So, um, I’m 25 now. I’ve been 25 for over a week now. Hooray?
Let’s quiet my quarter-century existential crisis with material goods.
The lovely Gen of Psyche Corp has released a music video for her newest single “Oh” and it’s delightfully spooky and gorgeous. Check it out:
And as a thank you for donating to her Kickstarter, she sent me a poster! It’s not up on my wall because of apartment regulations (blergh) but hopefully that’ll change at some point in the near future.
I also picked up the latest offering from Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak, the so-titled “Distinctly Essential Dresden Codak Primer“ It’s chock full of sketches and a look into his process of character design, which I always enjoy.
And to finish things off, I bought myself some new boots for classy zombie stomping.
That’s about it, unless you want to hear about my new dish soap as well. It’s orange scented and makes every after-dinner dishwashing smell like an orchard!
On a less materialistic slant, the first of my zombie trilogy is approaching 140 pages and not really slowing down. I’m really gunning to have the draft complete by Christmas, which would be the third book (if you count Ascend as a book) that I’ve said that about. Something about autumn and winter really makes me want to finish manuscripts apparently. If you want more frequent, if obscure, updates on how it’s progressing, check out my LiveJournal, specifically the entries tagged Darkland (my terribly uncreative working title). I often sketch out scenes there, and while it jumps around and goes over things that don’t even happen in this book, you can get a general idea of what’s happening. Or at least I think you can. I don’t actually know, seeing as I’m the one who’s writing the dang thing.
Part of the infuriating experience of writing a trilogy of novels (or any series that is planned out from the beginning and not just sort of drunkenly stumbled through) is that I’m always thinking ahead and going “man, this scene is going to be so cool, and this is going to be awesome, and though this scene that I’m writing right now is pretty neat as well, I really wish I was writing this one instead!” And then I get really mad because I’m not writing those awesome scenes right now.
So. I took a mini-break and wrote some short stories.
Part of the appeal of a short story is that they’re like fun-sized candy bars, in that you get the satisfaction of eating candy but it doesn’t take nearly as long. Except some people get really uppity about fun-sized candy bars and how they’re not really all that “fun,” so maybe a good short story is more akin to stuffing a whole candy bar into your mouth at once.
And it works on both sides of the page as well. I don’t have to complain that some nifty scene is a hundred pages away and you get a plot that only takes fifteen minutes or so to cruise through. Seriously, let’s just stop writing novels entirely. Nobody wants to read that mess anymore.
So I wrote two and brushed up a third that was rather juvenile. The two are heading towards The Machine of Death which is one of the cooler projects dreamed up by a Tyrannosaurus. I actually started writing a story the first time when calls for the original anthology were put out, but sadly that one did not really get off the ground. Actually it’s probably not all that sad. Perhaps even for the best. But anyways, fingers crossed that at least one of those makes the final cut. And if you want to submit your own stories, the deadline’s not until the 15th so there’s still time!
And because I have a camera and like traipsing out my poor handwriting and spastic arrow-drawing ability, here’s a shot of my plotline for TRYING TO DESTROY THE MACHINE:
I have this problem where people keep asking me what I’ve been up to these days and I just sort of laugh and go “oh, absolutely nothing.” Which isn’t technically true, but it’s much easier than saying “oh, I’ve been trying to figure out how Kathgine returns from the swamp and nailing down her relationship with her uncle.” Oh yeah, that’s going to be a riveting conversation.
But in case you’re a glutton for minutiae, here’s a typical Saturday in Daniel-land. Now stop asking me until I have something real to talk about.
Coffee and catching up with the Internets when I wake. Black. Nothing else.
This is what me getting some writing done looks like. My desk is kinda uncomfortable to write at for long periods of time so I use the laptop (first-world problems, I know). Black tea (see a pattern?) and some cheese and crackers out of frame. Wikipedia’s open in the background, probably to some ridiculous page like lighthouse architecture.
Because I live by myself, cooking has its own challenges. Mostly, how do I eat everything because I’m only one guy. I do most of my cooking on the weekends because my hotplate is a slowpoke and it takes double to cook anything. Today’s foray: french onion soup. I cut them up early and go back to writing.
There’s usually a lot of this, too. Me standing at the window and sneering at the nasty weather and congratulating myself for staying inside today. Sometimes there are bananas as well.
Dinner! I cut out the twelve million hours it took to cook these onions down. I declare this foray a wild success.
A little Minecraft action to finish out the day. I made a terrible decision to start a new world from scratch after all the new updates (I want a wolf!) and so I have to rebuild all the different factories I took for granted in my previous world. Seriously, I forgot how hard it was to build just a simple tree farm until I had to actually do it again.
And then sleep. I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of that. Actually, I’m not sorry. I’m not a very flattering sleeper.
This was my first year (of hopefully many more) attending Wicked Faire, a giant mash-up of what-have-you alt culture that revels in a staggering line-up of concerts, vendors, burlesque, live shows, costumes, more concerts, and all around mayhem. Exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. I am so glad I had off for Presidents Day to recouperate.
I’m not even going to try to detail all the different bands we stumbled into so instead just go here and browse around for a while. Acts that stood out in my mind: The Dark Clan, This Way to the Egress, and Psyche Corporation, who we hung out with after one of her performances and shoved cake in her face.
I also got a new waistcoat from Festooned Butterfly, who was in the hotel room three doors down from us and absolutely wonderful. I must have gone through their entire collection of size 34 waistcoats before settling on the first one I had picked up. They were all so spectacular.
Anyways, now I’m all detoxed and back to the old schedule (though this sudden snowfall is playing games with my weather senses). My zombie epic is making rather good progress, besides its ongoing lack of a good title, and I’m learning more about natural dyes of the ancient world than I ever thought possible. When I mysteriously get transported back to ancient Egypt and they demand verdigris dye I will totally be ready.
Argh. This winter is getting into my bones already, and it’s barely December. I’m sitting in my room with three layers of clothing and freezing to death. I don’t think I’m going to be able to feel my fingers until April.
So what’s new in Daniel-land besides this cold snap rudely dumping him into full-blown wintermode? Let’s hit some highlights.
In case you haven’t realized, I have a major obsession respectful nerd-crush on Coilhouse and way back in October they held a fundraiser/merchandise sell off to raise money for Issue No. 6. So I bought a mug, because I am secretly a creepy old lady who collects mugs. No joke, I have about twelve different mugs in my house and no glassware. And only one teapot. Something is wrong with this picture.
There was also Thanksgiving, where we got to visit my lovely sister’s house and I tried Brussels sprouts for the first time in my life. Apparently I missed that gauntlet as a child (as well as liver. I don’t think my parents ever made me eat liver).
I also finally broke my seeing-movies-in-theaters drought with Harry Potter, at midnight, in costume. Nerd up. No, you don’t get any pictures.
On the homefront, this plot keeps kicking my butt and I’m learning more about medieval tincture laws than I thought possible. It’s all strangely fascinating. Hopefully I’ll have some exciting news in a few weeks so look out for that! Foreshadowing is fun!
the tombtrees tell their own story in leaf and written bark and for those with the right fingertips they can trace out a story in its shadows. how they first stuck bones in the earth and mounded them over and said let them be taken beneath but when the salts rose again the earth spat them up, as a dog chokes, and from their seed grew a shroud of white willow […]
WHO ARE YOU ANYWAYS
Equal parts cyberpunk geek rogue, time-traveling zombie hunter, and mischievous poet. This is the chronicle of Daniel Wheatley's quest to live brilliantly, tell rather exciting stories, make awesome things, and find a cup of truly terrible coffee.
