Viruses

Good news--I think the virus is gone. It's still not for sure, but my computer is running like its usual self after Norton finally realized there was a problem and offered to fix it for me. It was a couple days late, but hey--no harm done (hopefully). Viruses are scary. I know most of them simply crap up your computer, but the ones I'm really scared of are the ones that might be simply mischievous... ones that bring up scary messages or images just to freak people out. I haven't heard much about anything like that, though. Who makes those things? Seriously, they need something else to do with their talents.

Bad news, though. I feel like I'm getting sick. My tonsils (or something in my throat) kinda flares up when I start coming down with something, and that's when I know I need to get some vitamin C. I ate an orange today, which should help. I really don't want to get sick. Maybe I have the swine flu, lol. You know, they say the regular ol' flu kills like ten thousand people a year, every year. In perspective, this hype about the swine flu (and the other trendy flus... anyone remember bird flu? That was in fashion a few years ago) seems a bit weak.

So maybe the computer gave its virus to me. Oh noes!

Rachel told me this today:

Before Barack Obama was elected, some people were saying, "America electing a black president? Maybe when pigs fly!" Well, we elected him, and look what happened: swine flu.

*punch line drums*

'S a good one.

NES Sound

So, I've been wanting to know how to make songs that sound like old NES tunes... and tonight I decided to figure it out. It worked, which is really awesome, but I think somewhere along the way, my computer might have contracted a virus... it's going really slow and there are pop-ups, whereas before, there were never any. I'm scanning right now... hopefully it will pick up whatever the problem is before it's too late. This is how my computer acted last time, before it completely shut down... Urgh. Luckily, nearly all of my stuff is backed up on my external hard drive (which will hopefully be unaffected by whatever problem I'm having), and nearly everything I do on the computer goes to the internet anyway, so... I should be okay, in any case. Hopefully.

Anyway, here's what I made. I tried writing an original song but because of how the program is, it would be best to figure out the chord progressions and stuff beforehand. It might be a little loud, but hopefully not too much. This is rare--usually I have to struggle to get my songs up to par, volume-wise.

[Mary Had an 8-Bit Lamb]

FINISHED! (+ Edit)

And on the 84th day, Jaron said, "Let there be rough draft!" And he looked at his rough draft and saw that it was good.

Or at least finished.

Yes, it's true! 150 pages totaling 109,455 words, including "The End." The rough draft of the largest and most ambitious piece of writing I've ever written in my life is now complete, which also means I've reached the biggest realistic/measurable goal I've ever set for myself. I suppose part of me expected instantaneous parades and fanfare, but... within the silence, there is congratulation and praise.

I guess.

In a way, I'm also sad. I've been on a long and difficult journey with these characters, and now the journey is over. But it's not really over. This is only the rough draft--it's only the beginning. Now is the time when I let my inner critic come out (for limited periods of time, at least) to work with my creative self and carve this large and unsightly piece of marble into something much more beautiful and pleasing. There will be additions, subtractions, and changes of all kinds.

To be honest, I've only scratched the surface of this novel. Writing the rough draft is the easy part where you can do anything you want. Now I have to work slower and be more calculated and careful, using good judgment and sense to know what I should change to make the story better, rather than worse, than it is right now. For a while, that will probably be fairly easy. But there will come a point, probably many times, where I simply don't know whether to choose Decision X or Decision Y, and it will be frustrating and cruel. I'm hoping that when those times come, I'll have some supporters out there (read: anyone I can convince through any means necessary) who will help me pick the best choice and create a product that people will enjoy.

But for now? I'm taking a little vacation. I'll keep it in the back of my head and I'll write down any ideas I get here and there, but I won't look at my rough draft for a little while (maybe even a whole month) so that when I come back to it, I'll have the fresh perspective a reader might have (ideally).

I'm a bit intimidated, actually. 100,000 words (almost 110,000) is a lot of words. But I'll take it one step at a time, one day at a time, until... well, until the story tells me it's ready. I have faith that it will let me know when that day comes.

I'm excited, you guys.

EDIT--

Huh. This quote showed up in my Google Reader today.

"We begin to see that the completion of an important project has every right to be dignified by a natural grieving process. Something that required the best of you has ended. You will miss it." - Anne Wilson Schaef

Master Plan

Well, things might be turning out okay. Like in my video, I got my old job back and while there are pretty slim pickings as far as shifts go, I managed to grab one for tomorrow and another for next week. It's not much, but it's a start, and I'm hoping to take whatever I can get my hands on.

This happened at a good time, too. Not that earlier wouldn't have been nice. It's just that I don't think I'll be able to live at my house any longer without something awful happening. My mom and other family members are really grating on my nerves. They believe I'm wasting my life and making all sorts of awful, terrible decisions, and they're not afraid to let me know all about it. My mom still uses words like "inappropriate," which people only use when they think you're nothing but dirty, uncultured scum. She always wants to "discuss some things" with me. But every single time that happens, absolutely nothing good comes from it. She just makes me mad, more than anything else in the world. She has this weird ability to completely set me off and make me lose my cool, and it's really unfortunate that she also happens to be my mother. So she thinks I just fly off the handle at anything that moves, when that's really not true--it just seems like it sometimes because lately I've been seeing a lot of her.

So I'd like to move out. I need to move out, ASAP. I've proven to both her and myself that I can take care of myself, provided I have the money, and that's been scarce lately, but now that I have work again... I might be okay. If I can pick up a lot of shifts. I might also need to look for another part time job (oh joy) to make up the difference, but I really hope it doesn't come to that again. What a mess.

My family thinks I have no master plan, but I do. First: save up as much money as I can until I am on the borderline of murdering everyone in my house. Then, it's time to move out. At about the same time, I'd like to marry Rachel. That way, I can say "shove off" to anyone who might still have a problem with us (like my family, for instance). We'll live together in a little apartment while we both work. Then, when we have some money saved up, I'll go back to school and hopefully succeed this time. Eventually, I'll earn a degree, which I'll use to hopefully land a nice career-type job, rather than a "I just need money" job. Once we start making more money, Rachel and I will start having kids and start our family. And, well... the rest is history, I guess. We'll do our best to be good parents and hopefully stay away from some of the same things our parents put us through. I think if we remember these things and make a point of avoiding them, we'll be successful. I want to raise a family where my kids will always feel welcome, loved, and accepted, NO MATTER WHAT. Not one where they get ragged on every time they walk through the door and feel hated.

went to work / drew a picture / shoveled / ate a burger / hit 102,000

rode the train / got a job / missed the bus / hit 100,000

There are no jobs for me. Monster.com is only good for people with degrees, mostly the same for the department of workhorse services (oh, did I say workhorse?). I've applied to every place where I've seen a NOW HIRING sign, and it's even more pointless to apply to places that aren't hiring (are you kidding me?). No employer wants me. I have nothing to offer them, apparently. My work history sucks, my education sucks, I have no kind of training or certification and it's just SO EFFING EASY to find a job, isn't it Mom? Right, I'll just walk right on down to wherever and apply and just magically get a job.

YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and my life is a waste.

except for the few things that aren't a waste. Those are the only things keeping me alive.

But there aren't many of those.

Monumental

Guh.

Wow.

I just wrote a little over 3,000 words. Not the most I've ever done in one sitting, but still, that's a lot. But they weren't just ANY 3,000 words. My story is rapidly coming to a close. This scene wasn't meant to be the final scene (heck, before this morning I didn't even know it existed), but at one point as I was writing I thought about just ending it here. The problem is it would have left out something pretty important, so it couldn't happen (at least not now), but I'm not kidding--the final scene is coming up within the next 7,000 words. Maybe a bit more. That's a week's worth of writing, but I think I might get it done within two or three days, maybe even this weekend, since the rest of the scenes are going to be like tonight's--long, emotionally charged, and best written all at once.

This scene was just... wow. It happened because of something that happened in the previous scene that I hadn't really thought about before I wrote it. I realized that the characters had to do something, whether I wanted them to or not, so today was about allowing them to do that. And I don't really remember what else I was planning on having them do, but this turned out much better (probably). The characters took the reigns a little on this one and did what they had to do. I'm proud of them.

You can read the snippet to (hopefully) get a small sense of how monumental this scene was. Of course it will be revised, but for now, I'm happy with the emotion and the power. Times like this are when I love being a writer.

2 Meny Hobbeez.

Did everyone see the little guy up by the current word count? He's sorta small, so you might have missed him. That's Zidaiku, in sprite form! YAY! I know I'm supposed to be working on the book (I've been lazy the past few days, but I think tonight I will do my words...), but I couldn't help thinking about what Orphan Wars would be like as a game... and I could use RPG Maker XP. It's not quite what I would want for my game, but it would still be fun.

Speaking of which, I figured out how to get Raspberry Pancakes to work on other people's computers! AWESOME! That also means that when/if my computer crashes (I'm sure it'll happen eventually), I can still play it on future machines! My work is not lost!

This also means that you (yes, YOU) can play it if you want. Send me an email or something if you're interested. (Lol. Interested in my game. I'm funny.)

I'm also making a card game, as you know. I think I'll get to play it a grand total of once, but we'll see about that. I'm hoping it will be like Pokemon, only MORE fun! (And you thought that was impossible!)

Dang, I have so many hobbies. AaaahhH! Taking over my life!

Ow, Mouth. Ow.

The inside of my mouth is all torn up. Why?

a) I ate some really sharp chips.
b) I totally ate it on a rosebush.
c) I'm a freak who eats himself.

Only one of those is the correct answer.

===

I am very discouraged.

I need to remember something about myself. While I might not be the most reliant guy, if I say to myself, "I'm going to do X today," I had better do X. If I just keep putting it off, I get mad or upset. That happened today, and I felt a bit better the instant I actually went to do X.

But that's not enough to fix everything. I still don't have a job, my family thinks I'm a complete waste, I never see any of my friends anymore (except Rachel), and I didn't do any writing today.

The job is the worst thing. That's the first step on the path to a better life. But swear-word swear-word, the economy just had to go emo on us at the exact wrong moment. Otherwise I'd be a book-shelving fool right now and I'd love it.

Flip.

===

Also, I missed school yesterday. Missed the train by literally one minute, and that put me 45 minutes behind schedule when all was said and done. Ah, public transportation.

The sad thing is, I actually did my homework for once. I read the chapters about style. I think they were true. They said your style is basically who you are... you write YOU. So if you want to make your writing be a certain way, then you should probably be that certain way. A lot of people don't believe you can really do anything about it anyway, so you should just learn to love your style how it is, kinda like how you should love yourself how you are.

Or something like that.

It made me realize that if I want my book to be good, I need to just be good in general. If I want it to have poetic descriptions, I need to think about things poetically. If I want it to have amazing characters, then gosh darnit, I need to be a character myself.

===

Rachel bought a Nintendo DS and Pokémon Platinum yesterday. It's awesome and I want one too so we can trade and stuff.

But I can't afford one.

Swear.

But you know, $150 isn't that much money, when it comes down to it. Especially when rent is up to $500 for a one-bedroom apartment. When you're ten, $150 seems more like a million dollars, but now? That's loose chance, brother.

Loose change I don't have. Swear-word.

===

This is the end of the weirdblog.

Good night.

Rapid Close

Bam. I just knocked out over 4,500 words to make up for the vacation I took with Rachel and her family this weekend. It was fun, but there was literally no time nor place for me to do any kind of writing. But now it's all made up in one night. What a rush.

The book's coming to a rapid close. It's very exciting. I'm beginning to realize just how extensively I'm going to have to revise this. It is going to be no easy task. There are entire sub-plots I want to add, some important story details I'm going to have to change, and a whole ton of re-organizing and re-imagining to better present the story. And that's just the first revision. Then come the character studies, the dialogue tweaking (for which I'm going to spend a lot of time eavesdropping on random real-life conversations), the prettifying of the descriptions, and the tightening of the words... Wow. Lots to do.

I've been reading Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder and I like it. It's sort of in the same genre as my book, I guess. The writing is good, but I wouldn't say it's the best I've ever seen or anything like that. It's at a level I honestly feel I could match, given some time, and that gives me a lot of hope that my book might honestly be marketable and somewhat successful. I would love for my creation to grow up and go out there to live on the same shelves as other books like it. I want people to read my book and enjoy it, maybe even get inspired by it to write their own or something. I think that, given the chance, I would really like to convert my book into a major video game someday. I can think of so many awesome things I could do with that. But writing the book is a great first step toward something like that, and writing it only takes one person, whereas making an original video game would take an entire team of talented professionals. First things first.

Thank you all for the support you give me. It means a lot. This is one of my dreams, and it's exhilarating to see it coming to life.

On another note, whoever is posting rude and pointless comments as "Anonymous" needs to either say something worthwhile or stop altogether. If not, I'm going to disable anonymous comments and you'll be forced to give a name. Grow up, Anonymous.