livingtech

ARG! I’ve just realized that this whole concept of a “sounding cannon” is completely ridiculous in outer space. Now what would you use to survey asteroids before mining them? Radiation? Grrr.

Possible directions I could go… Mir’s father could become a main character… the whole story could be about a massive political secession from earth’s government(s) by those in extra-earth space. Or it could just be a travel story ala gulliver’s travels, from one freaky space station to the next… (I’m thinking space vampires here…)

Whatever the case, I have to describe the mining ships better. Everything needs more exposition, in my opinion. Then again, I probably also need more action.

Well, I just spent another hour deleting spam comments… I hope that mt-blacklist thing gets modified to not require the perl module today… (he’s releasing another version today, but I somehow doubt he’s made that major a reconstruction.) I should just buckle down, and ask my host to install it, but I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t know how to do it myself. (I tried, I swear, but it just didn’t seem to work–I’m not sure what I did wrong.)

Novel writing began last night… he first day’s 1900 words are here: /novel/ I’m hoping that I’ll get more structured and focused as time goes on… I really had no idea what I was writing when I started. (And consequently, I thought the tone was much better, which seems common for me. When I sit down with something in mind, I end up writing pretty plain, but when I have nothing in mind, prose blooms flowery and more interesting.) I also changed the person about halfway through, (first to third) so there is a lot of editing to be done in there dealing with that.

I’ll work on consistency. I hadn’t exactly meant to write a novel about a space miner’s kid, but that’s what ended up coming out so far. Of course I didn’t know it at first, and the passages jump around quite a bit. Transitions? What transitions?

I’ve been thinking about plot all morning. I need to have one… I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually, but will it be too late when it does!?! Of course, it could just be one of those journeys of discovery sorts of things. (New working title: “Letters to a young space-pirate”???)

Yesterday Laura did some research on how you can tell… and we now think Zelda is a male cat. This is weirdly huge news. I mean, it doesn’t change who she–er, he–is, but it also somehow does. Plus, this turns their feisty play/licking into cat homoeroticism. (Or just brotherly love.)

Laura said my plot could be like that discovery. Maybe my main character will turn out to be female like some kind of weird Shakespearean plot twist, or maybe I’ll just figure out halfway through what I’m writing about, and everything will change as a consequence. Whatever happens, it doesn’t matter. Quantity over quality is what matters here, right? 50-thousand words, here I come.

I want to do this. I’d be starting three days late, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do… and even three days late is less than 2000 words per day. I could do it. I’d have to skip out on a lot of things. I’d have to make it a priority. But I could still do it. I think I will.

Very tentative title: The Festering Spores of Sollitude

I ran into the link again (I end up meaning to do this every year, well, not THIS year!) when reading a new blog linked from another blog: Leora the sane is going to write one too… and then I remembered this guy rob callahan who I met at a party a few weeks back is also doing it. Apparently Leora went to a kick-off party for people in Minneapolis. There must be a final party at the end too… I’ll look forward to it.

Nate posted on his blog last Friday about his first “physical” experiences since his girlfriend broke up with him (or rather, decided they were “just dating”. Then last night she spends the night for the first time in weeks. Is it crass to ask whether this is mere coincidence?

This morning was the first true snow. That is to say, the first snow this season to stick on the ground. Yesterday was a beautiful day, and Laura and I spent a couple of hours planting a large bed of tulips in our front yard. Not a moment too soon!

Halloween was a blast. Or rather, the parties on Saturday (the day after Halloween) were a blast. I ended up going back to toys are us to see if the blow-up costumes we’d seen there on Thursday night would be on sale. They were 50% off of 50% off! I wasn’t sure if that was because the cashier rung the 50% in there one time too many, but I wasn’t about to complain. I felt silly enough purchasing the “fat ballerina” costume as it was… turns out though, that this was one of the better Halloween costumes I’ve ever worn. Here are some pictures a friend of mine took at the second party. (I’m in the pink.) You can click “previous” or “next” to see a few more… oh, and the large versions of the pictures (the link is to thumbnails) are quite large… just to warn you.

Laura started her new job today at like 6:30 AM this morning. For some reason that made it harder to get up instead of easier. (I had the whole bed to myself!) It didn’t help that I was up late last night playing a lot of SSX3. (Snowboarding, coincidence?) Our friend Derik got it for Nate for his birthday (which isn’t till the 8th). Derik said it was “wrapped enough” in the clear plastic that those things come in from the stores, and that Nate wasn’t suppose to open it till his birthday. I told Nate this when I gave it to him, and his reply was “I might not be able to wait.” About twenty minutes later I saw him put the disk in the PS2. He played all afternoon, and when I got home, I played for at least 3 hours straight. It is really a fabulous sequel, and the soundtrack kicks ass!

Astute readers will have noticed that I now have an “about” category.

I’m up right now because our cat, around this time every morning it seems, decides to start knocking shit over. Perhaps she does it to wake me up. Well, it’s worked this morning, and she’s taking her five-minute time-out in the bathroom, even though the CD player appears to work fine now, no harm done.

And so I wanted to write about myself. Just so the only thing in my about category wasn’t an incredibly stupid list of questions and answers. But it’s not coming out that way, really. It’s been more about my cat, and her contributions to my insomnia. The question becomes–do my cats define me? No, I don’t think this post will qualify.

It’s 7:00am. I usually sleep another two hours. But is it worth going back to bed for what will probably be a fitful one and a half hours more? Yes. The answer is yes. Sleep is always worth it. And I don’t have family dinner tonight. So maybe, just maybe, I’ll just sleep till I wake up, and work later to compensate.

My world is slowly collapsing, or perhaps it truly is expanding, everything at the same speed away from everything else. Soon I’ll be lonely either way.

I’m not sure what this means. Actually, I don’t think it means anything at all. I’m not really lonely.

I think I’m in a creative mood. I want to be writing science fiction. My thoughts have been turning to it more frequently lately. When this used to happen, I would actually write some. Now, I just think about writing it, or pick up whatever sci-fi book I’m reading and spend an hour or two. I can’t write it without reading it!

And I hardly ever get to read anymore. I did finish Robota. (Which is a book too, written by Orson Scott Card, despite the lack of evidence on the website. I guess it was Dough Chiang’s brainchild, and Card just wrote the text. If you google the title, you’ll find the movie trailer too, which looks pretty sweet.) And I’m working on a book now called The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, by Nancy Farmer. I think it’s suppose to be a kids book, but it’s a kids book the same way A Wrinkle in Time is a kid’s book. I think KR loaned it to me.

Today is Laura’s birthday! I was thinking about blogging about what I’m going to buy her over my lunch hour (because what I really got her didn’t ship till yesterday, and is obviously not going to get here on time), but there’s always the possibility that she’ll read it. I managed not to spoil my surprise last night in bed so it’d be a shame to do it now.

So… on Wednesday, instead of writing an entry, I spent an hour re-arranging, deleting, and adding blog links. They’re split up into 3 sub-categories now, people I know, blogs I would read every day if I could read blogs every day, and the rest. Some of the first category would no doubt end up in the second category, but it’d be no fair telling which ones.

Last night I forced my mom and sister to watch the first matrix movie in half-preparation for the third installment. I have no real excuse for not blogging. Lack of muse, I suppose. Nothing quite like writing about what you didn’t write about yesterday! (Someone shoot me, please.)

The sheer number of birthdays in this week’s near vicinity is overwhelming. Why do birthdays always clump up? (I thought about this question for a minute, thinking “Oh yeah, I know why everyone has birthdays in the beginning of September… it’s because New Year’s is nine months earlier.” Well, guess what’s nine months earlier than October 14th? I’ll give you a hint, it’s our favorite ten letter V word.) Anyway, last Sunday was my mom’s, (shared by not one, but two co-workers). And in the next week sometime is my brother Dan’s. Then November 8th is Nate’s. I know what I’m getting for Nate too, but I’m really not sure about my brother yet.