Artistry and Sickness Recovery

So work continues on the free-lance project at speed.  I am nearing completion thanks to an unexpected burst of enthusiasm for the whole thing.

Part of that may be because I’ve had some wonderful artists sign up to get on board.  One of them is a new friend I’ve made in the New World who’s style I simply LOVE.

Our back and forth discussions have given me another idea for a project we could work on.  Basically, I want to start a webcomic with him. I’ll write, he can draw.  I think it would a fantastic pairing.  Sadly, he is quite busy with Uni these days, so for now, these ideas are simply ‘on the drawing board’ so to speak, but soon I hope to have something more concrete to share.

Thinking about the prospect has been quite freeing, because I’m pretty sure I’ll bleed off the ‘shiny’ idea I had in December as the story for the webcomic (he already loves the idea).  That way I can work on my novel and freelance work while still doing something with that other idea.

I’m very excited.

Update-

I wrote the above shortly before getting sick.  Nothing serious, just one of those annoying head/chest colds.  I’m just starting to feel better though still have a horrible rattling cough.

My friend has sent me some character sketches for the webcomic and they are fantastic.  It’s really a strange feeling seeing my words becoming visual images.  He’s not even read the 6K words I’ve written on the subject, just going off our conversations and yet he’s still getting close to the bone.  I can’t wait to see what he does once he has read the source material!

Now that I am beginning to feel better, I’m going back to writing.  Being sick killed all my enthusiasm and creativity, which was just horrible.  So today I’m back on the wagon, as it were!

Hopefully I’ll be able to update this blog more often now as well.

New Tech

There was a great deal of drama for me recently, in acquiring a new writing tool. 

My birthday was in July, and at that time, I had my birthday money and was intending to use it to purchase a netbook.  I had dreams of taking my new net book to the New Country and using it while I wasted 30 minutes on a bus (each way) to work.  It would dramatically increase my writing output and be all around amazing.

 I was sure of it.

But as I did my research, I discovered that netbook technology was on the verge of a shift.  All netbooks available currently used the same technology.  The only differences were either cosmetic, or just slight improvements in processors (1.66 vs 1.6).  But, in a few months, new processors were coming out and the whole world of netbooks was going to expand.

If I could just wait.

So I did.  I waited.  I waited because I wanted the new stuff to come out, and I waited because when it did come out, I wanted to get it from the Old World.  And every time I reached one of those release dates for the new tech, and saw it pass me by, I grew more restless and annoyed.  Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, till finally, half a year later, I was back in the Old Country for Christmas.  Still without a net book.

But finally, the gods of technology released their promised treasures.  A new book, the Asus Eee PC 1201N was coming out.  It had dual core processors and an Nvidia Ion Graphics card.  No one could really agree on what it would be ultimately capable of, they just knew that it would be sweet. 

So this was the machine I plonked my money on, as well as my hopes and dream.

It arrived the business day after I returned to the New World. 

It’s been a month and a half, with various travails since then.  There was much stress over where to have it sent and how, plus the cost of shipping as well as the fear of customs.

Long story short, it arrived last week. 

And it is beautiful… I’m actually writing this post with it, on the bus right now.  The last three work days I’ve been able to write 500+ words between my ride into work and my tea break.  Then of course there is what I do on my lunch break.  It’s been a dream, performing beautifully.

Now work is just an annoyance in-between my periods of writing.

For those who care, it’s a shiny piece of tech.  The keyboard is nearly full sized and thanks to having island keys, it feels like a normal keyboard to my fingers.  It’s speakers are amazing.  The touchpad works a bit like an iphone (I can use it to zoom, or rotate, or even scroll, which is far beyond what my ‘real’ laptop can do).  Graphically, I installed a 3D game and it plays without any lag (level loading does take a bit, but I’ve not played the game on a ‘real’ computer, so that might be a reflection on the program).  It streams video from the internet quite well and can do High Definition videos as well (as well as having a port to connect it to a high def TV).  Battery life can reach up to 5 hours, though I’ve not really tried running it continuously yet.  Still, I can start it up in the morning, use it on the bus both ways, and my tea break, and leaving it asleep the rest of the day and it still has around 55-60% of its battery left by the time I get home.

In other words, it is freaking amazing.  If you want a netbook, get this one.  You won’t be disappointed.

Because Steampunk is Cool

I have recently found myself becoming more interested in Steampunk.  I’ve always found the (few) narratives I could find that dealt with Steampunk quite interesting, but the source material was few and far between.  Certainly, I never imagined the cosplay-esque attraction that Steampunk would eventually exert.

I found this through random internet wanderings.  I’m not familiar with the blog, but the pics of steampunk toys are mouth-watering.  Well, most of them anyway.  Makes me think about writing a steampunk story.

Makes me wish I had more Steampunk clothes and money to get my hands on some of this stuff…

http://oddee.com/item_96830.aspx