D. Moonfire

Raising Demons For Fun And Profit by Mark McLaughlin

2009-12-25T15:42:24Z

I picked up Raising Demons for Fun and Profit at ICON 34 this year. It was from a small publishing house in Cedar Rapids called Sam’s Dot Publishing. Partially, I picked up the book to look at the quality of print but also because it had a pretty next cover on it. The book itself is a collection of short stories by a single author, Mark McLaughlin, with some additional writers on some of the stories.

The book itself was a quick read, about an hour stretched out over a day. I could read a few stories then set it aside.

Reading the bio of the page seems like Mark McLaughlin is a rather successful writer. Regular columns in genre-specific places, winner of awards, but overall, I felt the stories were unfinished. They had a rough edge to them that I didn’t really warm up to. I could see where someone would like it, but it wasn’t my style of writing.

I also felt like if I submitted a story like this, it would have been rejected.

The stories themselves were pretty good, though my favorite is The Monsters of Enlightenment. That was an amusing story and made it worth the price of the book. There were other stories I didn’t care for and some that were just… eh.

Though, with a title of Raising Demons For Fun And Profit, you would think there would be more demon stories, but there wasn’t. It was mixed pretty evenly between strange, zombies, demons, and random monsters. With a title like that, I would expect there to be more demons than that, and probably a few more stories about profit. The back of the cover really has nothing to do with the stories inside; that didn’t help.

The only other thing that set me off on the book was the typography. It was not organized very well and the visual appearance of the book needed a bit of help. Things that can be fixed, but it was jarring. And, that is also something that most people will never care about, just me.

Is it worth the $12.95 cover price? I don’t think so. I enjoyed reading it, but I was also glad I finished it. It wasn’t a book I’d love. If I had a friend to share the book, it might be worth it but it doesn’t really make me want to get up and buy another of his books.

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

Castle Age

2009-12-24T19:19:53Z

I’m pretty much done with Castle Age over on Facebook. The game ended up being a nice distraction for a month or so, but eventually the lack of variance (grinding) and overwhelming advertising overcame my interest in the game. In the last week or so, I was just playing for the sake of playing the game.

So, I gave up on the game.

There is a limit of how much grind I like in a game. Kingdom of Loathing ended up being one of my favorite multi-player game, but it suffered from the same problem. After a while, you are just killing yet another creature, or saving the world yet again. Castle Age ended up being much of the same thing.

The game only gives you a point of energy every five minutes. Which is pretty much a good clip when you only need 2, 5, or even 10 energy to do a “quest”. But, in the later stages you need over a hundred to complete something which means basically you are clicking five times… then coming back in twelve hours. And doing a “quest” doesn’t really give you anything. No new messages, very rarely a random item, nothing besides clicking on a button 20-30 times over time (hours at the beginning, days at the end) and moving to the next step.

Oh… exciting.

Naturally, like most commercial games, they offer ways of getting that energy faster than once per five minutes. Mainly give them money and they’ll let you play more. I never really felt the need to give Castle Age money, really, the game doesn’t have enough depth.

I also like games that are cooperative. I like working with people instead of fighting against them. They have that with the “call to arms” and the big boss fights. But, there is no way of escaping the player verses player stuff, so if you aren’t carefully, you get assholes attacking you 5-10 times in a row, draining your coffers.

Which isn’t really fun, to be honest.

I would have kept playing, but there is this constant hum for attention in the game. Banner ads to suggest you add the game to your profile, repeated requests to give them complete control over your profile so they don’t have to ask. I don’t like a messy wall in Facebook, I want it to be about me, not the games I play. So, I say no. And they keep asking.

Remember, no means no.

I also decided to do an experiment. There is a strict advantage of having “friends” in the game. You get attacked less and you do some quests faster. I decided to do a mass friend request solely for the purposes of game advantage. Likewise, I very explicitly didn’t invited my “real” friends on Facebook to the game (see the non-messy wall). That was a very strange experience. Facebook doesn’t have the concept of “associates” or “not really friends”. So, I created a list of “Games” which basically is “no clue who they are”.

I do use the gift features of any Facebook game I do play. Every day, I burned through the entire list, giving the maximum gifts possible to everyone on my list. In the month I played, I got a few gifts. Most of them were from friends and family, but for the associates, maybe only 7 out of 163 actually returned the favor. It is interesting that there is a strict advantage of gifting, but very few people do it.

Probably won’t do the mass inviting again though. I didn’t quite get the benefit I hoped for, since most of those people are simply obsessed with playing the game. Over time, I’ll shed them off as I move on to other things.

I don’t regret what I did, it was a fun experiment and I enjoyed the game. But… I’m wandering off to find a new game to play.

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

I am apparently shallow

2009-12-22T01:26:08Z

Ended up seeing some of the chatter on Twitter, mailing lists, and the blogs about Avatar. As I said before, I liked the movie. But, listening to others trash it got me rather depressed. Fightertype decided that if the science was not perfect and the plot was simple, there was no reason to ever see it. Ever. Basically, she damned it without seeing it. One of the blogs said it set back sci-fi back 20 years. On a mailing list I listen to, they were talking about every damn flaw about the movie, tearing it apart. Like the tactical idiocies of the the bad guy or the fact they should use mass drivers (asteroids) to solve the problem. All these little things, like spite bubbling up between the cracks of a sidewalk.

My definition of a good movie?

I enjoyed watching it.

I don’t read in massive depths into the story. Yes, it had a relatively simple plot, but it brought a nice little flutter to my heart and I enjoyed the time watching it. I don’t see why it has to be trashed when people didn’t rant that much about the variable length masers with blessed crystals (lightsabers), the complete inability to put guard rails on anything over ten stories (Star Wars, Star Trek), apparently the common occurrence of time travel that only goes to Earth 1970-2010. Most movies have simple plots, weak science, and bland characters. The point is not to rant about the horrors of the plot and just go to… enjoy yourself.

But, I’m a shallow person.

Last week was my first week at the local writer’s group. It was a fun experience, though I was shy as all hell and should have shut up after the first few sentences. But, they opened up talking about the strength of characters and the depth they bring into the first chapter.

I read about a guy and his dog.

They talked about the balance of the female characters to the male. And how the scene complimented their relationship.

I read about a place in New York.

Absolutely everything they said was accurate. It was helpful to the writer. It just wasn’t what I read. I don’t see depth and richness in a story. I don’t see movement in pictures. I simply got on that simple, shallow approach to enjoying my fiction: did I enjoy it?

Okay, got that off my shoulder.

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

Avatar

2009-12-21T14:25:15Z

Saw Avatar this weekend. To be honest, I only saw 15 seconds of commercial once up to seeing it, so I had no clue what to expect or any opinion of the movie. It means I went into the movie with no preconceptions of the movie.

(As a note, not watching television has a real benefit.)

It was a beautiful movie. Even outside of the biological scenes, the sets were amazing even inside the human areas. It was set up to show a marked contrast between the two worlds and they did it wonderfully. Even the choices of colors created the two worlds.

The pseudo science in the movie wasn’t too bad actually. Not like 3 character password fields. It followed Hollywoods love for augmented reality, which is where I think things are going anyways. Most of the neural biology was pretty reasonable for me, except for one little thing about the Avatars. It happens to fit with my general view of biological systems, so I really enjoyed it.

The plot was pretty obvious in the first two minutes of the movie. But, like a locked room mystery story, it was more interesting to see how they got there, less than were the movie was going. I’m perfectly fine with that.

I did think a couple of the twists were telegraphed a little too easily. In the preparation scenes, I immediately knew it was a “gun on the mantle” type of scene. “Oh, only few times in a thousand years, yep, we know where that is going.”

Fluffy cried in a few places, but not for the nasty things. She thought it was a bit violent, I thought it was a bit mild; most of the real violence is off screen. There was also one scene that I really, really wanted to see, but they just cut to black on it instead of giving a really cool, epic struggle.

Overall, I’d see this movie a few times in the theater and will pick it up on Blu-ray as soon as it comes out (this is one of the movies that begs for it).

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

Google Ads

2009-12-16T01:58:55Z

Yesterday, I got a second shot at using Google Ads to try selling my self-published book. I got the first freebie from my office supply shipper (apparently, if you buy a grand worth of file cabinets, they give you stuff, go figure). Sadly, I managed to burn through the $100 credit over two weeks and got a grand total of one sale. That is not exactly a great rate, $20 advertising dollar for $1 in sales (it was a PDF download).

This time, I changed a few things. I have the same credit as before but from a different source. I cleaned up and simplified my website, tried to make it as purchase-worthy as possible. And created a few ads with different wording, to see if one sells better than the others.

Creating ads is definitely a skill I don’t have. I think I can get it, but I need to fumble around a lot more before I make more in sales than I spend (which is kind of the point of advertising).

On the other hand, I offered my layout services to a friend for their own book. They saw my novel and thought it was amazing; kind of strange having a skill that someone wants. They may not ask me, but I probably wouldn’t say no to typesetting their book(s).

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

Web convergance

2009-12-14T01:10:29Z

Spent a rather large time today working on my Simple Notes theme for websites. Still has a few rough edges, like not embedding the fonts and some interface quirks, but otherwise it looks pretty good.

It is frustrating doing website themes. Right now, I use WordPress, DokuWiki, MantisBT, and Simple Machines Forum. Each of these has an entirely different way of skinning their application but I want each of them to have a common “look and feel” with the least amount of work. But, things don’t work that way. If I really wanted a nice, consistent look and feel, I pretty much have to do the same theme five or six times. One for each application and also my initial static page.

Call it the programmer in me, but I hate repeating code. I keep looking for a library or platform or framework where I can create this theme one and have it applied to everything. But, instead I’m struggling with using a metaphysical crowbar to jam everything together, copying code over and over. Which makes it a nightmare when I realize I missed something and have to copy that fix across six different versions.

While working on Rough Blue, I started created a PHP template library that worked across all those applications. It is still rough, but every time I hit a road block, I look for some other smarter person who already did it.

Haven’t found that person. Or that library.

Oh well, I’m happy with it so far. If I keep using my WTF library (or figure out how to get client-side XSLT to work without crashing Firefox), I might see if it can help someone else.

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

And, this should be the end…

2009-12-12T23:04:48Z

My last class is finally over. That last little essay (got a bit cocky though) got finished somewhere in the middle of the week. I’m already approved for graduation, and I got a 98% score according to the online course. So, that should give me a 3.9 GPA for my master’s program.

Given that, and ignoring my irrational fear that I somehow missed a class, I’m completely done with college. I probably won’t go on to the doctorate program at all. Instead, I’m going to focus on something more enjoyable.

Like fiction writing.

Haven’t gotten much of it in the last few days though. Work is winding up for a deadline next Friday and hopefully there won’t be any overtime this time. We also had a pretty impressive snow storm and a nastier set of confusion. The snow removal guy never showed up, so I had to shovel the 20-30 inches worth of snow myself.

Yeah, whine, whine. Still did it and I wasn’t even that sore for more than a day. We are also watching one of Fluffy’s co-workers Lab puppy for the week. It has been… interesting. I keep forgetting that some dogs consider horking up a tug rope as a sign of affection.

I’m still working on that website design probably for the rest of the weekend. Fluffy is working on her own designs since she needs to brush up on her skills. And, for some reason, I really struggle to teach her programming; we live well together, but we don’t exactly work well together.

I’m also hoping this means the three people who read this will actually see more posts.

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

An impressively busy week

2009-12-08T13:21:37Z

’tis the season for lots of change.

I finished my final paper for my masters on Sunday. While I hate it with a passion–it isn’t my best work–the instructor seemed pretty happy with it in the draft a week before. I have one last short paragraph to write and I should finally be done with college. I even paid my tuition last week, so I could actually graduate.

Looking forward to starting new projects soon. I decided to hold off on the programming for a little bit and just work on novels for the rest of the year. Yeah, those plans will last. But, I’m looking forward to just… writing.

And a little web design since I’m trying to make a little site for a friend. It isn’t perfect, but I’m liking how it turns out so far. Haven’t gotten much feedback on it, to be honest, so I’m going to just assume it is awesome and let people quietly snigger behind my back.

Yesterday, I finally got back to the .NET user group meeting that my co-worker runs. Got a chance to see some pretty little libraries out there and won book in the raffle. Always fun.

On Thursday, I’m going to try out the local writer’s group and see if it would fit my personality. Once a month, but if I want to be a good writer, I need to take myself a bit more seriously.

Finally, Fluffy got her Christmas/holiday gift last week. It was down to a year subscription of People magazine or me going to the gym with her twice a week for a few months. I bet you can guess which one she got? Yeah, her subscription star… never mind. Tonight is session four at the gym. It isn’t a habit and I feel so pathetic since I can’t keep up, but I’m persistent so I’ll get it sooner or later. It works out since my co-workers pretty much stopped walking with me at lunch.

I won’t get under 136 kg pounds by the end of the year like I hoped. I should be within 5 kg pounds of it though. According to Weight Watchers last night, I’m at 140 kg, so I’m within that goal. Going to try making that different as small as possible in the next few weeks.

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

Producing verses Consuming

2009-11-30T00:24:22Z

There is a reason I don’t play most computer games after a few weeks. Yeah, I’ll finish a long-running RPG game to finish it, but casual games seem to only interest me for a few days or weeks before I get this strange feeling that I’m wasting my life playing them. Right now, it’s Castle Age on Facebook; a lovely, fun game that I know doesn’t have the depth to keep me interested for years, but it is enough for a distraction while working on my paper. The more I slog through the words, the more I need little breaks of mindless implied violence.

When I’m watching TV, playing games, or even reading a book, I keep thinking I’m wasting my life just doing them instead of creating something. One reason I bring my notebook just about everywhere (even places like business lunches). It gets me anxious since I like, no I’d have to say love, making things. I like writing programs and stories, creating something for an RPG game, or even just making up a shared fiction with someone (wrote two novel length books from email “campaigns”).

But, I don’t get that when I work on college homework. I don’t feel like I’m creating anything. I’m just digesting and writing out papers, but it really doesn’t… make anything at the this level. Probably one reason I’m so anxious for it to be over. I want to make something, I want to feel the keys beneath my finger and have those age-old whining about “I can’t create anything” while writing. (I am so emo.)

I wrote a short story last week, first in a while. Took me a few days, but I got it out. I posted it on the forum that I normally post these stories and… nothing. I wondered if I somehow completely lost the ability to write, but after posted it in a few more places, I started getting comments. I love comments. Almost as much as fan art, but it reminded me of that little thrill of seeing someone else enjoy something I created.

I won’t answer the game writing verses novel question any time soon, but I know that I’m anxious to get to creating things once I finish my college classes. Like other major life decisions, I find myself counting the days.

Sadly, while clicking on the quest button in Castle Age.

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

Spore Island on Facebook

2009-11-25T22:05:58Z

Occasionally, I find a game on Facebook that looks interesting, but I usually drifted after 3-5 days. Spore Island happens to be one of them. I like the idea of Spore, creating your own creatures and seeing them survive, but Spore Island really didn’t appeal to me past a few days.

Facebook games pretty much have the feel to them. Between the gameplay, there is that near constant drone of “bring more players into the game!” Some of them are a little better than others, while others are just terrible at it. Spore Islands goes one additional step. Most of the customizations in the game, you can never get unless you hand cold hard cash over to them. You use DNA points to “improve” your character. Well, not really improve. You can shift around scores to try getting a higher point value, but ultimately, there is no improvement in the game. Just shifting over time as supposedly your friends do the same. Because everyone likes to just beat on their friends endlessly. You can’t ever get more than 12 DNA (one every two hours) and most of the cosmetic benefits cost 15 DNA or more. So, if you want something nice, you have no choice but to pay for it.

There are very little benefits of friends. The game gives a higher chance of sparkles (bonus points) on the stage based on the number of friends, but those bonus points only dictate which of 12 options you have and the number of other creatures you can have. You can only put the secondary creatures on your friend’s island, so basically is just to get some minor bonuses to be better than your friends.

I can’t say there is really much I liked about the game. Creating monsters is fun, but they are so bland that you really don’t get an emotional attachment to them. And they change shape and size as you evolve them (just pushing points around), so it doesn’t really matter what you pick in the beginning, it will probably change.

Game play is pretty simple also. Click Observe, wait 120 second. Shift things around, rinse, lather, and repeat. Um… yah? In four hours, you can do it again!

There isn’t any gifting in the game, other than planting your creature on a friend’s island. Not exactly exciting and doesn’t encourage the social gaming that others do. I can easily see why Fluffy and my other friends pretty much dropped it after a few days.

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

Tau4 by V. J. Waks

2009-11-24T03:13:30Z

Tau4 is an interesting little book I picked up at GenCon. Set in an interesting little science fiction world, it is the story of a genetically created shapeshifter who everyone seems to want. She is an interesting mix of animal and human, the creature she is based on is left relatively vague and it works well for the story.

V. J. Waks’ writing style is rather smooth to read and I finished all 486 pages in about three hours. It is descriptive and elegant, and the typesetting of the book just enhances the poetic feel of the story. I managed to lose myself in much of the book, but I had to re-read the last dozen pages a few times to really picture what was happening. Besides that little bit, I really enjoyed the story.

This is not a violent book. It could have gotten a lot more bloody, but the descriptions were… glossed over for the real violence. Kind of the scenes in The Mummy happened off scene, so did the worst of the scenes here. I’d easily give it to Fluffy, if she liked science fiction stories.

I’d say the characters are somewhat stereotypical, at least at first blush, but Waks adds some depth to them by the end of the novel. However, this book ends with a sharp ending; the final conflict of the plot was abbreviated and I wish it was much longer. The ending was almost a cliff hanger to lead into a second, but I really didn’t feel satisfied when I set it down.

Would I read it again? Yes. This is a relatively light and fluffy science fiction novel, not really hard or soft, but just an enjoyable afternoon read. I’ll pick up the sequel as soon as I can and re-read this one before delving into the next.

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

My trials at Verizon

2009-11-23T20:52:19Z

There is something about Verizon stores that I’ve grown to dislike. At my old job, I was the account administrator for a dozen Verizon phones, which means I was the one who ‘escorted’ various employees to upgrade their phone every two years. And I ended up wandering in to make major changes, get new lines, etc. I have never gotten through a Verizon store visit in under an hour… for anything.

This weekend, as one of my last acts as the official administrator of the account, I wandered in to change me and Fluffy’s lines from a work account to a business account. It was an empty store, but I still had reservations. I’ve gone into an empty store before and waited forty minutes for someone to get me.

I can say I was in and out in less than ten minutes this time. Of course, I was because the guy there could’t pull up my account. Even though I gave the correct account number, PIN, and was an administrator. And, despite the big Verizon sign on the door, it wasn’t actually a Verizon dealership. Just a licensed one that only sells Verizon, so if I wanted to make changes I had to go to a ‘real’ Verizon location. Fortunately, there was one in driving distance, so after a brief excursion to pick up G.I. Joe and Twilight at Target, we headed over to the ‘real’ Verizon store.

The real store is smaller and less roomy as the licensed one. It also had maybe two dozen people milling around and five sales people. I got near the counter and waited. After about a minute, a guy came over and asked me if I signed in. I said no, I didn’t see a sign in screen. Somewhat rudely, he pointed to a console in the center, which had a flashing banner ad on it. No big sign that told me to register to service. Then, a few seconds later, it changed with a tiny little banner showed up to tell me to do so. It wasn’t up when I came in, so obviously I needed to know the animated screen would eventually have a sign in request.

Yeah, obvious.

He asked me what I wanted and I told him. He said it couldn’t be done at the store and I would need an authorized person to fax in a phone. I pointed out, I am the authorized person. He said it couldn’t be done, but “if I wanted to wait…” with the tone of some who really would like me to go away.

I waited.

About a half hour later, this lady called for me. Despite the urge to snap (which never helps anyone), I explained it. She took me to a nice quiet computer. I gave all the information as before, but this time it magically worked. I have no clue why the licensed person can’t do this, but the whole idea of a Verizon store being not Verizon just annoys the hell out of me. This girl was very helpful though. I explained what I was doing and brought out my phone usage pattern (I average 15 minutes a month, Fluffy averages 360). She got us a good plan, walked me through what I needed for my company discount, and out the door in only 30 more minutes.

It was nice finally getting good service, but it wasn’t exactly very enjoyable for the first hour or so of this entire process. Going to the wrong Verizon store just set me on edge, since I would expect a store that has a big Verizon sign to be a Verizon store. You know, with the ability to make changes? And, having a sales person insist that what I wanted wouldn’t work really didn’t help. But, it ended nicely.

There is also the relief of having the phone under my own control again. It was one of the few things that tied me into my old job. A form of payment for the right to call me for the random issues. But, they had to shut down the phone plan and gave me a week to fix it. So, one less thread connecting me to my old life.

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

Games, games, games…

2009-11-21T16:11:36Z

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.

Meme: Resistance is Futile

2009-11-18T21:32:49Z

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.

And a few random answers:

1. What season do you like best?

I’d have to say that lovely two weeks at the end of Fall when it rains every day but right before it snows. When there is a lazy breeze swollen with water and soaked leaves that teases me every time I go out. You know, like right now.

2. If you died today, would you be satisfied or have to haunt the living to make up for work undone?

I’d only haunt the living to be annoying. Other than that, I’m satisfied with everything I have done up to this point and really don’t regret anything. Life isn’t really worth regretting the past, it is who you are.

3. Big city or small town?

Small town by far. I lived near Chicago most of my life and I still found Iowa City to be more “home” to me.

4. You can have any sort of creature (real or imaginary) as a perfectly tame pet, loyal only to you. What would it be?

Just a little shape-changing demon. You know, the type of creature that looked perfectly normal, but then decided to swallow its eyeballs in front of company or turn colors every time you aren’t looking.

5. Sit on the throne or whisper from the shadows?

Sitting on the throne, as long as it is comfortable. I like getting people to work together and that is a bit harder from the shadows.

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

Passively getting hit in the head

2009-11-18T15:18:53Z

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.

Multiclassing

2009-11-15T17:07:07Z

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.

The words march forward

2009-11-09T19:04:32Z

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.

Fluffy and I had a long talk on Sunday about creativity. Kind of fun, pointed out a few things. One of them is that I am still in college, doing it as night school, and I only have five weeks left. So… I should stop worrying about writing until after college.

Obvious, but I didn’t like the answer.

Still bouncing between wanting to write novels (GenCon is looming ahead for me, when I measure myself to other writers there) and computer games. I accidentally stumbled on some gorgeous RPG tiles that I could redo in SVG and a site with free (and nice sounding) game music. So, that naturally wanted me to write a computer game again.

It doesn’t help that I hit a small mental snag with world-building for Fedran. I got a hesitant map of the world created, but then got into a discussion of terrain verses plate tectonics. I created that map with a rough plate system but the terrain isn’t properly done. So, to figure out at least a partially correct system, I could do one of two things: 1) make it up, 2) learn enough about climate and meteorology sciences to write a program to calculate it for me.

Three guesses on which one I want to do? First two don’t count.

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

Just one of those days

2009-11-03T04:58:42Z

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.

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-01T21:41:59Z

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.

Oile: Erin’s vehicle of doom

2009-10-29T02:54:02Z

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.

It corners beautifully and really accelerates once you engage the flywheel on the straight ways. Sadly, the flywheel does lock the steering column as part of the acceleration. We found out the hard way, you do not turn on the flywheel while turning.

That was the first time I hit a wall with that monstrosity, but not the last.

The driver’s seat is half-opened along with the passenger, but the rest of it is a very plain cabin with two benches. I found some lovely wrought iron railings and places them on the top and back. Not a place you’d like to ride on, but it gave Erin a little extra storage space.

Not entirely sure why I built it the way I did. I mean, I was young (um, younger) and thought I knew the answer to everything. Looking back, I probably wouldn’t have made that mistake with the flywheel and space out larger tires more. The second time Erin used it to jump the curb, I think it nearly flipped over. Now, she keeps on the streets, but that cobblestones are killer on the bladder.

Now, bet you are wondering why I’m talking about Erin’s van. I guess I could call it the Steam Pressure Accelerated Transportation. SPAT has a nice ring to it, but I feel self-conscious giving long names to something I created. Most of the time, I reall call it vehicle, van, or… splat (after the noise my head makes when I hit the dash).

Well, part of my “retainer” with Erin is maintaining her SPLAT. That makes sense since that is how I got hired when I was fifteen. (Note to others, when you are out on the street and someone offers you 5k to fix a GWT “real fast”, do it. Even if you have no clue how mechanical items actually work.)

It took me a few days to get the repairs done. I was disappointed since one of the equines was trashed and I couldn’t find a black one. I did manage to steal a brown one from an old merry-go-round across town, but the fade red rose looked… out of place with Erin’s obviously criminal intents.

Oh well. The engine itself didn’t take much. I’ve repaired that thing so often that I could almost do it blindfolded. I did find a crack manifold, but a few days later, it was belching smoke out like the day I finished it.

… I wasn’t very good at 20 at these things. I got much better after my first quarter century.

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

ICON 34

2009-10-26T23:31:17Z

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.

But, even that said, I found some writers that I actually respect and love their work, including Jim C. Hines (well, like him down, I actually never picked up a book of his until this weekend) and Mickey Zucker Reichert. It was actually very nice, both from meeting them but also seeing how much they like their fans. I can only hope to be one of those some day.

It was also neat to talk to Jim about Anton Strout, though briefly. I like seeing that emotion. Mickey also ended up talking to someone about the “spark” of writing and gave me some really good directions to check out for that. And, in response to that, someone mentioned there was a writing group within a few miles of my house. Double score.

Did a bit of gaming networking too, including finding a possible gaming group. Apparently, when I said I ran a “cheerful, story-based Changeling game in HERO”, I got some perks of interest. So, if things go well, I might be able to get a gaming fix in there.

One of my friends from Iowa the first time (also an ex, I call her Poofy) pointed me in the direction of Dominion, the card game. Wow… I like that game, even though I played it one. So many dimensions to plan ahead and it isn’t intrinsically player verses player. Yes, everyone is trying to beat each other, but you don’t *have* to attack each other. And, because of how the game works–and what I consider the best bit–you don’t know if you won until the end.

Side note, anatomically correct Hello Kitty dolls!

I came out of the convention excited about writing again. We’ll see if it lasts, but I also realized a few things I was doing wrong with Oile and in the world in general. So, I dusted off my Fedran site and started working on some of the world building again. Mostly to support Oile, but also to integrate some of the Mudd and Scions stuff together so I can work on it.

ICON 35’s theme will be steampunk. While I went to the steampunk panels, they were a little too vague for me. From their point of view, if it has smoke, oil, and fantastic mechanicals, it is steampunk. I can work in that definition easily, though it did point out I need to polish up Oile a bit more. I love the whole magic verses engineering in my world, by the time I finish anything of note, it will be a passing trend. But, still going to write it, I think there is a lot of interesting things.

And… I found someone who actually read the Oile stuff. Poofy gave me good feedback on some little bits she read, so that got me renewed interest in polishing it up and keep on writing. A single good comment will keep me writing for weeks.

To add to the writing networking, found a local small press publisher that actually prints books in my genres. Not entirely sure if I would head that direction. I considered it, but talking to Ms. Reichert about getting published in small presses that went out of business is to aim high.

I can do that. :)

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

Kingdom of Loathing and drift

2009-10-26T17:26:17Z

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.

A Cinderella story

2009-10-24T01:59:53Z

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.

The sunshine of life

2009-10-23T02:45:43Z

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.

Oile: Haunting eyes

2009-10-23T02:27:22Z

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.

I got it down to ten sections in the blueprints. Ten places where if you change it, it all works. I can… almost picture it in my head and it is amazing. It also hurts my brain to think about since some of these pipes and gears are smaller than my fingers. It also works in more than the typical 90 degree angles and planes. No, whoever created this thing somehow was able to create practical flowers with gears. Even the pressure release valves are artfully arranged.

It steals my breath away, but I also can’t figure out those ten sections.

Also, someone is following me up on the surface. I even took to wearing my more formal gear: black pin-strip suit and an adorable bowler hat that Bonnie gave me. A far cry beyond my normal outfit of grease-soaked apron and leather boots. But, still, I get this feeling someone is just around the corner when I walked through the crowds.

It also doesn’t help that the last time I was up there, I caught the tail end of an arrest. Two mage captains and a dozen guards raiding a small factory near the edge of town. From the looks of it, they were crafting pipes probably for steam engines. Not… exactly illegal in this city, but also not approved without a ton of paperwork and licenses. Actually, it probably was illegal since no industry is allowed in the island quarters and they would never give one for the shoreline. But, there are always people willing to risk setting up these tiny factories to pump out products for a few weeks at most, then hopefully disappear before the guards come for them.

The only people who got hurt were the poor who lined up for any job that gave them a few quarters on the hour. And, as I watched the guards shoving people into the horse-drawn carriages, were those poor people. Wearing rags in the cold air. Grease in their hair. Hollow looks from working fourteen hour days. I saw a few children, barely over a dozen eyars, being tossed into the back. One of them, a girl, caught the edge of the carriage, screaming for help. Our eyes matched for just a second, that terrible second before I could quickly look away.

Nothing I could do.

The mage captains were getting a bit twitchy and I needed to move. Ducking underneath a tarp at the end of the street, I quickly made a few grocery purchases from a tiny little hole-in-the-wall store (Grandma Nfani, lovely bat of a woman) and found the nearest sewer entrance. I nearly dove into it, but something tickled the back of my neck. I didn’t see anyone, but I decided to–as casually as I could–pad down the street until I found one of the more formal entrances. Naturally hidden in a garden.

A quick look around and I disappeared into the shadows.

Sadly, the haunted look of that girl followed after me as I raced back to my lair.

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