Milestones, Marathons and Midlife

The word of the week is inchoation.

Feb 10 - Generalities

This week I've been feeling… awkward.

Not in terms of tripping over things or being generally klutzy, but rather in a personal and general sense.

Maybe it's just a midlife thing, or something else; I'm not sure. In this new year, I've been consciously redirecting my rather-busy-brain from ruminating about things over which I have no control and to instead focus on the good things that I can direct my energies into.

Life's a beach ...

Oddly, it's the small things that we tend to notice when we' re not trying to constantly redraw the big picture of our life or re-examine it through a microscope.

Do more and worry less; I think that's a good place to start each day from.

Feb 11 - Writing Marathon

My writing bonanza continues this week!

Having three days off in a row is a wonderful thing for my creative side. Today was the first of three consecutive days that I spent writing, spending at least 8 to 10 hours a day editing my novel.

It's a fantastic feeling to fully immerse yourself into one's own creative world and have nothing else on your mind all day long. Chapter after chapter spent by as it was edited, helpfully input by my mom who has volunteered her time as before to type my dictated words as I go along.

The method works wonderfully, freeing me to visualize what I need to in my head and the word simply appear on a computer. Having someone else as familiar as I am with my creative work is also hugely beneficial, as I can bounce ideas off them and we can reach a better understanding together of how the work can be improved.

Simplify.

At the end of this week's session, we made it almost halfway through the book in a solid pass - one of many, of course. My previous week saw us create over 30 pages of notes to help improve the book on the next few passes, as we look to tidy up plot threads and many other aspects of the novel to make it a beautifully cohesive whole for the reader.

I'm very excited to continue the pushing this process each week this spring until my third draft is complete!

Feb 12 - Comix?

This month I'm trying something new: digital comics.

There many popular digital comics applications and programs out there, which can make it a little hard to choose. I ended up picking the high-rated Comixology app, in the main because it has a fair few free comics on a regular basis. Not to mention things going on sale for very low prices, which I also like.

You'd think that I would've got into digital comics earlier, but truth be told, I don't really read or collect comics. Sad to say, I speed through when I read, generally not paying too much attention to all the gorgeous artwork in order to read the story in the word bubbles.

That is to say, I read my comics like I read my books. Which is admittedly a disservice to comics, as the whole point of the medium is the visuals that will convey the story as well as the words.

All the same, comics are wonderful in that you can find unusual stories that you wouldn't be able to find in the printed word alone. Such is the case with one of my purchases: Robotech - Voltron, which is a crossover story that is quite common in the comic book world. While I thought it had a less-than-promising start in the first issue, and I'm concerned that the stories a little thin, it looks like it's made by loving fans so I'm willing to follow it for a few issues to see where it goes.

Feb 13 - Back to the normal

It was a tad difficult easing back into reality today.

Spending the last three days living inside the world of my novel was very intense and rewarding. Climbing back out of that creative cubbyhole was a little difficult, but I had things to do today that could be put off any longer - boring things, to be sure, but still necessary for daily life.

It's thrilling to imagine myself writing for living, as it comes to me more naturally every time that I immerse myself in the art of the written word. Being able to create every day and earn a living at the same time would be a wonderful, almost unimaginably fantastic and financially fun thing to do.

Small steps to get there though, I know. Part of what I do now is researching the business side of things, getting my head around what needs to be done to give my creative work the boost it needs to reach an audience( or five! )around the world. As a famous inventor once said:

Right now in 2014, I'm sweating the hard work weekly to make good things happen!

And on a related note, for your amusement: "Let It Go" as sung by the cast of Star Trek First Contact - it's genius!

Feb 14 - Keyboard Lucky

After seven years, I've finally replaced my computer keyboard.

Actually, that's not true; I purchased a new keyboard and I'm still keeping the other one, which still works fine. Both are made by Logitech and both are wireless, which is essential as I don't like wires which restrict where I can sit in the room.

The problem is that my old keyboard, isn't backlit and it's difficult to see in the dark - doubly so when half of the keys have had their letters worn away.

It glows in the dark!

The new keyboard is a Logitech K800 and it's stunning! The keys are well-shaped, the backlighting is adjustable in its intensity and it has enough additional features that it's almost as useful as my previous keyboard. The battery life isn't as good though, as it uses a rechargeable battery that lasts only about a day compared to my trusty old Logitech LX710, which uses rechargeable AA's that last months.

All the same, it's wonderful to be able to type and see exactly what's under my fingers again. Even though I use DragonDictate to type longer entries of text, having a keyboard is still essential to the operation of my computer and to being a writer in general. I highly recommend the K800, when you can get on sale, as I did this week… 

It definitely makes me happy!

Feb 15 - Twice Thankful

Today marks two middling milestones for me.

The first is my one year anniversary at Staples. It's an important thing to me as I spent a year looking for a job before Staples finally took a chance on me; it was very wearing, as I'm sure regular readers of this blog noticed from my post during that difficult time. While my current job is still stressful some days and doesn't do much to reduce my bills overall, I've been very very fortunate when it comes to people I work with and to have a job in general which are not all that available here in Victoria, still.

The second milestone today was when this very blog logged its 20,000th hit!

On average, this blog gets almost 10 hits a day, which is decent considering it's just written for personal reasons and not commercial. Interestingly, if I'd decided way back in 2007 to monetize my blog using Google AdSense, I'd have earned an astonishing $23.00 a year - not really worth it, I think, to annoy people with ads.

I'm just happy that people are reading it on a regular basis, usually a dozen or two people from trackable sources a week, which is fine. It's up here to be read, by whoever wants to read it, with whatever I've decided is important to share that week.

See you after another 20,000 hits!

Feb 16 -Beep Boop Drip?

There was an update from the Tricorder Project today!

For those of you don't know, there's a extremely talented hardware enthusiast named Peter who back in 2012 decided to share with the world his dream to build an actual working Tricorder device. Ever since then, he's made remarkable progress in bringing his vision to life.

Currently, he's developed the Mark 5 Tricorder, which has an abundance of sensors and is extremely configurable - meaning people can add their own creations to his work. I think it's incredible to see how skillfully this extremely skilled person has progressed in his project. It's inspiring and quite simply the dazzles me with how much knowledge has been applied by one person to create such an intricate technical device that will benefit many people around the world.

I also know that I definitely want to purchase one if they ever become available.

On a work note: it's been getting better lately, in that I'm not feeling as stressed I have been previously, day-to-day. Prioritizing seems to be the key as well is planning ahead, so keeping on top of things means I have to be at 100% concentration all day long, which is rather wearing. However it does mean that by the end of the day I'm not a frazzled all of tense muscles waiting to crawl home at the end of my shift.

Unless the roof leaks at work during a heavy rainstorm. Again.

That happened today, with strong winds driving rain in sideways through a ventilation system that can't cope with that level of water. Meaning a lot of it worked its way down and into the store, soaking things that should not be exposed to water. Resulting in my getting home two hours later than planned, a little tired and a lot hungry but strangely not stressed; these sort of things don't really bother me anymore.

Which makes me smile, as I now tend to sweat the small things and not the big, in life.

Not much to add here; apart from writing and working, it's been a slow week and since I don't have much of an active social circle around these parts, there's been nothing going on in that area. However, I should have a lot more to say in that department next week; stay tuned!