Inspiration, Invitations and Insight

The word of the week is ubiquitous.

Dec 9 - Soldiering On

December's definitely been a busy month for me so far.

Besides work and writing, I haven't done much of anything else, which was what I expected going into things. With Black Friday and Christmas( and Boxing Day! )all happening this month, it's been very busy at work and I'm definitely tired at the end of my shifts, though not exhausted as I was earlier this year. Things seem to be adjusting themselves for the better, for the most part.

Still, my left wrist seems to ache far more than my right these days and I'm really having to take it easy when it comes to lifting or twisting anything. My daily bike ride to work and back is an exercise in restraint, in that I have to ensure I don't strain against the bike grips while on the road or while carrying it up the flights of stairs at work to keep the bike safe from passing miscreants outside my store.

That pillow represents my month so far. The penguins? Guess.

Energy levels for me are definitely much better than they were even a month ago, which has really been critical when it comes to my creative levels for completing my Dark Crystal  submission. I'm falling asleep earlier and getting up earlier in the mornings, which definitely follows the old adage of healthy, wealthy and wise - cute, no?

I'm really looking forward to January, when I can get back to work in earnest on my novel's third draft. My characters have been patient with me and I feel that I owe them the effort to present the world they inhabit inside my novel the best I can.

Also, I owe it to myself, too.

Dec 10 - Festival Of Trees And Waking Dreams

I saw a lot of Christmas trees tonight.

My sister and I went to the Festival Of Trees at the Fairmont Empress, held every year inside that august institution. Dozens of trees are decorated by local groups and businesses to be put on display in the main hallways for the public to see and enjoy.

Click on the link below to see the WHOLE gallery, it's worth it!

Right here is a link to my gallery of all the pics I took. As you can see, quite a lot of effort went into these trees and many are very creatively done. Can you guess which one was my favourite?

In the afternoon today, I had one of those weird waking dreams, likely due to my being so tired of late. I was only supposed to be out like a light for a half hour or so, but I dreamed that I turned on the light( which I did )and tried to get out of bed... over and over again. For an hour. It was frustrating and weirded me out a bit, as it's definitely a crossing over between reality and dreamspace that makes you snap back awake with your heart pounding a little, asking yoursef "Am I really awake this time?" in the end.

Not a relaxing way to nap, really.

Dec 11 - Wanted: Wasteland2 BETA!

Christmas came early today for me!

An innocuous e-mail arrived in my PCs inbox announcing that the Wasteland2 Beta had begun and I was invited to participate! For those of you who don't know, the original Wasteland game was released way back in 1988. It was a post-apocalyptic game where one play the role of heroic Rangers battling a great evil that had arisen in the future on earth. It quickly became an instant classic and people have been waiting for a sequel ever since. Thanks to an uber-successful Kickstarter, this became possible and I was one of the many who contributed to this game going from a mere wish to reality, thus the e-mail arriving today that resulted in this:

Email image at the bottom, Steam install at the top = HUZZAH!

I downloaded the beta install over the course of a few hours and then played a few more hours quite happily. Understandably, the game is in an early stage and although it doesn't look mind blowing, it certainly looks quite good for a pre-release beta and is along the lines of the later Fallout games in overall feel. I'm really looking for to be able to play it some more in the coming year once it finally comes out.

Dec 12 - Vintage Cutaway

Cutaways are some of my favorite kind of technical art.

Usually spaceships and science fiction are topics that push my buttons, but I'm also a fan of historical cutaways and I found a lovely article from Popular Science today about battleships, of all things:

You think someone could have taken a sec to align these two scanned pages...

These outdated leviathans were the undisputed masters of the sea half a century ago and it's fascinating to see inside how they became the ultimate weapons of their day.

Dec 13 - WRITING

The words flowed again today!

I worked today again on my submission for the Dark Crystal  AuthorQuest contest, that's due in a few weeks. I dictated the words, just as I did last year for my novel and the method proved just as effective now as it was back then. I was able to picture in my mind's eye the scene I wanted and described it from the perspective I needed to convey all the details that I wanted to give the reader.

It was a fantastic feeling.

Being able to create something from my imagination with nothing but words on a page is incredible and today again showed me that I can do this wondrously weird thing called writing. Thousands of words flowed out of my mind and into being in the course of a few hours, not without sweat and not without effort but they flowed and that's the important thing.

For me, there isn't a blank page when I dictate my work so writer's block isn't a bugaboo. Instead, they're simply me, looking inward to find the window to the fantastic worlds I want to describe to the people of my own. It's that simple and I marvel that on days like this that I can do such a thing when I have the time and energy and assistance to make it happen.

Dec 14 - A Writer's Mind

I'm a little distracted these days - and that's good.

Today I gave an explanation of how my writer's mind works to a coworker who asked how my novel was going. Out of the blue, a full and complete explanation of how everything gels in my mind just tumbled out and I wanted to write it down here for those of you who've wondered how the process goes when creating something from nothing when it comes to the arts.

For me, it starts with an interest in the subject; I goes without saying, really. From there, I do some research to get a general idea of what I'll be writing about and to see if I need to broaden my reading to include knowledge any not already possess. This can take place over the course of weeks, months or even years depending on what I'm writing.

Then it's time to start writing, but not the work itself. To begin with, I set down my thoughts about all the things to do with the story that I think I might want to cover: characters, themes, location, history and all the other many aspects that have to do with world-building. I then expand each of these general topics as my mind comes up with answers to questions that I may have or think my readers may have.

After that, it's time to percolate. By that I mean that I let my subconscious juggle all the pieces that I've half-assembled in order to see which fits best with which. It's not something that I can describe or puts a time or period of completion to; it happens when it happens. The most difficult part is to know when things have started to gel in my head and at that point I start writing, hopefully getting things rolling so that I don't want to stop for much of anything.

From there on in, I am going to be distracted as a portion of my brain will always be mulling over things and putting those puzzle pieces together into better combinations endlessly until the piece is done. And there you have it: a general glimpse of how this particular writer's method and mind mesh to make magic.

Dec 15 - Settling In at Work

Five different departments.

That's how many areas I've been half-trained in since I started my job in February earlier this year. While it's been an exhilarating ride some days, it's definitely been wearing on me to know how much I don't really know that I could make my daily job much easier.

However, I do take comfort in the fact that everyone I work with knows that there's been( and never has been ) very little time for training people properly. We are far too busy a location to pair up people for hours every day to spend just teaching people something and it's usually the lulls in between waves of customers where one can most effectively learn a few things every shift.

Sometimes you have to let go of the handrail and walk on...

Says that's not the way I like to operate, it's definitely been an adjustment and I'm just happy that so many of the people I work with and the customers I deal with seem to think that I'm on top of things for the most part every time I work. Now that I'm spending a few shifts a week in the tech center, I truly am hoping that I can get some solid training in instead of what usually happens: I get pulled out onto the floor again and again until my day is done with only a few minutes instead of hours spent working in the tech center dealing with people's tech problems, which I really enjoy.

My nose to the grindstone, was just a few weeks to go for my AuthorQuest submission. There's not much else on my plate this month save working and being with my family for the holidays, which is really all I need at this point. All my friends are quite busy, as usual, and it's going to be a blur for the remainder of the year outside of my focus on my writing - including my blog, so thanks for dropping by to have a peek at this during the busy holiday season!