Well, 2024 went by quickly. I am half expecting to wake up tomorrow and find out it's sometime in the 2040s. So, hey there Dreamwidth, how are you doing?

Anyway, in no particular order some goals for 2025:
* At least 120 writing days this year (signed up for GYWO with this goal)
* Draw! Start on Draw A Box
* Pick up guitar again. For one reason or another I stopped playing guitar in the midst of the eternal spring 2020. Late last year I took my Traveler electric travel guitar and upgraded the tuners to locking tuners so I no longer have the excuse of the highly annoying stock tuners on it.
* Be more active here and blog on my own domain.
* Prepare more of my own food. Largely this means preparing more lunches and breakfasts as we have already drastically cut back on eating out for dinner.
* Do some solo RPGing. I may very well do some posts relating to this. I have a few sets of rules, including the Captains Log solo Star Trek RPG put out by the current Trek RPG license holder and have half completed the process of creating captain, main crew, and ship (A Caitian captain, with an early Miranda class that Starfleet has loaned to the Caitian government's scientific research arm with a mission to explore and study places within Federation territory that haven't been directly studied yet).

Here's hoping for new posts in less than 12 months.

Current Mood: tired

Let's see...

1) I've been working through Learn Enough HTML, CSS, and Layout to Be Dangerous. Which you can either buy on paper for the usual OMG! pricing of computer books, as a subscription on the Learn Enough website (starting at $19/m for one course or $39 for the whole collection), or if you have access to the O'Reilly Books learning platform (formerly called Safari Bookshelf, and quite possibly freely available if you are student or staff at a college). I've been using a combination of the ebook and the videos for each section and finding that for whatever reason things seem to be sticking better this time around.

2) The above has also been increasing the itch I first got a couple years ago to take the characters and sketch of a setting I created in late 2013 (you can find them under the character a day tag) and put together a small ebook/e-zine as well as to do another of these character-a-day for a week projects.

3) Vacation! I can sleep again! Sorry, that is to say, one benefit of working for an educational institution (the place that I occasionally refer to online as Mumble College, based on someone else having years ago referred online to the place they worked at as Mumble Pharmacy) is that I get the 4th off and have sufficient vacation days to take the rest of the week off as well. My plans are sleeping, visiting my folks, sleeping, driving relative to an appointment, sleeping, working on the CSS/Layout tutorial mentioned up under heading one, sleeping, and if time permits some extra sleeping.

4) Oh, add on that I will probably spend at least a little time working on the python solo-rpg card deck tool thingy mentioned in my prior post. Maybe even start the journaling game.

5) Yeah, no, not even putting in a project for July Camp NaNo this year. But getting some writing done is on my list for the month (see item four above). I also have some delayed/stuck writing projects I want to unstick and start working on again. Ranging from my idea for last year's NaNoWriMo, revising (or rather probably taking a good hard look at, outlining, and rewriting) my 2017 NaNoWriMo project which is also known as my only NaNoWriMo to actually reach 50K, to continuing the Magic School Doofus's who haven't seen a post since 2017.

6) In annoying news, as I believe I'm approaching the end of DuoLingo Esperanto course I was planning to try posting on one of the Esperanto subreddits and using that place to get some actual (textual) conversational practice to move beyond the limitations of the course. But given the current events of Reddit... Any esperantistoj have advice for online communities? I'll probably check mastodon again as I believe there is at least one Esperanto focused mastodon instance. Lernu has some resources but it looks like not forums. I'll probably post here and see if I can stir up some activity. There are a few Dreamwidth Esperanto communities but do not seem to have been active recently.

Huh. That's six updates, not five. Oh well. I'm not going to update the subject line, you'll just have to put up with having bonus updates :)

*wanders in and brushes dust of the journal*

Oh, hello there. If you follow me over on the fediverse you might recall that a while back (oh, a month ago already? Okay, a month ago) I commented that I was looking at starting in on a journaling* game and had settled on a game by Dice Problems written for the 2021 Carta Jam, Help! I Have A Crush On My Rival?! Which is basically what it says on the tin. You come up with a character, who has a rival. There is a playing field made up of standard playing cards. When you flip over a card you look up the suit-color and value for a writing prompt about an interaction involving the rival. There's a little more complexity than that, but not much more than that. When you reach the end state of the game you work out how or whether the relationship between the protagonist and rival changes.

So, I had mentioned in the couple of posts I made over on the fedi that I had two things delaying me. First, well to quote myself, Surely there is nothing unusual about ones first thought after considering starting up a journaling game be, "Okay, so first I need to write a python program that creates a card deck, deals them out into a layout and stores the state to disk. Oh, and a CLI for interacting with it." Right? Which I haven't done nearly us much as I wanted with (barely anything in fact). Partly due to getting sick in the meantime (Yay antibiotics? Even if they have un-fun side effects) and partly from getting barely any non-work keyboard time. But I do have a bit of python that will create and shuffle a deck of cards, I basically just need to add a bit that deals out a playing field and then presents it to you in such a way that you can pick a card to flip over (oh, and also store the unflipped/flipped state of each card?). Not difficult. I just need to sit down and actually do it.

The second thing delaying me was the need to sit down and actually do some research. Basically I decided that if I was going to do something involving rivals I'd go with a character idea I had a few years back who either resides in the Polychrome Heroics universe or in a nearby timeline. The setting was not really the need-to-do-research part (although I should go back and do some rereading in setting), it's that the first mental image I got of the character informed me both that they are a budding gadgeteer/tinkerer and that they have two prosthetic legs. If I was going to write about someone being blind, well that's right in the family, I think I could do a halfway decent job of not embarrassing myself. But no one in close family or acquaintances has a prosthetic limb. Now that I'm posting this here I'll repeat the request I'd made over on fedi, if anyone reading this either uses a prosthetic limb or otherwise has knowledge and they'd like to either pass it along, share a good source of information, or go, "Oh my goodness, please, please don't invoke stereotype/pet-peeve X about this," feel free to comment below or send a message. I think I've read enough not to be utterly ignorant now, but I'm not going to claim to be any kind of expert.

Anyway, I'm going to poke some more python code and work out more about the rival and hopefully not be all that long before I post something.

*Interesting tidbit: Unsure whether the proper spelling would be journaling or journalling as spellcheck doesn't like either, I could have turned to a dictionary but instead went to the ngram viewer to see which occurred more frequently. Prior to the 1990s the prominence of one over the other seemed to flip flop from time to time. Then in the mid 90s journaling with one L shot way up on the graph while journalling stayed about the same. So, yeah, apparently journaling with one L is the widely accepted version. At least in the corpus used by google's ngram thingy.

Hello again. Been a bit since my last post, not quite as long as some of the gaps but a month and change still. I'm doing well enough and I'm hoping for a decent 2023. I didn't get a huge amount done in 2022, but it was at least *mostly* trouble free. A dental uh-oh ate up most of my emergency slack in early December, but other than that... not too bad. Better than 2020 and 2021 (aka the year that started good and then my car decided to act up).

I'm not going to call these resolutions, but plans for 2023:
- Restart my static blog as a '100 days of' tracker. Starting with 100 days of basic html, css, and javascript.
- Read more. As if that needs explanation :)
- Write more. I got a teensy bit written during NaNo and I'd like to keep moving forward with that project
- Actually at least try doing the Draw A Box program this year
- Do more electronics tinkering this year. Last month I pulled out an arduino kit I got in 2021 and started going through it.
- Mi povus ŝati plenigi la Duolingo Esperanto kurso. Mi finis eta pli ol duonon la kurso.
- Two more maybes for 100 days of: Scribus and QGIS. It occurred to me that I hadn't tried making any more maps with QGIS after I replaced my former laptop back in 2021 (it was about a decade old and a low end model when new, so it was time) and this one will probably be able to handle it better. I'd managed far enough back in 2019 to make a map of Arizona that had some locations that I thought were interesting marked on it (Kitt Peak, the Musical Instrument Museum, etc).
- Get under 200 pounds. Really I'll be happy if I can get my trendline to stay under 210. I doubt I'll manage to 175 I was as a teenager, and frankly I was darn skinny then. I wouldn't mind if most of the weight over that was muscle, I just don't need fifty pounds of bonus muscle, so yeah under 210 or even if possible 200 please.
- Take up guitar again. I ended up tapering off during 2020 and basically stopped playing. I'd like to get back to where I was and then keep going.

Current Mood: contemplative

This year I wrote just over 119,000 tracked words. Nearly half of those were produced during April's Camp NaNoWriMo, in a largely seat of the pants written telling of Leslie McCormack's experiences after being tossed into another universe (I have revised and posted a little of that). Posted fiction this year included:

Knotted Handkerchief, in which a young woman inherits a family mystery.

Tonya (Tries to) Hide, in which fugitive and super powered Tonya tries hiding in a vacation cabin.

Just Purrfect, in which Nicholai and Jamsa make a return. With Jamsa seeking his roommate's help with a bit of Halloween magic.

If You Have Me, Why Do You Need Them?, wherein a young slave is confused about his owner's intentions.

Consequences, taking place on the evening of Halloween with Jamsa facing the consequences of his prior actions.

Untitled first entry of Wolf Boy, an injured young werewolf discovers he's not alone.

Cody's Dream, Cody, a character from Addergoole Year 9 has a prophetic dream.

Leslie McCormack and the Story Without A Title
- Part 1A, The R.O.B.'s Revenge or Leslie McCormack's Last Night on Earth
- Part 1B, Leslie McCormack Thinks It's All A Dream
- Part 1C, Leslie McCormack Would Like To Wake Up Now. Please?
- Part 2A, Leslie McCormack Is Stuck On Other-Earth

Additionally I started a series of webcomic reviews:

Webcomic Comments #1: Twin Dragons, which as the title suggests is about a pair of dragon twins, brother and sister Kai and Kaya. The two live in a world much like ours accept that around 16 years earlier one in a thousand births began resulting in children who were partly animal in appearance. Dog people, cat people, or in our protagonists case dragon people.

Webcomic Comments #2: Champions of the Melting Pot.Young Xero has a problem, it's finals time and his mother wants to know when he's going to get a job. Okay, Xero has two problems, finals, mom asking about a job, and utter boredom. Right, three problems. Thankfully the plot is prepared to help with two of those... The IGSF is prepared to help with the job problem when they decide Xero has the appearance of a protagonist.

Webcomic Comments #3: MAiZ. The adventures of Meli, a young woman who has set out on an archaeological quest and a boy named Jaz. Who she isn't certain about at first as he's wearing a mask to hide his strange appearance.

Unfortunately right about the time I was writing the third I became ludicrously sick. If you must get ill I recommend catching a cold that has no need for attached adjectives unless those adjectives are things like minor or brief. Especially don't catch anything that involves adjectives like ludicrous or lasting. After three not-at-all fun weeks the rhythm I'd started to build up was busted and I never did continue on to a fourth review. Webcomic Comments is something I plan to pick up again in the coming year.

I've been continuing to practice playing the guitar and I'm starting to actually feel comfortable with it. Sometime in this coming year I may actually feel comfortable playing something for others. I've gone from a Yamaha Acoustic to that and a used Fender Stratocaster with an amplifier and a few peddles. I've been pondering a ukulele or travel guitar for something I can take with me and practice when I'm not at home. Ukes can be had inexpensively and a used travel guitar doesn't need to cost much.

Plans for 2018:

Keep writing. I've even made a list of specific projects to keep working on or pick up again. There will undoubtedly be new things as well.

Keep up with my guitar practice. Get good enough that I don't cringe at the thought of playing where others can hear.

Let 2018 be the year I engage in some serious concalendaring. The calendar equivalent of conlanging's playing with language.

Do some Seven Days Of projects: Seven Days of Characters, Seven Days of Setting Creation, etc.

Still looking to lose some weight

Probably no conventions in 2018 unless maybe towards the end of the year. It's just not in my budget.

Pick up my camera again.

Pay down debts (glares in general direction of 2016's car accident)

Continue to give to others. Thankfully Patreon backed down on their changes so I haven't had to abandon supporting others there. But I'll be looking at other services and seeing what else is in use by people I'd be interested in helping to support the works of.

Current Mood: peaceful

What's that? Oh, hey, a new year has started!

Welcome to 2017

Looking back at 2016
- Very few posts. I don't even have to click on a "Previous 20 entries" link to see posts from 2015.
- I never even entered anything into my 2016 word count tracking spreadsheet. Oops. I did post a few short pieces so the word count is over zero.
- Oh look, among everything else about 2016 it included my first car accident. Which thankfully included my insurance agreeing the other person was 100% at fault (speeding, ran a red light, ran on foot from the scene almost instantly; a good list of things not to do and also a list of things the other person did).
- I continued the guitar lessons. I'm by no means ready to go out on stage or busk on a street corner but I am enjoying the lessons quite a bit.
Looking ahead at 2017
- Definitely continuing with guitar. In fact I'm hoping to get to the point I'm comfortable recording something and posting it somewhere.
  - Towards this I've made a list of songs I'm going to concentrate on this year. They won't be all I work on but I am going to keep them in the forefront.
  - More deliberate practice. Or in other words looking for specific things to practice. For my list of songs there are particular sections I'm working on. I'm also working on improving the use of basic strumming patterns with my right hand and switching more smoothly between chords with my left hand.
- Writing, so many things I want to write, in 2017 I'm going to knock the cobwebs off my writing and get back to it.
  - I'm pondering some sort of serial flash thing. Something which I aim at regularly adding small amounts to even if just as pump-priming and only for myself.
  - Complete a row or column on one of my writing bingo cards :)
  - I should consider doing some more "X Days of _" those can be both challenging and fun.
- Languages: I want to do more learning languages and playing with them this year.
  - I've completed the Esperanto skill tree on DuoLingo this week. This by no means fluent now but it's further than I've made it in previous attempts at a language. I intend to spend January reviewing, reading, and working on that some more and then starting back up on Spanish or German come February.
- Lose more weight. This is going to be a goal for a while and probably into 2018 but I'm going to make an effort to have progress on this goal again.
  - More physical activity! Calories burned > Calories consumed = weight loss
  - Eat better! I'm a picky eater. A very picky eater. That said I need to get more fiber into my diet, more vegetable matter in general.
- Conventions: This is a big maybe for 2017. If I do go to any they'll be local and most likely without getting a hotel room since that would put a strain on my efforts towards the next bit below
- Paying down debts: I've zeroed out one and might be able to zero out another by my birthday (hey kid version of me, look at how exciting being an adult is, paying off a debt as a present). I'm not feeling all that excited for the economy which makes getting rid of debt rather a good idea. I want to be in the position to have everything (other than the new*er* car, thank you again person who hit my car) paid off by the end of 2018. The nice thing is you can snowball this. When you get a debt paid off the money in the monthly budget that would have gone towards it can be shifted to increasing the payments on another.
  - But as mentioned on the conventions line above, this also requires keeping an eye on spending. Conventions can be expensive if you aren't careful.
- Giving: That said, when I get the next debt paid off I think I'm going to increase my Patreon budget. Either increase a few of my existing pledges or add a few more.
- Non-writing-or-guitar-arty-stuff:
  - Pondering picking up pencil again and doing some more sketching.
  - Likewise I want to fire up Inkscape again and do more vector stuff.
    - One thought is sketching ideas for possible pins and then taking the ideas I like best to Inkscape for cleaning up and coloring.
  - Also looking at the beading supplies I have and pondering...
  - I want to get back into worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is fun.
- I also wanting to get back into RPing. Either in person or more likely online.

Current Mood: tired
Crossposts: http://lilfluff.livejournal.com/167612.html

Manually crossposting from my deviantart journal

Looking back at 2015 there were lows and highs:

I got a health wakeup call. Early in the year my doctor shared blood test results in which my numbers had generally improved in various categories. Then at my next visit my weight was up to a record high and my numbers were the worst I've had. Not good, especially considering family medical history. Since then I have been making an effort to reverse this. I have my weight back down to where it was in 2014 and I'm going to work to get it lower still.
I enjoyed what may be my last conventions for a bit. In retrospect they really weren't good for my budget, even considering that I didn't get a hotel room for Phoenix ComiCon, just going to a convention means temptations to spend money at nearly every turn. Looking forward I just can't afford that in 2016.
Which brings up money in general. 2015 was not a good year economically. I have made essentially zero economic progress this past year. While I have reduced spending in some areas that's been matched by the car payments that started in 2014 (thank you once again for dying before I was ready Malibu, it will be some time before I even consider a GM car again) and the cost of guitar lessons. At least both of those have their perks. The new(er) car is nicer than the Malibu and I'm enjoying learning guitar.
One of my primary job tasks at work has pretty much evaporated. The good news is that work is seeing this as an opportunity for me to grow into new things rather than an opportunity to reduce their payroll expenses.
I got rid of a great deal of clutter at the tail end of 2014 and early this year. I opened up boxes that hadn't been touched since moving out of my parents home and got rid of a great many things. Old computers that hadn't been booted up for years, several disk boxes of 5 1/4 inch floppies as I haven't even seen a drive for those in years, and a great many books (I now have substantial store credit at the local used books and stuff store).
We changed the arrangement of the furniture in the apartment and the new layout *works*. Combined with decluttering the apartment feels much more spacious than before.
I poked at some setting creation but did less writing than in 2014. That said some of that poking may bare fruit in 2016.
I dropped Flight Rising for various reasons. For a bit that was taken up with the Marvel Puzzle Quest app, but I haven't been doing as much of that either. I didn't do any forum RPs that I can recall in 2015.
Had encounters with mortality, coworkers lost family and just this month saw the aftermath of a fatal car/pedestrian accident. Once more I am reminded that you should tell your friends and family that you care for them because you never know when they will be taken away.
Flubbed Trope Bingo. But... I haven't yet actually closed any of my bingo cards, anyone wants to leave a prompt for one feel free to do so.
Speaking of prompts, one of them put an interesting turn of evens into the Jayce & Izzy stories. Thanks Lyn! And thank you to everyone who left a writing prompt at a call.

Looking ahead to 2016:

I managed a bit over 62K words of fiction in 2015, down from a touch over 100K words in 2014. My word count goal for 2016 will be to beat 2015's word count.
Speaking of writing goals, in addition to word count I want at least one completed novella or some linked short stories. I have a few ideas percolating away...
Do some more prompt calls. I'm looking back at prior results and really like some of the results that came out of them.
I mentioned I'm taking guitar lessons, right? I've reached the point where the sounds I make are almost musical. :) I've also reached the point where if my budget forces me to drop my lessons I should still be able to make progress on my own. That said I think the guy I'm going to for lessons is worth the money. I plan to keep going this year.
I think I really need to find a supplemental source of income. Even a modest bit would do a lot to improve my budget. Lottery tickets don't count.
Slowly making changes to my diet. For instance I'm snacking on air popped pop corn while I write this instead of chocolate. Over 2016 I need to add in some other improvements.
I want to add in some more art, both sketching and digital. On the digital end Inkscape and Scribus for art and design and learning more HTML/CSS.
I think I might do another Seven Days of RPG Characters again. I did that in 2013 and it was fun. Created seven characters and a setting at the same time.
Speaking of RPs, get into a play-by-post or email RP again. I miss doing that.
I'm going to aim to also finish the Aldersprig & KC 30 Days of Flash Fic prompts (only 14 left).
Also I want to get back to Unquiet Past and finish it as well.
Run a 5K before the year is out. An official 5K race or simply going out and doing 5K. I think my one knee will probably be happier about this goal if I knock some more pounds off first.
And speaking of exercise, build up my arm strength enough to do a chin up again. Hey, another spot where taking some pounds off will help. :)

Current Mood: pensive
Crossposts: http://lilfluff.livejournal.com/164535.html

This post inspired but not an exact copy from latest deviantArt journal post... Also, as noted at the end I'm going to be open to advice from readers with guitar knowledge.

As we all know we're rapidly approaching 2015 which means of course New Years Goals. The past few years I've set a goal of writing 100K words of fiction and this year I actually made it (crossing 100K late last night/early this morning). About a month ago when it became clear that I was going to reach 100K words I started debating with myself whether to do another 100,000 word goal next year or perhaps as much as double it to 200K words.( Continues under the cut with discussion of how buying a guitar will affect this... )

Current Mood: creative
Crossposts: http://lilfluff.livejournal.com/159457.html

aldersprig and

rix_scaedu have posted writing goals for March, so I'll get on the bandwagon and throw out some goals too:

Overall: 10,000+ words

* Unquiet Past: 2000+ new words
* The Journey: 1000+ new words
* Iced Tea followup: 2000+ new words
* Either potential serial: 1000+ words
* 30 Days series 2: 1000+ new words
* Fenspace: 1000+ words

* Review/Revise/or toss Chainbreaker
* Write some more haiku
* Brainstorm for story seeds in:
** The Galactic Academy setting
** The Capitalist-Techno-Hippies setting
** Possible followups to:
*** Ready, Aim, Miss
*** Home at Last

Also ponder themes for potential prompt calls.

Current Mood: tired
Crossposts: http://lilfluff.livejournal.com/142425.html

Yeah, it's April. So?

Goals for the next twelve months.

1. Actually get all the recommended repairs done to my poor innocent car. (Ouch, estimate runs just over a thousand dollars for parts & labor. But should leave it in pretty good shape.)

2. Get the credit card paid down significantly.

3. Buy a guitar and learn to play it. I've been thinking about this one for a while. I'm leaning towards acoustic. (I also want to learn the keyboard too) I'm going to set aside a little cash at a time for that. Maybe use that as an encouragement to snack less, by deciding to take what would have gone in the snack machine and putting it in the guitar money jar.

4. Have at least ten more credit hours taken. That's under a credit hour a month. If I can't beat this goal I'm not doing well.

5. Still find the time to read.

6. Actually put together more than a place-holder web page.

7. Buy new glasses. Yeesh, these are starting to get a little... odd. Replaced the nose pads twice and both are held on with screws that aren't really meant for the job.

8. Connected to #3, learn to read music properly. I sort of learned it back in high school when I was in choral class, but that was *mumble* years ago and I've let the skills there get rusty.

9. At some point when I'm not using this laptop for a class in progress, do some modest upgrades and set it to dual boot XP and Linux.

10. Clean and organize. Really honestly clean and organize. Get rid of some of the stuff I haven't touched in years and maybe see the floor again.

11. Run through my Spanish CDs.

12. Draw some more. With permission to have it look like junk as long as I actually do it.

13. Write. Similarly I grant myself permission to count this goal achieved even if what I write is horrid trash.

14. Exercise more. Keep walking places even as summer falls upon us.

Current Mood: sleepy

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Entries tagged with goals

Oh, hey, it's 2025 already

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Hello 2023, please be a kind year

So Long 2017, Hello 2018

2017 New Years Post

Welcome to 2017

Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016

Pondering 2015's goals

Writing goals for March

Goals for the next year