Drunken Owls and Other Delights

So last week for the hell of it I looked on the Seagate site just to see if there were any external drive sales going on, considering the one with my music library was swiftly approaching critical mass, even despite my attempts to thin it out. As luck would have it, they were indeed having a sale and I purchased a Ridiculously Large External (14TB, almost double the other big external I have, and for a surprisingly cheap price at that). It's taken a few days and a few snags, but said music library has now been moved with lots of breathing room surrounding it. Right now I'm updating the Plex server so it's pointing towards the correct location so it can be shared again!

Meanwhile, we're finally gathering all the artwork we want to put on our pristine white walls! We've been using a prints-from-museum theme for a while now, so we've been buying a few from the local museums (and a few from the MFA in Boston) and elsewhere. Alas, I've run out of the specific size of hooks I need, so I'll need to swing by a local hardware store to pick up more, but eventually we'll be all arted up!

Sunday afternoon and A. and I are full of takoyaki, Sapporo Black, and nachos with kalua pork and cheez. (Yes, it was topped with cheese of Velveeta consistency, thus the spelling.) Japantown is celebrating the Cherry Blossom Festival this weekend and next, and we couldn't pass up good fun and tasty foods! Not to mention giving me a reason to pick up my latest manga tankobon at Kinokuniya. [Seriously, you should read Nichijou for its wonderful bizarro ridiculousness.]

On one of the side streets there were craft vendors of all kinds, and we stumbled upon one called Ukiyo-e Heroes that made absolutely stunning giclée prints...we ended up buying a Spirited Away print and a Kiki's Delivery Service print. A bit expensive, but they were so worth picking up. You have to see these up close...they're gorgeous.

Speaking of art, on Saturday we went to the de Young Museum in the park to check out their Summer of Love exhibition, and I have to say it was FANTASTIC. It was quite neat to look at the prints and the clothes and the pictures of the history that took place less than a mile away (the Haight-Ashbury District is a short walk through the park from there). I'll be honest, I didn't really grok the whole hippie/summer of love thing until we moved out to SF (and only then because it's fun to read history books about the places you live in), but now I'm fascinated by it. There's even a bit of local radio history worth checking out too, which had a few mentions at the exhibit -- look up KSAN, which was one of the first FM stations in the US to play rock music exclusively.  Suffice it to say, I'm sure we'll hit this exhibit again before it closes.

And to to top it off, after we returned home yesterday, the rain had cleared and the sun was out, so we took a walk down to Baker Beach, which isn't that far from our apartment. It was a lovely if quite windy day and a lot of great pictures were taken.  And we ended the day with our Netflix copy of The Five Doctors (a rather silly but fun Dr Who episode, considering they shoehorned everyone in there, including the Second Doctor's yeti). 

So yes...a busy weekend, but a fun one! :)

I think I may be putting a few things aside pretty soon.

As much as I enjoy the daily 750 Words exercise, I don't think it's completely helping. There's been more days than not where I feel forced to think of something to write about, and it ends up either sounding forced, or I'm blathering on about something I've written about countless times before. [More to the point: I've always been horrible at spontaneous writing. I need at least a shred of an idea that interests me to write about, or else I'll write maybe two sentences that go nowhere.]

Also, even though I have it written up on my whiteboard schedule, I'm rarely writing poetry anymore. I think with this, I'm too stuck in old habits and I'm writing the same damn thing over and over again. Perhaps it's a good sign that I'm no longer a young, lost Gen-Xer trying to figure out who he is and what the hell he wants to do with his life? Heh. Seriously, though...for a good couple of years it's felt like I've been forcing myself to write poems and the end result has felt kind of lifeless.

That's not to say I won't do daily words anymore, or write poetry. I'm just thinking I should stop forcing myself to write things when they're not serving any real purpose, however small.

There's also the fact that I've been on a big analog kick lately. That is to say, wanting to do more things offline and more in the Real World. This manifested itself a year or two ago when I chose to start handwriting a daily journal. This was partly to bring more of my personal life offline, but it was also a way to free up my writing from restrictions and expectations. And I should probably save my eyes from staring at screens all day long.

And lastly, I've been really jonesing to do more artwork and music. I've let them slide for far too long.

So, I'm positing this: what about, instead of forcing myself to work within the constraints of whatever platform I'm writing in/on, to get myself a companion notebook like the moleskine I use for journaling, and use it as a catch-all for things I'd like to work on? Something I can use at any time of day offline. Daily practice words, idea crunching, drawing, poetry, songwriting...a Notebook of Infinite Knowledge, as one of my friends used to call it back in college. Perhaps this weekend I'll check out some of the nicer hardcover notebooks out there and pick one up. And release the rules: no censoring myself, no forcing myself to make word count.

Something to think about.

After a slight bump in the road, in which I had to call Shutterstock to get them to process my payment correctly, I purchased a package of 5 downloads (which is good, considering I can use the others for books 2 and 3) and commenced playing with both Photoshop and PicMonkey to get what I wanted. I also consulted A. for her input on the visuals, asking what seemed to work best for a reader like herself.

The picture was taken by Tommy Zhang. :)

The funny thing is that I'd used Photoshop only for the cropping, as I was less than happy with the fonts they had available. And since I needed to work within the submission parameters most want, I had to make sure I had the right ratio. Which meant eyeing it because I can't do ratio math to save my life, measuring the picture using an actual ruler against my monitor (LIKE A BOSS) and considering it done. It's as close to the 1:1.33 ratio as I could get it.

As for the fonts, I used PicMonkey.com (thanks to Meagan for the suggestion!), which is what I'd used for the original outtakes. Goddess knows I did not want to use the Papyrus font (aka the pseudo-Celtic Wiccan font you see on all the New Age books), nor did I want to use the same science fiction fonts everywhere else. Something just that bit unique, but not overly so. The title is Geo Sans Light (bolded), and the subtitle and author name are both De Walpergen Pica.

So, total cost today? Just $41 for the five download credits on Shutterstock. I already own Photoshop, and used the free level of PicMonkey. Not bad at all.


Next up: Continuing the work on the final line edit, and uploading. :)

So. What was 2014 all about, anyway?

Personally I'd say it was a banner year, with room for future improvement. I hit a hell of a lot of goals I wanted to hit this year. I've missed a few, some failing spectacularly, but for the most part I'm truly happy with how the year turned out. I have new goals for the next year, many that are quite different from the past few years. It's not so much a continued 'ramping up the output' like the last few years, but more along the lines of taking different paths. I'll explain this more in my New Year's Day entry a few days from now...this entry is all about what I've done this past year.

Writing. Despite not having a complete product to release to the world (yet!), I'm actually quite happy with the output I had this year. I also put a number of stagnant and stalled projects to bed and labeled them Trunked. The main focus for most of the year was on finishing the revision of the trilogy, and I nailed that one halfway through the year. It still needs a bit of work, but it's a hell of a lot further along than it was previously. I managed to keep a near-daily personal journal the entire year, only skipping the weekends and the occasional weekday--itself a surprise, given that past journals rarely lasted for that long. I was much more active with my daily words, utilizing the 750 Words website. I had dry spells with no words, but I also had a very long and fruitful month and a half of daily words as well. I also came up with a number of interesting ideas and passages via the 750 Words site, and they've given me inspiration for future projects. The poetry was touch and go, but it was never forgotten. As for the Trunked items, this was a very personal decision--I felt that many of these ideas had been sitting around gathering dust, and I could not find adequate reason to continue them. The half-ideas (demos if you will) were never expanded, one of the well-intentioned projects came to a halt, and others were simply so old that if I still hadn't touched them after all this time, they probably weren't worth revisiting. This also gave me a bit of a tabula rasa for newer and fresher ideas to come in. All in all, I'd say I managed to hit the most important goal of getting better at my craft, and that was my main focus all along. I'll be starting fresh and ready to go come the new year.

Music. I did not get any recording done this year as I'd hoped, but I did get a lot of practice in, and that's the most important part. I've got a few snippets of songs in my head that I'd like to expand on in the new year. Earlier this month I found, much to my annoyance and frustration, that the audio software I use stopped working due to shady business practices on behalf of NCH Software. I really liked their software, but I will no longer work with a company who forces older versions to stop working so users must repurchase the new versions. I've since gone with Audacity and hope it works to my advantage.

Artwork. Being a part of the Inktober meme this year was quite possibly the most fun thing I've done this year. I'd stopped doodling some time ago for various reasons (mainly because my writing work is almost completely on PC), and even though I have the Wacom tablet, I don't nearly use it as often as I should. Doing Inktober was a great push, however...it forced me to draw something almost every day of that month, and in the process reawakened my love for drawing. I also started following a handful of artists on Tumblr to inspire me to draw more as well. I still have a long way to go on this, but the impetus is now there.

Photography. This one's a relatively new goal...I've been more excited about photography for a few years now, but 2014 was the year I stepped up my game with a new and slightly more professional camera. I've taken quite a few pictures this year, and even though I may not have posted them all online, I'm visibly getting better at it. In a roundabout way I'm revisiting my college years and relearning how to capture something visual--this time with still photography rather than moving film. I'd love to see where this leads.

Personal. Yeah, I admit it. I'm getting a little bit older and a little bit slower. I've been keeping an eye on my physical and mental health, going to the YMCA with Emm (although our Q4 attendance has been embarrassingly poor due to work and other issues), eating better, snacking less, and so on. I made a lot of personal moves to avoid or bypass emotional stress, which in the process has brought down my blood pressure and lifted my peace of mind. I'll continue this in the new year.


All in all, I think I did pretty damn good this year. I met my personal goals, with the aim of improving them and continuing in that direction. I'm definitely looking forward to a busy yet extremely fruitful 2015.

For those of you who follow me over on my Tumblr site, you may have noticed I've decided to take part in Inktober, which I would describe as an artist's version of NaNoWriMo--draw something every day of the month and post it somewhere using the #inktober hashtag. The only rule being the end result has to be in ink (and again that leaves it wide open--I've used both my art pens and a ballpoint Bic from my back pocket). It's been fun so far, because I get to doodle something every day! I'm not going out of my way to make a masterpiece...just a caricature or a Murph drawing or something that usually takes no more than a half-hour tops to make, and post it using my phone.

This is on top of my ongoing attempt to ramp up the output. Per my last post, I did pretty good with hitting goal at 750Words.com 29 out of the 30 days. Some of those entries were just personal ramblings, but many of them ended up being exercises in figuring out who the characters in my latest project are. I'd have conversations with myself, asking 'what does [character] look like?' or 'what's their ultimate goal in the story?' and so on, and it really helped me figure out where it's going. The other goal of using 750Words is that it forces me to sit down and think about writing-related things for a bit--it's breaking the wall of procrastination that bites me in the ass so often. And ultimately, it's gotten me back to the 2001-2003 levels of dedication to my writing, which is what I've been aiming for. Those were the Trilogy years where I was down in the Belfry without fail, every single day, working on something...and this is exactly what I've been aiming for, and I'm quite happy about that.

Oh! And also, we have a new modem/router! Yay! Our 2Wire has been in the apartment for a few good years, and it was starting to crap out more than usual. It would drop at the most inopportune times, especially while we were working. I'll admit we were taxing it during the day, what with her terminal, my work router, and me streaming a radio station. This new one's a Pace and it's working a treat. Quite happy with it so far.

So. Today's goal, outside of writing? Ice cream! I heard tell that there's a nifty ice cream shop down in the Sunset on Noriega that we should check out. Has numerous flavors and they're made locally, and it's quite a find. We may just jump on the 29 today and check it out. :)

Sunday is here once again. These weekends go by way too quick! Ah well...at least I'll be on another vacaction in another few weeks, in which we're going to Portland OR for a few days. [I promise I won't come back home wearing a trilby, a beard, tight chinos and singing Lumineers songs.] That'll be our last vacation week for the year (well, for me, anyway), so I'll consider that my own official start of Q4...slogging through the remainder of the year with nary a day off and too many ridiculous requests coming my way at work.

Yesterday was quite productive, actually. A road trip to Half Moon Bay for picture-taking (part of a writing project I've taken part in), we also got some shopping done at HMB's farmer's market as well as a few other stores. I zipped out again for more shopping at TJ's, with a side trip to the bank for funds and quarters, and finally forced myself to stop at Jiffy Lube on the way home to buy new wiper blades for the car. Heh--man, when the guy at the garage took the old ones off, the look on his face was priceless, they were so bad!!

Also, yesterday was the day Jonc gets CDs in the mail! I'd found a sweet deal on the new George Harrison box set (The Apple Years 1968-75) on Amazon and ordered it for the collection. [Will I need to get 2004's Dark Horse Years box set now...? Maybe...] It's a nice package and the cd packages look pretty sharp, with some interesting recent commentary on it. Best one is George's son Dhani talking about the cover of Electronic Sound, with George explaining exactly who the people in the painting are!

Today? Not too much planned. Going to try to sneak in some artwork and other things that I didn't get to last weekend. I've also been doing pretty good with the 750 Words lately, so I'll be able to sneak that in as well, in amongst the football games and other things going on.

Writingwise, Two Thousand is coming along quite nicely. I like the characters I've created, and I'm having a hell of a lot of fun with the dialogue. After the (admittedly startling) realization that Chapter 1 could sit alone as a short story (more on that in a sec), I came to the conclusion that this book would grow in the same way, each chapter a standalone that ultimately ties in with all the others going on. The Dickens way of writing a novel, I suppose! I know it's been done before, but this is a new way of writing for me, and I'm looking forward to trying it out. Related, I did my first read-through of what I have so far, and while I have the bones of an interesting story, it definitely needs some revision and expansion. Not too much, but enough to tighten it up.

I'm also revisiting my old writing habit of minor future outlining, which I used for the trilogy--coming up with ideas just a few scenes or chapters ahead, and using that as a guidepost for what I need to write. That was always the best process for me, so coming back to it felt good and right.

OK, time to get ready for the day and get things done. Even if it is only 9:30!