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!

Gifts, Goings-on and Gaining Control

The word of the week is numinous.

Dec 2 - Timeliness

This month is all about managing my time - giving to myself, in a way.

Between work and writing, there's not a lot of time left over for me in December. As it stands, I'm not going out much at all - save for the occasional trip to Moka House for a solitary tea - as my remaining time not spent sleeping, feeding myself or generally keeping the place livable has been spent in front of my computer putting words to the screen. Not to paper; my handwriting is lousy and I can barely read it myself… not to mention it's really, really slow going that way.

All that's fine; this time of year, people are extremely busy and stressed, so just letting everyone be about what they need to be and keeping my own hands busy seems to be working. Not being a social butterfly I once was, this doesn't really bother me and I actually feel better in that I'm devoting as much time as possible to writing, which is why I want to be doing anyway.

That thought really helps to keep me focused as the days grow shorter.

Dec 3 - L33tspeak in reality?

Today had a very surreal segment to it.

Working, as I do most days, I am exposed to the general public. Who, by and large, are normal and inhabit the same reality I do. Some are ruder about it, but in the main we all agree that the world we share is not the Matrix, or indeed inside a computer program ala TRON.

Well, little did I know that this isn't a 100% thing.

Approaching a young man looking at keyboards, I opened the dialogue in the usual way - and from there things got… strange.

He spoke in entirely in l33t.

I wish I could describe the exact phrases he used, but I was so stunned that he was communicating ONLY in online jargon that I missed a few mental steps during our thankfully brief conversation. I do recall that he didn't look me in the eye the entire time( as though I wasn't real? )and did his level best to project an air of total cool, overlaid with a slight disdain in the computer hardware being discussed. As though he was used to better and couldn't be bothered to really take an interest in anything around him.

It was really weird.

After he'd wandered off towards the front door, I gave myself a shake and poked a few shelves… just in case they distorted with a silicon flash. There was no sign of lurking Agents, so I just chalked it up to the guy spending way, WAY too much time online and went on with my day.

Still, I looked really hard at anyone wearing sunglasses for the rest of the week.

Dec 4 - Dark Crystal Director's Cut!

What a discovery I made today!

The wonderful Nerdist.com posted an article about a project that's been a labour of love for one man for over two years: creating a Director's Cut of The Dark Crystal - which he's just completed!

Better yet, it's available online now! Have a look:

I'll be watching it in the entire this week, to see how its vibe is different from that of the original film. To be honest, for my own writing project I had a more serious tone in mind, as light and fluffy doesn't really work for me overall. Not that I'll be going all dark n'such in my submission, but I always felt that the uneven feel of the original film was due to factors beyond my understanding; I know now that it was because Jim Henson's original vision had been adjusted by the studio to 'lighten up' a potentially darker film.

I'm quite grateful for the find today, as it will really help to inform my own work.

Dec 5 - Prospectus!

Money came up today, in a good way.

I know I've said it before, but today I felt for the first time in a long time that my financial future is on the upswing instead of circling the drain as it has been for what seems like forever.

Without getting into details, I can simply state that with my sister's recent job promotion and some discussion with my family have combined to make me worry less about dollar signs in 2014.

Which goes hand-in-hand with reducing stress, naturally.

Feeling like I'm gaining control of my life, however it's working out right now, is vitally important to my well-being and essential to freeing the creative process to flower without restriction. I liken it to having gained a sponsor, in a way, much as some artists dream of and have done many times in the past.

It's just the start of many more good things to come.

Dec 6 - Powerless!

The lights went out today.

While I was at work today in the evening, the power failed - not once, but three times - and was out for almost 2 hours in total.

There had been two other major power outages since I arrived here in Victoria, in 2008 and 2009, both during the holidays. Neither one was directly due to extreme cold weather or snow, just increased demand on a grid that couldn't supply enough juice to those who wanted it.

It was fun in some ways, but it also illustrated how unprepared most people are in general when the world we take for granted goes away for a while. I had several spare flashlights with me as well as warm clothing, but most people use their cell phones for light and don't carry spare batteries for those. So once they're gone, they're without a vital form of contact.

I know that I was wondering how I'd be able to heat my place once I got home if the power was still out. I have lots of spare batteries and some other supplies, but I don't have anything near three days of complete self-sufficiency that anyone needs to having case of a disaster. I've become a little lax in the last few years since moving my parents off into their own place and today I realized that I have to once again get back to being prepared for life's little hiccups, which don't really care whether or not I'm having a good day or dealing with various troubles.

A little money spent wisely the next few months will make for a vast improvement in dealing with those hiccups when they come around again - whenever that is.

Dec 7 - Kincade and Empire

Mashups are a favorite thing of mine, especially g33ky ones.

While there's a preponderance of bad art out there, I can't say that anything by Thomas Kincade is bad, really. Especially coming from someone like myself, the room drawing a straight line is a challenge even with the ruler.

Which is why I was so tickled to see the art pictured above; anything to do with putting Star Wars into juxtaposition with classic art has my full approval. Go take a look at more of the pictures and marvel at the ease with which the Empire invades the serene settings of Kincade.

Dec 8 - Christmas Party!

A busy day that didn't drag, with a party at the end!

Most of today was spent at work, starting a little earlier than usual as I took the bus for the first time in a long while - it was too icy to cycle, as I'm not a fan of skidding on pavement.

Work itself was busy but not crazy… still enough to keep me hopping all day, though most everyone was in a good mood so the hours flew by. Soon enough it was dinnertime and I was off to wait an hour for a ride - where to? Why, the company Christmas party, out in Langford at Bin4!

I have to say, it was quite a change from the parties of previous years at MMart, where everyone would make small talk and try to sneak glances at their watches to see if it was time to leave yet. This party was markedly different: everyone there was GLAD to be there and to chat up their friends all evening over some great food. I kept my puns in check, dishing them out judiciously to a mostly appreciative crew and really, really enjoyed myself, though I was finding myself very tired by the time most everyone left at the end.

The best part? Not the Subway gift card, or the cocoa/marshmellow/polka-dot mug kit, or even the tasty pack of mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! No, the BEST part was the Christmas card I was given, signed by almost everyone with personal messages. All of them uplifting and grateful to have me working with them every day...

Which is the best gift I could have wished for!

I'm just rolling along this past week, looking forward to every minute I can spend writing this coming week. Sure, Christmas is coming, but then so is my Dark Crystal deadline… so back to it!

Moustaches, Media and Meh

The word of the week is ebullience.

Nov 25 - Improvement

Winter hibernation has definitely got its claws in me. 

Ever since the clocks were turned back, I've been getting quite tired earlier in the evening and by 10 PM, I am ready to hit the sack. For someone who normally turned in well past midnight even as of a year ago, that's quite a switch. I'm compensating by getting up earlier in the morning and getting things done, which I think is a fair trade.

My moods have definitely stabilized, due in no small part to reduce stress at work and financially. While I'm in no way anywhere near a black-ink bank balance, not having to sweat every single $1.95 Tim Horton's tea purchase of late has been wonderful. It's been all due to my sister, whose now-solid employment has meant that my own paycheque pittance hasn't been the prop for our household.

While the days of upgrading computer parts and purchasing the odd neat( and inexpensive ) gadget are gone, just not having to worry about every single dollar every single day has been fantastic.

That's good practice for when our finances flip and Fortune favors us once again.

Nov 26 - Why a Word Of The Week?

In case you ever wondered why I include one every week…

Apart from the obvious, I like words that carry a few layers of meaning in them and can be used for different things. I often sit and ponder different words, rolling them around in my head while I think about all their meanings in different contexts.

Also, each week's Word is related to how I'm doing that week. While there's been a few weeks where the match isn't exact, the words definitely describe at least a portion of my week - usually the most important one - and that's enough for me.

Words, after all, can be made into anything by writer.

Nov 27 - Nova in my pocket?

A simple bit of software made my day today.

For the last long while, my old ASUS tablet hasn't seen much use, as it's been simply too slow for me to tolerate using it much. I've looked into doing a few things to speed it up, but not had the time to really get into those solutions - not that I have great hopes for them to work all that well, my do.

This week, I downloaded an app called Nova Launcher. It's an android app that replaces the standard 'launcher' which runs any android device, launching applications and generally Getting Things Done.

It's amazing! It's like I have a brand-new tablet again; swiping from screen to screen is lightning-fast and there's almost no lag, which drove me bonkers a lot of the time.

I like the program so much, I installed it on my Samsung Galaxy SIII and wouldn't you know it also made my phone feel like new again. I'm very impressed, even after needing to spend a few hours reconfiguring all the icons and widgets, it's definitely worth it. I definitely recommend checking it out for yourself.

Nov 28 - Free TV?

If it's free, I like it.

Hopefully whatever it is, is also without a catch. For the most part, watching television over the Internet has been very hit and miss. Even in the last decade when broadband cable became commonplace, it's very difficult to find TV programming that's recent or of decent quality.

Someone at work suggested this site, which I had a look at today. I was thoroughly blown away by the sheer volume of programming available - for free - which doesn't involve any sort of Torrent downloads or watching poor-quality videos the size of postage stamps. A small caveat is that some of the videos have pop-up ads, but the site actually asks viewers for forgiveness, as their host where the videos are stored are the ones actually putting the ads up - they have no control over it.

A quick perusal shows you that there are hundreds of shows hosted on the site, enough television from the past few decades to keep you watching for another few decades, at least.

For now, I'm going to pick and choose my favorites here and there. Free!

Nov 29 - Black Friday: Meh

Rarely have I been more disgusted at consumerism then today.

I used to think that the crazy materialism mindset that comes over the majority of North Americans during the holidays was moderated by the feelings of generosity and love that the season engenders in people.

However, this year saw the widespread adoption of the American 'Shopping Holiday' known as Black Friday in Canada. The day after Thanksgiving, at least in the United States, means massive crowds turning out for substantial discounts at almost every retailer - all of this a month before Christmas.

Personally, I think the crowds and the tension are disgusting and I was thankful that I was working today in the afternoon so that I missed all the morning madness. It was a steadily busy day but there was no sign of any tidal waves of people scrambling to grab a deal before someone else got it. Nothing material is worth standing in line well before the sun rises in order to get in before anyone else grabs the deal.

Next year, I'll be sleeping in.

Nov 30 - Movember's Last Day

My moustache has a fan club!

Admittedly, it's a small one, but still: I've received quite a few compliments on it these last few weeks. More than a few of them have compared my appearance - with longer and now-curly hair - to Tom Selleck, which I find flattering, even with a squeaky voice thrown in.

I'm quite liking the low-maintenance aspect of having just a mustache, compared to the fiddly work one has to do with a beard or goatee to keep everything in trim. I do enjoy being clean-shaven, as it gives me a more youthful look and most of the rest of my facial hair is now coming in salt-and-pepper grey. Seeing as I don't believe in coloring my hair, I'll just shave it off, which is easy enough.

Also, it keeps my lip warm when I cycle!

Dec 1 - New month, new ideas!

As I keep my nose to the writing grindstone with my Dark Drystal entry( due in a month! )my mind is already looking forward to more writing challenges in 2014: contests!

This coming year should see me flourish as a writer, at least in terms of productive output. If I can manage it, I'll be spending less energy on my day job and reserving the best parts of myself for throwing into my writing full-bore. 

Which means I have to enter more than a few contests, I believe. It's the only way I'll be able to prove that my writing can have meaning enough to other people that they'll pay for it, and not in terms of writing some kind of advertising copy. I want to know that the stories in my head, the fruits of my imagination if you will, are enticing enough to other people that I can share the views of my mind's eye and they'll want more.

Once I get rolling, there will be no stopping me. That thought makes me quite, quite happy.

Only a few weeks to go for completing my Dark Crystal contest entry. I'm excited and eagar to write every day this coming week - as it should be! The mild weather's been great, as I haven't had to walk or bus to work due to ice or white stuff...