Making good progress. THis means the house is a disgrace and the yard is a mess, but writing is going on.
Still writing….
by CJ | May 26, 2019 | Journal | 41 comments
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Yay, that means some book or other, some story, will get here sooner. We fans will gladly pay to read it. (CJ’s books, I can read and reread and re-reread umpteen times and still find something new and cool.) You and Jane will benefit. The publisher and booksellers benefit. Win-win. (I do wish the UK and Continental European readers could get ebooks for these, though.)
I spent the last three days putting in a first draft of a font idea. Still have much to go before that’s fully in, but I already see adjustments needed, and it’s going well. — Trying to concentrate on this and juggle prep-to-move in a few months. I would like that to be he last move for a while. And gee, I feel too isolated. Tomorrow will be a rest day, with reading and watching shows.
A neighbor kitty or apt. complex stray was lounging on the half-height fence for my apt.’s privacy area / patio. I startled her (I think that’s a she; very thin and smallish). Unfortunately, I didn’t get to greet her. She skedaddled, too skittish. — I’ve seen her at least once or twice before. Not sure if she belongs to someone. Nice, dark grey shorthair.
This could explain why Goober has taken to hanging out by that window recently. I asked him if she’s his friend. He didn’t say yes, no, maybe, or even meow. 😉 But I think possibly they’ve been watching each other.
Kids and some music going on, not many adults out. — I’m tired from computer work all day (12 hrs.) and I’m going to rest a while, then back up to do whatever. — And that is the extent of my exciting life today! Heh. Yup, exciting, like watching paint dry. Meh, it’s a little progress, I hope.
No worries. That’s how you pay the bills, and eventually get the house organized, It’s all good.
Good news for us readers. My house is a wreck right now because I’ve spent the weekend at Balticon, so I haven’t spent much time tidying things. There’s always tomorrow though.
The house will wait; it isn’t going anywhere. Writing has to be done when it demands to be done. I doubt that anyone has ever been remembered for keeping a clean house.
Spring/summer has finally arrived; we are madly cleaning up the yard, pond and pool, all made a bit more difficult by all the dead tree limbs from the moth devastation of previous years. I can count seven large dead oak trees just by looking out one window. We call it standing fuel for the woodstove. Last fall we took down the three that were closest to the house. There is a lot of comfort in knowing that trees aren’t going to fall on the house during a windstorm.
I am also finally back in my studio trying to finish projects that should have been finished months ago. They weren’t, due to my niggling health problems, the kind that are nowhere near life threatening but sure can get in the way of daily life.
Oh the conflict. Of course we want you to live in a clean and ordered environment but we also crave and demand more Bren and co or more of the Downbelow universe. In the end, as I always write, since you do the work, you call the shots.
Jonathan up here in still damp New Hampshire.
Our house is a bit of a mess (more than usual) these days, as we are gradually repairing our windows, which are the rope-and-weight type. To my joy, they are not terribly hard to disassemble, and we have a couple of books plus good old YouTube for DIY info. So we have an area for sanding and painting, plus various tools deployed (more as we go and have to find something to deal with a new situation). Three are complete and buttoned up. Nice to have pretty, smoothly functioning windows again. Hopefully they’ll last for another 50 or 60 years.
Wow, how many of those do you have to repair? We had some at our old summer cottage, which was an honest to gosh log cabin. Trouble was, if you soaped or rubbed paraffin on the ropes so they would slide smoothly, the mice would discover them and gnaw. Once in the dead of night, there was a shattering crash — mice had gnawed through the rope for the attic trapdoor counterweight, which promptly fell through the door!
A messy desk (and house) is a sure sign of a genius.
It’s gardening season, so my house is not up to par. The only reason it is in the semi-reasonable shape it IS in is because it has rained everyday for the last 2 weeks. I’ve emptied 7+ inches out of the rain gauge this week. There are breaks in the weather, like today, and things are so muddy, but I gotta get the garden in. If it keeps this up, though, nothing will pollinate, and there will not enough tomatoes to can.
The mangoes are starting to come in; the neighbor’s tree leans over our back yard and is drooping with half-ripe ones. I say that if I have to clean up the fallen leaves and twigs, I should get the mangoes too! One of our friends has 4 or 5 trees on his property and is complaining about the volume of fallen ones. It’s a constant barrage of dropping mangoes, and you have to grab them quick before the bugs do, if you want to can them, freeze them, or make them into chutney.
Look on the bright side, you won’t have to be begging all your (soon to be former) friends to take more zucchini!
If I could figure out how, I’d happily trade you mangoes for zucchini! 😀 The USPS, however, takes a dim view of shipping uncleared produce.
I was in the supermarket a few weeks back, and they had actual jackfruit in the produce section. It was the first time I’d ever seen any. (Came with instructions: use an oiled knife to cut it in half across the short way, then cut those in half the other way, and dig out the pods around the seeds – the pods are what you eat.) They’re about 18 inches long and 8 or 9 inches the short way. And covered in prickly bumps.
I have concluded that housework is invisible; no one notices unless it isn’t done.
Writing is much more important than cleaning.
As is reading, especially about Bren and the atevi!
Thank you.
Today, my internet connection decided to act up, and tonight, my Wacom tablet almost didn’t want to be recognized. Never mind that it has a coveted direct-to-the-computer USB port, instead of going through the add-on hub. Why the iMac, and competing Windows PC’s, have become so cheap about USB ports, I don’t know. (No way to add a USB card to add ports directly, you can only add a hub to an existing one of four ports, and some devices, like an external hard drive, printer, or graphics tablet, often want those direct, dedicated, powered ports, and won’t play nice with a hub, which acts as a go-between, even when powered, and (I’m guessing) plays round robin with the signals.)
So… since it’s been I don’t know how long (before or after moving into my apt.) since I last replaced a Wacom tablet, and their software claims the tablet isn’t connected, I have bitten the bullet and bought a new, slightly larger work area, Wacom tablet. Their software claims it’s not connected, but the OS will recognize it if the OS doesn’t also “forget,” which it does periodically. No newer driver or software shows up.
The new tablet is, naturally, more expensive than the smaller and older model, but not as much as the really big or pro models, or the very fancy, included screen or included computer / tablets. Those latter, you are basically buying a computer with a touch screen on which a pen / stylus draws on the screen. Which is cool, if you can afford that versus a high-end new computer (or a couple of months’ rent or mortgage payments). So, no fancy screen / tablet from them for me, thanks. A new computer will likely be down the line at some point to replace my ancient Windows laptop, which last time, didn’t want to finish booting, circa 2010. I’m using an iMac, newer.
Eventually had to unplug the internet connection to get it to work again. (It has two options. It was recognizing one, but not its usual, faster and more modern speed.) Thought for a while there, I was mysteriously minus my internet connection, hardware or software issue. But it’s OK now.
I also need to clean the apt. and do laundry, but need to do other things before I do that. But it needs to happen this week.
Goober isn’t happy with me right now: It was time to apply flea medicine, the liquid vial rather than a flea collar this time, though I’ll supplement with a new collar later. He will be happy again soon.
Work on one font draft has been going really well, but I’ll soon be to the point of, do I add a lighter weight to the extra bold it started with, and how soon can I add in the larger character set. (This week or next, after some tweaking, I will be ready to do that. I’m still drawing the “OpenType Standard” 279 characters, basically the ones you’re used to for most Western European languages, but not all, by far, such as Irish or Eastern European languages.) Vendors and font buys (graphic designers and the general public) want those these days. (And I want them too.)
The other recent font draft, I still need to sketch by hand again to see why I’m not quite satisfied with it. It’s OK, it’s so-so, but something about it is not what I’d planned and I am not quite thrilled with it. So hand-sketching should show me what I want, and I can then revise it to fit whatever is nagging my subconscious brain to look how I want it to.
All in all, not too bad. Still working towards a steady and independent income.
So, oh, I get how easy it is to be torn between work that can actually produce income (but longer-term, not immediate, and all in one or two lumps) versus other things that also have to get done to have a neat, orderly, pleasing household, or the other necessities of everyday life.
Drawing with a graphics tablet and stylus is much more natural and faster than drawing with a mouse, which is like trying to draw with a bar of soap versus a pen.
Gotta order groceries (again, so soon) this week or next, and rent is due to take another chunk of money. So font work is a priority here, like writing is there. Only I don’t have fonts out there yet generating current income, the way an established, pro author has books out there generating royalties or initial publication payments. (The model is very similar. If and when I get fonts out there, that’s one, two, maybe three initial payments for their publication, then sales come in; I get a portion and the font vendor gets a portion, and I get the big benefit of their marketing and being a known vendor, versus being a tiny indie hoping to be noticed.) So, onward and upward and forward. Sometimes, this is exciting and fun and cool. Other times, it’s slogging through monotonous editing of curve points, kerning, and so on, to produce the 800+ characters in a modern font, and that’s for a single style, not for all the Roman and Italic in a few or in umpteen weights. Really still hoping I will get some things out there this year or next, but I said that last year. On the upside, I eep getting good ideas, at least I think so. Heh. Really hoping when they’re out there, they’ll be a moderate hit, enough to start bringing in a steady income, and enough to support myself full-time. Oh, I hope. Frustrated at how slow it is and my own weird design process, which always generates new ideas while trying to get existing ones done, or sometimes stalling badly if an idea doesn’t jell and I don’t now why it isn’t jelling yet. I’m doing better, my productivity is good again, but I need to break through some other plateau, and I need to force myself to either learn Inkscape or to buy Illustrator and pay their monthly dang subscription fees (something like $20 / month for just Illustrator, more for further Adobe software suite programs, so you can pay $240 to $360 and up for a single year…and still never “own” the software, and therefore access to the data (work) you yourself created with their programs. Which is why I object to their subscription model, and Microsoft’s.)
So…same-old, same-old. Oh, am I going to celebrate when I have my first fonts out there for sale. (And I will tell all and sundry when I do, ’cause I am not proud, I will sell my art, darn tootin’.)
@BCS, this seems to be a recurring pattern in your creative work, both the writing and the font-design, that you get lots of shiny new ideas but don’t get around to finishing any of them.
Getting the shiny new idea down in the computer so you can come back to it later seems like a good idea, but if that means all your creative time and brainspace gets taken up by doing that, and the older ideas that are nearer completion but have reached the point where it becomes a bit of a slog* sort of remain stuck in limbo, they can’t get sold and start producing income.
* From what I’ve read, all published writers have a point in their writing process where it becomes a slog, they lose faith in the story or process, it’s no fun anymore, like “the dreaded slump in the middle”. Those that get published learn to persevere through that part, to the point where the end comes in sight and the pace picks up and they become enthousiastic again.
Patricia C.Wrede’s blog on writing might contain useful tips for you on how to deal with this, as it’s apparently a common problem for creative people.
https://www.pcwrede.com/?s=Finishing+the+story
Though she talks about writing, it seems like the general ideas should work on font-design too.
This is common enough that it has a meme picture.
(For me, it’s partly my chronic clinical depression – I sit on that impulse to Do Something New, but it doesn’t always work. I need to get my primary care guy to prescribe an SSRI again. It’s been more than 5 years since I last used one.)
Things reached critical mass last night, and I mopped the bathroom and section of hallway today. I’ll get the remainder of the place vacuumed and mopped in the next few days. Hoping it’ll dry quickly.
— Yes, that’s definitely some of what’s going on, although I think I’m making some progress with the latest few designs, so I’m sticking with those. There is a slog factor. There’s a distraction factor. There’s just plain completing the work on an idea that’s going well.
I’d like to get the current display / headline specialty use fonts done and out there, and work on one of the more distinctive body text ideas done. That’s my current plan. I still feel like I’m on a big learning curve.
I’ll check her blog. I want to get the current drafts out and go through and see which ideas are furthest along or which appeal to me most, to try to get out of the pattern. — At least older ideas are getting returned to in a round robin fashion, so there’s a little progress overall.
But yes, I need to push past this, break the pattern, and get things finished, out the door, and into the market to create income for me. — And somewhere in there, get a pipeline of production going on and better concentration on start to finish.
LOL, one other point is, sometimes an idea keeps growing. I’ve written down a few notes for various projects, so I can evaluate whether that’s too ambitious and needs to be done in chunks.
I’ve also considered whether to submit the smaller character sets, and then do the Pro version, but that seems like creating complication and confusion for buyers, unless the “old” versions are strictly replaced with the “new” pro versions, as, for example, a free upgrade. I’ve seen designers or vendors offer either a discount or a free upgrade or simply offer the newer version for full price. But from my own perspective as a user/buyer, I am most likely only to “upgrade” if it’s cheap and easy to do, or if I absolutely need that for a project. Otherwise, there needs to be an easy incentive. One vendor had a system that was supposed to alert customers if an upgrade was available, but that seems to have gone by the wayside. I’ve seen, overall, prices from, “Hey, that’s a bargain!” to, “Ugh, great font, but I’m not about to pay that for a single face, a bundle, or the full family, unless there’s a discount.” There’s a trend to offer initial or periodic discounts, sometimes heavy, to encourage sales. But that means customers may feel stung if they buy something full price, then a few weeks/months later, it goes (briefly) on sale for a lot less. So that means, if you have your eye on something, it can pay to wait. My inclination is to sell for a cheaper price, since I’m a small, new designer, to get the best chance people will buy and like it, without thinking it’s too cheap to be good quality. I am picking up knowledge and experience as I go, and opinions on what works.
So…progress, but I want it done yesterday! — Also, being your own boss can be the pits. That guy just doesn’t let up. On Memorial Day, did I rest and watch videos and read like I’d planned? No, I worked most of the day on the current draft. Heh. Tough taskmaster, that boss. But it was productive and I liked what I got done, so I’m counting it good.
My house is also a wreck, but only because I’ve been trying to heal up from a lumbar sprain. I’ve been writing, drawing and playing WoW because I could hardly do anything else. I’m only just now (well into the second week) starting to feel better and able to get up and do things. I was able to go out and clean the guinea pig hutch, and water the greenhouse.
Lumbar sprains are 0% fun.
I DID just receive my order of Chameleon pens though! And I so look forward to creating amazing things with them. 🙂
Chameleon pens? I’ll have to look those up. 🙂
In the “no good deed goes unpunished” or the “housework is perpetual to do over again” dept., Goober had stomach / bowel trouble last night. Worried me. But he seemed fine later and seems fine all day so far, so…I think it was just a one-time thing. But I’m paying attention in case of any further signs of a problem. Poor guy. No way that was misbehavior, so a while afterward, he got extra attention, and again around lunchtime, just because. Naturally, he thought that was great. Heh. Spoiled cat.
The current font draft…now has a companion serif version. Work’s proceeding on the original sans-serif idea, and I’ve got enough in to know what the serif version will look like, to concentrate on the one before the other. I do have to work out how I want the “terminals” to look on the curved letters (C, G, S, etc.) and the angular letters (A, V, W, etc.) but the K and R are in. So this is good. Both look very good. Doing the serif version has me rethinking the form of one of the sans-serif letters, though. Happy with today’s progress, but my eyes are bothering me: eye strain / fatigue, dryness. Going to take it easy on the computer time this afternoon, so maybe I can get more done tomorrow.
All in all, I’m pleased. Progress, going well.
What we have here is a time management issue. I’m an indifferent housekeeper — too many better things to do with my time than clean house. Let sleeping dust lie. I have this theory about “Critical Mess” threshholds. My mom’s is very low as in not being able to let the newspaper sit on the kitchen counter two seconds after my dad finished reading it. I, on the other hand, have a very high threshhold. Drives my mom crazy. I dust with a vacuum. My dusting vacuum died last week when I was giving the house a good clean prior to surgery (which went very well. I’m home already and getting outpatient OT and PT). A real bummer. I’d had it since the 1980s. Think I got my money’s worth.
I’m happy to hear your surgery went well, WOL!
Wishing you a speedy and full recovery.
Just slipped that in there parenthetically, eh? Merits no more than that? OK, perhaps you won’t entirely know how good it is for months yet, but any surgery that comes off without an oops or a dang, deserves profound happiness and good will. IMO.
Glad to hear you’re recovering, WoL.
Delighted to hear that your surgery went well, WOL, and you are back home already flexing yourself with PT. My cousin just had a hip replacement this morning after living in much, painful denial for several years, though I haven’t gotten any family update on him yet.
Here’s hoping that you feel better than you thought you would. I did.
The scooter type grocery carts are lots of run to drive, I found. Take a cane or a grabber with you, though.
You can also ask for someone to assist you. Ask at one of the cash registers or the courtesy booth. — And I have been using Kroger.com, their online grocery store, for a while now. They can schedule pickup at the store or delivery to your home / apt. / business. Other online grocery stores offer similar services. I have used Amazon’s Pantry service for a while now, but you’d need someone to lift and bring in the box while you’re recovering. I haven’t yet tried Amazon’s new Fresh / Whole Foods Market tie-in service, but intend to test it. Note Kroger’s delivery service is through a third-party service, but the delivery man or woman will bring in the sacks for you, particularly once they see you’re recovering from a knee replacement. Most have been women, rather than delivery men. Getting used to ordering that way may take a few tries, but you’ll get the hang of it quickly.
Hurrah for the surgery going well!
Late as usual reading and commenting — but I am so glad your surgery went well, WOL, and I am hoping for a good fast recovery for you!
@WOL, very glad the surgery went well and that you are on the road to recovery.
Our ‘new’ vacuum ( ca. 1992) died in December. Improvements have been made in the last twenty-five + years. Much easier to get up all the cat and dog hair. Ringo in particular sheds enough in a week to make a kitten!
Almost done with studio clean-up and reconfiguration! Hurrah!
Amen on the ‘surgery went well, yippee!’ front. Presently sitting in the computer room with the brush held low so Junior can groom his own chin and front. Scrub-scrub-scrub.
@WOL — I’m so glad your surgery went well and you can already be home recovering parenthetically. (Parenthetically, though, is better than hypothetically. 😀 )
I’m having “a bout of laundry.” Meaning, the dryer is attempting to dry the latest load, with a backlog, and I dislike (highly) running the dryer so much, so it happens only every few days.
I took a wild chance and emailed a designer who _might_ be (maybe) the son of former friends I lost contact with after my parents had passed away. I sent an email through the guy’s website, so who knows if or when I’ll get an answer, and if he’s at all related. Common enough first and last name, but that he’d be a graphic designer like both parents might be a possibility. So, who knows. (If he’s their son, he would’ve been too young to have any conscious memory of me, probably.) So we’ll see.
Where did my day go? I got up early, started in on the laundry and the computer, and the next thing I know, it’s mid-afternoon. Huh. Well, a bit of progress, anyway. S-l-o-w-l-y. Two glyphs drawn plus some tweaking of others, plus a couple of test files. Meh. And now, if I don’t fix some food, I’ll be eating out of an uninspired and uninspiring can for supper. So, a short pause to put some food in the oven.
Goober is back on the bed. Not sure why he thought he couldn’t be, but there was self-exile for a long while, until yesterday. Now he’s parked there. Changed the sheets this morning. Hah, now to get the rest of the place vacuumed and mopped and carpet cleaned in the next few days, and the place will be eminently more livable.
I hope everyone’s doing OK out there. Carrying on, here.
As you may already know, C.J., Elizabeth Bear thanks you at the end of her new book, Ancestral Night. “Andre Norton, Iain Banks, C. J. Cherryh, and James White, whose works grew me into the person who would want to write this book.”
That’s an excellent book.
WE have that at our library (I bought it; one of the perks of being in charge of ordering). Now I think I should read it.
I haven’t read Iain Banks, but Andre Norton was and is one of my favorite SF&F writers, and I really enjoyed James White’s space hospital books as a young teen.
I’ve read something by Elizabeth Bear before, but can’t recall what right now. (Sorry, Ms. Bear, my bad.) With a thank-you note like that, now I want to get the new book.
That was so sweet.