On Initial Obstacles and a New Interview

So for the past three weeks or so I've been trying to get the beginning of Social Contract written. I say trying because it seems like I keep running into some kind of mental block.

It's hard to figure out why that is at the moment. Maybe with Wolfhound's success, I'm a bit worried about branching out into another type of story. Like I won't be able to duplicate my success if I don't stick with the same formula. Or maybe I'm just juggling too many projects again; between the Kingsley copy edit, somes revisions on other stuff and the emergency room, I don't seem to have a lot of time to spare. Another possibility is that I've simply exhausted myself again. I wrote four books in thirty nine weeks last year, and that kind of a pace can leave a mark. Maybe I just need to slow down? Or maybe this is going to turn out like another New Realm, and I'll have to cut my losses. Then again, I always have trouble with beginnings, so...

Dilemmas like these seem to be part of a writing career. Sometimes the problems and obstacles aren't as cut and dried as they would be in another career. As I continue to write, though, I think I will get better at identifying them and resolving them. For now, I think I just have a bit too much on my plate, mixed in with a bit of plain old fatigue. My focus is going to shift a little so that I can clear some of that away. Then maybe I can return my progress on new words to my usual, semi-berserk pace.

Oh! Also, I have an interview up! It is over at Sarah M Eden's blog. It was a lot of fun to do that one, and I hope you enjoy it too. In any case, I have just two chapters left to revise and Kingsley will be ready. Come on, focus...

On Minor Setbacks

So as some of you guys might know, me and my little family just took a short vacation to go to a family reunion in Utah. I had taken my laptop along with the intent of writing the crap out of Iron Angels during the time off of work.THe first three days went wonderfully. I managed about 4k a day, and the end was rapidly looking to be closer than I had originally suspected. By the time I went to bed late Wednesday night, I had been convinced to readjust my writing plans to account for a finished first draft either last Friday or by the end of this week, which would allow me to begin work on Badger, the sequel to Wolfhound, before the end of the month. Things were definitely looking perfect.

Then I woke up on Thursday and sat down to start again. Fifteen minutes later, I realize that my computer still hasn't booted up and I feel the nagging sense of horror that all writers someday feel when they've made the mistake of not backing up files as often as they should. Long story short, I stand to loose about 45k of work if they can't do an effective data transfer today, which makes up a rather sizable amount of my progress over the last two months. Kinda depressing when you think about it.

Then again, perhaps this is just an opportunity to shift gears and change tactics. The first draft was going to need a thorough rewrite anyway, so why not get it done this way? Right? Right?

On Crying Babies

Man that freaking hurts... Seriously, it's like she angles the sound perfectly to echo around in my earhole. If this keeps up I'm pretty sure my hearing is going to be gone.

So if you see me on the street and say hi, but I dont hear you, you can thank Seraphina. Seriously

On Bad Days

Not much to write about today. Nothing to see here. Move along...

On Not Burning Out

Well, so I've managed to keep up my level of writing. I made 10,000 words at the very last minute of last Saturday, which brings the wordcount for Kingsley up to 60,000 words over all. It was an achievment that I'm actually kind of proud of. After all, I've made a goal and stuck with it in spite of the chaos my life has been lately.

However I am starting to wonder if I am risking a burn out. Sera is managing to keep me on the sleep deprived side, and 10,000 words is not an easy thing to do. On top of that I have my job, a beastly commute and other obligations to take care of as well.

So are there any tricks to keeping up a rough schedule without burning out? Or should I just not whine and get to work? Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I manage to figure the answer out, because life is only going to get more complicated from here. Anyway, I hope you are all doing well, and I will see you around!

On Spelunky

Spelunky is a free videogame that I discovered through the evils of Youtube Let's Plays, specifically those posted by one Kikoskia. And it is hard.

If you don't enjoy videogames or have no interest in them whatsoever, that's pretty much all you need to know about it. Spelunky isn't one of those games that enjoys challenging you to help you grow in skill and experience, only to allow you a satisfying victory at the end. No, that is far too charitable for Spelunky. Spelunky does not challenge; Spelunky kills.

Basically, it is a 16 bit adventure game where you try to guide the little Indiana Jones stand in through a labyrinth of traps, monsters and treasure. Your goal is to make it through 16 levels of pain, death and more death to reach the ultimate treasure hidden on the bottom level, which counts as a win. I have achieved this feat a grand total of zero times. Out of seven hundred and counting.

Fortunately, if you bribe the local shortcut maker with enough cash, he makes a little shortcut tunnel for you to access the lower levels without running through the earlier ones. Such an advantage has helped me gain success far more frequently. A grand total of twice.

For those laughing at my crappy gaming skills, I must shake my fist in your general direction. Then I must emphasize that this game is hard. You are only given four hit points, and every single hit you take robs you of one. Completing a level does not restore them, and only by occasionally rescuing a damsel in distress can you gain even one point to stave off your inevitable demise. In addition to the plethora of available monsters waiting to drain the life from your adventuring body, there are traps which just flat out kill you. Spike traps, booby trapped voodoo poles, alien spaceship beams, lava pits, bee spitting mummies and a giant golden statue man that wants to squish you dead are just a few. To fight these traps and the monsters lurking among them, you have a whip, a few bombs, and some rope. Yeah, good luck.

So for those who like hard videogames that harken back to the SNES days and have a masochistic kind of determination not to let some giant spider eat your face and get away with it, then Spelunky awaits. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

On Radio

One thing that has become clear to me as I have been driving back and forth between home and work is the fact that radio has now become extremely crappy. Unbearably bad, actually. If you spend any amount of time listening to a particular radio station, it will quickly become apparent that the DJs don’t have access to more than six or seven songs, which must be played over and over again each day. Occasionally they will sub in an older song or two, but mostly it will be that same half a dozen repeated continually over the course of the day. Whether or not the songs are actually entertaining does not seem to factor into which songs get played.

As if that repetition wasn’t bad enough, there are commercials. Said commercials are fine in concept; I mean, radio’s got to survive somehow, and I don’t mind the occasional ad here and there. The problem starts to come in when you have enough time to compare the length of the song time and the time the ads take up. In a good form of media, the amount of actual entertainment has more air time than the ads. This situation, unfortunately, is not how radio chooses to go about it. I’d say the amount of songs and the amount of commercials are about even, but I have a creeping suspicion that the ads are steadily getting longer while the songs get shorter. The final straw, of course, is the fact that the ads are almost as repetitive as the songs, which all combines to give me the feeling that I am stuck reliving the same drive again and again. Not a pleasant sensation.

Of course, the fact that one of the commercials is paid for by the state of Texas to encourage breastfeeding does not lessen my displeasure. Seriously, if I hear that “Healthy Baby, Healthy Mama jingle one more time, I may end up going crazy from the sheer combination of awkwardness, annoyance, and anger at their attempt at clumsy social engineering. I mean, if you’re going to try and program people, at least try to be subtle at it! Bah!

On Commuting

Okay, so the strain of commuting an hour each way to work is starting to become apparent to me now. In addition to being a drain on gas and time, it also seems to wear away at my resolve to get things done. For example, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my blog posts are becoming a bit more irregular now. :)

Part of the problem is that the difference between having seven hours free in a day and only having five and a half to six hours is enormous. It seems like I blink and my morning is gone, with the dreaded drive already waiting for me. Half the time I have to rush to get out the door, as my necessary departure time has crept up on me while I was unaware. It is kind of discouraging to sit down to write or get applications done only to find that you have to run around like a madman trying to find your keys instead.

The other part of the frustration is the traffic. I have never felt such an intense dislike for other motorists as I have recently. The fact that people in Houston aren’t exactly the safe driving champions of the world doesn’t help matters either. Along those lines, people who drive while talking on cell phones? You can all die in a fire. That’s right, I’m talking to you. You know who you are. And we both know you deserve it.

Along with all of that is the haunting specter of an unavoidable accident or breakdown. For some reason, the prospect of the car failing as I am trying to drive to work seems to hover just behind me whenever I get behind the wheel. I don’t know if it’s the fact that the drive puts so much strain on the car, or the fact that I am so dependent on the vehicle now, but this new stress is something I really don’t want to deal with. The nightmare of falling asleep at the wheel as I’m driving home at midnight is another worry that makes my drive less than relaxing.

I was going to discuss radio as well, but I might need to save that much venom for another post. Maybe multiple ones. Grg.

In any case, I have that wonderful commute to look forward to again today. Wish me luck; I will probably need it just to make it through the experience. See ya!

May Update

So it is May now. I’ve been looking forward to this month, both because it is time to start hearing back from medical schools at last, the time when I might start being gainfully employed, and the time to start considering where life will take me for the next year or so.

The job part has been particularly interesting. Over the past six months, I’ve been volunteering at a local emergency room, where I’ve been helping patients fill out forms, giving them towels, that kind of thing. One of the departments attached to that emergency room has an opening that I will be able to take advantage of, thanks to some of the kind friends that I’ve made during my time there. I should be able to start working there in the next couple of weeks, which I’m excited for in a lot of ways. First off, I’ll be able to feel like I am helping out the hospital a lot more than I could as a volunteer. Of course, the opportunity to actually earn some money rather than just rejection letters helps my perspective on things as well.

Speaking of rejection letters, there is still no news on the medical school front. That leaves me with four different medical schools, each of which I would love to attend, still able to either drop me or scoop me up at any time. While it is good news that I still haven’t been rejected, I really had hoped that I would have some idea whether or not I would still be living in Houston or going elsewhere by now. After all, we may have to move as far as the Great Lakes depending on how it turns out, and if I want to start the application process anew, that deadline approaches at the beginning of June—and I really, really don’t want to go through that again if I don’t have to.

In terms of my other options, Wolfhound is still collecting a few rejection letters. I’m not discouraged though; I still love that story too much to dump it yet. Depending on how med schools answer back and the schedule I get from my newfound employ, I am considering trying to attend a convention so that I can actually touch base with potential agents rather than sending blind query letters. The GRE, on the other hand, went extremely well, so applying to graduate schools may open more doors for me in the future.

So that’s kind of where I’m at right now. A little bit of limbo never hurts anybody, right?

At the very least, though, President Obama appreciates what I’m going through. Or at least, somebody who has access to his signature stamp does. I got a package in the mail the other day that pronounced me worthy of the President’s Volunteer Service Award. I got a certificate, a letter that was ‘signed’ by the president, and a little pin thing. I never know where to put those. Do you ever see some guy with an Eagle Scout pin or something just walking around? I guess that would be cool. It’s like a conversation piece you can wear!

In any case, I hope all of you guys are doing well, and I’ll see you around. Until then.

My Laptop

So, I lived in a family that was all about building character. We raked piles of leaves not to save money on leafblowers, but to build character. We shoveled foot after foot of snow and ice off our driveway rather than getting a snowblower to build character. Dandelions were pulled to build character, sticks picked up to build character, etc, etc.

To summarize it all, my current laptop builds character.

My laptop was purchased at the start of my sophomore year, the first year back from my mission in Sonora. We didn’t want anything special, so we built it using the functions Dell provided online. We got 32 gigs of memory, a battery that lasted two hours, and had a wireless internet card, and came with that obligatory crappy antivirus that all new laptops have. It cost a good amount of money, but once I got it in the mail in my little dorm room, I was king of the world. That was around September 2006.

I still have it.

I have to say, compared to the laptops that I have seen used by my friends and associates, I am impressed by how it’s held up. It is nothing pretty, just the standard black color and setup. The top of it is all scratched up, but it is holding together. I only have to pick up the spare screw that falls out of the casing every other week. In a way, I kind of look at it like the A-10 Warthog of laptops; ugly as sin, but it gets the job done.

The problem is the computing power. 32 gigs wasn’t all that impressive in 2006, and it is a whole lot worse in 2010. They sell mini-laptops with Spongebob Squarepants permanently painted on the casing that have around five to ten times that much memory. I’m pretty sure there are iPhones out there that could out-compute it.

Internet Explorer, iTunes and Dwarf Fortress give my computer problems when I try to run them. I mean they do that individually; running them together is a really, really bad idea. In order for Hulu to run smoothly, I have to put ice blocks underneath it so that it doesn’t overheat. With all due respect to my current antivirus, I’m pretty sure I have a spybot or virus or two, but my laptop doesn’t have the computing power to run them.

Hardware problems are starting to stack up as well. The wireless card has given out, so my laptop has to be plugged into the internet by a cord, and lately the power cord has started to randomly decide to unplug itself for no apparent reason. I have a feeling that the fan, which hasn’t been working all that well to begin with, will be next to give out. My guess is that the lifetime of this thing will be measured in months, not years.

Which is too bad really. I’ve grown used to how crappy it is. I don’t know what I’d do if everything ran smoothly. :)