I have survived my first (wonderful and utterly exhausting) week at the new job! HUZZAH! I can’t wait until I’ve gotten settled enough to have enough energy in the evenings to do more.

Recently!

Writing

Work continues apace on my NaNoWriMo project, and I am quite pleased with how it’s coming along! I’ve hit 34.5k as of the writing of this post, and I must say, this is the first time ever that I’ve been ahead of the daily quota every day so far! It feels great.

In other exciting news, my partner has begun work on a short story (he’s doing a sort of micro-NaNo– NaShoStoWriMo?)! This is unbelievably cool, ’cause he’s talked for years about writing and now he’s putting words on the page instead of just wishing for it. I’m so proud of him! (Also, he’s a kickass writer, novice or not. He just has that rich eloquence, and he’s a voracious reader, so he’s got that going for him, too.)

Arting

Earlier last week, my mom, who lives in West Virginia, told me that two of her big dogs went missing in the snowfall that Sandy delivered to their doorstep, and I made her a prayer-painting in hopes they’d either find their ways back home or be found by a compassionate human. The very next morning, Mom let me know that they’d both come home (one on his own, and one with human assistance)! So very grateful that they’re both safe and well.

I also, of course, had my first new-job doodles during a four-hour new hire training session:

Worldbuilding

I am absolutely going crazy, being unable to write intelligent non-humans in my current project, and of course, my muse dumps dozens of ideas for other species on me while I am constrained. One of the new ideas – just a seed, really – does, however, have to do with humans… in the future, rather than a fantastical past like The Last Devil.

The idea is two-part: Firstly, that technology is so advanced that warfare is no longer carried out by throwing masses of human bodies at each other, but instead, by small, elite teams of mecha that are remote-controlled via VR systems by highly-trained, valuable soldiers. This cuts down on human casualty and the need to equip, train, feed, and transport large volumes of people, instead placing emphasis on individual skills and overall strategy.

Secondly, this same technology would be utilized in private corporations to allow professionals of all sorts – from surgeons to programmers – to work remotely from home. Those who would normally need to be in-person, such as doctors, would be able to login to a robotic interface, through which they could accomplish their tasks. (Like heart surgery. Robotic heart surgery.) This means that well-to-do professionals would have a “home office” that revolved around the VR interface, and they could login to different geographic regions (/hospitals) to make their expertise more widely available.

The social and cultural (and military) implications of these ideas are staggering. I’d love to explore them in fiction at some point!

Languages

Did you know about Memrise? I didn’t. It’s a super-cool way of making memorization, especially for new language vocabulary, fun and game-like, and also amazingly effective and optimal. So, naturally, I had to get into it.

And then I made an Uhjayi vocabulary Memrise course. Because, y’know, I’m a proactive geek.

I also practiced my Uhjayi script for the first time in a while:

Musicking

I am an occasional filker… an auto-filker, even, since I write fan-music of my own fiction! For The Last Devil, I wrote two snippets of songs, one a sea-shanty and one a mourning song. They have melodies with them, and drumbeats, but nothing more, even though in the book they have whistle accompaniment. I may well be recording these, as short as they are, to count towards my Hometaping efforts…

Upcoming

• More NaNoWriMo! If I keep up this pace, I might not have to scramble to hit 50k on November 30th!
• Probably more language geekery. I’d really like to get Uhjayi’s script memorized! And that means lots of sit-down-and-write practicing.
• Maybe more music? I have hopes of being able to participate in Hometaping, after all!