Tag: writing

No More No Ouch

Remember when I posted about the mystery pain mysteriously going away?

It came back.

I don’t know what I did to anger it or whatever god or alien is in charge of it, but I did and now it hurts a lot and it’s making me feel gross. I don’t know what happened to make it go away before and I don’t know what happened to bring it back, so I guess I’m stuck with it until it decides to stop again.

I’ve still been writing. I’ve broken the 40k mark which for one story is really impressive for me. I looked back at some of the fanfic I’ve written and in the 20 years I’ve been keeping track of it, I’ve written a little over 60k words. Comparatively, this thing I’m writing is kind of impressive, because it’s gotten this long in about 2 months? Maybe 3?

Is it any good? I dunno. I’ve got a couple people that are “alpha reading” it (basically friends who have promised to cheer me on) and I just asked someone to start doing a beta read of the first three chapters.

Will I ever let any of you read it? Maybe. Maybe not.

Will I tell you if I publish it? Will I tell you what I call it or what name I use on it? Maybe. Maybe not.

Will it relate in some way to the name “DataAngel”? No. Although no matter what name I put on the cover, anyone who knows me will spot my style and favorite tropes from a mile away.

Yeah so that didn’t last long

I had to switch back to this template. I’m still not completely happy with it, but I like having my last.fm readout there. Don’t ask me why. I know how to go to my own page to see what I’ve been listening to. Maybe I just want to pretend that you also care what I’m listening to.

I know you don’t, really. It’s ok.

I got a nice “Meets Expectations” on my end of year review at work. I’m fine with that, because in many ways I feel that I didn’t even meet (my) expectations, let alone exceed any of them. I won’t find out until March what my raise and bonus will be, but I’m already making more money than I ever assumed I’d be making — especially the way I’m making it. Every time they pay me I’m afraid they’re going to come to their senses and fire me. And because this is one of my paranoid fantasies, I owe them for everything they ever paid me over the last (counts on fingers) 16ish years.

I also managed to lose actual weight between the whole surgery thing and last Thursday when I had a doctor appointment. I made the tech weigh me twice because I couldn’t believe it. You don’t get numbers. You get to know that I went from fat to slightly less fat. You also don’t get to comment at all about weight loss, because I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. The weight loss is interesting because I have been eating G A R B A G E since I got out of the hospital. It’s been convenience, carry-out, coffee, and carbs, so I don’t know. Maybe that pain I had was alien tech sucking out some fat cells.

No. I would not put up with the pain for any amount of time if it magically made me lose weight. The “not in pain” parts of my life feel so rare.

I’d like to take a moment now to say… HOLY SHIT IT’S DECEMBER.

I just put October down over there on that stack of magazines like yesterday and now you’re telling me we’re about halfway through the last month of the year. I dunno man. Again, pain, alien, probably abduction (there’s probably also a joke about abdomens in there but I’m not in the mood to go that far down. I’ve been listening to techno trance music most of the night because it makes girldog zone out, and it’s also making me zone out, although that could also be the weed. This parenthetical has gone on long enough now, goodbye) because there’s evidence of November. There’s proof right in this very blog. But somehow there’s no memory of November.

Actually, everything from like, May onward is sort of a blur. Any further back than that, forget about it. That space has been cleared out and probably refilled already. I can’t wait to find out what’s in there.

See that’s how my brain works. I learn stuff by accident. I put podcasts and documentaries and audiobooks on as background noise a lot (although it’s Wild Wild West a lot lot) and while I’m not paying attention, my brain is grabbing onto stuff. Then, one day sometimes, or maybe not, someone will have a question and my brain will go “OH WE KNOW THIS!” and I will answer the question and at least one person will look at me and ask either “Why are you like this?” or “Why do you know that?” And I will shrug and say “I’m online a lot?” as an answer for both questions.

Anyhow, since I can’t control what or when my brain decides it’s going to record things, I also can’t control where it put things, and sometimes it just shoves things out to make space. Had those memories been copied to Archives already? Who knows! Memory tech chucked the boxes without checking the dates and dropped the new ones in.

I have only ever claimed to be a Data Angel. There’s never been a statement or even a suggestion as to the quality of that data. … or that angel.

Hey! Do you like what you’re reading? Do you know people who might also like reading it? You can share this. Really. Just because I don’t want my friends reading this doesn’t mean I don’t want your friends reading.

I’m kidding. I hope my friends are reading this. BECAUSE THEN I CAN TELL THEM HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM AND HOW MUCH THEY MEAN TO ME

Except they’re my friends, and they would know that was being said with eyes-too-wide, teeth-too-bared-and-clenched, and smile-too-psychotic to be true.

I love you more in a “mumble it into the hood of my coat as I’m leaving ok seeya love ya…. ” way.

It’s the stupid things that make me happy

For example: this new blog layout. Be glad I didn’t leave it in the original green text. Although there’s also the option for amber, and I did love me some amber displays back in the day.

I can’t promise this is going to stick around a while. I’m still not happy with the layout. I want something very minimal and almost completely text focused, but so far my problems with this layout is it’s not indicating when comments exist on a post unless you view each post as an individual, and that’s not fun. Who wants to click on everything to see if there’s a conversation going on?

Ok, it’s entirely possible that the problem is there aren’t any comments, or comments are still broken and you can’t leave one (A friend of mine is having that issue right now — 503 every time I try to comment)

Anyhow, if you’re out there and want to take the time to try commenting and let me know what happens … (This is the good thing about having so many nerdy friends. Someone somewhere will look and know what’s happening).

Additional things that make me happy: still writing.

I’ll tell you a little bit about it, but not much. There’s these two guys, see? Both Gen-X, both have terrible relationships with their families. Basically raised themselves from about the ages of 10 because I did mention they’re Gen-X? Anyhow, they’re both sarcastic, weird, low-level con artists, snarky best friends, and after a run of bad luck (one guy lost his job, got divorced, and inherited a house in the space of like 10 months) they’re roommates.

Oh look. The best friends odd couple situation. How unlike me. And it turns out the house is haunted? You don’t say. Who ever would’ve imagined I’d come up with something like that? Wow.

SO OF COURSE I MADE THE CHARACTERS IN THE SIMS (my mom is probably rolling her eyes and silently telling me to get on with it, because absolutely zero of this is a surprise to her. But to be fair, she’s known me a really long time and I’m actually pretty predictable).

Anyhow… no names yet. One’s tentatively Nate/Nathan, but I dunno. The other is just a question mark, although we’re all getting pretty tired of “dudeman”.

Right. So getting back to it…

two male sims sitting on a sofa in a haunted house

Dudeman on the left, “Nate” on the right. The year is roughly 2001. Nate’s got massive gauge holes in his ears, a tattoo on his left forearm and the nape of his neck. He does have an outfit that’s jeans, boots, t-shirt, and flannel shirt tied around his waist, but I haven’t gotten a good screenshot of it yet. Hang on to those last days of Grunge, baby! You can also see that dudeman has sleeves that end in fingerless gloves.

And finally… Dudeman

(Dudeman does have a last name. It’s Brekman. So that’s something at least)

Anyhow… kinda getting to a point where I might need to talk to someone about the writing? I used to have esso to bounce ideas around with, and sometimes just complaining out loud to someone helps get through blocks, and boy am I blocked. Like

I have maybe a 4th of a thing written, but it’s spread out over acts 1 and 2 and there’s huge gaping holes where there’s supposed to be story. This is me indirectly asking if anyone might be interested. Except you, mom. I can’t swear in front of you.

After the nuclear war we had to turn to the zoologists.

What if Eleanor Roosevelt was indirectly responsible for force fields?

Today I remembered the name of my favorite Random Generator site. I’d forgotten just how awesome some of them are.

The writing prompt one is my favorite. The title of this post is one of the random prompts. A few others are….

  • It was time to murder some dark gods, but that’s no longer true.
  • My life is basically the legend of the Flying Dutchman, only I am more witty than you’d expect.
  • If you want to know what happened, imagine the legend of the Golem, only funnier.
  • We survived the severe weather by hiding in a stargate, and that’s when everything went wrong. (ok, that’s literally every third episode of Atlantis)
  • Five cyborg rebellions – I’m going to kill her.

The envisioner is also good. It’s all “what if X but … IN SPACE” stuff. Look.

  • A fusion of the legend of the Phantom Hitchiker and the legend of Johnny Appleseed.
  • The story of Oliver Twist envisioned as a surrealistic cyberpunk tale.
  • The story of Jesus envisioned as a metaphorical comedy of manners tale.
  • A fusion of the legend of Oedipus and the legend of Hercules envisioned as a party comedy tale.
  • The legend of Sparticus set on a reality television show (“Will the real Sparticus please stand up!”)

If a Cyberpunk Oliver Twist exists, hook me up.

The what-if-inator!

What if…
…the rise of Rome involved occult arts?
…HG Wells had access to interstellar travel?
…the advent of Christianity had never happened? (<3 <3 <3)
…the first transatlantic flight involved druids?
…the American Revolution involved thaumaturgy? (would read)

See, remember in the previous post where I said I lied and I was writing again? I think I jinxed myself. Or possibly I’ve just hit the point where I can’t keep writing around the plot and actually need to have a plot. If anyone needs me I’ll be over there hitting “refresh” like a zombie until something clicks.