Hiddennode

Been a busy Monday. From taking the time to really get down and exercise, to reviewing a recording of Transdimensional café and finishing up editing on flash fiction, I’m quite proud of myself.

Even managed to complete something like 5000 words on brainstorming for the new D&D campaign. Did I mention that? Yeah, turns out I managed to recruit five people to be a part of a 4^th edition dungeons and dragons game. Awesome.  The story concept is familiar, very Romanesque in a magical realm. Think it’ll work, we’ll see though won’t we.

Fun note about last Thursday’s flash fiction, Corporate World: I ended up being inspired to make this piece after listening to the first few episodes of Nathan Lowell’s Quartershare. So far the book is pretty good, looking forward to how it ends, and the inevitably the half dozen sequels.

Woo, getting tired. I suppose that exercise is catching up to me.

nulloperations

The last two weeks I’ve been busy with managing  to get work started on several projects.

Starting with my fiction, I’m currently working on a piece of for the Escape Artists Flash contest. While I can’t provide any details for the story as that would be against the contest rules,  I will say that I’m really enjoying the piece I’ve put together. You’ll get to see the piece on the writing site regardless if I win or not. The story has been trimmed down I just have to give it one last editing sweep before submitting it tonight.

The year of Flash continues with my Tuesday/Thursday posts. Still going strong, and now I’m all caught up except for three remaining posts in January. I should have that corrected by the end of this week which will let me move onto the next phase of the project: Getting ahead of schedule. In order for me to have the book ready by the end of the year, I have to have the fiction written long before December. Ideally, I’d like to be a month ahead of schedule by the end of April or May, two months by the end of June/July, and be finished with the year by the end of August/September. This would let me work October through December preparing the book while getting ahead of schedule for the next year.

Finally, I’m working on a short story based on a writing assignment from the March FWA meeting. The outline is complete and I just need to put meat on those bones. The goal is to have a final draft edited by the end of April, and then have a finished copy ready to go for submissions by the end of May.

Outside of fiction writing, I’m back at working on an RPG system. This one is very similar to one I worked on years ago with one of my best friends. She had wanted something akin to an Alice In Wonderland rpg, so it had to be based on cards instead of dice. I’m now further into the new development on the project than when I was working on it ten years ago. The current timeframe is to be able to run play tests by this weekend. Going to hijack my wife into playing the game with me for a bit. Ideally I can have something ready by the end of Spring.

Moving on from writing, the recording of TDC3 is tonight. I’m sorry that the second episode isn’t up yet, but hopefully things can get rolling soon. Haven’t had much chance to talk to Andrew over the past two weeks, so I’m assuming he’s been very busy with work. Happens I guess. I’m still debating starting my own show, but I don’t have the editing expertise Andrew has. We’ll see how this tonight goes.

I’m happy to see that productivity is abound. I see 2010 as a great year for my projects and while there have been set backs (see my posts about the post-apocalyptic Shadowrun project earlier this year), one thing I’ve learned from that project is that I can’t get too hyped up about the project until I’m certain it’s something I know I will love.

We’ll see just how well that goes with the current cooking pots.

nulloperations

Slow week, but with the holiday coming up I’m not surprised.

The only major change I can report on is my return to Second Life. That’s right, after about a year (or two) away from the realm, I’m back into Linden Land. I caught the bug Saturday night after my last post. Logged in, looked around, and decided to just start working on the project Raven wanted me to do for her build space. Two hours later I’m sitting inside of a very pretty gigantic floating sphere. I even nabbed Dakota into jumping in and it turns out some of the Ventrlio regulars play as well.

I’ve taken to it like a fish to water as if I’ve never stopped. I’m also quickly picking up some of the newer techniques that developed over the last year or two. Interestingly, I’ve found a number of builds using sculpties where in the past you could easily solve with one or two prims cut the right way. I can’t say I blame the builders for this method, but at the same time I almost feel as if it’s an unneeded short cut. Maybe I’ve just got an “Old Guard” mentality when it comes to my SL design work. Then again, sculpties often (although not always) tend to have a more “organic” look, which is contrary to my more simplistic modern style.

What can I say? I like straight lines that match perfectly every time. Do I use sculpties? Of course, but as a rarity.

Now Mega prims, that’s a different story.

So today’s question: Are you a Second Life player? Have you played before or are you interested in playing it again? Let me know, maybe we can meet virtually in game. If you’re new maybe I can also help you get started.

Extra Credit: If you do play Second Life, are you a builder? What’s your opinions on sculpties? I know they’ve been around for quite some time (late 2006 I believe), but it’s always possible to review something from a different light.

nulloperations

So a year or so ago, back when this blog originally saw the light of day, I had wanted to take the time to post about some things I enjoyed. I wanted to post about podcasts, software, games, books, everything I was enjoying I wanted to share. I did manage a few back then. Looking at the old locked up archive posts, I see I posted about just those things. Did a decent job of reviewing them (at least that’s what I’ll claim and you’ll never know without breaking into my admin panel). Quickly though, they subsided as I just got tired of posting daily too quickly. A while after that, I just gave up, slapped together a rather poorly generated podcasts page and dropped it at the top of the website and said screw it. Occasionally I dropped a game review every now and then, but mostly I just let it slide.

Well, it’s time to bring back that good old spirit of writing about the things I enjoy; Only this time, I’m not going to be so heavy handed in getting posts out daily. I’ll just create them as they come to me, and as they come to exist, I’ll also add them to the Interests Page at the top of this blog. Even better, I’ll have the interests page link the brief descriptions I post there back to the big descriptions that appear in the blog.

Good idea right?

Okay, I admit, it’ll take some extra work and that might put me off, but hear me out. I think it’ll actually work for keeping me doing that sharing the love thing for things I enjoy. Trust me. It’ll come to pass. You’ll see.

jdiehl

My personal productivity has taken a nose dive in the past week. The novel currently hasn’t been started yet (since I scrapped those 10,000 words), mostly because the time I normal would be writing has actually been taken up by the day job. This means I need to stop depending on the free time at work and start making time at home. Not going to be easy but it will be done.

As I’ve said, the Novel is at a standstill. I still have plans for completion by the end of summer for the first draft, so each day I delay means I’m just making it harder on myself. I’m still excited about the direction the story is aimed at so that’s not the issue. It’s just a matter of realizing I need to sacrifice free time for writing time if I’m ever going to become something more than a wanna-be writer. I’m not a novelist yet. Not until I actually finish a novel.
In other but related news, I’ve found some new Crack. Inside of the game City of Heroes, there exists the ability to customize the base of your super group. In terms of most MMO’s, think of super groups as the guild or clan. As your members fight as representatives of your SG, they will earn prestige that can be used to purchase useful items like storage racks and teleporters, to less useful but prettier items like technical looking toys or magical artifacts. In the game, various players have discovered you can “stack” certain items to allow an SG to build up an area in a normally impossible way. This has lead to a portion of SG’s into the habit of creating extravagant structures and designs. Within my Super Group, I am this designer. Namely because I’m the only active leader, but anyway… I’ve come to really enjoy making custom looking areas and chambers in rooms for the base. The only major problem is that I may be making too many items and such as I’m really starting to eat into the prestige. Most likely I will actually curtail this development until the base is at a more complete level. Besides… I need to start inviting more members to gather more prestige.

Looks like this is going to be a brief one. Odd that I both don’t feel like writing fiction or blogging. Gotta get myself out of this artificial funk and start writing again full time.

jdiehl

So after a month of feeling sick, I’ve finally reached a point of feeling okay. My teeth are reasonably well (mind you, the tooth still hurts where I had my surgery but not as much as it did prior to the removal), I don’t feel as achy as I had for the past two-three weeks, and I dare say I’m okay with the weather. April is starting to look good health-wise.

In writing news… Okay, I’ve changed some things. A number of things actually. I had reached over 10,000 words on the Novel but I’ve come to a conclusion: I’ve scrapped those chapters, found what I loved from it, and got rid of what was boring me to tears. A few characters are either toast or now secondary characters at best, and our protagonist has changed, but she’s just so darn cool I’m very happy with the change. Still the same world, a bit though it’s more developed. Maybe this will be my pattern with writing a novel. I get several chapters in, realize where I’m going, what I like, scrap what I have and get rolling from the beginning with a deeper understanding of everything I have and where I want to go. It’s not a bad idea so long as I don’t get much further than 10,000 words. Anything more and I’m now really wasting time.

Oh yeah, the goal of the end of summer is still in effect. Meaning I have about 21 weeks to write 90-120,000 words. That’s still between 5-7,500 words a week, which so far is easily doable. So here’s the plan: Write around 5-7,500 a week for the next 21 weeks. Complete the Novel by August 31st, 2009. Take September off from writing that novel (and start developing the next novel). Start editing the first novel once October rolls around and be finished with the first full edit of the novel by 2010. Once that happens, I’ll be trying to shop around with the novel, both for an editor/publisher and an Agent. Meanwhile, I’ll be getting to work on the next novel.

One key note is that I’m not going to work on two novels at once. It’s a bad idea for me, as I’ll tend to favor one over the other that will eventually lead to one of the novels being abandoned. I can plan out other novels, but I don’t want to start another novel until I’m done at least writing the first one. I’m not sure if I can write one while editing another one. I haven’t tried yet so I guess I’ll find out at the end of this year. I’m excited though, to think I’m actually going to finish a novel. I’ve crafted so many interesting worlds, to actually have a story in one would be a dream come true.

Other news… City of Heroes Issue 14 came out today and I’m already eager to play it tonight. Only 7 more hours to go! Gah!

jdiehl

PS. Stackpole is right. Align Full/Justify is soooo much nicer on the eyes, even on this blog.

Cross posted from dipsg.

Well, we’ve had this website for over a month now. In that time we’ve had a few new folks show up and sign up, but sadly, there isn’t a great deal of development within the site itself. This is disappointing but not entirely unexpected. Sadly, the $20.00 a month going into keeping this forum alive isn’t looking to be as worth the price. Frankly, with my pay cut and other finical needs, I could use that $20.00 for other important matters. With that in mind, www.dipsg.com  running IBP is going goodbye.

This is not the end of the website or the forums though. My primary website has the ability to host a forum for free and we will be able to handle our needs. I don’t like losing the great tools from Invision Power Boards but frankly as I’ve said, it’s not worth it with the activity.

That said and done, here’s what’s going to happen. The IBP board is going poof. I will be setting up a new board under the hiddennode web server that will still be accessible via www.dipsg.com. This should happen this weekend. Please take the time to setup your account on the other server. I’ll be setting up the board soon. The Layout will be different, by the way. The site will no longer be focused specifically on the dynamic ip super group. Instead, I’m going to focus the site on being a general gaming community site. There will be a section for CoH and the SG specifically.

If you have any questions, please contact me on ventrilo or send me an email at admin(at)hiddennode.com.

Thanks,

jdiehl

This is a reupload of a post that was, well, breaking things.

So the writing is going on strong. I haven’t reached to target of 10 000 total words that’s required by the end of this week, but I’m pretty close. I just put the final touch on the rough draft of Chapter four, and I know where I’m going with Chapters five and six. After that the first quarter of the book will start to reach a very climatic point soon, before settling down into the middle plot line. A few people have gotten to see the first three chapters but that’s it as far as sharing the work before it’s done. Once I’m complete with the rough draft, I’ll share it with a few pre-readers. Then, after I leave it down for a month or so, I’ll come back to it and start the first series of edits. Target goal right now? Have the rough draft ready by the fall (two weeks in already, at least 20 total weeks to write at 5 000 words a week), then have the edits complete by the New Year.

Beyond writing, things are going slow in other areas of production. Expansion of the Dynamic IP SG is going slow, which I should have come to of expected considering the fact we don’t have too many high level characters that are on often. For that matter, none of the leaders are over level 30 yet. I think I’m going to try to push to have Nathan and Dakota each get a 50 on Victory. After that, whatever alts they want to play is their business, but if we’re going to have the group keep growing, the leadership needs to appear more like leadership. It shouldn’t take either of them beyond a month or two to get characters to 50 anyway, since both are out of work, although Nathan does have that whole school thing.

For now though, I’m happy that I’m writing. This is the furthest I’ve been when it comes to writing a real novel. Granted, I did and won NaNoWriMo last year, I hated every minute of it and mostly wrote horrible gibberish. This time, I’m at least 7000 words in and I’m loving the story. There are things that I need to adjust, that I know I need to edit, but I’m getting it done.

I wonder though, if I’m ever going to get back to working on the game project I had started. I’d like to, but I have a feeling if I start on that, I’m going to lose time with the writing. In fact, I’m certain I will because I have that habit of losing interest in the old if I start something new. Maybe that’s why I’ve stuck with City Of Heroes for so long. Because I’m not letting myself be too distracted by other games.

For those you who are interested, I’d like to invite you to come to the community website I’m hosting. www.dipsg.com is the main website of the super group, but it’s able to be much more than that. To speak the truth, I’ve been considering retooling it better to support a community outside of City of Heroes We’ll still be hosting the super group, especially while I’m still in charge, but I’d like to provide for it to be so much more in terms of gaming, interactions, and gathering. I’d like to also use it as the launching board for my writing too, to get people interested in my works involved with me and mine.

We’ll see.

jdiehl

So, I am currently still in a place of lack of job and lack of real motivation to work on stuff. Turning the latter around, especially since I’ve given myself a hard limit on how much I’m allowed to game daily now. Two days running I’ve managed to game less than 3 hours a day (and less than 2 on Team Fortess, my latest big addiction). I still have the friday night unlimited gaming thing, but otherwise, I’m keeping to a limit. With the lack of gaming, I’m actually getting more stuff done (like actually posting here). I’m even managing to get some stuff done around the house.

That said, I’m thinking more about some things. For one, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my webserver space. I hardly use it. This site was intended to be my place to share my writing, my projects, myself. Well, right now I have hardly any writings, my projects are false starts, and I don’t share much of myself here. I do still want to do more and I’m finding myself more motivated, but it’s coming slowly.

So, choices.

I could, A, give up the webspace completly and not have to pay the bill anymore. It would mean more money each month. Problem with that is Dakota is still using part of the space here for Cylys. I don’t want to force him to go out and get space until he has a job and can afford to pay for it monthly.

I could, B, let it sit here as it has been doing for so long and just let it be. Problem with that is it’s a waste of money in terms of my use of it. Others that I host stuff for make use, but I don’t get much out of it, especially after a recent talk I feel I get even less.

I could, C, burn it all down and start fresh. I might. Probably what that means is locking all the old posts (on the site, not the LJ or FB side post threads), and probably deleting all the twitter posts. I liked those, but without me posting regularlly, they feel hollow to me. I don’t even twitter too often right now anyway. I’d like to post here more often, but not since the November after I first got the site up have I managed to post daily. Maybe I can convince myself to post some sort of schedule. Not once a week, that’s too far apart. Maybe at least a Tuesday/Friday thing might be good. Make me earn that friday night game night by doing some extra writing. It’s a trade off. I know writing here takes away time I should be either writing fiction or working my projects, but a part of me really does like doing the occasional blog post. I might just do some of the reviews I like doing too.

Yeah, I probably will do C, might make that my project for the rest of the week. Cleaning this place up and getting some things up to speed.

With that in mind, I also need to get myself back into learning web code. At least enough to get some things around here looking nice. This theme is pretty, but it just isn’t me anymore. I need something more.

I’ll also be doing some more writing in the future. Namely because of a new area I’m moving my computer into. When I still living with my brother in New Orleans I always found it easiest to write when I had solitude, when I had a small den, a “man-cave” I suppose you could say. While I’d like to turn our guest room into said “man-cave,” there’s a major hitch in this plan. Namely, we have a long term guest in the house so for now, that’s just not possible. The next best option? The closet. That’s right, the master closest, in all it’s tight spaced glory. Raven is iffy about it, but supportive if it means more writing. I’ve been cleaning it out lately and I really love the feel of the place. I just hope I can convert it to an office soon enough. I’m not moving all of my computer equipment in there, just the old PC and monitor with a wireless network adapter. I won’t be using the net too much as it is intended specifically for use with wirting work. I really look forward to it honestly.

Now if I can just get Raven to stop making “my husband is in the closet” jokes…

jdiehl