You drop threads, because nobody plans to be sick. I was miserable enough there are days I don’t remember. Now I’m back to normal and I’ve got it all moving again. Trust me. We’re going to keep this book on time.
We did get some gardening done—one of those must-do’s, because the pond has to start running, fish have to be fed, trees have to be trimmed and fertilized. We planted a new crab apple ‘Prairiefire’ in front, completing our tree additions. We’re all pinks right now—the cherries and quince are in bloom.
I do need to get out there and feed the koi and set up the chair the wind blew over. We inevitably get a wind when we’ve just planted a tree, eh? Ordinarily it’s calm. Plant a tree and we get a gale.
We had a good old West Texas thunderstorm earlier in the evening, booming thunder, pouring down, little snibbits of hail, but thankfully nothing larger than pea, as my apartment complex does not have covered parking.
We’ve had our share of windy days. Don’t even have to look outside to know it’s windy as the light has a yellowish cast from all the dust in the air.
Koi!
Ah, the weather that makes the EPA complain about particulates. As if there was anything that could be done, short of letting it go back to grassland.
Glug. Spokane gets the occasional dust storm when the fields are plowed (the Palouse is massive wheatfields) and a real gale kicks up. We hates it.
Progress here; trying hard to increase incomee to get any ahead of the curve.
I have one style of one font-family nearly completed for one stage. Still to complete are a handful of characters, then to tweak how they look, and then to do “kerning” (how the letters fit together and how close they are to each other). This particular face has been around 1 1/2 to 2 months to get this far. That’s very good progress and I’m pleased.
That’s for the “OpenType Standard” characters for Latin-1, about 279 glyphs. — Then I looked at adding the goodies most font vendors (and type users, design people) want now. Add more than twice the glyphs. If you then add Greek and Cyrillic (might as well, there’s a lot of overlap in letter shapes, so some would be already done) then that doubles or quadruples it, depending on what you add, and whether you add small caps for Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic. This is just for one style (Roman or Italic, Bold or Bold Italic, for instance).
In other words, if I go that route right now, it would mean another few months to complete a single face. I want to add those, but the interface to do so is…pretty terrible…to manage them. — So I am considering starting the other faces in the family, then submitting the family, and then later doing an upgrade to the font-family.
Whichever way I go, it will still be a long time before I’m ready to submit the family for consideration for publication by font vendors.
Meanwhile, I have other designs in various stages, a couple with a single face in the family also near completion, but not as far yet.
This is good, great, but I need the income now, not later. Going to have to put up with it and keep going. And rough it for a while longer. … No true guarantee what will happen, if something will be a hit or just sit on the virtual shelves. It’s feast or famine and like graphic design (of which, it’s a form) or like writing or music, you get an initial payment, a payment upon completion…and then sales / royalties thereafter, which depend on the market’s tastes. There are fads and fashions in type design and usage.
But once a face is out there, it can live a long, long time. (The roots go back to the earliest printers in the 1500’s and imitations of calligraphic styles of the time. Then a period of expansion in the 1700’s, and it took off from there. But type design exploded in the 1900’s, and then things went to computer design, which made everything else look like a drop in the bucket.)
—–
The other sign of progress — Writing. After months of being at a plateau, where I could get bits and pieces written, at a decent rate sometimes, not much at all at others, and not complete plots, full stories — I think I’ve jumped a hurdle in the past month or less.
In the past 5 days, I’ve written, besides a couple of clunkers I threw out, about 7 pages of background notes and 19 pages of one story, which ties into a partial story (and a story-universe) I’d written earlier, and then another story of about 20 pages, including 2 or 3 pages of notes, so about 17 pages of story, that’s connected to another in the same story-universe, a previous partial story.
I don’t yet know if that’s all one story, or if it’s two (or more?) separate stories. I think one or both are novel length. I’d be happy if they were short stories in an anthology series, sort of serial or anthology episodes.
But both these look like they’re going strong, and I have a good idea for both of a couple of chaptes ahead of where I am so far. Which means — I just might, one way or the other, have a full novel or two from these, besides pieces of the overall story-universe becoming clearer.
That amounts to around 47 pages of fiction writing and enough notes to keep track of what’s what, who’s who, in about 5 days. Not quite 10 pages per day. (Except these have been in marathon, writer-zombifying sessions. (Hey, gotta come up for air, eat, sleep, etc. sometime.)
If I can keep that up, and *IF* I can keep getting a coherent plot (that keeps up surprises and isn’t something everyone’s seen before) — then I may finally have enough progress so I could…finish a rough draft of one of those in, say, two months, 60 days for 600 rough pages. Even two months for half as many pages would be a step up, though I’ve had several times before where I’ve gotten 10 pages of rough draft fiction out…just not a complete story.
Well, it’s not a completed anything, and I’m sure there will be some missteps in there — But the idea that I may have overcome a big plateau in getting a whole story together is really exciting! — I’ve tried outlining before, but that tends to get me too quickly into minutiae. But I need to outline or find another method that gets me a complete plot, rather than going by the seat of my pants, as I have done so far, most times.
I do realize a rough draft is not a completed story, a final draft. And I am not yet where I should be at rewriting drafts. I tend to want to keep things in, rather than rewrite. But I know from editing (amateur fiction by others, non-fiction and ads and business materials by others) that real editing of a story requires rewriting portions or the whole thing, and stitching things together seamlessly.
So I don’t expect to have a complete novel in two months. Hah, oh, if only.
Still, the chance of having a completed rough draft of a novel-length piece at all, even if it’s a few months, or a year, (which would be fast, as I understand it) is…wow. The chance I might have passed a writing plateau, to put together a complete, novel-length plot, has been a big hurdle, a real block so far.
Heck, I’d be happy with short story length too. — What I have up at my site has all been shorter than short story length. — So reaching short story length, or novel length, a complete plot… uh… I’m repeating myself. Pretty excited, here. 😀
Also good, with each portion I’ve written, the one story-universe keeps getting clearer. I am not yet to the point of gathering it all together to see what could be pulled into one or more stories. So far, most have been fragments, a scene or a chapter or at most, a few chapters. Plus background notes on the story-universe.
There are other stories besides, but again, nearly always pieces. So it’s a big jump that these are coalescing better and I may have a complete plot going for not one but two stories in there.
We’ll see. I’m hoping this jump will stay around awhile, along with the overall increase in productivity. If I can keep a portion of this going, then I’ll still count it a win, a step ahead towards a better life financially and creatively.
I sure don’t recommend the process to get to this point as any great way to get to writing full time, and completed stories. But well, if it gets me to there, if I’ve overcome beng so scattered, at least for awhile, then it’s a win. Hoping I can look back in a month or two and see more progress.
Just wanted to share. (And my internal editor says I’m repeating, I’m excited, the post ought to be edited down. Heh. Can’t ever satisfy that internal editor. There are times, for writing fiction, or conversation, that I really need to tell that internal editor guy to take a nap or take a hike for awhile, and not interfere with getting things written down.)
I’m an inch closer on a journey of many miles. But an inch is more than a millimeter.
You can always tell when they’ve burned off a cane field, which is generally in the wee hours of the morning. As the sun is rising, the smoke clouds drift in front of it and turn the sunlight an eerie orange color. It looks like they’ve nuked something.
Some progress on the reroofing project. During the last week, the roofing crew has torn off all the old shingles (quel mess!) and gotten about a third of the pitched roof reshingled. However, since no plan survives contact with the enemy, the flat sections of our roof are proving problematic. Over the 30 or so years since the roof was originally installed, the tarpaper has become an integral part of the plywood underneath and is refusing to come off, having tried flamethrowers, scrapers, and various other implements of destruction. Since we can’t put new roofing over the old (it’s a sanded roof, and the new just won’t stick), we are having to attack it from a different angle. Either we are going to lay new plywood over the old roof and start fresh, or we are going to coat it with the industrial grade roof sealant the big resorts around here use on their roofs. I’m inclined toward the slightly more expensive but faster and better paint job, but will see what the professionals have to say.
I’d go with the sealant, myself. If you pay more for a near certainty it will work in your climate, you will be FAR ahead of the peel-and-pray process that might require a second layer and might alter the roof pitch thus making the shingles not shed water properly—we had that problem turn up on a roof in Oklahoma, not designed properly from the get-go, so we had to go back for a re-do after spending a lot of money fixing it. If water stands on shingles, you get a leak. Sealed, that should prevent any problem. If it’s got a guarantee, it might be worth it.
I’m going to be about 50% out of commission from this Thursday on for a few weeks, or at least, days. Surgery on my left thumb is scheduled, and I’ll be wearing a bandage for the first 5 days, then possibly a splint on the left hand as soon as next Tuesday. I’m hoping that the bandage and splint won’t affect my fingers, even though it should immobilize the thumb.
Finished “Tracker” last night (or should I say, early this morning).
Owie! Get well fast, Joe!
Called the Ambulatory Procedure Unit to get my report time – 10:15 AM Thursday. I might get some sleep tonight!
Surgery was successful, I got home about 4:30 local this afternoon. Left arm is in a sling, and the nerve block is still holding. He told me to start the pain medication as soon as I got home.
Yow! Having had a couple of very minor surgeries on my hands, I know how painful they can be, and starting the pain meds early is probably not a bad idea. Get better soon!
I got the bandage off today. Now wearing a splint. Have to take it off every so often and do exercises, but more freedom than the bandage. Still have to use a bag over my arm when I take a shower, but it should be easier now.
Doctor was pleased with the results and how well I can flex the wrist and fingers. Still can’t move that joint at the base of the thumb, though, and any exercises with the thumb have to be done with the splint on.
I go back next Tuesday and get the sutures out, then have another follow up 4 weeks after that. Looking good, though.
CJ. One is in awe of your skillz. Tracker was superb!
Chondrite. In this area it is against code to put more than one additional layer of roofing over the original roof. You could put the second set of plywood on the roof with shingles but any additional roofing material would be against code. Trying to sell your house (as if you would ever do that) would be problematic. I agree with CJ about opting for the sealant.
Joe. Get better soon. We’ll need your services for ShejiCon V.
BlueCatShip. Glad your writing is going better.
Agreed with you on all counts 😀 Oooch, Joe!
I hadn’t considered the plywood and peel-n-stick as multiple layers, more like one new roofing treatment, but I think we’ve decided to go with the coating. It has a 50 year warranty, so I expect not to need a repeat treatment 😉
The problem is the total weight on the 2×4 rafters. (Well, 1 1/2″ by 3 1/2″ actually. 🙁 )
Oh, these aren’t 2x4s. The support beams for the flat shed roof on the lanai, laundry room and carport are actually 2x6s or 2x8s laid over top of 4x8s on center (standard); the plywood is probably the weakest part of the system. The 2×4 trusses are only for the pitched part of the roof, which had a complete tearoff of the old shingles. The new shingles look very nice, and since the same contractor will assist with the solar panel installation we have going in later this year, he put the post supports in as he applied the new shingles, in the best locations. Sealant is confirmed, but the contractor is having to do the supply return shuffle, where credit for the unneeded peel-n-stick will eventually pay for the 5 gallon buckets of silicone roofing material. Total cost will actually be a wash, so that’s good.
Found out, however, that at some point I will need to redo the toilet in the secondary bathroom in the laundry. 3-4 years ago I replaced it with a low-rise, low flow one from the ReStore, but after installing it, discovered that this model is notorious for having insoluble flush valve and flapper problems. I had turned off the supply valve when I couldn’t get the tank to stop filling, and only turned it back on for the contractors to use while they are working. Then I found the wax seal was no longer well sealed, and it was leaking around the base, in addition to the flapper. Oy!
I live in Arizona. At this time of year one expects the temperature to be in the 70s to 80s. Yesterday’s high was 55 degrees, with low just above freezing? Climate change indeed! Today we have swarms of Africanized bees in our yard.
Swarm of bees has now moved on. Catastrophe averted… It’s amazing how loud a swarm of bees is. I was reading and realized I couldn’t hear the road noise because of a loud buzzing. I looked out of my patio door and saw thousands of bees in a roughly ball shaped formation flying into our juniper bushes. Once they were all settled for the night the ball of solid bees (no hive) was about the size of a basketball. Fortunately they were just traveling through. Not enough pollen, water, and such to keep that large a swarm fed.
How could you tell they were Africanized? Was there a general APB out: “Be on the lookout for swarms of Africanized bees that have been sighted in your area”? Some beekeepers don’t mind them, as long as you handle them gently. They supposedly produce superior amounts of honey.
Because any feral swarm in Arizona is now automatically presumed to be Africanized. I don’t know of any beekeeper that really likes them, they’re too defensive. I’m not sure that they produce MORE honey, they’re a hybrid, and the only way to tell the difference (without getting attacked) from a normal European honey bee is to measure the forelegs under a microscope. Yes, the physical difference is that slight. The venom is the same, the worker still leaves her stinger in the stingee, it’s the temperament of the bees that’s different. I don’t blame ready4more if she stayed indoors until the swarm is gone. Those are NOT nice bees.
most swarms are “safe” to approach. The bees are full of honey and are usually quite docile. If it’s an older swarm, though, look out! Usually, especially with Africanized bees, they’ll find a new spot very quickly. Many times, it’s either a hive that was abandoned by other bees, or they’ll also raid a European hive and overpower the bees in that hive, especially if that hive was relatively weak.
When people see a swarm, their first reaction is to panic (thanks a lot, Hollywood!). They don’t realize that within a few hours, the bees will have moved on. But no, they do stupid stuff like spray them with insecticide, or water, or throw water on them. That just stimulates their defensive behavior, since they’re not bothering anyone until the large bipedal creature disturbed them.
Collecting swarms (not Africanized swarms) is not that difficult, but if it’s in the walls of a house, or other building, I won’t bother. If it’s in a tree branch 25 feet off the ground, I won’t bother. If it’s in a shrub, or on a low hanging branch, then I’ll be after it. I have a special funnel that I use to shake the cluster through and it funnels them right into the package. As long as I get the queen, then the workers will stay there on the package with her. The ones who come back later, though, are probably the scout bees looking for their cluster, and they’ll wander around for a while until they either find the cluster, or they end up dying out in the field.
Tracker reached the UK on Monday. Very much enjoyed it and looking forward to the next one and the one after that 🙂
Joe, I hope your hand is doing better soon.
My font production is procding, but it’s a good thing I have been using the less powerful, veteran cousin, Fontographer, despite some needed interface improvements. The software company sent out a notice earlier this month that their newer, more-featured program, FontLab Studio, breaks under the new Mac OS X update, and they don’t yet know when they’ll have a fix. (As of 2 or 3 weeks ago.) I’m glad I had not yet moved my production over to the newer program. I would be frantic. — Font production is currently my quickest path to a more livable income. I’m still trying to get up to the break-even point, much less getting ahead. I’m hopeful it’ll happen in a month or so, but I still have no guarantee how much improvement there might be. Gotta happen, though. So meanwhile, I’ll be doing what I can to downsize this year…somehow. I am trying hard not to be, but it has me super stressed out.
I got bad news today that I’ll have to pay off something sooner than expected, which means a heavy hit to my remaining savings. But it can’t be helped. It won’t catch me up entirely, but it will be a big help once it’s done. So, again, I’m doing my best toward improving my income. (And hoping the need to pay off, or else, will be reasonable enough. Don’t know yet what my options are.)
So…. Very, verey frustrated here. Doing the best I can. Just wish it were good enough to get ahead any. Surely it will even out somehow. I just don’t see how yet.
The good news is, I expect to be able to stay online for the next three months after all. If I see I may “drop off the edge of the interwebz” for a while, I will let people know beforehand. Aarrgh.
On the plus side, I’ve ordered the cat food brand CJ recommended. (Nature’s Recipe Grain-Free wet food, which comes in various flavors.) And the usual wet food as a backup. — I could’ve bought the latter locally today, but there was a confluence of two cat ladies…who hovered there for some twenty minutes while I was in the store, dithering over what to get their feline crew. Uh, gee, I like cats too, but…you ladies could’ve moved a bit. … One hopes their cats know how pampered they are. Heh. (I have never seen anyone take that long. The classic little old cat ladies, though, bless ’em. So I had to consider the source. People cope how they can. Sometimes, it’s eccentric. … Not that I’d ever be odd somwhow. (Yeah, sure, LOL.)
I am still making it and not living under a bridge. A bit nervous about that, though. — Anyone know the next starship off this mudball? Heh. Or, y’know, a really cute Martian lad? ;D (Hmm, I joke, but yeah, just me and the cats, not quite sufficient all the time.)
Allonx-y!
CJ, I loved Tracker. i don’t want to commit spoilers here but this is exactly the line I hoped the story would take. An excellent good book! Thanks.
All the bees in SE Arizona (indeed all of Arizona) are now considered to be Africanized. From the aggressive way they started to exit their swarm ball when the dog ventured near them I automatically placed them in the mental category… Africanized, aggressive, dangerous. Dog was called inside and stayed in during daylight hours when members of the swarm were still moving about. A very few members of the swarm stayed behind, not the queen, and I am seeing a little activity, but the ball of bees is gone.
Oooh, I see in the comments here a new book just came out, “Tracker”. I’ll have to go buy that right away.
I do notice that this website says in the upper left corner that the new Foreigner book is “Intruder”, and has been saying that since 2012. Perhaps when you are feeling better that could be updated?
I think CJ said in a comment a few days ago that the change picture function on this WordPress blog hasn’t been working for a while, and I suspect that’s been since 2012… Besides, it’s a nicer picture of Bren than the current book cover, in my biased opinion.
OK, just exploring the parameters here. Can I talk about teacakes when it’s not on the spoilers thread? I’ll try it here with the abbreviated version.
I’ve tried 4 times to post my contribution to the tea-cake discussion; but despite there not being a single link in it, it’s not appearing.
Should it suddenly show up in multiples, CJ, would you please delete the extras?
It boiled down to “keep it simple” ; Bindanda and Bren offered them to Prakujo because they only contained simple ingredients and straightforward taste. Refined flour and sugar, a calorie-rich treat for Prakuyo who’d lost a lot of weight despite surviving on the yeast-based human food; nothing that would be too strange-tasting and nothing that might trigger allergies or be poisonous to a different species.
So no teas (they drank water IIRC), herbs or whole-plant-parts based flavorings.
The new Tracker cover is an homage to nand’ CJ who stars as Ilisidi. The artist, Todd Lockwood, used himself as the model for Bren… It is indeed an inside joke for Ms Cherryh’s fans. She has a framed copy hanging in her living room.
Now I’m all curious 😀
Just a reminder that ShejiCon V will be taking place just prior to WorldCon in Spokane, WA this summer. If you would like to meet other Cherryh fans, and Ms. Cherryh herself refer to the tab above the Wave Without a Shore banner that is labeled “ShejiCon V Planning: Get Info: Ask.” We’d love to see our associates, we don’t bite, and newcomers are very welcome.