Ask Lovecraft - Plushies

I've been refreshing myself about the work of Heraclitis, who I love, as a break from Quantum Field Theory, which makes my head hurt. But a necessary piece of research for my next novel.

As reviews have said, I do my research. But, it takes time to nail down what one needs to know to write convincingly about physics and cosmology, and I watched this as I needed a break from studying.

Ask Lovecraft by Leeman Kessler YouTube video greatly amused me. His witty monologues always makes me smile, and I hope it amuses anyone who come to my blog, too.

Ideology and Propaganda

 

 

EverdaySpy is a YouTube channel I subscribe to. I found it while researching spy stuff for my next novel. A story that features Anderson, a former Air Force orbital reconnaissance analyst turned CIA analyst. Not a field agent, but a backroom guy.

 

Who I imagine is the military equivalent of a REMF...

 

Anyway, I've been watching this channel, and this episode, a talk on the American Civil War. This particular episode articulated a lot of ideas I've thought about whilst writing my Gate Walker series.

 

I know that just having a second American Civil War as part of the backstory has ruffled some of my friends, and has caused conflicts.

 

The conflict comes from motivated reasoning over why I would set my story in a world where the United States has reformed into a Confederation; Confederated States that have formed the North American Confederation.

I would acknowledge that as a British national, I'm insensitive to the emotional conflict that drives the ongoing ideological narrative.

 

Sorry. Not sorry, because I'm interested in examining ideological narratives. It's the way I roll.

Older, But No Wiser

We were recently at my friends Pum and Jay's wedding. Meeting up with the gang from back in the day, hence the picture of me and Glenn taken by Susan.

It was also my birthday recently.

Another year around the sun has passed by. I got some lovely presents from my beloved, including a new iPod. The downside to getting a new iPod was upgrading my operating system from Monterey to Catalina.

The first download left my computer only mostly working.

I couldn't access my system preferences, and while I could open other programs, I couldn't access my iPod. The whole raison d'être for upgrading my MacOS in the first place.

So I backed up files, as one does, and downloaded the new operating system again.

This time it took, as in I could access the system preferences and load files onto the iPod...

Mostly.

I say mostly because iTunes requires access to the Apple app store, which had been broken, and easily ignored because I'm not interested in apps for my iPod. I just want it to store my music for when we're driving, and keep pics of my stuff to show people my work.

All this took the better part of two days to sort out.

Upside, my new iPod has a camera, which is nice. So, if I remember to take it with me when I go out I now take snaps.

Pivoting to Face 2022

I'm not going to provide a list of predictions for this year as I think that my 2020 list for 2021 covers what I expect for 2022. In summary, the new year will have a lot of the same stuff happening as the last two years. The cartoon sums up the world.

Sorry, not sorry.

So here I am, nearly nine years after staring this blog charting my writing progress. To that effect I'm pivoting the blog to account for my failures. Time to stop reinforcing failure and get on with getting on.

Plans for this year: finish my next two novels, write a set of rules, and make and paint some more models. Simple goals that I can hope to achieve.

There will be fewer posts too.

Why? Because the purpose of the blog is to have a presence where people can find my work, and as such this seems to be failing. My need to write a diary of my writing progress is no longer an essential need at this point, as I think I've reflected enough on my writing process.

WIBBOW is my new watchword. Would I Be Better Off Writing.  The answer to that is most certainly yes. I need to get back in the saddle, and regular posts here are a distraction.

Big Little Wars Update

Me relaxing.

Well, by skin of my teeth I managed to get the first draft out to my play-test/reader group on Christmas Eve. Of course that night I dreamed of a couple of things that I missed. Yeah, I have oddly specific dreams at times.

I realized that I had failed to write explanations for blast grenades.

For that matter what I meant by blast and the effects in general. The two are very different, so one has probably got to be renamed.

Blast grenades stun. Inflicting shock. Simple as that.

The blast attribute is the radius of the weapon attack. I have in mind that a roll to hit that misses uses the miss die value for determining where it hits and what might happen. But, I'll have to give it some more thought.

As I was writing the scenarios I wrote that one objective as capturing people.

I had not mentioned this as a possible action anywhere else in the rules. I have some thoughts that involve grading the ease or not of successfully capturing people.

I can excuse myself for this, because it only became apparent when I finished writing the two scenarios. Also, I wanted to write more scenarios, but I ran out of time.

However, I have ideas for more, and no doubt my play-testers will make suggestions too. But, one of my play-testers has already told me he got what I intended from the introduction:

Command and Control
Integrating a range of technologies
Asymmetry between forces

So more later. Always more later. But now I must focus on writing my next novel, which is long overdue.

NB: Added; forgot to mention, solo play

Big Little Wars

Big Little Wars is a set of rules to play games in the Gate Walker universe. It has become the main focus of my working day since I started being able to string two words together.

While this is not directly related to the next novel I'm writing, it has set me the task of working out what the everyday world is like for the average person living on Earth, circa 2071.

Clearly the world is large enough for the adage, the future will not be evenly distributed, to apply.

From a miniature gaming perspective this makes for interesting conflicts. For someone living circa 2071 it sucks. Because living in the middle of a world of proxy wars while shopping is the very definition of suck.

So I use tech levels to differentiate the disparities that arise from asymmetrical access to technology.

Anyway, my document tells me that the current word total is: 19,677 words; though the project counter only says 19,401 words. No doubt there are good reasons for this, but I haven't a clue why they differ.

Arguably, I don't have much of a clue about anything these days.

So while doing this project has completely sidetracked work on my next novel, the upside from all the work is that it has got me thinking about a lot of stuff that counts as world building stuff I will need to know for later stories.

I'll take that as a win.

Post-Truth: Why Facts Don't Matter Anymore

This is from 2016, but still appropriate, if you're up for the watch. This is a useful examination of the current communication difficulties that social media has magnified by Derek Alexander Muller, a science explainer who I follow.