Tuesday, October 30, 2001
Ever have one of those mornings that just suck all the color out of the world?
Blah.
My new harddrive is twelve gig, and I only have two gig of personal files that need to be moved from my old computer to my new one, but that didn't stop the new computer tech the department just hired from giving me an immense amount of grief about moving them. Honestly. Does he really expect me to start life with a brand new computer without mangascans and mp3s? What kind of barbaric culture are we living in, anyway? :p
The *really* maddening thing is that I would have been perfectly willing to move the majority of the files myself via myplay.com if I'd only had network access on my old computer. We moved nearly three months ago, for the love of all that's pure and holy. That's way too long to go without a functioning work computer. How do they expect me to get anything done at all?
But the good news is:
John Robey has started releasing Never Never again! I absolutely love this webcomic. I discovered it about five months ago, read the whole archive with interest and delight, and upon reaching the last page, realized that it had last been updated in August of the previous year. I'd been thinking about the story a lot for the past few days, and decided to track it down again, and there was a whole month's worth of new comics! Yay!
What are you still doing here? Go read them! ^-^
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10:30 PM
Monday, October 29, 2001
I'm getting a new work computer tomorrow. Whether I want one or not. A new *used* computer. "I've already spent lots of time getting this one just the way I want it." I say. "But this one's faster!" they say. "But I only do word processing and mostly text internet." I say. "But the hard drive is bigger!" they say. "But I'm only using half of the 7 gig harddrive I have," I say. "But this one has a zip drive!" they say. "..." I say. Of course, then I find out that the first thing they plan to do with my old one is add a zip drive before they give it to someone else. I haven't even had network access or internet or anything external for three months now. And they wonder why I'm so cranky lately. Ideally, they'd just put *my* stupid computer on the stupid network, but I suppose if they insist on making me move my entire life onto another machine, the least they can do is give it stupid internet access. Aaarrrrgh!
Not everyone I work with is a total loss. I showed the three finished pages of "Utukki" to my former supervisor today. (The woman who used to have the position I'm in now. She's a huge fantasy/scifi fan, so I thought she might be interested.) She got to the end and said "Uhn! That's it?"
"That's all we have done right now."
"Well, what are you doing here? Go home! You have work to do!"
^-^ Of course, since she's now the department's accountant and the one who essentially sign everyone's checks ...
I can just see her justifying my hours to the director.
Rod: "So what's this fifteen hours for Saturday and Sunday?"
Jean: "Ummm... I had her working on a 'special project.'"
I think I'm going to bed now.
10:43 PM
Saturday, October 27, 2001
Taking a break from house cleaning. We're having a small Halloween party tonight, and things should be more or less nice. Only seven more hours to work in.
The meeting about my office space went ... well. I suppose. The director decided that we really need to make a decision. Now, why didn't I think of that?
More random Sakura snippets keep getting themselves written in my notebook. That's all fine and dandy, except I don't know where they go. Some of them are really good too. Poor little homeless page-and-a-half introspection thingies. Now, if I could just connect the ending to the beginning, I'd be done with 'wasteland'. I may have to do what I finally ended up doing for 'ad finem.' Do an absolute bare bones begining-middle-end framework, and then give myself exactly two weeks to add whatever scenes and embelishments I feel are missing and then call it done whether I'm 100% satisfied or not. There's an old saying. "It takes two men to finish a painting. One to hold the brush, and one to take it away from him when it's done."
Got to go! Feel a snippet coming on! ^-^
Namaste!
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12:34 PM
Thursday, October 25, 2001
Yes, my blogger is visually boring. I'm trying really hard to figure out how to make it purdier, but so far everything I try just makes it worse. Very sad. Maybe I'll see if Rachael needs a new project. She loves me. Today. I think.
Today is the big meeting about the office space that I'm in. They just moved me here at the beginning of the term, and already the space has become woefully inadequate. The other room we were in was *much* better. It sounds to me like the director is more than happy to move me back, but my supervisor is digging in his heels and wants to keep the me close by. I agree with him in principle, but the room is sooooo insufficient for the needs of the program. It's too small. It's poorly ventilated and hot. It's too cluttered and too crowded for the number of people that work in it, and we're hiring more new people next week. He believes that if we move the furniture, everything will magically get better. It would help, but I don't think it'll help as much as he's hoping.
Krista spent most of last night working on page two of Utukki. It's absolutely beautiful. She even threw in a random 'Read or Die' on the assistant's store apron. It made me smile. I really hope that our account will be ready soon. I really want to start posting for real.
Namaste!
1:58 PM
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
There are now five people that work in my office. One of them is on sick leave for the next two weeks because of complications with her surgery. One is going on her honeymoon cruise for a week and a half starting Friday. One is a girl that we hired less than a week ago whose only job is to scribe for clients without the use of their hands, and the other one that isn't me works mornings only. We see clients on a drop in basis, and so far every week this term has gotten busier and busier and busier. The next couple of weeks are going to be a lot of fun.
I had an absolutely killer idea for a scene for 'wasteland' about five days ago. Of course, it'd be smack dab in the middle of chapter two which has already been released on my page and ff.net and the CLAMP list for a month or more, but I don't think I'm going to let that stop me. That chapter was missing something anyway, it's just that now I know what it is. I was doing some research and just got inspired. See? It does pay to know your stuff. Maybe I should wait to be smug and excited until it's actually written.
Wish me luck!
6:50 PM
Monday, October 22, 2001
The director of my department thinks it might be time to hire more help.
I think he might be on to something.
Aaaanyway... The first page of the manga is totally done. Krista finished it on Saturday night (or was it Friday?) and posted it here. A first sneak peek. Ain't it cool?
It's progressing really well. It's fun to be working on something like this, and I think we're both really falling in love with the story. It's really starting to take on a life of its own, as stories do. I don't know when the keenspace account will be ready, but I'm getting to the point where I really can't wait to start releasing. I hope it won't be much longer now.
Namaste!
3:07 PM
Monday, October 15, 2001
There's something very wrong when on gets nine hours of sleep and still feels like they're on their third double shift in two days. I think it might have something to do with the four days of crowded meetings and seminars I've been (ahem) encouraged to attend. Five if you count Anime Club on Wednesday. There were 45 people there. The average is about 35, and our record is 49, and new people come nearly every week. Anyway, between that, Brain Injury Association of Utah, and a seminar this Saturday on satanic ritual abuse and its effects, I think I over extended myself in the dealing with people department.
I'm not exactly the most social person to begin with. I can attend and enjoy functions like that as long as I have time to recover. Five days in a row, though, is about four too many for little old me.
Luckily, I get to take a day off this week. That should help me feel more human. It should also give me a chance to get some research done. If anyone's wondering what the holdup for stories is, that would be it. I can't really do much more until I do some research. That's never the fun part, but the story really suffers without it.
That's all. It's time for my nap.
Namaste!
1:19 PM
Friday, October 05, 2001
Tomorrow is the first big official script and story board meeting for the first chapter of Utukki. We have all sorts of stuff planned, (really important stuff, like characters, situations, story elements, complications, motivations, eye color ...) now we have to work on the actual physical details. How we want to tell the story. What everyone will say and when, what events do we want to show.
It's not something I've ever done before. I have to wonder how much of the storytelling skill I've been trying to develope with fanfiction will cross over into something like this. A totally foreign medium. I read a lot of comic books and manga, but then, some of the worst *writers* I know are avid novel readers so I know that love of the medium doesn't always translate into talent or even into knowledge of it. At least I probably won't make too many mistakes based on over confidence. ^-^
Wish us luck!
Namaste!
6:39 PM
Wednesday, October 03, 2001
Working. It's been busy the last couple of weeks, but right now there's a bit of a lull. I'm doing my best to convince my boss that we need more help. I think he's starting to see things my way.
A word about Mindy. Mindy is a lovely individual who is upstairs right now getting me a Sobe. She's the courageous new president of End of the World. Why she agreed to take the position, I still don't know, but she's doing a fabulous job. She puts out a news letter, she attends the campus wide club meetings, she smacks down the hordes that speak out of turn during club business. She even has a binder for club stuff which makes her a more organized president I ever was and a *far* more organized president than P-chan ever was. (Love you, P-chan!)
'Wasteland' is coming along nicely again. I still write more scenes in the middle of the current stuff than I do at the end of the current stuff which is why I'm reluctant to release much right now. Hopefully soon I'll have a good solid outline that won't keep changing every time I get the writing bug. Heavy sigh.
Anyway, it's getting busy again, so I should go.
Namaste!
2:16 PM
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