dmoonfire

When I got home from work yesterday, I had two packages waiting for me. One was a new keyboard and SATA cable for my computer. I just replaced the DVD burner and found out I grabbed the wrong type (SATA instead of IDE). Instead of trying to return it, I just got the cables needed to set it up (I already had a SATA system) and just plugged it in. The other is the keyboard. I utterly hate keyboard shopping. I know it sounds strange, but after so many years of touch-typing both for writing and programming, I’m very sensitive to keyboard layouts. I struggle without the inverted-T for cursor keys, the 2R3C layout for the home keys and even the location of the backslash character. And I don’t like curved, split, or funny shapes either. Picky, but it makes it really hard to get a good keyboard.

The other is the thing I’ve been waiting for since GenCon: HERO 6E. HERO is the reason I dropped my home-brew systems (Balance and Triumph). Yes, it has some complexity, but it is a great generic system that shares my tenants of gaming. There are very few absolutes (probably the main reason I get frustrated with Exalted is there are too many perfects). It is also flexible. Yes, the numbers sometimes get hard for things like dimensional spaces, but I find that it works for almost every genre I happen to enjoy. Plus, I could easily run other worlds in it, like Fighterytpe’s Itrifore, my Fedran, or even Fluffy’s favorite: a cheerful Changeling game.

While I love HERO, there is something to be said about actually playing a game. I haven’t tried to really find a gaming group here in Iowa since I moved here. College, writing, and barely seeing Fluffy have put a pallor on that, but today, I’m going down to Critical Hits and hopefully doing a round or two of Pathfinder Society games. It is more structured than I really am used to. Most of my life, I’ve played home games with campaigns that lasted years with the same characters. And having all that history built up between the characters. With RPGA and Society games, I don’t get the same impression. It is more like a delve and go on, episodic television instead of integrated plots. You know, the difference between Star Trek verses Babylon 5. I like both, but there is that master plot in B5 that Star Trek just didn’t have. And I feel the same about this game.

But, a game is a game and I want to roll some dice and have some fun.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Leave me a comment saying “Resistance is Futile.”

• I’ll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

(If you change your mind just surrender and I will ignore my questions. :P)

Answers to my questions below the cut.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Occasionally, I’ve written about my hatred of passive voice and how hard it gets to remove it. Part of it comes from writing. Once I get words down, I find it hard to change them significantly without a complete rewrite. Minor edits are fine, but I have this literary blind-spot between a couple word changes and rewriting the entire paragraph. Right now, I’m struggling with passive voice in both DG and FOTS.

Naturally, that makes me think I’m a horrible writer because my writing is obviously flawed. Yeah, emo, emo, emo…

This weekend, I finished the short story I’ve been working on for a few weeks. Actually, got a second draft in also. I got into the same funk about passive voice since that was a focus while I wrote. After I got it done, I decided to read some of my old stories to cheer me up.

It may have been my obsession with writing, but I noticed that the half dozen stories I consider my best are completely and utterly free of passive voice. These are the stories, with hindsight, I could have easily sold to various places but ended up posting online (in free forums and such) in an effort to garner some egoboos. But, when I wrote those stories, I didn’t obsess with passive voice. I just… wrote. Passionately wrote, actually. And they ended up being my better writing. Just a fluke where everything worked out perfectly and, years later in two cases, people still love them (I love fan mail so damn much).

A rather annoying reminder that obsessing doesn’t fix anything. And I’m a decent writer already, just need to relax and write the roses. The other thing that ruined a perfectly good emo depression was simple numbers. I have about 90 stories on two websites and bylines. I can say that 3 are great stories and 6 are good ones. So, about 10% of my writing is good and about 15% is horrible (but, I still post them).

I think that is something to be proud of.

Also to improve, but still, I really shouldn’t whine about not being a “real” writer (even though I don’t feel it), because it’s obviously I happen to like writing enough to be doing it steadily to fill a website. And, if I keep doing it, sooner or later, I’ll be sitting at a table at GenCon or in a panel (next step on the ladder, I think).

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

In the last week or so, I found a gaming group that is semi-local to let me at least fill some of my RPG cravings. They play Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons 4e. Not really into 4e, just goes a bit too far into tactical for my own preferences, but I decided to join the Pathfinder games. It looks like most of them are part of the Pathfinder Society (like RPGA), so I joined that just because it seemed to make things easier.

Creating characters, I noticed something. I really like multi-classing. First character concept? Paladin/Monk combat medic. Second? Sorcerer/Rogue. The third and fourth weren’t much better. I know multiple classes in Pathfinder/D&D 3e is not “optimal” for pure survival reasons, but I feel straight-jacketed by specializing.

This seems to be true for real life also. I’m not specialized in my primary profession. I can’t say I know databases, web, or GUI better than others. I’m just a good developer and a fairly decent architect. In my personal life, I keep trying to tell myself to focus on “just writing” or “just programming”, but no matter how much I try, I keep end up wanting to do both.

It isn’t optimal.

I’m not going to say it is wrong. If my own goal was to be a “great writer”, this isn’t the most efficient way of doing it. Same for writing computer games. But, it is also pretty obvious that, at this point in time, it isn’t going to change. So, I’ll be happy with my Writer 4/Programmer 11 for now.

Though, I’ll admit, I do feel a bit of envy for those all those Writer 15 running around.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Spent the last week trying to write a short story. I don’t like that I can’t belt them out in a day, but I really should stop thinking about it and just focus on writing good stories instead of fast ones; maybe I can improve my writing since I’m moving slower.

Things started to finally flow faster on Sunday. Like cleaning out the pipes, I have to write for a while before things start to move. And usually the first couple pages are pure, black sludge that I just toss aside quickly.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Work was frustrating today, nothing of note but just the grind of putting out fires and making sure things work as best as I can make them. I only hope that my bosstypes are happy with me; and I keep working as hard as I can because it is the only thing I can do. I never learned how to half do something nor do I really give it less than everything I got.

Didn’t really feel much once I got home though. Ended up doing a little website design that uses fixed position like my personal site. It is also inspired by the 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks with little faded sepia lines between the text. I thought it ended up a nice effect, but it is hard work to get the spacing right. And once I get Firefox working, IE will require tweaks to make it line up.

Also pulled out the Wii and got it set up in the basement. Been a few hundred days since I was on it, but it was nice finding out that I lost 16.4 pounds (7.5 kg) since I last went on it. Doesn’t feel like 7 kilograms, but it is amazing how much that 7 kilos actually weighs now it isn’t attached to me.

Other than that, not much. I pulled out the graphics tablet for the website design and spent a few minutes just drawing random stuff on the screen. Kind of fun, almost makes me wish I took the effort to get better at that too.

Tomorrow will be better.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

For everyone doing NaNoWriMo, I wish you the best of luck. I’m not doing it this year, I think it is pretty safe to say October to December is my heavy development season at work. And, after long hours at the office, I don’t seem to have the energy to write (plus Fluffy doesn’t really like me not doing chores for a month).

NaNoWriMo is great for a lot of things, but I keep finding myself focusing on the wrong part of the challenge. I can write a 50k word novel in a month, but I’m having a little trouble writing a good 50k word novel in a month. Actually, this year, I’m having trouble writing anything over 10k words for myself. Year isn’t over, I know, but it is getting a bit hard to accomplish.

But, for those who are trying, I wish you the absolute best of luck and I hope you have a wonderful time doing it.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Erin’s vehicle, a van really, is a modified version of the enclosed carriage that you see everywhere. It doesn’t have a horse, obviously, but I happened to find these glorious porcelain equines that I mounted into the front hood of the entire thing. Because she wanted speed and stability–I suspect to transport heavy and illegal goods across town–I built it low to the ground on a modified GWF chassis. The wheels are only a half meter height, but there are three of them on each side. Solid rubber and brass wheel rims.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

This weekend, I got to the second convention this year: ICON 34. I haven’t been to ICON since 1997 and it was a much different beast than I remembered. I got used to GenCon’s massive nature that the small town sci-fi convention.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I seem to be drifting from Kingdom of Loathing lately. Actually, I started to work on some libraries, then completely lost interest in it. I haven’t really wanted to log into it for a few weeks now and I haven’t really missed it. I already knew that sooner or later I would get bored/frustrated with it, I just forgot how fast that feeling can hit me. And, the very nature of looking into the depths of the system just accelerated the process.

One thing is that KoL, while a fun and snarky game, is still a magpie game for me. I run around to get lots of little things, just to get my rating up for the most items collected, but it really doesn’t do anything. Outside of the game, there is nothing for all that effort I spent. I donated to the game, because I was having fun, but I just hit this point where the grind ceased to be fun.

(Interestingly, this is also why I don’t write fanfics anymore either. I can’t really… do anything with them beside write and post.)

But, I did get some really good idea for writing a game to add to my list of the “perfect game”. Not sure if I’ll ever actually write this game, since I’m sort of trying to focus on writing and college right now, but I can say that I don’t regret the time or money I spent, I’m just done for the time being.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I feel like Cinderella right now. Trying to get all my chores done before ICON starts. I’m missing the first night, that’s tonight, but I had too many things to be done to really enjoy it. Not to mention, my car is in the shop so I’d have to walk to the hotel to enjoy it. Instead, I’m hoping to get all my chores and homework done in time so Fluffy can drop me off two hours before the convention to let me blow my entire day at the hotel.

I’m mostly looking forward to it and desperately hoping that I don’t:

• Put my foot in my mouth.
• Say stupid wanna-be writer things that always seem to get out.
• Do the wrong thing at the wrong time

I already have that pre-convention regret that I haven’t gotten anything published yet. I so much want to be a writer, to be one of those shining stars at the convention, but… it still isn’t the time for me. Maybe next time, well, probably not. The odds of getting “properly published” by GenCon at this point are pretty much nil. But, it still won’t stop me from trying. I like getting published. I love that high you get with the acceptance letter and the even greater high when you finally hold the book in your own hand.

Self-publishing is good for the second part, but it isn’t nearly as intense when it comes from someone else. I like that high, probably the only one I really allow myself to enjoy.

But, a house to clean, homework to write, research to do, and Resident Evil on the video player. And I’m only a few long hours for having my own little Cinderella story.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Been an interesting week for me. Got a little burned out with heavy working. As typical, overtime has a specific, well, half-life before it becomes ineffective. In my case, three weeks of working 12-15 hour days is about the limit of my ability. After that, I start to get fuzzy and lose my ability to really solve problems quickly. That said, I think I’ve done an amazing amount of work in the last few weeks and I’m pretty proud of what I have created.

Fluffy is, as she has a right to be, unhappy with the amount of work I’ve been doing. I’ve already proven that I’m less than talented at stopping when I’m obsessing and she is my 2×4 to prevent me from burning out. It starts off with “I’m unhappy” and if I keep pushing it, sooner or later, she’ll basically club me over the head and pull me off the computer, kicking and screaming. I haven’t gotten to that point, but I know it’s there.

Writing-wise, working out some of the style of Fedran. My Oile series isn’t quite perfect, I haven’t found a proper voice for it, but I’m getting happier with it as I keep on writing. I already knew that it wouldn’t be a masterpiece but more of a stepping stool to something else. I already have the basic plot prepare for the plot and I’ll probably finish after that. Then, either work on another short series or something more substantial.

It is hard working on a vacuum. Like most of my creative works, people don’t read or comment much. I asked Fluffy, but she doesn’t like it. Oh well, maybe someday I’ll find that spark again. The problem is, I try too hard to be successful and that really isn’t the way to do it. I’m trying hard not to focus on that and just work on writing; I want to be better and the only way to do is to paraphrase Dori from Finding Nemo:

Just keep swimming… just keep swimming…

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Been a few weeks, sorry about that. Got distracted with too many things, the first being these damn blueprints. I think I figured it out, the angles and lengths simply don’t add up. I found spots in the design that are simply and utterly wrong. I spent five days just tracing out those damn specifications, building up some set of formulas that would make them right.

Mind-boggling difficult work, I’d like you to know.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Some years ago, I was dancing at my cousin Andy’s wedding with a woman I didn’t really know besides her near-obsession with cows and the fact she dances to “Earl Must Die” at her own wedding (best wedding song I’ve heard). It was one of those “pay to dance with the bride” things which I didn’t really knew existed and didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, I’m a fairly decent dancer (I used to love ballroom dancing).

But, we talked briefly about things, then something came up.

When I saw your RSVP, I didn’t know who it was at first. Then Andy remembered, you are the ‘lost cousin’.

Lost cousin. That hit me in a lot of ways. I don’t call people often. I have trouble sending emails or letters. I don’t give out Christmas cards or birthday cards. I’ve gotten a lot of flak over the years about that but it wasn’t anything I really felt the need to change.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I just realized, there is something wrong with these blueprints. After working on them for a few weeks, I’ve managed to rebuild three sections of it. The first time, I thought I just skipped a section or two, but the second and third… I realize that these numbers aren’t right. I mean, the lengths in section 2.3.434.23 are ten times larger than the ones in 2.3.434. I mean, 2.3.434 includes 23, but no matter how many times I built it, it simply won’t work.

Plus there are parts missing. Entire sections are missing from these blueprints and I can’t figure out where the inlets and outlets are coming from this device. I think I can make it work, but it simply doesn’t do anything.

What is wrong with it? I mean, it is absolutely beautiful work but I’m getting this feeling that it is just that… art. It looks pretty but it doesn’t work. It almost sickens me. I strive to build things that help people, and while my plans aren’t “pretty” they are functional.

I take pride in that.

You know what? I think I’m going to sneak out and get buzzed tonight.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Two years ago at GenCon, I wandered by this lovely little desk in the Author’s Alley that had a huge pile of books. I only picked up one of them at the time… something I normally do since I usually take a year to get through the meter-high stack of books I pick up at that convention. Then, I reviewed Elfhunter by C.S. Marks. The next year, I picked up Fire-Heart and finally got a chance to polish off the book. I also have the third, because I enjoyed the first one, but that is sitting at the bottom of my reading list just to give the rest of them a chance at a review.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I know I told myself I wouldn’t work hard over the weekend, but it happened again. I managed to get all the defects assigned to me done by the cut-off, but I took on two more that ended up being a lot more complicated than I expected. The last one left is making me very nervous, but it has to be done. I know it has to be done, but it still makes me nervous.

It also reminds me that there is a flaw in the masking tape programmer. Related to the duct tape programmer, I would see the masking tape programmer as someone who thinks they are worth of the duct tape title, but don’t have the sheer skill to really put it off. The type of developer who throws something together that pretty much falls apart if you sneeze too hard. In Joe’s comment, “you aren’t good enough” is pretty much the masking tape programmer.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Been a couple days since I sequestered myself in my little sewer home and spread out the thick sheaf of blueprints. Page after page of that beautiful writing. I flipped through a few pages until I found what looked like a good starting point, some sort of circular control system. It had hundreds of tiny copper pipes leading into it, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it actually did.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Three days of hell, if you count the time that I don’t remember before waking up, and I am finally home. My little nook in the sewers, with the rust and mold. I found it some years before, when hiding from the guards, and it just… became home. I stoles bits and pieces of metal and wood-working tools and they are set up wherever they fit. I have a trickle of water going down one side; it isn’t too bad since I’m underneath a series of old abandoned houses from the last civil uprising and no one has demolished them. Took a while to direct the nasty sewage around my little place and to get some clean water coming in. It also took me a long time to get rid of most of the rats and cockroaches.

But, you have to work for your little shit hole in this world.

I mean, if you can’t have pride in your home, can you have pride in your work?

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I managed to get to Erin’s office before I threw up. Actually, I got to the curb and bruised my knees, but I got out of the car in time. I did it again once we got into her crowded office, but this time I made it to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, I managed to yank on the brass handle that sent liters of murky water through the porcelain bowl. Wiping my mouth off and making a face, I staggered out of her private bathroom and into Erin’s office.

There is something about that loud-mouthed, smelly woman that is in complete contrast to her office. Where she would happily wipe her greasy hands on her shirt or drop her pants just to get me a belt to repair her precious van, her office was immaculate. Piles of papers, thousands upon thousands, were neatly stacked along the walls. She lined up the corners so sharply they could slice open your hand if you even considered touching them. Behind the papers, bookshelves lined every meter of the walls. Neat sets of thousands of legal guides, probably ever law and ruling every brought in this city, actually gave the hint she was a lawyer.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.