| On not breaking the chain |
[24 May 2012|09:52am] |
Recently I watched a video about a motivational tool that in an urban legend sort of way is tied to Jerry Seinfeld. It's called Don't Break the Chain. Here's the video:
I decided that I'm going to do this for writing. I have two novels that are nominally finished and going through the editing process, but the reality is that a lot of what I've been doing is filling in gaps that I skipped, which means that mostly I'm writing new material, which means that I'll have to go back and edit it eventually. Which means that neither book is near publication yet.
The state of Spellsong is that I think this might have just expanded into four books instead of three and that makes me want to curl up in a corner and wibble a bit because I want this goddamn thing to be done and it used to be one book what happeeeeened. Spoiler: What happened was that I decided the world and these characters were too cool to cheat by doing large timeskips of about five years apiece. So now I'm going back and filling in those five-year chunks.
Artemis, which is what I wrote a couple years ago for NaNo, is in the same boat. I wrote a book about a secret colony on the moon and then skipped most of the time my main character spent on the moon. Herp derp. So I'm filling in a lot of that time, and what I write there may actually change the ending of the novel. I'm not sure yet.
The point of this post is that I'm going to FedEx today to print out a single-page calendar and pick up a sharpie marker. I'm going to commit to writing something in one of the two of those books for at least half an hour per day. I started to give myself a daily word count to match, but I thought about it and decided that was silly. If spend half an hour even writing one paragraph, that's progress. I'll even try to write a bit when I'm out of town away from my computer just so I don't break the chain.
I've also set a goal that I want Artemis finished by the end of December. I wrote it in a month so I should be able to finish re-writing it in about six months, right?
Wish me luck!
EDIT: Have decided I'll start this on Monday since trying to port the drafts of my book to my currently-unstable tablet (jailbroken with another OS installed besides the Kindle OS... apparently it doesn't like that much) would be a giant PITA.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/127053.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| I could maybe have a house?! |
[01 May 2012|02:45pm] |
I've been applying to tons and tons of office administration jobs - you know, receptionist/secretary type things - and I've actually gotten a few responses. Most jobs like this are salary, and the salary is something like 32k on entry-level, which divided monthly is about 3k.
Which means, with my salary added to Luke's, we may be able to rent a house. So I've been looking at houses.
I've been looking at houses, y'all. Holy crap this is amazing. What is my life.
Of course, I'm kind of counting my chickens because I haven't actually gotten any of the awesome salary jobs I've been applying to, but who cares! House!
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/126854.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| WHERE ARE MY PANDAS |
[18 Apr 2012|11:36pm] |
Still have not gotten my beta invite.
I'm soothing my butthurt soul by doing three things.
First, I'm leveling another death knight. Why, you ask? Because death knights are fucking awesome, their starting zone is way awesome, and I'm on an RP server with this character, just to try it out. So far nobody can really spell but I've had a few people walk up and start RP with me out of nowhere, so I think that's pretty promising.
Second, I'm going to get Loremaster on Kyladriss, my current max-level death knight. Because clearly I'm masochistic and I want to relive every zone I ever leveled an alt through. I have four 85s. That's a ton of questing, even if I did dungeon my paladin most of the way. But I'm ~adding dimension to her character.~ She's a scribe, so it stands to reason she's been hired before to recopy histories and illuminate manuscripts and the like. It's natural that a love of history would develop out of this.
Third, mothafuckin Diablo 3 beta, I'm in it. Heeeell yeeeeah.
But even with all these things, I STILL WANT MY DAMN PANDALAND INVITE BLIZZARD!!
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/126586.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| Primarily concerning children |
[04 Mar 2012|12:23pm] |
Most of the people on my reading list who have known me for a while know that my general opinion of small children is that I like them when they're not mine, and I like them a lot when I get to give them back to their parents. Luke has a three-year-old, and he's an adorable, smart kid. I like the kid. I like being able to give him back to his mother at the end of Luke's custody weekend.
The problem with this is that after his mom Keri got laid off, she decided that the only way for her to consistently support her family was to join the Air Force. This means eight weeks of basic and eight weeks of additional training on base, which means that for four months, we have Christopher full time.
I think I'm in the middle of freaking out here.
Like I said, I do like the kid. He's cute and he's pretty smart and he's not a bratling, which is pretty much all you can ask of a child of three. But essentially during that four month period, I'll be sort of a surrogate mom, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. I'm turning twenty-three this year and all I can really think is TOO SOON OH GOD TOO SOON. I know he's not really mine and that I do eventually get to give him back, but still, four months. That's a long time.
So what I'd really like to ask is if anyone on my reading page has experience with mixed families, either as a parent or as the child, and has any advice for how I can step into that void Keri will be leaving without replacing her. I don't want to be Chris's mom - he has a mom. But for that four month period, he needs a "mom" of sorts and I'll be the only one around.
Because I'm seriously freaking out here.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/126391.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| So about that raid group... |
[31 Jan 2012|11:07am] |
My group has fallen apart.
It started last week with one of my tanks and one of my DPS letting me know that they didn't want to come anymore because they weren't having fun. Which I can understand, because after three weeks of wiping on the same boss I was turning into Ms. No Fun Allowed Work On Your Shit It Is Not Hard. Still, it's annoying to have to replace two players in the middle of a content patch.
Then one of my healers sent me an in-game mail telling me that his schedule just could not handle the raid anymore. He started college full time, and I know how that goes, so no big deal.
Then another of my healers whispers me saying that he's bored with raiding and WoW in general and he's leaving to play Star Wars.
So last week's raid got off on a bad foot to start with, and it didn't help that the people we pugged to replace our old people either didn't show when raid time rolled around or didn't pull the numbers.
Then it all came to a head on Warlord, when our slightly inexperienced tank couldn't keep the boss facing the right direction. Other players started yelling in raid chat about letting the other tank do the boss. Our slightly inexperienced tank got mad and said he would get it after another try but nobody wanted to let him try. This tank also happens to be my boyfriend, and we got into a giant fight about how he wasn't doing his job right and I wasn't supporting him.
So I hung up my hat.
I passed the group off to some of the other players and went looking for a new 10m group that I don't have to run. Then my guild got butthurt about me leaving on my main and kicked the rest of my toons.
So in short, drama happened and now Miria is halted in the middle of progression and I'm mad about it. I just don't think I was cut out for the leadership position in the first place - I'm too nice to tell people they're sucking and need to pick it the fuck up, and the week I got mean was the week everyone bailed on me. Let someone else have the headache of running the damn thing, I'll go back to pew pew and not standing in fire.
I have also found a cure for the common cold. It is peppermint tea with cayenne pepper and honey, with some ginger and lemon thrown in. Makes your nose run like a sieve but then it stops!
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/126043.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| WOW! |
[17 Jan 2012|02:28pm] |
And not the abbreviation either, although this post is about World of Warcraft. Just when I think I have no faith remaining in humanity and everyone sucks, this story popped up on my blogosphere radar.
"Guide Dog" player and guild embrace sightless guildmate
My role to Ben is that I play as his in-game eyes, using the follow function put into a macro he can tab through the group and target and follow me. ... Every encounter, Ben is using a series of macros (e.g., target of target) to play his way through the game. Everything from boss fights to a simple repair goes through me. An example of this is the drakes in Dragon Soul that take you out to Warlord Zon'ozz and Yor'sahj. I have to first target them for Ben to interact with my target to take the flight out before I can.
It's amazing how these two players accomplish this. Major kudos to Die First (EU - Chamber of the Aspects) for being all-around amazing people.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/125712.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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[15 Jan 2012|11:45am] |
Second week in a row of no Warmaster Blackhorn kill.
It frustrates me because I sit there and watch my players (especially my healers) take charges to the face and not mitigate the ship damage and nobody is switching to the Sapper fast enough, but then all of my players say "It's a gear issue!!!"
It's a mechanics issue, guys. You're just not doing it right.
However, I can deal with my raid disappointment this week because gora is opening today :D MY EXCITE LET ME SHOW YOU IT. It has literally been two years since I've played in a game that wasn't trans_9 that I wasn't running myself. I'm looking forward to this.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/125506.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| I need a new job |
[10 Jan 2012|12:16pm] |
My current job is promoting drug use and alcoholism just so I can get through the day without wanting to murder people. If you don't believe my job could possibly be that bad, let me give you a little example of why my job is, indeed, awful:
Me: You have not known hate until you remote into a customer's computer and they have Bing, MSN, Ask, Google, eBay and MacAfee toolbars, they're using Internet Explorer, and they refer to the desktop as the "homepage" Shae: ...... Shae: oh my god you poor thing Wingus: hahahaha Wingus: That's like dealing with my aunt Di: ..........................ugh Me: Wingus Me: My customers Me: Are your aunt Wingus: "Double clikc the icon." "...what's an icon?" Me: Millions of them Me: They call every day Shae: I convinced my dad to switch to Firefox Me: They know nothing Wingus: click** Shae: And I put in Adblock for him Me: They don't believe you when you tell them things Wingus: Oh you poor dear Me: No Shae this is the worst part Di: the spyware potential must be legendary Me: WE CAN'T Me: It's out of our scope of support and we're supposed to keep our call times down Shae: aaaaaaaaaaah another reason I wouldn't be able to do that job Shae: ANYTHING BUT IE. SWITCH PLEASE. Di: yeah, I have that same problem at my job. We get so many calls, we gotta get them done, and out quickly. Cam: I'm so sorry. I did that once, that job, a long time ago. Ifeel your pain. Me: We can ADVISE them, we can try to sell them our antivirus (which actually isn't bad), we can sell them our $15 a month PC support package (which is a steal), but we can't install stuff on their computers Shae: I still wish I could delete IE completely off my computer Me: Oh god Shae you wouldn't make it out of training Me: The tools only work in Internet Explorer Shae: But nooooo it's part of the operating system Di: ........... Shae: Hell. Me: Yes Me: Thank you Me: I work in Hell
In the interest of not committing homicide on some hapless bystander because I can't reach through the phone and strangle my customers to death, Luke and I are sinking a massive amount of money into his car to get it functional so we can have two vehicles and I can get a job that doesn't require interaction with computer illiterate, mostly belligerent assholes. We already dropped $1300 on the stupid thing, and then after we went to go pick it up they said "Oh yes and the torque converter in your transmission is bad, but since the transmission comes as a whole part we won't just replace the torque converter, come back when you're ready to drop $3k on a new transmission."
It's probably worth more to sell the damn thing for scrap, but we're going to see if we can find a converter and get someone to put it in without gutting the whole transmission. The transmission has less than 25k miles on it, it shouldn't need to be replaced this quickly.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/125336.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| Dragon Soul: Progression! Kind of. |
[09 Jan 2012|01:49pm] |
This week's raid nights are done. My raid group is sitting at 5/8 10 man normal. We went 5/8 in our first night, which basically means that we can smash Ultraxion's face in now.
We then proceeded to spend the entire second night of raid wiping repeatedly on the gunship encounter before the boss even dropped to the deck.
On the plus side, we got to the third wave of adds every time. On the downside, a lot of what I was seeing was slow response time to stacking for Twilight Onslaught and not enough damage on the dragons, even though my raid group is heavily weighted toward range DPS. Which means I'm either going to take my group into heroic Bastion of Twilight for some mechanics practice, or we're just not geared enough for the encounter yet. Based on how it goes on Friday of this week... we'll see.
I'm hoping it's a gear issue. I'm really, really hoping it's a gear issue. Because if it's a mechanics issue and we have to run mechanics for three and a half hours on Saturday, nobody in the group is going to be pleased with me.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/125020.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| You have unlocked a new Achievment: Sewing Area! |
[06 Jan 2012|06:06pm] |
Finally got the sewing table set up and moved all of my fabric and other crafty things to under the sewing table, so I could shift some of the boxes taking up ugly space behind our kitchen table to our bedroom, so I could put the bed on risers and finally get the luggage stowed under the bed. Once I get the whole apartment put together I'll finally put up a photo tour on this journal. I haven't done it yet because I'm embarrassed at the volume of boxes in my house :<
Next step: bookshelves! Because I am rapidly running out of boxes and tubs to store all my books in!
PS Lanaara is now level 83 and her mining/blacksmithing skills are caught up to Cataclysm. Onward to 85!
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/124794.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| DING! 80! |
[28 Dec 2011|09:15pm] |
Lanaara the paladin is finally level 80. Now comes the process of spending ALL MY GOLD so I have the ilvl to get into dungeons.
But I'm really bored of leveling so instead I'm leveling my professions... because that's less boring? I picked up mining/blacksmithing because I don't have one of either. Heirloom levels you too fast to keep up with a profession. Looks like I'll be revisiting Outland by the end of the night. And just when I thought I didn't have to look at Northrend again for a while :(
Hoping to get to 81 by the time I go to bed. Luke's going to tank me through some instances on Necrothirst :D
PS: When a group of level 80-81 players see an 85 tank with 224k health zone in, they throw a party.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/124564.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| Newsflash: Timeskips are lazy |
[22 Dec 2011|02:48pm] |
At least that's how it seems to me. I've been reading back through my books and I just cringe inwardly every time I skip a large chunk of time. What were people doing during that time? Was there really nothing happening? I know very well my characters were busy doing important things, so why did I skip all of it?
Because I was more interested in getting to the end than spending time fleshing out the middle. That's definitely the case for my NaNo novel (skipping secret moon colonies, gg self). So all of the novels that I thought I'd have out for publication in a few years are going to spend a lot more long months in a word processing program.
On the bright side, patch 4.3 dropped and my guild's core group downed Deathwing last night. My raid group is 5/8, and that ain't bad at all.
Christmas is rapidly approaching. I got all my holiday shopping done the other day on Amazon, so now I just have to worry about wrapping and labeling when I get to my parents' house tomorrow. I also have to ship a video card for a friend in the core... it's my Christmas present to my guild. Yes, I'm that much of a nerd.
PS I will have endless happy in my life if trans_9 does actually move here. Then I will have no reason to go back to the clunky terrible hack that LiveJournal has become. \o/
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/124053.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| GIANT NERD ALERT |
[12 Nov 2011|01:12pm] |
If anyone ever asks you to lead a raid group, don't.
I kid, but man do my players give me headaches. I suppose that's what happens when you combine geek social fallacies with difficult gameplay and tons of necessary cooperation.
But! We're a 7/7 Firelands group and that's not bad at all.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/123817.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| NaNo around the corner... |
[27 Oct 2011|11:58am] |
I don't know if I'll do it again this year.
Last year, the only reason I managed to finish was because I took an idea that I'd been meaning to develop for a good long time and finally sat down to make myself write it. This year, I don't have anything on the table that I'm reasonably interested in, and my NaNo novel from last year still isn't finished per se. I mean, the plot is completely written out on the page but I discovered a burning need to add about five chapters into the middle shortly after I finished the book.
I mean, I put my main character on a secret moon colony and then completely skipped the secret moon colony. I can just picture future readers screaming "Y U DO DIS" in utter despair.
There is another novel I've been meaning to overhaul and completely rewrite, but I think if I do NaNo at all it'll be trying to crank 50,000 words out on Spellsong, so that I can finally finish it and get started on the next book in the trilogy. I am literally a chapter or two from the end when everything starts coming together, but I'm again struck with a burning need to slot one or two chapters into the earlier part of the book. I skipped five years that I'm not sure I should skip. But the scope of Spellsong is already huge and I'm not sure how going through ten years in one book will end up coming across to the audience.
Also around the corner is Halloween. I don't have a costume, I don't know what I even want to be for Halloween, I don't have any parties lined up and I generally feel lame about the whole thing. I have a wedding to go to on Halloween itself and I'm shaky on the dress code so I've been putting off costume shopping. Go procrastination!
In other news, I'm part-time at my job now, with makes me less likely to strangle random people in the street. Woot.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/123457.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| Quitting smoking sucks (So you really shouldn't start) |
[25 Sep 2011|02:08pm] |
As of two weeks ago, Luke and I both decided that smoking cost too much and wasn't doing us any favors, so we quit cold turkey.
Which really, really blows.
Every time you hear about quitting smoking you always hear that you'll be irritable and depressed for weeks, and let me tell you that's just the half of it. For the first three days we could barely stand to talk to each other and just wanted to be left alone. Luke kept obsessively thinking about his own mortality and the philosophy started to drive me absolutely bonkers. Then came the raging appetite at all hours of the day and insomnia at all hours of the night, weird mood swings that could strike completely without warning and an overall feeling that we hated everything and wanted it all to explode.
Not a pretty week, in short.
It's interesting that it was only after that stage passed that the cravings started to get truly horrible, at least for me. Luke has always been a much heavier smoker than me, so his cravings were bad from the start, but for me it wasn't until my mood stabilized a bit that I really started wanting cigarettes. The cravings hit at all the usual times, like when I wake up or after I eat or when I'm driving somewhere. Now I just feel generally lethargic and very annoyed at the fact that cigarettes are bad for me. My electronic cigarette got lost in the mail for the third time running and I pitched an unholy fit at the company over the phone.
I wish nicotine came in a way that wasn't going to kill me. E-cigarettes are beautiful, wonderful things but they're expensive as all hell and they don't come when you order them, which sucks.
Anyway, that's why I've been missing from online for weeks. I just don't want to talk to anyone and life generally pisses me off right about now. They say it can take up to six months for your brain's production of dopamine to re-stabilize after you've quit nicotine. So in short, don't start smoking, because the quitting part is hell on earth.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/123248.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| road trip! |
[23 May 2011|08:33am] |
I'm currently in a tiny town called Troutville, Virginia updating from my phone. There's so much stuff in the car I can't see out the back or the sides. We predict we will be in Dallas in two days. That is all.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/122833.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| NEWS FROM MY LIFE?? |
[28 Apr 2011|05:17pm] |
MADNESS!
No seriously. I know my updating has been sporadic and I hate that my online friends are left out of the loop a lot, but this final semester is eating my life.
I love how my last entry was all about going to grad school at Adelphi and now I'm like NO FUCK THAT FUCK ADELPHI.
So as an update, no I'm not going to grad school in New York. I'm actually going to grad school at University of North Texas in Denton for several reasons.
1. It's about $14,000 cheaper TOTAL, which is a damn big number. 2. If I have to live in New York one more year I'm going to shoot something. Being snowed in and digging my car out of three feet of snow is an experience that, now that I've had it, I do not want to repeat. 3. This long distance relationship is killing me and I would like to be in a not-long-distance relationship, thanks.
I'm still debating whether or not to take a semester off at some point, but I'm not sure whether that's a good or a really, really bad plan. I'll think about it over this summer and see how I feel.
So now that I've decided I'm permanently moving across the country, I have to start packing my apartment, which is going to be an adventure and a half. Wish me luck!
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/122553.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| So... about that college thing |
[10 Mar 2011|08:53am] |
I've made the decision to go to graduate school.
It's weird because most of this semester and the last I've been so depressed about college - going to classes, not learning anything productive or material, feeling like I'm spending far too much money and not getting enough gain. It's been bad enough that I almost ditched the idea of graduate school altogether. I don't need an MA to do what I want to do. It'll just mean a higher pay bracket right out of the gate.
But then I heard about this new program Adelphi is offering, where you get a dual certification in English and Theatre. Since this is pretty much what I wanted to do with my life anyway, it's an opportunity I can't pass up.
It's been hard, really really hard this past year to have a relationship with Luke over so much time apart and distance away from each other. It helps that we're able to see each other once a month, but I'm afraid the longer we're apart the more it's going to wear on us. I love him, so I'm terrified of what might happen if I stay in New York for another year or two. Will he get bored with waiting? Will I not be able to take it anymore?
The future is a strange, scary place and I'm not sure I want to go, but one must keep calm and carry on. Luke says he loves me enough to wait for me, and that's scary too. We talk about the future a lot, the distant future, and it never frightens me when we're talking about it. Only later, when I sit down and think about the fact that we just talked about adoption and children when we aren't even married. But that might just be my fear of the unknown and my fear of commitment talking. I always was scared of commitment. Maybe it's just because I hadn't found the right person yet.
It scares me too that he already has a child, that the baggage is there. It doesn't really bother me and it doesn't make me not want to be with him - if it was just Christopher, I'd be fine. But his ex-wife is a raging bitch on wheels and seems to daily try to come up with ways to ruin his life. What the hell, woman.
I'm rambling about my life because I haven't written in a while and I feel like I exist in a vacuum. None of my friends understand the place I'm in because none of them are ready to settle in for the long haul yet. They're all still young and single in the city, and I feel tired and burnt out with adventures already. I want comfort. I want stability. I want a permanent routine.
Seems like I won't get that for another couple of years anyway. And who knows what's ahead of me? I haven't even been accepted yet. They may decide that my 3.4 isn't high enough for them. Or perhaps they'll think my essay is crap and I'll have the decision taken out of my hands.
One can only hope. Being an adult sucks.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/122164.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| My brother's a good kid |
[20 Feb 2011|12:55pm] |
There's hope for him yet.
I heard about this secondhand so I'm not entirely sure of what happened but I know him, so I'm pretty sure. My parents were out at the Symphony and Bob was home munching on a bowl of cereal and watching TV. He gets a phone call from a friend of his saying that a douchebag from school, one who has a history of domestic abuse with his girlfriends, had showed up at the park where everyone was partying and socked Bob's girlfriend.
Kid hops in the car, drives over there, and gives the guy something to think about. Something to think about being a couple fists in the gut and one in the face.
I am exploding with pride :D
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/122082.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| This may be a futile effort... |
[31 Jan 2011|10:21am] |
Does anyone know of an American political debate/discussion community on either Dreamwidth or Livejournal that even attempts to stay focused on the issues and balanced instead of ridiculing each other's parties?
I thought I would get my fix from ontd_political but after seeing them leap all over the few Republican posters because "EVERYONE IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS A BIGOT," I'm kind of sick of their bias. sf_drama is just as bad if not worse.
I've tried browsing interests, but as far as I can see most comms are based around posting articles and raging/supporting them rather than starting actual debate where the actual issues are addressed. The general immaturity of both of the above communities is a huge turn-off.
This entry was originally posted at http://farasha.dreamwidth.org/121693.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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