiring when the player sees them on the screen of their phone and receive their mission orders.

I'll have to go back through all my files and find some for Masters Blue and Green, and some of the other characters we've introduced over time. I'm beginning to see why keeping your old artwork is as important as keeping your old writing. Looking back I can see a lot of things I did right day 1 and things I still do wrong to this very moment.

When I'm simply told "this is awesome" it does little to help me refine this skill I've had to reach out to. It does a lot to keep me going though because drawing is extremely tiring for me and I think has been the source of a lot of my eye strain recently. Any fuel to carry on burns the same, and I'm grateful.

Family, Via Bryce

Clickorz to embiggen.

Non-Fiction/Technical Writing

Whenever I'm writing something that isn't a novel, with a linear story and accompanying outline, the process becomes more difficult and lengthy. I've been pretty hard on myself for taking as long as I have with my Storytelling Sciences books, but I've come to realize recently that such things are written over time. It's why reference books have editions and are revised often.

Things change.

In sitting down to finally write the more arcane portion of the SS System I realized that it was something I've been writing for a long time, little by little. I have files written in MS Publisher format that contain text I'm pulling for my current work, that's how far back this thing goes. Think nothing of recounting the play test hours spent and all the people who sat around a table with me at one time or another. Some I don't talk to any more, while others have moved beyond this life.

It feels good to draw near what seems to be the completion of this particular work. Like anything written in this way, it will require revision over time as I find things to add or change. It'll be nice to sit on the other side of that project and be able to focus on the Setting Books and the novels based on them.

Even better, I might get to play the game that I built. We'll see.

My Friend Vinnie, Rest In Peace

My friend Vinnie passed away tonight. To say that I am distressed falls utterly short of describing how I feel right now. Even at my most cold and analytical I can see no silver lining or positive side to her loss. It is a tragedy that could be likened unto anything that inspired Shakespeare or Tennyson. My world is less one valiant person to share time and creative energy with.

Veronica "Vinnie" Goodman lived her life unfettered by regret or sorrow and would not deny anyone close to her the same, even as we are bereft of her presence. Nevertheless, I mourn bitterly her loss and in particular the empty place within my creative endeavors no one else can possibly fill. Her empathy and intrinsic goodness have and will continue to form the basis for many of the characters in my works of fiction. My memories of her will have to suffice.

You can't write of the human nature the things you have not been witness to. To that end, I can write so much better of things that amount to courage, perseverance and spiritual latitude. Vinnie approached life with a mind that was as open as her heart. She denied herself nothing that amounted to an experience worth having.

I have particular feelings about the use of the word "warrior". I believe in earnest that the folks who bear that moniker are defined as much by how they live life as how they face death. I sat with her often in Hospital rooms and marveled at her fearlessness. Through it all, she had but a single fear, that her young son would not remember the person she was, or what she stood for.

That will not happen. Her only fear in life will never be a reality following her death. Never.

Update: "I don't want anyone to say I lost my battle. If I lose my life to cancer it will not be because I lost my battle it will be because cancer is a sneaky bastard and it cheated." - Veronica Goodman

I wouldn't claim otherwise. Cancer is a sneaky bastard and it does cheat us out of people we'd prefer to have in our lives.

Blog Retrospective

I took about an hour and went back to read my blog from the beginning. I hadn't taken a long look back since January. It is always illuminating to look back and remember vividly where you were at the beginning of a journey. This blog had a purpose in the beginning.

Brutal introspection.

I think that mission has been largely fulfilled. I won't claim that I've refined my craft to a razor's edge or that I've found any peace with the road I've chosen. I can't say that having finished one book, I'm any better prepared to write a second. I can indulge in only the stretch of road I've already walked.

Quiet retrospection.

There are no words for how I feel right now. There are destinations in life that cannot be given to the page as mere text, and only conveyed in person. Does your favorite story sound better when you tell it? Does anything rival the first time that yarn was spun between you and the person relating the tale? Yeah, you totally had to be there to get it.

The writing I am most proud of, has an oral tradition. Much of the exploits of the characters in the first book I wrote, were related first verbally to an audience. Such is the basis for all my recent works. I have known for some time this would eventually be the case, as is the natural progression of storytelling.

I've done more than my fair share obfuscating that fact with the people closest to me. Not to say that I didn't state my intent. It had been said to me many times, "You really ought to write all this down." Should I meet any of those folks in the future, I can honestly say that's exactly what I've done.