stonetable.org

Progress is progress, even if it isn’t the kind you expect. Ars Technica revived their long-running column, Game.Ars, last week, and launched a new column, Mac.Ars, on Tuesday. While those two items were in the works, Kurt (my new co-worker at Ditto and a fellow moderator at Ars) suggested that he do a Windows.Ars (he’s the Windows moderator) and I do Linux.Ars (I’m the Linux moderator). I thought that sounded like a good idea, something right up my alley. A weekly column on the state of technology (related to Linux, of course).

I knew that I couldn’t (or rather, didn’t want to) do it on my own. It’s not that it’s a lot of work, but having a second person to write it with would give the column more flavor. So I got in touch with my friend Jorge to see if he was interested. He was. And we did. We started last friday night, had a draft ready by Saturday night, and sent it to Ken (who runs Ars). He liked it and agreed that he’d run it to see how the readers reacted.

Linux.Ars launched today. The comments, so far, are very positive. The column has been posted about eight hours, and I’ve already received one email and two pages of comments in the news discussion. By the results I see so far, I sense a bright future for my new column.

This new venture has kept me a little occupied this week, and I haven’t made any progress on the revisions on Temperament. There’s some other factors that have been influencing my life lately, factors beyond my control. I’m taking measures to get them addressed, though. I hope after tomorrrow I’ll be able to take a step forward with a spring in my step. Only time (and modern medical science) will tell.

I just love it when I get a burst of creative energy. I went for a walk at lunch to clear my head. A lap around the building in the beautiful weather was just what I needed. Themes, ideas, and plots whipped through my mind like a whirlwind. When I got back into my office, I pounded out a solid five hundred words of quasi-outline/draft. It may not be much, but it helped me bring some of the loose ends of the story together. And it felt damn good to write. With everything going on lately, that is a feeling I’ve been missing. Now I just need to dig up some more time to recreate it…

I have seen the light. It flickers dimly in the distance but grows stronger the more I stare. It whispers promise of asylum and repose.

We finally hired another developer. We have needed another pair of hands for quite some time. For too long we’ve stretched the work between two people. I have worked too many hours, too many weekends, too many double and triple shifts. Long hours are fine for short stints of time. When they extend for months and years, it wears on one both physically and psychologically. This is the first step towards recovery.

Things won’t change overnight. Kurt, our new developer and my fellow moderator on the Ars Technica forums, needs to be trained. We’ve build some high performance, cutting edge systems and neglected to document most of it. Training Kurt really highlights the need to beginning documenting our existing systems and, going forward, documenting any new systems we build.

My workload won’t drop immediately. In fact, it will increase slightly in the short-term, as I spend time helping Kurt get up to speed. Even when Kurt is fully trained, he will be working in a different area technically. Ultimately his work will help us streamline some of the existing systems and build new systems that we need to generate revenue. Extra revenue will eventually mean that I will be able to hire someone to work with me. Short steps lead to progress. The end is nigh, but not here yet.

I received the final rejection for Shaken, not Stirred, completing the triumvirate. I received some nice comments from two of the markets (and the standard white form letter from Analog). Two that stood out include:

“There is a good joke piece in here, it just needs more work.” - Andromeda Spaceway

“It is a nicely written tale, but it is not a Feghoot. — Planet Relish

For those of you wondering what a Feghoot is, it is “…a short-short story that ends in a very groan-worthy pun.”. Alas, my joke story doesn’t quite fall under that category. I knew the title was going to be a potential problem but I was stuck on it. It’s time to drop this piece in a drawer until time has given me a more objective perspective on it. Plus, I’m all out of markets to send it to.

Participating in writing challenges and contests is something most established writers frown upon, but to the fledgling like myself it can serve an important purpose. In my case, it helps me to keep a consistent writing schedule amidst the various other present tasks trying to capture my attention. It also helps me finish what I’ve started. Writing a first or second draft is easy, but polishing what I’ve done in to a piece worth of submission is not. For me these small challenges and contests give me a clear, public goal to aim for. I cannot rely on these gimicks forever, I know, but for the short-term they serve a useful purpose.

All that said, on to the challenges. I have three laid out before me this year. I’ve mentioned Van Helsing already. WindyCon has brought back their annual writing contest, and I intend to submit my current WIP. The submission deadline is August 31st, but I’m going to try getting it polished up before that, hopefully with enough time to submit it to group and get some valuable feedback.

Finally, this November brings us National Novel Writing Month. I participated last year but didn’t finish, having written myself into a corner. This year I plan on doing it again, but I’m going to be more prepared. I’ve spent some time thinking about my novel, and by the time the contest begins I’ll have a fairly solid outline finished. Last time I ran out of story far short of my goal and I don’t intend for that to happen again. I’m not going to delude myself. Pumping out a novel-length piece in month isn’t going to produce a high quality draft. It will, however, give me a solid starting point for what could end up as months of rewrites and revisions.

The common theme throughout all of this is simple: keep writing. I’ve been feeling very stretched of late, trying to maintain the delicate balance between home, work, side-work, and writing. It hasn’t helped that summer is here or that the seasonal depression that has visited me the past few years has shed its winter coat and decided to sample the warmer climate. Once I get past these hurdles I feel like I’ll be well on my way to where I want to be.

I was sitting in the caffeteria of the College of Dupage waiting for group to start and checking my email via the wonders of my Sprint PCS phone plugged into my laptop. I was surprised to see what is possibly the fastest rejection I’ve received so far, Andromeda Spaceways rejecting Shaken, not Stirred. Quick, but helpful. Along with the let-down they included notes from the readers. I don’t know how consistently e-zines are able to respond with comments, but it’s sure nice for a fledgling like myself. All readers are different, but now I know how a few objective ones reacted to this. That gives me a better sense of the direction I need to go in order to appeal to their tastes.

Last stop for this story is Planet Relish. If it gets bounced from there, I will probably drop it in a drawer for a little while. Once I get some active projects out of the way I’ll return to it, revising it with some of the readers criticisms in mind, and try to find a few more markets to peddle it to.

Before I sent out Shaken, not Stirred, I had a list of three markets that I thought fit the story best. Analog (their Probability Zero section specifically), Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM), and Planet Relish. I received a standard rejection letter from Analog over the weekend, and I just sent off my submission to Andromeda Spaceways. Since the last two are e-zines, I expect a slightly faster response time. According to the Black Hole, they are averaging 35 days. Fire and forget, I say. On to the next piece.

We decided to head north for the holiday. Most of my family lives in the Great Northwoods, also known as Tomahawk, Wisconsin, and I hadn’t seen most of them for a year or so. We decided to split the trip into two days. It isn’t so long of a trip, only 300 miles due north, but we wanted to enjoy ourselves. We grabbed a hotel room wednesday night in Stevens Point, and then took county roads the rest of the way. We managed to avoid most of the traffic that way, but we did run into some interesting things. We saw more wildlife on this trip than we usually see on weekend trips up north. Our final count was four deer, a jackrabbit, two wild turkey, and a black bear. Unfortunately we saw the bear a short distance from a trail formed during the ice age. Alas, we decided to skip the hike lest the bear decide to turn around and pay us a visit.

This was the weekend of their annual Pow-Wow Days, consisting of a parade, ski show, and fireworks, among other things. We went to the parade with my brother and cousin, and fireworks with my dad. It was a good time. The weekend did have its sad note. Barney, my dad’s dog, is nearing sixteen years old and it nearly broke my heart to see him. He is going deaf, cataracts are beginning to develop on his eyes, and he moves around very slowly. I’m afraid that this was the last time I’m going to see him.

We left early saturday morning, heading south-east towards Lake Michigan. We made our way to Appleton, where we stopped and explored the Harry Houdini museum. I was facinated by magic when I was young and it was neat to see the life of Houdini from a unique perspective. From there, we headed east and stopped in the Two Rivers, on the shores of Lake Michigan. We went down to the beach and dangled our toes in the water briefly before getting back on the road. We meandered down to Milwaukee, then cut back west towards home. We managed to get stuck in traffic near a Dave Mathews concert, then south through Lake Geneva and a straight drive to home.

It’s great to be home. I did have a piece of news waiting for me. Analog rejected my story, so I’m preparing to send it off to the next publisher on the list. That rejection was only a minor blip compared to the rest of the evening. Around 3am I woke to lightning and thunder. Shortly after that the power flickered and went out. We fared well, minus the interuption of sleep, but our neighbors were not so lucky. To the left, our immediate neighbor is rebuliding his fence for the third time this summer. To the right, two neighbors had some kind of flooding in their kitchen, and one of them lost some of their guttering. There’s nothing like standing on the street with your neighbors in the middle of the night, appraising damage, and being the only ones without any. The only worry I had was the sump pump. Without power, I was afraid that the basement was going to flood. Luckily, we caught a break. Power came back on for two minutes, long enough to pump out some of the water, before it went out again. By the time we woke in the morning, power had been restored. I need to get a battery backup for the sump pump soon. We’re expecting a week of storms and I have nightmares of flooded basements and water-logged go
ods. I’ve seen the aftermath of one such flooding and I have no desire to experience that again.

I’ve been trying to keep up with all of the work lately, but I’ve been failing miserably. This has been the most I’ve written in a week. We should be hiring someone very soon, and I’m optimistic that this will give me the breathing room I desperately need. I have the Van Helsing anthology coming up, one rewrite to finish, one story to finish, and planning for this November’s NaNoWrimo, which I plan on attempting again this year. This time, I want to go into it with a complete idea and outline prepared. Last year I wrote myself into a corner. Sometimes that happens, but the more prepared the better, the former boy scout in me says.