Smiles, Seminars and Searching

The word of the week is lulling.

Aug 20 – Writer’s Group Redux

I went to another meeting of the local Victoria Writer's Group, which was again rather well-attended( as these things go ). Out of the blue I ended up reading the prologue to my novel to the group, who to a person closed their eyes and pictured the scene in their heads. Their comments ranged from 'striking' to 'that was incredible' and I was simply thrilled by their responses! One person across from me waxed on happily about the imagery I had created and some of the praise he gave was both well-considered and very positive!

I ended up talking with several of the long-time group members late into the evening about some of the general issues I had been having with the book. They were rather helpful despite not knowing the overall story or even most of the details and I came away from the night feeling MUCH more confident in my choices that I'd made in several places while writing the novel. People's reactions to the story have so far been EXTREMELY positive across the board, commenting that they can SEE the scenes I have written and THAT makes ME very happy. It means that the next draft may literally jump off the pages!!

Aug 21 - Returning Smiles

The stress has been falling from my shoulders gradually over the last six months, with each day better than the last and the occasional exception not dragging me down like they used to. I've lost weight in a good way thanks to my daily walks and I'm smiling more.

That's important.

My smiles used to be broad, but years ago they started to become subtle, for various reasons. My eyes didn't crinkle, my dimples were hidden and for the most part, you might swear you'd blinked and missed it.

Now I'm smiling again daily, letting my face do it's thing and not being pressed down by the weight of things on my mind all the time. It's odd, but I'm looking forward now to finding some crow's feet around the edges of my eyes in a few years… as that means I've let the smiles out enough to leave some tracks.

Aug 22 – Which Sci-Fi Character Are YOU?

Quite often when I've taken online 'personality tests' that use fictional characters, I've ended up with results telling me I'm like Spock, Data or other rational / logical characters. Which is why I was pleased( sort of )to get a rather different result with THIS test: I apparently am most like James T. Kirk. What?

Two of the greats - together!

Not Spock. Or Data. Or even Picard... nope.

It was an odd result, but I answered the questions truthfully, so I suppose it's about as accurate as these things get. If anyone out there knows of some better tests, send them my way; I always get a kick out of finding out which fictional characters I'm most like. One of these days Spiderman will come up and that will make my day…

 

Aug 23 - Fireplace!

I love a good fireplace. Heck, my favorite house in my life was our place in Fonthill, where we had TWO wood-burning fireplaces in the upper and lower living rooms, built into the solid wall of bricks that made up the entire ends of those rooms. I loved curling up in the lower room the one year to watch Space: Above and Beyond on TV during that fall and winter; the crackle and warmth of the flames lulled me to sleep quite often on the couch. I've been without a good fireplace for nearly 20 years since then; even my first place here in Victoria which had a gas insert wasn't a decent substitute as it lacked the LOOK of burning logs. Over the last few years I've often eyed stand-alone electric fireplaces as possible substitutes, but they've either been too expensive or too fake( painted logs with a tiny red light? Bleh! )so I've kept looking, especially among local used listings.

A little blurry but this captures the warm feel of the fireplace...

This week I FOUND the perfect fireplace! Its not too big, not too ornate, has a heater with 2 settings and most importantly it LOOKS like a real fireplace when it's on! Oddly, it came with the smell of smoke from the previous owners, though it's the wrong kind( not woodsmoke ). I'm extremely happy with it and can't wait to try it this winter to see if it can lull me to sleep as well as the old ones used to do… but it does have a fairly audible motor. We'll see.

Aug 24 - Last of the Seminars

All this week I've been attending WorkBC seminars from 9-12pm, to aid my job searches. In the main, they've been rather useful as I've gained new insight into the job search process - having been out of the job market for over a decade, I'm surprised at how things seem to have changed( and for the better ).

What I've learned: It's no longer a case of firing off resumes to advertised jobs and hoping for a callback; now it's all about targeted searches and networking. WHO you know is 10x's more likely to get you a job than what you know. The 'hidden' job market also revolves around the networking factor, helping you get a leg up on people who don't know people who know about job openings, or even the needs of an employer. Being able to sell yourself is now a key factor in getting yourself noticed by an employer, especially if you can target them by positioning yourself as being a perfect fit for their company.

I'm glad I went to each of these different seminars( for free, plus I had the time )as each had some gems hidden among the more common-sense aspects of the job search process that was reviewed. I met some interesting people and networked with a few of them, which was great. But I think the most important part is that the information I learned has made me less jittery about my search and will aid me greatly in focusing my 'job wants' to help me land a GOOD job in the next few months, not just one that I'll drag myself into every day to make ends meet. I've already done that for the last 12 years. Never again.

Aug 25 - Critical Chapter!

Yesterday was the first time in the last three months that I haven't been able to finish a chapter the same day that I've started it. It was Chapter 35, the MOST difficult chapter of my novel and one I KNEW would be the hardest to finish from the time I drafted the final outline of the book in June. Some writers work organically, starting with just and idea and letting the book evolve from there; others write out every detail from first to last. I work somewhere in the middle, in a way building a blueprint for a house but filling in the details like finishes, paint, furniture and occupants as I go along. It’s worked VERY well so far but for THIS chapter, there was SO MUCH riding on one scene that I had to get it right.

Yesterday I set the writing aside and went for a two hour walk to clear my head and THINK HARD about the whole sequence of the scene as it related to the rest of the book. Once I got back, I went through the scene event by event, almost scripting it into 17 separate points. From there, I set to work thinking through the scene AGAIN to be sure that each point melded into the next in a series that made sense.

Today I set it all down in only two hours, which was exhausting. The scene played out in my head properly and FLOWED as I went along from point to point, in one long mental movie that ended up on the page at last. It's by no means perfect, but it WORKS - and that's a victory in my eyes any way you write it.

Aug 26 - HISHE: Batman!

Last weekend I went to see Batman: The Dark Knight Rises at the IMAX. It was great! The story was fairly tight( with some spots which were not )but overall I liked the movie, though not as much as Avengers. I thought Anne Hathaway was excellent as Catwoman, definitely capturing the self-centered nature of the character and nailing( if I can use that word )the sexy deadliness as well. I wasn't big on the character of Bane as I kept waiting for him to double in size and start tossing buses around; nope. Still, not everyone was cool with that and HISHE( How It Should Have Ended )took the plot holes and made a rather solid short trailer that addresses most of them rather neatly:

As for today, I finished another solid chapter, but I'm feeling rather low on energy. We'll see how tomorrow goes when it comes to the creative flow of things... I feel as though I've pushed the boulder to the mountain's top and stopped there. Now I need to give it the final shove and see where it lands...

Overall it was a good week; I was busy with the WorkBC in the mornings and writing towards the final few chapters of my book that will be finished next week. I think the early days wore on me though, especially as I kept waking well before 7am most days; this week coming I think I will 'sleep in' until 8 or so, if the people upstairs will let me. Here's hoping!

Luck, Lifestyle and Living Large

The word of the week is attitude.

Aug 13 - Volcano Yacht!

We’ve all played the game “If I won a lot of money, I’d do / buy …” ( insert expensive item here ), right? I’ve played it just as much as other people and I wasn’t surprised to learn what a lot of Canadian winners did when  they’d won – only 5% didn’t seek professional financial advice( they probably were bankers already ).

What would I do with it? Get cool stuff that’s useful… mostly. While I don’t love the ocean, I DO like the idea of cruising around on my own boat( not sharing it with tourists, right? )to see the world at a slower pace. Getting a VERY expensive private jet doesn’t really appeal to me due to the massive ongoing costs… and that if an engine fails on a plane, it’s not as easy to land in water than a boat with a bad engine is. To wit:

 

So something like the Tropical Island Yacht might appeal to me if millions fell into my hands. I’d definitely do some changing to the design though; sailing around the world with a giant volcano on the top of the boat doesn’t strike me as being cool a few years into ownership. Maybe a fake Mayan temple with a waterfall instead?

Aug 14 - Starships Dancing? Nice!

Flying as a profession isn’t my cuppa tea; I don’t have a head for heights or a constitution for heavy g-forces. I can appreciate the views from high above the earth and how they make you feel though. So what if you’re WAY above the Earth, as in outer space? Spaceships in TV and film do incredible things, thanks to the work of the many artists that bring them to life, especially when those ships and their crews are performing some amazing acts, usually in the name of heroism. The video below is set to a song by Nikki Menaj, whom I’ve never heard of( shocking? Not for me )and it’s catchy. The first couple of minutes made me break out into a rare smile, as the video clips are perfect for the song… kudos to the artist who put this together( password is 'starships' ):

While it DOES have Farscape clips in there, I can’t BELIEVE that there’s not a single frame from Babylon 5… ! Ah well… maybe it’s better that B5 doesn’t get mixed up with the likes of Menaj, or the universe might  implode. I mean, starships and beaches? Hmm, maybe distant shores are metaphors for galaxies…

Aug 15 – I’m a Winner, Twice!

Since I left my job earlier this year, I’ve been enjoying the flexibility of my days – when I wasn’t moving, wrecking my arms or otherwise busy doing things like writing a 100,000 word novel or trying to find a job that I can do with just my toes to type with.

It’s also meant that I’ve entered more than a few contests over the last few months; I’ve used LookContests.com to vet ALL the contests that I choose to enter, as it filters out the scam artists and makes sure that every entry is valid for Canadians. I’ve got the ‘contest routine’ down to about 30 minutes a day, which is great and gives me that little ‘hope-thrill’ that I might win something…

 

Today, I DID! TWICE! Two emails came in today within an hour of each other to tell me that I was a contest winner! Mine for FREE was a $50 Subway card and even better: a Lagostina cookware set worth over $400 - BOOYAH! The Subway card arrived the next day and the cookware will be a few weeks in transit before I can pick it up locally from Safeway… and my sister’s already claimed it, as she’s said it’s a VERY high-quality set. I’m just thrilled and I’m very grateful to the universe that smiled on me today.

Aug 16 - Chapter 30 is DONE!!!

Holy fubar, it’s HOT out there! My apartment’s a cool 74F but that doesn’t do me any good when the ceiling’s vibrating to the tune of tiny feet bent on reaching critical mass. Yeah. I had to go up to the SkyLounge, opened every window and both sliding doors which got a breeze going, thankfully; then I was able to write. It was difficult, as I pace when I verbalize and the heat made even that rather taxing.

 

BUT: I produced what I think was my best chapter yet AND it’s also the 30^th one! So I have less than ten chapters left to go, probably more like six or seven by my count. It’s astonishing that I’ve made it so far so fast after getting the ball rolling in earnest back in June 2012. At that point I only had a half-dozen chapters written, some of which were unfinished to boot. Having my wrists in the state they are in, I couldn’t have gone any faster typing the chapters myself, so my mother’s suggestion to have HER type was incredibly generous on her part. It ALSO freed me creatively, for as I’ve said before I’ve been able to simply DESCRIBE each scene as I see it in my head and it is translated to the page without my being distracted by spelling errors and all the other things that typing can interrupt your flow with.

Now I have to write the hardest half-dozen chapters yet, to wrap up the book and let the reader fall back into their chair with a rapturous sense of satisfaction.

That’s not going to be easy. But it IS going to be exciting to try to get there!

Aug 17 - Two Cool Things In September

I’m the first to admit I don’t get out much, but it’s not for a lack of things to do around here that are inexpensive or even free. There’s two events coming in September that I’ll definitely be making time to take part in. Well, be AT, anyone.

One is the re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark for the IMAX screen! I absolutely loved this film as a kid and I watch it every few years just to remind myself of the incredible sense of adventure it’s imbued with. Harrison Ford was the perfect choice for Indiana Jones and the humour that is woven throughout the film also appeals to me greatly. Seeing it on the huge IMAX screen will be just incredible!

Less massive in scale but still a spectacle in its own right is the Victoria Chalk Drawing Festival 2012, which features several artists who do unbelievable 3D-perspective drawings on sidewalks! I’ve caught a fair few of these over the years online and to have people doing it IN TOWN is very exciting! I wonder if they’ll do any pieces from fantasy or sci-fi… ? I can’t wait to find out!

Aug 18 – Ad Creep

Try this experiment: search for a few unrelated things using Google or Yahoo, then go visit your favourite websites. See how many of the ads that pop up are targeted along the lines of what you JUST searched for. Find this disturbing at all?

I know we live in an age of tracking cookies( mmmm…. )and similar technology, but I am somewhat freaked out by the thought of our world tumbling into a Minority Report advertising hell. Or like Fry in Futurama, when Leela asks him if he had ads in the 21^st century:

“Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.”

I’ve been diligent in checking the apps I’ve installed on my phone for ads, especially the ones using ‘AirPush’ which can pop up ads at ANY time while you’re using the phone, not just the app, using the Notification bar. While I’m all for developers making money on their apps, I don’t hold with being spammed while I’m not USING their app; that’s just dirty pool.

Aug 19 - Head Noise

I’ve wrote a good portion of this week’s blog upstairs in the SkyLounge on August 18^th, due to the noise in my apartment. It’s a great space that I’m happy to have available to me for FREE to go to when I need it; it’s not home and it’s not work and THAT is the key element to help me keep my sanity. August 19^th saw me spend much of my day OUT, as the SkyLounge was prepped for some kind of party and the noise overhead was unrelentingly severe as the kids ran laps around their apartment screaming and thumping.

For those who snark that I am being an 'old man' about the noise, let me posit this to you: think about how you spend most of your day. Is it at a job? Good; let’s say that job is how you make your living. Now imagine if someone came up to you every five minutes during the day, got IN YOUR FACE and interrupted the work you needed to be doing to make a living in a way that’s impossible to ignore given the nature of your work – I’ll leave you to imagine the details. The faint whisper of the muse, the diaphanous images in my head, are my work that I hope to translate into what I do for a living. When noise intrudes too far into my muse and my mind-images, I can’t hear or see them; it’s the equivalent of being poked in the eye every five minutes. If you want to feel how that is, all you need is a finger and a clock… go right ahead. I'll wait.

 

Please, no more snarking about how noise bothers me. My eyes have developed nervous twitches again, my back is a mess of knots and I’m trying desperately to cope. If you call yourselves my friends in reading this blog, please know that I’m not being dramatic here or fishing for attention. Just understand. That’s what friends do, right? I don’t think I’ve EVER looked at someone else’s pain and dismissed it offhand. Why would you do the same?

It's been a tiring day, Sunday; I've had little sleep. I took today and tomorrow 'off' so I can tighten up the outlines for the last chapters of the book and it's hard going. Everything has to wrap up properly while keeping the pace of the action going and I'm wasn't feeling it today. So I went for a walk in Beacon Hill Park with my sister in the sunshine and got a root beer softserve cone; all three really picked up my mood as did watching a few episodes of Arrested Development in the evening. I LOVE that show! I'm going to make it an early night tonight, as I have WorkBC seminars every day this week at 9am; mix that in with finishing off the last half-dozen chapters of my novel and it's going to be a BUSY week!

Noise, NOC and New Chapters

The word of the week is tenacity.

Aug 6 - Having a Fit?

Not having a car is great! No worries about payments, insurance, repair bills, careless people with shopping carts or birds with bad bowels on sunny days. The careful choice of WHERE to live has really paid off and I'm enjoying every minute of it - while it lasts. I'm not fooling myself into believing that I'll NEVER need a car again( though the thought appeals to me ): car sharing and the occasional rental notwithstanding, life is about change and the pendulum may swing back towards the pedal again one day.

In the meantime, I still keep my eye on the car market, if only for the technology. I've mentioned before that the Honda Fit has always appealed to me, for its design looks as well as its technology. Just this summer a new version was announced: an ALL-ELECTRIC Fit! It's only being offered on lease in the USA at the moment and while the range is limited to 100km,. I wouldn't need to go further than that anyway. It's a very advanced car indeed, with lots of zip and next-generation regenerative brakes that act as cruise control even on downslopes, which is really efficient. In a few years, we may see them everywhere.

Aug 7 - Still Searching For Work

The job search continues its glacial pace. Today I spent a few hours in a workshop, defining my skill areas, interests and other Facets Of Me using the NOC system. NOC is the National Occupational Classification developed by the Canadian Federal Government to standardize job classifications, which helps in job searches - makes sense, right? I plugged in my data and came up with a list of 40 occupations, some of which I hadn't considered. Guess what Number Four on the list was?

Writer. *grin*

That was encouraging to see; I may well be on the right career track by writing my novel, though I don't bank on it paying any bills anytime soon. Getting a job to support my 'writing habit' has always seemed like the best course of action to me and as the tired writer's saying goes: "Don't quit your day job."

I didn't take the advice earlier this year yet I feel I'm the better for it - so is my writing!

Aug 8 - On Blogging

Sometimes I don't know what to write - for my blog, that is. Some of my days go by in a blur, others are masterworks of routine. Right now I'm really liking the routine days, as they tend to garner the best times for me to work on my novel and produce little in the way of blog fodder. In fact, the very best times seem to be between noon and four o'clock, as there's little noise either here in Victoria or at my mum's place in Langford. I'm not certain why, but it works and it's meant that for three of every four days we've tried, there's been good long uninterrupted stretches during this block of time to Get Writing Done. It's helped a lot to recognize this pattern and to take advantage of it, as the Creative Flow is easily interrupted by barking dogs, noisy kids or a host of other distractions. It's surprisingly difficult to hear the voices in my head or visualize a scene when someone's yelling at their dog to fetch outside.

But then if it were easy, everyone would be a writer, right?

Aug 9 - A Galaxy of Choice?

Okay, I won't go on about how I'm trying to make peace with my HTC Desire HD phone; suffice to say, we're looking at an early separation as soon as possible. I really want to jump ship and get a Samsung Galaxy III but there's no way in hell I'm going to sign another 3-year contract for a phone, even if the thing costs as much as a mid-range laptop( how's that for whacky? ). No, I'm going to wait until 2013 sometime until the carriers in North American get the NEXT version of the phone, the one with the QUAD-CORE CPU inside. I'll bet you didn't know that there was such a beast, did you? Right now the model that all the carriers are flogging is 'only' a dual-core CPU, which is fast but I'm one who's willing to wait for the better unit if I know it's coming. The rest of the world DOES have the SIII with 4 cores, so for now I'll just sit back and wrestle with my Desire( see what I did there? )until the 4-core appears.

Then it's all Galaxy, baby!

Aug 10 - Chapter 25

Oh, I WISH more of my writing days were like this one!

It was time to write Chapter 25 of my novel today, a chapter I've been looking forward to since I finalized the rough outline back in early 2012. It's a chapter that ties together several of the loose threads of the novel and was just damn fun to write; the words flew onto the page as fast as my thoughts could free them!

Speaking( dictating... )the novel has been VERY freeing, an experience I've come to really enjoy as it feels like I'm telling a slow-motion story in many ways. I can pick each word with care and the following ones seem to line up in my head, with each part of the scene falling neatly from my mind's eye into written form as I go along. It's a lovely, organic way to write and given the minimal outline I've prepared it gives me a lot of freedom to let each scene form on its own. So far, I've been extremely pleased with the results!

Just ten chapters left to go… roughly. :-)

Aug 11 - Hoverbikes for sale!

Ever since the speeder bike chase scene in The Return Of The Jedi, I've wanted a hoverbike. Funny thing, since I don't like motorcycles and heights aren't my thing either… but a personal flying machine has been the goal of many people ever since the Wright Brothers first flew a century ago.

Chris Malloy has been working on that dream for a while now and he's come up with a design( see the video above )that looks really viable. It's all the more impressive in that he's doing it on his own, without the backing of any major( or even minor )company; just him and his workshop. Which means that it will be a while before he gets it on the market; he's current; at only $75K of his $1.1 million dollar goal. Maybe he should thing about getting a Kickstarter project going for this; flying bikes are right up a tech geek's alley, I think!

Aug 12 - Old Men and Me

I don't ask for much. Not even respect, though that does find me in odd ways sometimes. No, all I ask is to be let alone to pursue my own interests; peace and quiet are part of that. I understand( VERY WELL )that living in a city means you have to deal with other people; I've learned that from an early age and done so with a fair amount of success. Or at least less failings than I've seen in others. I do feel that, really.

Today sorely tested me though; I was shaken out of bed a little after 7am by the pounding of little feet above me head. POUNDING, as in 'making no attempt to walk softly or not leave dents in the floor.' Which is the purview of kids, you know: kids will be kids. But the parents should know better, especially when the first words out of said parent's mouths when I met them were "Sorry about the kid's noise." So if you're AWARE that your children are… acoustically challenged, why not DO something about it?

I don't know. Ignorance is to blame, perhaps. I despise being the person who moderates MY noise not so as not to bother the kids above me but gets NOTHING in return save the desire to leave my home day after day to escape the audible hell beating it's way through the drumhead that is my ceiling. I've left several notes, pounding on the ceiling during the worst of the cavalcades( that were rattling ALL the glasses in my cupboards )and turned up my music, then put on headphones to try and work. Nothing has stopped the daily audio assault, though there have been some days when they have left for a few hours at a time. Once for most of a day; that was bliss.

I'm not an 'old man' as some people smilingly tell me. If I had the money, I'd buy said some people a ticket to fly out here and spend a week IN MY APARTMENT to see how much they enjoy it. Changing their sleep habits would be the first step, to wake between 6 and 7am and learning to leave for less noisy places( such as a park )for hours at a time would quickly become obvious choices if they wanted to keep their health intact. Or maybe it wouldn't bother them.

I don't know. Again. It's very wearing to move from my old noisy place to this one and not have a reduction in noise. To give others respect and not see it return also hurts; does one stoop to their level and so perpetuate the cycle of mutual ignorance through a breakdown in communications and compassion?

I don't know. All I do know is that I have to find a positive solution soon; I need the peace of mind.

I don't have much to add; I'm viciously tired and lack the energy to be angry any more at how simple ignorance can so impact a person's life. Not being able to do much about it also doesn't help; I'm not a vengeful person but tonight I hope to dream about sheep with large fangs invading the dreamspace above me.

Concerts, Cosplay and Crossing Platforms

The word of the week is immediacy.

July 30 - They built a 1:1 Noah's Ark?

Okay, okay… there's a lot of people out there who think the world's going to end in 2012. I'm not one of them, but I can understand the human need for reassurance in the face of the unknown.

One man and a team of five friends decided to make what was until now fiction a reality: Noah's Ark. In the Netherlands, no less. It took them five years and used a base of metal barges, but they've built a full-sized replica of the legendary Ark, complete with two fake animals of( almost )every kind. It's massive and looks very impressive sitting in the water, but for those who are worried about 2012's dire predictions, bad news: it's a museum, not a safe place to ride out the end of the world.

Too bad. Those plastic flamingos look like they'd be fun to party with as the waves crashed outside.

July 31 – ComiCon 2012 Cosplay

Being rather budgetarily constrained as I have been for a decade now, I've regretted( there's that word again )not being able to go to very many conventions over the years, like ComicCon. But here's the thing: one of the best parts of a con, the costumes, are very well-documented online! Sure, you can spend a lot of money in person on swag and( possibly )meet some cool people and celebrities, but when it comes to costumes there's a TON of great photographers at cons who post their work online.

Batgirl - The WebSeries!

This gallery in particular is impressive, as it looks to document EVERY costume that was present at the 2012 ComicCon in San Diego. Given that there were over 130,000 attendees this year, that's a LOT of costumes and the gallery reflects it. There's quite a few good costumes in there that represent a whole lot of hard work by cosplayers; besides the many lovely ladies showing off how in-shape they were, my favorite costumes were the pair of old-school Cylons and this woman-bird from the Cinema Makeup school - wow!

Oh and Galactus was there, but he wasn't hungry.

Aug 1 - 6 months

It's been six months since I voluntarily unemployed myself; this is the only time I'll mention it as I don't want to mark milestones for escaping my previous job. As I've said before, this is the first time in my life I've been unemployed and for it to last half a year is astonishing… and it's not all sleeping in late and lounging around. Between problems with my wrists / forearms, job searching, moving and writing my novel, it's been a very full half-year for me so far.

Thankfully I've been able to complete HALF my novel as of today; huzzah! I've set an ambitious goal to complete the other half by the end of August to motivate myself with a deadline, which again doesn't lead to long lazy days. I give a LOT of thought every day to my novel and plug that into my notes, which have evolved a lot in the last year. Once I get the first draft done, I can really concentrate on my job search, which has until now been rather fruitless given the unknown state of my arms; I can barely hold a glass of water for very long and writing is an exercise in frustration when trying to type for more than five minutes.

But I'm better for having left my old job, as I'd probably be dead from stress by now. I kid you not. I'd rather be unemployed and have my arms crippled than have continued the way things were. Indeed.

Aug 2 – Good news about my wrists!

Today I came back from the sports injury doctor with some not-terrible news: my wrists should return to normal usage and heal themselves if I manage them carefully.

In about 18-24 months, give or take. :-/

Which is good, as I now know I'm likely NOT crippled for life, as I've worried about for the last 6 months. But it's still making life difficult for what I want to do.

So that makes finishing my novel, writing the next one and having a day job somewhat challenging. I'll learn to write more easily with my voice, find some voice-over work and consider a job as a door greeter. Or a walking tour guide...

But all in all, I am relieved. For months it's been worrying me 24/7 that I may NEVER be able to return to the things I love to do: write, play video games and lift objects heavier than a glass of water. In that order. When you think about it, there's a whole lot we take for granted having two functional arms and if nothing else, this experience has taught me to be thankful to be able to lead a normal daily life.

Aug 3 - One-way trip to MARS??

Being a lover of science fiction( and fantasy too ), I'm not alone in having dreamed of walking the surface of other planets. Like a lot of people, Mars is our closest true planetary neighbour and it's red surface has been in our imaginations for centuries; the popularity of Burrough's John Carter Of Mars series for over a hundred years is proof that this is an enduring dream for many.

How badly would you want to go, though? Enough to make it a one-way trip? If so, then I've news for you: applications are starting for a colonization mission to Mars… without a return ticket. Yes indeed, there are people who want to get to Mars so badly that they're willing to bet their lives on it to the point where they've eschewed a ride home; literally, it's do or die. I have to admire their tenacity and spirit, as it's the same as all those space pioneers who have strapped themselves to piles of explosive rockets to be launched into space. But to step into a rocket knowing that you'll likely never be setting foot on earth again if things go as planned, well… I'd be hoping that I could survive long enough for the next rocket to arrive.

Aug 4 - Go for the eyes, Boo!

Hard to believe, but it's true: I've never really played any of the Baldur's Gate RPG game series.

There. I've said it. Heck, until this year, I've never owned a copy. Why, you ask? Simple: I wasn't able to plug hundreds of hours into gaming at the time, as I was in university at the time and things didn't go well from that point for many years following. I suppose I could have dug into the series around 2005 or so, but by then there were new things on my plate such as NWN… so it languished as a minor regret in the back of my mind. Even now, I haven't touched the $9.99 all-in-one super copy I purchased earlier this year.

But now there's news: Baldur's Gate is being re-released asa multi-player edition, cross-platform! That means that you can log in from your PC, iPad or Android phone and game with your friends from anywhere, at any time! Given the nature of the game, it should be simple to pop in an hour or two of gaming a week with your friends, something that I'm currently regretting( see? )the lack of. It's especially appealing as I won't be using my damaged arms with a game controller but instead can use my touch-screen tablet or the PC with a trackball… MUCH better, I think! I'm very excited, as I really want to finally experience the magic of Baldur's Gate and hear Minsk's famous line for the first time!

Aug 5 - Symphony Splash Day!

Ugh... after a midnight curtain call, I was wakened at 5:45am by numerous thuds above my head( kids knocking over things? )and couldn't get back to sleep. So I spent a bleary morning working on my blog and then hammering out a few scenes for my novel before noon, once my head had defuzzed slightly. I was still woozy on and off until well past lunch, when I finally caught a second wind.

In the early afternoon, I went to see the Victoria Symphony Splash, along with 40,000 other friends. It's an annual outdoor concert event held in the Inner Harbor area of downtown Victoria and the weather today was HOT, around 33 degrees with humidity so it really felt like summer. The sky was cloudless and the crowd's mood was fantastic: over 45,000 classical music lovers gathered together meant a minimum of fuss and drama, anywhere I looked. Everyone was smiling and happy to be there. I had a root beer ice-cream float, sat on a patio with some tea and generally people-watched all day long. Even watching the concert itself was wonderful, as I'd found a found spot along a walkway close to the floating stage where thousands of people passed by me. The sudden evening chill was a bit much and I called it a day during the intermission, also to avoid the mass exodus of the crowd... and to be quite honest, I was really feeling my lack of sleep.

It was definitely a good way to spend most of a Long Weekend Sunday!

For the last few weeks, I've been listening to podcasts on my phone( when it's not busy crashing ). In the main they've been The Nerdist Podcast, which I just love as I can relate to so MUCH of the content, especially the cultural references I grew up with. Cooler than that are the guests, who have included Felicia Day, and even author R.A. Salvatore, creator of Drizzt D'Ourden! It's been lovely and I'm sure the  silly grin on my face has drawn a few odd looks as I'm walking along, but I'm too busy enjoying the podcast to notice. And exercising, too; I'm averaging a 4km walk / day and aiming for more!

ComicCon, Clouds and Creating Chapters

The word of the week is metamorphose.

July 23 – Manga?

Ever since I first laid eyes on Star Blazers( based on ‘Space Battleship Yamato’ )in the late 70’s I’ve had an affinity for Japanese anime; it’s influence on western animation and storytelling has grown substantially since then. It’s a shame that I’ve only been able to watch a fraction of all the great anime that are out there. Worse, I’ve read even less of the wonderful manga that’s available too, series like One Piece or Full Metal Alchemist that have very deep( and often rather over-complicated )stories.

Just this week I’ve discovered a program called eManga on the Android Play site and installed it on my tablet. JOY! Unlike with many of the comic e-reader programs I’ve looked at, there’s THOUSANDS of free mangas out there, entire series scanned and made available to the world voluntarily by their creators. I don’t have the financial wherewithal to indulge in reading e-comics to the tune of thousands of dollars per year, but I CAN take the time to read some of the best manga out there for free. It’s made me love my ASUS Transformer tablet all over again. As many have said, tablets are the PERFECT device for reading books and comics on given their size and high-res colour screens. Lost sleep, here I come!

July 24 – Firefly was a decade ago? Wow.

This month of July 2012 saw the San Diego ComicCon happen yet again in that fair city without my attendance, a state of affairs I will have to change in the near future. Why, you ask? Because of things like the Firefly 10^th Anniversary Panel… so much sci-fi goodness in one room, I want to fall over. The love for this single-season show has stayed strong for over a decade now, similar to the feelings that fans have for Babylon5 but more intense, as Firefly had only one season compared to B5’s, well, five. If you enjoy sci-fi in any way, you owe it to yourself to see this FULL hour-long video. I suggest taking it in 15-minute bites, as there’s a lot of love and even tears flowing during it’s run – much like the show, actually. Enjoy, the video is one of the best on YouTube from the panel, as it’s FRONT ROW:

July 25 – Alien Worlds in my novel

In my novel, I am creating an alien world that is of my own imagination but also shares some similarities with locations on Earth. That’s because there are a LOT of places on our planet here that seem out of this world and I’m not just talking about places under the sea or in the heart of a volcano. An incredible example is the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, which is a salt flatland that turns into a perfect giant mirror every year when it becomes covered by a thin layer of water. Seeing the land and the sky merge into one is a transformative experience in many ways and the best part is that the temperature of the place isn’t scorching hot( but I would still wear sunscreen! ).

No, that's not Freddy Kruegar...

That is what I am trying to capture in my book: to give people the sense of an Other Place that they can see in their minds but still relate to… an utterly alien experience is not what I’m after, but rather one that you can easily step into from our world.

July 26 – Small is big news now!

It seems that the world is really waking up to smaller living spaces: Yahoo just published an article last week on the subject, though it’s inclusion of a tree house without a bed or kitchen is questionable( as I’ve come to expect from Yahoo! ). The article includes the house in Hong Kong owned by architect Gary Chang that I’ve mentioned in my blog before and that I still hold as the ‘gold standard’ for efficient use of small spaces. I’m still looking around for mine, not to mention saving for it, so the more I see comeout about small spaces to live in, the better I like it. Murray Leinster, sci-fi author, once postulated in his stories that it would have been more efficient to send midgets into space to save on fuel, air and other necessities for manned spaceflight. I think he would have liked to see how people these days are considering living smaller, though I’m not so sure he’d approve of these Japanese ‘coffin hotels’ that have become mainstream in that country. Sure, they look cozy, but they only fit one person – unless you’re undertall.

July 27 – Barking Me Crazy

Writing today was difficult, more than it has been for a while. While it wasn’t nearly as hot as it was a few days past, today was a Dog’s Day. A dog woke me barking well before 8am( and I’d gone to bed late, having been unable to fall asleep early, again )and the trend continued all day, with canines of various sizes all sharing their hatred of silence with zest. It always astounds me that people will tell children screaming in the commons outside to be silent but will let a pair of dogs yammer away just as loudly while telling other dog owners how cute they are. Given that DOZENS of apartments overlook the area close up, I can only conclude that their ignorance blinds them to how disruptive they are of other people’s days. To date, I’ve never had to ask a cat owner to please stop their pet from barking – silly, but true. 

In any case, I pieced together most of a chapter today despite being tired, miserable and constantly interrupted by animal audio, a chapter that I was actually astonished turned out so well. Goes to show if you persevere you can still produce something good despite the world trying to distract you.

July 28 - Aging

Wrecking my arms when I moved my sister’s things into storage this year was the start of a new and interesting stage of my life: age tolerance. By that, I’ve been discovering that, wonder of wonders, I’m not as young as I used to be. Pulled muscles ache for a lot longer than they used to and I’m definitely not able to sit awkwardly for very long if I don’t want those same muscles to complain when I move again.

But by far the most noticeable sign of aging is my eyesight, which hasn’t exactly been 20 / 20 since middle school( or even before, as I suspect ). The inevitable shift of my vision’s focal point has become far more noticeable this year and where I used to be able to eyeball something an inch from my eye, now I have to hold it three inches or more away to focus properly. I knew it was coming, but I’m oddly elated in that I’ve been researching the effects of age on people with myopia( nearsightedness )like me and for some, the condition is balanced out by the changes in the eye that favour focusing at a further distance. Some, mind you – not all. I’m going to look into it further( pun not intended )as I don’t want to develop presbyopia which is the worst of both worlds. Regular eye exams, here I come…

July 29 -  Cloud Atlas

There are not a whole lot of films I want to see in the coming year( or the next one, for that matter )but one of them is for SURE is Cloud Atlas. I am going to have to read the book( which came out in 2004 )but I’m not sure I want to before I see the movie; having six intertwined threads and many characters may be complicated but I don’t want to spoil the experience. And it’s going to be QUITE an experience, as the ( former )Wachowski Brothers Lana and Andy have teamed up with THIRD director Tom Twyker to make the film. They appeared in this RARE prelude to the trailer( when do directors comment on a TRAILER, anyway? )which is worth seeing before you see the SIX-MINUTE film trailer itself:

I haven’t slept well the last few weeks staying overnight at my parent’s condo to work on the novel, at least according to the sleep monitoring app I’ve been using for the last 6 months. I tend to fall asleep late and wake too early with the light creeping in from various places; my old room is not my new room anymore. I’ll be trying to remedy it this week as I tracked down the spots this morning when I was up early to spend a half-day( today )at my new place putting a few things onto eBay to clear up some space and put a few bucks have into my wallet.

It will take another month but I'm more than halfway done my novel. Less then twenty chapters remain until the first draft is done. I'll be spending a LOT of time at my parent's place as the work methodology there seems to be a winner for producing VERY solid work, despite the distractions that we're managing to work around every single day. If I can get more regular sleep I think the last half of  the book will really flow onto the page smoothly... like a dream held onto a little past waking, it will be amazing. Have at it!