Zero Angel Richardson's Blog, page 19
August 1, 2013
Freeware Recommendation: Bitmeter II
Hi guys,
I recently switched back to using my mobile phone for my home Internet, so I required the use of a data tracker on my PC (since the phone's data was always a few hours old). I looked around and decided to try out Bitmeter II.
It's fantastic! I just Googled it to find the download. Here's the link,
Bitmeter overlays a real-time graph of your data usage when you start it and immediately keeps track of all your data use, both download and upload. It's interesting to see the amount of background activity going on, but more useful are the alerts you can set (you can do them volume over time—called speed alerts—or just full-on volume alerts). You can set a stopwatch feature to record totals over a certain amount of time (such as watching a video or reading a manga, or being on Pinterest for more than one second (seriously, Pinterest is a hog; sorry Pinterest fans but as long as I'm restricted by data I won't be back unless it's the last day and I have some GB to burn)), and it can do more than totals: it does averages, maxes and mins. The system tray icon maintains a running total as long as your connected, and if you check the statistics you can access a full record of it with graphs and tables that can be broken down by the hour, by the day, or by the month.
Aside: What's really nice for the Whovians is one of the alert noises is the Cloister Bell!
Anyway, it's clearly designed with utility in mind as it appears that the creators made a very streamlined useful app that does everything you can imagine it doing without being so clunky like most modern programs. When I finally graduate to full-on programming, this is the sort of app that I can imagine myself making.
The features are logical and are what you'd expect them to be based on their names, which is good as there is not much explanation on how to run it. You can set the floating time graph to be always on top or not, and can even set it to be click-through.
As well as alerts, you can set restrictions and let Bitmeter know your max data you're allowed to use and after what percent of that data to warn you. I'm fairly sure it won't shut off your data use if you go over though, so don't plan to use this to help curtail your children's data. Still, if your children are old enough and responsible enough to know about the restrictions on your plan and care, having a handy-dandy meter that keeps track for you is fantastic. For my purposes, I don't need to look any farther than Bitmeter II.
Zero Review: 9.0/10 A-
Although incredibly useful, some direction is probably required for most users and it would be nice if you could set limits on your data use that it could enforce. Also, although there is something to be said for utility of design, it could be prettier.
I recently switched back to using my mobile phone for my home Internet, so I required the use of a data tracker on my PC (since the phone's data was always a few hours old). I looked around and decided to try out Bitmeter II.
It's fantastic! I just Googled it to find the download. Here's the link,
Bitmeter overlays a real-time graph of your data usage when you start it and immediately keeps track of all your data use, both download and upload. It's interesting to see the amount of background activity going on, but more useful are the alerts you can set (you can do them volume over time—called speed alerts—or just full-on volume alerts). You can set a stopwatch feature to record totals over a certain amount of time (such as watching a video or reading a manga, or being on Pinterest for more than one second (seriously, Pinterest is a hog; sorry Pinterest fans but as long as I'm restricted by data I won't be back unless it's the last day and I have some GB to burn)), and it can do more than totals: it does averages, maxes and mins. The system tray icon maintains a running total as long as your connected, and if you check the statistics you can access a full record of it with graphs and tables that can be broken down by the hour, by the day, or by the month.
Aside: What's really nice for the Whovians is one of the alert noises is the Cloister Bell!
Anyway, it's clearly designed with utility in mind as it appears that the creators made a very streamlined useful app that does everything you can imagine it doing without being so clunky like most modern programs. When I finally graduate to full-on programming, this is the sort of app that I can imagine myself making.
The features are logical and are what you'd expect them to be based on their names, which is good as there is not much explanation on how to run it. You can set the floating time graph to be always on top or not, and can even set it to be click-through.
As well as alerts, you can set restrictions and let Bitmeter know your max data you're allowed to use and after what percent of that data to warn you. I'm fairly sure it won't shut off your data use if you go over though, so don't plan to use this to help curtail your children's data. Still, if your children are old enough and responsible enough to know about the restrictions on your plan and care, having a handy-dandy meter that keeps track for you is fantastic. For my purposes, I don't need to look any farther than Bitmeter II.
Zero Review: 9.0/10 A-
Although incredibly useful, some direction is probably required for most users and it would be nice if you could set limits on your data use that it could enforce. Also, although there is something to be said for utility of design, it could be prettier.
On Unpublishing
Like a coward I didn't promote the last post. Not really sure what prompted my reluctance, but the last post did help me come to a few realizations.
I am happy where my math books are and I am happy with Change of the Zombie (although it desperately needs a new cover and I would really love to finish its evolution into a visual novel—by the way, because of the formatting abilities of ebooks, planning on including the VN version within the ebook and not just the original story...ANYWAY).
And although I am proud of The Throne of Ao, I am not happy with it. So until I can put out the second edition, I will be taking it off the market.
Aside: That novel was more the novelization/plan of/for the comic we were planning and was never published or continued, although I still have ideas in that universe, WotA is my full-time obsession currently.
I was proud of Throne and I loved the characters and story I told. I still am proud and still love it.
But I love it more than it's worth, I think. Even though I had been writing my entire life, writing Throne, which had a first draft of ~200K words, and the subsequent revisions and rewrites as it went through the editing process and beta readers made me a better writer than I could imagine I would be when I was first starting to write and create this series.
But there's still a lot of that first starting writer in Throne when I read it today. And it shames me when I think of it.
I recently got the opportunity to read some of the revised collection of Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi (it's free online at http://mangafox.me), and at the end of one of the volumes, Takeuchi-sama talked about how terrible Sailor Moon was and how embarrassed she was by it after coming back to it for so long. I think this is probably true of most writers and even of artists in other fields, but well, I'm not successful, and I think of publishing more like a software programmer than a traditional writer possibly.
Aside: I have no idea where this SM resurgence came from within me, but I feel like I've found my youth and some of the inspiration and energy that I lost upon my disastrous first year as an adult, so I am not questioning it. I was never the type of person to grow up, even though I was always the most grown up person I knew.
If there are bugs that need worked out, I could continue doing hotfixes, but the problem isn't really bugs or even grammar (because I think I managed to get 99.99% of those problems), so I'd rather pull the line and redesign it from the ground up. The worst possible scenario is that I start doing good enough with my other published works and new works that people start looking at Throne and decide it's terrible. Right now I'm still unknown enough to get away with such a gut-wrenching move as unpublishing.
So The Throne of Ao will be pulled off the market the second I hit publish on The Warrior's Way.
I'm letting people know because once it's pulled I do not know if you'll be able to continue downloading it if you've already purchased it (I would like to think the answer to that question is yes, but couldn't find an answer); if it's already on a particular device, then it should stay there after unpublishing; and once it is re-published, I've been assured you'll be able to download the new edition (since it will keep the same Amazon ID code). I'm also planning on the new edition to maintain both a new expanded version and an abridged version that is more in-line with the original (again, the benefits of e-publishing).
The plan is to unpublish and work on it simultaneously with Book 2 as I work through that. I'd like to think that I can still meet the deadline of late 2014 for Book 2, so Book 1 would obviously be back by then too. Of course, as you've probably heard if you regularly read this blog, I'm crap at deadlines.
I'm still hard at work writing and rewriting all of the other projects as well. No clue when they'll be done, but here is my to-do pile (including some previously unannounced):
These are all the things I am working on now. With the exception of the new-to-the-pile rewrite of Throne and the first draft of Towers, all of these were previously announced with a 2013 publication date.
I am happy where my math books are and I am happy with Change of the Zombie (although it desperately needs a new cover and I would really love to finish its evolution into a visual novel—by the way, because of the formatting abilities of ebooks, planning on including the VN version within the ebook and not just the original story...ANYWAY).
And although I am proud of The Throne of Ao, I am not happy with it. So until I can put out the second edition, I will be taking it off the market.
Aside: That novel was more the novelization/plan of/for the comic we were planning and was never published or continued, although I still have ideas in that universe, WotA is my full-time obsession currently.
I was proud of Throne and I loved the characters and story I told. I still am proud and still love it.
But I love it more than it's worth, I think. Even though I had been writing my entire life, writing Throne, which had a first draft of ~200K words, and the subsequent revisions and rewrites as it went through the editing process and beta readers made me a better writer than I could imagine I would be when I was first starting to write and create this series.
But there's still a lot of that first starting writer in Throne when I read it today. And it shames me when I think of it.
I recently got the opportunity to read some of the revised collection of Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi (it's free online at http://mangafox.me), and at the end of one of the volumes, Takeuchi-sama talked about how terrible Sailor Moon was and how embarrassed she was by it after coming back to it for so long. I think this is probably true of most writers and even of artists in other fields, but well, I'm not successful, and I think of publishing more like a software programmer than a traditional writer possibly.
Aside: I have no idea where this SM resurgence came from within me, but I feel like I've found my youth and some of the inspiration and energy that I lost upon my disastrous first year as an adult, so I am not questioning it. I was never the type of person to grow up, even though I was always the most grown up person I knew.
If there are bugs that need worked out, I could continue doing hotfixes, but the problem isn't really bugs or even grammar (because I think I managed to get 99.99% of those problems), so I'd rather pull the line and redesign it from the ground up. The worst possible scenario is that I start doing good enough with my other published works and new works that people start looking at Throne and decide it's terrible. Right now I'm still unknown enough to get away with such a gut-wrenching move as unpublishing.
So The Throne of Ao will be pulled off the market the second I hit publish on The Warrior's Way.
I'm letting people know because once it's pulled I do not know if you'll be able to continue downloading it if you've already purchased it (I would like to think the answer to that question is yes, but couldn't find an answer); if it's already on a particular device, then it should stay there after unpublishing; and once it is re-published, I've been assured you'll be able to download the new edition (since it will keep the same Amazon ID code). I'm also planning on the new edition to maintain both a new expanded version and an abridged version that is more in-line with the original (again, the benefits of e-publishing).
The plan is to unpublish and work on it simultaneously with Book 2 as I work through that. I'd like to think that I can still meet the deadline of late 2014 for Book 2, so Book 1 would obviously be back by then too. Of course, as you've probably heard if you regularly read this blog, I'm crap at deadlines.
I'm still hard at work writing and rewriting all of the other projects as well. No clue when they'll be done, but here is my to-do pile (including some previously unannounced):
Throne rewrite and expansionWhen I say "rewrite", it means I have at least a first draft (I edit as I go, so a first draft is usually much closer to a final draft than a lot of people's first drafts). "Finishing work" is implied to all of these before publication and includes things like adding ebook hyperlinks and ebook formatting, designing/commissioning covers, etc. When I say "first draft", it means that I have something written for this story but I haven't written every scene yet. It could be anywhere from 5% complete to 99% complete although it's more likely it's between 20% and 70%.
Towers of Aeruen first draft
Warrior's Way rewrite and finishing work
ZAM #2 rewrite and finishing work
OFAD #1: Turn Off the Lights! rewrite and finishing work
OFAD #2: Wisps first draft
Change of the Zombie VN edition
Throne Prequel: Val rewrite
Throne Prequel: Hilde first draft
Throne Prequel: Deckard first draft
Throne Prequel: Iro Jad rewrite
Throne Prequel: Balolsur rewrite
Throne Behind-the-Scenes: The Imprisonment of Uriel Ardrest first draft
Throne Transition: Val rewrite
Throne Transition: Schaele rewrite
Towers Prequel: Gawyn rewrite
Towers Prequel: Tyria rewrite
The Forest rewrite and finishing
ZAM #3 first draft
Undisclosed title children's novel first draft
A Cross at the End of Days
These are all the things I am working on now. With the exception of the new-to-the-pile rewrite of Throne and the first draft of Towers, all of these were previously announced with a 2013 publication date.
July 31, 2013
Why I'm Crap at Deadlines
It's August. Well, for me, it's still July, but it's August by the time this is being posted.
If you're reading this, then I've missed at least one (but probably 7) deadlines and not released what I wanted to release in July.
This is a good thing I promise you, because I have been working my ass off to get these to you and if I am not ready to release them, then well, it's because they're not ready, not because they haven't had hundreds of hours of work put into the lot of them this month.
I'd really not rather go the route of Blizzard and CONSTANTLY have delays on EVERYTHING, but I'm also not going to release something before it's ready. Personally, I have a lot of things that affect me that cause me to be late, but let's go through some of these and explain why they're not a factor anymore.
So with this sort of productivity level, why are these projects not getting finished?
Maybe you've already guessed that it's because I'm juggling so many different projects. Sorry, that's not it. In fact, I NEED this many projects because of how I work. If I were to just have one project, for instance, The Warrior's Way, then I would have written about 30K words in it this month and had nothing else to show for my time. When I add more to my plate, I don't take away from the other dishes, I just add more.
It's kind of like eating a pound of spaghetti. Yes, I have at certain points in my life eaten an entire pound of spaghetti, but generally, I eat 1/4-1/2 of a pound of spaghetti and supplement this with meatballs, breadsticks, salad, milk, Parmesan cheese, etc. It's not because I can't eat an entire pound of spaghetti, it's because I get bored eating the same thing and chewing that much too. In other words, I have ADHD.
I used to always blame my ADHD when I would miss a deadline, but that was before I came to understand how to work around it. It's still annoying and the steps I have to take (which I will briefly describe for you) are probably not the healthiest or cheapest ways to go about life.
...not to mention taking breaks for this blog, reviews, my day jobs, the WotA Wiki and world building, ApocalypseDesigns.com, the Facebook author page, etc. Basically, I've found that the best way to combat ADHD is to have so much going on that I literally have no time to do anything other than what I need to do.
Caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine.
If you don't know, the normal way to treat ADHD is by prescribing Ritalin or Adderall, the generic of Adderall is "mixed amphetamines", so basically speed. For those of us that live outside the "has health insurance" bubble, legal stimulants are a not-quite-effective-but-better-than-nothing alternative.
When I am working for more than 20 minutes or more than a single "attempt" (i.e. a scene, a chapter, anything that carries me away counts as one attempt, but as soon as I have to step back from a work, then it becomes multiple attempts), then I drink about 1/2 cup of coffee every 30 minutes or so. In a normal workday, that comes out to ~1 pot of coffee. Sometimes an "attempt" can last for an hour or even two if the muses are calling to me, but sometimes I drink 3-4 cups of coffee at a time too.
Nicotine.
This is not something I do everyday, but especially if I pull an all-nighter (which is much more common in the fall and spring when I am juggling more jobs) or I am approaching the end of a coffee build-up cycle (after which I try to go off coffee for a week or so, so that it is effective again), nicotine is enough of a stimulant that it helps me focus and prevents me from suffering the deleterious effects of ADHD.
Food.
Again, especially after an all-nighter or if I am consuming vast quantities of coffee, I increase my calories when I need more energy or need to balance out more coffee.
Honorable Mention: Gatorade/Water.
Not so much to combat ADHD, but to balance out the coffee. Obviously, a small amount of Gatorade can match a much larger quantity of water (sorry Waterboy), but Gatorade also has the negative that it's not free.
P.S. You might wonder what I did in high school (secondary school) since many people back then didn't drink coffee in high school and I definitely couldn't purchase cigars or pipe tobacco back then. Well, high school is nothing. Really, a bachelor's degree is nothing as well. If you show up to classes and do the work you're not going to run into much trouble. Not until my upper division classes in college did I realize that I needed coffee to stay on task and not until my master's degree did I really have to start managing my ADHD. Miraculously (that's sarcasm), I went from planning a novel and doing crap work for it for 9 years to finishing my novel and multiple revisions in one year after really starting to manage my ADHD. I also went from a student that got Cs in classes I found particularly boring to maintaining a perfect 4.0, so I'd say that my methods work fairly well (at least for me). Oh, and there's another pretty major thing that affects my motivation in ways I never thought it could. If I am particularly unmotivated and don't feel like doing anything, I would always just veg out or distract myself with good art of some sort (video, visual, interactive, musical, whatever), but then I started to question this as it happened more and more until I realized that one of the biggest demotivators in my life is pain. Not the "why me?" BS or the "F*** that really hurts!" explosions of pain, but just the general achy, I'm-getting-too-old-for-this-crap pain that sneaks up on you and you don't even realize it's bothering you until you're asking yourself if you really need to climb all those stairs to go to the restroom right now or if you'll be alright until you need to go up there. My solutions for that? Ibuprofen mainly. 2 if it's wet out and really bad, 1-2 if I've done something particularly strenuous (such as running, fighting, driving long periods), and 1 low-dosage baseline per day no matter what for general anti-inflammatory purposes (which supposedly helps prevent cancer too, so that's nice).
Disclaimer: Do not do anything I do unless recommended by a doctor or if you're not going to hold me accountable. This stuff works for me. You're not me, so I'm not recommending it for you. In fact, most of the things I've mentioned are bad for you, so don't do that. K? Thanks.
Anyway, so why do I keep giving so many deadlines? Well, I need them. If I didn't have them, I probably would have written somewhere around 500 words this month. Obviously not counting this blog or explanations to students on how to solve problems (since this single post alone is already 500+ words). Hell, I've tweeted more than 500 words this month. And it's not enough to have the deadlines be privately made and privately failed. I need that desperation that comes from having promised people something in order to deliver on that promise. Having real deadlines that matter should probably be #1 in that list above, and this was the ONLY way I accomplished school work (or anything else) that took more than 10 minutes before I knew about coffee.
That said, I'm definitely going to scale back release dates and only post dates for things that are already finished with the exception of art/press/etc. I obviously have no idea how long it takes to create something even if I have an idea of my current productivity levels and figured they were going to be good enough, and, as was the case with ZAM #2 this month, sometimes the project morphs and lengthens itself. Also, there are just some things that interject themselves on your time (like having your house torn apart and try to put it back together to be able to live in it)
I mean, I'm sure I could put together a crap math book that revolutionizes the way algebra is taught in a week or so (in fact, I already have, first draft; I trashed it, not good enough), but in order to put together a worthwhile math book that lays the basis for the way algebra should be taught while simultaneously being approachable to more than just math educators with a background in math, well, it takes a little while longer.
Similarly, short stories tend to oscillate between shorts, novellettes, novellas and sometimes even full-length novels depending on the draft, and then there's the despair.
No, I'm not an emo kid (well, not anymore anyway), and I'm really not depressed at all when it comes to life and such (thank you my future wife). But I don't know any way to describe the blackness that wells up at the thought of my fiction works; there's no coincidence that I've only released two fictional stories in the last year in spite of having written over a dozen stories that I was happy with. I get marketing and I get that most writers don't make it and then not until they have a bunch out blah blah blah, etc etc etc, but I do believe that there is a baseline that most people can expect with their work and well, I haven't met that baseline for my fictional works.
One of the reasons I've been pushing all of these deadlines so strongly this month is because I want to rework my platform and having a higher quantity of good quality stories is imperative for any non-blockbuster writer in order to begin to make a living, but then there's just that blackness.
No matter that when I start reading these stories it is like I am reading someone else's work that I greatly enjoy and I devour them in a single sitting (by the way kids, I do not recommend reading "The Throne of Ao" aloud. I don't know about you, but it gets way too intense and you start raising your voice and have to stand up and you really, really, really need to take breaks every chapter or you'll have a heart attack). Once I start reading them, I fall in love with them again even if I've forgotten writing them, but the blackness is there before I start reading them.
The fact of the matter is that I can handle constructive criticism and I can even handle destructive criticism, but having next to no feedback on these works makes me feel like I'm suspended over a great chasm with those dissolving Mario blocks beneath me and not with the amazing jumping ability of that fabled plumber.
Even with these blog posts, the majority of the views I get are just spam. I'm starting to get others commenting on them, to which I assume that there are probably x10 people reading the post even if they don't comment, but in the 2300 some blog views I've had in the last few months writing this, I imagine that ~1800 are spam views.
A free preview of the next novella didn't encourage anyone to join the mailing list, and offering to make two never-before-offered-free books free didn't encourage more than a handful of people to "like" my Facebook page. It's all quite underwhelming.
A lot of writers say that they write for themselves, but although I love my works and I get entertainment and enjoyment out of them, I am writing them for others. Summarizing how I teach math and going beyond the classes that I teach with my math books probably helps organize my thoughts and such, but I am hoping to make a difference with the way math is taught with those books. Writing entertaining fiction is enjoyable to imagine and create and figure out the end of the story, but I KNOW HOW IT ENDS. I'VE ALREADY FIGURED IT OUT! I've already got that enjoyment! I want to share it with others now. I want to inspire people and give them the "feels" like how I got as a kid and still get today from the media I try to consume. If it wasn't for fiction, I wouldn't be the person I am. If I didn't have these fictional heroes to love as a child, I would have fallen astray in my real life more than I did.
I'm not looking for advice here. I'm trying to explain why I'm crap at deadlines. I said earlier that I needed public deadlines because without them I wouldn't be motivated. That's the thing, if it's shared with everyone and no one cares, does it make a tweet? Not at all. So the promise made is made to no one. So although I have regret and I wish I could keep promises to myself, I can't; I need others to keep promises to.
And there are the actual promises. When finishing The Throne of Ao, there were literally dozens of people that were really excited about reading it. I even had a publication drive and made hundreds of dollars to help me finish it. There were strangers excited, friends excited, associates excited, and family excited—seemingly genuinely so. Fast-forward to releasing it and even people that pre-ordered it lost all excitement (with some few exceptions). Many people had forgotten they pre-ordered it, and some that were excited about getting the book said they would probably never read it after they had gotten it. (Note: I appreciated the support, but it still felt like unexpectedly being slapped in the face).
It would have been nice to just hear what people thought about it, you know? And the idea that I have all of these other stories ready to launch only for them to be swallowed up in this black hole of nothingness, well, yeah, I'd say that is a good definition of despair. Also see: lack of hope.
So that is a pretty major reason why I'm crap at deadlines even after having learned how to manage all of my issues with ADHD and arthritis, the fact that I'm putting forth hundreds of hours of work to maybe only hear from a handful of people what their thoughts on my books are, well, it's...
...annoying is what it is. Have I really been bitching this much about not being done yet? God, I need to get back to work. Sorry for the diversion, must have forgot my coffee this hour.
Meta Addendum: Why post?
If I disagree with writing all this (or at least the last bit), why post it at all? Well, (1) then I really would have been wasting my time, (2) I'm not going to take more time to edit out the undesirable aspects because well, it is an aspect of me I suppose and I don't have a problem sharing the frustrations of being a fledgling writer, maybe someone else out there is thinking of giving up and they'll read this and they'll need that sense of someone-in-the-same-position-going-through-this to keep going (or maybe that's just that arrogant want-to-inspire aspiration of mine for my writing speaking), (3) if I had read something like this in high school I may have known what I could do to "fix myself" in regards to ADHD—didn't have arthritis as bad back then ^_~ and then I could have gotten my first published novel written and been 9 years ahead of the game.
And (4) I really am very sorry that I missed my deadlines this month and especially sorry to the maybe-not-nonexistant people that were looking forward to them and actually read this. I will try harder, and as I mentioned earlier, I won't put out deadlines any more unless the works are practically complete.
That said, I'm not going to end this blog with a publication goals list and definitely not with any expected publication dates. You'll know more once I do.
Again, I'm very sorry, and thank you for sticking with me. Even if I don't hear from people, I am still going to keep trying and will work on that private deadlines deficiency as well. Thank you for reading.
If you're reading this, then I've missed at least one (but probably 7) deadlines and not released what I wanted to release in July.
This is a good thing I promise you, because I have been working my ass off to get these to you and if I am not ready to release them, then well, it's because they're not ready, not because they haven't had hundreds of hours of work put into the lot of them this month.
I'd really not rather go the route of Blizzard and CONSTANTLY have delays on EVERYTHING, but I'm also not going to release something before it's ready. Personally, I have a lot of things that affect me that cause me to be late, but let's go through some of these and explain why they're not a factor anymore.
So with this sort of productivity level, why are these projects not getting finished?
Maybe you've already guessed that it's because I'm juggling so many different projects. Sorry, that's not it. In fact, I NEED this many projects because of how I work. If I were to just have one project, for instance, The Warrior's Way, then I would have written about 30K words in it this month and had nothing else to show for my time. When I add more to my plate, I don't take away from the other dishes, I just add more.
It's kind of like eating a pound of spaghetti. Yes, I have at certain points in my life eaten an entire pound of spaghetti, but generally, I eat 1/4-1/2 of a pound of spaghetti and supplement this with meatballs, breadsticks, salad, milk, Parmesan cheese, etc. It's not because I can't eat an entire pound of spaghetti, it's because I get bored eating the same thing and chewing that much too. In other words, I have ADHD.
I used to always blame my ADHD when I would miss a deadline, but that was before I came to understand how to work around it. It's still annoying and the steps I have to take (which I will briefly describe for you) are probably not the healthiest or cheapest ways to go about life.
Ways I Manage ADHDThe aforementioned dozen projects at once.
...not to mention taking breaks for this blog, reviews, my day jobs, the WotA Wiki and world building, ApocalypseDesigns.com, the Facebook author page, etc. Basically, I've found that the best way to combat ADHD is to have so much going on that I literally have no time to do anything other than what I need to do.
Caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine.
If you don't know, the normal way to treat ADHD is by prescribing Ritalin or Adderall, the generic of Adderall is "mixed amphetamines", so basically speed. For those of us that live outside the "has health insurance" bubble, legal stimulants are a not-quite-effective-but-better-than-nothing alternative.
When I am working for more than 20 minutes or more than a single "attempt" (i.e. a scene, a chapter, anything that carries me away counts as one attempt, but as soon as I have to step back from a work, then it becomes multiple attempts), then I drink about 1/2 cup of coffee every 30 minutes or so. In a normal workday, that comes out to ~1 pot of coffee. Sometimes an "attempt" can last for an hour or even two if the muses are calling to me, but sometimes I drink 3-4 cups of coffee at a time too.
Nicotine.
This is not something I do everyday, but especially if I pull an all-nighter (which is much more common in the fall and spring when I am juggling more jobs) or I am approaching the end of a coffee build-up cycle (after which I try to go off coffee for a week or so, so that it is effective again), nicotine is enough of a stimulant that it helps me focus and prevents me from suffering the deleterious effects of ADHD.
Food.
Again, especially after an all-nighter or if I am consuming vast quantities of coffee, I increase my calories when I need more energy or need to balance out more coffee.
Honorable Mention: Gatorade/Water.
Not so much to combat ADHD, but to balance out the coffee. Obviously, a small amount of Gatorade can match a much larger quantity of water (sorry Waterboy), but Gatorade also has the negative that it's not free.
P.S. You might wonder what I did in high school (secondary school) since many people back then didn't drink coffee in high school and I definitely couldn't purchase cigars or pipe tobacco back then. Well, high school is nothing. Really, a bachelor's degree is nothing as well. If you show up to classes and do the work you're not going to run into much trouble. Not until my upper division classes in college did I realize that I needed coffee to stay on task and not until my master's degree did I really have to start managing my ADHD. Miraculously (that's sarcasm), I went from planning a novel and doing crap work for it for 9 years to finishing my novel and multiple revisions in one year after really starting to manage my ADHD. I also went from a student that got Cs in classes I found particularly boring to maintaining a perfect 4.0, so I'd say that my methods work fairly well (at least for me). Oh, and there's another pretty major thing that affects my motivation in ways I never thought it could. If I am particularly unmotivated and don't feel like doing anything, I would always just veg out or distract myself with good art of some sort (video, visual, interactive, musical, whatever), but then I started to question this as it happened more and more until I realized that one of the biggest demotivators in my life is pain. Not the "why me?" BS or the "F*** that really hurts!" explosions of pain, but just the general achy, I'm-getting-too-old-for-this-crap pain that sneaks up on you and you don't even realize it's bothering you until you're asking yourself if you really need to climb all those stairs to go to the restroom right now or if you'll be alright until you need to go up there. My solutions for that? Ibuprofen mainly. 2 if it's wet out and really bad, 1-2 if I've done something particularly strenuous (such as running, fighting, driving long periods), and 1 low-dosage baseline per day no matter what for general anti-inflammatory purposes (which supposedly helps prevent cancer too, so that's nice).
Disclaimer: Do not do anything I do unless recommended by a doctor or if you're not going to hold me accountable. This stuff works for me. You're not me, so I'm not recommending it for you. In fact, most of the things I've mentioned are bad for you, so don't do that. K? Thanks.
Anyway, so why do I keep giving so many deadlines? Well, I need them. If I didn't have them, I probably would have written somewhere around 500 words this month. Obviously not counting this blog or explanations to students on how to solve problems (since this single post alone is already 500+ words). Hell, I've tweeted more than 500 words this month. And it's not enough to have the deadlines be privately made and privately failed. I need that desperation that comes from having promised people something in order to deliver on that promise. Having real deadlines that matter should probably be #1 in that list above, and this was the ONLY way I accomplished school work (or anything else) that took more than 10 minutes before I knew about coffee.
That said, I'm definitely going to scale back release dates and only post dates for things that are already finished with the exception of art/press/etc. I obviously have no idea how long it takes to create something even if I have an idea of my current productivity levels and figured they were going to be good enough, and, as was the case with ZAM #2 this month, sometimes the project morphs and lengthens itself. Also, there are just some things that interject themselves on your time (like having your house torn apart and try to put it back together to be able to live in it)
I mean, I'm sure I could put together a crap math book that revolutionizes the way algebra is taught in a week or so (in fact, I already have, first draft; I trashed it, not good enough), but in order to put together a worthwhile math book that lays the basis for the way algebra should be taught while simultaneously being approachable to more than just math educators with a background in math, well, it takes a little while longer.
Similarly, short stories tend to oscillate between shorts, novellettes, novellas and sometimes even full-length novels depending on the draft, and then there's the despair.
No, I'm not an emo kid (well, not anymore anyway), and I'm really not depressed at all when it comes to life and such (thank you my future wife). But I don't know any way to describe the blackness that wells up at the thought of my fiction works; there's no coincidence that I've only released two fictional stories in the last year in spite of having written over a dozen stories that I was happy with. I get marketing and I get that most writers don't make it and then not until they have a bunch out blah blah blah, etc etc etc, but I do believe that there is a baseline that most people can expect with their work and well, I haven't met that baseline for my fictional works.
One of the reasons I've been pushing all of these deadlines so strongly this month is because I want to rework my platform and having a higher quantity of good quality stories is imperative for any non-blockbuster writer in order to begin to make a living, but then there's just that blackness.
No matter that when I start reading these stories it is like I am reading someone else's work that I greatly enjoy and I devour them in a single sitting (by the way kids, I do not recommend reading "The Throne of Ao" aloud. I don't know about you, but it gets way too intense and you start raising your voice and have to stand up and you really, really, really need to take breaks every chapter or you'll have a heart attack). Once I start reading them, I fall in love with them again even if I've forgotten writing them, but the blackness is there before I start reading them.
The fact of the matter is that I can handle constructive criticism and I can even handle destructive criticism, but having next to no feedback on these works makes me feel like I'm suspended over a great chasm with those dissolving Mario blocks beneath me and not with the amazing jumping ability of that fabled plumber.
Even with these blog posts, the majority of the views I get are just spam. I'm starting to get others commenting on them, to which I assume that there are probably x10 people reading the post even if they don't comment, but in the 2300 some blog views I've had in the last few months writing this, I imagine that ~1800 are spam views.
A free preview of the next novella didn't encourage anyone to join the mailing list, and offering to make two never-before-offered-free books free didn't encourage more than a handful of people to "like" my Facebook page. It's all quite underwhelming.
A lot of writers say that they write for themselves, but although I love my works and I get entertainment and enjoyment out of them, I am writing them for others. Summarizing how I teach math and going beyond the classes that I teach with my math books probably helps organize my thoughts and such, but I am hoping to make a difference with the way math is taught with those books. Writing entertaining fiction is enjoyable to imagine and create and figure out the end of the story, but I KNOW HOW IT ENDS. I'VE ALREADY FIGURED IT OUT! I've already got that enjoyment! I want to share it with others now. I want to inspire people and give them the "feels" like how I got as a kid and still get today from the media I try to consume. If it wasn't for fiction, I wouldn't be the person I am. If I didn't have these fictional heroes to love as a child, I would have fallen astray in my real life more than I did.
I'm not looking for advice here. I'm trying to explain why I'm crap at deadlines. I said earlier that I needed public deadlines because without them I wouldn't be motivated. That's the thing, if it's shared with everyone and no one cares, does it make a tweet? Not at all. So the promise made is made to no one. So although I have regret and I wish I could keep promises to myself, I can't; I need others to keep promises to.
And there are the actual promises. When finishing The Throne of Ao, there were literally dozens of people that were really excited about reading it. I even had a publication drive and made hundreds of dollars to help me finish it. There were strangers excited, friends excited, associates excited, and family excited—seemingly genuinely so. Fast-forward to releasing it and even people that pre-ordered it lost all excitement (with some few exceptions). Many people had forgotten they pre-ordered it, and some that were excited about getting the book said they would probably never read it after they had gotten it. (Note: I appreciated the support, but it still felt like unexpectedly being slapped in the face).
It would have been nice to just hear what people thought about it, you know? And the idea that I have all of these other stories ready to launch only for them to be swallowed up in this black hole of nothingness, well, yeah, I'd say that is a good definition of despair. Also see: lack of hope.
So that is a pretty major reason why I'm crap at deadlines even after having learned how to manage all of my issues with ADHD and arthritis, the fact that I'm putting forth hundreds of hours of work to maybe only hear from a handful of people what their thoughts on my books are, well, it's...
...annoying is what it is. Have I really been bitching this much about not being done yet? God, I need to get back to work. Sorry for the diversion, must have forgot my coffee this hour.
Meta Addendum: Why post?
If I disagree with writing all this (or at least the last bit), why post it at all? Well, (1) then I really would have been wasting my time, (2) I'm not going to take more time to edit out the undesirable aspects because well, it is an aspect of me I suppose and I don't have a problem sharing the frustrations of being a fledgling writer, maybe someone else out there is thinking of giving up and they'll read this and they'll need that sense of someone-in-the-same-position-going-through-this to keep going (or maybe that's just that arrogant want-to-inspire aspiration of mine for my writing speaking), (3) if I had read something like this in high school I may have known what I could do to "fix myself" in regards to ADHD—didn't have arthritis as bad back then ^_~ and then I could have gotten my first published novel written and been 9 years ahead of the game.
And (4) I really am very sorry that I missed my deadlines this month and especially sorry to the maybe-not-nonexistant people that were looking forward to them and actually read this. I will try harder, and as I mentioned earlier, I won't put out deadlines any more unless the works are practically complete.
That said, I'm not going to end this blog with a publication goals list and definitely not with any expected publication dates. You'll know more once I do.
Again, I'm very sorry, and thank you for sticking with me. Even if I don't hear from people, I am still going to keep trying and will work on that private deadlines deficiency as well. Thank you for reading.
July 29, 2013
New Sailor Moon Anime o_O
I've recently come out on this blog as being a childhood fan of Sailor Moon. So imagine my surprise when the same week I say this I hear about an all-new Sailor Moon anime!
Remember, I tempered my appreciation of Sailor Moon by saying that the show was not the best and that the Sailor Moon that I remember is the one from the many fanfictions of Sailor Moon that I read back then.
So this is an approximation of how I reacted to hearing there was a new Sailor Moon anime coming as early as this winter:
Approximately.
Of course to be followed with the soul-crushing logic that this is probably going to be aimed at 12-15 year olds like the original was and will not be something that I'll even be able to enjoy for nostalgia's sake.
Also, please be aware that although this particular Amazon copy of "Sailor Moon: The Complete Series (2013)" SAYS that it is 2013, it's actually 2010, oh, and it's also apparently distributed illegally. How do they get away with that? Still, lots of high reviews. I assume once they sell out that they won't have any additional copies if it's an illegal version, so if you're worried you won't ever get a copy of the original dubbed Sailor Moon, it looks like this is the route you'd have to go.
Hmm. After looking at some of the reviews for this, apparently the Sailor Moon TV series I remember was a bastard version of the original that was dumbed down for American audiences and the original was rated 15+. I knew they butchered it, but I didn't realize they made it so much more kid-friendly (although I somehow remember the two lesbian characters being portrayed as just really good friends, I think that was post USA Network Sailor Moon and post SOS Campaign). Gives me hope for the remake!
Remember, I tempered my appreciation of Sailor Moon by saying that the show was not the best and that the Sailor Moon that I remember is the one from the many fanfictions of Sailor Moon that I read back then.
So this is an approximation of how I reacted to hearing there was a new Sailor Moon anime coming as early as this winter:
Approximately.
Of course to be followed with the soul-crushing logic that this is probably going to be aimed at 12-15 year olds like the original was and will not be something that I'll even be able to enjoy for nostalgia's sake.
Also, please be aware that although this particular Amazon copy of "Sailor Moon: The Complete Series (2013)" SAYS that it is 2013, it's actually 2010, oh, and it's also apparently distributed illegally. How do they get away with that? Still, lots of high reviews. I assume once they sell out that they won't have any additional copies if it's an illegal version, so if you're worried you won't ever get a copy of the original dubbed Sailor Moon, it looks like this is the route you'd have to go.
Hmm. After looking at some of the reviews for this, apparently the Sailor Moon TV series I remember was a bastard version of the original that was dumbed down for American audiences and the original was rated 15+. I knew they butchered it, but I didn't realize they made it so much more kid-friendly (although I somehow remember the two lesbian characters being portrayed as just really good friends, I think that was post USA Network Sailor Moon and post SOS Campaign). Gives me hope for the remake!
July 28, 2013
Redshirts by John Scalzi: A Review
One of the things I do now with breaks in my writing is make sure that I start reading the best of what my chosen genres have to offer. It's a way of feeling productive without really being productive.
My chosen genres being speculative fiction of all kind, but especially fantasy, science fiction and horror. John Scalzi has been on my radar for a while now, his blog, (http://whatever.Scalzi.com) is one of the best writer's blog out there, he was the (until very recently) president of SFWA, and he has been lauded as a great writer and a great science fiction writer (no, they're not the same thing). Not to mention, from his essays and his public speakings, he seems to be a stand-up guy.
So I journeyed to the one place someone in my position can get good fiction to see if Scalzi was represented there...the library. Quite absurdly, there was only one of his books there (have I mentioned there's about five of John Ringo? ಠ_ಠ Who, although entertaining, is not in Mr. Scalzi's league?) and it was one of the most recent. Redshirts is a science fiction parody of the habit of many writers killing off minor characters while the main ones are incredibly lucky and only suffer terrible afflictions which they inevitably miraculously recover from. This was first made famous in Star Trek where all the minor characters wore red shirts.
Update: Here's the Amazon link:
The novel follows Ensign Andrew Dahl, an eponymous redshirt, who quickly realizes that he, and all redshirts, are marked for death.
After finishing this yesterday I tweeted that this novel is the most meta novel I've ever read. At one point when I thought it had reached the meta limit the book surpassed it meta-ly. (Obviously shortened to 160 characters). In other words, there's meta, then there's meta-meta, and then there's Redshirts.
Update: Following no longer applies.
For those of you expecting a jump or link or anything, I'm composing this on my phone so unless I take the time to schedule this for later and go on my PC to make it pretty, it's going go be rather straightforward. Of course, if I do take that time, then I could probably just delete this paragraph so in that case this paragraph is rather meta but then I may just leave it in as an example.
Update: Left in as an example (^_-) ~☆
For those of you that want a basic idea of meta, it's pretty much something that is self-referential. Scream is a good example because the characters in that used the fact that they were in a horror film to their advantage. Have the virgin do the really dangerous stuff because virgins live until they lose their virginity, etc. In normal fiction, as soon as characters start talking about fiction tropes, that's usually a sign that the trope is about to be subverted (I.e. if characters have a virgin do the dangerous thing, but actually say that he or she will be fine because they are a virgin, then you can be pretty sure the virgin will die—or at least be horrifically maimed), not so in Scream and not so in Redshirts. In these films, they can regularly use the narrative and the rules of the narrative to their advantage.
One blurb of Redshirts on its back cover had someone claim to laugh the whole way through. It IS amusing and there were plenty of times for laughter (although not the whole way through). It does call out "bad" science fiction so if you're a fan of bad science fiction and can take a joke, then you will probably love this book for all of its meta-ness. The codas at the end (is codex the plural of coda? Update: No, Google's just got a crap spell-checker, which is rather ironic since it's always correcting me in my searches) were enjoyable, but I was left wanting more. I don't know if that was more resolution or maybe just seeing more of what happens next, but I sat there wishing it wasn't over, and at that point the codas were read more as a consolation prize than with the eagerness I devoured the rest of the book. (Update: It's worth mentioning I read the book in one sitting--it is over 300 pages so that's not a comment to how short it is, but rather a comment to how good it is)
It was a good read and Mr. Scalzi IS a great writer (thank god, I would have been pretty let-down otherwise) so I am looking forward to more from him. Supposedly, there is a way to download his first sci-fi book free and legally, although it involves some internet sleuthing. Can't wait.
Zero Review: 8.0/10 B-
P.S. Lots of anime emoticons today. Why? Been reading some fanfiction lately and it's causing me to regress to my younger self's habits. Ja ne!
P.P.S. Next up book review-wise will be China Mieville's Kraken and Un Lun Dun.
My chosen genres being speculative fiction of all kind, but especially fantasy, science fiction and horror. John Scalzi has been on my radar for a while now, his blog, (http://whatever.Scalzi.com) is one of the best writer's blog out there, he was the (until very recently) president of SFWA, and he has been lauded as a great writer and a great science fiction writer (no, they're not the same thing). Not to mention, from his essays and his public speakings, he seems to be a stand-up guy.
So I journeyed to the one place someone in my position can get good fiction to see if Scalzi was represented there...the library. Quite absurdly, there was only one of his books there (have I mentioned there's about five of John Ringo? ಠ_ಠ Who, although entertaining, is not in Mr. Scalzi's league?) and it was one of the most recent. Redshirts is a science fiction parody of the habit of many writers killing off minor characters while the main ones are incredibly lucky and only suffer terrible afflictions which they inevitably miraculously recover from. This was first made famous in Star Trek where all the minor characters wore red shirts.
Update: Here's the Amazon link:
The novel follows Ensign Andrew Dahl, an eponymous redshirt, who quickly realizes that he, and all redshirts, are marked for death.After finishing this yesterday I tweeted that this novel is the most meta novel I've ever read. At one point when I thought it had reached the meta limit the book surpassed it meta-ly. (Obviously shortened to 160 characters). In other words, there's meta, then there's meta-meta, and then there's Redshirts.
Update: Following no longer applies.
For those of you expecting a jump or link or anything, I'm composing this on my phone so unless I take the time to schedule this for later and go on my PC to make it pretty, it's going go be rather straightforward. Of course, if I do take that time, then I could probably just delete this paragraph so in that case this paragraph is rather meta but then I may just leave it in as an example.
Update: Left in as an example (^_-) ~☆
For those of you that want a basic idea of meta, it's pretty much something that is self-referential. Scream is a good example because the characters in that used the fact that they were in a horror film to their advantage. Have the virgin do the really dangerous stuff because virgins live until they lose their virginity, etc. In normal fiction, as soon as characters start talking about fiction tropes, that's usually a sign that the trope is about to be subverted (I.e. if characters have a virgin do the dangerous thing, but actually say that he or she will be fine because they are a virgin, then you can be pretty sure the virgin will die—or at least be horrifically maimed), not so in Scream and not so in Redshirts. In these films, they can regularly use the narrative and the rules of the narrative to their advantage.
One blurb of Redshirts on its back cover had someone claim to laugh the whole way through. It IS amusing and there were plenty of times for laughter (although not the whole way through). It does call out "bad" science fiction so if you're a fan of bad science fiction and can take a joke, then you will probably love this book for all of its meta-ness. The codas at the end (is codex the plural of coda? Update: No, Google's just got a crap spell-checker, which is rather ironic since it's always correcting me in my searches) were enjoyable, but I was left wanting more. I don't know if that was more resolution or maybe just seeing more of what happens next, but I sat there wishing it wasn't over, and at that point the codas were read more as a consolation prize than with the eagerness I devoured the rest of the book. (Update: It's worth mentioning I read the book in one sitting--it is over 300 pages so that's not a comment to how short it is, but rather a comment to how good it is)
It was a good read and Mr. Scalzi IS a great writer (thank god, I would have been pretty let-down otherwise) so I am looking forward to more from him. Supposedly, there is a way to download his first sci-fi book free and legally, although it involves some internet sleuthing. Can't wait.
Zero Review: 8.0/10 B-
P.S. Lots of anime emoticons today. Why? Been reading some fanfiction lately and it's causing me to regress to my younger self's habits. Ja ne!
P.P.S. Next up book review-wise will be China Mieville's Kraken and Un Lun Dun.
July 26, 2013
Jack the Giant-Slayer: surprisingly not bad. A review
I'm not sure what convinced me to give "Jack the Giant-Slayer" a chance. I suspect being free at the library and me burnt out from a month of all-nighters had something to do with it, but they actually had a good premise for the retelling and they made some choices that I probably would have made myself.
Here's the Amazon Instant Video link:
Remember, you can find the other formats through that link too if you scroll down.
The crown and the remaining beans were buried with the king, but much much later, the grave is robbed. Duh duh duh!
Anyway, I was very glad that they did not make Jack a total buffoon, and similarly glad that they did not do the "hero does something wrong in the beginning but tries to make up for it, but then others find out that he did bad and he REALLY has to make up for it then". THIS IS THE SINGLE-MOST DESPISED TROPE THERE IS: third act misunderstanding.
Seriously, I cannot tell you how much I hate this trope. I hate this trope so much that even though this movie avoided using this trope, the fact that they had the plot ready to start to go there made me start to squirm in my seat as frustration filled my bowels.
Back to what actually happened in the movie:
Jack is actually more competent than lucky, and he's an all-around good hero character. There were some choices made near the end that felt lazy (i.e. passing the idiot ball to the ruler of the giants mostly, or maybe it should be unnecessary-rage ball or unnecessary-douchebaggery ball).
The lazy choices are easily overlooked for those expecting a "bad" movie, but there was one point with an unnecessary popping eyeball that had me rolling my eyeballs and distracted from the enjoyment of the film, while the last 30 seconds of this movie caused me to drop it a full half point in the rating. If the power had gone out and I had never seen the last 30 seconds of this movie I would have given it a 7.5/10. It was THAT bad. I don't know why on earth they chose to end it that way. Maybe someone passed them the idiot ball!
I did see the last final moments of the movie, so...
Zero Rating: 7.0/10, C-
Here's the Amazon Instant Video link:
Remember, you can find the other formats through that link too if you scroll down.The crown and the remaining beans were buried with the king, but much much later, the grave is robbed. Duh duh duh!
Anyway, I was very glad that they did not make Jack a total buffoon, and similarly glad that they did not do the "hero does something wrong in the beginning but tries to make up for it, but then others find out that he did bad and he REALLY has to make up for it then". THIS IS THE SINGLE-MOST DESPISED TROPE THERE IS: third act misunderstanding.
Seriously, I cannot tell you how much I hate this trope. I hate this trope so much that even though this movie avoided using this trope, the fact that they had the plot ready to start to go there made me start to squirm in my seat as frustration filled my bowels.
Back to what actually happened in the movie:
Jack is actually more competent than lucky, and he's an all-around good hero character. There were some choices made near the end that felt lazy (i.e. passing the idiot ball to the ruler of the giants mostly, or maybe it should be unnecessary-rage ball or unnecessary-douchebaggery ball).
The lazy choices are easily overlooked for those expecting a "bad" movie, but there was one point with an unnecessary popping eyeball that had me rolling my eyeballs and distracted from the enjoyment of the film, while the last 30 seconds of this movie caused me to drop it a full half point in the rating. If the power had gone out and I had never seen the last 30 seconds of this movie I would have given it a 7.5/10. It was THAT bad. I don't know why on earth they chose to end it that way. Maybe someone passed them the idiot ball!
I did see the last final moments of the movie, so...
Zero Rating: 7.0/10, C-
On Fanfiction
Today I read a fanfiction of Harry Potter.
It was markedly bad in a variety of delightful ways; it needed the usual good edit, but was also based on dimensional travel, gender bending, and a weird incestuous egophilic relationship.
And in spite of being worse than the original Harry Potter, I enjoyed it more than the original.
Not the least being that the characters were drained from using magic, and the title characters became more powerful and got COOL magic abilities instead of just your regular normal magic abilities, and were able to do a lot more things wandless. And there was romance. And Harry wasn't such a prat. And more phoenixes.
It was quite enjoyable.
And there's a lot of rubbish out there, so I am glad I was able to find a good fanfic to read for the FIRST FANFIC I'VE READ IN OVER FIVE YEARS.
I don't know why I ever stopped though. Fanfiction is spectacular because authors, as a rule, tend to muck up their characters quite badly along the way, or even if they don't, they throw them away after they're done with them to never use them again. It's nice to see alternate storylines, what-ifs and how-abouts, crossovers and genre changes.
And it's especially nice for the characters that never got a good story. See: any non-RPG video game character ever. Specifically see: a site I still know off the top of my head featuring a Mega Man as though the Captain N universe encompassed Mega Man's (http://mmhp.net/TheSeries). This person has written over 20 books in this universe, and to date this is my Mega Man. This is the Mega Man I think of when I see yet another butchering of the series for a cartoon. This is a hero of a Mega Man and not just pixels on the screen.
There's so much good out there it makes you wonder why when video games get turn into movies why do they suck so much?
It's the same for Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon the show, I can't stand. It had some appeal to me in my youth that I can't explain (although I can try: first anime, lots of pretty girls in short skirts (which at the time were the same age as me or maybe older...(Update: just double-checked, 1997 was when these were on the USA Network, I WAS TWELVE WOW), monsters, and actually, now that I think about it, for whatever reason I was addicted to the theme song. Again, I blame the short skirts (update: now that I know I was twelve, I still blame the short skirts, but bear in mind I was 12).
Wow, that's really bad, and yet, the nostalgia fills me with euphoria. Anyway...
What I was saying was that Sailor Moon the show would have eventually been nothing more than an annotation in the story of my life (excerpt from "Story of Zero": Wakes up at 7 AM to watch Sailor Moon. An anime, even though he doesn't know what that is yet. Helps him to learn the lyrics to "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies faster than normal. On track to become a mega-dork), but Sailor Moon the idea has hundreds of stories out there and in some of those stories, how can I say this, they're fucking amazing. There's family and magic and romance (the real kind, not the girls like guys that are dicks to them kind that was in the first two seasons of the show) and alternate history and heroism, again and again, heroism. I am a sucker for heroes, if you weren't aware, and Sailor Moon fanfics have that in spades. Oh, and dragons. Did I mention dragons? There's effing dragons.
I have a pretty broad definition of fanfiction, and I view any sort of AU (alternate universe) as a fanfic, even if it was written by the author. They were such a big fan of their own work that they couldn't tell the story once is how I view it, but the "original" series (or one-off) is the original that all the rest are based off of.
Zelda is interesting in that each Zelda retells the story of Zelda and Link, but they supposedly all occur in the same world and involve reincarnations of the three points of the Tri-force. I'm OK with people classifying Zelda games as fanfic, but also OK with people that don't. If it is a fanfic, then my original is The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (Zelda 3).
Anyway, if you've never given fanfiction a try before, it has my recommendation. Find a site that has reviews and ratings—such as fanfiction.net—there's a LOT of erotica and slash out there, so make sure you know what you're getting into before you invest in a fanfic, and take it from me, don't start reading the chapters of a fanfic book until it's finished. Too many go incomplete. This actually ruined me with Sailor Moon. There were some AMAZING stories that I read that were left incomplete for far too long. Maybe they've been completed now, but I doubt it. Every couple of years I'll try to check back in on the ones that I still remember only to be disappointed. Speaking of which, some of my favorite SM stories are "Guardians of the Star" by Greywolf (which contains the aforementioned dragons) and "Universal" and "Universal B" by Jendra (which went unfinished for YEARS before finally posting the ending!)
Update: Here's the link for the HP fanfic if you're curious "The Girl Who Lived"
Here's the "Guardians of the Star" link and "Universal" and "Universal B" links also.
It was markedly bad in a variety of delightful ways; it needed the usual good edit, but was also based on dimensional travel, gender bending, and a weird incestuous egophilic relationship.
And in spite of being worse than the original Harry Potter, I enjoyed it more than the original.
Not the least being that the characters were drained from using magic, and the title characters became more powerful and got COOL magic abilities instead of just your regular normal magic abilities, and were able to do a lot more things wandless. And there was romance. And Harry wasn't such a prat. And more phoenixes.
It was quite enjoyable.
And there's a lot of rubbish out there, so I am glad I was able to find a good fanfic to read for the FIRST FANFIC I'VE READ IN OVER FIVE YEARS.
I don't know why I ever stopped though. Fanfiction is spectacular because authors, as a rule, tend to muck up their characters quite badly along the way, or even if they don't, they throw them away after they're done with them to never use them again. It's nice to see alternate storylines, what-ifs and how-abouts, crossovers and genre changes.
And it's especially nice for the characters that never got a good story. See: any non-RPG video game character ever. Specifically see: a site I still know off the top of my head featuring a Mega Man as though the Captain N universe encompassed Mega Man's (http://mmhp.net/TheSeries). This person has written over 20 books in this universe, and to date this is my Mega Man. This is the Mega Man I think of when I see yet another butchering of the series for a cartoon. This is a hero of a Mega Man and not just pixels on the screen.
There's so much good out there it makes you wonder why when video games get turn into movies why do they suck so much?
It's the same for Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon the show, I can't stand. It had some appeal to me in my youth that I can't explain (although I can try: first anime, lots of pretty girls in short skirts (which at the time were the same age as me or maybe older...(Update: just double-checked, 1997 was when these were on the USA Network, I WAS TWELVE WOW), monsters, and actually, now that I think about it, for whatever reason I was addicted to the theme song. Again, I blame the short skirts (update: now that I know I was twelve, I still blame the short skirts, but bear in mind I was 12).
Wow, that's really bad, and yet, the nostalgia fills me with euphoria. Anyway...
What I was saying was that Sailor Moon the show would have eventually been nothing more than an annotation in the story of my life (excerpt from "Story of Zero": Wakes up at 7 AM to watch Sailor Moon. An anime, even though he doesn't know what that is yet. Helps him to learn the lyrics to "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies faster than normal. On track to become a mega-dork), but Sailor Moon the idea has hundreds of stories out there and in some of those stories, how can I say this, they're fucking amazing. There's family and magic and romance (the real kind, not the girls like guys that are dicks to them kind that was in the first two seasons of the show) and alternate history and heroism, again and again, heroism. I am a sucker for heroes, if you weren't aware, and Sailor Moon fanfics have that in spades. Oh, and dragons. Did I mention dragons? There's effing dragons.
I have a pretty broad definition of fanfiction, and I view any sort of AU (alternate universe) as a fanfic, even if it was written by the author. They were such a big fan of their own work that they couldn't tell the story once is how I view it, but the "original" series (or one-off) is the original that all the rest are based off of.
Zelda is interesting in that each Zelda retells the story of Zelda and Link, but they supposedly all occur in the same world and involve reincarnations of the three points of the Tri-force. I'm OK with people classifying Zelda games as fanfic, but also OK with people that don't. If it is a fanfic, then my original is The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (Zelda 3).
Anyway, if you've never given fanfiction a try before, it has my recommendation. Find a site that has reviews and ratings—such as fanfiction.net—there's a LOT of erotica and slash out there, so make sure you know what you're getting into before you invest in a fanfic, and take it from me, don't start reading the chapters of a fanfic book until it's finished. Too many go incomplete. This actually ruined me with Sailor Moon. There were some AMAZING stories that I read that were left incomplete for far too long. Maybe they've been completed now, but I doubt it. Every couple of years I'll try to check back in on the ones that I still remember only to be disappointed. Speaking of which, some of my favorite SM stories are "Guardians of the Star" by Greywolf (which contains the aforementioned dragons) and "Universal" and "Universal B" by Jendra (which went unfinished for YEARS before finally posting the ending!)
Update: Here's the link for the HP fanfic if you're curious "The Girl Who Lived"
Here's the "Guardians of the Star" link and "Universal" and "Universal B" links also.
July 24, 2013
The Emperor's Edge by Lindsay Buroker
I've long been a sucker for gaslight fantasy (even before I knew what it was), and I'm similarly a sucker for wintry settings (don't know what it is, but winter nights arouse the feeling of magick more than anything for me), so Lindsay Buroker's The Emperor's Edge had a dual-edged sword against my reluctance to read a self-published author's work.
Thankfully, the over 300 four and five star reviews of this work made it quite easy to take the plunge. Here's the Amazon link:
Oh, and did I mention it's free?
At least, I think that's her name. This is one of the stumbling points for Ms. Buroker. The names are all a bit unwieldy, and a couple of the main ones (Sespian and Sicarius, I'm looking at you) are entirely too close. The best names in the book are Books and Trog.
The luck of the characters was a little distracting, especially Amaranthe and Sespian, but Amaranthe had enough skill that it was rarely Deus Ex-y.
I was very glad that the main character did not "find her femininity" or anything so trite, because it would have been rather unbelievable on her and destroy the character that had been built up. She encounters quite a lot of sexism, but this is believable in the society she inhabits (one where only recently were women allowed to join the police force and are not allowed in the military at all). I only hope that come Book 5 or 6 that we won't still be encountering male combatants that underestimate her (even if that's believable).
I very much look forward to continuing this series. By the way, another bonus is that the entire series is out now. So you don't have to wait if you jump on the wagon now.
This is by far the best free book I've ever read and I highly recommend it.
Zero's Review: 8.0/10, B-.
Thankfully, the over 300 four and five star reviews of this work made it quite easy to take the plunge. Here's the Amazon link:
Oh, and did I mention it's free?
At least, I think that's her name. This is one of the stumbling points for Ms. Buroker. The names are all a bit unwieldy, and a couple of the main ones (Sespian and Sicarius, I'm looking at you) are entirely too close. The best names in the book are Books and Trog.
The luck of the characters was a little distracting, especially Amaranthe and Sespian, but Amaranthe had enough skill that it was rarely Deus Ex-y.
I was very glad that the main character did not "find her femininity" or anything so trite, because it would have been rather unbelievable on her and destroy the character that had been built up. She encounters quite a lot of sexism, but this is believable in the society she inhabits (one where only recently were women allowed to join the police force and are not allowed in the military at all). I only hope that come Book 5 or 6 that we won't still be encountering male combatants that underestimate her (even if that's believable).
I very much look forward to continuing this series. By the way, another bonus is that the entire series is out now. So you don't have to wait if you jump on the wagon now.
This is by far the best free book I've ever read and I highly recommend it.
Zero's Review: 8.0/10, B-.
Cloud Atlas: The movie that could have been the greatest ever. A review
I had read an article about Cloud Atlas quite a while ago, and was put off quite a lot by it. After reading the article (I think it was in the New Yorker), I expected nothing but artsy-fartsy pretension.
You know the really cool art friend you have that then goes away to art school and overnight becomes a douchebag? That's the level of pretension (or should I say pretentiousness) that I was expecting going into this movie.
What I found instead was an utterly riveting and remarkably told story that left me with no disturbing images of the multiple directors masturbating all over the film (like how I feel after every Quentin Tarentino movie in spite of enjoying them!)
Here's the Amazon streaming link:
you can find the other formats on that page also.
Through some Herculean feat of will, I turned this movie off after 30 minutes (probably closer to an hour and 30 minutes) in order to meet my work deadlines, but it haunted me—molested me—through my dreams.
The premise is stated more than one time throughout the film (the actions you take in your life affect your future lives in a sort of cosmic alignment scale of good and bad, i.e. you don't start off with a blank slate, you have a past), but what overwhelmed me was that in spite of being a trippy science fiction movie that starts in the 1800s and progresses to the far future, it has a stealthy romantic quality that I was blind to for the first 2 and 1/2 hours. This quality managed to sneak its giant of a self into my living room and destroy any guards I may have had erected around my psyche to annihilate me in one of the most enjoyable movie-going experiences I've had.
That said, there are some drawbacks.
I remember people crying racist over the make-up making non-Asian characters look Asian, but this is relatively absurd when you have male characters in one life playing females in another and races similarly being changed multiple times. Once I realized that they didn't avoid Asian actors with this choice, but rather had each actor/actress have a "main life" that defined their looks throughout all the other lives, I was surprised that anyone took any cries of "racist" seriously when this was released. That said, I bring this up in the drawbacks because the make-up of each character in each life WAS DISTRACTING. Not racist, but ridiculously distracting from the story. You frequently find yourself asking, "Is that the same guy as the one guy?" and "Is that his real nose?"
Luckily, I watched this by myself. If I had been in a group, I am sure that such questions would have been spoken aloud to force me to miss some interesting dialogue in the movie, necessitating a rewind, an aneurysm 30 years from now from quietly swallowing any annoyance and trying to watch the movie in parts missing something every time somebody opened their FAT MOUTH, or a speedy defenestration of the offending individual.
Personally, I'm not the most observant person in the world (see any example of me trying to find anything in my house, ever), but I was still surprised by some of the reveals in the credits when they showed you each character played by each main actor.
This is a drawback, and it could be a deal-breaker to anyone that could not look beyond this. I think the film might have fared better animated (or I suppose with better make-up, some of it looks quite bad, although I'm not 100% sure if that was me realizing that was someone else or the make-up being bad...no, I'm being too magnanimous, the make-up was frequently bad (although there were some great examples as well)). If you're not a pretentious douchebag yourself though, and you're able to enjoy things for what they are supposed to represent, then you're probably able to look beyond the bad make-up to the story being told, which to my mind had only one negative.
The idea that your past lives affect your future lives is a fine one, but in spite of the movie being ~3 hours long, it seems like there were shortcuts made and that the cosmic alignment meter was fudged a bit. Maybe this critique is vanished from the novel, which I look forward to reading, but in a movie of this scope, it was, well, depressing.
This movie could have been the best movie of my life. The potential was there. I can look beyond bad make-up. Heck, I still watch cartoons (this is relevant because animated people look nothing like real people usually, but I still identify the animated person as a person). But at the end of the day this movie came up short from being the best movie I've ever seen.
And when you're in the running for being the best movie ever, falling short is quite apparent. It's like watching a, not a hero, but a person you wanted to be your hero fall before becoming a hero. They could have been something.
At the end, the absence, the void, the emptiness where your hope existed gnaws at you. Cloud Atlas could have filled the emptiness, but it just came up short.
Zero's Review: 9.5/10 A
PS Oh, and if you have a bit less of a liberal mind, Cloud Atlas is not for you. It makes the case without apologies that clones have souls, that souls can be male or female, and of different races, and that gay people have souls. So again, if you're too much of a douchebag to get past this (although I suppose the term here is bigot), then this movie is not for you. And by, "makes the case", I mean, doesn't even address it as an issue. It's just how it works.
You know the really cool art friend you have that then goes away to art school and overnight becomes a douchebag? That's the level of pretension (or should I say pretentiousness) that I was expecting going into this movie.
What I found instead was an utterly riveting and remarkably told story that left me with no disturbing images of the multiple directors masturbating all over the film (like how I feel after every Quentin Tarentino movie in spite of enjoying them!)
Here's the Amazon streaming link:
you can find the other formats on that page also.Through some Herculean feat of will, I turned this movie off after 30 minutes (probably closer to an hour and 30 minutes) in order to meet my work deadlines, but it haunted me—molested me—through my dreams.
The premise is stated more than one time throughout the film (the actions you take in your life affect your future lives in a sort of cosmic alignment scale of good and bad, i.e. you don't start off with a blank slate, you have a past), but what overwhelmed me was that in spite of being a trippy science fiction movie that starts in the 1800s and progresses to the far future, it has a stealthy romantic quality that I was blind to for the first 2 and 1/2 hours. This quality managed to sneak its giant of a self into my living room and destroy any guards I may have had erected around my psyche to annihilate me in one of the most enjoyable movie-going experiences I've had.
That said, there are some drawbacks.
I remember people crying racist over the make-up making non-Asian characters look Asian, but this is relatively absurd when you have male characters in one life playing females in another and races similarly being changed multiple times. Once I realized that they didn't avoid Asian actors with this choice, but rather had each actor/actress have a "main life" that defined their looks throughout all the other lives, I was surprised that anyone took any cries of "racist" seriously when this was released. That said, I bring this up in the drawbacks because the make-up of each character in each life WAS DISTRACTING. Not racist, but ridiculously distracting from the story. You frequently find yourself asking, "Is that the same guy as the one guy?" and "Is that his real nose?"
Luckily, I watched this by myself. If I had been in a group, I am sure that such questions would have been spoken aloud to force me to miss some interesting dialogue in the movie, necessitating a rewind, an aneurysm 30 years from now from quietly swallowing any annoyance and trying to watch the movie in parts missing something every time somebody opened their FAT MOUTH, or a speedy defenestration of the offending individual.
Personally, I'm not the most observant person in the world (see any example of me trying to find anything in my house, ever), but I was still surprised by some of the reveals in the credits when they showed you each character played by each main actor.
This is a drawback, and it could be a deal-breaker to anyone that could not look beyond this. I think the film might have fared better animated (or I suppose with better make-up, some of it looks quite bad, although I'm not 100% sure if that was me realizing that was someone else or the make-up being bad...no, I'm being too magnanimous, the make-up was frequently bad (although there were some great examples as well)). If you're not a pretentious douchebag yourself though, and you're able to enjoy things for what they are supposed to represent, then you're probably able to look beyond the bad make-up to the story being told, which to my mind had only one negative.
The idea that your past lives affect your future lives is a fine one, but in spite of the movie being ~3 hours long, it seems like there were shortcuts made and that the cosmic alignment meter was fudged a bit. Maybe this critique is vanished from the novel, which I look forward to reading, but in a movie of this scope, it was, well, depressing.
This movie could have been the best movie of my life. The potential was there. I can look beyond bad make-up. Heck, I still watch cartoons (this is relevant because animated people look nothing like real people usually, but I still identify the animated person as a person). But at the end of the day this movie came up short from being the best movie I've ever seen.
And when you're in the running for being the best movie ever, falling short is quite apparent. It's like watching a, not a hero, but a person you wanted to be your hero fall before becoming a hero. They could have been something.
At the end, the absence, the void, the emptiness where your hope existed gnaws at you. Cloud Atlas could have filled the emptiness, but it just came up short.
Zero's Review: 9.5/10 A
PS Oh, and if you have a bit less of a liberal mind, Cloud Atlas is not for you. It makes the case without apologies that clones have souls, that souls can be male or female, and of different races, and that gay people have souls. So again, if you're too much of a douchebag to get past this (although I suppose the term here is bigot), then this movie is not for you. And by, "makes the case", I mean, doesn't even address it as an issue. It's just how it works.
July 18, 2013
John Scalzi's Convention Harassment Policy
I'm not a big author if that wasn't clear. I'm an Amazon bestseller of nonfiction math ebooks (and that series I admittedly love fondly and feel are quite important in a way my fiction books might never be); my speculative fiction books (which are my darling) are next to unknown (in the sense that they are more unknown than unknown is, not sorta' unknown which is also next to unknown).
Conventions to me are not necessarily a sign of being successful, so much as they are a sign of having the time and money to travel and go to them. I strongly look forward to SOMEDAY visiting MANY conventions and hopefully being able to forge connections and expand my skill sets by my attendance to them.
So I hesitated before co-signing John Scalzi's laudable Convention Harassment Policy.
After all, being a "bestseller" doesn't mean that I have the time or money to travel and go to conventions, because to be a "bestseller" you just have to sell better than 90% of everyone else in your genre, and math books aren't exactly Harry Potter. It really just means that I sometimes get people discovering my work and me just because I'm on those lists, for which I am grateful.
So to shut a door on opportunity, to willfully deny myself the possibility of extending my network and possibly making a connection or improving a skill to the point that I can progress from being a "bestselling author" to a full-time author, is something that formed a dreadful pit in the bottom of my stomach.
In short: I was initially leery of co-signing because I’m a beginning author and don’t believe in burning bridges that aren’t even fully constructed yet, and then my brain came out of the coma it was in and I remembered the sort of places and people that wouldn’t have a harassment policy are not the sort of places and people I want bridges to.
Also, in spite of being arrogant and full of myself, I'm actually not a complete ass. So although co-signing this wasn't a "no-brainer"—because my brain actually had to be on apparently—I have co-signed it and intend to keep to it for the remainder of my days, not just to conventions I am invited to, but to any convention I'll ever consider going to.
And because I'm arrogant and full of myself: yes, I will eventually be invited as a guest-of-honor to conventions. Just you wait.
P.S. Maybe you're not a content creator, but if you're a fan or a member of Geek Culture and especially if you're someone that attends conventions or wants to attend conventions, then you may want to co-sign also. Also, I'm not sure if it was developed as a reaction to this Incident of Harassment or if it had just been brewing for a while because Mr. Scalzi actually seems like a pretty stand-up guy and Geek Culture is actually pretty crappy. Don't believe me? Here's a run-down of 2012 from Daily Dot.
Conventions to me are not necessarily a sign of being successful, so much as they are a sign of having the time and money to travel and go to them. I strongly look forward to SOMEDAY visiting MANY conventions and hopefully being able to forge connections and expand my skill sets by my attendance to them.
So I hesitated before co-signing John Scalzi's laudable Convention Harassment Policy.
After all, being a "bestseller" doesn't mean that I have the time or money to travel and go to conventions, because to be a "bestseller" you just have to sell better than 90% of everyone else in your genre, and math books aren't exactly Harry Potter. It really just means that I sometimes get people discovering my work and me just because I'm on those lists, for which I am grateful.
So to shut a door on opportunity, to willfully deny myself the possibility of extending my network and possibly making a connection or improving a skill to the point that I can progress from being a "bestselling author" to a full-time author, is something that formed a dreadful pit in the bottom of my stomach.
In short: I was initially leery of co-signing because I’m a beginning author and don’t believe in burning bridges that aren’t even fully constructed yet, and then my brain came out of the coma it was in and I remembered the sort of places and people that wouldn’t have a harassment policy are not the sort of places and people I want bridges to.
Also, in spite of being arrogant and full of myself, I'm actually not a complete ass. So although co-signing this wasn't a "no-brainer"—because my brain actually had to be on apparently—I have co-signed it and intend to keep to it for the remainder of my days, not just to conventions I am invited to, but to any convention I'll ever consider going to.
And because I'm arrogant and full of myself: yes, I will eventually be invited as a guest-of-honor to conventions. Just you wait.
P.S. Maybe you're not a content creator, but if you're a fan or a member of Geek Culture and especially if you're someone that attends conventions or wants to attend conventions, then you may want to co-sign also. Also, I'm not sure if it was developed as a reaction to this Incident of Harassment or if it had just been brewing for a while because Mr. Scalzi actually seems like a pretty stand-up guy and Geek Culture is actually pretty crappy. Don't believe me? Here's a run-down of 2012 from Daily Dot.
