Author, Podcaster, and Programmer
I just finished this chapter heading, which gives a bit of future history about my neo-Victorian world:
It was Abigail Kovacs who made the first Kovacs engine, of course. She started it out in 2070, with a team of engineers, and plans for a self-contained engine that could be sold commercially. When asked about it, she told the world bluntly, “I want my house to fly.”
I realized something today. I mean, a lot of this is going to sound obvious, but there’s something that’s been nagging at the back of my mind, and it finally crystalized into a real idea.
Iron Man 2 wasn’t a great movie. It was good, I mean, okay anyway. But not great. And when I think about it, Iron Man 1 kinda sucked near the end.
So what did the first half of the first movie have that the rest of the series didn’t? The most obvious answer is the origin story, but I don’t think that’s it. We’ve all seen origin stories, and everybody knew he was going to turn into Iron Man anyway, so there wasn’t a whole lot of mystery there.
It started with the EP getting up early. For some unknown reason, she got up at 5AM, and was ready at 6. She got to school early, and was able to hold the door for everyone coming in. When she got home from school, she told me she wanted to go to school early every day.
I mentioned to her that I used to go to school early every day, and that I used to sit in the library and read Asimov. She asked about Asimov, and I told her about the three laws. I asked her if she could think of any ways that the laws could be bent or broken to make robots go crazy.
Not the real EP, or the real clean room.
Recently, I stood outside the EP’s bedroom door, scanning it, sorting things in my mind. She sees me looking all over the room, and says, “What’s wrong?” I point out to her that the room is so messy, she literally can’t walk on the floor. She shrugs it off, “I just haven’t had a chance to clean in a while, and it’s soooooo messy, it’ll take all day.”
After breakfast and getting ready for school, she says, “I’m early, so can you unlock the computer and let me play Minecraft?”
I ran into my mathematician friend at work today. He’s the one that I told about my circular chess variant called “Circus”. Over the weekend, he and a friend built a board just for playing the game. They tried different tactics and strategies, and generally gave it it’s first ever true playtest. I only wish I could have been there to see it.
I’m talking to people about building an actual board game and selling it, but it’s uphill work. Nobody wants to make a circular game board, and finding molded plastic pieces for a glove, a flame, a book, and a lance… well, it’s going to take some work.
So let’s talk about personal development.
Every few months, I get this weird idea. It’s a kind of feeling of inadequacy that forces me to look around at the video games and twitter feeds and ask “What am I doing?”
Not in a derogatory manner, just in a general inventory-of-actions kind of way. Seriously. What am I doing today? What did I do yesterday? What am I planning for tomorrow?
Usually, that happens at a time when I’m doing almost nothing at all, which is why the feeling is generally seen as a bummer. I say, “I’m playing Diablo III for the third time through, and I guess I’ll do that again tomorrow, until I beat it again and start over.”
I have to admit, I’m pretty steamed about this.
Just yesterday, I set up my newsletter (you can sign up for it in the sidebar), and I was proud to announce that there was a new version of The Hidden Institute available. I added the short story “The Kody’s Shame” to the book, thus answering two of the biggest complaints:
1) MOAR BEAR POLO and
2) it’s too short.
Except I didn’t. Oh, I wrote the new copy, formatted it, exported it, uploaded it to Amazon, previewed it, and waited for them to evaluate it.
This week, I have written around 1200 words every day. This makes me far more happy than I would be with a single 7k day, because it means I’m getting back into the habit of writing.
To celebrate this good news, here’s a bit I wrote recently that turned out very nice. Hope you like it.
Chester Harrington woke that morning with a song in his heart, and nearly danced his way through the most important day of his life. He oversaw breakfast for his noble parents, helped prepare the bears, and coordinated with the other boys regarding their outfits and the revels to be prepared at halftime.
So, I read a quote the other day that really struck me. The quote was, “If a man should write to entertain himself, he cannot fail but to entertain others.”
Dunno who originally said it (if you know, tell me and I’ll attribute it), but I realized something fundamental about the way that I write.
I write in terms of a single, unified story. There is a hero, he walks a path, fights against iniquity, and wins. I make an outline wherein I list each of those goals, and all the sub-goals that exist on the path of getting him from point A to point B. Along the way, I have him talk with others, consider the bigger questions around what he’s doing, that sort of thing. Above all, though, I had every scene advance that one storyline toward the end goal.
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For my birthday this past year, author and podcaster John Mierau wrote a short piece for me, combining several of my stories. Check it out!
—
“Cliffy, please!”
“That was four lives ago, Dizzy!” he growled. His name was Clive now, the miner finished to himself, as the airlock lights cycled from red to yellow then green.
The hammering on the outside of the door was loud enough to hear when he removed the red, dust-pitted helmet.
“Fine, yes, alright, ‘Clive’. Now really, you simply must let me in!”
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