Drunken Owls and Other Delights

It's a surprisingly warm weekend here in the Bay Area, already in the low 60s at 8am (that's a rarity here!).  A and I are going to do a bit of walking today, going up to Fillmore for some shopping, and perhaps down to Japantown (a few blocks away from where we'll be) for lunch.  But right now I'm watching the news and realizing just how many things are going on in the area this weekend!  A race up at Sonoma Raceway, and not one but THREE pride marches in town (Trans March was last night, the Dyke March is today, and the Pride March is tomorrow).  We take our pride seriously here, yo.

There's also the fact that I *think* I have a few books waiting for me at Green Apple, but I have yet to hear from them...

In other news, I just hit the major climactic scene on In My Blue World last night (woo!) so now I need to start winding it all back down.  I'm still on schedule for finishing the book by the end of this month!  I do feel like I've rushed it just a bit, but I'm okay with that.  I have a month and a half to get a good portion of it in shape with revision.  I've done it in that amount of time in the past, so I think I can do it again.  Added to that, I'm quite happy with the scene I just finished last night for the Apartment Complex story as well.  All in all, a really good couple of writing sessions yesterday!

The Day Job training session I had to go to wasn't nearly as much of a pain in the ass as I thought it would be -- it was long, but the person running it actually made it fun so it wasn't a complete slog.  [I still have a few points of contention with what they're trying to roll out here, but they're at least being realistic about it.]  One more trip to Concord next Thursday for the quarterly meeting (and yay, free food!) and I'll have made my quota for office visits for the next couple of months.  Heh.


Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Three days of a four-day weekend (we took Friday off) was enjoyed at BayCon!  There's one more day of the con tomorrow, but the both of us have decided that we're going to take the day off instead to recuperate.  Considering we've got things to do this coming Thursday and Friday as well (anniversary celebrations for the in-laws), it's probably for the best that we spend tomorrow sleeping in and doing not much of anything at all.

[Side note: the Day Job had unexpectedly set up a mandatory training session that I really didn't want to deal with this coming Friday morning, but thankfully cooler managerial heads prevailed and they'll reschedule sometime in June, when we don't have much going on.  Hopefully they won't reschedule during something else A and I have planned!]

As for writing...we didn't spend too long at the con and were home by dinnertime, so I was able to sneak in some writing time!  Yay!  On Friday I got words done for both projects, and did one each yesterday and today.  It got me thinking, maybe that's a possibility for weekend work?  Right now I'm treating my schedule as mandatory on weekdays and optional on the weekend, so it's something to think about.

Anyhoo...hope everyone's having a good long weekend! :) 

It's been a nice relaxing weekend here, not doing much of anything at all.  A good walk through the neighborhood, some minor grocery shopping, and a call home to Mom, and that's about it.  Can't complain!

I do need to start working a bit on the panels I'll be on at BayCon in a few weekends, though.  This one's going to be a bit interesting, as these panels aren't exactly the ones I normally sign up for.  Two of them are of my own making: one dealing with the idea of mentors in the Star Wars universe (A's idea, actually), and another focusing on science fiction and fantasy in music within the last few decades (which I'm actually kind of surprised got accepted!).  The third is another interesting one: returning to a created world after spending time away from it (which of course I'll talk about the Mendaihu Universe).  No panels on self-publishing or doing readings this time out!  So yeah... gotta prepare for those!

As for the 750Words project from the other day...that seems to be going well so far.  I'd forgotten that the old one on my joncwriter email is a free account because I joined way back in 2012 (when they went to a paying site, the old users were grandfathered in as lifetime free), so when I set up the GMail-tied one, I had to pay.  It's only $5 a month, and the site is so worth it, considering I use it nearly every single day.  It's only been a few days, but I can definitely feel a difference, because I'm forcing myself NOT to focus on the book-as-whole, only on the scenes at hand.  I'm going to keep going with it until further notice then.

Not much else to report here.  Hope everyone had a a good weekend, and Happy Mother's Day! :)

D'OH!  Forgot to post here over the weekend.  It just so happens that I did something totally unlike me and DID THINGS OFFLINE, AWAY FROM MY COMPUTER.  I know... freaky, isn't it?  On Saturday we headed over to 9th and Irving for a few errands and a really tasty brunch at a tiny cafe about the size of a hallway (Art's Cafe -- if you're in the area and willing to wait in line, it's definitely worth it).  A walk through the arboretum in Golden Gate Park and then off to grocery shopping.  And on Sunday we went downtown (another thing I rarely do) and went to see a musical called Head Over Heels -- it's based on an old play and updated by way of...songs by the Go-Go's.  It was bananas, it was ridiculously silly, and it was a LOT of fun.  Do check it out in the future if it comes your way.

Which means the only writing I did last night was updating Welcome to Bridgetown.  Hey, at least I got *something* done!

Which also means a Fresh Start today.  I'm zipping through my Things I Need to Do list, which means by evening I should be good to go.  Yay!

 

Hope everyone has a good week!

Wait, it's Saturday already?  Man, this week flew by!  I did get a lot of work done, but still...haven't had one of those zoom-it's-gone weeks in a long time.

Today is the day we head to the Asian Art Museum downtown because why not -- we haven't been there in ages, and when we walked by it during the March for Our Lives we both realized it was high time to go again.  After that we may head over to Japantown for lunch (I already hear the okonomiyaki calling my name) and manga purchases.  And after that?  Good question.  Maybe some anime?  We have a Crunchyroll account that I rarely use so maybe it's high time that we start using it.  I'm woefully behind on quite a few titles.

Other than that, not much to report.  The writing is coming along slowly, but it's going in the right direction so I can't complain.  I'm following my own advice:  just a little bit a day, and it'll add up. 


Hope everyone has a good weekend!

It's been relatively warm here in the Bay Area the last few days, including a few with lovely clear skies and sunshine.  The upside is that we've had the windows open to get in some fresh air while work our Day Jobs.  The downside?  It's finally the weekend and it's overcast and cooler!  Boo!  Ah well.  I believe it should be nicer in the next few days if I'm not mistaken.  And tomorrow we'll be going to see Pacific Rim Uprising, which should be a lot of ridiculous fun!

The writing is...well, it's coming along but slowly.  In My Blue World seems to be unfolding quite smoothly, to the point that I wonder if I should focus on that one more.  I'll decide that in a few weeks if I'm still dragging on the Apartment Complex story.  One of the things I've been thinking about lately is the actual physical process I've been using for my writing.  I'm almost always at my desk in Spare Oom, whether it's writing longhand or using 750Words or MS Word.  Each platform feels slightly different; 750 makes it feel like I don't need to take it too seriously, that I don't have to write The Best Prose Ever that first time out.  Longhand feels like old-school, and it's also a much slower process...not to mention messier, with no Backspace key available.  MS Word feels like I'm making it official somehow, considering that's the word processor I've been using since the Belfry days from outtakes to final drafts.

I'm thinking, could that be part of the problem?  That I need to break out of that mindset?  Maybe so... I used to be REALLY bad about this during the Belfry years... and in the process I'd have a ton of nearly-empty notebooks with half-assed longhand attempts and filed-away Word outtakes.  This is one of the habits I've been trying to retrain myself on over the last few years.  It's hard as hell, because it's so entrenched.

Something to think about, at any rate.

...and i totally blame Daylight Savings Time.  I was really starting to enjoy being able to get up with the sun and not have to feel my way around a pitch-black bedroom first thing in the morning. Ah well...it'll be getting lighter soon enough.

FOGcon was indeed fun!  It always feels like it goes by too quickly, as it's a very small con with only a few panels running at a time, so I'll go to maybe three or four of them and suddenly the day is done.  Still, I had fun on the self-publishing panel, talking with a few others who clearly had more knowledge than I did about print versions of their books!  Heh.  Still, we all learned from each other, so it was a great panel overall.  My reading panel was cut short a bit due to going last, but I'm okay with that -- I read from the Apartment Complex story, which is still rough at this point.  Next stop, BayCon! :)

Meanwhile, it's Monday and everything's back to normal.  Day Job continues apace.  Blogging and writing still on schedule.  Not too much else to report.  

Hope everyone has a good week!

it's been a lovely weekend here in SF, in the upper 60s and even into the 70s at times, so we went against type and actually went outside both days!  Yesterday we walked up to Immigrant Point in the Presidio and got a lovely view of the Golden Gate -- both the bay inlet and part of the bridge -- and walked back town to Baker Beach and back towards home.  All told we walked just over four miles, most of it uphill!  After a lunch at the local burger joint, we relaxed for the rest of the day.  Today was a walk up to the other end of Clement to the local farmer's market and back.

Oh-- and there was an unexpected fireworks show in our neighborhood last night.  Apparently some venture capitalist / rich dude had his 80th birthday party over in Seacliff.  It wasn't just a random show, it was a legit professional show that lasted about 15 minutes with a showy ending an everything! 

So yeah, now we're here at home, watching the Super Bowl.  I'll be honest, I'm okay with the Eagles possibly winning this, as they've had a pretty good season.  I mean yeah, I'd be thrilled with another Pats win, but it'll be a tough game getting there either way.  Meanwhile, we'll have our halftime nachos for dinner (of course), and after the game I"ll sneak in some more writing work.  In fact, since I"m typing this up during Q2 of the game, I might even do some 750 during the game to open up more time.  Yay multitasking!

Speaking of writing, I finally started doing a bit of transcription for the Apartment Complex story.  I have two chapters in plus an in-between note of ADD THINGS HERE so I know what holes I need to fill.  I can already see a handful of things I need to change and work on, but for the most part it's not nearly as bad as I'd expected.  It's rough, but it's definitely something I can work with.  I've been doing the transcription during the day (during slow Day Job moments or on breaks), which not only keeps me from revising when I'm not quite at that moment yet, but opens up time for more longhand during my nightly writing sessions.  Works for me!

Also, still working on the magical girl story (now called In My Blue World after the ELO lyric) on the 750.  I've written down some of the main plot points and worked on some character notes, so with that one I can just keep plugging away at outtakes and see how much of it I can piece together.  I'm thinking once I have more to work with, I'll do some note card outlining and build up the story a bit.  I probably won't get around to writing this one proper until midyear (at a guess), so I'm not too worried about getting this one up and running right away.  The Apartment Complex story takes precedence right now, and I'm hoping to at least have a rough draft finished mid-year or thereabouts.  I'd like to see if I can keep with the six-month turnaround if I can.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Watching the Pats/Jags game is a bit painful to watch, considering Gronk was pulled out, Tom's playing with an injured hand, and the Pats aren't playing at their top form.  So I won't yammer on about it here.  [Besides, the game'll be over in a half hour, which means one of two very Pats-like things:  either they'll lose by an embarrassing amount, or they'll come back from behind with like two minutes to go and win it by a single point.  Heh.

[EDIT: WOOO GO PATS! :D :D :D :D]

Anyhoo...busy week this past week.  It started and ended with high volume and countless interruptions.  I don't mind the volume, as I usually put myself in a zone and plow through as much of it as I can.  It's the interruptions that irritate me.  It's me trying to finish up an OMG request and getting interrupted with another OMG request that needs to be worked on as Someone Please Save My Baby OMG Critical Urgent.  And served with a sprinkle of pings from teammates and client reps asking for requests I haven't even looked at yet.  So let's just say that I spent most of the week wondering why I was still at that Day Job.  *sigh*

BUT.  I still managed to get my writing done.  As I've said previously, I refuse to let the Day Job interrupt that.  And I'm not doing just a little at a time, either...I'm still working on multiple projects and blogs.  Yeah, I have definitely increased the volume of my creative endeavors, but it's something I've needed to do for some time now.  I enjoyed the volume I was at previously, especially when most of my focus was still on the trilogy vision, but the workload is different now and it needed readjustment.  It was important that I keep that volume up.

In other news... we're trying to be better about heading off to the gym.  It kind of fell apart over the last few months of 2017 due to all sorts of things, and we both felt it was important we fix that.  And if we can get some walking in on the weekends, so much the better.  Yesterday we walked up to Laurel Village and returned by way of Clement Street -- about a four or five mile walk round trip, I think.  We do love our walks through the neighborhood, so it's worth coming back to that. 

So...here's to hoping next week goes by a little quieter and I won't be as stressed out!

It's a lovely day out there, and we're planning on jumping in the new car and driving down to Half Moon Bay, but right now it's 49 degrees and the apartment is chilly!  Such is the way of winter in the Bay Area.  [Yes, I know, it's not snowy and in the teens.  We've both dealt with that kind of weather most of our lives, thankyewverymuch!]  Anyhoo, it looks like it'll be a nice weekend, so I can't complain too much.  Only complaint here is that we're still waiting for the DMV to send us our new plates!

In other news, things are going well in the writing universe.  I'm balancing between revision of Lidwells and outlining the new story, and making some serious headway.  The Day Job has been a bit of a bear, only because Outlook has been wonky all week. My job revolves all around working on emails, and about ninety percent of it uses the Advanced Find function, which currently is not working at all.  I can still do what I need to, it's just taking three times as long to do it.  Ah well...

Hope everyone has a good weekend!