I had to work late tonight and so got a late start on the evening. I didn’t read any of my novel, which I’d hoped to do.
I did work a bit more on the creation myth, but my heart wasn’t really in it.
Not to mention my eyes are tearing like mad making it very hard to see. I have something stuck in there and haven’t been able to get it out all day. Yes, excuses, excuses…
Last day of winter vacation for me. It’ll be a bit of a challenge fitting writing time in during the work week.
Today I started reading my NaNovel, as per the instructions in No Plot, No Problem. No red pen in hand. Just reading it to see if its worth salvaging or if it just gets to die a quiet death. So far I think there’s potential there.
And I started writing the creation mythology for the world the NaNovel takes place in, which is kind of fun. I get to create gods and devils and so forth!
So today is January 1st. Time for New Year’s Resolutions, fresh starts, and all that jazz.
I’ve been a real slug through all of December and I’m feeling guilty as hell, but maybe that guilt can motivate me now. I mean to write a lot this year. And to help give me incentive I’ve decided to keep a journal of what I’ve gotten done. I was going to start a new blog for it or something, but I update dragonchasers so infrequently these days that I figured I could do it here by just setting up a new category, which I have done. This is the first post tagged with it.
So what did I accomplish on Day 1 of the year, from a writer’s perspective? Well, for one I printed out The Fading Groves, which is the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo. Second, I joined NaNoWriYe which as you might guess stands for National Novel Writing Year. It isn’t nearly as slick as NaNoWriMo, but some of the friends I made during WriMo have gone there and I went to throw my lot in with them. I’ve chosen the 250 thousand word tier. OK, they chose it and I followed along. 🙂
Third, I dug out No Plot, No Problem to refresh myself on the steps to take with your NaNovel once its rested a bit. Mine’s rested quite long enough. And lastly, I started to document the world that Groves takes place in. Need to get a concrete list of characters, countries, expletives, gods and goddesses and all kinds of good stuff.
New Year’s Resolutions:
To write at least 5 days every week (and preferably 7)
To be more active in OFF-SFF and do at least one critique/week.
To read more. In particular writing books, but books in general.
So that’s about it for now. Today was kind of a ‘setting up’ day since New Year’s really crept up on me.
Tomorrow the work starts.
Amusing (yet painful) Joystiq article for us over-30 gamers.
Last night I took a few minutes before bed to read through two issues of The New York Times Book Review section. As is more or less my custom, I circled volumes that sounded interesting and added them to my Amazon Wish List.
Think about that. At least one book, and often two or three, added to the list every week. And every week I finished reading… about 1/10th of a book.
It was so depressing that I turned on the TV. Well, really I had to turn on the TV. You see, my DVR is at 89% full. I needed to watch some stuff so that I could delete it to make room for more stuff. Then I realized I hadn’t checked the Tivo (DVR #2) lately. Ach! It was filling up as well.
It was all too much, so I headed out for a walk, grabbing my iPod on the way. No sense in wasting the downtime when I could catch up on some of my podcasts. I’m weeks behind on Slacker Astronomy and The Secrets. And I really want to give Unquiet Desperation a chance. But first I had episodes of The Dragon Page Cover-to-Cover, Wingin’ it and Slice of Sci-Fi to listen to.
*sigh*
So I was just in the kitchen at work getting a soda from the machine. On one of the break tables is a box of donuts, empty except for a small crust. As I leave I notice there’s a trail of donut crumbs. I follow it, wondering who the pig is. I turn a corner and the crumb trail stops…and there’s a pair of fingernail clippers on the floor.
Explain, please?
OK, this place has languished for far too long. I keep meaning to get back to it, but feel guilty for owing an email to this person or that person. So I need to make this a priority or else it’ll just sit forever.
(OK, so maybe this was prompted by my getting the bill for the next year’s hosting.)
Anyway, big project coming up: NaNoWriMo, and I’m going to give it a go. I’ll be tracking my progress here, which may not be exactly riveting reading but its important to me!
So soon…it all begins!
So I was sitting at my computer tonight surfing around, not really paying attention to anything, when suddenly I heard the cat going crazy. I turn around to see a huge bug flying around the room and the cat trying to catch it.
But then I realize that this thing is way too big to be a bug, and finally my brain parses it… its a bat!!! Not a huge bat…maybe 6 inches from wingtip to wingtip. And its flying around in circles looking for safety while the cat runs around under it.
Now, I live on the 3rd floor of a 6 story building. I’m sitting in a studio apartment with all the windows closed and the air conditioning blasting. I am at a loss as to how to explain how this little bat got into my apartment. My best guess is that it somehow worked its way though the sashes…coming in through a gap at the top of the window, dropping down, the flying up the other side and squirming through a crack at the top on the inside. Either that, or it was some supernatural event.
Anyway…it took me a while to catch the wee thing (I got a bath towel and used it as an improvised net) and so I got to watch it for a long time. I saw its face as it flew past me again and again. And its outstretched wings. And the only thing that came to mind was… “What a cute little creature!” I guess bats are supposed to be scary or ugly…but it just looked scared and cute.
Eventually I got the towel over it and bundled it up gently and took it outside and set it free. It flew off, seemingly no worse for wear. I wanted to check it out up close but I wasn’t sure where in the towel it was and it got free before I could see it. Just as well, I suppose. It was scared enough as is.
Now I’m wondering if there’s such a thing as a pet bat… 🙂
OK, how incredibly freaky and sick is this?
Man Arrested For Allegedly Hiding In Women’s Toilet
In case you’re wondering, its a strange type of toilet…my guess is that there’s no plumbing at this rest stop so stuff goes into a storage tank underneath. This freak got into the tank so he could, well, get shat upon I guess.
Some little girl looked down into the toilet and saw a face looking back at her.
Takes all kinds, I guess… I shudder to even think about it.
Today thehe Supreme Court ruled that peer-to-peer companies could be held responsible for copyright infringement on their networks.
Supreme Court rules against file swapping
“There is no evidence that either company (Grokster or Streamcast) made an effort to filter copyrighted material from users’ downloads or otherwise impede the sharing of copyrighted files,” Souter wrote. “Each company showed itself to be aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement, the market comprising former Napster users.”
Souter wrote that the lower courts had misinterpreted the 1984 Sony ruling as saying that any non-infringing use, no matter how minimal, was enough to relieve a company of liability for copyright infringement.
Now I’m strongly against stealing intellectual property, but decisions like this can have a ripple effect through our lives.
For instance, I have a Tivo. There area few shows that I watch with my girlfriend at her place. So I copy them to a VCR tape, and take that tape to her place where we watch the show together.
I can do that because neither Tvio or my VCR have any kind of built-in DRM technologies, and I really want to keep things that way. Whenever I see the courts make a ruling like this, especially since they mentioned the Sony Betamax trial from 1984, it makes me really nervous (had the Betamax trial gone the other way, we wouldn’t have VCRs or CD-Roms today…at least, not in the format we have them now).
I despise the RIAA. I don’t believe they care about the artists. They just care about their huge cut. I’m much happier when I can buy a CD directly from the artist’s web page because I know then that the artist will get a fair share of my money.
Caveat: I’m certainly no lawyer, so the above are all layman’s opinions only….