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unforthWell, it's been a busy week in a busy month, but it's all been pretty good so I guess that makes it all okay. ;) And as I wait for the Mets game to get going (I should have expected the rain delay given that it's been pouring all day) I figured I might as well get around to the update I promised 10 days ago. :)
Last week I was fried, just getting done what I could after I got back from Texas on Sunday the 27th. The last few days of the drive were kinda fun, though. I stopped at the Dallas Zoo and looked at all the animals; the next day I stopped for two hours in Memphis in the morning. Memphis was damn cool, even though hardly anything was open at 9:30 in the morning on a Saturday; I still managed to wander around the downtown a bit, get hit on (or proposed to, depending on your interpretation of the conversation) by a random black dude, and then go over to Mud Island and visit the Museum of the Mississippi River, which was a fair sight cooler than it sounded. After that, I drove, and drove, and drove. Got home safe and sound if utterly exhausted and spent most of the week recovering and trying to get some work done and letting my life get eaten by a new writing project.
I've been spending a ton of time, relatively speaking anyway, working on a story based on the Golden Age game I used to play (I posted a teaser a couple of weeks ago). I've put in 26,810 on it since I started on April 15th, but that doesn't count all the other time I've spent and all the other work I've done -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xaniquen and I together wrote 18,242 words of notes based on things we could remember; he's put together a few lexicons, I've written a long outline of some other stuff, we've been chatting on the phone, I've called Kev and reminisced about villains on his master list, and all in all I feel pretty strongly that between this story (in progress title is "Zebulon Zed," aka my current secondary project) and my "actual" current project (in progress title "Alexander Reynolds," aka the primary project) I'm really eager to try to go to "the next step" - once I finish one or both of these, I'm gonna make a stab at publication. Both of my current projects are set in super heroic worlds, and I'm really starting to feel that this is a good genre for me. I feel like I've got a good "voice" for it, and for once in my life I'm doing actual research for my projects, and enjoying doing it. I think it's because I get to look in to so many different types of things; for one project or the other I've done research on geology, the Northern Marianas Islands, rationing in World War II, high tech flame throwers, Fords available in the 1940s, fashion, neurology, H.P. Lovecraft, sexism in driving, the origin of "69," and all manner of other things in just the past few weeks. Sure, I'm seeking specific bits of information ("did people think of '69' as a sexual thing in the 1940's?" "what is the actual geological cause of the existence of the Marianas trench?" "Will I violate copyright by putting the Dreamlands in my novel?") but I'm learning the answers and having fun doing it. I dunno, I just feel way good about both of the current projects.
Anyway, after a week of getting back on track, I got to this week. On Saturday, I headed out tobakanekotoo's birthday party despite not really feeling like it; this turned out to be a splendid decision. I had a great time - dinner and karaoke - and got to reconnect with a bunch of people I knew in my early undergrad years but hadn't seen since. That crowd seems to be doing pretty well, and they all seemed pretty enthusiastic to see me, too, so it was really nice.
Sunday, mom and I decided to go to the Met - we'd intended to go to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, but we decided not to because the weather looked threatening, and so we kicked ourselves when it cleared up and turned into a beautiful day, and so we wandered through the park instead. That evening, I helpedultimabaka move into his new place - I'd been going to help a lot, but he ended up doing almost everything with out me, and I felt vaguely lame. We still had a pleasant evening, though. All in all, I ended up walking almost 14 miles on Sunday!
Based on discussions mom and I had last week, I entered this week with a very clear idea of what things we need to do for work, and on Monday I launched in to doing them. This month is way busy for us, and I've got loads of things to get done, but I was busy most of the week so I did most of what I could this week on Monday, Tuesday and today.
On Tuesday evening,schenker28 came in to town, and we visited together on Wednesday and yesterday. Mostly we went to some shopping type spots, but on Wednesday we also went to MOMA for a bit - and saw just about the coolest modern art exhibit I've ever seen. For those who don't know, I HATE modern art, but this exhibit was REALLY interesting, it was all about this really cutting edge "futuristic" science stuff presented as art, ranging from a display that showed flight patterns from throughout a day to stuff about nanotechnology to devices that will enables us to fully customize our home environments to robots to body part implantation. I got to see some chairs and other stuff printed by 3-d printers, which was AWESOME, and over all there was a lot of neat stuff - some of it utterly ridiculous, but some of it with real potential. That evening, thanks to my mom, the three of us went out to see Macbeth, staring Patrick Stewart. I'd never seen or read Macbeth before, so I really had to concentrate, but it was damned awesome, the production was excellent with a lot of real interpretation in the direction. Turns out that I don't like the play much, though. Definitely not my favorite Shakespeare.
schenker28 headed out last night; I gave him a ride to the Princeton area so he could meet up with A. for the next leg of his trip. Meanwhile, I went and visited xaniquen, who also lives in the Princeton area, and we got some dinner and chatted about the Golden Age stuff. I ended up staying way, way later than I should of, and ended up not getting home until nearly 1, but it was worth it.
Over all, I've been kind of stressed, especially over the weekend, but now that I'm getting some work done I feel a lot better. I've really been enjoying the writing, and I'm hoping after a really bad night last night I'll be sleeping better - I have intentions of normalizing my schedule again, because it's been getting a little wonky (I've been staying up very late by my standards, and still waking up relatively early, and it hasn't been going well) but I'm too worried. I'll be spending a lot of my time this month working, but it's worth it - in June I'll be going to Europe, yay!
Well, I'm gonna go play with music - I listened to so much of what I had that now I desperately need new stuff, but I realized yesterday at Virgin that I didn't really know what to get. :)
Last week I was fried, just getting done what I could after I got back from Texas on Sunday the 27th. The last few days of the drive were kinda fun, though. I stopped at the Dallas Zoo and looked at all the animals; the next day I stopped for two hours in Memphis in the morning. Memphis was damn cool, even though hardly anything was open at 9:30 in the morning on a Saturday; I still managed to wander around the downtown a bit, get hit on (or proposed to, depending on your interpretation of the conversation) by a random black dude, and then go over to Mud Island and visit the Museum of the Mississippi River, which was a fair sight cooler than it sounded. After that, I drove, and drove, and drove. Got home safe and sound if utterly exhausted and spent most of the week recovering and trying to get some work done and letting my life get eaten by a new writing project.
I've been spending a ton of time, relatively speaking anyway, working on a story based on the Golden Age game I used to play (I posted a teaser a couple of weeks ago). I've put in 26,810 on it since I started on April 15th, but that doesn't count all the other time I've spent and all the other work I've done -
xaniquen and I together wrote 18,242 words of notes based on things we could remember; he's put together a few lexicons, I've written a long outline of some other stuff, we've been chatting on the phone, I've called Kev and reminisced about villains on his master list, and all in all I feel pretty strongly that between this story (in progress title is "Zebulon Zed," aka my current secondary project) and my "actual" current project (in progress title "Alexander Reynolds," aka the primary project) I'm really eager to try to go to "the next step" - once I finish one or both of these, I'm gonna make a stab at publication. Both of my current projects are set in super heroic worlds, and I'm really starting to feel that this is a good genre for me. I feel like I've got a good "voice" for it, and for once in my life I'm doing actual research for my projects, and enjoying doing it. I think it's because I get to look in to so many different types of things; for one project or the other I've done research on geology, the Northern Marianas Islands, rationing in World War II, high tech flame throwers, Fords available in the 1940s, fashion, neurology, H.P. Lovecraft, sexism in driving, the origin of "69," and all manner of other things in just the past few weeks. Sure, I'm seeking specific bits of information ("did people think of '69' as a sexual thing in the 1940's?" "what is the actual geological cause of the existence of the Marianas trench?" "Will I violate copyright by putting the Dreamlands in my novel?") but I'm learning the answers and having fun doing it. I dunno, I just feel way good about both of the current projects.Anyway, after a week of getting back on track, I got to this week. On Saturday, I headed out to
bakanekotoo's birthday party despite not really feeling like it; this turned out to be a splendid decision. I had a great time - dinner and karaoke - and got to reconnect with a bunch of people I knew in my early undergrad years but hadn't seen since. That crowd seems to be doing pretty well, and they all seemed pretty enthusiastic to see me, too, so it was really nice.Sunday, mom and I decided to go to the Met - we'd intended to go to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, but we decided not to because the weather looked threatening, and so we kicked ourselves when it cleared up and turned into a beautiful day, and so we wandered through the park instead. That evening, I helped
ultimabaka move into his new place - I'd been going to help a lot, but he ended up doing almost everything with out me, and I felt vaguely lame. We still had a pleasant evening, though. All in all, I ended up walking almost 14 miles on Sunday!Based on discussions mom and I had last week, I entered this week with a very clear idea of what things we need to do for work, and on Monday I launched in to doing them. This month is way busy for us, and I've got loads of things to get done, but I was busy most of the week so I did most of what I could this week on Monday, Tuesday and today.
On Tuesday evening,
schenker28 came in to town, and we visited together on Wednesday and yesterday. Mostly we went to some shopping type spots, but on Wednesday we also went to MOMA for a bit - and saw just about the coolest modern art exhibit I've ever seen. For those who don't know, I HATE modern art, but this exhibit was REALLY interesting, it was all about this really cutting edge "futuristic" science stuff presented as art, ranging from a display that showed flight patterns from throughout a day to stuff about nanotechnology to devices that will enables us to fully customize our home environments to robots to body part implantation. I got to see some chairs and other stuff printed by 3-d printers, which was AWESOME, and over all there was a lot of neat stuff - some of it utterly ridiculous, but some of it with real potential. That evening, thanks to my mom, the three of us went out to see Macbeth, staring Patrick Stewart. I'd never seen or read Macbeth before, so I really had to concentrate, but it was damned awesome, the production was excellent with a lot of real interpretation in the direction. Turns out that I don't like the play much, though. Definitely not my favorite Shakespeare.schenker28 headed out last night; I gave him a ride to the Princeton area so he could meet up with A. for the next leg of his trip. Meanwhile, I went and visited xaniquen, who also lives in the Princeton area, and we got some dinner and chatted about the Golden Age stuff. I ended up staying way, way later than I should of, and ended up not getting home until nearly 1, but it was worth it.Over all, I've been kind of stressed, especially over the weekend, but now that I'm getting some work done I feel a lot better. I've really been enjoying the writing, and I'm hoping after a really bad night last night I'll be sleeping better - I have intentions of normalizing my schedule again, because it's been getting a little wonky (I've been staying up very late by my standards, and still waking up relatively early, and it hasn't been going well) but I'm too worried. I'll be spending a lot of my time this month working, but it's worth it - in June I'll be going to Europe, yay!
Well, I'm gonna go play with music - I listened to so much of what I had that now I desperately need new stuff, but I realized yesterday at Virgin that I didn't really know what to get. :)
