Anotherblog

Jen

Jen
My sister Jen is pregnant! And she’s having twins!

Boy, I’ve been dying to pass that bit of news on. At last!

Super-big congratulations for a soon to be super-big sister. Anna and I will be going to England this Christmas to see the newly-borns, so that Anna can get extra-clucky.

24 hour comic
I *was* aware that last weekend was the official 24-hour-comic day, but I chose to not try for it. Not while I’m trying to write my novel. I’ve been staggering along writing worse and worse prose, but the novel is, at least, lurching forward in a semi-functional way. The 400 words last night after D&D were particularly difficult, as they were written between 12:30am and 1:00am. I haven’t gone back and looked at them yet.

Moving?
I’m beginning to get serious about moving house. Anna and I are currently looking in the direction of Dee Why, because it has a funny name and a beach and isn’t too bad for work. I’ve also gotta consult my accountant to find out whether this is all a good idea or not. Should I sell the Marrickville place, or just rent it out? What if interest rates take a big hike? And so on. The fun bit is looking at places, and our plan is to start this weekend.

Settlers
Today was the first game of settlers I’ve played in which one of the major numbers never got rolled in the entire game. It was a six, and I was kinda counting on the sixes coming up. Instead, there were an inordinate number of nines and fives rolled, making me the saddest individual since Rimmer.

Visitors

Visitors
They’ve come, and they’ve gone, and it was jolly good fun and Radiohead was good too. I shall write more on the topic when I’m not quite so tired. Suffice (for the moment) to say, we played bunches of games, drank beer, listened to much music, and there may have been a little Anime watching on the side. Linda introduced me to “Full Metal Alchemist”, which I am muchly enjoying at the moment. Thanks, Linda!

Ted -> Japan
Ted heads off tomorrow morning. Good luck Ted! I hope you get some of that relaxation stuff people keep talking about! (I will miss him. Besides the good company an’ all that embarassing stuff, the semi-weekly squash games were my main source of exercise for quite some time. I’ll have to take up badminton properly, or something.)

Writin’
I didn’t do any writing on Saturday or Sunday, but that was OK because I’d gotten 800 words ahead. And I made up for it on Monday by doing 1200 words, so I’m still 800 words ahead. Phew. I was a bit worried (and I still am) that this is the beginning of the great big slackness. I shall have to be extra-vigilant. I managed my 400 tonight fairly easily. I’ve gotten through a pretty difficult patch, and am headed for a mildly directionless bit of the plot, which I shall have to spice up somehow, probably by increasing the body count.

Japan

Japan
So, Ted is off to Japan on Wednesday, according to certain mischievious rumours on yesterday’s comments section. I discovered some interesting links the other day, which I think I must share.

The Seldom Asked Questions about Japan are actually very good questions, and should be frequently asked. Neat.

Apparently there’s an official, serious answer to the koan “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”.

And finally, answers for people, like myself, mystified by various aspects of anime. Apparently the whole “person beat up badly is instantly cured a few moments later” thing is such a trope in anime that it isn’t considered a problem to actually draw attention to the fact, even in a semi-serious work. Thus is one of the more puzzling aspects of Last Exile explained.

Writing
Anna and I have made a bargain: I will write as many words a day as she earns dollars each day at the shop. So I won’t be reporting my exact total each day any more, except that my minimum is still 400 words (not that this is likely to be an issue!). I think I’ll stick to 400 during the week, and make up the extra on weekends.

Writing

Writing
So far, so good - 400 words every day for twenty days in a row. The total: 85k, and going fairly well. I just finished a Matthew Reilley type action sequence (ie. slighty gratuitious while at the same time being its own reason) and was pleased that it actually tied in with some of the themes I’ve been trying to develop. Neat.

Friends
The house will once again be teeming with life this weekend, as Dave & Fiona & Simon & Jimbo & Linda come over for Radiohead watching activities. Should be fun. And there’s a games night on Friday (and I won again at Settlers of Catan today, so I fully expect to be ganged up upon) with Jon & Kate & Dave & Kyla, and maybe Nola will come over at some point to see everyone or there might be party activities regarding Ted leaving the country for forn parts. Also, Greta is involved in a fashion show or environmental interior decorating thing (if I haven’t mentioned her before, she’s Paul’s wife and is verry cool) on Saturday some time. In other words: lots of friend activity!

Weekend

Weekend
All was excellent stop caught up with Jen and a variety of cousins stop caught up with Ev stop played some indoor soccer and did a bit of surf ski paddling with Ev comma had an excellent dinner party with Ev and David Astley and his girlfriend Kylie and Donna and Ev’s flatmate Matt stop

No really
Lots of quality time with Ev. We always get a little philosophical when we’re together, and this time there was plenty of time to chat about the meanings of optimism and pessimism and much of the meaning of life. Ev showed off his very nice flat, and we talked about our respective novels and waxed enthusiastic about movies and music, mixed Spit album material on Ev’s new computer, and Ev played some more of his brilliant new Crop Circles material, and then we sadly parted on Sunday afternoon. Somehow, late at night, I managed to keep up with my 400-a-day wordcount. How’s it working out for you, Dave?

Jen
Sister Jen looks particularly well. We did lots of sitting around chatting at grandma’s place as cousin Bronwyn’s kids listened to tracks from “Into the Wind” and played Warioware on the gameboy advance. Jen also has a portable mp3 player, and we compared track lists - the similarities would be spooky except that Jen (and, for that matter, Ev) has been the source of most of the interesting music I’ve been listening to lately.

Fork
The total is now 83k, and the story has completely fallen off the rails of the plot summary and is careering through the countryside, and I’m happy to let it do so. It seems more interesting than what I was going to do with it before, and I don’t see why it won’t end up at the correct plot station anyway. It’s just going the scenic route.

Holiday

Holiday
I’m off to Bris-vegas! Catching up with sister Jen, and spending quality time with Ev for purposes of further “Spit” work, and also, fun.

This will, however, not stop me from writing 400 words a day. It’s good to see that Dave (momentarily) caught up, and that the 400 word target isn’t proving too onerous. Cause then I’d have to kick his arse.

Entering holiday mode…

Now.

Goodbye, old laptop computer

Goodbye, old laptop computer
I’m selling my old laptop computer, a 400MHz Compaq Presario 1685, to one of the guys at work for $300. It lasted me almost five years, but I haven’t used it in a while because it’s just a little bit too heavy to be useflly portable, and the battery life is poor. The money will go towards buying a newer laptop which is lighter and has a better battery life. I don’t really need it to be much more powerful, as the old one was quite good enough for writing.

Writing
Another 400 words done, and I discover a little about the exciting world of ethanethiol, thanks to Chris’ chemistry knowledge, and thus introduce the first big stinky explosion into “Fork” that isn’t prose related. It’s about time.

I notice that Dave hasn’t updated his weblog yesterday or today (yet). Must hassle him. “Bard Wars” should be fed, or it will get angry.

Nerdy
Since I’ve started talking about nerdy stuff (OK, nerdier stuff than normal) I might as well use the opportunity to boast of a particularly five minute good MTG three-player game. First turn, forest and sol ring. Second turn, mountain and juggernaut. Third turn, attack Andrew K., mountain, second juggernaut. Fourth turn, attack Andrew K. twice, lightning bolt, hurricane for three to kill him (this, before he even had enough land to play his wrath of god!). Fifth turn, attack Lachlan with two juggernauts. Sixth turn, win. Forty damage in six turns. That’s a pretty fast deck.

Goldfrapp
I got the first Goldfrapp album (Felt Mountain) a couple of days ago, and I’ve been listening to it fairly solidly. Very nice. Another one to go on high-rotation, which is currently Franz Ferdinand -> Black Cherry (Goldfrapp) -> Felt Mountain (Goldfrapp) -> Talkie Walkie (Air) -> Lost Horizons (Lemon Jelly).

Easter

Easter
Hm. Ate a lot of Anna’s mother’s cooking, went out to the movies a couple of times, played a bunch of roleplaying and card games, did some writing (I’m up to 81k now), went to the beach. Yourself?

Last of the roleplaying games
Chris & Amanda are moving to Armidale in a few weeks’ time, so we spent Friday evening and Saturday afternoon/evening wrapping up some of the dozens of games that we’ve played over the years. And also played lots of “Apples to Apples” and tried out “Citadels”, a game I bought a while ago but never got a chance to play.

I have generally refrained from roleplaying anecdotes on this weblog, but I can’t resist mentioning that I rolled a 01, the best possible number on percentile dice for the gaming system we use, for a “luck” roll regarding how much money our characters got for their last mission. So we leave old Scrubby Jack, Meppy, Green Granny and Slanger as millionaires - certainly a step up from their beginning in the game (and for the vast majority of it) as sewer scavengers…

Aurealis: Jon & Kate triumphant!
I have it on third-hand web-based information (seeing as the Aurealis site doesn’t have the info up yet) that Jon & Kate won the Aurealis award for best science-fiction novel, with “Fallen Gods”. Way-hay!

Starsky & Hutch
Anna & I decided on a movie marathon on Sunday night, and conned Jon & Kate into coming along. First up was Starsky & Hutch, which managed to be not very funny at all (to the extent that Kate was genuinely wandering if it was supposed to be comedy) and only mildly entertaining. Almost forgotten already. The most notable scene was the one in which the sound screwed up and seemed to drop two or three octaves. This happened as the main characters were dressed up as mimes and doing a mime routine, so it took us a moment to realise that this was not artisitic choice.

The second film didn’t even get to the projection booth before the problems started. An usher came out and told us that it was broken, and that we were going to vote for which film to show instead: a choice of “Scooby-Doo 2″, “50 First Dates”, and a third movie so unmemorably titled that I have forgotten it’s name and subject. I wasn’t particularly displeased with the original movie breaking, as I didn’t really want to see “Haunted Mansion” anyway, and was intending to drop Jon & Kate back home in that time. But when the audience voted for “50 First Dates”, which we’d seen, Anna joined me and we skipped the remainder of the marathon.

Dave
Oh, and congratulations to Dave for getting his latest chapter out. Good stuff! Keep it up!

Writing

Writing
Another two days, another 800 words. I hasten to add that the words I am writing are not good words, not Kate-quality or Dave-quality by a long shot. My standards are low. I am relying on at least two more drafts to sort things out. The reason I’m writing poorly and quickly is that it is forcing me to get through the plot and sort through everything, so that the subsequent plot summary actually makes sense. It’s much easier to spot problems in the plot when the characters work through them, out loud, for scene after scene. The prose is adequate, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t riveting reading.

Having suitably denigrated my current writing habits, I’d like to encourage Dave to do the same thing. Whaddaya reckon, Dave? Can you turn the quality meter down low enough? Consider it a challenge. Write 400 words of your novel in *half an hour* tonight. Half an hour isn’t a big ask, is it? If you want, get drunk first. Set your alarm for 3:30am, and write between 3:30 and 4:00am, with your eyes shut.

OK, don’t do that.

But half an hour. That ain’t a lot. Write the 400 words. If you’re halfway happy with them, great, go watch DVDs of Buffy for the rest of the evening. Otherwise, spend another half hour fixing what you wrote. That’s still 400 words in an hour. How hard is that?

Great moments in nerddom
Last night, Anna and I went to see Katie Noonan perform with a jazz band and orchestra. We arrived late and missed the first song, but I wasn’t too worried ’cause I’m not a huge Katie Noonan fan - this was more of a present for Anna, who is. (Anna was responsible for us being late, so no guilty feelings there.)

Anyway, it was all rather excellent; a collection of Jazz standards and more unusual fare. She did a couple of duets with her mother, who is an opera singer, and they did an operatic duet (the song that gets used in the British Airway ads, and of which I am embarassed to admit I have forgotten the name and composer).

I was looking around the audience at the half-time mark, seeing if I knew anyone, when I spotted Dri, a fellow Nanowrimo-er. We’d chatted a couple of times at Nanowrimo gatherings last year, and she lent me Ursula LeGuin’s “The Lathe of Heaven”, which I still haven’t read. However, she was a long way away, and on a different level, and I wasn’t *completely* sure that it was her.

Enter the laptop computer. I’d brought it with me to do some writing in the interval (and from which looking around the audience was a distraction). It was easy enough to turn the font/magnification up high in my editor, and write

“Nano
wrimo”

in great big letters on the screen, and it proved effective too, ’cause she noticed fairly quickly. So we waved at each other, and I went back to writing.

When Anna got back from getting her snack, I mentioned this amusing banner-writing thing to Anna, and then noticed that my latest bit of writing had gotten me up to exactly 79k words.

“79k
words…”

I wrote, and pointed it at Dri.

“Your
self?”

Two thumbs down from her, which was a little disappointing. I’d read a bit of her novel, and rather enjoyed it.

Anna grabbed the laptop and typed

“He’s a
nerd!”

Which was a fair cop.

Writing

Writing
Slogged through the 400 last night, then collapsed into bed early. I’m aiming for the time in which 400 words is so easy it doesn’t rate a mention on the weblog, but since it’s my current obsession, you’ll have to suffer along with me.

It is good to see Dave creaking into action, though, and if the only benefit of writing up my progress is to help push his progress along so that I don’t have to call and hassle him, I’m happy. I’m looking forward to his next chapter.

Button Men
We tried playing Settlers at lunch today, but got kicked out of the meeting room by people actually holding a meeting. So I showed the others how to play Button Men, and we played a couple of rounds. Good fun.