Episode 1

Here it is, the long awaited Episode 1! Find more details about the project at New! Epic! New! (Will link it when I get to a computer!)

And so it begins...

"And so it seems, gentlemen, that piracy is our only option!"

The men cheered, and in the back, one of the women giggled, "I do love it when that happens." she said, her eyes lighting up.

"It is quite a lovely enterprise, isn't it?" Her companion replied with a wry smile, "I'm sure by morning they'll have forgotten all about it."

"No." She wrinkled her nose, "No, you don't think so, do you?"

The captain shrugged, "Just an opinion, born of long experience. They are not the first to come ot this conclusion, and the will not be the last."

"So what are you going to do?"

Smiling, she flipped up the lapel on her seacoat, "Same thing I've always done. Take advantage of their indecision." Putting on her hat, she nodded at the innkeeper, "Good day, Miriam. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good day, Captain Marlow." Miriam said after her, watching the coattails flick around the corner. A few moments later, as Miriam was making her rounds with the ale, she was stopped by a long haired woman sitting in the corner.

"Was that captain Jean Marlow who just left?" She asked, barely pulling the English pronunciation out of Marlow's given nickname.

"Depends on who's asking." Miriam replied, "You are?"

"Captain Selím. Marlow and I were once friends."

"Selím, eh?" Miriam set the flagon down on the woman's table, weighing Gene's response to knowing an old friend was in town, "Never heard of you. Pirate?"

"Of  course." Selím snapped, "What do I look like to you, a dragon slayer?"

"They're surprisingly diverse group, if you've never met one." She picked the empty flagons up off the table and loaded her tray, "Will that be all for you?"

"No. I'd like an answer, you fool."

"Then I suggest you go get it yourself."

New! Epic! New!

Epic! New! Project!

So. If you follow me on Twitter (@ anabstar), you may have seen randomness regarding backers and other things. Well, now that I probably don't have your attention, here's the news you haven't been waiting for.

About the epic new project.

So, earlier this year, mike speegle published Artifice online, in installments. I'm gonna kind of be stealing that same idea, the idea of the serial, published at intervals that will be random, rather than set, but it's still going to be happening.

The cool part is that you all get to help.

Yup. You heard me.

So. Here's how it's going to work--it's kinda like kickstarter but there's only one option and you don't have to pay any money.

What do you mean, no have to pay no monies?

To back the project, all it takes is being a willing conspirator. You mind find yourself receiving random questions and dialogue prompts from me, and if ou back the project, you're saying that you're willing to help... In return, you (or at least my perception of you), become a character in the short. No, not calling this a novel, because right now, it's more like a short improv gig. So, if you happen to respond to a dialogue prompt on Twitter, that's going to get incorporated in, somehow--this whole idea started when molly mullery responded very awesomely to a random tweet, and my brain just went from there.

Okay, bored now, so the rest of the random details... if you're interested in getting involved, you can leave a comment below, give me a shoutout on Twitter, or just keep an eye open for my next call!

Huzzah!

There's a moment

When you realize that your current level of Britishyness would make quite a lovely, rather foul mouthed character for you NaNoWriMo novel.

Free

SM-3 to anyone who will deal with its shit. And tantrums. And random refusals to work. Carriage used to return fine, now it grinds horribly.

Inquire below.

November.

I was so excited, don't you remember? 

Yeah... That was yesterday.

Today is November 1. 

One Week One Week One Weeeeeeeekkkk!!!!!

Yes, the reason for the continual forum span is nearly upon us!

ONE WEEEEEEKKKSSSS!!!!!

Help Wanted

Hi typosphere!

So eventually, I'll do a post about one of my grail machines that I finally acquired, but today, it's another question. I'm not looking to buy another machine right now, but for future reference, what are everyone's opinions on machines that can keep up with excessively speedy typing. I'm 70-80 WPM on a computer, and can probably get close to 50 on a typewriter... but the problem is that, at least with my SM-3, every time that I start to speed up, we run into the same old jamming problems that comes with lots of typebars flying in an enclosed space. So, typospherians, what are your favorite machines for speedy typing?

Once a scientist...

You know you are always a scientist when you have an idea and the first thing you reach for are a Sharpie and a paper towel.

POLL!! Typing Style

Hey Typosphere!

Had a frenzied typing session on the Skyriter tonight (oh yeah, if you didn't know it, mpclemens hooked me up with one of my grail machines in his cleanout... I'll get around to posting picturesnstuff eventually, promise), and I had this epiphany of a question, which may have already been asked, but what the hell. I'll ask it again.

What's your typing style?
(Can't figure out how to embed the poll in this post, so check it out at the top of the sidebar!)

Shifting

Dunno what it is, but there's a shift.
Shifting away from fiction.
Towards... I don't know.
No, not away from fiction.
Just away from the idea that came back and wanted to be worked on.
We're taking some time off.
We need our space.

It kinda feels like getting dumped, when an idea pulls away.
You give it so much time, so much energy, and then all of a sudden,
It's gone.
Not gone.
Just... ignoring you.
For the time being, at least.

I could go back, back to the collected past of ideas,
And pull something out of the pile and see what can happen.
But I don't know if I want to do that.
For so long, writing has defined part of my life.
Who I am.
What I do.

I don't remember the last drought period, but there has to be one.
I could check the books, find it,
And maybe I'll do that.
When I have the time.
If I ever have the time.
That's when I'll go back and find an idea to work on.

But until then?
Until then, the nebulosity of the new and unproven floats around.
Waiting.
Just waiting.
Forming.
Solidifying.
Congealing.
Maybe someday, they'll want to come out.

Until then, I'll just be.

Musings #?

I realized tonight that it's not just dance or ceramics that I miss. It's art, in all of it's forms. It's a fluidity of creation you don't necessarily get with writing. When you write, you don't so much touch it. The muscle memory stays on the page, rather than flying through the air, sliding along wet clay as it turns ever faster on the wheel. I miss the tactility of experience, of knowing what I see in front of me, what I watch in the mirror is me, an expression of everything inside. Words on a page may be the soul laid bare, but art is joy and light an unbounded expression of life.

No.

No. I mean it.

TWD 2013

Anticlimactic

Okay so I've finally got some sanity back...

Meet Friday.




Or at least that's the name for now...

Guess who's coming to dinner!!!!!!!!!!!

In which I embrace my Brigadier side

So I did Camp nanowrimo this year. As a Luddite. I only did a 25k goal, given the fact that i had a ton of school stuff going on, but still. 25 k between Remington #3 and handwriting. Granted, this count might not be totally accurate, as half of what I wrote was script and the rule is 1 page, 250 words, but still.
Yay. I still lead the Mafia, but I finally punched my Brigade card.

Aha moment

I finally figured out what i'm going to do with the QDL i could never get to type right. I love the feel of it, but there are some major quirks that are hard to get over.

I'm going to usb convert it.

Friday afternoon happiness

It may not be pretty, but YAY!!!!
Sorry it's blurry... Blogger upload isn't the greatest. I'll redo it later!

Keeping it going.

Thanks Mr. Messenger.

And we resurge!!

Camp NaNoWriMo added an April event and a script genre? Seems as if the rebellion was moderately successful after all!

Bad Form

Was originally going to just type this. Now, I'm going to pencast this. And then I couldn't find my notebook so it's back to being typewritten.
Nope.
Fauxcast. Even better.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1017

There's another reason. This explains it well.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1015

Update. In the past 24 hours, I have read the 1500+ comic archive of PHD comics. Great source of procrastination.
2nd Update: It also may be part of a strong craving for ramen.

Eventuality

Yup, eventually I'll get around to posting the rest of the pen reviews (There are a bunch, and one that won't get written because I've pretty much destroyed the pen's ink level.) And there's more fun coming pen wise.

But typewriters? I did my obligatory ITAM post without knowing it was ITAM, so it looks like we're good.

And CLUB? Well, no local or used bookstores that I've found around here, so there's not much point!

Um yeah.

Sailor Clear Candy and Thanks

The Typosphere

The Pen Addict

Uni-Ball Signo Bit

Announcing Pen Week!

So I told you I got a bunch of pens, right? So, starting today, I'm going to try to post a review or a sample every day!

Maybe, just maybe...

Pens!!!

They're here! Will do a writeup soon!!

Speechless

Holy hell. Stunning.

http://matadornetwork.com/trips/11-snapshots-of-one-alaskan-valley/

Anticipation

Ug. Waiting for stuff is the worst.
But, the great thing is that hopefully tomorrow, I'll have a handful of pictures and maybe even some pen reviews for you!

These are not hipsters.

This video is rockin and it brings me joy, although I'm also slightly sad to be missing the show yet again...

The bright light of morning

Listening to the decemberists
And cowboy rock and roll
Should get in some quick review,
Of the dorsal columns and anterolateral tracts
Or how calcium conducts electric potentials through the heart
But all I can do is sit here,
Thinking about California One.

So this whole handwriting thing...

So if the amount I've handwritten today were part of NaNoWriMo, and my estimations on the count are correct, I'd be about a fifth, maybe more like a quarter or a third of the way done. 32 pages of narrow rule.
And the night is still young.
Too bad it's not fiction, right?

Five years

We all have pet projects, the ones that we can't let go of, no matter how much we try. Mine started as a trial run for NaNo 2007, after I had a dream I had to get out or I was going to lose it. What followed was about 20,000 words in a handful of Moleskine cahiers over the course of the week of fall break. I've worked on it in bursts over the years, first as a continuous story, then as a discontinuous set of shorts that weave in and out of the original idea, and take it from a novel to an epic. What once spanned two years now covers fifteen.

Last night, I had a revelation. There is a key event that is the premise for most of the action in the story. Without it, the dream I had makes no sense. In the past, I'd just danced around what happened, the mechanics, but five years and three months after I wrote the first words, it finally came together. I know how out all happened, and it works. It's beautiful.

Human hand

The human hand was not designed to write thousands of words a day, every day, with a pen.

I am a scientist...

...and I know it!!

If you need a pick me up--but with a disclaimer that if you aren't a scientist or aren't familiar with this world, you may not find them as hilariously awesome as I think they are--but still. Check it out.
#overlyhonestmethods
On twitter.

I had a dream...

About a mint, ice blue SM-3. Anyone want to give me one?