all i have to do is hit quota, after all

 journal, writing life  2 Responses »
Sep 302007
 

I have a house full of people at the moment, all here to meet the new baby. The new baby is supremely unfazed by this, and feels sleep is the best course of action. I've heard him squall exactly once since he arrived a couple of days ago and, though he did put a scrap of passion into it, it lasted less than five minutes. I'm telling you, this is my kind of baby. Sprog and I, we agree on the finer things of life: namely, sleep. It's important.

All the people makes a nice change to the atmosphere, since last week it was me and the cats. The cats got bored, and I got angry with their whining.1

Having said that, however, the words come harder when I have people in the house. They're all out there in the great yonder otherwise known as the rest of the house, while I am squirrelled away in a quiet corner, attempting to write. I can hear them, talking, laughing, watching movies. It's tricky, staying focussed on the novel, when I'd rather be out there with them.

Sometimes I'll haul the laptop out and attempt to join them while still writing, but it's not always successful. In fact, only when they're watching a movie I've already seen, which is a pretty narrow set of circumstances, all things considered. If there's conversation, particularly conversation over a glass of wine, well. It's all over, rover.

The best solution would be to write, and write quickly, so I can join them without a guilt-monkey on my back, of course.

  1. It's worth noting that the cats are now whining about being chased about by the toddler, and are claiming they'd rather be bored. It appears my cats are not zen kitties, but whiny kitties. [↩]

once, in flight school, i was laconic

 journal, pre-crash  4 Responses »
Sep 292007
 

Hands up, who remembers Snorgle? She's all of fifteen months old now, and as of a week ago she has a baby brother.

I've named him Sproglet. Sprog for short. He doesn't have a bib yet, but maybe he can share his sister's, because allegedly he snorgles more than she ever did.

I feel it's important, you see, that they have equal and matching names.

Snorgle welcomes Sproglet

Snorgle hugs the cats the same way, only they don't always stay so obligingly still for her.

focus. yeah, i've heard of that.

 novels, shadow bound  7 Responses »
Sep 262007
 

Having your website wiped out is, once you get over the daunting prospect of reinstalling and redesigning everything, almost liberating. (Why, yes, I am being gaggingly positive, aren't I? Don't worry, it won't last long.)

It's not so good for getting words done, however.

I was going to be virtuous and worry about the website after I'd reached quota, but I couldn't. The idea of code, sitting there, incomplete and fractured, was too distracting. I can't stand projects sitting half-done.1

I had to give up the writing until I'd wrangled the website into something approaching a non-eye-jarring display. Which being done, apart from a few niggles here and there, I could finally write. Only somewhere between 3 and 4 pages, but that's quota and it's progress.

I dearly wish I could be one of those writers who can churn out thousands upon thousands of words a day, every day. Every time I try, though, I write so much in the first few days that I burn out, skip a day, and inevitably spin down into a cycle of writing three days worth in one day, then nothing for four or five days. Not the most productive cycle — and, in the end, slower.

  1. Strangely, this impulse has never quite kicked in with the writing. I am quite capable of tolerating half-finished stories. (Which is lucky in a way, because I don't think I'm capable of writing a novel in a day.) I suspect this is because writing stories is an awful lot harder than writing website code. [↩]

good as a holiday, i'm told

 administrivia  9 Responses »
Sep 262007
 

Sometimes what you need is a fresh start. Sometimes you get one anyway.

I upgraded to WordPress 2.3 last night and, following a series of mystifying and doubtless comical problems, I … er … lost all my old posts.

Well, not lost, as such. I do have the databases backed up,1 and I do know of an import function that would bring all the old data back into the new install. I have lost all the categories on my old posts, though, backup or no, which is rather more of a pain. Sure and I don't want to be trawling through some whatever-many posts and re-categorising.

Surprisingly, I find myself quite sanguine about all of this. Strange.2

I have found the plugin which was breaking everything and thus caused my dreadful lapse of judgement in resorting to a clean install, so hopefully now all will be well. Although this does mean all comments will be treated as new, and will need to be manually approved before they appear; bear with me on that one. Also, anyone who bothered to register with the blog, that information is lost, sorry. You'll need to create a new login (although you don't need to be registered to comment).

So, here we are. Fresh install. First priority is to get the static pages up, and I'll maybe start importing old posts over the next few days. I'm also thinking, to celebrate my new state of zen, of designing a new look for the site.

We'll see how we go. In the meantime, welcome back. It's certainly sparser cleaner now!

  1. because I am a diligent little fly [↩]
  2. I can assure you I wasn't feeling quite so sanguine about six hours ago. It's amazing what sleep will fix. [↩]
 Posted by at 8:01 am

immortalised

 journal, pre-crash  4 Responses »
Sep 112007
 

Out and about today, and I came across this framed photo for sale. (Excuse the crappy mobile-phoneness of the photo, not to mention the reflections in the shopfront window.)

immortal-pasha.jpg

That's right, the grounded Pasha Bulker, gone though she may be, is now art.

For the paltry sum of … er, whatever they're asking, I didn't actually get a chance to look, whatever, that's not the point — for a paltry sum you can hang a picture of a grounded coal ship on your wall.

Although, to be fair, it's a pretty good picture.

And, to be doubly fair, I'd far rather hang a picture of the grounded ship on my wall than hang the 19 tonne shard of discarded rudder, ripped off during the un-grounding, in the town centre. No, I'm not joking.