2,524

I should be at about 5,000 tonight. Not going to happen, I don’t think. But I’m going to push on a bit more tonight. I’ve had a few mood swings already.

The twitteresque ramble:

• OMG, am I writing the superhero version of the Dresden novels?
• Of course you are, because that’s what you’re reading, you hack.
• No, no, keep going.
• WFT is wrong with you? This sucks.
• Shut UP. Brain, keep going.
• Glowing, floating nutria? There is something deeply wrong with you.
• YAY, Ghostbusters reference! Nobody will notice but me.
• Why are you writing this? GO WRITE.

:: slinks away ::

Here we go

November 1st. I’ve been awake for approximately 10 minutes.

I’m already guilty that I haven’t written anything.

By 11 o’clock, I have to be on the Max (light rail) taking S to the Amtrak station, so that he can visit his family in Seattle. Then it’s a relaxing 45 minutes on the Max to Ryan’s house, where I will write and be guilty that I’m not writing when I’m not writing. I have my EEE, which means that I could write on the train. I really  need to figure out a good way to do that, as the EEE is just little enough that it’s hard to balance on my lap. I have a military Map Bag that has a hard back; I may shift all my stuff into that for the month and see how that goes.

I have, however, decided on a theme for my frantic scrubbings. S suggested I do a collection of short stories, kind of a Weird Tales thing that would encompass a lot of the ‘maybe 8000 word’ ideas I had. It’d be connected, but not one store. This is very very slightly against the ‘rules’ of NaNoWriMo, but, honestly, I’d still be writing 50,000 words of fiction, so I don’t care.

Look at me, breakin’ a rule. I’ve already started the slide into madness.

What I decided to start with, though, has already grown past the ‘maybe 8000 word’ idea it started with. It may take up the whole damn month.

Rocket Robby, you’ll be pleased to know that I’m writing the Portent story. (Rocket Robby was the one who leapt on this concept and has been poking me with a stick to make it into a full-blown story. )

Yes, me and my fairly disgusting superheroine will be spending a lot of time together this month. The world has shifted a bit from the one she started in, though Ryan’s worldbuilding is what created her, and there’s a lot of that still in there. But the scope has changed to encompass the things I need it to.

Q&A!

1. Do I have the scenes mapped out, perhaps with salient plot twists and well researched information recorded for easy access. – Uh, no.
2. Do I have an outline of my plot? – No.
3. Do I have a plot? – Hell no.
4. Do I have a modicum of sense? – Apparently not.

Not a good sign that I’m already talking to myself.

Yes, I’m procrastinating. It’s been 20 minutes now, I’ve been awake for a half hour, and I’m still at 0 words.

Things I must do before I start (AKA, LIST OF PROCRASTINATION)

• Download a excel spreadsheet tracker thing. Seems frivolous, but it really helps me. – Done before I posted. yay!
• Decide where the fuck I’m storing this thing. Google docs? What if I’m not online? My flash drive? Perfect… if I knew where the hell it was. Just on the HD of either the Dude (main pc) or Jarvis (the EEE)? But… what if I’m at work, or the train, or… or…
• Yeah, I have no idea. I’ll probably start with Google Docs for now.
• Though, If I can find my flash drive, I’ll use that.
• And what software? I’m partial to yWriter (free, feature rich, small footprint, can be put on a flash drive), but it and Jarvis don’t get along (Jarvis is running the EEE pc version of Linux). Word is like a comfy old shoe, but I know there’s better things out there. Liquid Story Binder XE looks to be perfect, if I was just writing a novel and NOT doing NaNo; it lets you plot things out to a degree that’s amazing. Not free, true, but awesome.
• Get Steve up – woot, done.
• Charge Jarvis – in progress. He only has about a 3 hour battery life, but he charges really quickly. Should be done before we leave.

I need to get going. There will be updates to the blog. Watch this space for insanity.

Ok, the madness has let me go, briefly…

My life is odd.

I had a fantastic weekend with my bestest girl, up from California, and we played with yarn and napped in the sunshine and romped around the city, like kittens let out to play. It was great, and I miss her already.

November is coming.

This means two things. Elections (Go man GO!), and  NaNoWriMo.

Yes, I’m doing NaNo again this year. I haven’t beaten it since 2004, but I try every year. 2006 I only got about 12,000 words into my 50,000, and stopped like a train out of coal. 2007 I did… nothing? I can’t remember.

This year, I expect things to be a bit better. For one, I have my EEE PC, which will let me take my writing anywhere I’m going. No more excuse that I can’t write because I’m going out. Secondly, I work at Yahoo! now, which means I have the mental energy left to DO something with my evenings. (Yes, Yahoo! announced 10% layoffs today, and I might be out of a job, but I don’t think so, and I still love the company.)

But there are some rocks on my road.

First of all, SteampunkWallpaper.com takes up a lot of time. There has to be some give, somewhere, and the wallpaper site gets it. I’m not going to STOP, but I am going to use a lot of filler in November. If anyone has any steampunk art, links, websites, or anything else they’d like profiled, drop me a comment.

Second of all…. I still don’t know what I’m writing.

I’ve got a list of things I might write about.

1. The steampunk erotica story that’s been eating my brain for two months.
2. The hard(ish) science/steampunk story that’s been eating my brain for two years. I’ve mostly chopped the random erotica out of it and put that up in the story above, so I can now concentrate on the plot rather than the porn.
3. The Jump cop/noir/sci-fi thingy.
4. The Roach-Girl story.
5. My Rat King story.
6. The Lost Novel book, which came to me at 3 PM on a Wednesday last week. Random, but cool.
7. I’ve still got the story I refer to as ‘the molerats in space’ story kicking in my head. I’ve written it twice. 100,000 words, and it still isn’t even close to being done.
8. The random SI Radio Librarian Porn thing I wrote. No, I’m not linking you to it. But it could expand into a novel…
9. Something Else. I owe a butt-ton of writing to family and friends.

I’m leaning toward #1, if only because I can do RANDOM stuff in there without worrying overly about the Big Scary Plot. I know at least one person who will vote for #4, because I know he loves the concept.

Oh, internets! I don’t know what to do!

I will be updating this blog more often, though.

Where has Mouse gone to?

You like the images of style retro? The Web Steampunk Wallpaper is dedicated to compile screen bottoms whose visual aspect remembers to the steam motors and the old woman gears. An example is this titled image “Old Ideas”, happened in a photo of Paul Garland.

That’s the Babel fish translation of this page, where they mentioned SteampunkWallpaper.com. I find the description amusing.

Sorry to be so AFK; SPW.com is taking a lot of time. I’ve got about 1,500 hits a day, though, which is good for both my ego and my production rate. I may fall flat on my nose, but I’m much less likely to give up if 1,500 people are watching me.

And only one flame so far, which is kinda nifty. I know that these wallpapers I’m doing aren’t Great Works of Art. Half of them I’m ‘meh’ about. A few I outright dislike. But this is a kind of fat camp for my creativity. I haven’t done ANYTHING in so long that my muscles are atrophied. So I push myself. Hopefully I’ll get some more people who want to be featured on the site, and I can ’share’ responsibility. That’d be awesome.

Here’s something I read today on Lifehacker, from Jeff Atwood :

Quantity always trumps quality. That’s why the one bit of advice I always give aspiring bloggers is to pick a schedule and stick with it. It’s the only advice that matters, because until you’ve mentally committed to doing it over and over, you will not improve. You can’t. When it comes to software, the same rule applies. If you aren’t building, you aren’t learning. Rather than agonizing over whether you’re building the right thing, just build it. And if that one doesn’t work, keep building until you get one that does.

This is what I am doing. I am COMMITTED (yes yes, with the paperwork and the comfy white coat) to doing wallpapers, and keep doing them. I’m learning a lot about myself. Part of that is that I’m so lazy I’m surprised I breathe, let alone do one wallpaper a day for the last 36 days. Yup, 36. Go me.

Guh. Well, I have to get up at 5 in the fucking morning to go to work for the next two weeks, so I better get going on tonight’s wallpaper.

Oh, and Dr. Horrible is free again. :: huge grin::

Person Jeff Atwood

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Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog

Until Sunday, July 20th at midnight (pacific, I believe), you can watch all three acts of Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. Mad Scientists, Supervillans, and frozen yogurt. AND IT”S A MUSICAL! Joss Whedon, you’ve done it again. You make things that make me happy. Thank you.

I adored every second about it. It makes me feel good to be alive, and a geek. This is the kind of movie that makes me light up like a juiced filament. I’ll buy the episodes after they go on sale, I’m sure. Go. Watch. Enjoy.

(Now, of course, I want to make some wallapers. Hmmmm…)

Hellboy II, the Golden Army review

I went to see Hellboy II just now, and I’ll make sure I keep anything spoilery under the cut.

The next sentence isn’t spoilery.

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS MOVIE!

More after the jump. It has spoilers, though. Be ye warned. Spoil, spoiler, spoilerist. There. If you still bitch at me for spoiling you, then I’ll just mock you roundly.

Slams her head repeatedly into her desk

I just deleted almost every comment on this blog. I am so stupid. This is what happens when I’m desperately trying to think of ideas for Steampunkwallpaper.com and I start ‘cleaning up’.

I’ve backed up a TEXT copy of all your kind words, but the comments themselves are gone. DAMNIT!!

Where have all the Wallpapers gone?

Due to the mass amounts of hits I was getting on my steampunk wallpaper page, and due to the fact that editing the HTML every day was driving me batshit insane, I moved the wallpapers to their own blog!

Check it out! SteampunkWallpaper.com

Steampunk Fiveday

Well, it’s the 4th of July, I should do a patriotic one… but I’m just not feeling it right now. The rumble and pop of the fireworks sounds too close to what I hear on the news about all the places in the world that it sucks to be right now. So, instead, I’ll do a Steampunk Fiveday.

Five cool sites about Steampunk. (not counting that link.)

1. The Steampunk Forum at Brass Goggles. Cool blog, and even cooler forum. Friendly and inventive, the gents and ladies therein will assist you with any issue or question you may have. With sub-forums for everything from textual to textural, fiction to fabric, it’s a great place to get your feet wet.
2. Æther Emporium. Wiki-style compendium of links. Nice place to go diving for Steampunkery.
3. The Steampunk Workshop. The home of the rock star of the Steampunk subculture, Jake von Slatt. More about him below, but the workshop is a blog of nifty cool. Many links abound!
4. Steampunk Magizine and forum. I actually buy this zine analog, at Powell’s, but it’s online for free. Stories, interviews, and, amazingly, full patterns and recipes for delectable things such as spats or leather aviator helmets. One issue even had a ‘how to live in the falling down wreckage of your city’ section. It makes me so happy.
5. Dr. Grordborts Infallible Aether Oscillators (pictured), are a line of immensely dangerous yet simple to operate wave oscillation weapons. I want one so badly that my palms sweat looking at them. I can almost feel the cool, textured grip, smell the ozone and the iron… gah.  I swear, if I had an extra 800$ lying around, they would be mine!

 

 

Bonus! Five steampunk names you should know.

 

1. The previously mentioned Jake von Slatt (pictured). Maker of amazing items, such as the Victorian all in one PC,  Steampunk Strat, and tutorials on etching and electroplating. He’s rather shy, but he’s undoubtedly one of the big names in Steampunkery at the moment. And, if he ever sees this, Yes, Jake, you do clean up nice.
2. Datamancer. If you haven’t heard of him, I’m rather surprised you even have read this long into the post! He’s the creator of the amazing keyboards, goddamn fucking beautiful laptop mods, and other awesomeness. And he’s hot. Don’t tell him I said that, though.
3. Abney Park. Steampunk band. Beloved (by more than just me) for their stage persona as well as their music.
4. Dr. Steel. The mad scientist version of Abney park. Think labcoat spattered with rust instead of blood. Oh, and toys. Lots of toys.
5. Agatha Heterodyne. The heroine and title character of the Girl Genius universe. Great webcomic, and analog comic too, come to think of it. I own a amusing card game based on them. Note that the Girl Genius creators don’t consider themselves Steampunk, because of it’s darker connotations. They prefer ‘Gaslamp Romance’.

Steampunk wallpaper a day?

In an effort to make myself create more, I’m going to try to add one thing to my Steampunk Wallpaper page every day. I’ll update the blog maybe once a week with a roundup of the week’s wallpapers…

Here’s yesterdays and today’s, just to get started.

July 2nd
July 3rd (Pipe picture CC by Autowitch)