While I’ve been waiting for the graphics for my Fuzzy Adventures series to be completed I’ve been doing my personal edit of Avatars & Identity, making corrections to my first two novels in preparation of some business stuff, as well as dealing with a bunch of personal issues. This has kept me pretty busy but now I’ve got a serious wrench thrown into my plans: my main computer is having issues.
Now I’ve been building my own PC’s for the past 17 years or so which means I’m no stranger to problems. I’ve had some that were seriously difficult to figure out and fix. This one takes the cake though. My PC is randomly crashing to a black screen. No BSOD so there’s no error messaging from Windows. I can’t even replicate the crash as the conditions vary so wildly I don’t know what’s causing them. Part of the issue is pieces of my PC are over 4 years old now. This includes my PSU, motherboard, CPU, and RAM. I’ve run just about every software test I can think of and they all pass with flying colors.
This leaves me in quite a quandary. Based on my research this is most likely an intermittent hardware issue indicating one of my core components are failing. The most likely culprits are the PSU, motherboard, and graphics card. I’d like to think it’s not the graphics card since that is barely a year old. If it’s the PSU, then it is not the 12V rail that is failing. I can read that through GPU-Z and that sucker is super steady at 11.5v with no real fluctuations. So now I’m going through the process of re-checking all of the physical connections. Again. Dusting and cleaning. Again. Ultimately culminating in a re-installation of Windows. Fun times. I’d rather be working on my book/gaming series but without my main PC I’m pretty much dead in the water. Here’s hoping I don’t have to shell out money I don’t have for new PC parts.
With just two finals left this semester will be done before I know it. This has been making me anxious. Mostly because it means that my schedule next week and going forward will be up to me and it would be nice if I could manage to not waste this free time. After all how many 30 something’s get a real summer break? I know I never thought it would be possible once I was neck deep in the soul sucking 9 to 5 grind. To that end I’ve been thinking that it’s time to brainstorm and come up with a list of goals for this summer. So without further ado (and in no particular order), here is the list:
- Write book 3 of Stephen’s trilogy
- Do my own Let’s Play series with the Terraria 1.3 patch
- Do video readings for some of my short fiction
- Finish re-edits for Transformation & Induction
- Edit and publish Avatars & Identity
- Complete at least one Let’s Play + VG Writing Series (Fuzzy Adventures)
- Compile, edit, and publish the class fiction and poetry book
- Find and check out local writing meetup and social groups
- Design BFG Publishing website
- Shampoo the carpet
- Move my desk
- Re-organize this blog
- Write more short fiction & poetry (At least 1 poem & 1 short story/flash fiction per week)
- Send stuff to magazines/publishers every week
- Continue the Live Writing series or combine with some of the above
Whew. Looking at this list I realize that I have my work cut out for me this summer. This to-do list is in addition to the usual goofing around and just having fun that will be required to stay sane. I’m also going to have to prioritize if I want to get even half of this done. The Fuzzy Adventures series is something I’ve been thinking about most of this semester. I love video games and I love writing & reading. I wanted to combine those somehow. That’s when I struck on the idea for re-visiting some of the games that I loved so much as a kid and doing a combination let’s play with an episodic writing series. The basic idea is that I’ll play a game in sections and write a story to go along with it, also in sections. Basically I’d have a separate area of this blog devoted to these series with each game getting it’s own sub-section. Each blog entry would be an episode of the story and video both. I’ve got a short list of games I’m considering, but I’ll probably start with something short like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night instead of an epic length game like Final Fantasy 6.
I’m thinking the other thing I’ll need to help keep me on track is some kind of daily schedule. I’m not very good at sticking to schedules that I come up with on my own but I might need to give it a shot. Anyway, glad I finally got all of these thoughts down. The list reminded me that I’m missing a couple of key pieces of hardware that I’ll need for a number of these ideas. Amazon ho!
I finished my third novel, Avatars & Identity, on Tuesday! Which was good since I’m now out of town and not really in a position to spend much time writing. It’s exciting to know that I’m still pushing on with the whole writing as a career thing even if I’m not writing as quickly as I’d like to. Part of that is just how much time school takes up. As a transfer student approved at the last minute I signed up for classes less than a week before my first day. That meant my schedule has been less than ideal. Fall semester should be much more accommodating though so that’s a plus. I’ll be doing so much writing, and much of it should be publishable. Also a plus. Yet with my third novel done and it being clear that this isn’t a passing fancy it’s time to seriously look for a professional editor. Dun dun DUUUUUUUUN.
Up to this point I’ve just been using feedback from friends and family. They’ve got a good amount of mistakes but there are plenty left in. I was okay with that when I was just starting out but now I really want to put my best foot forward whenever I publish something. Thus a professional editor is necessary. Thankfully my sister pointed out we have one among our friends so I’m in the process of getting that worked out. I know it’s going to cost a good chunk of my meager income but I think having well-edited novels is worth it.
The past couple of days have been more about getting stuff done around the house than writing but I’ve still managed to finish editing 13 chapters of book 1. I noticed a tendency to use italics too much so I’m taking this opportunity to trim those out a bit. Started chapter 19 in book 2 as well. Only got about two pages down before I realized some things had to change. First off, the book is pretty much done as far as the story is concerned. Some elements will have to wait for book three. This will be good though since it means I can spend quite a bit more time developing them in the next book. What I’ve put down for chapter 19 will probably end up being the epilogue and chapter 18 will be greatly expanded and split. What I realized is that the confrontation in chapter 18 is really part of the climax of this book. I hadn’t planned it that way but it’s how it worked out. There’s about one to two more chapters worth of story that will come out from this change and then book 2 will be done. Pretty damn excited about that as this book seemed to drag a lot more than my first.
Wrote out the basic bits of these last two chapters. Sometimes it really helps me to brain storm with a pen and paper. I also keep all of my notes on paper as well. As much as I love computers and modern technology the ease of having a notebook I can quickly flip through for reference when I’m working on my laptop can’t be beat.
The last bit that is exciting is that my office is just about done. I managed to put up five coats of the white board paint so I’ll have a huge area to work with. It takes three days to cure which means tomorrow I can technically start using it. I’ll wait until Sunday just to be sure though. Plus I need to get some light in there. Something a little less glaring than the overhead light anyway. The rest of the house is really coming along as well. It’s a relief to finally see so much progress in so many places. As for book 2, I may end up pushing these last two chapters out pretty quickly since I’m super excited and I want to be done with it. Time will tell.
I’ve definitely been dreading this whole re-editing process because it means a whole lot of tedious work. So today I put it off as long as I could until about 30 minutes ago. Yet I’m already done with three more chapters and I’m kinda speed reading my book at the same time. Unexpectedly, I like it too. I’m enjoying my own book. Who knew? I definitely didn’t want to see it for awhile after I got it published back in January mostly because I was super sick of it. You can only spend so much time on the same thing before it gets boring and annoying after all. Now though I’m seeing it with fresh eyes. And I like it. I still don’t think it’s the best thing ever. Far from it, but I like it again. That’s definitely heartening. I can also see where my second book is better than this one. That’s a real boost to my motivation. Book one was definitely the prototype. No better than a beta. Now I’m extra anxious to finish this first trilogy so I can make the first book free.
Pushed hard to finish the book this weekend. I finished chapter 20 on Saturday, thinking it was finished. Quickly decided that wasn’t the case and pushed on to chapter 21. Wrote 13 pages between Saturday and Sunday. Today was my last free day to get this done so I went at it even harder. Wrapped up chapter 21 with 21 pages (funny how that works out). Quickly wrote up a short three page epilogue and the book is done. Holy crap, what a feeling! It’s both over and underwhelming. I’m crazy excited to have come this far and really eager to push this book out the door, but now it’s time to take a break for a week or two. Come back with fresh eyes so I can get the first edit done properly. In the meantime I’m going to start on some ideas I have for short stories. Tomorrow anyway. Onward and upward!
A Fuzzy Nerd's take on life, love, and the pursuit of awesomeness.