Here I go a-waffleing

I'm tinkering with my list for the coming year and I'm debateing somethings.

Not really wether to do them. These are things I sort of have to try my hand at. The issue is how to make it a goal.

See when I made the list last year most of the things I got a technical victory on were because of the rigid wording I used for them. If I'd set the goal of getting a computer in the year rather then a wireless laptop then it would have been easier.

So I'm looking at my wording carefully this year. I like to think of it as making a contract with myself and to say I'll do something is to put my honor on the issue. I don't know how others feel about it but when I say I'll do something I feel it's my duty to uphold my commitment.

So to say that I will be doing a word puzzle a day, or to say I'll do 7 word puzzles a week makes a differance to me.

One of the other things I worry about is commiting myself to one project to rigidly defined and not be able to alter it to suit the real need for the project. A good example of this is my having said that I would design a new origami design each month for the year... and having to realise it was more suited to my needs to fold a new pattern rather then design my own for each one. And on top of it I made it about origami and left out other paper craft projects which now look to be something of value to me.

I'll post my rough draft list tomorrow.
take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Master list revisited

Here we stand on the end of a year and I can look back on a great many projects that I have done, some listed here and some not, with some amount of pride.

I learned many things and am looking forward to doing more and learning more in the coming year.

Right now I'll be reviewing what I have done and then over the next few days I will be refining a list of to dos to post up as my next master list.

Here they are
1 - Write the rest of my 2007 script frenzy,
I've been procrastinating this one but I still have time to apply some effort to it this year, or I can roll it over and try next year.

2)In 2008 rovingjack went nutters and convinced himself that not only would he write a script frenzy idea he had passed on but that he was going to try his best to get 5 script frenzy scripts written. Operative term is try. He wants to try one each of graphic novel/manga script, Movie script, TV, Radio and Stage play.This was a project for April, which I am happy to say I succeeded at. Though much of these works reached their qualifying goal some are in need of an ending and all need editing.

3) Return to my previous nano writings and finish, expand and edit them.

I'll likely have to use part of january for this but I can hopefully have the first nano winner ready for sumbission at the end of january.

4) Submit one or more of the above writings to some form of public (published, or web posted).

I'm calling a minimum technical success on this as I did sort of write a collection of short stories and then submitted several to online groups for whome they were intended. Not to mention I have released a book of hand drawn mazes to the public.

5) Design a greeting card a month, and see about printing them through an on demand publishing company.

Twelve done, three in my shop (only available one at a time right now but hopefully soon I'll expand my store.

6) draw a map to be used in a piece of fiction of mine.

Done and is now something I'm exploring more of as a side bussiness idea.

7) Learn some of the basics of the Sumerian language system.

I learned some of how the system of language works, but found out it's likely to take an increadible amount of memorisation and a very flexible interpretation to use it. It's rather cumbersome as far as languages go. So technically done.

8) Use knowledge of English, Mandarin, and Sumerian (among others like Latin and Gaelic) to devise a fictional language for a setting.

Okay I'll call this done though it feels a little like cheating. In my latest novel I have used butchered versions of greek, spanish , mandarin an a bit of gaelic as languages. They are not technically fully created languages but at the same time a native speaker of the language used as a basis would not fully be able to recognise what was being said. So it's a start.

9) Learn a computer programming language.

While it's not really a programing language I did study HTML and can do a bit with that so I'm again saying done..

10) Illustrate and write a picture book that conveys a deeply powerful message (this idea came to me a few years back and is something I have to do).

Never even got around to doing much of anything with this. sad really but I'll have to keep it on the list somewheres.

11) Make a project from Make Magazine.

I have to be strict here and call it half done. I did technically try a project from make and in fact worked with two projects of intrest from the magazine but one was completed with the use of an outside kit and the other failed to be successful. I'll say done but continue to come up with and tinker with some projects.

12) Build and use a pinhole camera.

I did it and hope to get some of the film developed soon and see the results of my work.

13) Take a Lampwork glass, or stained glass class.I did in fact take a stained glass class in April while writing 5 scripts. I enjoyed it and think that I may return to it when time and space can be found.

14) Make a possible action figure for another project.I’m trying to get the things I need for this so that I can complete this by the end of the month. It’s the little things that keep getting in my way.

I've designed one but have failed to make it physically real. So I'm calling that a not successful.

15) Grow a bonsai tree.

Though they have since died from cold an lack of light in my crumby room, I had some promising little ones that I'd even experimented with shaping a little.

16) Relearn mathematics in a way that works for me.

I made a breakthrough discovery that has improved my math substancially and am looking forward to getting even better.

17) Design a new origami object each month.

Sigh the modified version of this is done in it's way. I have tried new forms and folded some new ones each month. I also have learned that perhaps I'd been too limiting in my avoidance of kirigami and modular forms. I'll call it done and set it aside to stew while I start to think of how to complete the project that this was to be the foundation for.

18) Design One hand drawn maze a day.

I've done this faithfully and have one book for sale online, and two more to come.

19) Water color paint again.

Done

20) Send a message in a bottle, but my message will be art, and my method will get it to people and make sure I'm not littering.

http://groups.google.com/group/mess-n-bot

21) Generate three hundred dollars through some creative project before June. Use the money to get a wireless laptop and repeat for investable/savable money.

Creative financing and creative interpretation of the dealine and definition of the computer allow me another technical success. Considering it's not june yet and I have a computer (which is current suffering some problems that make it not fuctional to me). I'll call it done with a bit of anger at the parts that were out of my hands.

22) Integrate my spiritual world and my day to day together better.

I’ve done this to some degree, and I won’t go slinging it around as some big important story, it’s enough that I took some steps and continue to walk my path.

23) Bring into being a community benefitting project.

http://firstgiving.com/rovingjack

24) Look into getting a house of my own
did it learned some intresting things and now have to apply them.

If I don't miss my count I think I can call that 21 done out of 24. That's better then I figured. It stings that they didn't all go the way I planned but I've done something with them and learned about the projects and some I'll know how to do better next time. A started and not terribly impressive project result is better then none at all.

I think I can be a bit hard on myself. When I look at a project that didn't go as planned I tend to consider it not done, when I could say it was done (all be it done badly) and it's a good experiance for me to learn either how to do it better or that it is not where I wish to direct my energies.

That makes for a happy year end for me. and an intrest in doing more and better this coming year.

I'll work on my list for the coming year and get back to you.
Take care of your selves.
Roving Jack

What was that? Did you hear something on the roof?

Grab your ray guns and holographic sheild projectors, it's a full on invasion of ...
Wait what do you mean Santa?
Coal you say, Hmm, and that is supposed to be disinsentive to storming the roof with ray guns blazing. I think the old man has slipped a cog, Coal is bloody good stuff.

I can make inks for cartography with it and we could use it in the bar-B-que when the power goes out again. Not to mention as fuel for a host of steam powered minion with which we can take over the world.

Mwah hah hah ha. Lets take the roof gents there is a holiday icon on the loose with a sack full of toys that can be used as parts on our engine of world domination, and a sack full of coal to fuel it. I can't eat the venison but the good doctor there might be able to figure out what all this flight bussiness is created with and at the very least give us the secret of one of them with the Phospherescent proboscis.

Hope you're all having a good holiday, and get all the coal you could wish for. Stay warm, stay safe and take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack
(ps. provided that we don't loose power AGAIN, I'll try to write more tomorrow.

Oh, D-d-d-dear

Said piglet to pooh bear.

Mhm, I just got's me a smackerel of honey. MMM.

Considering it's about the only carbohydrate I can eat without getting ill I get a fair amount of it in a week.

Guess how much. Go on, guess.

Nope. more then that. try again. Let me put it this way, if I didn't get some for a few meals at work and a couple of drinks during the week (honey and water) I'd probably still be dropping weight and looking like skin and bones. But also I'd be going through more then the one bottle I usually go through... a five pound bottle.

Thank goodness for Sams club. I can't eat most of the foods there, but five pounds of honey for under ten dollars is a good deal.

My membership is coming up on renewal time and I'm hemming and hawing about it. Like I said I can't eat most of the food, and I don't shop for much else there so I'm trying to figure if it's worth it. But at five pounds of honey a week, it just might be. And I may find other things of value to me through the year.

It's not much of a post but I'm still here and happy to have net access again.

Hoper you're all well, and taking care of yourselves on this celebrating time of year,
Rovingjack.

snow snow snow

Making it hard to get out and go.
I took care of some important things,
and ...

Ah the heck with the ryhming bit. I'm off to watch a movie with a former coworker. Then run some late night errands if I can then Likely hole up for sunday too. More snow is on the way. Monday the labs are closed and I'm thinking monday night or tuesday I'm going up to family. So You should hear from me by tuesday.

Right now it's just trying to pull the last bit of december together and then starting another year of doing Big Fun Scary challenges.

I'll talk a bit about that.

Take care of yourselves.

Yay, BFSC is back

The forum for the year of doing big fun scary things is back on the nano boards.

I'm a I'm another year into the archives of girl genious, it's quite fun to read.

I was a bad Jack and didn't work on Runcible again. I also didn't call Eddie to work out when we are going to get together again. I do plan on making my map entry to this months challenge at the guild though. That's going to have to happen in the next few days (the labs close on monday until after new years and they have the only scanner I can use for my work).

I'm not sure what to do about holiday gifts this year for some people.

And I still haven't done any editing on my writing yet.

Sigh. What to do with myself? I do sometimes wish there was a way to become multiple people for periods of time. I could work on it all in the same amount of time and then combine myself together for memories of all of it at a later time. Oh well.

If the weather isn''t too bad Ill be running some errand tomorrow and maybe getting together with Eddie for a movie. I don't know if I'll be here tomorrow. Maybe by saturday I'll give an update post But somewhere I hope to get one more post in before monday.

Then I'm likely visiting family and should get a bit of access then for my usual duties online.

It looks like it's getting hectic again for the last bit of the month.

Take care of yourselves and celebrate safely.
Roving Jack.

Distraction distractions

If you tried that little game out you either think I am a complete geek or you can sort of see how fun it can be.

It's also a distraction that can slow my progress in other things. So like today I've been swallowed up by one of the things I was just going to look into. Sigh oh well. Sometimes one has to allow for a bit of time to just goof off.

The thing I wonder sometimes is wether I do anything else. I mean I've a million and one novels and stories and inventions tummbling through my head and a billion and one question I want to explore but it alwasy seem that I'm not really working.

Not to imply that I'm broken or anything, which is also true, but simply that I can't for the life of me see myself as really interconnected with the rest of the world. My intrests and projects and thoughts seem to be just slightly outside of the lives of most people.

One of my bosses at work is spending his holiday with his wife in her hoe town... Kyoto Japan. And I am quite envious of him. But that's the thing that's another one of those pointeres telling me I'm just ... well a little bit off. When I've talked to some people about the envy of that trip they talk about how it a smaller area then tokyo and...

Yes but I would actually rather go to Kyoto. I would love to see the Fushimi Inari shrine. and tada there it is. Like admitting I have a favorite platonic solid, or a favorite marsupial. Like laughing at baulder being used in place of thors broken mallet, or getting excited by a recent development in nanotechnology, or writing a story about a super hero named Runcible.

There are things I like about being differant and then there are times where it's just... well, lonely. I think that's why I like going to connecticon, or socrates cafe, or my meeting with a group of people each month.

They are similar mind, granted similar is as close as they get, and even to many of them I'm a bit odd, but then they are a step off of the path most traveled themselves.

Hmm, this was not really what I had intended to write about today, but well there you have it.

I'm not sure how the weather will play out tomorrow but I'd like to post again, at the latest I will get something here by saturday.

Until then Take care of yourselves,
Roving jack

AH head going to explode!

I've sort of been playing my favorite game lately. Well one of my favorites anyway.

You should try it. It's got the working title of link chase. All you have to do is learn about something that you've never learned about before and then do a net search for it. Read the first result that catches your attention and then follow any links on the page.

Repeat until you've consumed hours of your spare time and avrious parts of you hurt or go numb from sitting so long at the keyboards.

I've discovered a few things that I very much want to learn more about and some I actually want to participate in. Learned a few things about myself too. And all the while I've been sorely neglecting poor Runcible, and Attir too for that matter (characters in some of my incomplete fiction).

Sigh, I'm sort of too scatter brained to post much more then this tonight though earlier I did have some intresting things to discuss, I'm affraid I might do a perfectly good topic disservice by discussing it in this state.

Tomorrow then. But In the mean time I'd like to give you something to start a round of link chase with. Here are a few, some old and some new:
Otherkin
Fresnel lens
hypersphere
Inari Shrine
Have fun with them and I'll post something better tomorrow. Feel free to play this game with any of my posts.

Take Care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Thoughts on Creativity

I'm looking at my master list of twenty four projects and thinking that I may not make all 24 happen this year (those that don't get done will continue into next year) but I am caught by the realisation that of those on the list I have done about 15 of them as intended, and three more of them are 'technical wins' in that they technically meet the qualifications even if they don't exactly match the spirit in which I intended them.

Eighteen personal challenges during the year is nothing to sneer at and that's not even counting the other side projects I worked on and succeeded with. This coming years goals will be just as colorful and maybe even more so. I've decided that this past year was the learning and foundation year for me. I set 24 goals and wanted to do them all. But I was doing it in a vacume.

Now I know what I have done in the past and it will help me guage and tackle a new list for this year. So This coming year I will make another long list of projects, and instead of commiting to a certain set of them, I will say that of this list I will complete at least 18 goals.

I really think I have a chance at doing some more amazing things in the coming year. I'm finding that where I should be feeling like I'm a bit used up and slowly recovering from my Nano experiance, I am infact coming up with lot's of new ideas and projects and my intrest and excitement just keeps building.

I'm wondering if I've stepped up onto a whole new level of personal creativity for me. It was a little alarming to realise that I had actually forgotten some of my new ideas in the last week because I hadn't stopped to write them down in my notebook when I had them. I think my workbooks are going to be filled at an ever increasing rate from here on out.

I'll post again tomorrow and Wedns. and tr to get a post up of what the holiday season posting will be like. Work will be out and the computer labs will be closed but I will also be visiting family and possably going down to connecticut for a day.

We shall see.
Take care of yourselves.
Rovingjack

A proposal

I would like to offer you all a proposal. I've written here for a while and you've seen that I do some writing projects and hopefully you are farmiliar with my Master List of other projects.

What I'd like to propose is that anybody who reads thins post think good and hard on what you'd like to do or be over the next year, and make a list of the things that will get you to that point. I want others to participate in the adventure of doing this type of thing with me.

I'd encourage you all to join either Nanowrimo.org and find the Big fun scary challenge, or go on over to 43things.com

But if that is just one more site to join or one more location you won't participate in then do it with me. No joining nessecary. Make your list and see what you can make of yourself and your life. Post replies to my blog if you can, or email. me at rovingjack@gmail.com

I want you to be able to set realistic goals (don't do the same things that so many try, loose weight and clean more... they are hard to do because they are not actually goals. Loose 15 pounds or spend an hour cleaning on saturdays work better) and set a pace for how you can change your life in one year.

An example is how I now face the last 21 mazes that I will draw by hand. It is something I have done for nearly a year, every night. I will in some ways be glad at not having to find a time to fit one in when I'm busy. But I will likely forget and make more after the year is up. I'm so used to it. I've got nearly 345 mazes already and a book of hand drawn mazes up for purchase on a website. There are enough now to make two more books.

Think about that, something that I spend maybe 15-20 mins on each night and am so use to that it's part of my bedtime ritual. They can be made into (and will be) three books that I can sell online.

I've gotten some cards for adoptees up and sort of going in my web store at cafepress. I've written scripts and novels, I've done a charity event, and built a web page, learned some HTML coding, learned something about sumerian cuniform and improved my math. There is even more that that. So much that I can hardly remember it all. and that was all done in the last year.

So join me and ask yourself: What can we do with the moments of our lives that will awe us in a years time?

I've got some cramming to do over the next several Days so I'm skipping Blog posts until Monday night.
Until then take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack.

Well a bit of a change of plans

I'm going to have to wait on the ostrich meat I think. My system will need to recover... Because I had one really bad night last night. Actually it was only about an hour that was bad, but when you go that bad it tends to make the rest of your night uncomfortable. Gotta love this disease.

Anyway I can still get together with Eddie and try to get him to try some new things. He's never had sword fish (he doesn't like fish) but I think I can make it something he could enjoy. But I do have the backup chilli for a week for less then a dollar a meal. It's actually pretty tasty from what I remember back when I could eat that sort of thing without getting violently ill. I'd love to be able to eat it again.

Ah well, enough about the food. On to other things.

I've kind of found a craft project idea that both appeals to me and goes against the grain a bit. Altered books. There is just something that seems sacreligieous about deliberately destroying a book, but the end results are wonderful in many cases. I'm thinking that I might try playing a bit with the trashy romance hardbacks at the thrift stores. They are the kind of thing that just sits there until the employees go through a few times a year and throw out the shelf warmers. I think I might be able to shred and alter one of those. It'd be a bit like shoot old yeller' but I think that once I get over that first one it would get easier to give these things new life as art.

I gotta get to work. Tonight I hope to start the adventures of the Superhero in training known as Runcible. *Cackle*

Type to you on the morrow.
Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Oh so much to enjoy

So many project I need to get down to doing. I'm actually skittering about at a loss of where to go next. it's a little confusing after coming out of Nano.

I mean During november it's really only one thing that I have to deal with, well that's a half truth. I set myself up so that my writing is the goal, and occassionally other things can be fit in. I literally wake up and think about writing and when and where it's going to happen over the next four days. But once I make the goal by the deadline I find myself facing a wind down and refiguring of priorities.

It actually takes a few days to get used to the idea that I don't need to make a certain amount of novel appear out of nowhere for a while.
There is a kind of relief and yet a bit of sadness to that too.

But there are plenty more projects where those came from. I've done a bit of reading (three or four books, and read the short story I mentioned last time and got so caught up in it that I continued into the next story.

I think tomorrow I will try to post my blog entry before works, and use the time after work to do a bit of writing of a superhero story for a web site. And depending on how that goes maybe do some editing of past Nanos to get them closer to the finished point and ready to submit to somebody.

Then on thursday I really aught to get my car an oil change and winterised. Sigh more money going bye-bye.

Then I should look into finding one more gift for family. I managed to find several good things over the later half of 2008in thrift stores. I know it sound cheap but some of these things can't be found elsewhere for a decent price and most have never even been read/opened.

Friday I'm getting together with Eddie again. This past friday we played a word/card game, I ate venison (better then beef but still not my type of meat) and watched Hancock, and Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow. Thjs friday I may finally get to try ostrich meat, now that is something I'm intrested in trying.

The weekend should be set aside for working on a few of my last remaining master list projects. Mostly finishing writings and submitting them somewhere.

I'm already filling up spaces for the next years master list. Oh there is going to be so much to enjoy.

I'll post a bit more on that fron tomorrow. Until then...
take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

A creative mind set free

I'm from the school of thought that says, if an idea occurs to you for something that is truly weird then you must share it with the world.

I'm part of a fan base of a web series of superhero stories, where there are fan fictions posted on a regular basis. I've actually written one about a guy who works in the mall because he did want to and wasn't suited to being a super hero. But a recent topic concerning ... well I guess I'll just have to say it... sigh, Runcible spoons, has come up. And somewhere along the way I devised a super hero in training called Runcible. At first it was just supposed to be a smart alek bit.

But the character has grown a bit from there and while it will have its fair share of absurdity it will also be a well developed and intricate character.

I'm going to switch topics rather abruptly here so hang on. I found a card model (paper craft) human figure that might just work for my action figure goal on my master list of projects and so I'm happy I might actually get that one done.

On the other hand almost all the growing plants I was in the process of making bonsai from shriveled and died the other day. The cold of my living space and the poor light conditions are to blame for some of it.

They thrived out of doors during the summer. I'm bummed about that but I can technically call it an achieved goal for the fact that I grew them from seed and did in fact shape them. I'm still hoping one or two will pull through. Sigh I stink at plants.

Tomorrow I'm off to a friend’s house to watch a movie and play a game, and he has offered me some venison. I'm going to do it because I don't believe I've ever had it and I should be able to say I at least tried it.

I've never mentioned it here before but aside from health related dietary restrictions (actually rather severe, but not relevant in this post) I also have for many year made it a practice to never eat any mammals. It's just a personal preference, but I will make an exception in this case I guess.

Yeah maybe sometime I'll explain the intricate world of what can be eaten by myself, and what I do eat, and things I'd like to try, and foods I miss.

Oh I almost forgot, I spent some time attending a discussion earlier today by some big names in the local banking and real-estate industries discussing the state of the economy and what it all means.

A topic of some interest to me, as I am sure it's of some to you as well right now. And while it was interesting there wasn't a whole lot of new info put forth. But all in all I'm glad I went. It just reaffirms my need to get some things in order now so that I can act on some of this. Otherwise I will likely regret it in the future.

That's a good place to leave it today. I think sometime this weekend or by Monday night at the latest I'll be back with a bit more to discuss, but more detail and maybe a bit less all over the board.

Til then Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Some thoughts.

I've come to the conclusion that I can do whatever occurs to me to do with my blog. It may not hold the same audiance from day to day or topic to topic but I think I need to be able to just not have to portion myself out to fit some Niche.

Besides I'm Roving Jack, of many a trade ... they call me jack of all trades. So I'm gonna wonder and cover many and myriad topics for the sheer joy of experiancing my world as myself.

So to start off I'll let you Know that I am going to reread one of my favorite short stories tonight. It's one of the things that I connected so deeply with when I was but a lad, and it has sort of given me permission to have such an eclectic set of intrests. The story is calling In Hiding by Wilmar Shiras and it's the first in a series that was compiled into the book called Children of the atom (pst, there is a preview of the story on google books).

I first read it back in highschool when I was devouring the small sci-fi section at the local library. It was unnerving that this character should have some ideas I had been thinking of and it was inspiring too. I returned the book and then wanted to re read the story only to realise that I had forgotten the story name , author and book name I had found it in (it had been an anthology of multiple authors works). I searched for that story off and on over ten years.

Some wonderful people over at Nanowriom happened to know the name when I asked and told me there were sequels and that they had been compiled into a book called Children of the atom.

Well I bought it then and there off of ebay and to this day it is one of my most cherish posessions. I reread it in whole and in parts when I can.

And I will do so again tonight.

Then for a bit I think I will start going through some other books and then write about what I thought about them.

With some science stories and projects to post aboput in between.

So That's the plan for now, I'll post again tomorrow.
Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Where do we go from here

Well I've done some writing about projects I have, and a little about my life and some of my thoughts on writing. I've got another blog elsewhere for another purpose and so I'm asking myself now what the focus of this blog aught to be.

I have always had a tny bit of trouble when it comes to focus. I once quipped that I was looking for a giant fresnel lens to rectify that. Oh the puns upon puns.

I did for a while post on a favorite web board about news and Tech developments that I'd get excited about. That was sort of fun for a while, it's just that my intrests are so broad spectrum that any one topic I wrote about would be such a small sliver of what travels through this wild mind of mine.

I'd hate to not be able to share that with people. Because for the longest time I stiffled it because it was not helpful to be that unusual.

I mean I could have fun talking with folks about a topic but I'd have to bottle up the eight or nine other areas due to their being outside of the realm of these freinds and family.

So do I write about a myriad of esoteric intrests or do I specialise and make myself only partly available through this blog. Hmm I'm gonna have to brainstorm on this a bit and get back to people.

I'll write some thought about the direction of this blog tomorrow and then things may really start taking off.
Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Glory onto the Nanowrimo

For it has made of me a wild adventurerer.

Yes folks another Nano has come and gone; and while some part of me shall miss it, another part is glad to be able to slack off for a bit.

I mean my word, I managed 100,000 words in two novels in 18 days. That's a heck of a rate. Even when averaging (5555 words a dayish) But when You consider that it wasn't so cleanly split and that my personal best was a day where I pumped out 9000 words in 8 hours. That's none too shabby. I've heard advice from many professional writers who don't write that hard.

But now for the sad news: the stories, while resting, are far from done. Infact Attirs war decided earlier in the process that It would rather be a series then a book and is at the current 50,000 words only just begining. Portal city is further along at it's 50,000 being about 1/3-2/5 done. Now there will be sloppy areas and extra stuff to be trimmed but there will also be areas that need expanding and elaboration too. There are a few areas in Portal city that border dangerously on monolouges and lectures and so hould be broken up and made more story like and less information dumping.

It was wild and I'd do it again (and a bit more) given a little more time and some changes to my computer access situation. Which should have been solved this time (grumble... ripped off... grumble).

But for now I'm laying those storys down for a nap, they nolonger need to be rushed through my muses. And I will still be doing a fair amount of writing in December due to some of my goals from the Master list coming up on the deadline. Yes By new Year I will be looking back on my list of 24 things and seeing most if not all of them taken care of. And then being silly in the head enough to make a whole new list.

I'm in the thick of it these days. No longer am I asking where is this life taking me, I'm asking where am I taking this life.

I'll be here again on the morrow.
Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

How it feels to not

Okay this may seem like a deliberate set up or an experiment, but truthfully I've ended a day without writing and setting myself up with even more to complete before the end of the month.

I managed to get seven thousand words on one story last night, my last night technically to those of you out in the common time stream it would have been wedensday night. Even when I'm not deep in the altered time frame of creation mode I don't live in the regular time mode of most of the world.

Anyway I then proceeded to do no writing today (again that would be your thursday and technically my today). I try to justify it by saying I'll make up for it by distributing the word load to tomorrow and saturday and sunday. I've go to write 23 thousand words to make my goal and over three days that is only seven thousand each day. I did that each day this past four day weekend.

I also try to see it as just a natural reaction to having gone a long way over the last day and working seventy seven thousand words in ... checking calander... goodness, are you serious i've only been working on this for two weeks.

I'm nuts. when all is said and done I'll hopefully look back on two and a half weeks wherein I completed one hundred thousand dollars. No wait that should be one hundred thousand words, I wish that there was a dollar for every word I produced in the two and a half weeks (was a typo but it brings up a very interesting point). So why do I do it to myself, why do I challenge myself to this sort of crazy brain melting stretch of writing? What is the reward?

I like to think being part of the act of creation is reward in and of itself. Artists and dreamers and teachers and parents are involved in such acts of creation. Boy that sounds hokey but it's part of how I feel about my creative ventures these days.

They are my way of creating something, manifesting it from within myself.

Here is the big revelation though, I spent so many years of my life thinking that these things were simply intresting ideas and then trying to not waste my time on them while I should be doing other things. When I look back at that now and marvel that I'm so obtuse.

I've discovered that I'm a creative person who spent too much time trying to figure out that he was a creative person.

So That is why I do these things that I do now, but even creative people cannot go at full speed all the time. And So days like today happen but it doesn't make it feel any less like a betrayal of that creativity I've embraced recently.

It's a little jumbled and confused and a bit tired, and that's about how I feel when I do not ... write like a nut or otherwise saddle up and ride with my muses (yes plural, apparently I was gifted with more then one).

I've gotta see about doing something tonight and then working like crazy tomorrow.
I'll get back to you on monday, and let you all know how it turned out.
Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

How it feels to write like a nut

Well I''l say that I'm something of a newby when it comes to the writing challenges that are out there. Hard to imagine it's not even been two years yet and by months end I should have a rough draft of no less the four novels, four scripts and twenty odd short stories. With a bit of editing and redrafting I can't imagine I would be completely unable to find a home on bookshelves in peoples home for at least one of the lot.

But One of the things I find about the writing is what it does to you. There are times, though they happen more rarely these days where I can sit and work so hard trying to get the story out of me while the ideas are fresh and flowing. It really does feel like you have cut a vein and are spilling it on the paper, with suitable fatigue and degrading mental function the more you do it in a short period of time. But there is also an energy boost like nothing else to be standing stiffly on my feet at the end of the night bleary eyed and realise, I wrote eight thousand words tonight, and though editing will doubtlessly be required it's making it's way to being a completed work.

It reminds me of a quote from the novelisation of the Princess bride. I'd likely butcher it but Lets just say that a certain spaniard turns to a certain turkish giant and says something to the effect of: We are having an adventure Fezik and few people in the world are so lucky.

During the four day binge I recently did I discovered something interesting. I've got the ability to get a long vacation whenever I need it.

I went in to work Yesterday and it really and truely felt as if I'd been gone for a month. That readjusting to the same routine and seeing people you haven't seen in a while. It had only been four days but I'd been on an adventure, and so much had happened in the worlds I had visited and nearly every moment of those days was counted out that it truely made it seem as if time had passed differantly for me.

Now I'm not so delusional as to think that there won't be a bit of what I call time dilation as the rest of the world catches up to me. I fully expect that I will blink when this is over and New Years day will be behind me by some weeks.

Sigh, I'll write more about this in a day, right now I've got an important task I've to attend to.
Take Care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Wow, what a weekend

Well it's me again, back out of the dungeons. It feels like ages since I've been here has it really only been less then a week.

Well I have made as much of every minute count as I could stand. I managed to get about 33,000 words written between 4pm thursday and midnight yesterday. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. And provided I can average 6 thousand a day for the remains of the week and I will have met my goal of one hundred thousand words, on two novels even with my late start on the twelvth.

But you want to know the sickest part of the whole thing? I actually found myself standing in the kitchen the other day doing the math. 33,000 in four sessions of 8hrs. Now If I could extend that kind of productivity to the length of the whole month, spread it over four stories.... hmmm next year I might be able to do Two Hundred Thousand words for a Nano times four.

Madness, madness I tell you. I think my museses are trying to do me in.

But sitting down each night and pushing down deep for those 8k was awing and rewarding. It makes me realise that I am truely happy with the creative directions my life has taken in the last year or so.

It also makes me realise that there are some other things I need to work on that have been sort of sqelched while I did my novel writing this month. I'm coming up on the deadline for the map making challenge at the guild, and I haven't even started that yet. I've sort of disappeard from some of my other communities while buckling down on this so I need to check in to let people know I am not dead.

I'll Share some stories of the writing process in my next post which shoul be tomorrow.

Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Wonder of wonders

On impulse here i've decided to write about one of my weaknesses in writing... um besides unconventional grammar and ye olde spelling stylles :)

Namely my love of wonderous new ideas and creations. I have to be a bit careful in some of my stories to watch out for this tendancy to have a new device or an interesting plot idea become the focus of the story.

You may have noticed this trend in some science fiction writing. I tend to think of it as the Captain Kirk problem. Wait for it, before trekkers and trekkies get in an uproar. That's not a dig at the sacred Trek. I'm simply trying to point out that in some of those episodes the entire story was a big set up for one idea.

The idea of a Mafia controled world, Or the Yankee verses Viet Cong. Those episodes were fine, it's just not a strong basis for an entire written universe.

The discovery of the ultimate powersource should be about the people and the struggles and the triumph not the technical specifics of the power source itself. Though that is another story idea I wanted to play around with, sort of a home shoppers catalog of future tech.

At any rate my advice is if you are writing a story with a gadget or moral to the story that's fine, as long as when you sum up the story you talk only about the characters. You don't want the wheel to be the main character of your cave man fantasy, you want the cave men and the development of their culture and the effects of tech change and revolution to be the story and the invention of the wheel to be the mechanism through which it is expressed.

Check your work to see if you could replace the main item with some other gadget or event and still have the story be relatively unchanged. Then you know you've done a good job at showing the people and the story and not doing something cheap and preachy.

I'm going under ground for a bit now as I'm likely to just barely make it to the one third point in my novel writing venture today. Meaning I have some serious work to do to get myself to a good enough place to finish the task I've set myself. You may hear from me again by Monday night. Check back On Tuesday for sure. I'll let you know at least when to expect me to reimerge from my writing binges.

Take Care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Be unreasonable

One of the biggest problems I had when I first began writing stories way back when was that my characters never did anything that didn't make perfect sense. They were always perfectly reasonable and their actions justified, one would think that this prevented conflict and so the villian must have been unreasonable. That's not really the case or the point. Two reasonable ideas can be opposing and you get great stories from some of those ideas...

But the real world is messier than that and nobody is perfectly reasoned at all times.

I sort of covered some of this with my flawed character discussion in an earlier post but this deserves it's own area because we as thinkers and feelers are a tangled mess, and your characters should be too.

I the story I am writing right now, Attir sees himself giving up any pretense at being civilised like the city dwellers that tried to hunt him down, he decided to only care about himself. That's not really the best answer, but it works for his current reasoning. But Then why does he go to the rescue of another character, especially at gret risk to himself?

Because as much as he has reasoned out that he seeks to be alone and only cares about himself he must react realisticly to the peril of another. And what's more is the one he rescues has sought to put herself in deaths way. Very unreasonable, and Attir who is determined to not care about anybody but himself tries to tell her never to do that again and to stop he running off to whatever fate she wishes to inflict on herself.

All this seems so very unreasonable, they have made their choices and have reasoned out why they have done so, yet time and again they act against their own reason. Why?

Because as people we don't always know exactly what we want, and sometimes we try to impose a differant set of reason and behaviours over our own true selves. It leads to difficulty and struggle, which deepens a character both in the real world and in a story.

So look for the unreasonable things and ask what they tell you about you and your characters. It's clear to me that Attir was hurt and fleeing the risk of such betrayal again but Also that he is deep down heroic even if he wants to be left alone.

I'll Try to get you another post tomorrow and then I'm going to be working extra hard to make my word goals so it may be a little while between posts.

Take Care of yourselves.
Roving Jack.

Expect the unexpected

Such as me posting earlier then usual. I'm trying some schedual adjustments to see haow to better optimise my time.

But This is also about writing as well.

One of the things that many new writeres and most nonwriteres don't realise is that no matter how much or little you think you know about where the story will go, it will go whereever it likes.

A good example is the insect fantasy story I'm working on right now. I had not bothered to fully outline the story because I learned that lesson before. But I did have an idea of some basic events and characters. Yesterday The main character should have encountered one character who was sort of the childlike playful adventurer, and they together would encounter at some later time the hard but honorable amazon like character and the quest would slowly come into focus shortly after and culminate in a battle against a great threatening beast that is but one of many making appearances in the changing world.

Instead the first supporting character he encounters is the female character who is found by following a sorrowful song to where she is stuck in a spiders web about to die. And When he frees her it becomes apparent that she willingly went to that web to die.

That was not the way things were supposed to go and many new writers would fight this change to try to bring it back on track. Instead I recommend examining why the 'woman would seek such a fate and how does that mentality change and develope in the story as she is now bound to the main character. It's no longer just about his finding his place and she is a tough supporting character it is about two characters without a common place to fit them into the world and how such things are the makings of a heroic journey.

When something changes unexpectedly in my stories I view them as opportunities to take a fresh and interesting new perspective. After all there is a reason my mind came up with the redirect, and in most cases it's to make the story more intresting.

Never throw that away simply because it wasn't planned. Sometimes unplanned things are are best things in life, and in your stories.

Right I've got some writing to do before work and then after work some more writing and a few things to take care of, I'll have another post up for tomorrow and one on Wedns.

Take care of yourselves.
roving jack

To what level are you commited

I'm going to sort of depart a bit from the where creativity comes from line of thought and take a slight detour into the care and feeding of creativity.

Put simply, I've noticed that any time I set myself to persue my goals and create my worlds, the world will toss me the simple question: How serious about this are you?

It seems cruel sometimes, to wind myself up and get excited about some idea and challenge myself to take this type of creativity as far as I can, only to have family fall very seriously ill. Or Maybe a relative you've not seen in a long time and who you are unlikely to see again for a long time, comes up for a visit (it makes it even more important when you consider that of all my other family members she and I think about many of the same things, and in some of the same ways). Or an online purchase that was supposed to help you has turned into a nightmare of things to sort out and fix and return and worry about, that could also end up costing me half as much again over what I budgeted for and I might still end up with nothing.

I've had to bump activities with friends, and some of those I was really looking forward to.

It's really absurd. I mean non of this stuff seems to make a showing when I've the time free. Only when I seek to do these projects.

I tell you there are moments when I look up at the sky and marvel at what ever devinties might have been responsable for it all and then wonder how the same force could have such an absurdly wicked sense of humor.

Well I haven't a towel and I'm disenclined to throw one in if I did, but I do think perhaps that this gauntlet might be worth a throw down.

Lets just see were I can make this crazy contraption we call life go.

Don't look for much from me Until maybe mondaynight/ tuesday morning.
Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Ti Esrever

One of the greatest things I learned from my adoptive parents is how to learn, and by association how to be creative.

I have my learning disabilities (in the area of grammer and spelling, don't cha know) but I also know that the mind is a playground and the world is a toybox full of wonderous toys. This is the most important thing about learning I know, it's fun.

No not that silly memorise by reciting garbage that is force fed to us in the school systembut actual learning. The way we did it naturally when we wanted to know why the sky was blue... and then imagined a world where it wasn't.

Do kids on distant planets ask, why is the sky fusia?

Ask questions, come up with interesting ideas about the answers, hunt down answers like a game of scavenger hunt, and then think about it backwards (hence the title).

It really breaks down into two simply things. Why? and What if? Both questions, because you should question things to understand them better, otherwise you don't know it, you just believe it.

This is what I do with many of my story ideas, take a question and find an answer, or take something I already know, and then reverse it. History is written by the winners... how can it be possable for that to be wrong? Is there a case in history or can we come up with a scenario in which the losers wrote history? Now run and play with this new toy. Be it stories or what happens if I randomly write color names on index cards and start a painting, When it comes time to paint some other color I pick a color at random. What differance does it make if water is violet and sky is green? What if I randomised my color palette?

Why do we hear about sock monkeies but no sock squirrels? What would a sock squirle eat if it came to life.

As you can see having a good sense of the absurd is also a gift of mine. and I may go into that a bit more for my next post on Friday night/saturday morning.

Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Have notebook will travel

Here I will introduce you to one of my greatest treasures (and eventually I will take some pics and show off the actual things I talk about but for now...). My notebooks. I carry one with me at the least everywhere.

They are used not only for rcording things of note in the world around me but also for reserch and project ideas and more in line with the topic today and of the last few days, story ideas.

Now I havn't always been the whirlwind of projects and activities that I've come to be lately, infact much of my younger days I spent trapped in the back of my own head. You might look in on me and see that I haven't moved in hours but my mind was gone off among ideas and other worlds.

Sadly many of those ideas and stories and adventures are lost in the mists of ages past. They disappeared forever. and thankfully I recognised it as a sad fact. Because that inspired me to change. I got notebooks to record these gems in. I review them from time to time but most often writing it down helps integrate it in my brain somehow that allows me to keep the oddest little bits around like legos or some other modular component. When a new idea occurs to me or somebody remarks something like "blankets where the ultimate sheild from mosters when you were a kid." My brain can link to that idea way back when, -frail man battles dark hordes using a forgotten technique and mystic cloth-.

Suddenly connecting those two things and working through some of my other techniques of making the character more realistic by having him grow and confront his flaws as the villain, suddenly you can have a story building itself.

That is a truely beautiful thing to have. Because once a story rippens to the point where all you have to do is write what you know about the story so far, and it speaks to you, it will tell you where the story goes from there.

The notebooks I have at time tried to seperate into catagories, such as day to day museings, and story ideas, and philosophy. But I've noticed that my philosophy tends to bend into story ideas and storyies come from daya to day events altered and played through a lens of philosophy. The ability to even figure out which location it belongs to anymore becomes something lost to me.

But the important thing is to record them, no matter how weird (santa useing vampires instead of elves because they congregate in the land of long nights) because even if you never even use the idea it gets it out of your head and makes room for more, as well as gets you used to recording ideas. Who knows, maybe I will make a filler or alternative story arc for a web comic that involves vampire labor at the north pole.

So there is my best advice right now, employ vampire labor... I mean write down your ideas. They are something you create and that in itself can make them wonderful to look at again weeks or years later. I'm fairly certain I'll never empty my journals of ideas to make stories from before I die, but it's going to be intresting to try.

Another post on the morrow.

Until then Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Muah-ha-ha!

I have the magic majigger and with it the world is mine to crush and dominate because I just the type of person who is happiest when kittens cry and babies die.

So speaketh generic villians the world round. But not my villians in most cases. In fact sometimes my hero is the villian. No not in the multiple personality way (though that does give me an idea...) or the anti-hero way either. I mean that a good story doesn't need an external person to sabotage a heroic character.

In some ways simple confronting fears and growing as a being are powerful motivators for a story. I have one fantasy story involving insects that has the main character lost from his clan and in a place where his people are viewed as barbarian hordes. How does he find his place, does he have one, and if everyone sees a barbarian then how does that change his interactions with some of the other characters who form the supporting cast.

I'm not saying he doesn't face that worlds version of mosters and demons. But really there is no evil mastermind behind it all. Sometimes life just chucks ... um stuff at you and the truely heroics keep going and maybe even learn to see it as fertaliser for their own growth. It's a lesson I've learned in the real world and it's more then valuble enoungh to share in stories.

But I'm not one to righ a simple life lesson draped in fantasy. I like to have that aspect to my stories, it gives us something about the characters to respect, but it is but one layer of things present in a good story to me.

In the case of the insect story it's a story that takes form from the idea of the diversity of bugs making a great setting full of fantasy races, the way to explore it is through an outsider, our barbarian. What is the place of a barbarian in a civilising culture of eveolving bugs? That is sort of a moral to the story. The interactions of the character and his growth as an individual and his battles with and for companions are the details of the story.

This to me is a wonderful story as is, without Damon Cockroach plotting to use uranium to kill all other bugs because we know only roaches and twinkies will survive... though that might be fun for a comic filler at some future time.

In my steam punk there is a villian of sorts but it's again a no personified (mostly) evil. The idea is the disenchantment of the low people on the totem pole, and an upper reaches society ruleing harshly. But even in some way the cruelty isn't for it's own sake. It will make sense in a fashion. That's the beauty of the punk genres as I see them.

Tech and culture interacting and changing, infact revolutionising. The people of the setting face a love hate relationship with their tech. It makes things easier more efficiant but can also be seen as dehumanising and cold. Think how computers have changed our lives, partly for the better and in some ways not so good. The tech and it's users become both heroic and destructive.

I'm not sure what I will write tomorrow, I'm thinking that another post on ideas and influaces that make my stories, but I'm also facing a fair number of things in my life that could use a good rant. We shall see.

Until then Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Flights of fantasy

I'm not sure how to touch on this without offending some hard core fantasy addict out there but one of the things that wears on me is the lack of variety in the genre these days. I like a good fantasy anf even a cheap fantasy from time to time, but I'd give up net access for a week (well maybe not a whole week) for something that was skillfully differant.

So when my stories start forming in my mind, one of the things that comes up is a barrier to the standard format. Don't get me wrong Tolkien did wonderful things, and I have nothing but respect for his attempt to portray cultural and linguistic interactions that follow actual historical counterparts. Norse/celtic relations and languages are present and add depth to the mythical beings presented as factual entities. It was brilliant and genre changing. But it wasn't an excuse to stop being original.

When somebody walks into a room and says fantasy, it is almost reflexive to think Dwarves, elves and dragons. You might even get Hobbits or halflings mentioned. But they all have origins in regional folk traditions and mythologies.

Where are the centaurs and the Djinn. Honestly the cultures of the world are rich with tales of the mystic and none human.

But that is not all that has become formulaic and exagerated.

Cerce was no Wizard of some color robes. She had power and it was less hand waving and move methodical and subtle. Magic that truely impresses. A simple look at the practices and belief of cultures around the world can point us in the right direction.

If memory serves me, the inspiration for one of my novels in the future is not the traditional races and magic but some greco roman entities. Specifically Gorgons and their decendants and the Dactylois (dog headed beings of greek islands, beholden to either hepheastus or posiedon).

The magic of the gorgons gaze could be seen in the myths as hollywood versions of something that continues to this day. The Mingy (as always to count on the spelling of that). There is a tribe of people in africa who believe that those who master the skills of metal workers and smiths are tainted and live semi outcast lives. Sought and paid for their skill but their gaze is said to bestow a curse that brings death. Also among the mingy beliefs is is that those children born deformed, or who are crippled or imperfect through injuries are abandoned or sacrificed. The Term Miny means bad luck or cursed. This is all a little old info clinging to the inside of my brain so I may have scramble a detale or two, but the idea is what I'm trying to show.

Here we have a reasonable explanation of majic, cursed medusa and outcast and abandoned children. Ripe material for stories. The magic is subtle and not flash and miraculous, which to me makes it more powerful.

Source material is everywhere.

But if you also notice I have taken a greek idea and matched it to an african belief. These were neighboring cultures and perhaps the belief did come via that path, or they are common threads found in multiple cultures. That is an advantage.

Many cultures have myths that are very much alike, and there are some universal myths. These point to the feel of a story that make them strong and enjoyable. Tolkien did it.

I don't imagine I'm a new Tolkien. But I do want to do something a little more then the usual elf who doesn't fit in and spend his time with a dwarf. Throw in a theif and a wizard and some evil overlord with a magic device bend on world domination.

I think that will be a good place to start tomorrow. Overlords and the magic ...thing to dominate the world.

I'll try not to be so negative and deal more with what I'm trying to do.

Until then Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

A journey in writing

If you are intrested in the creative writing process at all and read my post last night you may be thinking that my methodologies are a bit formulaic and dry. Or my approach may seem to rigid and lacking in inspired creativity. I asure you it simply seems that way.

The truth of the matter is it is all really just play to me. My titles are often a matter of word play. One that comes to mind is the idea I had for a story title the other day. I was posting about how I'd started to notice steampunk themes in media that I hadn't noticed before I'd known anything about the genre. I used the simple phrase Allusions of Steam. It struck me right away that that was a perfectly snappy title for a story with subtle steam or burgeoning steam techknowlegy. and from that point little ideas pop into my head as to what type of story meets the qualifications for the title.

This is one of my other ways to come up with story ideas. simply create a snappy phrase or a play on words and then justify it, explain how it could be suitable in describing a world.

Again this sounds dry and almost like paperwork or lab experiments you did in highschool, but the truth is more like abstract painting or blowing bubbles. with simple and consistent chemical mixtures and uniform tools you can make an array of fantasies and ideas more real and the inspiration is the hardest part to explain.

I know a guy who is increadibly dry and logic minded who has actually said to me, in a philisophical discussion on the nature of inspiration, that in many cases inspirational flashes are actually micro seizures in the frontal lobes... there was more but I found the whole idea so amusing I didn't stop to grasp the entirty of the statement.

Whereever it comes from it's a wonder to start out with a word or phrase that eveokes that feeling of importance or ecitment, and challenges you to tell a story that gives it meaning and a home.

I probably won't be using the title above, as others have tobled through in the last few days. that better suit the direction of one of my stories. And who knows I may change the title again before I'm through. It less about that then the start of the train of thought and the world building.

Like I mentioned last time, the world and it's people is how I write. If I'm to tell you a story I want to take you to a place that is not shallow or simply a facade over a preachy point. I want you to relate to people and places that are at once farmiliar in their way and yet exotic and enchanting.

And on the topic of enchantment I hope to post my next entry on my writing about the fantasies that may be written this month or in the near future. I've got a group meeting tomorrow but might be able to make it to the labs in time to post it. If not be sure it will be up by midnight on sunday.

Until then take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

On writing

Well as promised I am here to post on what I am going to be writing about and how these ideas occured to me. I hope it may be of use to fellow aspiring writers or at least of some intrest to you.

Last year at the end of Nanowrimo I was wandering the boards and talking with other writers when an idea came to me for a new story. It was based on the movie disney made Treasure Planet, which in turn was based on treasure island. The art style in particular appealed to me greatly. So I began to thinkk about wooden sailing ships in space with crew on an open deck. It's pure fantasy, and there is nothing wrong with that; but my brain likes to be able to explain things (like how do they breathe in space, how can they walk the deck if there is no down ect...) and the challenge of making it not only work but also adding to the story by useing limits was irresistable.

I talked it over in my head for a while and came to some ideas. Air in space could come form a few things, a good example is larry Nivens Integral Trees, which is the first book of his that I ever read and one that made him one of my favorite authors.

Changes in gravity would have to come into effect to allow for space thrvel and a sense of down in space, both of which I sort of found a solution for in an article about frictionless bearings on molecular levels to be used in Nanotech. They suppose they can make a sort of prism that can alter the dirction and effect of attraction between uncharged particles. It's hard to explain and I can't remember the specific names involved. But at any rate the idea of altering the directions and effects of atomic forces lead me to thinking of something similar on the effects of gravity.

Well I know that seems all technical and rather dry, and that's why stories are great for telling these things.

So now I have a way for wooden ships to take off and sail in space. I have space that is habbitable for the people. What does that mean? If there is air in space then planets like mars which float in space have air too, and ships can get there.

Okay now the basics of my universe are being made. I get to ask questions about the meaning of the interconnections.

Then I find out what points are most important to illustrate.
Like the fact that the tech level is preindustrial, they may be able to alter gravity and sail in space and colonise mars but they don't have computers and even the refridgerator is a ways away for them (though there re sections of space where the wind from the sun is weak and colder). I've got to find a way to explain how the air got into space without just saying it. You, the reader has to discover it.

That brings us to the characters. The best way to have the reader discover something in your setting is to have a character discover it in the story. So naturally I have to design a character that doesn't know anything about the things and ideas I want to convey. Building a character up to fit those needs leads you to see a person with gaps of knowledge and flaws that have reasons and value.

Characters overcome some problems and grow in knowledge and ... well character during a story. So soon I find myself with a character whose personal story becomes more important than all that stuff I thought up before.

My story is now about the character and those they associate with. Makeing them real and making myself feel something about or for them during the course of the story.

That really sums up how far I have gotten into this setting yet. I will be talking about my three other settings in my next few posts. They don't all get discovered in the same way, and yes discovered is the right word. But more on that next time.

I've got to get out of the labs now.
Until tomorrow, Take care of yourselves,
Roving jack.

It wasn't so much a lie

It wasn't so much a lie as a failure on my part to anticipate the error that impeded my ability to post tonight.

One of my other projects ran long and then sort of crapped out on my, so then I had to work all through it again and struggle with the silly thing to get a half grassed result. Sigh.

I'm sort of tired of that one anway. I'll slap it together and call it good. The job done if not exactly as I intended is still a job done.

I will be getting back to you tomorrow. I've some errand and hopefully some good news.

Until them take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack.

Well no go, for this show

No luck at the post office. Just a lonely little yellow slip, in an otherwise empty box.

But I've groceries to last me until saturday when I will be in the area for a group meeting. The group meeting will help see to another project I'm working on. And who knows, if things are good enough I might get to take my first photo with my pin hole camera (it's almost done and it's a kit that ends up looking like the old bellowed cameras from way back when).

Once These things are out of the way I should be able to sit down and focus hard on my writing. And with any luck on thursday afternoon I'll get my package and be up and running.

I figure I'm still good to get the 50,000 minimum words in by the end of the month, and if I really try I'll get double that. If I hole up and hide from the rest of my life and spend a weeks worth of days off doing nothing but writing I might squeeze three out. It would be a miracle if All my 4 novel ideas could be made manifest.

Keep watching here and give me some support through the First giving charity site if you like, the charity this time is the nanowrimo parent company that benefits childrens writing and literacy and supports writers of all ages.

I'll keep you posted on the writing. And I should get a picture up of something soon.

I've got to tend to some things tonight, but I'll be back tomorrow with a some basic information of what I plan to write this year and to let you see what Ol' Jack does at the beginning of writing, who knows, it might just inspire you to give it a try.

Take Care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Guilt oh guilt

I shall die of shame, that I must struggle and torture myself with a sea of tiny tasks that prevent me thus far from writing anything in any of my Nano novel ideas.

First it's this, then it's that and now I have to get groceries and then I'm away from the computer labs.

Well, tonight I hope the post office has decided to exchange the silly lil yellow strip in my box with the key for the package pick up boxes. Then I can get it without having to go there during open hours, and get the package. Whic could be one of two or three things.

What I am really hoping it is, is the power cord to something that I should be able to use to enable myself to get more writing done with greater ease. That's a fairly big hint but I don't really think I should be announcing anything until we are ready, and are sure it won't fail.

Life like to give me curve balls at times like these.

I'll let you know wether I faced disappointment at the post office in tomorrows post. And Hopefully by then I should be able to report at least some start to my Nano writings.

Until then Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Nano starts but not I

I've not been able to start my Nanowrimo novel just yet and it may not get started tomorrow either. I'm visiting family tonight and getting together with a group tomorrow. At the group meeting tomorrow I will hopefully be setting free the second of my message in a bottle projects.

This one has been somewhat educational and fun to do, and like all the others I can't tell you what it is, eccept to say it's and art or a craft, and I can't say where it's going. You'll just have to go to http://groups.google.com/group/mess-n-bot and watch and hope with me that they get where they are going and then see what is in them when the opener shares it with everyone.

My pinhole camera kit is taking longer then I hoped but that is okay, as long as I eventually get the chance to use it. Once I have a fully functional pinhole camera that uses 35mm film I can use it for some projects and then take my time making a new one from scratch and tinkering with the design. I had hoped to be able to take a picture of my neice with it on halloween night but I may have to settle for Thanksgiving.

The cuniform is much more difficult to learn then the heiroglyphics are, but I've got a plan of attack that should get me a basic understanding going.

But the big work right now is to manage some of these tasks while doing my Nanowrimos this month.

Needless to say in all likelyhood My posts may be much shorter and a little less frequent or every night and garbled. It depend on how hard I'm working and how much procrasti... um free time I get.

I'll let you know how things are going on Monday night, even if it is just a short post. I'd like to be able to keep readers up with what it's actually like to do nano, so you can see what the appeal is if you haven't already joined.

Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Having some fun.

I'm in that place where I'm haveing fun with my projects and making good headway in great time, But I also see the deadline of months end coming in at me. It's going to be tight over the next few days and I may not make it through everything I wanted to in time. But Hopefully I will get some of the really important ones set and done and on the way to removing some of the big goals from my master list.

I should also hae the chance to have a bit of fun over the next few days, as each of these days has me meeting with freinds and/or family for some social time.

I'm also wary of that aspect as well. These sorts of things can take hours of time and while fun can slow or een halt progress in other areas. Then it's a matter of which is more important, and that's usually no contest. Invariably I always drop things for freinds and family. Which is all well and good, if you can afford to do that.

I'll do my best to not loose my momentum and continue working on my projects. Hopefully I will get around to reporting some successes in the next few days.

I've got to get myself going but Look for a post by saturday morning.

Take care of yourselves.
Roving jack

What do you mean only 24 hours in a day?

I'm trying, really I am but it seems that some of my projects of late have no reguard for the fact that I have only finite time rescources.

I did start, only just, studying the sumerian lexicon. It looks like it will be interesting to say the least. The very first word is a small simple logogram, that has 6-8 differant meanings. Not all of them related in any way. It's starting to look like the meanings of a logogram might be more like reading tarot cards or casting runes. It's dependant heavily on context and more about coveying an idea and less about precision.

On precision, you are likely to note a bit of linguistic jumble and failing on my part now and off and on in the near future. Due mainly to so trick of the mind that make these aspects difficult for me, and time doesn't really permit me to do the nessecary editing all the time. But I shall endevour to do what editing I can.

At any rate I hope to have my pin hole camera up and running by friday, and use it for some holiday pictures. If all goes well another message in a bottle is due to be off at a social gathering on Nov 1st. And I will be starting in to writing my Nanowrimo works this year.

That my readers is but the very tip of the iceberg. But Now I have to get going. I'll write again tomorrow and then likely something friday night.

Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack.

I'm late, I'm Late...

Maybe that would be a good halloween costume. Just get my vest and good clothes on wear a pocket watch and bunny ears. I'd really like to do something else which I think would be better but I'm having a bit of trouble with the finding of costume shops and then what I do find is cheap garbage based off of pop culture or silly things yet costs more then I pay for food in three weeks.

It seems to me we've done a grave disservice to this holiday. And don't get all prncy about it either. The sunset on oct. 31 is one of my holy days too. But that doesn't mean we should crumple up and destroy the fun and adventure of Halloween.

I get pretty snappy when I here the posted times for this stuff on radio stations. The near by big town just had Halloween on sunday ending at 4pm.

NO NO NO. You are missing the point entirely. Next thing you know we will change it so that You put on a costume for the five minutes it takes to photograph you and then e-mail it to all the people you know who then send you candy in the mail.

This is utter garbage. If you have concerns then assemble a party at one location. Potluck your candy. But the point is to get out and connect with the community, to dress up and be something other then the cook, housewife and bussinees man. The kids should be having fun and walking with parents and others to visit neighbors and such.

I think you've all been saved from a complete rant by closing time at the computer labs. I'll post more on the morrow but hopefully on a differant topic. I am not one much for rants, and there is much going on in my little world.

Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Muse Ridden

Alright now this is getting crazy. Things are starting to bunch up on me, and it seems absurd that things can go so casually for such a long while and then as things that interest and excite me come along time crunches up and other responsibilities come up that weren’t there before.

My weekend here is about to be gobbled up by errands and activities for several days in a row, and limiting how much of the thing I wanted to get done by the end of the month I can actually do. Then it’s back to work and scrabbling to use every last spare minute to do all those things I can, before prepping for the Halloween visit with family, and then a group thing… maybe. But if I don’t do that then I won’t get the Message in a bottle off on time and in the way I really wanted to (which might not happen anyway if I don’t get some things taken care of soon here).

The deadline for the mapping challenge with the cartographers’ guild is Saturday. So I’ve got a day to get that done and scanned into the computer.

Some of my other projects need to get handled soon too, while I await some things to get me ready to start writing in November. And of all the things that are driving me nuts, the fact that my mind is bent on creating more things to drive me nuts is the worst.

I had two story ideas to play with in November as of June. But since then a story idea muscled its way to the front and left me with three works on which to impale myself. Then in the last few weeks a whole new idea has come screaming forward to eclipse the others and leave me in shock.

There is no possible way that I would be able to type up four 50,000 word novels in one month. Which just annoys me further because there is a part of me that feels obliged to do it now that it’s been stated as impossible.

I’m stubbornly contrarian even with myself. But I also know that if I do even try to do it and am willing to see that it is not possible, I will have to compromise my remaining time which could be used to clear my plate of some of my other goals. I’ve nine things left on my master list to do and they have just about two month to go. If I use that time write four books then I lose it for achieving some f these goals.

Part of me knows what I have to do. I will just have to juggle the story roster to take the Two that will write fastest and that are mostly formed in my mind and plow through them as hard and fast as I can. Harder than I’ve ever done before. If I hit a hurdle at some point switch stories or pick up one of my other projects and plow into that. At the end of the first week I will see where things stand and set the new course based on the success I have at that point.

I remember how I felt in April when I wrote five scripts. I know I will have even more nights where I am wiped out and my brains feel like moosh. But at the same time it’s exciting and when I do bounce back the energy levels are higher and the creative platue is broken through and I get to greater heights.

It seems a cruel dance I am trapped in with my muses. Where we spin in and out of darkness and those moments in the sun are fiery hot and blinding but invigorating and beautiful.

Blast but sometimes I feel like a horse being ridden, and none too gently.

Well I’ve got to go optimize my time and see what I can achieve in a few days time to lighten the load to four novels by November. That sounds absurd even to me.

Take Care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

thought for the day

It occurs to me when reading some of these things of late that story telling has changed greatly.

I’ve commented before on Tolkien with family, stating that it’s entirely likely that at least the Hobbit would never make it into print today. No editor would take it in its current form. I get the same feeling from Treasure Island. So far the story is not terribly fast paced and is so anecdotal that it’s not much of a story just sort of an idea shared from author to reader.

The Cyclops was a pretty big disappointment for me. But it was really meant, from what I understand to be the equivalent of an episode of the Simpsons to early Greek listeners. A sort of comic absurdity based on current events and pop culture.

I’m not saying there is nothing well written, it just seems that some of the classics wouldn’t make the cut today, and some of today’s works that make it would not ever be thought as classics in the future.

While the latter point should be no surprise (after all not every work is immortal) the former seems surprising to me. It reminds me of the story about a farmer who wished to breed a horse that was superior for jumping. So he built a fence and jumped the horses. When he had found which ones jumped best he kept them and got rid of the rest. Then he raised the fence. The long and the short of the story is that he kept raising the bar to get the beats horses. But eventually no horses made the jump.

I wonder if that is part of what we see in the market place. That we have raised the bar and prevented so great works from being seen. If you take my point about Treasure Island or the hobbit and imagine that there are some of these out there in trash cans by editors desks or hidden in somebody’s desk with the rejection slips out of embarrassment, then you must feel as sad as I do. But at the same time there are other works that arrive on book store shelves that I swear are just meant as decorative tissue paper.

I’m puzzled by the standards that the publishing world works by now. I’ve read some great and powerful stories online by people who can’t get published in this world and I’ve bought books that should never have been allowed in prints of more than ten total.

If they are using some sort of standard, the fence for the horse, it almost seems they changed their mind and want to see a horse do the limbo.

What is to be done about this? I don’t know, but increasingly I find myself drawn to internet writers and those that don’t put themselves to the strange standards of the publishing world. Yes you find loads of garbage that way, but you are equally likely to find truly precious gems that otherwise would be missed.

It’s sort of how I look at the world. A bit of a scavenger mentality. Everybody and their kin can point you towards the most commonly accepted ‘quality’ works in stores and such. So you shouldn’t have to search there much. But now you can find things that others are missing.
Just my thought for today. I’ll likely be back for tomorrow night as I have a fair number of errands to run and figure I’ll hit the labs after that and do a bit more Tinkering with HTML and get some more stuff done before the start of Nanowrimo.

Until then Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack.

A long wind comes through

There are so many things to do and only one lifetime to do them in. Sigh, priorities, priorities. The struggle ensues to figure out where to go next in the field of opportunities and it’s complicated by my tendency to interweave all my projects.
For example I want to build a pin hole camera because the photographs they take are very artistic, but it turns out they are also the ideal way to photograph miniatures due to the focus characteristics of a pin hole lens. Which got me thinking of an idea I had had some years back about working with miniatures, and if I wanted to do outdoor scenes mini trees would be cool. So I have on my list of things to do, Make an action figure, grow bonsai, create and use a pinhole camera.
But If I were to make a web comic it would be important to understand how to manage a web page. So I wanted to go back a bit and learn more about computers and programs, which I used to be fairly good with until I abandoned that pursuit.
The Ability to create and manage web pages would also be handy in managing a store where I could sell some of my handmade jewelry…
Well this could get tedious to explain but the point is that I’ve got this list of interconnected things that form this giant circle. And for a while the hardest part was figuring out where to start. Now I’m diving in at several locations and enjoying the accomplishments I have been working at, and I’m stumbling a bit from time to time but that is okay (with all the interconnection I’m liable to come back to it from a different angle anyway).
Now it seems like I can’t get things to happen fast enough for me, and exciting new things keep filling in the spaces in my life. Spaces that used to be used for taking a deep breath and thinking quietly. I’m going to have to keep my notebooks handy these days because I’ve already forgotten a few interesting ideas that I should have written down.
So at once it’s all going too fast and taking too long. I think I need people. Hole me up in a studio and I will produce great amounts of interesting ideas and projects without end, and then let my people sell it and contact the right people and arrange the supplies and such. But who am I kidding I’d just pick up more projects to fill the time that gives me.
One of the funniest things about this is that if you had asked my family and friends some years back, they would have said I was laid back and casual about everything, to the point of being frustrating to some of them.
More than likely now they just shake their heads at the fact that I seem to have gone off like a hand grenade, scattering in so many directions.
Oh well, I’m a little stressed but I’m enjoying the creative aspect of it. Now if only I could find a way to sustain myself on that aspect. How does one earn a living being … well whatever my type of person is called? Polymathic, tinker, dreamer, roving jack.
Well I’m going to likely be done with Treasure Island by Thursday night; I’ll be tinkering with images in html over the next few days to get a feel for it. And trying to restrain myself from running into that steampunk project I now see some great potential in (I’m learning some HTML tools that would be incredible for this and it would allow me to showcase some of my maps and maybe even handmade jewelry and I might be able to transfer and sell some of it as t-shirts in my store and…).
I’ve got to get my second of the message in a bottle projects out soon… so, perhaps I ought to finish that one up. I’ve got friends and relatives to get together with during my favorite time of the year, now. And I should finish this month’s mapping challenge at the cartographers’ guild. I’m sort of waiting to hear back from another cartography commission. And I’m getting myself ready to write for Nano. This reminds me that I really ought to type and edit some of my August stuff so I can start submitting it. And this weekend I need to sit down and start reviewing the material for the Sumerian cuneiform.
This reminds me of one of those ideas I had recently, about my working with Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiform, Ogham, runes… and a few others. It wonders into the handmade jewelry and T-shirts and such.
But much of these things should be done or mostly done by Monday. That is the goal anyway. Then it’s another week like this before I slam myself down for a truly ambitious Nanowrimo this year. Then I need to try and polish off the Master List for Big fun scary challenge by year’s end.
This might be a bit of a relief before I do it all again next year… only stepping it up a bit.
So come join me in nano, or in BFSC, or just fall into a creative project or two and see where it takes you. Ask yourself, ‘How much can I create in one day, one year, one lifetime?’
I’ll write again tomorrow. I’m still juggling the schedule around a bit to figure where things fit for now.
Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Writing to say I'm writing again

This puts me in mind of the time a freind stopped by to tell me he couldn't stop by. Or the letter I got from the IRS that said they couldn't deliver my tax return to the address because mail couldn't be delivered to that location (despite any facts to the contrary).

But I am writing to say that in november I will be writing again. And this time the charity is the offices of letters and lights, the founders of the Nanowrimo.org and the young writers program. = http://www.firstgiving.com/rovingjack1 .

Speaking of links, I tidied up my minisite web page with all the spiffy new HTML I'm learning. To think in one hour I learned enough to fix all those little things that made the page presentation so poor before. I'll be tinkering with that and a neopets page to get the practicals in on my learning of HTML. But in the near future I plan to apply it to a new site for the steampunk group that hopefully will get bigger and more interactive as time goes by. Right now we are just a single topic on a webboard.

I will be creating a map, and using it as a central location from which you can travel the setting and connect with other people into the same aspects of the genre. From roleplaying, to story writing to costuming and acting, and if I get my say, a a few real steamjacks (tinkering with steam powered projects in the real world).

In other news I read the translation of the satire 'The cyclops'. It was less interesting then I'd hoped and failed to enlighten me much into the mythos of the Satyrs, though I did pick up a bit of interesting material on the Cyclops'.

Tonight I think I will explore treasure island, and that may take me a night or two, with my mornings for HTML and my days being for work. Once that is done I will persue redwall a bit further but I think I've got my answer as far as that one goes. My Nano story that I considered somewhat like redwall is completely differant.

Then after midway through the week I should be getting the chance to play with the pinhole camera building again.

It amazes me to think that of my master list of 24 Big Fun Scary projects for this year I've seven remaining and am looking to knock that down by a few by the end of the month.

I did finally finish up the panelist form for connecticon, though that wasn't on the master list. and I'm making headway toward some other important things.

There is a lot to talk about as I get ready for Nano, and I am going to be much more talkative on here over the next month or two. But big things are happening.

I'll be back tomorrow.
Take Care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Scattered efforts

Okay I’ve really got to start using my lists of things I need to do. I get things written down and then pursue them haphazardly. I’ve been working on a simple panelist application template for connecticon for months now, where as in a few days I breezed through my studies of elementary mathematics. That seems a bit backwards.

I’ve just got to spend a few hours finishing my pinhole camera and taking some pictures, but somehow I manage to do everything but that. And since I’m prepping to do another message in a bottle by the end of the month I understandably found myself reading my book on Egyptian hieroglyphics despite needing to get going and even being interested in getting going on Sumerian cuneiform.

I need to go through and prioritize these tasks. Set up a day to be my polish off day, where several tasks needing only an hour or so of time to finish off can be done. That could clear my plate some and then I can get down to the goals that require sustained efforts.

The other thing I need to work on is my cringe factor. I know that getting two or three of these things done simply require me to commit and move forward, so why do I flinch back from completing them. It’s like my book of hand drawn mazes over on bookhabit.com. I only needed 120 in total to put them up on the web (granted I hadn’t found bookhabit.com yet) but at the rate of one maze a day I flinched over and over again until I had more than twice what I needed before I managed to make myself do it.

This sort of self sabotage is simply unacceptable. I am not going to have the future of my projects and adventures derailed by such absurdities. And it’s slowing everything else up.

These little bottlenecks keep forming and that doesn’t help me much at all. Sigh. Maybe I’m being a bit hard on myself with that. But it’s hard not to be. I mean I know these things are doable, and they all interest me enough to start. It should just be a matter of tying things up and letting go to be free to move on to other projects if I’ve lost interest, but I haven’t lost interest yet I avoid them.

Hmm, maybe I just stumbled on the point. Perhaps I don’t want to be done with them. Who says blogging never help anyone?

Anyway, I’ve got to get some things square before I close out here for the night. I will NOT post Until Monday night (remember that you day time folks should look on Tuesday unless you plan to watch for midnight posts) because any time I do get will be used to take care of a few of the things I have committed myself to tidying up. Monday Night will have the information on how to support me in this year’s Nanowrimo.org fundraising.

Until then Take Care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Connections

Well, some exciting things going on in the world of Jack. If all goes as planned I will see about posting some pictures of some of them soon. Until then I will continue to be all mysterious about it all. It’s fun.

In the meantime I’m going to touch on some interesting development for my life recently. Namely that I am finding that I’m more connected to the people and places around me then I ever knew, and that I find myself … um I guess networking would be the term for it… more then I would ever expect myself to become.

I’ve joined a cartographer’s guild; I’m a part of the Big Fun Scary Challenge community, which is a subset of the Nanowrimo community. I’m becoming more integrated into the different aspects of Connecticon. I’m connecting with other writers on the Nano boards and one or two sound like they could become online communities for the topics being discussed. I’m particularly enchanted with one group of steam punk fans that is starting up and I’ve put forth the idea of taking it past the fan and writing stage and seeing if people would be interested in doing illustrations blue prints and similar things as we expand the idea into a full blown group.
I’m also helping out a friend, who is a former co worker, through a rough patch in his life. I’ve sort of committed myself to a regular get together for a movie, board game, activity ect.

Part of me feels kind of caught out in the open. I’m not saying I’m not enjoying some of it’s just that it’s a bit of a departure from the way I have been living up until now.

I’m used to being quiet and secluded for much of my free time. I get out and I friendly to the people I encounter regularly but I’ve always enjoyed my solitude. I’m a Roving Jack, I tend to wander into some peoples’ lives and you can expect me when you see me. I get along great with almost everybody and enjoy interacting. It’s just not something I crave or actively seek out. But for some strange reason I’m finding the strands of my life weaving themselves deep into these other areas now.

I would be fascinated if I didn’t find it so strange for myself. I do wonder where this is all taking me, and what kind of companions I will have with me for the adventure.
I just hope this doesn’t cut too deeply into my other adventures.

Oh and sort of tangentially connected to this is the fact that about the end of this month I plan to release the second of my message in a bottle project out onto the world. If you haven’t heard about it you could dig through my older posts (or just wander over to http://groups.google.com/group/mess-n-bot ).

Hopefully that was a bit better of a topic tonight. I’ll post again tomorrow night, Saturday I might not make it, and I’ll be working an extra shift at work to raise a bit of money to cover some of those big things I mentioned.

I’ve gotta get going, but you take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack