Day 3

Today: 1054 honest prose, 241 in notes Total: 3453 story, 1911 notes, 5364 total I am technically at my minimum pace of 10%, but including my notes is a bit like cheating. They will grow into real story bits too, hopefully much more than the notes themselves, but I haven’t typed *those* words yet. :) For friends who are interested (or just incredibly bored), chapter 1 is ready to be exposed. Chapter 00 Kingdom of Endwin, a brief history (480 words) Chapter 01 Hot tea, cold reunion (1129 words) If you do read it, please leave a comment just saying you read it. Or, ask me questions about the characters and setting if you like :) ...

November 4, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor

Word count day 2

Notes and nonsense: 419 Geography: 92 Cause and effect continued: 327 Big old map: 0 Presentable prose: 1928 Kingdom of Endwin, a brief history: 480 Hot tea, cold reunion, pt 2: 658 On the run: 790 Total for today 1928 (2347 incl notes) Total so far 2399 (4069 incl notes)

November 3, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor

Beta test

Want to be a test audience? If so… Please read the following conversation. This is not the actual story… I have removed the thoughts and facial expressions. I want to find out if someone overhearing just the voices would think. K: “Hello Denny,” D: “Kimne, hello, you look well,” K: “You too. Please sit.” D: *pause* *chair moves* “Thank you.” *pause* “You know, I was quite surprised to see you yesterday.” K: “I guess so, Denny,” D: “Folks around here don’t call me Denny; it’s usually Den or Densaye,” K: “Is it. I guess I never learned your real name, when we, ah, met in Camos.” D: “Ah, I’m sorry about that…” *pause* *dishes rattle* “Keep the change,” Girl: “Thank you!” K: “How did I know you were going to say that?” D: “What?” K: “Nothing, just a habit I picked up from you. I thought you were being extravagant, like as if to impress me, always dealing in silver and refusing to take copper. Looking back now I can see the real reason.” D: “Ah, yes.” *pause* “So you mentioned that, ah, you have a son now?” K: “Yes. Fine young boy he is. Ayden is his name. Quite like his father, in a lot of ways,” D: “Good to hear. Have you told him…” *pause* “Have you told him, ah, what happened to his father?” K: *pause* “Just that he died, quite painfully at that. May Sulam grant him rest.” D: “Ouch. Well, that’s for the best, I suppose. I am sure you are a wonderful mother to him.” K: “Yes, it has been hard, but we make do. I probably would not have come this far without Orell and Kanita. They have been wonderful.” D: “That’s good to hear. I am happy that you are well. I’ve thought of you often, but I never imagined that you had a son and raised him on your own.” *pause* “My heart grows heavy at the thought of the hardship you have endured. I would certainly not wish that on anyone.” K: *pause* “I know. I know, and thank you for saying so.” *teapot rattles* “So, enough about me, what have you been up to? You have sons, of your own now!” D: “Yes. Ardasho is the oldest, then Daytha, then Ormonn. Ardasho is probably a year and a half to two years younger than your Ayden.” K: “That’s… wonderful!” D: “Well, Morela and I are quite proud of them. Ardasho and Ormonn are both training hard; they want to travel to Aldavor and be officers in the King’s Guard.” K: “Ah, just like their father, yeah?” D: “Better than me, actually! They’ve been studying some new methods from Kin’tas too. Scary stuff.” K: “That’s great. I’m sure they will do quite well.” *chairs move* “Well I had better get back. It was good to see you again.” D: “Thank you, and you too. Please take care of yourself, and take care of Ayden.” K: “Of course, and you take care as well,” “Safe travels to you!” ...

November 2, 2003 · 3 min · gconnor

Novel started, sort of

Finally, some text I can show people. Kingdom of Endwin, a brief history 486 words. Also, lost some time this morning drawing maps and 93 words of non-prose geography notes.

November 2, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor

Writing this month

I have generated about 1000 words of outline and other material (568 family tree+683 cause and effect). None of it goes in the finished product but I feel like it’s a good start. I also have a page and a half of scrawl that traces my hero (45) to his great-great-great grandfather. It is a huge file and loading time is slow due to my DSL. It won’t make sense without the notes (which I’m not going to show you, neener neener). Gen 1-4 (500K jpg) 25 sec Gen 4-6 (1.7M jpg) 85 sec ...

November 1, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor

Choose your own adventure!

Yes, you too can be vicariously part of my nanowrimo experience without writing a word. Just answer the poll below. May the best plot win! (If you are not a logged-in LiveJournal user, the poll won’t work, but you may leave a comment with your answers)

November 1, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor

Spamassassin with auto-learning

Recipe for spamassassin with auto-learning. It’s a little bit clumsy but it works. Interested in feedback from other geeks who have played with spamassassin on how to make it more streamlined.

October 31, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor

Sysadmin tools

Ideas for sysadmin tools appear below. This is probably less interesting if you’re not on my team but feel free to join in if you like. Stuff sysadmins want to control and automate Access: passwd, sudo, ssh keys Package install: rpm check, install, freshen System config files: hosts, resolv.conf, sendmail.cf, etc/ Ability to install a script and run it once Ability to schedule a job (cron) or make sure it starts (init.d) Synchronize a directory (via rsync or similar) Stuff that should be monitored ...

October 30, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor

I had an emotional reaction to something today, and for once I just ran with it. It was not the “cautious” or “proper” thing to do, but it sure made me feel better. I’m not sure if it was out of anger or frustration or just plain spite. We will see what comes of it. Perhaps nothing. Sorry for being cryptic, I will share at some point but there are good reasons for keeping this one to myself for now.

October 28, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor

Weekend Report

Friday: wandered off early. No gaming. I think I made spaghetti. Saturday: Tried to fix the Tivo channel changing. Seems to be better, but I had to use Super Slow mode (6 seconds each). After taking apart the tivo with the intent of covering the inside emitter, I found out that the series 2 doesn’t have an emitter on the front, so the foil tent doesn’t really help. I think there was some baja fresh burritos at some point. Took back the movie which I didn’t get around to watching (shanghai nights). ...

October 27, 2003 · 1 min · gconnor