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.

In which I have nothing much to report

It's been a month since I sent out my first queries for the novel.  And of the original six queries I sent, I've so far had one rejection (yay, first agent rejection!) and a whole lot of silence.

This is not a complaint, I hasten to add.  For one thing, the agents I queried were pretty much unanimous in claiming a 6 - 8 week response time on queries, and we haven't even reached that milestone yet.  For another thing, last week was Frankfurt Book Fair which will not only have impacted the reading of the slush pile while it was on, but the weeks before it will have been filled with prep work and now they'll be filled with follow-up.  My query won't be getting read and rejected until the dust from all of that has settled.  So we wait, and we have a little freakout every time the email notification appears on our phone, and we find other things to do in the meantime.

I responded to that one rejection by sending out another query to another agent somewhere else.  I also sent another one out today, just because I'd had a microscopic chat with the guy on Twitter the other day and I wanted to query him before I lost the tweets and couldn't remember who he was any more.  I've also finally gone back to sending out my short stories and acquiring more rejections for those too.  The Rejection Collection is coming along beautifully these days.

And it's only a week until NaNoWriMo!  I have pages upon pages of worldbuilding, and character notes, and story beats, and with luck by the end of November I'll have another first draft that's worth polishing up into something more.  That's assuming we haven't all perished in a nuclear war by then, of course...

In which I review the rash declaration made earlier

So at the start of the year I rashly declared that before another January came around I would be in a position to query agents with an actual, bona fide novel of my own.  And then I went quiet, because getting to that position meant focusing on novel drafts rather than blog posts.

The good news is that all of that work has paid off.  Iron and Gold has been through multiple drafts this year, and I finally reached the point where I'm, well, not happy with it because you can never be entirely happy with a story, but as content as I can be that it's as good as I can make it.  And so I've formatted it properly, and written a synopsis, and written a query letter, and sent it out to a few agents.  Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the rejections to come rolling in...

Obviously, I hope somebody likes it.  I hope it gets picked up, because I really like these characters and I want to write the other two books that I have in mind with them.  But just in case, I'm going to crack on with other things instead.

Helpfully, I've got NaNoWriMo looming to help with that.  I have a plot in mind, but there's still a certain amount of worldbuilding to be done.  I've got lizard people, and a matrilinear human society, and two different calendar systems, and a not-quite-murder mystery, and a host of characters, but I still need a few more names and things.  And a title.  I've no idea what this one is going to be called yet, but it'll come.

And if NaNo this year gets derailed by a deluge of responses from agents?  Well, that won't be such a bad thing now, will it?

In which I get started...

I'm watching Labyrinth tonight, because of course I am, but this isn't about the majesty of the Goblin King's trousers.  What could I possibly say that hasn't been said better by someone else already?

I've made a surprisingly good start on the second draft of Iron and Gold.  Reading over the first draft I found I actually quite liked it already.  It's not perfect by any means (because what first draft ever is?) but it's worth working on and polishing.  And so I set off, tweaking and improving, and for a while I was going great guns.  Two chapters a day, clean and tidy, and it was looking like I'd be through it in no time.

And then I hit Chapter Eight.

There's nothing inherently bad about Chapter Eight.  It's just that it's the first chapter that needs major work at this point.  It's like sprinting off the end of a race track and landing in a bog (with or without Eternal Stench).  It's still possible to get where you're going, but it takes a lot more effort.  And it's very easy to give up as soon as that happens.  It's not really your fault, after all.  It's the bog.

But there's only one way to get to the magical city of Complete Second Draft, and that's to slog through the bog until you come out the other side.  So that's where I am.  Slogging through the bog, knowing there's a good story in here somewhere, taking it one step at a time.

And admiring the majesty of the Goblin King's trousers...

In which we arbitrarily mark the completion of another orbit of the sun

New Year, New... Books?  Yeah, let's go with that, I got some very fine books for Christmas.

2015 was the year I finally got a story published.  2016 needs to top that, clearly.  And it's the time of year for making rash declarations, so I have Rashly Declared that I'll do everything I can to have something suitable for querying agents by the end of the year.

There are, essentially, two possible contenders for this.  The first, Shadows in the Nursery, is the gothic horror I wrote for NaNo 2014.  It's already had two further drafts in the intervening time, but there's more work to be done.  I'm currently gathering responses from beta readers for that, though, which leaves me open to do some work on the other option.

Iron and Gold is the fantasy novel I wrote during the most recent NaNo.  It's a number of things already; a complete rework of the story I wrote for NaNo 2010; the first novel of mine to run to over 100,000 words; and hopefully the start of a trilogy.  I intend to write book 2, Truth and Consequences, this coming November and that means I need to get the finer points of book 1 firmly nailed down before that.  I'm quite pleased with the first draft as it stands, but I have a list as long as my arm of things that need doing to improve it.  Everything from simple things like making sure character descriptions remain consistent throughout to bigger things like an entire subplot I want to add in.  No beta readers, as yet, because I have too many changes of my own to deal with.  They'll get the next draft, if they're lucky.

So, two big projects ongoing.  With luck I can alternate between the two, working on a draft of one while the other is percolating.  Plenty to keep me busy, and maybe I'll get around to submitting a few more short stories along the way.

In which I finally see my name in print

Not on my own blog, not in the school magazine I just so happened to be editor of at the time, but in a proper, professionally-produced magazine edited by somebody I have no connection with whatsoever.  My first-and-so-far-only story has been published!

Isn't that a thing of beauty?

For those wanting a copy of their own, it's available in electronic form (and later in a printed version) from Shoreline of Infinity in Issue 1.  I've been reading some of the other stories in this first issue and it looks like I'm in some pretty good company.  Plus there are illustrations, and the one that accompanies my story is absolutely spot on, a beautiful rendition of a pivotal moment in the story.  I couldn't be happier with it.

I'm celebrating this evening with a wee dram of Highland Park whisky, and keeping my fingers crossed that more of my stories will find homes soon.

In which I attempt to replace a bad habit with a good one

Much like the excellent Allie Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half, I have been known to struggle with being a grown-up.  I'm pretty good at going to work every day and getting stuff done while I'm there.  I can (mostly) manage to pay my bills on time and Daughter is generally clothed and well-fed.  But I fall down every time when it comes to cleaning *all* the things.

I have never acquired the habit of being tidy.  As a teenager, the best way to enter my room was to take a flying leap from the doorway onto the bed.  When my parents' house was burgled they had to assure the police that my room always looked like that and had not, in fact, been ransacked.  Nothing's really changed since then, except that I no longer have even the mild risk of coming home to find my mother tidying my stuff (it didn't happen often, but it was always disastrous when it did).

So every so often I get seized by the urge to not live in a pigsty any more.  I go into a frenzy and clean the entire house (or at least as much as I can before the mood passes).  Sometimes I even drag Husband and Daughter into the whole thing and force them to help out too.  By the end, you could almost believe that the house is inhabited by adults.

Trouble is, once I'm done I'm worn out, and in no mood to tidy any more.  So it doesn't take long before the kipple starts to creep back in, and before you know it it's back to how it was.  Only this time there's the added bonus that I'm now irritated because damn it, I *just* tidied everywhere and now look at it.

Thus, new plan: no more tidying on such a grand scale.  No more cleaning *all* the things.  In its place, half an hour of tidying every day.  Half an hour of picking crap up off the floor is hardly going to dent my schedule, but I think it would make a difference to the house.  And maybe it won't wear me out so much, so will actually be sustainable.  It might not be, given that it's far easier to acquire bad habits than good ones, but we'll see how it goes.

The tidy people among you are probably thinking, "Well, of course that's what you should be doing.  It's hardly rocket science to say that if you want to keep things tidy you should tidy every day."  And you're right.  It's not rocket science.  But it'll be a major shift in how I do things, so how about just wishing me luck instead?

In which I actually like something I've made...

I have a weakness for tailored jackets.  Properly tailored, not just off the rack at [insert name of high-street shop here].  Luckily, I've been known to sew clothes from time to time.  Unluckily, jackets are bastard hard to get right.  I've made several over the years, some of which have been absolutely terrible.

One of the more terrible attempts involved Vogue pattern 8679.  I made it to wear to my sister-in-law's wedding, wore it for that one occasion and then never touched it again.  That one was poorly fitted, because I sized it for my waist and failed to take it in at the bust.  The lapels were a mess, and it was badly rushed towards the end.  Rushed to the extent that I was still stitching the hems on the bus to the wedding.

So, it didn't work out.  But I still loved the pattern, so I finally decided to have another crack at it.  Here's attempt number two:

I like this jacket because it's business in the front...

...and party at the back

It's much better fitted this time around (if I do say so myself), not least because this time I had Helena to assist.  I was able to take it in where I needed to without having to be wearing it at the same time, which really does make it easier.  The lapels, while not perfect, are also better than the previous attempt.

What I'm really proud of, though, and what doesn't really show in the pictures, are the pockets.  The actual pattern comes with pocket flaps, but no pockets, and that really irritates me.  It's bad enough when regular women's clothing comes with pretend pockets, but deliberately sewing it that way myself would be ridiculous.  So it was either leave the flaps off entirely, or go off-piste and make real pockets.  I chose the real pocket option.

It's only the second time I've made welt pockets.  The first was when helping out a friend with a jacket for some Eli Monpress cosplay.  That took the pressure off a little, partly because she'd reached the point of, "Just do it, I don't care if it gets ruined" (long story) and partly because, much as it's good for cosplay to look good, it only had to last for a single convention.  This jacket is intended for long-term use, so I wanted it to be right.

It was hair-raising, and it almost went wrong once or twice, but I managed to make actual, working pockets.  The marking for positioning the fake flaps made positioning the pocket welts easy.  I also elected to ignore the suggestion to make both sides of the flaps from the outer fabric, and actually made the undersides from the lining fabric.  It took a little bit of bulk out, and also gives a cheeky flash of purple when the flaps are raised.

So, yes, fully working jacket.  It's been test-driven in the office and garnered no comments whatsoever, which is a great result.  Nobody said, "What on earth are you wearing?"  That's a win.

Now on to the next jacket!

In which strange things are afoot at the Circle K...

Things are happening at the moment.  Some of them I can't talk about, not least because those are the ones where I don't actually know what's going on myself.  I have my suspicions, but they're so wildly implausible that I'm sure I must be wrong.

But I didn't just come here to be intentionally mysterious.  There are things that I can talk about, like the fact that I'm about to start learning to support some new stuff at work.  We're being given stuff to do with Enterprise Service Bus, TIBCO and XMLM messaging.  It all seems a bit daunting at the moment, but then it's not been that long since I was having to learn COBOL from scratch, so I'm sure I can handle it.  And it all ties in nicely to my team's general conviction that we're the only ones who actually get stuff done.

Also new is the cat that's currently curled up asleep on the sofa next to me.  I'd take a picture, but he's solid black so photographs don't come out well, especially when his eyes are closed.  His name is Garrus, he's about three and a half, and he is the Softest Cat Ever.  Soft as in his fur, but he's also extremely placid and fond of company.  We acquired him from a friend who's about to move to Sweden and can't take him along.

Last but not least, I have multiple stories out acquiring rejections these days.  I've got quite a fine collection that I'm lovingly curating.  So far, only one story has been a disappointment and actually got itself accepted somewhere...

Yes, that's right, I'm having a story properly published.  It will be appearing in the very first issue of Shoreline of Infinity, which is due out next month.  Clearly fame and fortune beckon from here on in.  I'd be up for a Hugo next year if I hadn't foolishly made the protagonist a Japanese woman...

In which I actually get stuff done, for once

I've been writing a lot just lately. My laptop is positively bursting with stories. That's pretty unusual for me, so I've been musing on the reasons in the hope of sustaining it.

A goodly portion of the credit (blame?) has to go to the folks in the Sort-Of-NaNo-Based-Writing-Group. Having finally succeeded in keeping things going outside of November, it means there are people who want to know what I've written lately, and who keep throwing out writing prompts. Turns out all I ever needed to write a short story was for somebody to give me a title.

Then there's the COBOL factory. No, it's not also stuffed with writers (to the best of my knowledge), but one should never underestimate the power of one's mental state on writing, or of the day job on one's mental state. I'm finally in a job that I love, that challenges me, and that I'm genuinely good at. That feeling spills over into other things. Kicking ass at work makes me want to kick more ass when I get home.

Last but not least, there's the Mighty Power of Procrastination. Writing is a wonderful way of putting off other things. Specifically at the moment there's a jacket I should be sewing together. I'm just putting it off because I foolishly decided to go off-pattern and put proper pockets in it. I don't have a lot of experience of making pockets, so there's a real danger that I'll ruin the whole thing. I'll get around to it eventually, but in the mean time I'm putting it off by writing All the Stories.

Maybe this habit will continue, maybe it won't, but I'll be making the most of it while it lasts. There are stories to write, stories to edit (when my beta-readers get back to me, at least. The trouble with writing more is it leads to demanding more feedback), and if all else fails there's a novel to work on.

*puts on Boots of +3 to Ass-Kicking*

In which I dabble with cosplay

I've never been much of a cosplay person. Partly that may be because I can count the number of conventions I've been to on the fingers of one finger, but there are other reasons. A dislike of people looking at me. An aversion to spending money on something that can only be worn on specific occasions. An overwhelming fear of dressing up only to discover that nobody else has. I'm in awe of those who do cosplay and do it well, but I've never really seen it as something for me.

All of which is, of course, setup for writing about a recent brush with cosplay that I'm actually rather proud of. Many of the issues above didn't apply, because I wasn't the one wearing it. It was a costume for Small Girl, made at her request.

This last weekend, the National Space Centre in Leicester were having a special Doctor Who weekend, and on the Sunday the special guests in attendance were Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred. Being the age that I am, I naturally consider them the finest Doctor and Companion ever to grace our screens, and so tickets were acquired to go and check out the event.

The website was encouraging people (and particularly children) to come dressed as their favourite character, and Small Girl does not share my fear of dressing up. Husband suggested that with her hair she should be Amy Pond, but she declared that she wanted to be Ace. That's my girl.

Step One was to acquire the base of the costume. We got lucky and found that Asda were selling 'leather' bomber jackets in their children's clothing section (even if they did shelve them in the 'boys' section). A skirt was easy enough to acquire, and she already had a t-shirt that would work. Bonus points for these all being items she can continue to get use from.

Step Two was to convert the jacket into something more Ace-like. The internet furnished me with a flat image of the logo from the back of the jacket that I could print and use as a template. I already had coloured felt to hand to make the pieces from. Rather than apply them directly to the jacket, I used some spare black cotton fabric as a backing. The felt was appliqued to the cotton using the sewing machine for a good strong finish, then I trimmed away the excess cotton and hand-stitched the pieces to the back of the jacket. That made it easier to position the logo correctly, and ensured the stitching didn't go right through the lining of the jacket. It also minimised the number of holes being made in the leather, keeping the jacket strong.

How does it look? Pretty Ace, actually...

Then it was on to the badges. There was no question of even attempting accuracy here. Achieving an accurate collection of badges involves a lot of time and expenditure, and getting certain ones custom-made. It was never going to happen when I only had two weeks and no desire to spend more money than strictly necessary. Instead I gathered up every badge and patch we already had in the house, plus a couple of extra patches picked up cheaply enough from craft shops. The finished jacket has NaNoWriMo merit badges, Shakespearean insults, Firefly and Monty Python references and some random bands all thrown together in a glorious mashup.

You want badges? She's got badges

So, was it worth it? You betcha. Not only because Small Girl loved it, though that was all I really needed from it. While we were at the exhibition, we attended a Q&A session with Sylvester and Sophie. Despite our sitting right over to one side, amongst a great crowd of people, Sophie spotted Small Girl's costume from the stage and came over specifically to talk to her and compliment the outfit. Seal of approval from Ace herself? Wicked! Hard work paid off in the best possible way, not least in the look on Small Girl's face afterwards.

Maybe I could get to like this cosplay malarkey after all...

Coding and Poetry

It's National Poetry Day, apparently, so I thought I should finally tie up the loose ends from the COBOL poem I posted the other week.  Loose ends like what on earth possessed me to write a poem in COBOL...

It all started with a blog post from Girl on the Net, detailing the filthy things she'd like to do to programmers (link probably NSFW, needless to say).  More power to her elbow, I say, though since I work in an open plan office none of the things she's thinking of would be even remotely feasible.

Anyway, that was where it started.  Following on from that, via the magic of Twitter, I found myself reading an elderly article about poetry in Perl.  And this is where the trouble started.  That article makes a couple of snarky comments about COBOL, like "getting a volunteer to write poetry in COBOL is likely to be impossible."  So what was I supposed to do?  Just let it pass?  No, I couldn't really ignore the gauntlet that had been thrown down, even if it was a gauntlet that only I could see.  So I sat down, and I wrote a COBOL poem, and I posted it on here.  And then I sent it to Girl on the Net and the individual who'd linked to the Perl article, just because.

Don't worry, I'm not about to announce that I've now compiled an entire anthology of poems in COBOL, or in other obscure programming languages.  Though I did write a haiku in Spectrum BASIC while messing around on Twitter:

10 PRINT "Forever"
20 PRINT "I will love you"
30 GOTO 10

Anyone who bothered to look at the comments on the COBOL poem, however, will have seen that I was challenged to write something using Inform 7.  Something that would work as a code poem and as a piece of interactive fiction.  In the end, I wrote two.  Sort of.

See, although Inform 7 is practically English anyway, it's still code.  And it's code designed for a very specific job.  The closest I got to actual poetry in the code wasn't a very good piece of IF; you can examine a couple of things and there's a single command that allows you to win, and that's it.  Otherwise you just expire after about five turns.  It's very poetic and lovely, but it's a bit rubbish to actually play.  The other one managed to be slightly (but only slightly) more engaging as IF, but wasn't much cop as poetry as a result.  To make good IF you need to build a rich environment and then nail down absolutely everything the player might consider doing; poetry works better when you skirt around the edges and hint at things.

So I shan't be posting the results, as interesting a challenge as it was.  They were sent to my challenger, as proof that the challenge had been completed (and since he didn't write anything I win by default!), but they won't be seeing the light of day as poems.  Maybe as IF, if I work on them a little more someday.  Or maybe I'll write something else instead.

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike...

COBOL Poetry

 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.

 PROGRAM-ID. POETRY.

*

***********************************************************************

* THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I READ ABOUT PEOPLE WRITING POEMS IN PERL *

* AND THE ARTICLE SUGGESTS NO ONE WOULD EVER WRITE ONE IN COBOL       *

*            CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!                                      *

***********************************************************************

*

 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.

*

 DATA DIVISION.

 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.

*

 01 WONDER-IF-YOU-LOVE-ME  PIC X(1).

      88 YOU-LOVE-ME         VALUE 'Y'.

      88 YOU-LOVE-ME-NOT     VALUE 'N'.

*

 01 MY-BEST-SIDE  PIC X(40) 

                  VALUE 'ALL NEUROSES HIDDEN SO YOU WILL LOVE ME.'.

*

 PROCEDURE DIVISION.

*

 HOW-TO-MAKE-YOU-LOVE-ME.

*

     IF YOU-LOVE-ME

        CONTINUE

     ELSE

        PERFORM TO-WIN-YOUR-LOVE

     END-IF

*

     GOBACK.

*

 TO-WIN-YOUR-LOVE.

*

     PERFORM UNTIL YOU-LOVE-ME

        DISPLAY MY-BEST-SIDE

     END-PERFORM

*

     EXIT.

*

Time And Relative Dimension In Blanket

I'm... not exactly unambitious when it comes to my projects.  Or at least, once I get an idea in my head I won't talk myself out of it for flimsy reasons like the amount of work involved.  Like, say, crocheting 264 granny squares and assembling them into a blanket that looks like the TARDIS:

It's actually longer than the bed

As crochet practice goes, it's actually been quite a good method.  Plenty to focus on, it breaks down into manageable chunks, and the pattern for a granny square is extremely simple.  The repetition is excellent for getting the hang of crochet.  It took me an hour to make a single square at the start, but by the end it was more like twenty minutes.

Apart from those awkward two-tone ones at the edge of the information panel

The writing across the top is just chains, made to length and then stitched on top of the blanket.  Granny squares being full of holes, there's a limit to how small the writing can go.  Which is why I didn't make all the writing for the door - "Pull to Open" and all that.  I considered it, but it simply wasn't feasible.  The white panel breaks up the front, though, which is why I made it rather than just crocheting a different side of the TARDIS.

Yes, I took this picture just so I could make a 'P please, Bob' joke

This wound up being about six months of work from first conception to finished product, though there was a certain amount of getting distracted by other things along the way.  But I had it done just in time for the first episode of the new series, and now the whole family gets to snuggle under it while we watch.  That's really all I made it for, so I'm calling this a success.