In which I contemplate an old project

I have been attempting to learn Java, in some vague and undefined way, because the company is looking to the possibility of moving to more modern technologies, because it would be useful to have some broader professional skills, and because learning things is always cool. Like many things that are done in a vague and undefined way, I did a whole bunch in a great rush of enthusiasm and then other things got in the way and I ceased having the time to work on it.

But while I was in that rush of enthusiasm, I set myself a project. Nothing too fancy, just reading an input file and choosing a line at random to output. Like so:

If you can't read it, it says: You totally know how to code in Java!

A little silly, perhaps, but it was a good way of practising working with files, building array lists, working with individual rows in the array list, and even messing around with interfaces using Swing. It was cute, and I was pleased with it.

I had vague thoughts of turning it into an Android app, just to play with making an app rather than because I thought it was something the world needed. Though it would have been fun to have it on my own phone. But instead I got distracted by a friend challenging me to have it generate the encouraging phrases at random, using separate files of different sentence components.

I achieved that, but not in a way that felt satisfying. The encouraging phrases were all too similar, restricted by the need to start from pieces that could work with any other piece. It felt flat, and less encouraging than the original. Maybe that's a failure on my part, either failing to feed it sufficiently interesting components or failing to code it in a sufficiently flexible way. The possibility certainly niggles at me.

So, as and when I finally come back to this instead of putting it off in favour of editing (Words of Power is officially into its second draft now!) or crocheting or Pokemon (Ultra Moon, right now), do I go back to the app idea or do I work on trying to improve the text generator? My feeling is that the app is closer to the idea that got me excited in the first place, but maybe the text generator would be more of a challenge. And I do love me a good challenge...

In which I distract myself with yarn

Yes, just like a cat.

This week mostly revolved around getting the boiler replaced, less than a month after getting the hot water tank replaced. Turns out it's been dripping for some time and completely soaked the carpet in the room it's in. So now that room is a sauna while we try to dry it out. Sigh.

The trouble with having stuff go wrong around the house is it leaves me anxious right where I should be most able to relax. Every little noise has me convinced that something else is broken. But rather than talk about that, I'm going to focus on the cheerful and share the baby blanket I made for my nephew for Christmas. It's...

SPACE INVADERS!

It's entirely built out of small granny squares in two different colours, as you can see. We've established in the past that I like making geeky things out of granny squares so this was really a no-brainer. I used a blanket I already owned as a size guide, because it's easy to make a blanket that's far too big to be useful for a newborn. Smaller can be better.

And then it was just a matter of churning out the squares and stitching them together. It was originally meant to be done in time for the birth, but he came two weeks early and I missed it entirely. So instead it was finished on Christmas Eve, with me frantically weaving in the loose ends before we could drive off to the family. I hit deadlines. I just don't always hit them with much time to spare.

Next up is the similarly geeky Manic Miner filet crochet, for which I have finished the design and just need to do the actual work. And I've finished the first draft of Liquid Gravity, so I'm going to get started on the second draft of Words of Power later this week. Yay!

In which I remember to come back

Hey! I'm posting again!

Exciting things that happened this week include the boiler breaking less than a month after we had to replace the hot water (I love having no central heating in the middle of winter! It's the best!) and finally getting back out running thanks to a good friend (if we run together then neither of us can back out, because we both have a mortal fear of Letting People Down).

As for the list of goals I made last week, I'm making good progress on the horror novella, Liquid Gravity. I should have that finished by the end of the week, and then I can start looking at Words of Power.

I've also started plotting out the sprites for the Manic Miner filet crochet, having decided that it needs more than just a repeating border of Miner Willy (or a row of Willys, if you will). This shawl will have beautifully crocheted barrels and telephones and toilets(!) because who doesn't want to wear a beautifully crocheted toilet?

And because I never need an excuse to read more books, I thought I'd sign up for this SFF-themed bingo challenge. I'll be starting by reading the books that are already in my TBR pile and seeing which squares I can assign them to. Then, if I ever reach that magical place where I've actually read everything in the pile, I'll look at what I can pick up to specifically hit the squares I haven't already managed. I elected not to count the book I was already reading when I heard about the challenge (Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik, which I absolutely loved) but I finished that last night so everything from here counts. I may even try to post reviews here, at least for the ones I enjoy.

In which I look forward...

*blows away the cobwebs*

Apparently I neglected this place for the whole of 2017. That's quite impressive, even by my standards. Still, this is me attempting to get things going again with a quick spring-clean, a bit of a redesign and a tie across to my Twitter handle so that everything works together in perfect harmony. Or something.

It's not like I did nothing at all last year. I had Iron and Gold rejected by a number of agents, some of whom went so far as to read the whole thing before deciding it wasn't for them. I wrote a couple of new drafts based on their feedback, so it's now officially on version 7. I wrote the first draft of something new in November (currently titled Words of Power) and was quite pleased with how it came out. I started writing a horror novella when I had a couple of spare days at the end of November, though it stalled a little as soon as NaNoWriMo was over. I crocheted a Space Invaders themed blanket for my newborn nephew and finished it just in time for Christmas. All in all, things were pretty busy.

But that was last year. It's time to make some rash declarations for this year and see if I stick to them. So what's on the cards?

• Keep plugging away with Iron and Gold. There are still agents who haven't seen it, and others who maybe need prodding to get it out of the slush pile.
• Finish the horror novella and see about editing it into something worthwhile.
• Edit Words of Power and throw it at beta readers to see what happens.
• Keep collecting short story rejections.
• Pick up the Manic Miner-themed filet crochet that I set down in order to make the baby blanket.
• Finally get around to taking some measurements and having a go at drafting sewing patterns from scratch.
• Remember to update this blog more often (hahaha, yeah, we'll see...)

That seems like enough to be getting on with for the year. There are other things in there that don't need to be rash declarations, like finally going to see Hamilton in the West End next month (so excited!), but from a creative standpoint if I can hit all those goals I'll be happy.

Why not check back here from time to time to find out I've not bothered to update again?

In which I look back

It's December.  It's the sort of time when things get reviewed.  Arbitrary as it may be, there are things to review and it's as good a time as any.

So NaNoWriMo happened.  My final wordcount for the month (and the first draft) came in at just over 104,000 words.  Slightly fewer than last year, but the story ends when it ends.  And first drafts are where we find things, no matter how much we think we planned the story in advance.  I found a Khevelese engineer living in the refugee camp with fire in her heart and a refusal to take any crap despite her situation.  I found the story wants to be more of a mosaic, picking up perspectives from all over the city.  And I found the poisoner wasn't who I thought it was, and now the whole story needs reworking with that in mind.

This is why no one ever gets to see the draft I knock out during NaNo.  I reach the end of the month with so many ideas about how I should have been writing the story that there's no point in sending it to beta readers.  They'll get a later version, when I've fixed all the really obvious stuff.

The other thing I did this year was that big ol' rash declaration about sending a novel out to agents.  I managed that, of course.  The queries went out, and whilst I'm still mostly waiting to hear back (it's a busy time of year) I have now had two (two!) requests for the full manuscript.  And that's set against only one flat rejection, which seems like a damn good hit rate to me.  Even if both of those requests ultimately turn into rejections, it's a positive sign that those opening chapters have something good in them.  I'm feeling quite optimistic about the whole affair at the moment.  We'll see how long that lasts.

It's nice to have something to feel optimistic about at the moment.  I never did get a proper response to the email I sent to my MP.  And the world is probably going to end in nuclear apocalypse before I get a book published.  But, you know, if racing the end of the world is what it takes then I'm lacing up my running shoes.

Oh yeah, running.  Really ought to get back to that...

In which I get all political again

Yeah.  It's hard not to be political at the moment, isn't it?  It makes me miss my student days, when the world was comfortable enough that we could afford to be entirely apathetic.  What joy.

It's hard to talk about any of the recent stuff without swearing a lot, but I did my best to hold it in long enough to email my MP today.  I'm pasting the contents of said email below, for the sake of a record.  I don't think we can afford to be complacent, or to pretend that events on the other side of the Atlantic won't affect us.  And I'm not happy with the current assurances that we should just give him a chance and everything will be fine.  He had his chance, and he used it to appoint a full-on Nazi to his staff.  No more chances while that's still true.

Here's the email.  Feel free to crib the text if you think I've said anything useful:

Dear Mr Sturdy,

I am asking you as my elected representative to denounce the recent appointment of Stephen Bannon to Donald Trump's presidential staff, and to urge the whole of Parliament to do the same.  Mr Bannon holds a number of unpleasant views and should not be given such a powerful platform for his anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny and homophobia.  This goes beyond mere differences of political opinion and into views that society as a whole should reject as harmful.

This is a test.  Firstly, it is a test by Mr Trump to see what he will be allowed to get away with as President.  If we accept this appointment, we will enable him to cross further boundaries down the line, each of which will be normalised by our acceptance of the previous.

Secondly, it is a test from those who share Mr Bannon's views, to see if they are accepted by the rest of society.  If we do not reject this now, we send a message to these people that their views are acceptable.  By denouncing the appointment of Mr Bannon we make it clear that Britain will not allow these things to flourish.

Thirdly, it is a test of how we want to be considered in the future.  We have no control over who will tell our story, but we can have some measure of control over what they will say.  When historians look back at this time, do we want them to say that we stood aside and did nothing as hateful views were made acceptable?

Now is the time to take a stand.  If Mr Trump is serious about healing the divide in America, he will not achieve it by appointing a man who hates so many of its residents.  We are swift to condemn these things when they occur in smaller countries; we should not hesitate when they happen in a larger one.  And as much as I want our country to succeed in the wake of the Brexit referendum, I will not accept that success if it comes at the expense of women, gay people and people of colour.  We should refuse to make any deals with Mr Trump as long as he is working with Mr Bannon and others of his ilk.

I hope that you agree with me on this and that you will encourage the rest of Parliament to do the same.

In which I dive headlong into novel writing once more

It's November!  That means it's National Novel Writing Month, and I'm once again writing a new novel instead of editing an old one.  If nothing else, it's a great way of keeping from obsessing over agents (still very little to report on that front.  Waiting to float to the top of the slush pile, I imagine).

For the past few years, I've managed to arrange to have the first week in November off work to really get cracking on the writing.  This year, it's only four days (because the month had the poor taste to begin on a Tuesday), but I've got the 30th off as well just in case I need a sprint to the finish.  It's actually starting to look more like I'll be spending the 30th playing the new Pokemon game, because after three days I have 17,000 words written.  Enough to be able to take an evening off and write a blog post, if nothing else.

Yes, it's a little over the top.  But this is my 12th year doing NaNo.  If I hadn't learned a few things about how to get a first draft written in that time, there'd be no point in keeping doing it.  So, here are the things that I think have contributed to this most excellent beginning:

1) Experience - 12 years has taught me a lot about how I work best.  I know that I need a plan before I start, because 'pantsing' is too much like hard work and I'm happier knowing where my story is heading.  I also know that I do well with writing sprints - short, focussed bursts of writing followed by 10 or 15 minutes of goofing off and reading Twitter.

2) Bigger targets - The official NaNo target is 50,000 words, and for a long time that's what I aimed for.  And that's what I got, year in and year out.  I wasn't entirely happy with that, though, because I knew that that's actually right at the bottom end of the range of novel sizes.  Most published novels are longer.  Fantasy and sci-fi, in particular, are a lot longer.  But something about having a target for the month of 50,000 meant that my stories never ran much longer than that.  I'd tell myself it could be longer, then I'd hit 50k and the whole thing would wrap itself up in the next five thousand or so.

Then one year I ended up aiming for 100,000, split across two novels (it's a long story).  Writing that much nearly killed me (figuratively speaking), but I made it.  The following year, I decided to set myself a goal of 75,000 in a single novel.  I figured it would allow my story more room to breathe, and encourage me to stretch myself.  It worked.  I've been writing longer stories ever since, but still within that 30 day timeframe for the first draft.

3) Good advice - Pacing was my bugbear for a long time.  My stories always came out badly paced, because it's difficult to tell as you're writing.  Things that feel like they're taking forever to write actually rush by when you read them back.  Then a friend pointed me at the book Save the Cat, and its wonderful Beat Sheet.  Theoretically aimed at screenwriters rather than novelists, the beats are nevertheless a great way of working out when different things should happen in the novel.  I've had much better first drafts since I started using it, and just like the plan it gives me something to aim for.  If I know I need another ten thousand words before I get to the next Important Plot Moment, then I can just knuckle down and get on with those ten thousand words.

4) Confidence - A lot of this is related to the other points.  Years of doing NaNo have taught me that the moments when I'm sure the whole thing sucks are transitory, and will pass if I just push on and keep writing.  Writing longer books has made me more confident of my ability to get words down.  But most notably, the improvement in pacing has really done wonders.

I first used Save the Cat two years ago, for Shadows in the Nursery.  And I got a first draft that was worth editing, for the first time ever.  A first draft that I successfully turned into a complete second draft, and even a complete third draft.  I'm sure that success had a knock-on effect, because last year with Iron and Gold I wrote significantly more in that first week off, and indeed broke the 100k mark in November without it almost killing me (figuratively speaking).  Iron and Gold, as we know, has been through multiple drafts in the intervening year and is now my first novel to be clogging up agents' slush piles.  That feels like an achievement, regardless of any response I might get, and it's pushing me into writing even more this year.

And there we go.  Put that all together and that's how I've written a scary number of words in just three days.  Though ultimately, of course, it all boils down to that simple mantra: Butt in Chair, Fingers on Keyboard.  Everything else is just how you get there, and stay there.

There's still a long way to go.  I think I have, maybe, about 15% of the book written at this point.  Plenty more left to write before I can relax and start playing Pokemon.