It has been a long time since I updated this. Vacation, busy time at the office, and having my usual utility laptop knocked out by power-supply failure and a nasty malware infestation.

At the moment I'm enjoying a brand-new Asus laptop, which has more horsepower and more functionality than any computer I've ever owned. (Even if it is running Vista.) I'm even enjoying it from work for a change, since I'm in a Learning Tree class learning the fine points of relational database design, and it's okay for me to bring a personal machine.

Plenty of news with regard to work, writing, the lodge, family . . . but that will have to wait. In any case, I'm back.

Tags: computers, work

Well, after putting in about 110 hours at the office in the last two weeks, I'm leaving today to take the family to the beach for a week. May not even have Internet available. See all of you on the flip-side.

Tags: home and family
Current Mood: chipper

Fifty-four hour work week. Very tired now.

Did manage to pick up the D&D 4/e books at my Reasonably Friendly, Not Very Local Game Store. Have begun poring through them. Well, my current campaign is a Castle Falkenstein variant . . . but my next campaign is definitely going back to D&D. Looks as if they've moved mountains to get rid of the biggest problem I always had with the D20 system - the sheer mass of rules cruft.

Weekend, in which I will see wife and children, pay bills, work on novel, and sleep a lot. And possibly play Lord of the Rings Online for a while.

Tags: games, home and family, work
Current Mood: exhausted

Finally.

Praise the Lord and pass the ballot box. Unless some astonishing thing happens between now and November, I already know which lever I'm going to pull (figuratively speaking, since Maryland has gone all Diebold in the past few years).

My fingers, they are itching.

Tags: politics
Current Mood: optimistic

76,950 / 120,000 (64.1%)

Struggled a bit with the last two chapters, but I'm finished with Chapter Twenty-Six now and ready for the home stretch. With only fourteen chapters to go, and a lot of things that have to happen before the end of the story, I spent some time today reworking my original outline. I now know what has to happen in each remaining chapter . . . and in fact, since the rest of the book is going to involve a lot of people marching or riding all over the landscape, I've figured out travel times and whatnot. It all fits together. Now to get it written.

Tags: writing
Current Mood: tired

71,510 / 120,000 (59.6%)

Spent another day home with this rotten sore throat. At least it never got up into my nasal passages. Feeling somewhat better this evening, as if my fever had broken. Back to the office tomorrow, to catch up on everything.

Chapter Twenty-Four is finished. Written almost entirely in epistolary format. Rather amusing trying to write an exchange of letters, half in the voice of an (admittedly very articulate) U.S. Marine, and the other half in the voice of a gossipy, lovestruck Regency-era woman. This will either work brilliantly or be one of the first items on the cutting room floor.

Tags: writing
Current Mood: accomplished

J. Michael Straczynski doing a trilogy of Lensman films for Ron Howard?

Looks like it.

I am SO there . . .

Tags: movies
Current Mood: excited

68,460 / 120,000 (57.0%)

Down with a cold since Sunday evening. I took the opportunity to put down two and a half chapters. This despite the fact that the story has veered a good distance away from my original outline . . . the characters are really starting to take on lives of their own.

I don't think I'll have any trouble getting back to my original plan for Act Three. If anything the changes have given me tremendous momentum - my prose has gotten sloppier, but the scenes just fly onto the virtual page.

It's interesting to consider why this draft is pouring out with no sign of stopping, in contrast to all the drafts that have fizzled out over the years. I think I've learned some lessons about world-building, character development, outlining, and revision. What will be interesting, once this one is finished, is whether I can apply those lessons to the next one.

Tags: writing
Current Mood: sick

The Victorian Period

Amusing little game that one of my Castle Falkenstein players came across while researching the period. I did reasonably well, although I forgot the meaning of "fancy dress" at first.

Tags: history, neatlinks
Current Mood: amused

NSA Attacks West Point! Relax, It's a Cyberwar Game

EDIT: Oooo, and it's been Slashdotted. Second time for me, although the last time my name was actually attached. I suppose this is still good for about thirty seconds of my allotment of fame.

Tags: technology, work
Current Mood: amused