Drunken Owls and Other Delights

It's the long holiday weekend (and A's birthday on Tuesday so it's especially longer than usual), so we are doing All Sort of Fun Things! We went walking in the Presidio today, we'll be going to the Disney Family Museum tomorrow (they have a really neat exhibition going on regarding their animation work during WWII), Monday we may finally go to Grandview Park in the Sunset -- how long have we lived on this side of town and not gone there..??? -- and Tuesday we go to the De Young Museum AND go see Shang-Chi at Stonestown! :)

Which means I've been sliding some of my normal weekend things here and there throughout the day today. Just finished the laundry, and now working on my Shutterstock Project in which I share some of my most recent pictures on my Dropbox so I can upload to the site both here and on my laptop. I was hoping to get some uploads done today, but I think this is a good start at any rate. I updated all my blogs, and I'll sneak even sneak in my Daily Doodle later on. I've been tempted to get some words done today too, but if I don't get to it I'm okay with that.

Speaking daily words, I've said over at Welcome to Bridgetown that I've Ramped Things Up. I am now working on THREE novel projects, averaging about 800 or so words a day for each (I could easily do more but I'm easing myself into that instead), plus trying to hit other daily goals such as the aforementioned daily drawing -- I'm using last year's Inktober prompts for that -- as well as journal entries, poetry and other things that pop up. And very soon this will also include finding temporary outlets that could make us some pocket change.

So how am I doing this, you ask? Well, funny thing -- apparently when I close down social media browsers and other distractions for a few hours, I get a lot done! Yes, I have in fact implemented a long-game plan or two here! Seriously, as soon as they're cleared away, I get myself geared up to be creative and just run with it as far as I can. Some days I get a lot of words down, other days I don't, but as long as I'm dedicating time and brain space to it, I'm getting it done to my liking. My idea is that if I'm going to finally dive headlong into this writing career full-time, I'm gonna have to commit to it to the level that I know I can work at to achieve as much as I can.

I'm extremely curious to see where this leads me...!

*sigh* It's Sunday afternoon and the last day of vacation, so now I get to look forward to two months' worth of Q4 ridiculousness at the bank. On the plus side, Q4 in EDI is nowhere near Q4 in retail, or any tax season for that matter, so while we might get waves of OMG requests (usually in the form of "something broke HALP"), it's not as if I'm forced by guilt to work hours of overtime. And as long as the systems don't get all jacked up for some ridiculous reason, I should be okay. Still--it's kind of weird that on the one hand, I'm kind of sad that our final vacation of the year is coming to an end, but on the other hand, I'm totally fine with heading back to the grind tomorrow. We got a lot done, had a lot of fun, and we're looking forward to visiting places old and new next year already.

So did I get anything creative done over the vacation? Well, yes and no. I did keep up with Inktober for the most part, missing only a few days but catching up quickly thereafter. I did finally get a response from Angry Robot (rejection), which has given me some food for thought as to where the Bridgetown Trilogy will go next. I did another Two Thousand reread to remember where I am. But other than that? Not a sausage. No poetry, no journal, no 750 Words. Though I did bring those notebooks with me to Portland, I chose not to break them open, mainly because I wanted to take a mental break from it all. I can afford a week's distance every now and again, I think. Besides, with all my extraneous creative energy going nowhere, it ended up in some of the drawings, so I managed to reawaken my love of art pretty quickly. I even chose to buy some quality drawing pens. All my art pens and some of my pencils are now in a repurposed takeout container under my monitor, right next to my journal and notebooks.

So! What's next, once Monday rolls around? Back on the horse, of course of course. Back to hitting the daily 750 Words (aka the New Idea Playground), back to working on Two Thousand and Walk in Silence, back to weekly WordPress entries, back to the whiteboard schedule. I'm ready to go!

So yeah. I'd completely forgotten I had Monday off until about ten minutes before logging off last night, when a coworker reminded me. D'OH! So that means I have an extra day in which to do stuff! And I've already decided that it was high time to bring in our car for a maintenance check-up. There's a Honda garage on 9th in the Sunset, which works out perfectly, as I plan on hanging out in the Haight for some shopping at Amoeba and elsewhere. Woo, day off!

Meanwhile, writing has been going really well! I'm not exactly hitting stupidly high word count, but there's a lot of forward motion going, which is good. Two Thousand is going well, as I've just started Chapter 4 a few days ago. I'm also playing around with a story idea with my daily 750 Words--it's in the Mendaihu Universe, but quite early in the history. As for Walk in Silence, I'm still working on that on the weekends. That one's slow going, but it's getting there.

Writing-related, I had a very slow work day the other day, so I had a bit of fun with Photoshop and a great picture of foggy Dubai that I found online, and created a mock-up cover for A Division of Souls. It's not the official cover, of course--it's out in the wild at this time--just a made-up one. The back cover copy is a bit clunky and I may fix it, but I like how it came out. Check it out at my Welcome to Bridgetown blog and let me know what you think! :)

I'm also keeping up with the Inktober meme on Tumblr, creating various doodles and whatnot. I had a five-day theme going in which I showed how I draw my imagined maps, which seems to have gone over quite well with the cartography-minded (it's been reblogged a few times too!). Murph has been popping up, as have some fun caricatures that are coming out a hell of a lot better than I expected. Perhaps my art skills aren't nearly as rusty as I expected...?

So let's see...not too many other plans this weekend. We have shopping to do as we are out of pretty much everything right now. We have the Blue Angels WOOOOOOOOSHing over our neighborhood as they do their show later today. We may have a visit to Japantown as well. It's very up in the air at the moment, but that's okay. Weekends are for relaxing. :)

Eep! Been awhile since I last updated here. Let's do a recap:

--Been a crazy busy year for me, personally and otherwise. I have wanted to work on side projects, but many of them have stalled for no other reason than I've been focusing mostly on the Trilogy revision during the week and the Blogging the Beatles posts on the weekends. I haven't really been able to work on anything during downtime at work (such as the 750 Words or uploading pictures/poetry), simply because there hasn't been any downtime lately. Things are finally quieting down, however, so perhaps it's time for me to jump back in.

--Speaking of pictures...I've been having a hell of a time trying to upload pictures to not just Tumblr but my WordPress blog, but I'm beginning to think it's an IE quirk. The uploads work just fine on some days, but stall others. I was able to upload just fine on Chrome, so perhaps I should utilize that browser for visuals from now on. For the record, I'm not an IE hater...it has its issues, but 98% of the time it works just fine for me, so I see no reason to abandon it. The only issue that remains is figuring out how to tweak the pictures I've taken with my phone--about half the pictures I take are showing up as upside-down or sideways when I try to upload them to Tumblr or elsewhere, and it's a pain in the butt to tweak them. Lastly...I may have been looking at low-end cameras that are a step up from my current one. I'm not actively looking to buy one at the moment, but I am window shopping. I do get some neat shots from my current camera, but I'd really like to take some more professional-looking pictures as well.

--With other side-projects, I'm hoping to get into the music thing again right soon. I finally broke down and bought the newest version of the NCH software at Fry's [the famous computer/appliance store down in Palo Alto where all the original Silicon Valley computer nerds have always gone to--it's a lovely ride and takes you past the Stanford campus too]. I plan on installing the software in the next day or so and working on that project on the weekends. As mentioned much earlier, the current iteration of my solo music work is going under the name of Drunken Owl...I just need to start working on the songs in my head now!

--As you might have noticed, I'm in the home stretch on the Blogging the Beatles posts. I've got two albums and a small handful of singles left to go before I'm done with the series. So what will I do from there? Well, since I had such a fun time working on it, I'm thinking I'd like to go over a few albums and discographies of other bands in a similar fashion. I did a few previously (like the Love and Rockets 5 Albums review), and would like to cover the some other classic alternative albums. I think the next non-Beatles post may be about the reissues of We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It!!'s two albums that came out earlier this year--they're an interesting duo of albums worth checking out.

--The Great Trilogy Revision Project is moving ever forward. I'm a little over halfway through Book II, which means I'm right about at the halfway point for the trilogy itself. That's saying something, considering I started this major revision late last year. I'll go into detail on that in another post later on, but for now I'll just say that I'm quite happy with the outcome. I'm also looking forward to finishing it up so I can truly start working on a new main project--something I haven't done in a few years, come to think of it! Not sure what it'll be, but I have a few contenders. As for the trilogy...I have sent out a few queries to agents and may send to a few publishing houses as well, and have yet to hear anything back as of yet, but I'm fine with that. I'm also keeping the avenue of self-publishing open as well (and yes, I've done my homework in that direction)--more on that in a later post too.

--Art! Geez, I've been so busy on the weekends that I've let that one slide again. I need to jump back onto the schedule of working on that as well. Plug in the ol' Wacom and work on the drawing. I would like to try a bit of blue-penciling when I have the chance, but that might be a little further down the road, maybe in the new year. For now it's working out the drawing kinks and relearning how to draw.


So yeah...it's been a busy year, but it's also been quite the creative and productive one, and I'm happy about that. We're on the last quarter of the year, often the most productive time for me, as well as the time of year when all the great new music releases come out (coincidence? I think not!). It's the home stretch, and I'm not going to let it slide.

It's been a relatively relaxing weekend for the most part, so I can't complain. The weather's been weird the last few days, so I'm not entirely sure if/when it'll rain. However, it's been a bit on the cold side so I get to rock my wool coat I bought in Paris, so it's not a total loss. ;)

So Saturday started off with a trip over to the Marina! It wasn't exciting as it sounds, of course...this was to drop books off at the Fort Mason SF Library bookstore, and to also drop off a handful of clothing and other things at the Goodwill up the street. This in the process has greatly cleared up a lot of space in Spare Oom, which is always a good thing. Now I just need to get rid of a few boxes and also put a few things up online for sale, and the room will be even clearer. Yay clean room!

After that we did a bit of shopping and came home with another new toy--this here new laptop we picked up at Best Buy to take place of the sadly-departed Lenovo. This one's an Acer Aspire M, which I'm REALLY liking so far. I'm happily embracing the Windows 8 that came with it--as everyone's saying, there's a bit of a learning curve with it, but it's relatively easy to pick up after some playing around. I figured out rather quickly that if you use the oft-forgotten and ignored Windows and Menu buttons down at the bottom row, you can do some deft moving around. I also chose to go with a touch-screen. I don't use it as much, but it helps when I'm navigating various places. I can see how some people who've been using older Windows versions might be worried or annoyed by it, but it's not nearly as bad as everyone's making it sound. Just like any other computer, you can tweak a lot of it to fit your tastes and uses.


Yesterday I made good with my whiteboard schedule and spent some time with my new toys! I spent a good hour with the synth, which did come with a user guide, but is more of a schematic than a booklet on "nifty things you can do with this here box of knobs and buttons". But as one does with such toys, I just turned it on and started fiddling around with the settings. In the process I somehow created a Nine Inch Nails-like beat with weird noises, which was kinda cool. I'm thinking once I understand this little thing a bit better, I should be able to do more with it. I do like how it has a headphone jack so I'm not bothering Emm in the other room, but it also has a built-in speaker as well so I can use it as background if I want to, say, play my guitar along with it.

After that, I pulled out the tablet and started toying with that again. For some reason it was being very touchy and not exactly working the way I want it, but I think it's partly due to me just being so new with it. Test drawing #2 ended up being one of my made up maps I like drawing. It's not the same as doing it on paper, but I can get used to it. I think one of the things I need to get used to is the placement of the tablet. They suggest you place it so it lines up with the monitor (this way your movements will be mirrored on the screen), but I found that having it off to the side a bit worked just as well. It'll take some getting used to, but the learning curve is pretty easy. It's just a matter of getting used to it.


Today is a bit up in the air, as I'm not sure if we're actually going to do anything outside (plus there's football!). Later on in the day I'll be working on Walk in Silence and doing a bit more playing with my toys. I do need to get MS Word up and running on this laptop, so I will most likely do that today as well. So if anything, we'll head to the gym, have lunch, and then spend the rest of the day relaxing, watching games and playing with our toys. I may even get some writing done too!

So ends another year.

Okay, there's one more day to go, but that last week after Christmas always seems to be more of a denouement rather than a big finish. It's when everyone takes stock in what they've done over the past year, what they've achieved, what they've missed out on, and what's still on their bucket list. Some people only think about it in passing, making vague plans or thinking about general aims rather than concrete ones. Others go into minute detail, mapping out exactly what they're going to do and when. I do a bit of both, come to think of it--I plan on going to the gym more, but I also plan on finishing the revision of A Division of Souls and getting it out in 2013. I plan on doing a bit more cooking, but I also plan on taking an evening class or two. This coming year promises to be full of interesting things.

( Short retrospective bit about cleaning out the attic in 2012 )

That said...

I have resolutions for 2013!

Writing.
This coming year looks good for me. I'm about a third of the way through the revision of A Division of Souls, and I seem to be getting more done at a quicker pace now. I figure by Q3 I should have it done and ready to go. So this means that in Q1 and Q2 I'll start doing a bit of agent and publisher research and shopping around and prepare myself for the big sendout. And when that happens, I'll start in on the revision of Book 2.

I'm going to try and squeeze in another project this time, something that won't be a main focus but something I can work on "on the interim" during afternoons or something similar. I'm not sure if it'll be a new project or if it'll be one of my backburner projects, but I want to have something going, even if it ends up being more of an exercise than a full-blown project. I need to dust off the ol' noggin and get new words flowing again. It's been too long.

I've lapsed a bit on the poetry, since I ended the Dreamwidth project earlier this year, but I'm going to start picking that up again. When I assigned myself to write a poem on certain days of the week like I did a few years back, it was a fun exercise and I think I got some decent work out of it, so I'm thinking it's time to do so again.

Also, I will continue on the Walk in Silence project. I've let it lapse a bit lately so I can play catch-up with ADoS, but I have some 2013 plans for this one. My aim is to reserve weekends for this project, so I can spend a good chunk of time focusing on it, while the weekdays stay reserved for the Eden Cycle revisions and the possible new stuff.

Lastly, chances are good I may need to buy a new laptop, as I'm not feeling good about getting my current one fixed (I'm not complaining about the place I brought it to, he's actually quite a nice guy and does good work--it's more that it died only after a year and he's having problems finding replacement parts already). Not sure what I'm going to get, but I'm open to Windows 8 and touchscreen...as long as it has MS Word, a few USB ports and a cd drive, it's all good. [Note: I don't plan on getting Apple products for personal tastes and reasons, so no need to try to sell me on it. Just sayin'. ;) ] I'd like to be able to sit out in the living room with Emm while working instead of holing myself up in Spare Oom all day and night.

More on all of this come January 1, when I update my whiteboard.

Creativity.
So I received a Wacom Splash tablet and a Korg Monotribe mini synth for Christmas (thanks to my sister and Emm, respectively). Looks like 2013 is going to be ridiculously productive! I've been meaning to pick up the drawing and the music playing again in a more substantive way, and now I have two toys that will help me reach that goal. The drawing will most likely yield more results sooner, since the tablet is ridiculously easy to use and I've had a ton of fun with it already. The synth might take a bit longer as is a bit confusing to use, but I should be able to figure it out after a bit of playing around with it (that's how I learn most instruments anyway). I'm planning on getting some multitrack audio software at some point as well, so you might see me posting some homemade tunage some time down the road.

Health.
Despite our recent lapse in going to the YMCA (holidays and a business trip will do that), the both of us plan on getting back on that bandwagon as soon as we can. Basically we'll just be continuing our ongoing exercising, so this is more of a reminder than a resolution. Walking around the neighborhood on weekends continues as weather permits, of course.

On a more personal note, I think it's high time I had a physical checkup, as it's been way too long since the last one. I feel fine other than the usual aches and pains of getting older--in fact, I'm in much better shape than I was five years ago, so this would be more about seeing where I stand healthwise and seeing if there's anything I should do or at least be aware of. I'd also like to make a trip or two to a local dentist/orthodontist to get some work done as well. I'm not in pain, but I do need the cleaning and perhaps a new crown or two.

Work and Education.
Short version is that I'm about to start actively looking for a new job again, after taking some time off from doing so (partly due to no bites, but partly due to a work-related project that I ended up having quite a big hand in--who knew that I'd actually become an SME about OFAC regulations and check printing?). Still debating on what exactly I should look for. However, part of that debate will also lean on a few things: I'd like to find one of those professional job placement places in town, just to see where I should be jobwise. There's also the fact that I'm thinking of looking into some adult education courses for things that might help this future trajectory. Not sure where I'm going here, but I'm glad I'm in a position where I'll be able to do this.

Financial.
I've been sitting on my rollover IRA from Yankee Candle for too long and not putting any money into it or moving it around, so it hasn't really been making any money over the last few years. I think it's high time I started putting more money into it and reorganizing it, or maybe even moving it into another institution. I actually have some background on this from my old position at the bank, so it's not as if I'd be going in blind.

Lifecleaning.
Over the course of the last few months, I've been doing a bit of sorting and cleaning here and there, digitally and otherwise. Getting some things in order, finishing other things I've put aside. It's slow going, but I try to get some of it done on a daily if not weekly basis. I still have some papers and items to sort through, scan, shred, and whatnot, and I still need to bring quite a few items to Goodwill and books to bring to the Fort Mason bookstore. But other than that, I'm finally getting a lot of it in order to the point that any other cleaning is at the point of upkeep rather than getting things in order.


So that's my 2013 plans in a nutshell. A lot of stuff planned or scheduled to unfold, and I'm definitely looking forward to it.

So a handful of webcomic artists were posting their 24-hour(ish) comics on Twitter and elsewhere the other day, so for the hell of it, I decided to join in the fun. My drawing isn't nearly up to snuff as it used to be (not that it's ever been great), but I had a hell of a lot of fun doing this. Also? First time I ever attempted to draw emmalyon, much to her chagrin. ;)

You may need to click on the picture and zoom in to read some of the words, as my lettering tends to be a bit on the small side.

(Translation using AltaVista's Babel Fish Translation, so hopefully the grammar is correct--it's been awhile since I translated French.)

Yet another handful of dreams over the past month in which I am either in a place that, in the dream, I worked at or lived in or frequented, but in reality does not exist...and this ongoing theme in my dreams has once again come up with a variation: creations I've made but never followed through with.

This morning's version was me going through a number of my old files from over the years, like I did when I first moved here. These were files that I hadn't looked at for some years, for one reason or another, but had now just found the time to do so. It had been a good length of time from the creation of the files to now, enough that I'd almost completely forgotten about them. Some of these files were printed and bound versions of some of my current WIPs (one was a version of the first book in the trilogy, complete with random written rewrite notes in the margins), some were infinished story ideas. But the most interesting of the finds was the artwork.

Those who have seen some of my actual real-life artwork know that I'm known for map drawing and thumbnail sketches, as well as random Murph sketches. I'm by no means the best artist (if anything, I'd say I'm a decent 'sketcher'), but I'm kind of happy with most of the drawings I've done.

In this dream, apparently I'd come up with a small handful of indie comic book ideas, most of which never got past a few pages. Apparently I'd never followed through with a lot of this artowrk, either because of loss of interest, lack of ideas, or other personal issues. There were about a half-dozen ideas in there, either test covers, character sheets, or first pages of stories. The artwork, interestingly enough, had extremely varying styles. Two of them in the dream stood out for me, though. There was one that was very Archie Comics-like, and another that was almost a complete rip-off of Terry Moore. And almost all of them were based on female characters. The Archie one was about a woman named Clare who was a college stuedent (and, come to think of it, most likely a contemporary of Murph) with a penchant for getting herself in Archie-like comedic situations. The Moore-like one was about a group of women friends (I'm sensing a theme here), this one with multiple interwoven storylines going on. This one was rather amusing because emmalyon's knitting habits seemed to have snuck in--the storyline I was working on dealt with knitting as some sort of friendship analogy and had the title of "Itchy Felting". Not quite sure where that title came from, but that was it.

The reaction to seeing the artwork in my dreams was interesting, in that I wasn't so much wondering why I didn't follow through (although it was there), as much as wondering if I was still that good, after not doing that sort of work for a number of years. I suppose I've had this same reaction upon reading some of the outtakes of writings I've done in real life, especially the stuff I was writing in the late nineties and onward. A lot of those writings were done during a time when I was either trying to find my own writing style, or just coming up with random ideas when I had no main project going. Some aren't that great, but some are actually worth expanding at some point.


Of course, now I'm thinking that this ongoing 'dream reality' theme in my sleep is great fodder for even more writing ideas. Some of these realities can definitely be used somewhere as a backdrop for some of my stories--in fact, I've definitely done so in the past. My Dreamweaver project was almost entirely set in places I saw in dreams. Of course, the idea of 'dream reality' itself lends to another storyline itself (the ever-famous 'which one is real?' theme) that I could use at some future point.