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Okay, so. I have two tickets to the Nine Inch Nails concert at the Marquee Theater in Tempe on Saturday night, May 28th, and I have not yet selected someone to go with. Would you like to go with me? I’m going to try to run a contest-of-sorts to select a companion. Well, actually, I left a voicemail for a person this morning who has first dibs, so if they get back to me and are interested, they get to go and the contest is off, but I’ll update here to let everyone know whether that happens. ((I have my doubts.))

The contest is simple**: Whoever gets the most of my books sold between now and 11:59PM (Arizona time) on Friday, May 27th, 2005 wins. ((For the purposes of this contest, electronic copies of my books do not count, because there is no way for me to verify who purchased them.))

I have six books available right now, four are $15 each and two are $20 each. You can buy them from me in person if you live in the Phoenix area (and save from paying shipping costs), or you can buy them online through http://press.modernevil.com/. You can buy them yourself or refer friends or strangers, and as long as they let me know that you were the one who referred them, their purchases will go towards your total. If you are not directly involved in a transaction by a person you have referred, you must be explicitly named by the purchaser for the books to count towards your total. You could even buy multiple copies of books yourself with the intention of re-selling them later. I don’t care, I just want books sold.

Continue reading NIN tickets contest(s)

I just adjusted a couple bits of the code for the front page of Modern Evil to get the flowers to behave less like ants. The math for determining which row each post’s flower will flow down had changed to something that should create less correspondence between posts made at around the same time of the day – I had thought that that correspondence would enhance the functionality of the site by grouping morning posts together and evening posts together, but it didn’t seem to be clear. And it made those awful, perfect rows appear fairly commonly. Also, I’ve added a little randomization to the flower placements, so that they won’t all fall perfectly into the pre-defined rows. They’ll be within a few pixels of the rows, so they won’t overlap too much, but there’s some play there now.

I have programming on the brain. I’ve sketched out some ideas for a couple of programs I’m thinking of trying to write for OS X… take advantage of XCode, as long as I have it. One is very easy, one is very difficult. Others will probably occur to me. I don’t want the programming to interfere with geting two novels written by the end of the month, if I can avoid it, but if I can do that and get a program or two written, all the better. Big ambitions, remember?

I’m becoming less defined, as days go by
Fading away, well you might say I’m losing focus
Kinda drifting into the abstract in terms of how I see myself

Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself
Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself
Sometimes, I can see right through myself

Less concerned, about fitting into the world
Your world that is!
Cause it doesn’t really matter anymore
(no, it doesn’t really matter anymore)
No, it doesn’t really matter anymore
None of this Sh!t really matters anymore

Yes, I am alone but then again I always was
As far back as I can tell, I think maybe it’s because
Because you were never really real to begin with
I just made you up, to hurt myself
I just made you up, to hurt myself, yeah
And I just made you up to hurt myself
I just made you up to hurt myself, yeah
And I just made you up to hurt myself

And it worked
Yes, it did

There is no you, there is only me
There is no you, there is only me
There is no fu*king you, there is only me
There is no fu*king you, there is only me

Only
Only
Only
Only

Well, the tiniest little dot caught my eye and it turned out to be a scab
And I had this funny feeling, like I just knew it’s something bad

I just couldn’t leave it alone
I cut off that scab
It was a doorway trying to seal itself shut
But I climbed through

Now I’m somewhere I am not supposed to be
And I can see things I know I really shouldn’t see
And now I know why now, and now I know why
Things aren’t as pretty, on the inside

There is no you, there is only me
There is no you, there is only me
There is no fu*king you, there is only me
There is no fu*king you, there is only me

Only
Only
Only
Only
Only
Only

– Nine Inch Nails, Only

I haven’t been very successful writing lately. The Sin Eater novel is coming along, but slowly. I’m thinking of beginning work on Untrue Tales Book Three and then switching back and forth between them
when I get stuck or frustrated with one of them… I’d really like to have both books finished and in hand by the beginning of June. It isn’t strictly writer’s block that’s been slowing me down – there’s been a lot on my mind lately, especially the last week or two. Last night at the Willow House I got about 300-400 words written, most of it right after I arrived and before I switched rooms … there was something … there’s things going on … and … and it relates to why I haven’t been posting as much here.

You see, there’s a subject that I’ve agreed not to post publicly about. So … if it seems like there’s been a lack of posts here, that’s why. Most of what I have to say about my life, my mind, my heart, and what’s going on with me turns out to be unsuitable for public posting under the current agreement. And so the things that have been on my mind, the things that have been taking up enough of my thoughts to interfere with creativity, with my ability to concentrate on writing, are the same things – most of the time – as the things I can’t put here.

Sorry.

Continue reading Ambition: Sometimes it ends up feeding you to a bear

So, one drawback of doing strength training is that it means that there’s always going to be some part of my body which is sore and/or weak on a given day. My body also seems to really, really need a full eight hours of sleep every night now, too. I shall have to figure out how to accommodate it.

I haven’t been writing much lately. I need to work harder on keeping up on that. I keep playing video games or napping on my lunch and breaks… Did I mention I bought a Nintendo DS, and that it is awesome? Yeah. Awesome. Yesterday at lunch I nearly hyperventilated just to score higher than 30 on a particular set of Wario Touched microgames. You know, because they were all wind-driven puzzles. I love interacting with a game by touch and with my breath. Some games are already working in voice recognition and recording, too.

See how distracted I get? I was trying to write a paragraph ABOUT writing and got to writing about playing video games instead. That’s pretty bad. I’m only about 15%-20% of the way through writing the first draft of the ‘sin eater’ novel, and I haven’t started on Untrue Tales Book Three yet… and I’d sortof like to get them both edited and avialable for purchase by June. Which gives me about four weeks. To write 1.8 books. No problem, right?

Well, depends on my focus. Working out is taking up a lot of time and energy right now. I hear rumor that’s supposed to turn around after a while and it’s supposed to give me renewed energy, but … I’m not there yet. And I took some time off writing to read. Read The Time Traveller’s Wife and Only Begotten Daughter, both good books. Both gave me some thoughts about what to do with the novel I’m writing (and my life, in some ways), but once they were done I didn’t just leap back into writing… and I’ve spent a little bit of time working on art, which is fine… it’s mostly been while I was watching Netflix’d DVDs.

Okay, I’m totally rambling now. Did I mention that parts of me I know I didn’t work out have been getting tired? Like my legs, and my mind? But I think the next scene in the book will be a flashback, and I think I know to what. So I’ll try to get it written tonight at the Willow House, after I finish losing at Scrabble to Pat.