Ptocheia.net » writing

Distraction is the name of the game, kids

admin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 23:00:58 +0000

Nanowrimo is in full swing, and I totally hit 35,000 today. It’s so much easier to write (for me, at least) choose your own adventure books than regular books. No more deciding which direction to take, I can just go in every direction! The story’s pretty meandering so far – I like trying to tie in details from each path with other paths, so that characters can still get pretty fleshed out. And, so, a decision you make will influence decisions other characters make as well. But, I’m afraid that’s for later. I’m kinda short on endings so far – my main character (named “Mary Sue”, haha) has been killed once, hospitalized once, and had a few romantic encounters, but that’s about it. When I first started this endeavor, I had all sorts of lofty ideas about doing literary tie-ins with non-main characters (mostly because Snow Crash is the Best Book Ever and so I wanna gonna slip in Hiro and YT somewhere, and then branch off in other fun ways) but so much for loftiness. I started off with characters that reminded me of pop culture references (an Anthony Michael Hall a la John Hughes kid, along with a Rickie from My So Called Life character). But then everything sort of started devolving when I started naming new love interests after Colorado Rapids team members. And somehow added in Jersey Shore people as well. Hah! It’ll get cleaned up later, I’m just trying to pump out the content. Writing is rather like making pottery. The first draft is really just piling a giant lump of clay on the wheel, the real work is in the editing.

Am headed to LA for Turkey week, that should be fun. I will be paying a big chunk of Stupid tax to the local Apple store during that time, where my Mac shall sit for that duration having it’s keyboard repaired. Though it means NaNoing on my teeny netbook, I’m looking forward to not having a laptop for awhile, as it will make it near impossible to do work for my job. Considering I haven’t had a sick day where I didn’t have to still work, and I was crouched in the corner at the HP theme park in FL last spring, supposedly on vacation, doing work, it’ll be nice to have absolutely no way to do work. I am struggling with some serious burnout issues, and am really hoping that this break (along with my upcoming week in Richmond) will help.

Speaking of that week in Richmond, I’m not going to insanely plan it like I have other trips. This is because I want to be lazy, and it’s not like I have a car to use (not really looking to rent a car for the week, and the trips mostly to see my parents, who I haven’t seen since last September, anyhow).

Not too much else going on. Now that I’m writing more, I find that I’m reading more. Which is a good thing. Am kinda cracked out on sleep, which sucks. I look at this laptop and my phone too close to bed, which messes me up. So I’m trying to shut them off earlier, and read before bed. But now I’m waking up an hour before I need to, and then dozing off again 10 minutes before my alarm. I just want a decent night of sleep, but that’s been proving challenging. It’s even more frustrating when my body doesn’t cooperate on the weekends as well, as I super depend on weekends to try catching up. Oh well.

I need more time. I want to learn Ruby, and then rails. Possibly Python as well. Every day I am reminded of how many things I don’t know, and it drives me maaaaaaad. I mean, I guess it’s good, if I knew everything what would be the point of getting up. I just feel like unless I’m actively learning new things and producing new things, I fall behind, which is super stressful.

I need to go skiing or snowboarding. I got pants to do so, and have yet to experience either. If needed, I’ll look for a Meetup group that’s doing the beginner’s version of one or the other, with hopefully a carpool involved. I’ve been rear-ended once up in those mountains, and my little car is mountain-shy still!

On a final note, I ate all of the chocolates and now have none. Dang!

Poor little Nanowrimo and other babble

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 05:48:26 +0000

I should be going to bed right now, but instead I will type. I should be working on Nanowrimo, but unfortunately I have 25.5 hours to write 15,000 words. I won the last two years, so on some level I’ve decided it’s OK to lose this year.

It’s weird, too – I stalled out earlier this month at around 15,000 words, stopped writing for 4 days, and then in a glorious burst of the English language tapped out a bunch and leapt ahead. And, uh, then Thanksgiving vacation happened. And working full-time (I was fortunate (?) to be underemployed these 2 years past). I am sorry, snarky vampire story, you will have to stay at 35,000 words for the time being. It’s been fun to write, and I’d like to keep going with it, but not at the crankin’ nano pace, I’m afraid. I’ve also spend the last month itching to finish a painting, but not feeling justified in spending the time to work on it when I have all this writing to do. D’oh!

I really do like Nanowrimo, though. The write-ins are great, they make me almost feel like I have a social life! I feel like a lot of the people that go to them are of the “creative and weird people who Get Stuff Done” types, who I need more of in my life. I also think Nanowrimo as an exercise is really useful and productive as well. It helps to blast away that idea that there’s something wrong with writing crap, or something wrong with trying to write without the inspiration. If nothing else, it teaches you that one’s writing muse is most likely to visit when one is *gasp* writing! I know I had plenty of times when I sat down and had a hard time getting into what I was working on, and so my characters just chatted trivially back and forth and did trivial things, and then all of the sudden these things were leading to plot-affecting things that were interesting and tied into other things and ultimately felt like quality writing. And there’s also the fact that even if no quality writing occurs, crap writing does, and crap writing is so much better then no writing. It’s a whole lot easier to edit an awful novel then no novel at all. And even if it is a giant pile of dung, who’s to say it can’t be sculpted into an adorable poo-pet and sold for millions?

Hmm, other things going on…I decorated for Xmas! Woo! As I continue to rock the purple $1 Target tree. I’d like to find some caroling to do this year, as I am a sucker for singing badly. I’ve got shopping about 1/2 done at this point, was hoping to be done by now but that would require more effort than I am capable of. I’m super tired lately, but I’ll just blame that on my mild tendencies toward seasonal affective disorder. Must remember to make more attempts to go hike and walk and stuff on the weekends, so I can absorb sweet delicious sunlight.

Oh yeah, we went to Santa Fe for Thanksgiving break. It was dry and fabulous and we looked at art and ate things and hiked and I rocked the continental breakfast waffle machine and such.

And I am super tired, I hear beds are all the rage for sleeping now.

Quest for the Fountain of Life is now available in paperback!

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:12:52 +0000

So, about a year ago, I did Nanowrimo (aka National Novel Writing Month). I wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure style book, primarily as a means to test out the Storypath system I’d recently built on Writaur.com. Anyhow, I liked what I wrote, and have spent chunks of the last year editing it and finessing it and all that good stuff. Well, it’s finally done, and is available for the low low price of $10 at multiple fine internet establishments, namely Createspace and Amazon.

Quest for the Fountain of Life can also be read online for free! This way, people can preview the book first, and hopefully share the link with their friends.

I’m still trying to figure out how to market this thing, so I appreciate any suggestions on that, as well as any feedback on the book itself. Thanks!

Internets, Writing, Greek Food, Twitter, and Sparks

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:30:19 +0000

So some domains of mine got transferred over to a new server, and the stuff didn’t transfer properly, and then my ip got blocked, and so I couldn’t access many of the fine junks that I (and hopefully others) enjoy accessing on a regular basis. So sad. It’s all back and up and running though, which is good. You see, there’s a deal with createspace.com whereupon I can get a free copy of the book I wrote through Nanowrimo.org last November. And I haven’t touched the book at all since November. I did go through it with Drew to find typos and stuff that didn’t work, I just haven’t actually bothered to fix it until now. Which I need to do in the next 36 hours or thereabouts, as the free book deal expires on the beginning of June. Maybe it’s anxiety, being perfectly aware of the mediocrity of said book and the enormous effort of rewriting something mediocre into something good. So now I have only enough time to make it a more legible mediocre book, rather then a good book. However, a mediocre book is better then no book, and it does bode well in terms of the fact that, in theory at least, the next book (and hopefully there shall be one at some point) should be a bit less mediocre. In any case, the book lives on one of my websites, and I can finally access said website to edit said book. And I need to make cover art. D’oh! It will likely be something simple, slapped out in Illustrator if I can muster the gumption. Basic and clean often works better then gaudy and overwrought, anyhow.

Last night, Greek festival! Tonight, Greek festival! Saw Morgan and Dee there last night, and will see them again tonight. Saw Melvin for 2 seconds, and then he disappeared, never to be seen again. Saw random LJ friend, and in the time it took me to try to remember how her name was pronounced so I could say ‘hi’, she’d wandered off. D’oh! Food was good, especially custard whose name I’ve forgotten. I’m normally not too hot on yellow custards, but this was absolutely delightful and I even liked it more then the baklava. Last night I did the “meat on a stick + green beans” thing, tonight I’ll do the “meat + veggies plus tziki in a pita” thing, and it shall be magical. I’ll be getting there at 6 or thereabouts if anyone else wants to hop onto that magic carpet ride as well!

Oh yeah, this is a sweet amount of sea sponges. Oooh yeah!

And speaking of which, I tweet now. Or rather, I got a twitter account about a year ago, and recently got bored and have tried actually using it. I’m still wary of the actual utility of it, as it’s another way to post in AIM away message or a Facebook status update, but as, given my chosen profession, I have a need to stay on top of all these newfangled Internets, I gotta give it a whirl.

Thusly, add me on Twitter and I’ll add you back! I am @ptocheia.

I am currently drinking one of a dying breed. Caffeinated Sparks, how I love you so. We might be down to just a 4-pack now. And when that 4 pack is gone, I shall forever mourn the loss of the delicacy of caffeine +alcohol in one convenient delicious beverage.