Category: Uncategorized

So, I got everything moved over from the orignal copy of FYTH into this new one. You shouldn’t notice a difference, since I have the new copy working right over top of where the old one was before. Except, of course, that I should (hopefully) stopgetting database errors every time I try to post something, and y’all should have less difficulty posting comments. Moo.

Let me know if you experience ANY trouble, and if you experience LESS trouble, too.

Thanks.

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Okay, so that didn’t work. I got an error as soon as I hit ‘save’. I’ll be … I don’t know… I’ll move over to 1&1 ASAP and see about whether their servers have the same issue. The move could take a few days. I’ll try to keep you updated.

Today I typed up all the hand-written pages from this week and the typed pages I did in the store today (I’ve been getting sick of how slow a pen is compared to typing, and carried one of my best typewriters down to the store so I could work while I waited for people to come, look, and not spend any money in our store), and my word count so far for NaNoWriMo is a paltry 5838. That’s just over 11% of the way to the minimum word count.

Well, for this novel. I couldn’t decide (at first) which of two ideas I had to work on, and worked alternately on both for a while, but between the two (totally un-integratable) novels I’m still at less than 7500 words. If I were on pace, I’d be at 25,000 or more! If I were writing with the speed and focus that I put into Forlorn (now re-written as Lost and Not Found) last NaNoWriMo, I’d be done twice over by now. What’s going on here? I think there’s a lot of distractions… last year it was just me and my novel. This year I can hardly get a day alone to work on it. And when I do (a la Thursday), I find myself unable to concentrate or create … blocked and stressed and … I even got a pretty bad headache there for a while… that wasn’t fun.

Cafepress still seems to be saying November 17th for Perfect Bound books. I won’t be ready by that date, but I’m working on it. I have a basic idea for the cover design and I’ve written my own copy … so, yes, it is self-aggrandizing, thank you very much, but it’ll have to do, as no one else seems to have the time to read a book these days. I did finally get back the copy of the book with Angela’s notes in it, and I will be working dilligently on at the very least fixing all the typos she spotted. I will look into other possible changes as they come up. I will also begin recording the audio version … soon. I think that reading the entire thing aloud will be the best way to work out any totally messed-up sentences and mis-understandings and unnatural dialogue, so the print and PDF versions will likely not see the light of day until the audio version is ready, too. I am thinking of offering the ATOMS versions of the book only through Cafepress and the BITS versions of the book only through BitPass… despite the fact that they will be priced well above a penny… I think that since you can buy BitPass currency with PayPal or a credit card without facing a transaction fee and their gateway automatically secures access to the digital files I sell that it will be easier than trying to secure it myself or manually emailing the (huge, in the case of the audio) files to people who pay via PayPal… so, yeah. That’s what I’m thinking. Also, here are some links to Pre-Order the Novel in various formats via PayPal at an extra discount (these links will be de-activated when the novel is finally available):

links removed

In other news, Betty is done, priced ($195 in the store, $147 for internet orders), and hanging in the store. I will try to get a photo taken soon. Depending on weather, I will try to take photos tomorrow. I want to re-photograph all my art so I can crop it all properly and adjust the size and quality to reasonable amounts and put together an easier-to-use interface for the whole ‘Art’ section of Modern Evil … but it has to start with new, good pictures. Of everything. So, we’ll see how that goes, but yeah – Betty is ready, and I think it’s some of my best work yet. I look at it and I’m just struck. Wow. People are already doing double-takes and coming back into the store to have a second look at it. Hopefully someone will want to take Betty home with them sometime soon.

Oh yeah, and the ScreenPrinting business accidentally fell into the time machine. It was set simply for “Spring, 2004”, so hopefully it won’t land too hard on anyone’s foot when it suddenly appears… we won’t know exactly when to expect it, except sometime between now and next summer, I guess. Looking through the time vortex as it plummetted, I think I saw over two dozen new designs available… must have hit some turbulence in the vortex and expanded from two designs to so many. Keep your eyes peeled next year for an explosive appearance of Modern Evil T-Shirts.

Also visible through the shifting vortex (it was only open for about eight minutes or so, since the time machine was actually working only that long – never trust cheap parts from sources in the future for your only time machine; it’s impossible to get them to honor their warranty in the event of a problem, since they don’t exist yet (and your time machine is broken)), this from an unknown point in the future, was a now secret project I’ve recently started on coming to fruition. Suffice it to say I am now actually working on my first short film, and that from what I saw through the vortex, it comes out pretty good. Looking forward to that.

And now, to go work on another VERY abstract painting, the cover for LaNF, and the recording of LaNF… and then, on to Solving World Hunger!

I know I’m starting this on Tuesday, but I also know I won’t possibly finish it before it appears to have been written on Wednesday.

I am in Phoenix. Tonight through Friday morning.

I am going to head down to Tempe when I wake up and see whether I can get some writing done down there; I’m not doing particularly great so far on my novel… Every day when I check, my sister is ahead of me in word count, and neither of us is up to 3000 words, last I checked. (Note: If one were going to spread all the writing out evenly across the month, one should be through 18,334 words or so by now.) But when I first wrote my novel for last year I did really well in Tempe, and then this year when I was re-writing it, I did pretty well, even after my laptop died. I don’t yet have a replacement laptop (probably sometime next year, if all goes well), but I’ve got plenty of paper to write on.

I don’t know .. I think it has a lot to do with just having a comfortable place to be while I write where there’s basically no schedule to stick to or pressure (real or imagined) to get things done… Where I have big blocks of time (8 to 12 hours or more) that are uninterrupted by “life”. In Pine I don’t have that. If my dad isn’t up and I’m not running the store, I always feel like I need to stop what I’m doing every hour or two to see if my grandparents need anything… and I’m in the middle of so many projects up there … For instance, this afternoon when I was trying to get my things together to come down I kept getting distracted from selecting clothes and making sure I have paper and everything else I need… by Betty. I kept pausing in getting ready to paint a little more on a painting I was in the middle of… and trying to dl the Matrix Revolutions and a player that is compatible with whatever bizarre codec they’ve decided to use to encode this one… which actually takes a fair amount of effort and babysitting over dial-up… And yes, I did get my things together, and I’ve very nearly downloaded two full copies of the player and of each of the two halves of the movie (movies always seem to be broken up in two parts, perhaps to keep the file sizes from being too insane), and I did finish Betty (I’ll get a photo after I get beck to Pine; it was still drying when I left, though signed), so I guess I did okay. But … there are always so many things going on in my room that I rarely get more than a couple hundred words written at a pass before something else distracts me.

When I have long blocks of uninterrupted time, with no other projects pressing and no real responsibilities to try to live up to during that time, I seem to get more done, get more focused on a particular project. So, unless something comes up, I’m going to bus down to Tempe tomorrow and see if I can get some writing done.

Iain, if Marie deposits the money she owes me this week, I can give you the money for the DC. Perhaps we can meet in person while I am in Tempe for an exchange; I may also head that way on Thursday. We shall see. See if you can do those downloads for me, if you haven’t.

I got a pre-order for my novel today! Hooray! That makes one! I also had yet another person who’d said they’d help me out with editing drop clean out of the race. So, assuming that Laura will never finish it (or if she has, will never share her results), perhaps because I’m not good enough for her notes, that leaves me precicely where I was a month ago. I suppose that since I’m trying to write at least one other novel right now though, I’ll stick to that and get on the real, final edit (for typos and obviously confusing sentences) in December. Hopefully we can see a release before the end of the year. Still no word from Cafepress re:perfect bound books. Maybe I’ll call them tomorrow, see if I can get ANY kind of answer. (UPDATE: After about 20 minutes searching in the forums I have an official ETA (that is, it’s not definite, but better than the last 90 days of no news at all) of November 17th for Perfect Bound books via CafePress. We shall have to see how progress goes on my current in-progress novels before I look into offering a ‘final’ version so soon.)

I really want to see Elf. I have been looking forward to it for over a year, now. It looks to be a new “classic” holiday movie. Anyone want to go see it with me?

I am so tired. I am so going to bed. Moo.

Okay, so. In an hour or so we’ll be leaving for San Diego. Yup. Won’t be back till Tuesday, sometime. Probably won’t be able to see or respond to any email or posts or comments or anything online until we get back. I’ll have my phone, though, so if you need to get ahold of me, call me. If you think you need to get ahold of me and you don’t have my phone number … well, I guess you should have asked for it sooner. Heck, I give my phone number out to strangers on my business card, so if you don’t have it … man.

Anyway.

Highs around 60, lows around 50, skies around smoky (or not, there are conflicting reports) and mandatory valet parking fees around $18/day. Ah, San Diego. We’re staying in the heart of the Gaslamp District. And on Monday, for kicks, we’ll drive up to LA and try to get into the Jimmy Kimmel show. ’cause what else are we doing?

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NaNoWriMo: So far, zero words written. Well, down. I have a pretty good first sentence in my head, and it’s about 8 words long. So… 8 words. Yeah. (*Teel updates his online wordcount to 8 words…*) But I’ve got loads of paper with me, so I may start writing anyway. What’s it supposed to be? 1667 words a day? I’m only 1659 words behind so far, right?

How far behind are you?

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I’m going to go eat breakfast now. Type to you all later!

Just wanted to say Happy Halloween to everyone. Hope you all have something delightful planned. I will be in Phoenix tonight, and who knows what will happen? Perhaps something interesting, and perhaps something dreadful!

But if the zombies come out to play, at least I’ll be ready for them.

That’s right, I’m taking the 20lb Sledge down with me, goin’ brain-bashin’.

Or, not… you know?