Devil in the Details
My writing suffers from an issue I’ve had since 3rd grade: I often find settings to be more interesting than plot. I eagerly bought the Atlas of Middle Earth when it came out, enjoy looking up technical speculations on the construction of the Ringworld (or even the Halo), and spend time considering how Hogwarts was built with such odd geometry, and why.
I think I sympathize with the authors of old Dungeons and Dragons game modules in that respect. Many of those old booklets contained fascinating, detailed maps, but the purpose to explore those maps generally centered around “looting”. Recognizing that, I tried to resurrect my old copy of Vault of the Drow as a basis for a campaign a few years back, but I didn’t do enough prep work and the effort failed. A sizeable underground metropolis shouldn’t be a place that the characters pass through with three sentences of description.
Short stories don’t tempt me as strongly to lose myself in world-building: the characters have things to do, and I need to get on with discussing what they’re up to. But a setting for a novel’s resided in my head for almost 15 years, and none of the conflicts I’ve hung on it seem adequate. In fact, many of the plots I’ve considered have a strong derivative aroma, and given my complaints that 68% of the SF/Fantasy section at Waldenbooks is actually the same book with the names and dates moved around, I’d like to make an original contribution to the field.
The work I’m doing for Decipher is having the effect of making me pay more attention to my style, anyway. I’m watching passive voice even more carefully than I had been, and checking out web pages such as Ten Mistakes Writers Don’t See.
Chilling out and hanging around
Happy belated birthday to southernsinger!
Almost done with the project that’s been breaking my back for the last month; a small measure of my sanity should return when it’s finally done. It’s not helping that the server room has moved to my floor, so everyone’s office is chilly all day. I may have some good story news in the next several days (hope hope).
I’m finally catching up on my Enterprise episodes. I’ve now seen the first three of the season, and I’ve been satisfied with them – nothing yet to go in my “favorite Trek episodes ever” file, but I’ve had fun and haven’t felt insulted. The mention that the NX-01 class was designed by “Captain Jeffries” was a nice nod. I’m going to try the first non-pilot Battlestar Galactica episode this week – I’ve heard that the individual episodes are much more appealing to my kind of fan than the pilot was, so I’m crossing my fingers.
Oh, yeah, Lloyd Eldred has made it into one of Decipher’s card games. (This is a old VTSFFC Halloween in-joke.)
Photo ops
My hometown newspaper made someone’s blog! I’m so proud.
Decipher officially launched the WARS game yesterday – I even showed up in the staff pic on the web site. (Green shirt, right side, partially obscured.) The sense of optimism and excitement was very high… unlike all the licensed properties from our past, this is our baby and practically everyone in the building had a hand in it.
I’m really glad I’ve taken this job.
Edit: There seems to be a problem with the link to the staff pic. Going to “http://warstcg.fanhq.com“, clicking on “Articles” in the right-hand sidebar, and clicking on “Happy WARS TCG Release Day From the Gang at Decipher!” should show the pic.
I am all about the Fluff
With only a few weeks left before the release of Decipher’s WARS Trading Card Game, we’ve posted a PDF copy of the rulebook for the first set so that people who want to can brush up on the rules before hand.
There’s a nice little piece of text on the 21st page of the PDF, in the “Credits” section: “Concepting: Tim Ellington, Michael Girard, Kathy Lischke, Tom Lischke, Andy Lupp, Michael O’Brien, Justin Pakes, Erika Stensvaag.”
Me happy.
My body needs a better firewall
Yesterday started good. I didn’t feel well when I got up in the morning, but I never feel well if I get up before 10am, so I didn’t think twice about it. In the first half of my work day, I completed the resurrection of a dead Titanium PowerBook with a broken hinge and sheared display wires, which was nice bit of ego-boost.
By lunchtime, I realized that my throat was super sore, and I was pretty dehydrated. I took a break and went to the tiny pharmacy a couple doors down, and came back to work. My nose had started running too, so I grabbed some tissues.
By mid-afternoon, there was no doubt that I was sick. I was coughing, blowing my nose, had a nice headache and serious nausea. Throw in some light-headedness and chills, and you know I was really enjoying myself by that time. I had to reassemble an iBook in that condition, too, which as I’ve mentioned has 50 screws in about 10 different sizes. Literally. I figure it was sinus brought on mostly by over-exerting myself over the weekend and the crappy weather on Saturday.
Finally, work was over, but there was an event I had to attend yesterday evening, to insure I’d be properly prepared for something else happening Saturday. I’d have blown it off, but that would have screwed up the next month’s worth of planning. Only problem? No one had sent me directions yet.
I drove to two places where this group had met before, but they weren’t at either place. In desperation, I did my first bit of intentional wardriving: cruising slowly around the residential neighborhood seeing if my iPaq would pick up an open wireless access point. I actually found one, and confirmed that no one had sent me e-mail, so I gave up and headed home.
The good side of that was that I really shouldn’t have been around all those other people when I was sick, and I was able to head to bed early. On top of that, I got home in time to catch a phone call from raininva before I dropped off, and we talked for a good long time, which cheered me up a lot. On the other hand, my upcoming plans are trashed.
I’m still not well, but I’m better than I was yesterday. I can function, and my throat and stomach are mostly okay. If my nose and head would follow suit, I’d be fine. I might even go down to see Tom at the pub tonight.
*snort*
All Virginia’s Parties
Quite a weekend! I burned myself out just a teeny bit, but I did have a lot of fun.
Friday morning, I decided I’d get right on the road after work, so I threw a weekend bag into the back seat. I even got to leave work a bit early to take care of an iMac repair at CompUSA. It was a good thing I did leave early, because there were 30-60 minute delays at every tunnel out of Norfolk, and if you’re heading north, you pretty much have to take a tunnel.
I’ll spare you the next in my ongoing series of traffic rants, because I still showed up at kittykatya‘s place just in time for lekythen and pulp_tarentino to return from an errand. Spent a couple hours catching up with J.J., whom I haven’t seen in 6 years. We’ve both grown up a bit, and I almost felt that we clicked better as reunited friends than we did when we were dating. So that was quite good.
Friday night and Saturday morning were spent catching up with Alex & Barb & Chris (look, alphabetical). Unfortunately, I had to head off before J.J. came back for her stuff, so I didn’t get a final goodbye. It was a good thing I left when I did, because the sky opened up as I left, and I lost another 90 minutes heading back down 95. Luckily, platypusgirl and krysturtle were willing to accept a soaked, bedraggled Borg into their home and I had a very good time at their party.
I met many people, some of whom I recognized from con meetings, but few of whom I can remember their names 🙂 The party was fun – lotsa people, good food, nervous kitties. We established that cat toys are far better for amusing small children than small-children toys are, and I have finally seen more than 50% of “The Goonies”.
Sunday, I napped a lot. I also tried to track down used copies of the “Riverworld” books – so far, no luck, but there are lots more places to look.
Phew.
I want ten 1-yard lengths of PVC pipe and don’t ask
Contractors are using heavy power tools less than 25 feet from me as some remodeling goes on. Noisy only begins to describe it; at one point they were using some kind of pneumatic punch which made me jump 18 inches evey time it went off. This has been going on for weeks.
Today, I’m prepared – I have headphones and iTunes. I can still hear them, of course, but I can ignore them much easier. I think they know that, too; today they’ve decided to set off the building alarm 3 or 4 times for my office enjoyment. Oy.
Forged in the fires of Home Depot: While I was snickering, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone still goes to “Toy Depot” to buy stuff for, you know, actual home improvement.
Finished “To Say Nothing of the Dog” last night. Often funny in a “heh” way, and an interesting look at a modern time-traveler stuck in Victorian England, but it was another example of characters dragged helplessly through the plot for a couple hundred pages. My own preference is for protagonists who get some kind of grip on things sooner or later.
Hup, 2, 3, 4
Today I have:
Climbed to the roof of our building to help check a wi-fi link (I am not doing that again, I had no idea the last part would be a 30′ foot wall-mounted ladder. I don’t like heights and I don’t need to break the remaining organic bits of my left leg. They can find someone else next time.) Climbed back down.
Walked 4 blocks to the boss man’s loft to check the other end of the link, then back.
Walked 4 blocks to the local mall for lunch (I ran out of frozen stuff to microwave and eat at my desk), then back.
Headed up and down 3 flights of stairs all day servicing machines.
Walked 4 blocks to the boss man’s loft to re-install the hardware we uninstalled the first time.
Walked 5 blocks to the bank from there.
Walked 4 blocks back to work.
Much more of this and I won’t miss the gym membership I left back in Roanoke. At least it’s only 85 and breezy out, as opposed to yesterday’s 103 degrees.
