3/6/2016 7:00 - 8:00 pm

Continuing our exploration of the research done at the library, gobbling up facts and info that's useful to know regarding both covert operations and the occult, well, "occult" has the exact same meaning that "covert" means-- secret, hidden. I'n't that far out? So continuing that conversation, let's talk a bit about the magics.

2/28/2016 7:45 - 8:45 pm

I did a bunch of research on Tuesday afternoon last week, before heading in and checking out the Animation Workshop we've got here on campus. Heading into the library, seeing the shelf of Encyclopaedia Britannica, swimming through all that information to find the knowledge I want regarding the topics I want. It's absolutely perfect for this kind of thing; the information you need is right there, while with like Wikipedia, because they can get so in-depth, you have to slog through a lot to find things that are workable. It was a glorious hour and a half. I took notes.

I don't have nearly enough time to spin off on what I learned and how it applies to TTDECBA, but I figure I can touch on one or two subjects this time...

2/21/2016 5:30 - 6:30 pm

Watched The Last Witch Hunter this week like I said here, or last week I suppose since this is a Sunday and is thus the first day of the week instead of the last technically.

There was enough witchy hunty goodness there to turn my mind back to the adventures of Finn Moone, which I'd been thinking about in the interim but figured I finally had enough material to post regarding, for the first time in, shoot, four months? Three, I suppose. A quarter of a year, on a blog that had initially been supposed to be daily. But we saw how well daily blogging worked out for me last year... I could probably get this back up to weekly again, or even tri-weekly, like I'd toyed with as an idea in my DVD post The M/W/F Supremacy.

11/08/2015 7:45 - 9:00 pm

One week after posting about what to expect here from NaNoWriMo, I have lived up to none of those. That's me, always defying expectations. Heh heh, heh. Bleh. Missing the first couple of days, I could have made that up during the third or fourth, but by now we're going to need to change our tack. Or not. I honestly don't mind writing for an hour on Sundays, but daily, well, I knew how crazy that would be. I've brought this up before, but I'd rather write about the adventures of Agent Officer Moone, rather than write the actual adventures.

Writing... is... tough. What I'm doing here, technically writing, but not the book itself, more like having a conversation about the book that happens to be in glyphic format. Writing about, rather than writing. As different as studying about and studying.

11/02/2015 7:15 - 8:15 pm

I had plenty of time to write today! With the weather the way it is (it rained all last night, all day today... so much precipitation, it must be [insert ludicrously small volume here, as ill-advised humor about living in desert and consideration of "a lot" of rain]!),  there wasn't much to do at work and I want sent home early. Plenty of time to write, plenty of time to do additional research as well. Not much writing, mostly researching... figured I had an extra day for that before the 28 scenes-in-a-row, getting down one scene / the gist of one scene a day (depending on writing time available) before the end of the month.

I did research today. I guess my post will be about that. Mostly trying to figure out the opening scene, which introduces the world and conflict (which is, after all, the first scene that I'm writing and honestly had no idea before today where to go with it.) Spy stuff, right? I'm so glad that I put in the minimum 5 seconds that I did doing research on it, because there's so much you'd never guess (as well as a bunch that you would, but, seriously-- did you know that "Agent" Moone isn't even technically an agent?)...

11/1/2015 8:15 - 9:30 pm

November 1- here it is, the first day of NaNoWriMo! I spent the last couple of weeks preparing for this moment, and, though it feels like I could spent a couple weeks more doing that, I'm jumping into this. It's a lot easier to be lazy and put it off, but no more of that, now. I suppose I should use this time to explain what I expect this blog to turn into this month...

I say expect because I'm not sure what things will be looking like. I'd been meaning to take this month off from work, but, well, have you ever made money? It's totally far out. I still plan on writing every day this month, ideally for 6-8 hours, but with a job and things to do... No excuses. I'll do my best. It looks like I've got a project to work on, for however long it lasts, at least, and then we'll see what kinds of things will need to be done from there, and if I can get work off then...

10/25/2015 8:15 - 9:45 pm

I spent not-as-much-time-as-I'd-meant-to but still a massive load of time this week (note to self: find some cleverer way to phrase that) figuring out and implementing the plot outline for, honest-to-goodness no kippering you the FIRST Finn Moone book, and not the third like it had turned out I'd been planning all along up to this point.

So, good news: plot outline, totally in place-ish in time for NaNoWriMo.

Also good news: the lesson we're learning about in class this week deals with procrastination, and how to put off doing it. New life goal: no more procrastination, ever. With a 20-30% margin of error, of course. Figure that would be, acceptable. Not procrastinating is all (POSITIVE ADJECTIVE) and (SECOND POSITIVE ADJECTIVE), but lack of procrastination means nothing if you don't have things to do with your time, and that means setting goals and having priorities.

Great news, though: exactly the kind of thing we went over in class, last week.

But, the plot outline for book one, enough in place that I can finalize it this week, and have it by November, anyway.

7/29/2015 8:45 - 10:30 pm

Drilling further into research on therians, otherkin, and the difference between them, I've finally seemingly come up with some answers regarding definition, and what those are and aren't. I think.*

Whether on a spiritual, or metaphorical, or whatever kind of plain, both regard their souls as being... different, from normal people's. Like being transgendered, only this is more transspecies -- though those who believe that their souls literally aren't human are few and far between, and who knows, maybe even those guys are just, starved for attention, or something. (Maybe not, but, maybe. Lots of people believe lots of things.) So, really, no, I guess it's nothing like being transgendered. But, yeah, exactly like that.

What we're talking about are therianthropes and otherkin. I've mentioned how interchanged the terms are, and how I don't believe they refer to precisely technically the same thing, and how I'm probably right because they're really not precisely technically the same thing. There are some great resources to look into this kind of thing, though, and how it looks so far: therians are more, souls-of-animals, people, while otherkin are souls-of-mythical-and-legendary-races-and-stuff kind of people. Blurry lines still, especially when dealing with dragons, and you do see a lot of intercourse between the (fandoms? subcultures? countercultures?)... but it's all wholly distinct from space aliens. Which is good to know.

7/22/2015 9:45 - 11:15 pm

Here she blows, that second post of this evening. And, dang, there's still stuff that I'd meant to write about but couldn't fit in. I'll go over it briefly here: more Dreamtime stuff, some other realm that leaks out into reality and causes creatures to become their legendary/mythological equivalents? Such as, foxes become genuine kitsune, tapirs become baku (the difference of which I discussed here,) that kind of thing and heck, people become Windigo. Yaay windigo. (or their Australian wild dog equivalent, win-dingo. Which I'm seriously considering being a genuine thing in this universe.)

Also, this being the 1990s and all, data mining Usenet for heat on supernatural activity. Which has been a plan all along as a major plot point, but hasn't needed to be brought up till now.

I think that's all the backstory needed in order to set up this post.

7/22/2015 2:00 - 3:00 pm

I've got a lot to say this week (apparently this blog is weekly now! it's settled), though I don't feel like doing a megapost, or a postapalooza. My observations are split into two distinct categories, though, of things I have to say, so here's part one, and I'll have another post later on this evening as well. Sounds good to me.

7/11/2015 8:00 - 9:00 pm; 7/12/2015 9:00 - 10:00 am

The more I think about it, the less satisfied I am with the proposed outline I've got being the first in the series. I really like the beginning, how perfectly it sets the mood for the book (and by extension the series, if it were book one,) but from then on, the plot that collecting the Asset naturally leads to, it's just unfit unsatisfying as the first book of the series.

As time-tested a plot as "the molehunt" is, and the main character being the primary suspect as a matter of course, it creates too strong a promise for following books, drives too deep a wedge in between characters we've only just met. It just doesn't work, in other words. Not as a first book. But I think I've figured out, at least vague ready-to-be-fleshed-in versions for preceding books. It starts with the timeline for this one...

5/28/2015 9:45 am - 2:00 pm (mythapalooza)

I noticed something on my mission, researching mythology, which, since I was on my mission and thus consecrating my time, I couldn't delve too deeply into and thus just had to make note of and puzzle out later. I've been puzzling it out ever since- not the implications of what I discovered, but what it was that I had discovered in the first place. Because, apparently, I didn't notate my discovery as much as I should have; I copy/pasted what I'd found into a separate file and moved on, never actually stopping to notate, what it was, that I'd found...

And it's been a while, but I've finally figured it out. Turns out that I HAD notated my discovery sufficiently. I just wasn't reading the copy/pasted material carefully enough to catch it, overlooking what I'd always taken for granted. You see, it all has to do with Ancient Roman practices of eating pork n' beans.

Yes, really.

5/8/2015 9:50 - 11:20 am

Brandon Sanderson, aside from the excellent award-winning Writing Excuses podcast, also teaches creative-writing-type classes as BYU. Which are recorded, and available on YouTube.
BYU Lecture - Brandon Sanderson’s ENGL 321 Class (playlist.)

If you've got 18 hours of your life you can devote to learning not only how to write a book, but how to market it, find an agent, and hopefully get it published, then, this, you know, is, one way you can do that, I suppose.

I'd be remiss, watching these, if I didn't post anything on my writing blog today, so here we go. I actually think we've got a good one on our hands today...

5/3/2015 11:50 am - 12:50 pm

Hello there. Getting back to writing on the supernatural adventures of Finn Moon(e). And, revisiting some material that, proves that this is all still a work in progress.

The idea about the cost of psychic powers just never sat right with me. The past being switched in your mind with the future somehow, right? It's a neat enough system, but it's also kind of vague and nonsensical, and if you could remember the future then there's the problem of predestination and all that, which would be countered by the memory wipe (which powers the plot point that Finn doesn't know he's the mole,) but the thing is: if there were that memory wipe there, then seeing into the future in the first place would have been absolutely pointless. Unless you could flail around while you're peeping into the future, writing things  or wielding objects and leaving yourself vague clues about what's going to happen... but that's a possibility that I'll touch on a bit. As it stands, anyway, I feel the idea of psychic-ness being a "pendulum" to be unworkable...