Category: Announcements

An announcement for the new year

So I’ve been doing this thing pretty regularly for a year and a half now. Except for a few illness-related breaks, I’ve been putting up three posts a week since the middle of 2015. I’m not complaining; I love doing this. But now that I feel like moving towards writing more original works of fiction, I’m not sure I can keep up the pace I’ve set for myself. See, I usually write these posts in one big batch at the end of a month, or when I have no other works in the, well, works. (For example, I’m actually writing this on October 4. Last week, I finished the final part of my Otherworld novella series, and I’m mostly killing time until NaNoWriMo.)

If I’m going to make a more serious effort at writing full stories, I don’t know if I can handle also writing 10-15 posts here. These tend to run about 1000 words apiece, sometimes far more—that’s basically 25% of my average monthly output that I could dedicate to other work. And honestly, I’m starting to run out of ideas for posts. I’m not doing as much coding as before. Really, my whole life right now is in a place I’d describe as…not the best. Fiction is my escape from that. The nonfiction I put up here just doesn’t have the same beneficial qualities.

So here’s what I’ve decided, looking at the three main types of posts I do on Prose Poetry Code, and then the ongoing series I’ve been running.

Code

Wednesdays have been my dedicated day for code-related articles. As I said, I haven’t done much in that area lately. I tried back in June to make a game, but you saw how that worked out. It’s not that I don’t like programming anymore. I still do, believe me. It’s more that I have other things on my mind, and the very analytical, very mathematical necessities of writing good code take me out of the moment.

For these, I’m going to drop back severely. I’ll probably only write 1-2 code posts per month in 2017, unless something big comes up. The field still interests me, and there’s a lot of fertile ground there, but the research and thought required to make a good post about programming each week just isn’t worth it right now. Maybe I’ll change my mind down the road.

Writing & worldbuilding

These are the meat of the site, in my opinion. The Monday posts are where I have the most fun, because they give me the chance to let my imagination roam free. Worldbuilding really is my favorite part of writing. If I lose it, then I’ve lost any reason to even have this place.

Therefore, I’ll keep Mondays mostly as they are. There might be a few more weeks off through the year, but rest assured that those will be for good reason: I’ll be writing something more important. In all, count on about 40 or so total posts about worldbuilding and general writing next year.

Languages and verse

Fridays originally started out as a way to showcase the art of conlangs. After all, language construction is one of the things that got me into worldbuilding in the first place. It’s only fair to give it the honor it deserves. Since then, I’ve been branching out a bit. Now, the last post of the week has become the time when I talk about poetry, song, verse, and music.

I’d like to keep that going, though maybe not at the same high level. I’ll probably take 1-2 Fridays off per month through 2017, meaning you’ll have around 30 total posts. Most of those will be conlang-related, but some will pick up the other topics.

Series

I do a lot of post series. I like them. They’re like chapters in a book, each building off the last or taking something in a new direction. I like the continuity. But lately it seems like all my posts are part of a series. There aren’t that many one-offs. So, for the coming year, I’m going to take a step back. For each of the main series I’ve got going, here’s my plans:

  • “Let’s make a language”: This was practically the reason I started the whole site. It’s not stopping in the near future. I’ve got plans all the way out to Part 27; at one part per month, that takes me through June. After that, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with more ideas.

  • “Magic and tech”: Another one of my personal favorites, but I’m starting to run low on material. I think I’ll drop this back to one post every two months, or 6 for the year. Maybe, I’ll even have enough work here to write a novella set in the magical realm the series describes.

  • “Building aliens”: This one has almost run its course. I’ll let it, and then I think I’ll let it retire. Now, I’m not going to stop posting about aliens, so don’t worry about that. This is just the hard SF alien-making series that’s going away.

  • “Software internals”: There’s only so much more I can do here without getting way too bogged down in technical details, so I’m putting this one on hiatus. If there’s any kind of desire to see it return, I’ll consider it later on.

  • “Project SL”: The whole Social Liberty thing was a response to the election year. It won’t be back in post form.

  • “Assembly”: I love assembly language, but trying to debug code in a web-based emulator is annoying, even frustrating. If v86 gets better, I’ll look into starting it back up. (Really, what I need most is clipboard support.)

Never fear / Happy New Year!

I’m not abandoning this place. I’ve made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let that happen. The quantity of posts will go down in 2017, but I hope that will be balanced out by a corresponding increase in quality. If I don’t have to worry as much about finding the material for three posts a week, maybe I can spend more time on each post that I do write. So even though it may not seem like I’m around as much, I’ll still be here. Now, let’s make 2017 the best year ever!

Happy birthday to me

You may have noticed there’s something new over there on the sidebar: a link to Patreon. Yep, I finally did it. Now, if you want, you can support my writing on a monthly basis, instead of the “whenever I put something out for sale” schedule I’ve been doing. And I hope you will.

I’m still working out the kinks, but here’s what I’ve got so far:

  • $1/month: This gets you basically anything I’ve put up for sale, like Before I Wake or any future novels. On top of that, I’ll throw in the occasional short story. Oh, and everything will always be DRM-free, so you don’t have to worry about that.

  • $3/month: Here’s where the real fun starts. For this much, you get not only my novel-length works, but also the short stories and novellas I’m not quite ready to put on, say, Kindle Direct. Even with those that I do end up selling, you’ll get them much earlier.

  • $10/month: This is quite a bit of money, and I doubt I’m as valuable as, for example, your Netflix subscription. But if you’re willing, I’ll definitely count you as one of my supporters. Literally. I’ll put you in the credits. And if that’s not enough, I plan on doing stories chosen by you. Starting at this level, you’ll get a full vote on those.

  • $30/month: The big one. While I could certainly add tiers higher than this, this is the limit both of what I feel comfortable asking (actually, that’s closer to $3 than $30) and of what I can legitimately do. If you’re giving me this much money, then you deserve a special reward. Therefore, anybody who contributes at this highest level will get 3 votes on my “supporter” stories. And they’ll get to appear in one of my stories. You know, a cameo. (If I’m feeling particularly generous, I’ll write some gruesome way for you to die or something. I don’t know.)

Now, you can absolutely put up more than $30 a month, but you don’t get any extra bonuses besides that warm, fuzzy feeling of helping somebody out. But even if you can’t quite afford that, every little bit helps. Every dollar you pledge is one that I didn’t have before. And I have to thank you for that.

(Note: Last year, I think I posted at 5:38 PM. If so, then I screwed up. I was actually born at 5:48, which unfortunately doesn’t have the same electoral significance. Oh, well.)

Free short story: “Miracles”

I’ve told a lot about the writing I do. Now it’s time to show it. “Miracles” is a little story I wrote in March 2015, and I’m posting it here as a free example of my work. Although it’s a little over 11,000 words long, I still consider it a short story.

Set in the 1730s, it’s a brief tale of a young brother and sister, Thomas and Mira, and their flight from England to the American Colonies. Crossing the Atlantic is treacherous, especially for a pair of twelve-year-old orphans, but they have to go. They can’t stay home, but can they outrun the dark secret they share?

Read it now

Continue reading Free short story: “Miracles”

Still recovering

I’m not quite over the sickness I described last week. I’m feeling a lot better, but not yet 100%. So, rather than force myself to come up with three new posts to fill out what should have been status reports on that game I was making, I’ll just leave the remaining Wednesdays in June empty. Code posts will resume on July 6, beginning with a new installment of Software Internals.

Godot game, part 2: Abort, retry, fail?

I don’t believe in fate. Problem is, fate doesn’t seem to care.

The week started off just fine. I got a bit of work done on the game late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. Then, disaster struck.

For most of the next few days, I was almost totally bedridden, shivering and sweating in turns, coughing my head off, getting dizzy every time I stood up, and generally feeling awful. I figured it was nothing more than the usual allergy flareup of late spring/early summer at first, but as the days wore on, I suspected something more was afoot.

It was my mother’s idea to take me to the ER yesterday evening. I’m a poor, white man living in the rural South, so that’s effectively my only option, and it’s one I only like using as a last resort. When I go, it’s more to find out exactly what’s wrong with me than out of any hope that they can fix it. The ease of mind is just as valuable as the diagnosis and treatment.

After a 20-mile drive down there (again, rural South) and about half an hour of waiting, the doctor gave the verdict: bronchitis. Nothing worse than that, thank goodness, but that’s already bad enough, if you ask me. In the grand spirit of American doctors, he gave me a round of antibiotics (for what is probably a viral infection, naturally) and some lovely opioid-based cough syrup that is about as appealing to me as the coughing itself. Honestly, I can’t complain too much; I know from experience that there’s only so much you can do for bronchitis, apart from letting it run its course. But my mind is at ease, and that’s a far better medicine.

What does this mean for my grand “Godot Game Month” project, you ask? Well, total failure. Nothing less. Even if I felt 100% better today, I doubt I could work hard enough to catch up on the days I’ve lost. And I don’t feel much better. (Just as I wrote that sentence, I had another mild fit of coughing. Fortunately, nothing bad came of it. Correction: more bloody mucus. Yay.)

I know my limits. I know how far I can push them. I hate to admit defeat, but I am well aware when something is beyond my capability. This is one of those cases.

So, to sum up, the game is on hold, indefinitely. Once I get at least somewhat healed, I’ll start working on it again, but as a long-term project, something I do in my spare time. I tempted fate with this idea, and she slapped me down for it. I’ve learned my lesson; it won’t happen again.

As for the other posts, I have a nice queue full of them, enough to take me through the middle of July. Those will proceed as scheduled. Hopefully, by the time I need*to write again, I’ll feel like doing it.

Wireless woes

I’m really not trying to get out of posting Wednesday stuff. It’s just that fate seems to be conspiring against me. Last week, I was so sick I couldn’t get out of bed. This time around, the illness has moved to my wireless router.

It started a couple of weeks ago, when my trusty old RT-N16 started acting up. Wireless speeds became unbearably slow, and latency was horrible. (We’re talking a 200 ms ping to the next room.) So, after eliminating all other potential sources of trouble, I bought a new router: an RT-AC66, also by Asus.

That, apparently, was a mistake. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the AC66 is a great router. But there’s a big problem, and it turns out that it’s the same problem that the N16 had.

After some research, I think I’ve pinpointed the problem: the wireless chipset. Both routers use essentially the same one for the 2.4 GHz band. And both of them use essentially the same firmware, thus the same driver for that chipset. That driver, however, doesn’t exactly work.

On various forums, Asus support people have said that a fix is in the works. They’ve said this in posts dating back to 2013, in fact. Yet no fix has solved all the problems.

So I’ve got a few options. I could try alternate firmware (DD-WRT, for example). That’s a road fraught with peril, as you may know, and there’s no guarantee it would really help. So, I’m going with option 2: get a third router. This one is a TP-LINK Archer C7. It’s a different manufacturer and a different chipset. That, of course, will mean a different set of problems, but (hopefully) some that are fixable.

Sick Day

Since I’ve had a pretty bad cold these last few days (I’m writing this on Monday, but I have no real reason to think I’ll be over it in the next 48 hours), and since I don’t already have posts queued for Wednesday, I’ve decided to take the day off. Sorry ’bout that, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

I’ve had this Friday’s post written for over a month, so no worries there, and I did have two worldbuilding posts already, so I’m alright for next Monday. It’s just today that got lost in the shuffle. Oh, well. ‘Tis the season, and all that.

At the starting gate

When this post goes up, it’ll be Halloween, even though I’m writing it a couple of days ahead of time. Tomorrow, then, will be November 1st, and that means it’s time to write a novel. Officially, this isn’t NaNoWriMo, because I’m not following their rules to the letter. But I am going by what I feel is the original spirit of the challenge.

So here’s the goal: 50,000 words or a complete novel, whichever comes first. The deadline? Midnight on the 30th. Each day, I’ll try to post a little update about my progress. This certainly won’t be some kind of live blog, though, so don’t expect up-to-the-minute results. After all, I can only write so much. Regular posts (writing stuff on Mondays, code on Wednesdays, conlangs on Fridays) will resume December 2. Until then, I’ll be in hardcore writing mode.

I already have the basic idea for the story I’ll be writing. It’s a continuation of the one I did in 2013. To be honest, I have written parts 2 and 3, along with about half of part 4, but I’ve decided to scrap that work, because I have a better understanding of the setting now, and the old parts don’t fit into it anymore. (Technically, NaNoWriMo requires an original story, and you’re not supposed to start thinking about it until October. Yet another reason why I’m not following the letter of the rules.)

Now, my sleeping schedule is a bit…odd, and my writing schedule is even worse, so I’m not going to schedule these daily updates like I have been with everything else on the site. They’ll go up when I feel I’m “done” writing for the day. That may be at 2 PM or 2 AM. There’s not much I can do about that, short of forcing myself to stay on a schedule, and…let’s just say that circumstances tend conspire against that.

If you want to play along at home, that’s great! Whether you stick to the NaNoWriMo rules or follow my lead and take it easy, just go for it. If you can’t do it, there’s always next year.

Calm before the storm

October is almost over, and November is upon us. November, as you may know, is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). If you’ve never tried this, it’s a great time to give it a shot. I will be, and I’ll have a post up later this week about how that will affect the update schedule here. (There’s no way I could write an average of 1,667 words per day on a novel and 3 posts a week on here, and I don’t have enough of a backlog to make up the difference, so something has to give.)

With this break in the schedule, though, I’ll have time to come up with more ideas for posts in all three of the main categories (writing, code, and languages). Then, when December rolls around and I get back to regular posting, I’ll be able to build up a bigger and better queue, which will give me a little bit more free time.

Here’s what I’ve got so far, starting with the “prose” part of Prose Poetry Code (I’ll get to that “poetry” part one of these days, I promise!):

  • Politics and religion in a fantasy world
  • Colonization, in both sci-fi and general fiction
  • A look at space battles, and how they might really play out
  • A set of posts about alien life, including what’s plausible, possible, and maybe even likely
  • An irregular series about the interaction between magic and technology, covering both “technomancy” and “magitech”

For the coding aspect, I’ve got some ideas about C++, ES6, game programming, procedural generation, and a few others. As for Let’s Make a Language, well, the second half of Part 8 will go up on Friday, and I have plans out to Part 13. Since each part takes 2-3 posts, that’s at least a good two months’ worth of content. I’ve also got a couple of themes for more general conlang posts that don’t fit the series, and I can slot them in whenever I need a break from creation.

So that’s what you have to look forward to, starting in December. Again, in a few days I’ll give an update on what will happen over the course of next month, including my plans to write a novel in 30 days.

css.php