Hindsight

I approached a little more than a dozen people to pre-read the first draft of my Dreams & Echoes book. Roughly an equal number of men and women were approached, and I did so by various means and mediums.

Of the women I approached:

100% were willing to read it.

100% actually read it, barring unforeseen life situations.

100% provided some measure of feedback.

All the women but one read from a physical, printed out copy. This was often the desired medium to read the book.

Of the men I approached:

Half were willing to read it.

Half of those actually read it.

One provided me with written feedback.

The guys who read it, did so from a digital copy displayed on a small portable device. This was often the desired medium to read the book.

Interesting, especially when I look at my own bookshelf and digital media library.

Expeditious

I've been hurrying through the process. It took longer than I expected to get some of my edit copies back on my first book, and I was slightly miffed at the time. Now I'm supremely grateful for having been made to wait. Editing an 80,000 word book isn't a two month process... it's a six month process in which every sentence and word is analyzed. To the people who pre-read my book who felt hurried along by me, I apologize. '

You folks probably saved me a ton of regret with your pound of prudence.

All things considered, I'm excited to write a real second draft of the book. I think it deserves to have every word revisited, and every moment in the story scrutinized. It's obvious I missed a lot of opportunities and wrote over some things that should be transparent. Numenarch lost many chances to be warm, Hinth many opportunities to be cold and Grubbs a few moments of glory because I was vain enough to think I could skip the obvious process behind writing a great book.

Regardless, I am very blessed.

Sleepless

Couldn't sleep last night. I don't know how people who travel do it. I don't have to spend another night in this hotel room if I don't want to, but I'd have to drive home in the dark to avoid that situation. My thoughts drift to every man and woman sleeping in a desert somewhere right now hundreds of miles away from their families.

Somehow my situation doesn't seem as bad, but I am even more sleepless as a consequence.

Angry Tomato

Charming

It had always been my intent to blog as I walked down the strange road I'm currently traversing. A charming diversion it has been. These days I spend about 4-5 hours a day writing, roughly the same working on design for Windows Phone 7 apps, and the rest reading or studying.

It has made me question the self publishing road somewhat. Publishing that way takes a great deal of time and travel. Lots of self promotion, tweeting, and reaching across digital spaces. It requires time. I've given about five minutes thought to the idea of getting an agent and trying to publish traditionally. Miles away from making a decision by any standard, and I don't know enough to probably make a good choice either way.

I believe that much of my life is guided by an unseen, largely benevolent force. Usually I have a good feeling about my direction, but lately I feel somewhat lost. I have only a few passions but to be successful at any of them, I have to choose one and chase it harder than the others. Where would we be in this life without dreams and goals?

I hope that some time out of town will give me a moments clarity to sort things out.

-- Sent from my Tech Envy Generator

Windows 7 Ultimate

I needed to be able to use Windows Phone 7 developer tools as part of one of my projects. Thus, I used bootcamp and installed Windows 7 Ultimate on my MacBook Pro. So far it's the usual Windows experience with very little to report save these few things:

Things that are different:

Dock style taskbar thingee, like you see in the Mac OSX. Windows always had such a contrivance but it seemed like an after thought relative to the design and the icons were dinky to account for screens not having a lot of landscape back in the day. New stuff is good stuff.

Loads quick. Maybe it's my MBP, but hot dang does Windows 7 pop up quick when I boot my machine. As quick or maybe quicker than Mac OSX. Baffling I know.

Has some functions I haven't seen before or played with. Looks like there's something like what the Mac has for taking screen shots of portions of the screen, and a few other little toys. I'll try em' out later.

Things that are the same:

The labyrinthine architecture of the OS is mostly the same. If you want to change a setting, it's 5-6 menus deep into the programming.

Internet Explorer is a worthless and frustrating to use browser. Always has been, probably always will be. (Sad face)

Same lack of out-of-the-box usability. It has the usual programs you'll never use and look for free or cheap versions online.

Ragged

For the last three weeks, I've barely left the house or my office for that matter. I've been sleeping on the bean bag chair nearest my desk when I'm too worn out to continue and working all hours of the night. The long hours are paying off and much writing and creating is getting done, but I'm really looking forward to going to the Fair tomorrow... going outside, where there are people, and food. Even better, a week long trip out of town awaits me the first week in September.

That's the secret behind having the stamina to push through, having things to look forward to.

Mind, Body and Spirit

We lead very compartmentalized lives. Each of those portions of our lives need protection and nurturing. We are our own best stewards. I've had to give these things considerable and painful consideration.

We have to watch where our bodies wander, what we put into them, and most importantly what we do with them. All of this resides with the agency we provide ourselves, and centered squarely in the mind.

The mind, being the central force which guides us through life, has to interpret everything temporal going on around us. Like the body, we must guard what we put into our mind while keeping it open to possibility. Even our unconscious mind, the place where we dream, is subject to our whims as much as we are subject to the images it provides us. Ultimately, our agency must reign supreme.

We cannot control what comes to our bodies and or our minds, but we can decide how we react to those forces. What we think and feel is so much less important than what we do about those things. A word isn't defined by the individual letters residing within it, they only provide a means of interpreting or pronouncing that word. The meaning of a word is granted by people who do something with it.

The sum of our spirituality must be guarded most of all.

I don't (often) talk about my faith, and I don't include it or any part of it in my professional or personal dealings. The reason is simple. The scriptures that form the basis of my faith command me to not "trifle with holy things" or "or cast pearls before swine". Often in my works as a professional, especially a freelancer or independent, with secular projects... I'm tempted to include elements of my faith. As a Christian, I know that doing so violates the spirit of the Second Commandment. I'm always careful to hold what I do in the light of temporal objectivity, and keep the sacred things in my life sacred and separate from my secular affairs.

Most of the people I work with, know I'm a Latter Day Saint, but have no fear that I'll involve my faith in our dealings or professional exchanges. Keeping my spirituality compartmentalized forces me to think harder about my beliefs and grants me the opportunity to keep my relationship with God both sacred and deeply personal.

Because I've kept the parts of my life compartmentalized, I'm granted the freedom to use my spirituality as a bridge between my mind and body, without interfering with my personal or temporal affairs. Consequently, I'm appreciated for what I do, not what I believe in, and my colleagues are granted the comfort to work in tandem with me without being fettered by my personal beliefs.

This is the choice I've made. For me. No one else.

Raging Rickshaw

Last night, I joined a team of guys working a TBS game for the Windows Phone 7 platform.

I'm really excited to be doing something that resides within Mobile OS/Device industry and that I get to work with my childhood friend. I remember when he and I would trade basic code back and forth, running through each other's choose-your-own adventure style games. This time around, I'll leave the coding to him, the design largely to someone else, and I'll be focusing on the visuals.

Tried like heck to avoid doing anything with my art or my web design skills (such as they are) besides push my own product. The only thing that makes it okay this time around is that I'm pushing a product and working with people I can believe in.

As always, my novel writing will continue to be my focus. My only regret is that so many other small projects I enjoy will probably get shoved to the back burner until the game reaches release. Even if it isn't successful, I think we'll still keep trying to break into the mobile app market. They future is a bright, if not incredibly busy place all of a sudden.

Update: Added a link to the Raging Rickshaw Website to my blog. (Left, below the picture of the dazed and confused guy.) Clickorz!

Option

I can't say enough good about the last couple of weeks.

Got caught up with a couple of friends from High School, my first book is in final edit, and I scored a sweet side project where I get to paint. Also, I've got two deadlines looming this month to finish the first drafts of two more books. Better, these are deadlines I think I'll be able to keep even though I've taken on some extra work.

Unfortunately, until August 31st my RPGs and Blog will likely suffer. I hate having to put anything on the back burner, because I love it all, but so much of what I'm doing this month relative to my own works is time sensitive. I really want at least three books published before the end of the year, so I can take it easy around the holidays.

Been quietly reminiscing about the old LARP days lately... hence the picture above.