Summer Santas and Elves

While you enjoy that little bit of Kiwi Christmas fun, consider that those guys ran 10km in santa suits to fundraise for the GP youth group - in other words, to fund cool camps and events and help out those kids who otherwise couldn't go bowling and that sort of thing.

So what else is new? I FINISHED A STORY!! Woohoo! This is unusual as it is not part of my Comet Born series nor even in my preferred genre. It remains to be seen whether it's any good; unfortunately, it seems to have ended up all chicky and romantic, which no doubt is why I had such a hard time writing it. Did I mention I can't stand reading romance? Ick. More on that later, if it ever sees the light of day.  Still, it came in at a respectable almost 4000 words, though I pity whoever has to read 'em.

The river of paying work is still coming, so this week is mostly taken care of as well. My discipline is getting a little better - last week I mostly started work around 8pm and finished after midnight, yet didn't accomplish much during the day at all. Today I finished before 5pm, phew!

I've continued to mess around with the Reaper music software, with varying success. Last night's effort wasn't helped by the fact that I put in a melody line before changing the BPM from 120 to 150, with the result that all my lines are now in sets of three bars - like a 6/8 beat but on a 4/4 grid. Nope, doesn't work at all. I'll have to redraw that song. And drawing it is - since I haven't yet figured out how to attach my keyboard, all of it is constructed by clicking in the note pane. Takes some getting used to - sure ain't like tinkling on the piano - but it does the job.

I should really set up a page somewhere for the few songs I've completed. Some of them are okay, if you ignore the propensity for whooshing sound effects and such. Might be good for a laugh, eh?

Globetrotter's Gallivants

Well, I finally did it - culled some of the best photos from my travelling years, and put them all in one place. Theoretically I'm all caught up now - except for any NZ-themed shows that might still be in the offing. Anyway, here it is - a bunch of different countries, but largely Germany, which was my home base for seven years. At the end there are links to other, shorter themed shows. Enjoy!



The soundtrack is "Stepping Stones in Time" - so appropriate for these ancient places, and also for a decade of memories - once again provided by the talented Mike Rogers, and you can find the whole album over at http://michaellrogers.virb.com/magnetica.

Bad Blogging and Good Work

Yep, there it is. I'm a bad blogger. So often I don't bother writing anything down, even though I know fine well it would make a good blog. There are reasons for this, sure - one being that I believe I only have a certain amount of inspiration for a given day and if I use it on a blog, I can't use it on fiction. This has proven true on occasion, but I surely don't write fiction every day so there are some left over for blogging.

Anyway, there is plenty going on in this little ol' corner of the world. Our new flatmate has been here just over a week and is settling in well - we're glad to have him. The cat is back to her old self after a nasty tooth extraction. I have a lot of work on this week, of the paying kind - which is nice, even if it's rather too much for my liking. It's likely to be 20 hours of work in the one week which is quite unusual for me.

Worked a bit on a short story yesterday. It is progressing, if slowly. I suspect the slowness is because it is one of my first attempts at actual fantasy (as opposed to sci-fi) - though I do have a sci-fi twist in it for sure. It's just not my first choice of genre and it's proving difficult to get into the groove.

In other writing, I suppose I should be thinking about the next episode of Comet Born, as Walt reminded me yesterday. The last one isn't published yet, but I guess that shouldn't stop me. The project continues to be an adventure in non-planning, which is a little scary for my Snowflaking self. Okay, a lot scary. But so far, very fun, and you can read all the published episodes from the Comet Born index.

Summer is coming on quite nicely indeed. If it's this hot in November, what'll it be like in February? Yesterday our church held a fun run at Takapuna beach to fundraise for the youth group. Two of the guys ran the full 10 kilometres dressed in Santa suits and beards. I got some great video of that event, so look out for that when I've put it all together.

My friend C.S. Lakin has posted a wonderful blog about writer's wordcount and why it doesn't matter. It is a refreshing view in a time when many authors are just all about the numbers. Doing a small amount of good work is just as valuable. Go read that post.

So there we go. Not such a bad show after all. I have now put the "write new blog post" page link into my Morning Coffee so perhaps I won't forget for quite so long the next time around.  :)