Games, Gabbing and Good Friends

The word of the week is gravitas.

Dec 15 – Book 2 = whew!

Today was a big day for me, novel-writing-wise…

I showed my first two chapters of Book 2 to my trusted critique-group members, and held my breath.

To my great relief, they liked what I had written! More specifically, the two of them said( and I’m paraphrasing here somewhat ):

“The direction you chose to continue the story makes perfect sense and is well-executed.”

“I have a good sense of who the characters are from the first book and am interested in how their story arcs are developing in this sequel.”

“Great establishment of pending conflict between the various parties involved.”

My group also suggested that I re-sequence the scenes I had written, to better introduce the characters and story lines of the second novel, which upon reflection, I completely agreed with once I had thought over the suggestions.

I had fretted that what I had written would not gel with my first novel, but it seems I had worried needlessly. I have a solid first third of the book written and I can confidently now continue with the rest of Book 2 in 2015 to complete the first draft. I am eager to do so, as I really want to be able to dive into Book 3, with quite a few scenes bubbling in my head that need to be written. To be sure, I have them sketched out so that I don't lose any of the ideas, but I have made a deal with myself that Book 2 must be completed before I can write any scenes for Book 3… a kind of incentive, if you will, to get the work at hand done and not jump ahead.

What's waiting in Book 3 is worth doing right!

Dec 16 – Car Wars!

Tonight I played a game I hadn't touched for almost 20 years: Car Wars.

Created by Steve Jackson Games in the early 1980s, it was a huge hit with gamers around the world. Here’s what it’s all about, straight from SJG:

Car Wars is the game of the freeways of the future, where the right of way goes to the biggest guns. Choose your vehicle -- complete with weapons, armor, power plant, suspension, and body style. Then take it out on the road. You'll come home an "ace," or you'll crash and burn. If you survive, your abilities will improve, and you can accumulate money to buy bigger and better cars.

Two friends and I got together for dinner at my place to play a game of Car Wars. They had recently picked up the simple Starter Set and wanted to try it out; knowing that I was a huge fan of the game, they were eager to include me, which I thought was wonderful. Here’s a video of four friends who were also playing Car Wars again for the first time in 20 years recently:

I was a bit rusty and things started out a little slow, but once we had our cars chosen, information sheets filled out and had gone over the rules, we were ready to do battle!

The arena was simple: the top of my coffee table, the edges of which were out of bounds for our three vehicles. I had chosen a simple design with an antitank gun at the front and moderate armor, trading acceleration for offensive firepower. My two opponents had chosen different strategies, with one of them having a defensive dropped weapons suite and the other a more balanced vehicle.

The combat was restrained at first, with no shots of any note being made in the first five rounds; to be honest, we all rolled horribly and probably couldn't have hit a barn door if it'd been right in front of any of us. More time passed as we all maneuvered to better line up shots and the first exchanges of effective fire shoots in decent roles in our vehicles. Things really heated up when my one friend's defensive weapon( a flaming oil jet )put paid to her boyfriend’s vehicle, toasting his armor nicely on the thin top and bottom facings. Then he chose to ram my vehicle head-on, which could have been fatal to both of us if we hadn't been puttering along at a measly 30 miles an hour each when we hit. Even so, it did a fair amount of damage to both of us. Here's what things looked like, sans the spikes and the grid:

Those are spikes, all right... but we don't need the Grid with a Key!

A sudden turn of events occurred when his vehicle took a shot from his girlfriend straight through his front armor, destroying his power plant and ending his driver’s career messily. It was down to myself and my friends girlfriend, maneuvering for advantage around the edge of the map, which went on for a fair amount of time before I managed to end the game with a solid shot to her vehicle side armor that hollowed out the car nicely for its trip to the scrap yard.

Total game time was approximately 3 hours from set up to finish and we all thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I was quite obviously a static to be playing Car Wars again and I saw that my enthusiasm had certainly transmitted to my two friends, so I am certain will play again soon.

I should have a really neat vehicle and strategy thought up for the next time…

Dec 17 – 6 months to wait?

It looks like I have longer to wait before leaving Staples than I thought.

While talking to HR about my benefits package at my government position today, I was told that it would be six months from my November 2014 start date before my new benefits kick in – dang!

So instead of leaving Staples early new year, if I want to keep myself covered with benefits I will have to stay until sometime around May 2014. It's a little disappointing to discover, especially as I have not been given any information about benefits at my government job, which the lady at HR was surprised to hear. I hadn't even received the standard introductory package to my pension, which she also sent me today.

I looked into what it would cost for me to leave Staples and just pay for my benefits separately, which turns out to be a substantial amount of money every month… meaning there’s no point in leaving, as I pay far less than that as an employee.

Even so, it may be that I lose a major portion of those benefits in the new year, as Staples reviews its employee’s hours-vs-benefits ratio a few times a year. Meaning that I may get a letter in the mail stating that I'm not working enough to qualify for benefits, at least ones that are worth having.

Slightly maddening, but I'll have to figure out how to cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime, I'll be making a few beneficial-health appointments for early in January just in case.

Dec 18 – Interview clips!

I'm so excited today: my interview clips went live!

My friend the proto-journalist finished editing three separate clips culled from my interview last weekend and posted them on YouTube today. Here’s one of them for you to enjoy:

Watching myself in the video, I did notice a few things that I'll have to remember to keep in mind for any future videos. For one thing, I do tend to him and all far too often for my liking, something I don't think that I do in regular conversation: I tend to pause instead. As well, I think I could perhaps speak more clearly to the point of each question, but I think that will be something that has to come with experience in practice rather than simple forethought.

Don't get me wrong: I am incredibly thrilled to have such high quality footage available to use for marketing my books and introducing people to the worlds I am creating. Eventually hope to have amassed enough material to allow floating imagery, transparent backgrounds and so forth to be present in the interviews that are created for my writing.

For now I'll just have to be satisfied with a fantastic job my friend did. Many thanks, Chris!

Dec 19 – Relaxing and Singing!

It was the end of a long month tonight.

Between my two jobs, I've worked every day save one for the last month, quite often doing overtime - my choice, of course but still tiring when you add it all up… on top of my not feeling great due to my recent lack-of-protein dietary oversight. The proof was in the pudding though: with all my hard work this month, I nearly doubled my regular paycheck and that alone put a tired smile on my face: it's nice to get a good bit ahead, once in a while.

It was with great relief that I spent the evening in, watching Singing In The Rain with a good friend, not having a care in the world and thoroughly enjoying the company. She even helped me decorate for Christmas, making my place look seasonally sensational in a short time!

I hadn't actually seen Singing In The Rain since I was a kid nor do I recall seeing it in its entirety either at that time, so tonight was a special treat. I found myself grinning ear to ear at many points, thinking again and again that this was a simple and honest masterpiece of cinema, for good reason. The unmatched performances of all the actors and the sincerity of the films premises still resonate today, enough so that I'd like to see it again fairly soon.

My friend also introduced me to the singing group Pentatonix, whose perfect melodies are instantly addictive… in a good way. Here’s their Christmas album, which I had running in the background as I wrote this week’s blog:

Though I was tired, I couldn't fall asleep until well after midnight and my last thoughts before sleep claim me was that I was really looking forward to tomorrow, my first day off in far too long.

I have a whole lot of nothing planned - gratefully so!

Dec 20 – Carving Art

Ten years is a long time to dedicate to a single task… that’s exactly what one artist did to realize his dream and passion. You can see the stunning results:

Ra Paulette shapes the sandstone caves of New Mexico into magnificent works of art, with just his own hands and no other help. A recently-completed documentary covers the work of this extraordinary artist, following his vision over a decade to leave a ‘magnum opus’ of his art.

I’m a big believer in discovering( and following )your passions and seeing them brought to such stunning life by Ra is reason enough to reinvigorate my own dreams, to see them as achievable. I don’t work in a physical medium like Ra does but the idea is the same: create with passon. 

You can learn more at Cavediggerdocumentary.com which has the movie available on DVD. I’m reminded of the carved works of Petra, or of canyons hewn by flowing water… however you want to look at his work, Ra’s art is breathtakingly beautiful.

Enjoy.

Dec 21 – Holiday Retail!

I had a good time at work today, which was unexpected given that it's only a few days to Christmas and people are busily shopping their little hearts out.

Now THIS is my idea of Christmas shopping...

While it was busy, I didn't find it nearly as overwhelmingly crowded as at other busy times of year I've worked. Most people were in a relaxed mood and smiling, which I found quite refreshing; having worked in retail for several decades now, it's a rare thing to see this time of year. Perhaps people are realizing, albeit slowly, that's materialism isn't the be-all and end-all of this time of year and that they should try to enjoy the season for what it is. Even the single grumpy grinch that walked in right at the end of the day couldn't spoil my good mood and I went home smiling.

Maybe there’s hope for people yet, if they can see past the depth of their wallets?

Since I do like to leave on a high note now and then with my blog, I'll leave you with this little gem I discovered today: a five-year-old girl expresses her opinion of Leia’s outfit while held in Jabba’s Palace in Return Of The Jedi… set to animation! It’s incredibly cute and may surprise you:

All right, it's only a few days until Christmas and I'm more relaxed than I've ever been at this time of year; it's a good feeling! Also, I apologize( a first for this blog! )for not including the Colbert-Smaug link in last week's entry: it's there now for you to enjoy. With that, have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or however else you intend to celebrate the season!

Happiness, Hubris and Humble Holidays

The word of the week is continuum.

Dec 8 – A Few More Weeks

What’s everyone up to for the holidays?

I wonder sometimes, because of my own experiences growing up, what other families did during the holiday season. I'm of course presupposing that most of the people I knew when I was younger were generally of the same culture as I, though I have to admit I knew people from all sorts of places and that curiosity about their own practices has never really left me.

This is a BIG Picture of the Big Picture of Christmas

That's it, I think: simple curiosity about the rest of the world. Being blissfully buried for so long in the North American psycho-associative material whirlwind that is what Christmas has become over the last few decades, I really don't know what the rest the world does this time of year.

I could find out, I suppose: research using Internet and learned something new, which is always a good thing. But I think I'd much rather experience at, at least to some small degree, on my own. To go out into the world and see how my own preconceptions look from the outside in.

Yet if that means traveling during the holiday season, I might have to think about this a little more.

Dec 9 – Flexing For Friends

Hooray, it was my flex day off today!

So naturally, I worked… but only to help a friend. I got a call in the afternoon that a well-like co-worker from Staples was quite sick, so could I cover? Seeing as I didn’t have any major evening plans save to perhaps catch a movie, I acquiesced and was soon there well before dinnertime.

It was a relaxed evening at the same time, somewhat annoying.

Not for the reasons you might think: it wasn't busy, all the customers were nice and all of my coworkers are actually rather nice as well. No, what bothered me was the fact that I'm being paid very close to minimum wage while doing a ton of extra work, all of which is related to sales tracking.

Now, I understand that a retail business is all about sales, but I think that Staples has gone a little overboard in trying to track every single nuance of every sale that takes place… or might have taken place, or could have been done better, or might happen in the future so best prepare for. There’s Goal Sheets, tracking sheets for various departments, tag-team sheets for sales reps and cashiers, monthly / weekly / daily sales targets, associate contest goals, checklists for sales opening and closings and a half a hundred other things to keep track of that quite honestly are making my head hurt when I think about them as I write this.

Perhaps it's the fact that this isn't my primary job, anymore, but I don't think that that's it. If I was still working 40 hours a week there, it's still be far too much for me to handle and I'd be stressing out about it far too much. As it is, I find the massive amount of paperwork stifling and considered a sign of over-analysis, maybe even of the beginning of the end of retail.

I say that because if you start analyzing every aspect of every sale and reducing everything to numbers, then you're going to lose any hope of connecting with your customers. When everything's a number to be slotted into a matrix of Goals, Targets and the like, then you’re going to perhaps see your sales rise, if all goes right… But you're going to drive your employees crazy trying to keep track of and make sense of it all.

It was enough night that I told myself that before the end of December, I'm probably going to have to give my notice. I don't want to, at least not until I figure out if I can keep my benefits going until my government position’s benefits kick in, but I simply can't deal with the flood of numbers and checkmarks and lists and deranged expectations for a position that pays so very little.

In any case, I'll simply smile and keep enjoying myself, as I know it's not what I'll be doing for living for the rest of my life. Which, if you asked me a year ago, I wouldn't have answered with any certainty.

Dec 10 – Wearing

It's been a tiring week; heck, a tiring month, all told.

Looking at my calendar today, I realized that by the time Christmas arrives, I'll have worked every day( between my two jobs )for over three weeks in a row with only one partial day off. That's quite a lot for me these days; there's a lot of overtime in there, true – that’s my own choice. I'm hoping to end the year on a high note financially, which is comforting to me because my family hasn't really spent much on each other for the holidays in the last three years or so.

That's actually quite nice, as we've shifted the focus from material gains and gifts to spending time with each other, which we all feel is far more precious… especially given what we've all been through as a family over the last few decades.

I'm just grateful that I don't have to find a way to fly out to Ontario during the holidays to see my parents or my sister; all three are here and quite happily so. For those people that I know that do travel for the holidays, I wish them all the best; it's a stressful time to be traveling for anyone.

We're just keeping it close to home these days. The years of flitting busily from family function to friend’s places and back again are long behind us all: small, quiet holiday seasons are the norm now.

Which is fine by everyone, I know.

Dec 11 – Tick, Tock, Time

Can you give your time a value? Should you?

I'm sure we've all heard the old adage about how much Bill Gates makes every time he answers the call of nature, but that's perhaps an extreme( and somewhat gross )analogy to make to illustrate a point.

Which is: a lot of people undervalue their time.

For me, having worked at my new government position for six months now, I've come to realize that perhaps I should've tried even harder to find a better job, sooner rather than later in years past. While I won't say that I'm not getting any younger, I do find it somewhat irksome that I have such long lists of things to do, books to read, films to see and so on yet I have to budget my time around the focus on writing my fiction books if I ever want to get them finished this decade.

That got me to thinking: when will I ever have time to do those things, and will they still be relevant to me?

I can wait until I'm retired, perhaps 25 years from now, which means those lists will be even larger, but I just can't see myself spending 20 years on top of that time to wait just to catch up on things that I didn't have time for now or until then.

It's a bit of a quandary, and I'll have to think about. But I won't spend too much time on it…

Dec 12 – Dollhouse Part Three

I couldn't wait to get home tonight from work.

It was Friday once again and time for an evening of Dollhouse with my friend. It was delayed by nearly an hour however, as the Chinese food I'd ordered from the restaurant literally only half a block away took forever to prepare. I had placed the order before 6 PM and didn't have it in hand until nearly 7:45, waiting in the restaurant itself after arriving at 7 PM; lucky I had my phone with me to amuse myself with while the other patrons ate their dinners.

Fortunately that was the only glitch of the night and Dollhouse was a treat. We ended up seeing four episodes, which brought us to the end of the first season. I have to say that the final episode was extraordinarily well done and left me eager to see more of the second season. The writing is fantastic, the actors extremely versatile and the characters interesting: all a vastly viable combination that I am truly enjoying along with my friend.

Bonus: the season finale had Felicia Day in it!

Dec 13 – Interview and a Dragon

Today I gave my first ever interview about my books!

A friend and former co-worker asked me if I’d like to help him out in gaining valuable experience with journalism skills, mainly conducting a video interview. He’s looking to get into the field and needs to build a portfolio; I’m looking for material to showcase my writing work it, so it’s a perfect fit.

It went much more smoothly than I had hoped this afternoon. I did the interview at my friend’s place, using some excellent video equipment and even a shiny-new Macbook Pro( not mine, sadly ). I had spiffy myself up, even wearing a tie and had prepared answers to a dozen well-phrased leading questions that would give viewers an excellent overview of who I was as well is what my work was about.

The actual interview took less than an hour, from start to finish and only had two minor interruptions for technical reasons, neither which stopped the interview in any meaningful way. I did my very best to ensure my passion for my writing came through clearly, without going out on tangents, muddling my points or simply rambling. My friend’s reaction at the end of the interview was extremely positive: he was quite pleased with how the entire thing had flowed and is confident that he'll be able to edit it into several different versions, each of which will be a wonderful piece unto itself. Once I get a look at some of those edits, I'll see to posting them on my website and FBook. All in all, I think it was a fantastic experience of my first video interview ever as an author.

I'll leave you with this other wonderful interview: Stephen Colbert interviewing Smaug!

I attended my fourth party of the month in the evening tonight, celebrating the season with a half-dozen members of my writing group at another member's house. It was a quiet affair, but one with lively conversation, which is the type of party I really love: a number of extremely bright people gathered in a room to toss topics in the air and see where they might land.

For the most part, we kept the party-killing religious and political discussions to a minimum, though there were inevitable tangents that occurred. We all shared funny stories at various times and I myself related one from high school that involved a coat hanger that I've enjoyed telling over the years. The party ended on an odd note, in that the hostess tried to show the rest of us the difference between French-Canadian humor and Anglophone humour. She half-succeeded, in that most of us got half the jokes and the other half simply escaped us, but the ones that we did get we laughed just as hard at, so it wasn't wasted effort by any means.

We were all there to have fun and we did, going home at a late hour with smiles on our faces.

Dec 14 – No Rest, Yet

Oops.

It looks like I'll be working Sundays at Staples for the next few weeks. My bad, that: in booking my time off there, I neglected to list Sundays as unavailable. Sure, my Saturdays are nicely tied up, but it looks like my Sundays are spoken for, which is a change, I guess.

It used to be that Sundays were sacrosanct for me, to be spent with friends and sometimes relatives, depending on the time of year. When I was younger, I would most likely be gaining over at one of my friends places if I wasn't visiting family. In my teenage years, heading into University, Sundays were spent again gaming with my friends, though we'd graduated by the time of our post-secondary educations to playing video games instead of boardgames, more or less. Then I moved out here to BC and for the longest time didn't have any gaming groups, which wouldn't really have mattered as I was working such crazy hours that a Sunday off was a rare treat for me.

Apart from the recent holiday overtime and my scheduling error this month, Sundays are back to the semi-sacrosanct in my mind. While Saturdays are busy days where I tend to catch up on things and go places that I couldn't during the week, Sundays are held apart, to be used for things that will relax the body and grow the mind. At least, that’s how I plan for them, for now.

There’s also the blog writing, which is always been a comfort to me these last seven years, knowing that every Sunday night I'd be posting a little collection of stories of my weeks adventures. Sometimes only a few people drop by to read it that week, but that was - and still is - just fine. I'm writing these weekly entries as much for myself as other people and where it goes, I don't pretend to know.

See you next week?

That about sums it up, really. It's a steady slow slog through the seasonal crazy, of which I'm experiencing very little, save the occasional second-job shift. No malls, endless lineups or crazy Christmas music playing endlessly. It's actually been rather nice, I think, though most likely I'll miss some aspects of it enough by next year that I may wander into a mall - briefly - to feel the seasonal spirit. We'll see how that goes when I get there...