Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Alright, Lent, Help Me Out

The egg timer thing didn't work. Mainly because it required me to remember to use it.
Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comic books
by  Bryan Lee O'Malley
I allowed myself to splurge and indulge a bit as I prepared myself for Lent. I still had no clue what I was going to do for the Lenten season, but I knew I had to figure something out, and wanted to take on as much pleasure in the meantime. Before giving something up.

First of all, Lent is supposed to be a time of fasting and sacrifice; giving something that you love up so you not only have greater appreciation for it, but you now have more space to bring God into your life and heart. You are supposed to give up a vice; a worldly pleasure that you use to fill the void you should be filling with your relationship with God. Vices are distractions, and the forty days before Easter are supposed to be the time you give up those distractions as a means of healing your spirituality and your soul before one of the holiest days in Christian faith.

Lent is a way for you to improve and better yourself; make yourself a "better Christian." A better person.

For me, though, Lent isn't purely about sacrificing a vice. It is first, and foremost, about improving myself while also improving my relationship with God. A time - outside my November daily thankfulness reflection - for me to feel a divine force around me, directing me, comforting me, and blessing me; even with small blessings.

I know, I'm getting super religious right now, give me another minute, I promise.

For me, Lent wasn't just about giving something up. It was finding something that will improve me. If that means I ADD to my life instead of subtracting - things such as donating or volunteering - that is what I'll do.

Since I'm still trying to figure out my off-hours life, I decided adding-on wasn't the way to go. I also don't like completely removing something, because inevitability, I slip and feel guilty about breaking my Lenten fast. So, I generally cut back to bare-bones. Just enough to still get the pleasure, and then appreciate it because of how small it is.

In this regard, I'm going to move away from my latest Time Suck. A few years back I dropped my Facebook time to an hour or two. Yes, there are still days I over-indulge, but ever since that Lenten season Facebook isn't the hole it used to be for me. Now though? It's watching anything. Hubby and I will just mindlessly watch whatever's on TV, even if we're not terribly interested in it. Or we'll binge watch Netflix until I wonder what happened to my week. Lately, I've also added in Cracked, Watch Mojo, Screen Rant, or WhatCulture YouTube channels to my binge-watching Time Suck.

So that's what I'm "giving up" for Lent. I still want to have some downtime with the Hubby, and Tuesdays I have two back-to-back prime time shows we like to watch. Then there's the occasional Conan that we watch all the way through if we like the guests he has on. So, instead of giving up TV completely, and forcing Hubby to do the same so he won't feel guilty about watching episodes I won't be able to until reruns or the show's on Netflix, I'm cutting down to two hours daily. It still feels like a LOT of time, but considering the fact that we seem to almost exclusively watch hour-long shows, it just means two episodes. Sadly, that's not much when compared to the binging I've been doing lately.

Two hours of my day, at max, will be taken up by the TV, Netflix, or YouTube. The rest of the time I'll be at work, cleaning my home, reading, and - GASP - WRITING!

The extra free time I will get by not sitting in front of the TV mindlessly for hours on end should be used to reflect on God and the sacrifice Jesus gave himself up for. I will use some of the time to reflect, I'm sure, but at the same time, I'll increase my spirituality also by using that time to write.

I feel blessed whenever I find those minutes to put pen to paper. I feel blessed whenever inspiration strikes. I feel even more blessed when I have control of the muse and don't have to wait for the lightning. I feel blessed whenever I come up with a phrase or description that my writing group praises me for. I feel blessed whenever I notice that my story was favorited on DeviantArt. I feel blessed when I get a message on Facebook telling me that my writing was read and enjoyed.

Sadly, I don't use Lent as I "should," as a means to better connect to God and reflect on what Easter truly means. However, I do use it to try to better myself, as well as reflect on how blessed I truly am. I focus on not taking anything for granted. I focus on slowing things down so I can better appreciate what is in my life. I feel like, in turn, that helps me become a better person, a better Christian, and helps me reconnect with my spirituality.

I always set up four "resets" in each year: New Years Resolutions, Lunar/Chinese New Year, my birthday, and Lent. Here's hoping I do well enough with refocusing myself during Lent that I won't have to do another reset on my birthday this year.

While I'm resetting myself and attempting to write more than twice a week, feel free to read another edited writing prompt from the beginning of the month:

"Thief!"

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Shackled to an Egg Timer

Excuse me for reviving an old meme, but....
*Sigh*
I'm a bit of a Sad Panda this week.

Due to the job chaos, I had to work my normal Tuesday off, but to make up for it I was given Thursday and Friday off. Sunday was the start of a new work week, so that was my "second" day off - since Tuesdays are my regular "first" day off. Anyway, this means that between last Tuesday and today I had THREE days off. THREE!

Yet how much writing have I done? If you guessed "pretty much none" you win!

I had days off! I should have had all the time in the world to write and read and elaborate on my Valentine's Day blog before today. Instead, I lounged pretty much all of Thursday since Hubby and I had the day off together. We considered it a belated Valentine's Day for the two of us. It was sweet having so much time to just snuggle with him on the couch, but A WHOLE DAY!? I needed the stress relief, but geez! Friday I did what I always do: get suckered into ONE task and spent all day on it.

Aside from tasks such as writing this blog, which have deadlines anyway, I have now taken to sitting with a kitchen timer next to me. It's set to hour intervals. Once the timer goes off, that's it. I move on to another task for an hour. Then another one. I might circle back to a previous task, but never in back-to-back hours. It's the only way to break me of my..... um..... anti-ADHD? I'm sure it's some sort of disorder in and of itself with it's own name. Over fixation? Regardless, I lose far too much time in my life due to my laser focus.

Spend seven straight hours on a forum catching up on old posts? How about four hours on DeviantArt looking at fanart? Five hours on Google Image trying to find reference pictures for a new character? Two full evenings - each a three-hour sitting or so - on doll-maker games trying to design a new character because I can't draw? Yeah, maybe I wasn't addicted to Facebook. Maybe I just don't know how to turn away from a task until it's complete.... or away from a distraction until a need - such as food or a bathroom break - arises.

So, now the timer is attached to my hip to keep me on track until I can learn to Adult better.....

Doesn't really help that I figured out the whole timer-thing AFTER last week's fail, though. I got barely anything accomplished when I only had to work four days.

I haven't even written on my writing calendar. I'll have to try to backtrack and remember when I wrote what. I know I only wrote two days last week; worst record this year. I also know that the last time I wrote anything was Wednesday. Such a long zero-day streak.

Either way, it's the good-old Chicken-or-Egg situation again: Am I not writing because I'm tired and cranky, or am I tired and cranky because I haven't written anything?

My performance at work has gotten kind of crappy as well. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm overwhelmed with trying a brand new tactic our Director of Sales wants us to follow, if it's because so many "losses" shook my confidence, or if it's because I'm not allowed to write at work any longer. It really allowed me to drift from a bad day for a few moments at a time, maybe as much as an hour, and then come back to reality completely refocused; centered. If my confidence was shook, I sat and wrote or read to escape for a little bit. By the time I was back I was ready to crush it.

Instead, my down-time is flooded with trainings, workbooks, studying, role-playing to practice the new technique, and stern talking to's.

So, the biggest selling point of this job for me - the downtime to read and write while still being a productive member of the sales team - is pretty much null. We'll see how I can re-adjust. I'll give it until my year point to see if things turn around.

In the meantime, how about I give you more details of what I did the previous week, since I didn't have time to really do so on Valentine's Day?

Well, to start, even though I changed up my Writers’ Huddle challenge goal, I STILL haven't managed to hit a week-goal yet. It's obvious that I didn't write a prompt a day this past week, let alone two, but even the previous week - when I was on a hot-streak - I wasn't able to fit two in. So much for catching up on the daily prompts by March 9th. I haven't even hit the January 13th prompt that I started the book with. My only real consolation is that there must be some sort of anti-writing-whatever in the atmosphere, because just about everyone over at WH stated that they didn't come close to completing their task this past week. In fact, I think, out of the years that I've been at the Huddle for winter challenges, this one has been the least productive over-all among the participants.

As for the prompts I already have written, I only had a chance to type up two of them, which caught me up to January 4th. Jynna's flash-story was from January 8th's prompt, so it will be a little bit before it's ready to share. I also haven't had much time to really delve back into her backstory in the meantime.

Well... OK, as I shared above, I DID have the time to either work more on Jynna or type up more prompts; I just didn't utilize it.... Point is, I don't have much new to share about her, but she does at least have a name. Yay. Also, Hubby's just waiting for the others interested in the game to build their characters, and then we'll be good to start playing Numenera, so... yay again!

I'm about half-way through "Heat Wave" and I'm trying to speed through the second half so I can still have at least one book done a month. So much for my new goal of two a month this year, huh? Darn Director of Sales messing with a system that didn't seem broken from our end. We were doing better than last year's sales, but I guess not better "enough" for his liking.

That doesn't really matter, though. Boss-Man wants us to focus more on sales and how to improve them while at work. It's understandable. How many office environments allow for an hour or so of employee downtime for things like reading or writing?

While I'm trying to get my act back together, I do have those two prompts for your reading pleasure.

January 3rd's was the first time I wrote for Amara in years. I'm still trying to lock down her party-mates' names, but for right now I just ran with what I had. Also, sorry for the poor title; I got nothing for it....

"The Courtyard"

January 4th's prompt had me completely stymied, so it turned out to be a mildly-rambling, stream-of-consciousness, personal essay about writing prompts in general. It's only about 800 words long if you want to still give it a whirl.

"Trust the Pen"

Now, let's try this "writing daily" thing again. Starting with creating a "sacred" writing time to keep me from constantly playing hookie from this part of my day. Time to go set my timer....

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Super Quick Week Recap

Normally this is when I'd have my usual, long, weekly recap of my writing. Sometimes I'd even have links to new projects I've completed. Sadly, this week will not be one of those weeks.

There was some pseudo-major upheaval at work that threw everyone off their game for a few days. We should be back to normal, sorta, next week, but unfortunately, the upheaval includes me having to work today. To make up for it, I meant to write this post yesterday, but with the work-chaos I totally zoned out on what I needed to do; mostly because I forgot what day of the week it was. I ended up working on some Adulting that I've been neglecting for a while.

Still productive, just not on the priority...

So, super quick between Hubby going to work and my need to get ready for my day:
  • I had a nice writing streak going, but broke it Wednesday, started it up again, and broke it again on Sunday. I WILL get a full week in at some point!
  • I haven't managed to do my new Writers’ Huddle challenge goal of writing at least two new daily writing practice prompts. I have written SOME more, but I can't even say I wrote ONE per day. I'm hoping I can remedy that next week once everything has settled down.
  • One of my writing prompts got me to write a bit about my Numenera RP character Jynna; pronounced Gin-nah. It's nothing groundbreaking due to it being a quick daily writing workout, but it was fun to write about her anyway. We'll see how much will be canon once Hubby learns more about the world of Numenera.
  • I do have more of a physical description and rough background idea for Jynna, so I'll have to see what I can gather up for more of a bio next post.
  • I have been fairly consistent with my writing prompts, being handwritten, hitting less than 1000 words. I just keep neglecting typing them up so I can send them to Ronoxym. I really need to figure out a schedule and stick with it. As much as I hate the concept of every minute of my day every day of the week being assigned to something - it completely takes out the ability to be spontaneous - I think that my life right now dictates that I really need to do precisely that.
  • I finally found my next book for my reading challenge: "Heat Wave" by "Richard Castle" - it's a ghostwriter pretending to be the author main character of ABC's show "Castle." It has red on the cover, so I could switch out "Ready. Set. Novel!" with a narrative if I so choose. It has a silhouette of the main character Nikki Heat on the cover, so it could go for "Woman on the cover" category instead if I'd like. Since I don't have a book that I "gave 5-stars to" in 2015, I could just change that category to "Re-read a book" for this first novel. It is also the first book of a 4-book series, so I could possibly put it under the "Start a new series" category. Technically each title in the series has a play on the main character's last name: Heat, so.... "Name in the title"? So many options. We'll see where it ends up going.
I think that's all the broad recap that I have for this past week. I can't make any promises that I'll have time to go into further detail about anything before next Tuesday. Today is pretty packed, and the rest of the week might remain tight. However, I'll give it the "old college try." Otherwise, I'll elaborate next week, along with all the writing advancements I make between now and then.

In the meantime, won't you be my Valentine, my dear readers?

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Hopping Eons into the Future; Yet Another Character Forms

Strike two for the Writers’ Huddle winter challenge. I got a little further this week; I opened a word document and saved it as the next chapter. I then began outlining the story arc of the chapter. Then I had to go to bed and didn't find time to touch it again since.

Even after two months, the feelings are still a bit raw for Jolene. I think, in order to finish off her backstory, I have to first figure out what her new present-day story will be. The more I focus on that and her in Gyateara, the less I should be thinking about her on Laerrnesse. I might be able to get back to my story then. Sorry, Shadow, you're probably going to have to wait until the end of the year to read her story now.

This leaves me in a bit of a pickle for the challenge, though. I already flopped the first two weeks, decided that maybe I'm just not in the right mindset to continue the story I set out as my challenge, and have four weeks left. Do I just pull the rip-cord?

Instead I went back to "A Writer's Book of Days" by Judy Reeves. It is now a week into February, and I'm still a month behind on the daily writing practice prompts. I've managed to crank a couple of those out over the week, but still not nearly enough for my liking.

While, including this blog post today, I'm on a nice five-day writing streak - longest I've had since the start of the year - I did miss three days last week. Also, while it didn't keep me four days of little stolen-away moments like the Amara story last week, I did have a prompt that kept me two days to finish due to time restrictions.

This whole working instead of writing thing while I'm at my job is really a hindrance.

I also didn't have time to go back and digitize my stories, let alone edit them. So I don't have anything new to share today.

Which reminds me, I had my journal with me when I went to Cyhyr and Ronoxym's for their Superbowl party on Sunday, and I completely forgot to have Ron read some of it as proof that I again wrote something under 1000 words. I also forgot to poke him about his challenge for this year: show me some sort of completed story/prose once a month; be it a full story, just a chapter, a flash fiction, an outline for a story, or a character bio.

I might really suck at this whole "Checking in on challenges for accountability" thing.... I need someone accountable for my accountability....

Anyway, my point was that I need a challenge that I can actually achieve, and writing more about Jolene doesn't seem to be achievable right now. I'm not excited about her any longer, and I need to find a way to jumpstart that excitement again. I also want to EVENTUALLY have my journal entries actually written on the day indicated, instead of a month later. So, while I'm trying to re-find my love for Jolene, I'll use the last four weeks of the challenge to try to play catch-up with the daily prompts.

I will now write two per day until I am caught up, or the challenge is over, whichever comes first. If I do manage to write at least two prompts per day, I will be caught up by the second entry on March 9th. Knowing me? I'll slack off some time and it will be about April that I catch up. Still, A GOAL IS SET!

We'll see how well this works, considering I struggle with just ONE prompt a day. Still, if I aim for two, I'm more likely to schedule the time to at least get ONE written. Right?

In the meantime, I've got yet ANOTHER character in the works.

For Christmas my family got Hubby the player's guide for a new roleplay game: Numenera. I don't have a name yet, but I think I have the broad outline for a character made up. The way you create your character for this game is that you are given the generic sentence "I am an adjective noun that verbs" and you fill in the blanks with the provided word types.

The adjectives are appropriately your "Character Descriptors." Within the core rule book, there are a dozen to choose from, and one of those can actually split depending on if you picture yourself using the stats for more technological or mystical purposes. The point of the Descriptor is to create your character's link to the starting adventure of the overall campaign. Depending on the Descriptor, you are given four options to choose from, as well as a bunch of bonuses for your character.

An example would be Intelligent:
You're quite smart. Your memory is sharp, and you easily grasp concepts that others might struggle with. This aptitude doesn't necessarily mean that you've had years of formal education, but you have learned a great deal in your life, primarily because you pick things up quickly and retain so much.

You gain the following benefits:
Smart: +2 to your Intellect Pool.
Skill: You're trained in an area of knowledge of your choice.
Skill: You're trained in all actions that involve remembering or memorizing things you experience directly. For example, instead of being good at recalling details of geography that you read about in a book, you can remember a path through a set of tunnels that you've explored before.

Initial Link to the Starting Adventure: From the following list of options, choose how you became involved in the first adventure.

  1. One of the other PCs asked your opinion of the mission, knowing that if you thought it was a good idea, it probably was.
  2. You saw value in what the other PCs were doing.
  3. You believed that the task might lead to important and interesting discoveries.
  4. A colleague requested that you take part in the mission as a favor.
~ Pg 35 of Numenera Player's Guide by Monte Cook
The nouns are the "Character Type," which is usually called the "Class" in other RPGs. There are only three to choose from, but they each become vastly diverse depending on the adjective and verb you choose. The three types are Glaive - your typical fighter classes, Nano - the mages, and Jack - short for "Jack of all trades"; your rogue-like classes.

On top of the adjective and verb attached to the Type, there is also diversity in the Type itself. Since each Type encompasses so many other generic RP classes, you can figure out if your Glaive is a brutish swordsman that used to be a town guard, or a primitive mountain man who has lived off the land his whole life, or a noble fighter of the people who believed he was blessed by some divine being. Player interpretation is key. Beyond that even, there are three different backstory options for you to choose from in order to pick how you became that skilled Type in the first place.

We'll use samples of Jack as an example:
You might hear people say that a jack is just the typical everyman (or everyperson), but don't believe it. You aren't like anyone else. You can do things that no one else can do because you do so many things. You're a warrior, you're a thief, you're a diplomat, you're a sage, and you're a spy.

When you choose jack as a character type, come up with an explanation for how you learned your wide variety of talents. Choose one of the three options described below. It will provide the foundation of your background and give you an idea of how you can improve....

Born Lucky
You seem to be better than most people because you are. Your ancestors were part of a genetic experiment, and your genes are superior to those of the average human.... Some of your genetic advantage might even grant you low-level psychic abilities that greatly resemble the "miracles" performed by nanos.

School of Hard Knocks
You learned things the hard way - on your own. Adaptive and canny, you express the true strengths of humanity in your ability to adjust quickly to circumstances, pick up new tricks to succeed, and ultimately survive when you probably should be dead....

A Cobbled Jumble
You're the product of generations of eugenics, bolstered by minor cybernetic enhancements, a few small psychic abilities, and the lessons of secret masters. In other words, you don't have one source of power or one explanation for your abilities - you have many, and as far as you're concerned, that's the best formula for success....

~ Pg 28 and 29 of Numenera Player's Guide by Monte Cook
Finally, and this is the part that makes things REALLY diverse, you have nearly 30 different verbs, or "Character Focus," to pick from. While the Descriptor gives your character bonuses and a reason for them to join the quest, the Focus gives you the battle options and your connection to at least one other Player Character.

Each Focus is about a page long, so I can't really give an example of the full concept. However, for the basic flavor, I'll sample the first focus: Bears a Halo of Fire.
You can create a sheath of flames around your body. You leave scorch marks wherever you go, and you can't handle combustible objects without first dousing your inherent flames. If you perform esoteries (or similar effects beyond the abilities of normal humans), all your effects are tainted with flame. Fiery visuals accompany your powers, and in some cases, your predilection for flame actually reshapes your abilities to take on a fiery nature where none existed before.... For example, force blasts from Onslaught are blasts of flame, and Flash is a burst of fire....

You probably wear red and yellow, or perhaps black.

Although most of those who take up this mantle are nanos, flame-wielding glaives and jacks are fearsome indeed.

Connection: Pick one other PC. Through a quirk of fate, your fire cannot harm that character.
Additional Equipment: You have an artifact - a device that sprays inanimate objects to make them fire-resistant. All your starting gear has already been treated unless you don't want it to be.

~ Pg 38 of Numenera Player's Guide by Monte Cook
So, even if every player picks "Glaive," there can be some vast diversity among the party. Between the 12 Descriptors, 3 backstories, and 29 Foci, just one Type can have over 1000 different character builds! And who's to say that one Intelligent Psionic Nano who Bears a Halo of Fire is going to be played the same as another? Player interpretation kicks in there to add even more diversity! If that's not enough, there's already expansions to the core books that add even more Descriptors and Foci....

SO. MANY. POSSIBILITIES!

I'm still struggling with my character a bit, though, mostly due to option overload. The personality that popped into my head is definitely more of the street-wise School of Hard Knocks Jack than the book-smart Nano, however, I loved the idea of the Port and Plug Nano. So, with over 1000 possibilities for me to build my Nano, I decide to start my very first character sort of "off-book."

She WOULD have mastered skills that would define her as a Jack, but this orphan was actually kidnapped off the streets by a cult who experimented on her. Cybernetic surgeries were done to "enhance" her, against her will. She eventually became strong enough with the numenera to break free of the cult, but a bit of her brainwashing might still remain.

She is now a Nano not because she wanted to learn about the numenera, but because it became her way of life. It is how she survived and how she will continue to survive. She has learned to live with the scarring and mutilation of her body. In fact, she now greatly sees the benefits of being able to master the mystical force around her, simply by plugging in a new piece of tech. She studies the ancients as well as nanites and how they make up the numenera force. She realizes that the more she understands the numenera and how it came to be, the easier it is for her to better wield it. She may not be able to undo what the cult did to her, but she will use it to its every advantage now.

This is still open to change, but based on the above build, my sentence is:
I am a Mechanical reluctant Plugs and Port Nano who Fuses Flesh and Steel.

However, I am also quite partial to the Descriptors: Graceful, Intelligent, and Stealthy.
I'm also quite partial to the Foci: Controls Gravity, Crafts Illusions, Focuses Mind Over Matter, Masters Defense, Rides the Lightning, Controls Beasts, Talks to Machines, and Bears a Halo of Fire.

In fact, prior to reading the other foci in their entirety, Bears a Halo of Fire was the one I was all but convinced I was going to take. Plus, Controls Beasts or Talks to Machines would have been fun with Shadow's Mountain Man character. I could mess with him with either focus option since the connections are for the selected PC to somehow disturb the beasts I control, which would annoy Shadow who would be One with Nature, or that the selected PC is terrible with technology and would make the machines I communicate with worse. It would end up biting me in the behind, but again, how flavorfully appropriate for a Mountain Man to mess with machines like that?

I also have a bunch of reference pictures for my lady - what I was working on for hours last night instead of writing or typing up my already written prompts - but I couldn't find one picture yet that depicts my character in her entirety.

Yet again a time when I lament not being able to draw....

I guess I should start with a name for her, though. I'm picturing something mildly Latino for some reason. Considering the world of Numenera is Earth eons into the future, who knows what name-structure is like? It will be fun to try to explore those options. I'll have to keep you informed with how I'm doing as I go.

By next week I should have at least one story typed up to share, as well as at least a name for this new girl joining the ranks.