tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
Re: my last report, I wound up with Trader Joe's chicken enchiladas for Cinco de Mayo, but made myself a BBQ cheeseburger for Memorial Day which was good, though I should perhaps have gotten some french fries or onion rings from TJ's as well. I'll have to keep that in mind for July 4th and Labor Day. For June, it's the usual home cooking; I'll be doing a Korean-themed menu for the first two weeks, then my usual Chinese-themed menu for the second two weeks, in preparation for an American themed menu in the first two weeks of July.

Physical exam went fine. My cholesterol is a bit high but less high than it was the previous year, so that is a positive trend.

HVAC checkup. I've agreed to have them replace the filters and add a purifier to the heat pump itself, which sounds like a boost for overall house air quality.

I wound up writing a 9k word "heistcute" to test out my ideas for the Scofflaw Villainess. The couple of first readers who have peered at it seemed to enjoy it, so on we go! I wrote 22,429 words in the novel itself, tentatively titled "The Chameleon Rose Takes Nova Paree."

I did some further inking on the Treasure Island picture. Maybe I'll get it done sometimes in June? We'll see. I've been focusing on the writing.

I reread Timecrossed Engineer to make sure it's still holding up, then sent it off to [personal profile] archangelbeth to be another first reader.

I also poked at my website a bit to try and get things in order so I can put shorter stories that I've decided to make free there. You can see that here. There are a couple of short stories in the writing section now if you're interested!

The newer short stories (Last of Her Kind, Two Bucks and a Soul, the Chameleon Rose and the Firebrand) I might try and shop around to magazines, we'll see how it goes.
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
It has been a distracted month for writing! I meant to be working on Alien Tastes, but instead I wound up with several new projects:

The Scofflaw Villainess, a novel about a woman who flees her arranged marriage to a Duke (her spendthrift parents need the dowry) to become a thief and what happens thereafter.

The Last of Her Kind, a short story inspired by a dream about a woman who was the last of her kind... And her greatest fear: the arrival of a ship full of children visiting for a field trip. Yes. I have some odd dreams but that one stuck with me and I had to write it.

Tally:
  • 2082 words on Alien Tastes
  • much time spent outlining Scofflaw Villainess
  • 4951 words on a short story set in the Scofflaw Villainess universe
  • And I finished the first draft of Last of Her Kind, weighing in at 6913 words.
  • Oh, and I took some time to do up final pencils and start inking on a Treasure Island cover picture for Archangel Beth!


Coming up next: treating myself to Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo, a physical exam shortly thereafter, and very likely making myself a hamburger for Memorial Day.

I expect to keep on working on Scofflaw Villainess in one form or another. And I'll try to polish up Last of Her Kind and then think about what to actually do with it as a short story--I mean, it'd make sense to send it out somewhere for publication, right? Or share it here in some form.

Hope all of you had good Aprils out there, or at least as good as circumstances permit!
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
March was kind of a distracted month. So many crazy things happening in the real world.

Cut for length! )

I should try and schedule a physical checkup soon!

Still have to finish up with Timecrossed Engineer. I want to reread it at least, and finalized the cover.

My older bro has purchased a house and is in the process of moving, so soon we will be in the process of moving my aunts into his current house so they can empty out my local aunt's house.
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
It has been another month, hasn't it! Time seems to pass so slowly when you are in the midst of it, and then when you get out on the shore to look, it's just rushing on by.

Cut for length! )LOOKING FORWARD:

I'm guessing I'll have a physical checkup soon, I had it in April last year.

I'm planning to get Timecrossed Engineer finished and then book-ify it and toss it onto Amazon and Smashwords for cheap just to actually have self-published a book. Unless I'm persuaded to get another first read, which is possible.

Once that's done, I anticipate splitting time between Alien Tastes and the Cursed Idea. We'll see how it goes.

My older bro is planning a move. This is somewhat scary because I've relied on him being around in this area. If he moves, I'll probably wind up moving as well, but probably not the same place he's going because I'd like to go somewhere with friends I'd hang out with on a regular basis. We'll see how that goes. There is a lot we want to get done, like cleaning up an aunt's house. (she's a hoarder)

March 8th will mark the anniversary of my last day at Google and thus one full year of retirement. Whew.
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
Well. It has been an interesting month.

Cut for length! )
tuftears: Thoughtful Lynx (Thoughtful)
Happy Mew Purr, and may the year be as kind as possible to all of us!

Cut for length. )
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
Well! That was certainly a month.

For various reasons, I decided to renew my passport, which is expiring in the next two years-- if you're not aware, if you plan to travel to another country, it's best you do so when your passport has at least a few years on it. I still have ambitions of visiting Japan someday, and it wouldn't be bad to visit other European countries.

After going through the rigamarole of taking my passport picture at a Walgreen's and then taking the application to the post office, I discovered belatedly I could have done the whole process at the post office, with an appointment. Next time!

I commissioned a new computer from Central Computers. It arrived midway through November, but while trying to set it up this last weekend, I discovered it lacked a secondary hard drive-- miscommunication between myself and the store. I'll be taking it back to get that remedied this month. I prefer to have an SSD for just the operating system and critical applications, and most other things living on the secondary hard drive.

I also picked up a Chromebook from Best Buy. This is now my main non-gaming computer; the intention is that my new Windows PC will be strictly for gaming, owing to Microsoft's intentions of making Recall (which saves screenshots of users' Windows frequently) a part of their Windows 11 users' lives at some point in the foreseeable future. Needless to say, I don't approve of their intrusive manners or their decision to opt users in by default.

I deleted my Tweets from Twitter ahead of the threatened deadline at which they would assume all users had given tacit permission for their Tweets to be used in whatever fashion they pleased, including feeding them into LLMs for training purposes. If you're looking for mew on social media, Mastodon and Bluesky are my hangouts of choice.

I reread Timecrossed Engineer and made various changes. Once Rowyn is done with making her word count goal, I'll see if she wants to be the first reader!

I began working on concept sketches for the book cover. It looks like this will be a long and complex process that will last through December, but I'm hopeful that I'll get good enough results to be able to publish with a self-made cover.

I began planning for the next book to work on... While I have a few outlines I could work on, I decided on a complete change of pace-- it'll be a fantasy heist story, "Grand Theft: Dragon." This is turning out to be quite complicated but I find it the most interesting project at the moment.

Cut for image! )
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
I completed the first draft of Timecrossed Engineer on October 9, whew. I wrote 20,578 words in October to get to a total of 151,752 words, then started in on the authorial reread because per [profile] ladyrowyn's advice, it's hard to get a beta reader to take another look at the story, so I should make sure it's all there first. ^.^;;

... Good thing I did this, I found one continuity error, whoopsies.

I also dusted off my art supplies and began working on illos for Timecrossed Engineer, I'll attach a few beneath a cut tag!

As far as Netflix goes, I watched Star Trek Prodigy season 2, Exception, an artsy science fiction animation, and I decided to check out Sense8, a series that J. Michael Straczynski wrote... I'm not sure how much I want to keep watching it at this point, it seems a bit Hollywood-ish voyeurism. We'll see if it gets to any real action/science fiction soon or not.

I got my COVID and flu shots! No real issues.

I sent my ballot by mail! It's been confirmed as received.

I switched from summer bedding to winter! (extra comforter, new higher-thread-count sheets) Waaaarm. It's starting to get *cold* in my house. (by which, I mean I have the thermostat set to 68F for energy efficiency reasons)

And now the promised illos! )
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
Another great month of writing! 59,421 words on the Timecrossed Engineer, which is in the final stretch.

Cancelled Disney+ and subscribed to Netflix for the next while, so I could watch Star Trek Prodigy's second season and catch up on other things.

Labor Day marked the last day I normally have a hamburger for the year-- that'd be Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day. There's nothing actually stopping me from having one anytime I want, but those are days it's most appropriate, and otherwise, there are plenty of other dishes I could be having for my 'Cheat Mondays', like okonomiyaki or curry udon. Though I've been more often just having a Trader Joe's Chicken Burrito Bowl, with a fried egg on top.

Other than that, things seem to be going well. Planning to get my COVID and flu shots in mid-October.
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
I won NaNoAugMeow! 59,405 words written in Alien Tastes. I've been really impressed with my writing speed this month. It helps that each section has been fun to write.

That said, we're at the 2/3rd mark in the outline, meow or less...

Per the leak of social security numbers, I froze my credit line with all three credit bureaus. Should have done that a while ago but I was unaware how useful this was as a strategy until the latest scare.

I also changed my password on a bunch of sites, after FurAffinity got hacked. Ugh, keeping track of passwords is such a hassle. x.x

Ran into a weird PC thing where it was making constant USB connect/disconnect noises, then wouldn't come up when I rebooted. It turned out to be the power adapter for the Valve Index headset wasn't fully plugged in, so pushing it back in fixed the issue. Whew. That was extremely worrisome for a good hour there.

Looking forward to getting this novel written... Then I might take some time to just do art of the characters, just as a change of pace. o.o I'd like to do my own book cover, so that'll be a lot of concept sketching and then a lot of time doing up lines and colors.
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
Oh hai, I am a year older! (as of the 18th)

My birthday dinner was the usual, duck from Le Fontaine, served on a bed of wild rice with mixed vegetables, with tiramisu for dessert. Yum!

I outlined not one, but two possible standalone novels. These are:

Intruder - first contact at 0.05 times the speed of light. The two great factions of humanity, locked in a cold war with one another, discover an alien ship crossing the solar system at insane speed. Each launches a mission to attempt to rendezvous with the ship before the other one can. But the first mission goes silent days after it begins its operations. Now, months later, the second mission is about to close in on the Intruder. Are the aliens hostile? What happened to the first crew? And why didn't the Intruder stop in the solar system?

Re: Fleet Academy - a disgruntled engineer comes across a mysterious artifact on a planetary expedition that offers her the chance to redo her life. She accepts and finds herself back in her academy days. Score! But her captain, the very reason she's doing this, has gone back in time after her, and is determined to bring her back before the timeline is changed beyond repair. Now the two of them must deal with classmates, their first training cruise, and each other. Is a happy life so much to ask for?

Intruder is off to review by a friend of mine who's much better with things physics than I am, since it's a hard-ish science fiction story, set in a slower-than-light universe. He's already taken one look at things and I've made changes based on his suggestion, but it may be a while before he gets to a second look, so I pressed on with the second outline.

Thanks to [profile] ladyrowyn who read over Re: Fleet Academy and gave me some great suggestions, I broke ground on it a few weeks ago, and presently have one and a half chapters written: 10,877 words. I have hopes that it will be a moderately thick novel, around 120k words, but we'll see how that goes.

Interestingly, it took 18 days to write, then revise the outline for Intruder... 5 and change for Re: Fleet Academy's outline. We'll see how that goes.

In other mews... CentOS 7, which is what my old remotely-hosted Linux server is using (I use it for mail and hosting an RP MUCK) has reached end of life, which I found out when the updates stopped running because they'd turned off that service. So I did some digging and figured out I could migrate it to Alma Linux using ELevate. There was a very nervous-making hour and change while it did the reboot thing, but it came back up successfully. Whew! So that's one headache out of the way.

Now what am I gonna do about Windows 10 reaching end of life next year and my machine being too old, apparently, for Windows 11... Eh, that's next-year-Tufty's problem.
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
The first book of Alien Tastes weighs in at 89,188 words. Whew. The second one currently has 24k, where Molly actually gets to her first class at the galactic cooking school, but some amount of that was yoinked from draft 4. I actually wrote, let's see... 12,072 words in June.

I've been thinking about my writing. It's really kind of disconcerting that the two projects I have are epic serials that could easily run 8 books or more-- admittedly that also resembles a large number of books and web serials I read, but still, I would like to actually finish things. Also, I need to start thinking about how I'm going to get beta readers for these things. So what to do about that? )

My thoughts are with my friends who have suffered deaths of loved ones recently. It is tragic, but remember, if you need a warm fuzzy kitteh, I'm just an email or Discord ping away.
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
26,644 words on Alien Tastes. We're close to the end of the first book! It should weigh in at about 87k words or so. All that just to finish Molly's first day, and she won't even have gotten to classes yet! That will be the *next* book.

I learned that certificates of deposit don't just turn into money, they roll over "renewing" at a new interest rate for the term e.g. if you had a 5-month CD, you'll get it rolled over into another 5-month CD. There's a 10-day window from maturity when you can withdraw the money. CDs beat the 'standard' saving account interest by quite a bit, so learning to work with this will be a good plan, as long as I accurately forecast my monthly needs.

I have gotten my furnace/AC replaced with a heat pump! This is supposed to be more efficient overall, which is good because gas bills have been going up and up around here. Just in time for... it to no longer be winter, meaning I won't be running the heat for the next nine months anyway.

I am in the midst of a low-residue diet for a colonoscopy next week. Whee. The travails of getting old. x.x

I got and finished Homeworld 3! I wouldn't say necessarily 'instant classic' but I think it did justice to following in the footsteps of the original Homeworld, and setting the mood with megalithic structures and bombastic story. I also played through Timelie, which is a good 'rewind-time stealth' puzzle game that features a cat as an important part of the gameplay. Some really tough puzzle levels, but ultimately I didn't have to resort to a walkthrough at any time, which I appreciate.
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
Check-in!

Alien Tastes: I wrote a total of 26,390 words. Nice. At some point once I'm sure things aren't going to shift as I write ahead, I'll want to start posting the redrafted/new chapters.

Semper Solaris came by with the Mountain View city inspector and cleared my solar power setup, and PG&E has given the final approval, so I can now officially start selling power back to PG&E when my home batteries are fully charged.

My raid group did successfully down heroic Fyrakk! Now for the victory lap that is Dragonflight season 4.

I have my first "quotable villain"...

“Negotiation is, to hear my family speak of it, alternately the practice of throwing away a perfectly good excuse for a war, or an ingenious way by which one can turn a defeat into victory through clever stratagems and wordplay,” Idrak murmured. “I presume which it is, depends on whether you won or lost the negotiations.”
tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
So what have I been up to since I joined the ranks of the unemployed?

* I did my taxes for 2023
* I figured out and paid estimated taxes for 2024
* I signed up for COBRA continuation of my workplace health insurance, so I'm good for the next 18 months
* I wrote 11,247 words picking up on Alien Tastes
* I posted chapter 6 of On the Wrong Side of the Mirror

It's not a bad start to the 'rest of my life', I guess. I still have a passel of things I want to get done: a general physical later in the spring, taking my car in for a service since it's been some time, maybe start going for a walk once a week, to get some actual exposure to daylight...

On the leisure side of things:

* My WoW raid group beat heroic Smolderon and Tindral, and we're close to getting heroic Fyrakk down... Woo.
* I got Lagkitten to level 50 (the cap) in City of Heroes (Homecoming servers). Also woo!
* I finished Baldur's Gate 3 with a couple friends. We've sunk several hundred hours into this on the weekends, mostly Caturday evenings. It's an amazing RPG with so, so much detail-- be sure to try Speak with Animals! Most of the critters have conversations longer than the one or two lines you'd expect.

Anyway I feel pretty good that I've managed to get some writing done most every day. I'd like to get a book or two finished this year. Crossing fingers!
tuftears: Thoughtful Lynx (Thoughtful)
I have completed a life changing decision today-- I'm retiring early.

This isn't an irrevocable decision. If the economy tanks and I need to go back to work, I'll do that. But for the time being, I have enough in savings that I felt safe in closing out my current chapter at work. My manager was very understanding and we worked out a last day-- today-- that gave me plenty of time to wrap things up.

Looking back on the Google years... )

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tuftears: Lynx Wynx (Default)
Conrad "Lynx" Wong

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