Grumpy, tired, sore...

No, I'm not renaming the 7 dwarfs. Tempting, but no. It is what I am right now after going to the dentist yesterday. It was my 5th visit in my entire life, 1st in 10 years. The doctor had fun, he did 1 filling, the nurse did a cleaning, and then the two of them ganged up on me to pull the roots of one shattered tooth (#32) and then they spent 15 minutes yanking out my upper molar. (cusbid, bicuspid, whatever) I bet a lot of you know the disconcerting sound and exquisite feeling of teeth cracking in your mouth as it is yanked around. I have that memory stuck in my head now. That and the fun of spitting blood for the past 24 hours. Ugh.

He offered Vicadin, I'm too stubborn (IE pig headed) I turned it down in favor of my Acetaminophen... which is barely working. GRR

Eating is fun. Sooo much fun. I am glad he insisted on just the one side. Though it might have helped me loose more weight...

The fun thing is I get to go back later to get another upper molar removed, and a filling, these on my left side. Joy. Happy go lucky, joy joy. I so can't wait. NOT.

So, you know I'm going to take revenge and make some poor sap of a character go through that too eventually. Hey, If I have to suffer, someone else might as well too. Learning experience. Hmm... one of the cats maybe... (oops! Telegraphing, sorry Rick)

It's hot (105) here the past week or so, it's currently cool. humid. and raining right now though. The heat has had the family come over almost daily to swim or play board games. That's sort of put a crimp in getting any writing done. I did get a few things done though.

News:
I had a doctor's visit 2 weeks ago, I have lost 17 pounds and I am trying to loose another 17 by my next visit. It's hard though, with the heat I just want to sleep or watch TV. My octocore PC likes to overheat when the afternoon hits, I usually have to abandon it. Since dad's home by that time and being a general pain in the posterior, I guess it's okay. (NOT)

I finished roughing out another short story for 13 Degrees of Separation. That's 11 down, 2 to go. Unfortunately I can't let the volunteers have it until after they see Jethro 2. lol (Ain't I a stinker?)

Speaking of the other 2 shorts, I have both blocked out, and I've pecked at Leo a little.

I also finished chapter 5 and parts of 6-9 of Jethro 2. I have received a ton of research material from Amazon over the past couple of weeks, I'm going to be reading a lot. I got stuff on Bootcamp, Military culture, NCO guide book, um... Oh, Effects of Direct Energy Weapons, an alien book, that make a planet book, and a bunch of others. :)
So, even though I may be vegging I will be doing something semi-productive. :)

I've pecked at book 6 of WE some more, generally cleaning up a few plot points. I'm going to have to do a bit of a rewrite on some things, I mean, I wrote the plot for that book long before I finished New Dawn. (yeah that long ago) So, things have evolved since then.

On the editing front:
Good news: (I think) Mechmaster reported that he's around the 200 page mark of Princess Rescue Inc. He has a 100 pages left. I don't know if he made progress or not. I'm too lazy to check my previous post. lol

Bad News: After 3 weeks my 'niece' has given up trying to edit Afraid of the Dark and passed it back to me. She hasn't passed on editing Plague Planet, but scifi isn't her cup of tea. She said it was too hard working for family, with everyone riding her about the project. She did say there were few grammar errors but only got about 100 pages into the 600 page book. I hope that's a good sign, since 3 people other than me have had a go at it.

But, that leads me to good news, I'm tired of waiting, and I've been patiently thumped over and over that 'gee, maybe 4 volunteers reading the book got most of the bugs out'. and "You can always update it with corrections later" (thanks guys) So, now that I have my own copy of MS word 2007, I will fix the TOC (again) and do one last read and then release Plague Planet, hopefully within the next 72 hours. (no promises, I may get invaded again)

So look for this cover:

EDIT: I just finished uploading it to Amazon and B&N. Nook users may have some issues, Nookpress looks funky and I haven't figured them out yet. But it's on it's way...

Coming in 12-48 hours!

Some more progress...

Okay, lets see... minor things really.
I've been free writing a lot, which isn't productive short term. It does however sometimes come in handy, after all, Bootstrap colony, New Dawn, Princess Rescue Inc, and Afraid of the Dark are all a product of my 'what if' free writing, so who knows what the future may bring?

I have also been working on book 6, I've cleaned up some of the raw notes (getting rid of present tense mistakes) and I've doubled, nay tripled (okay almost) it in size. I'm still having trouble with the structure, so I may need to bug someone about it. :)

I also did a bit of pecking in "Alive" another free write what if book. It's solidifying a bit.  Let's just say that.

I also blocked out one of the short stories for 13 Degrees of Separation, and I added a bit to Barkeep. :)

Edit: oops, forgot to mention, I went and started putting the pieces to 13 Degrees of Separation together into the final manuscript. I've added the 7 edited short stories, with 1 outstanding and the other 5 I'm still working on. So far the page count is 262... but I expect it to be close to 450 by the time the others are added.

My 'niece' took a hand at AD. She's been bugging me to have a go at my books for a while. I said okay. I pestered her for an update, she grumbled and growled at me. Then she said something about I have too many ellipses (...) and I ramble. She's fixing it. Um... Okay...

On the home front, dad and crew went to the memorial in New Hampshire. Dad called me at 5am this morning. (Gee, thanks dad. Fortunately for you Baby beat you by 20 minutes with my wake up call) Anyway, he said it was a quick ceremony, with about 100+ people there Saturday.
I'm not quite ready to strangle Baby for his 4am wake up calls... getting there, but not just yet. Soon though if he keeps it up for much longer. Luckily dad will be back on Thursday. Then he can stumble around like a bull in a china shop and wake me up too.
Baby is cute when he's begging for food. It's also funny to feel him trying to whack me with his tail to get me awake (he likes to tickle with it too... and don't get me started on the cold nose!) ... but it's really funny when I'm all sweaty. (hot night Friday) He got all pissy when his tail stuck (he had to tug it off) and then he has to go clean it. :D lol The disgusted look as he sat there cleaning it made my morning. :)
He's also a ball when he's hyper, he may be an old man, but that hasn't stopped him. He's been full of piss and vinegar all morning.

Usually you can set your clock by him, early in the morning, and around 8pm each night, the hyper train comes roaring through, all arched back, curled tail, eyes dilated and full of mischief, running all over the place... The sound FX he does are priceless. (think Chomps) lol

 

And then of course there is the duo together:

You gotta love that haughty expression. :)

 

Oh! I added scene transitions to all the books, those out, and those coming out. I also cleaned up some errors I found and some that Amazon's new Auto-spellcheck feature pointed out. That's a nifty thing.

If you see this:

...*...*...*...*...

That's my version of a scene transition.

I was going a bit squirrely near the end. (it's easy but tedious to do) Oh, if you notice the TOC (Table Of Contents) and links are messed up, that's because I did the fixes in Open Office since I don't have Word anymore. I need to deal with that later.

 

Also, I ordered a TV stick. Or box. The G-box midnight MX2.

http://liliputing.com/2013/05/g-box-midnight-mx2-tv-dual-core-tv-box-is-made-for-android-xbmc.html

This looks like a winner, but I'll know more when it comes in later today. I'm going to have fun playing with it. (I hope)
It's not just for fun, it's also so the family can finally Skype with family back east here on holidays and special occasions... and so I can do some research. (yes, I did say that) You'll know why when you read... um, telegraphing... sorry Rich. :)

Anyway, I'll have fun until Thursday when Edison shuts my power off all day for an upgrade to the system. ALL DAY. When it's supposed to be 96 out. Joy. It's going to be a hot week, more of the 100's for days and days.... ugh.

Seriously. I am so going to be climbing the walls right along side BABY! :P

 

 

Progress report

Over the past several weeks I've been a bit distracted with family issues. (see previous post) I'm finally getting back on track. This weekend was my birthday, I finished the first draft of a short story "A Matter of Breeding" on my birthday.
I also got to meet Thomas on Sunday for the party, one of the great guys who have given up their time to help me with my copy editing issues. Thanks Thomas. Hopefully your lovely latina lass lets you out of the doghouse soon! ;)
Anyway, Thomas got a bit of a sneak peek at some of my thought processes in my writing, as well as a quick look at the concept material I've gathered for several of the books I am working on, along with upcoming books. :)

He and I also talked a bit about Jethro's armor design. Here is his skinsuit WIP 4, textured. I still need to fix a few bugs, and I need to get the rigging sorted out.

This was going to be his full suit, but I think I went a little too far overboard with the Halo motif so I decided to start over with a more bulky StarCraft 2 look later. (You'll see it for the cover of Jethro 2 First to Fight, and most likely it's construction here and in my Deviantart gallery)
We also talked about the shipyard, 3D printing, TV sticks, and some things I'm not going to get into. >:D

Anyway, his trio had a ball playing with the trains and in the pool. I hope to have them (with his latina lass hopefully!) over again soon. Their kids are incredibly well behaved. I am looking forward to introducing them to the rockets the next time they come over. Seeing the kid's faces when they launch one should be fun. Thomas and I hit it off pretty well, he and I are alike in some ways and talking with him was fun. His talks with Jeff seemed... interesting. lol

I have also been testing Natural reader:
http://www.naturalreaders.com/
I wanted to see if it would help me with my editing. Many people suggest (or demand in some cases) that people read material out loud to themselves or have someone read it to them to see if it makes sense. Some writers are now using narrators. I've played with the idea before, but I gave up. I tried it again with "A Matter of Breeding" Sunday and yesterday.
It's an interesting program, the free version has it's faults though. It trips over some words, and it has an incredibly annoying pop up. The program halts every 3-4 paragraphs and it asks if you if you are ready to buy it yet. There is a 5 second countdown before you can hit the later button. That is aggravating.
I know Windows has a built in narrator that this program builds off of, but it's even worse. The voice is horrible. I've also used UltraHal in the past, but the site and software haven't been updated in years. It also has a virus on the site so BEWARE. I warned you.
I'm going to keep exploring I guess, though I'll try the reader one more time with the short story "The Last Round Up." I'll peck at that later tonight or tomorrow. (most likely tomorrow, it's getting too warm in my room)

With the kids out of school and the summer heat beginning, I am expecting more calls to play board games or go swimming. (or both) I am not sure how much that will impact my schedule. (No plan survives contact with the enemy!) Take yesterday for example, we got the call and spent the afternoon playing games with the kids at my sisters. (and everyone had a coughing fit and watery eyes from Jay's spicy pork concoction!)

I have also been working on spinners, rendering them during the morning when it is cool out. I've rendered about 3/4 of the aliens from the Federation universe. (those without fur or feathers) and I've been rendering my 3D Zoids. (those I've finished)
I'm debating retexturing my Blade Liger (or finishing it's textures) and rendering it again. Maybe even animating it.

I'm trying hard NOT to telegraph any story bits (spoilers) here and I am looking into expanding my exposure on the web as recommended by a few people including Rich. (It's hard, I hate having my picture taken! I may use a 3D image of Jethro as a place holder)

Oh! Almost forgot, Brandon finished AD over the weekend, and I'm waiting on Jim to finish PP before I make any more decisions on the editing front. :) I need to look into the mentioned POV shift issues too.

That's it for now!

News

I'd like to congratulate Brandon Schell (not to be confused with Proof reader Brandon) for graduating High School this evening. Good job kid!

In other news, I'd like to say a sad good bye to my dear Uncle Richard. He passed Tuesday morning with most of the family present. He will be sorely missed.

He will live forever in a lot of hearts and memories.

Spinners!

First off, Happy Memorial Day! We salute our men and women in the armed forces who have given their lives so this country and it's freedoms shall live. Thank you for your time and sacrifice. You will forever be in our hearts and memories.

Okay, I've been, well, not really writing, but I have been taking advantage of the cool weather to render, at least in the mornings. I've rendered the Afraid of the Dark aliens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juMxWwGUDZ0

Sorry it's so long, I'm relearning MS Movie Maker.

As well as the Marines from Valenko's Squad in Jethro Goes to War:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6bMAK7NPRM

I just finished putting that together and uploading it. See? I am getting better. :)

I've also been rendering the Federation aliens, most are untextured. I'll upload those later. Right now I am focusing on the aliens that lack fur or feathers. I have 19 finished, with quite a few more to go. Most may end up being shelved.
I can only render in the morning, when the temperature in the house is below 72. Anything above that and I start setting overheat alarms off, even with my liquid cooling. So I try to get as many done as possible in the morning.

I've also been working on texturing and rigging Jethro in his Marine Skinsuit. I'm having issues getting the rigging to turn on, so I'll work on that later. I am planning on making his powered combat armor soon. (the skinsuit was going to be it, but it's too much like the Halo Mjolnir suit in some respects for me to use it. I always thought of the suit as bulkier.) I'll need to make the suit for the cover of First to Fight. :)

Progress reports:
Brandon has AD, he said he's 1/3rd or 1/2 finished. (I'm not sure at this point, I forgot)
Jim has PP, no progress reported.
Thomas has been having fun with my short stories, including the old ones I've managed to dredge up for him to edit while I putter around in Cinema. lol
Mechmaster said he is 1/3rd finished PRI, despite a terrible bout of stomach flu. I'm glad he's better.

I am hoping a book will be ready to publish by the end of the month, but I have grave doubts. We'll have to wait and see what the week brings. Don't hold your breath though.

I have been talking with a couple of friends about renewing a video game making studio. It's just talk, we have done it before and haven't gotten far beyond that, though we've tried a few times. I'd love to see some of video game ideas (like AD) made real. (or as real as video games get, lol)

If I don't have any more family drama/distractions I should get back into writing and other things tomorrow.
Uncle Richard is stable though he had to go through a series of brain surgeries. He's lost his memory of the past 3 weeks. It's going to be a long road to recovery, but from the reports he's back on it.
I'm still campaigning for dad to go out to NH this summer to see him and the family. I'm not making much headway though. Sigh.

Have a safe holiday!

"Sasa fraken no good..."

Hey! I finally figured the origin of "Fracken" out. I thought they did it on Battlestar Galactica to get around the F bomb. Or Freaking. Now I know Sam the man cussing is the origin! or at least I'm running with that. :)

Yeah, I reblogged this from indydemocrat.blogspot.com

What can I say? Sorry mom for the cussing, and yes, I am a dork. >:)

Anyway, an update:
The first 4 copy edits of PP (Plague Planet) have been completed, Thomas just sent me back PP this morning. I'm looking into adding a few things before passing it on to someone else for their shot at it.
Thomas sent me back AD but had an auto-correct error and is fixing the fix. He'll get that back to me sometime soon.
I haven't heard anything from Mechmaster lately, (I'm guessing no news is good news?)
Congrats on Jacob loosing weight! Cool!

I've been working on Jethro 2 First to Fight. I tabled finishing the Gustav. I've added another 12 pages and some new plot points. I finished cleaning up chapter 9, but there is a lot of unresolved notes and details that need to be added ahead of it so it might not be chapter 9 for long.
I've been firming up my notes and tweaking some of the interconnected short stories to keep the details in synch. That is a necessary and tedious pain in the butt.
For some reason I keep getting attacked by viruses when I do research. That's annoying and time consuming to get rid of them. They also throw me off my game, blowing my concentration. That's annoying. GRRR.

I also have a bit of drama going on. 1 Mother's day. I'm hosting it again. and 2, my uncle Richard called Thursday, he had brain surgery yesterday. That's had the family walking on egg shells and hanging by the phone and net.

It's hot here, already 90. I suspect the nephews will be wanting to swim soon. Definitely tomorrow. They had fun in the pool and hot tub last weekend when they stayed the night.

To my Mom, Gram, Sister, and other mom's, have a wonderful day tomorrow ladies. You've more than earned it.

Now I get to go clean my house before you show up tomorrow. Gee thanks. lol

Oh, I almost forgot: My answer to the Dove-Cat wars:
Hang on dag nab it, I gotta get my phone out and transfer the dag gum picture...
Ah! Here it is:

That seems to have solved the problem, I haven't seen (though I've heard them) since. :)

(I told you I'm a dork)

Dove - Cat wars continue

    For those of you who know me, you know I've been laughing at the antics of a pair of doves and my 2 cats. For some reason these 2 doves love to tease and torment my cats. Both Loki and Baby are indoor cats. There are plenty of outdoor cats outside, but these doves just love to freak my cats out!
    They sit above a window and coo. When one of the cats comes to investigate one or the other will suddenly flutter at the window chee chee cheeing, freaking them out. (and sometimes startle me too!)
    They chase the cats from window to window, door to door, front and back all over my house. Sometimes they do this all day long. They even attack the security doors we have. They will also land and come to dad's sliding glass door to see if the cats are there. If they don't show they will sometimes peck at a window and coo.
   Last week one flew in to land on the tether pole. Then hopped to the swing set, then to the railing around the pool and then creeped, cocking it's head this way. And then carefully the bird crab walked, all the way around to the gate to see if one of the cats was going to come to the window. I wish I'd thought to get my camera at that time, but I was laughing too hard to breathe at the time.
      After getting home from our weekly grocery shopping this morning, we were watching Muscle Car when the birds started up again. Loki had been in my lap at the time. This time I had my phone on me and took these photos.
    They started by fluttering at the windows to get the cat's attention. Then they stopped to sit on the sign hanging in front of the window and peer in.

 

One of the birds has a thing for dad's ferns. He's not thrilled about subletting them out, obviously. lol

In the background you can see one of the birds watching from the railing I mentioned.

I think he's patiently waiting for Loki to get drossy before he flutters at the window. It didn't happen, I opened the door to get a better image and they both left.

And that's just the doves. Don't get me started on the hawk or other birds!

 

 

I think I'm jealous. This is what I look down on as I'm working here on my PC.

 

In other news, I've made some small progress on the Gustav. I'm mixing it up, using some of the stuff that came with the model along with my own ideas. (Cherry picker instead of the elevator for one) I'm looking forward to doing an image or 3 with it when all of it is finished.

 

I'm still pecking at Jethro 2 and the short stories. I did a bit with "The Last Round up", "A Matter of Breeding", and "Barkeep" earlier in the week. I've also been researching a few other things for Jethro 2 that will impact future books.

 

Brandon is still working on Plague Planet, and Mechmaster has made some progress with Princess Rescue... and he's posted an update of his comic! If you ever wondered what Dalek heaven would be like, go check it out.

http://www.mechmaster.co.uk/cg-lair/daleks_page1.htm

 

Now, if I can keep my darling pain in the rump sister from getting me to look up arcane ancient TV movies I might get more done! :) (BTW, has anyone seen Stranded with Loni Anderson on DVD? Or Poison Ivy with Michael J Fox? Or Brat Patrol? Or Thunder run? Or... You ruined me life? ...ugh, forget about it...)

Zoids

Well, I can still hear, so all is sorta good.
Let me explain. My sister's in-laws went away on vacation and I was "volunteered" to clean an office while they were away. Unfortunately someone gave me the wrong disarm code, (insert cursing here) and I set the alarm off... twice. My ears rang for days, despite me sticking my finger in to wring them out. My hearing is finally returning to normal... or what passes for normal for me. (admittedly, not much, I am a certified goofball)
The disarm and arm code are almost the same freaking code. Arm works fine. Disarm doesn't. Go figure. It all comes down to the one button. What the.... GRRRRR.
The fun thing is hitting the button... and seeing it blink thoughtfully.... and me going... um... is it... bbbbbbbbeeeeeBBBBBEEEEEEEE.... Ah crap! That hesitation... ugh. They gave me a new code, (which worked yesterday, thankfully) but I had an anxiety attack yesterday using it. That brief hesitation as it thinks it over...as you hit the last button... heart hammering in my chest, hands going to my ears... and then beep, off. I thought I was going to pass out. I swear it was toying with me! lol

The good news is that they are landing in 2 hours and I am off the hook cleaning! Yeah whooo!

Writing progress report:
I'm still pecking away at Jethro 2, but not much, I've been free writing too. I've added a new wrinkle which is going to make life interesting for Jethro. The book has a shifting viewpoint, Jethro is the main protagonist in the book but you also get to see how some of the other people around him are doing and see where some of the short stories tie in. :)
I've been stuck on the wrinkle and how it effects Jethro mentally and physically. Also, how others around him react to it.
I've also been researching an event but I'm not having much luck on finding what I want. I just need a criteria framework on military preparedness exercises. (How they grade a crew, certainly it's not just how fast they get it done right?)
I've also been catching myself skipping to the climactic um... crap. Spoiler. Never mind.... Neeeever Miiind. (sing song)

PRI (Princess Rescue Inc) has been Delta proofed, but I sent it to Mechmaster for a quick peek. He came back and said to hang on, he found some errors in the prologue so he'll take a stab at it. Most of them are word choice or punctuation related, something me and the 4 guys helping me tend to overlook. Since I'm tired of the proofing complaints, (they are my fault) I'm doing something about it. So, I'm pushing back the release of the book. Sorry, I doubt it will be this month or next. The good news is Mechmaster said he'd table AD (Afraid of the Dark) in order to get it done. It will hopefully be easier than AD which I wrote with all sorts of past tense errors and the Greek Chorus haven't had a go at. Maybe I'll as Mechmaster to pass it back to me and let them have a go at it? Clean up the dumb mistakes? Hmmmmm...

Plague Planet (PP) has been passed on to Gamma proofing. I think everyone's a little disappointed in the lack of space battles. It's a soap opera. That will definitely change in Jethro 2 First to Fight and Pirate's Bane, so please be patient. There is, as I said, a method to the madness.

Let's see, what else... um, Oh, Nohar has been successfully proofed by my Greek Chorus, and I'm sitting on it now. Since both Alpha and Beta proofers have finished with PP, I passed "Special Delivery" another short story on to Gord and Jacob. Both seemed amused by it.

I've been looking into various copy editing methods, and I downloaded some text to speech writers in order to try them. I had one in Zabaware's Ultrahal. (Wait, don't go there, the site has a virus! A virus I tell you! ssss.. sorry, I tried to warn you!) I caught a nasty virus there, and then again at the Phoenix college site trying to login for my sister. That took some time to clean out, but both apparently didn't do damage.
The Text to Speech thing is cool, but I need a full version, listening to the artificial "Anne" voice and highlighting a paragraph at a time is ugh. Forget it.
There is supposed to be an extension plugin for Open Office. I downloaded it, but there is no install directions and no install EXE. I'm clueless apparently. (insert laugh track for those who know better here)

Since I need to re-install Inspire 3D to get the import function to work properly in order to import the Jethro obj file (it's is corrupted) so I can work on his new suit, (It's for the cover to First to Fight and other things) I shoved it to the back burner. Instead I tinkered with hexagonal digicam and my zoids again.

I redressed my last Blade Liger beauty shot for this scene. I wanted the Rev raptor in the foreground to be impaled. You can't really see it very well though.

Here you can see a better view of the hex digicam. I fixed it. The above shot was messed up. The props and stuff are from my library with the exception of the C4D people. (except the pilots) and the forklift belongs to um...Archangel studios.

I wanted a cherry picker and other things, but I didn't find any on the web and I'm too lazy to make them now. Maybe later. BTW the civilians are civilian contractors working for the manufacturer. I keep thinking someone lost the keys and everyone's standing around hoping they will find them soon. :D

 

The hex digicam is a dumbed down version of something I saw at CGhub. I think the character wearing it (uniform) was for a game but I'm suffering a brain fart so I'm not sure. (Pizza will do that)

 

I also want to congratulate Kam on his team's win last night. Good job twerp! Finally broke the losing streak! Hell of a way to pitch a game! You're getting there kid, keep your chin up. :)

Tense and Synonyms are my kryptonite

I've finally got something to report, Gord has finished with Plague Planet and sent it to me this morning. I've corrected the mistakes he pointed out and I've sent it on to Jacob for Beta proofing. :)
I'm a bit pleased that Gord didn't find as many errors as he did in Ghost Station (there were hundreds there) but it seems has/have/had are/were and is/was are still sticking points. As are buy/by and their/there for some reason. I guess I should have (ha! I caught the 'of' before it fully slipped out! See? I am learning!) um... oh yeah, I should have taken more than 3 days to go over it before sending it off I suppose. :P

He did tweak me about my questionable sense of humor. (Yup, still got it.)

Come to think of it, I think Jacob has the short story, 'Nohar' too. lol I may have swamped him.

April 1st (April fools) I took the family out to John's Incredible pizza for lunch. I have wanted to do that for 3 years. If you haven't tried it yet, you don't know what you are missing. Think of an all you can eat pizza/Italian food buffet and an indoor carnival all in one.
Each dining room is a different theme. The log cabin dining room I selected was awesome. Everyone had a great time, even though my niece and youngest nephew blew through the arcade money I gave them in under 15 minutes. lol
My 81 year old grandmother ate more food than they did, she stuffed herself... and after we left she said next time she wants her own arcade card so she can play the games and ride the rides too! Just thinking of her playing the arcade games boggles the mind. ROFL

I'm going to have to do it May, just to hear her giggle like a kid while she plays a shooter game. lol

In other news, Mechmaster told me yesterday that he hasn't made much progress with AD (Afraid of the Dark) he's gotten midway through chapter 35 or 36. (I'm not sure which).

Thomas is up to his ears in his 6 year old son's birthday today (happy birthday squirt!) and I wish him luck. (He's going to need it!) He did report he's up to chapter 11 in PRI (Princess Rescue Inc) as soon as he gets it back to me and I make any changes he recommends I'll publish it... If I can.

My copy of Word has locked me out. Yup, 2007 bit the dust. Apparently Microsoft put in a number of installs limit in the software. I did that, I've had a lot or reformats in the past 3 years.... . If you go over the number, tough, go buy it over again. And oh, by the way the new copy is now only good for 1 year, then it too shuts off on you. And they wonder why I prefer Open Office. Grrr

Sooo, in order to publish on Amazon, I have to either borrow my sister's laptop, or bite the bullet and go buy the blasted software again. Grrr. So much for being a cheapskate!

I've been pecking at Jethro 2, First to fight. It's changing and evolving as I go, it's an interesting process to see I suppose. There are all sorts of things woven into it now, references to the main story line as well as to the short stories. I've finished the first 4 chapters and the prologue but I stalled on the first major event at the beginning of chapter 5. That will have some implications later so I have to be careful in skipping it in order to work on other scenes after it. Still it's up to 120 pages so it's getting there. You may find some Dr. Pol references in there somewhere. When I get past HOTS I'll do some research and then dive back into Jethro. :)

I am also 2/3rds finished with HOTS. Not bad. I like the primal Zerg, but I'm annoyed at all the retcons. I do like the shout outs to Broodwar this go around though. The strategy guide makes the boss battles stupid easy. lol

I want to do some 3D modeling after I beat HOTS. I'm debating on Jethro's suit or finishing my blade liger. I did model a suit for Jethro a year or so ago, but I decided it's too slim, I think he needs something bulkier for the armor. I've had something in mind for a while, now I need to make it. :)
But here is the sculpt I did. and yes, I know he's missing eyes, tongue, whiskers, helmet, and teeth. I didn't bother sculpting them, I prefer to add them in Cinema 4D.

Think of the above as his Marine issue space suit. :)

Happy Easter!

Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail... :)
   I hope everyone is enjoying your Easter, whether you are religious or not. (I'm not, it's family time)
Okay, on to the news:
   Gord and Jacob passed Princess Rescue Inc back to me, I passed it on to be proofread by another person. That person will pass it back to me for corrections and then I'll pass it on one more time. Hopefully you will see it by the end of April, if not sooner. :)
   I'd like to welcome Thomas to proofreading, he just finished proofing the short story "Nohar" aka "The Adventures of Nohar PI." An immediate prequel to Plague Planet. He said he'd shoot it back to me next week. :)

   Speaking of Plague Planet, I finished the rough draft on Monday, then Tuesday I cleaned up PRI and sent it off, then did a spellcheck of PP. When I was finished I started the read through. I usually take 3 months to do a read through, spell check, edit, read it again, then spell check with Word, then pass it on to the proofers. (I hate it. It takes longer for me to read it and correct stuff than it does to write it)... I really buckled down though this time (with Gord and Jacob asking for it) and got about half way through and then started slipping into scan mode on the third day. On advice from a couple of the proofers, I passed it on to Gord to have a go at it. Like they said, I can always add more later, and fresh eyes will see what I've overlooked.
    Gord of course has already thumped me about how little I did in corrections. Actually the has/had one is the biggest 'oops' so far. lol

   I'm planning on playing Heart of the Swarm later next week, but Friday and Saturday I had a bit of free time and started pecking at Jethro 2, First to Fight. I cleaned up some past tense errors and added 3 pages to it. It's funny, that book is already nearly 80 pages long and it's got a lot happening in it. I'm going to have a lot of fun writing it. :) Even the simulated combat has me grinning. The real combat is going to be... fun. >:D

   Oh, for those of you asking or talking about Irons and why he does what he does, some of the psychology comes to a head in Plague Planet. But I will leave you with these two paraphrased missives.
1 You cannot govern without the consent of the governed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_of_the_governed

2 An officer doesn't give an order he know won't be obeyed.
http://everything2.com/title/Never+give+an+order+you+know+will+not+be+obeyed

Okay one more,
There is a method to my madness. Muhahahaha....

Princess Rescue Inc

Wow!
Gord my alpha proof reader sent PRI (Princess Rescue Inc) Monday, I made his recommended corrections and then passed it on to Jacob who just finished and sent it back to me a few minutes ago. COOL! lol (giddy here)
In anticipation of this I fixed the cover art scaling, cropping the left side to form it into a rectangle. (and getting rid of the 6 legged rat that took hours to render... grrr)

The cover art has material from various sources. The animals (except the horse) were sculpted by me in Sculptris, the marines are from Mixamo? Most of the outfits are from Renderocity and ShareCG and are owned by their creators (who generously released them publicly) Some of the props were made by me, some like the buildings in the back came from ShareCG I think. Textures are from various sources including the web.

 

If you are wondering down the road (after the book is released) Princess Zara is the woman in the left corner, the soldiers and others I don't remember off the top of my head, but on the right is Eugene Ryans the protagonist, and Princess Diedra.

I will be making any recommended corrections the first week of April, and then I will see if someone else is willing to take a go at it... or if I can put it out as is. We'll see. Either way I'd like to release it by or before May 1st.

Last week I finished the rough draft of another short story: "Hauling Freight". That's 6 out of 13 stories for the short story book, I'm almost half way there on that front. So far 3 have been proofed, 1 is up for proofing for who ever wants it, and the other 2 (including Hauling Freight) are unfortunately going to have to wait until after PP and Jethro 2 are released before I let them be proofed. They have wwaaayyy to many spoilers in them. :D

I also added a couple more treatments for other short stories in the other time blocks. The stuff after book 7 is... wow. 14 stories planned so far, and a lot of them have combat in them. They are going to be fun to write... when I get around to them. Some are already partially finished, though raw. :)

This upcoming week is Spring Break for most of the family... which means I'm pretty sure my productivity is going to take a nose dive. I am on chapter 19, it's 1/3rd finished, a mixture of notes and finished writing. I'll try to get the last 4 chapters of Plague Planet completed... but no promises. Sigh. I so want the rough draft done though! (do you have any idea how hard it is to keep from getting nauseated with Andrew Bordaine talking about eating awful things in the background.... yuck!)

In other news Mechmaster finished proofing Chapter 32 and 33 of Afraid of the Dark, I'm not sure if I reported that in the last blog post or not. ... and I'm too lazy to check. The good thing is that he is finally half way through the book. :)

I finally received the collector's edition of Heart of the Swarm from Amazon, and they finally shipped the strategy guide yesterday. As soon as I send PP off to Gord I'm taking a sabbatical to have a bit of fun with the Zerg. :)

That's it for now!