Guns & Magic

 

Horse Girl – 1160 words (chapter 7 total: 3317)

 

No clue how long this chapter is going to turn out. We’ll find out together, I guess.

 

-David

 

The Longest Night by Gregg Keizer. This book was chosen at random from the library’s Web page. I’m hoping it won’t suck.

 

While I enjoyed the first half of How to Change the World by David Bornstein, I found the second half to be … mostly a repeat of the first half. So I skipped to the end and read the conclusion. I’m still intrigued by the idea of social entrepreneurs–and a bit intimidated by what some of them have been able to accomplish. Maybe I’ll find some other books on the topic.

 

Over the weekend I finished both Liber Mechanika and Iron Kingdoms World Guide. My D&D campaign ideas are coming together, and one of the players has already started putting together his character and background. After I finish The Longest Night I’ll tackled the last of the Iron Kingdoms books I have.

 

The Iron Kingdoms setting has rather caught my fancy. Once I’ve finished the first draft of the Horse Girl novel, and before I (finally) start editing The Summoning Fire, I might write a few stories in that world, to help me get the feel a bit more. Which should help with the D&D campaign too, I think.

 

-David

 

Horse Girl – 346 words (chapter 7 total: 2157)

 

Too many distractions recently. Yesterday (and Sunday before that), the server host for my online game, Artifact, abruptly decided to move their hardware hosting from Florida to Texas. That was just this side of a fiasco. I lost the Wiki with the notes and research for my 2005 non-fiction book, Serious Games (co-authored with Sande Chen). Plus we lost some of the accumulated data and history for Artifact. But the game is back online and running again. Here’s hoping that I managed to get everything else transferred properly.

 

I had hoped to do at least 1000 words today, but I was still distracted this morning. Paranoia about system failure, mostly. And that lingering doubt that I found and copied everything…

 

-David

 

Horse Girl – 1005 words (chapter 7 total: 1811)

 

Any progress is good progress. Actual good progress is great. =)

 

-David

 

I’m still reading How to Change the World by David Bornstein. I’m liking it. The book emphasizes that for all the times we hear about “ideas whose times have come”, none of those ideas would’ve come at all were it not for those people who championed the idea until the rest of the world caught up.

 

I’m also reading a couple other Iron Kingdoms books, Liber Mechanika and Iron Kingdoms World Guide. Still prepping for my new D&D campaign.

 

And I have a book from the library waiting beside my desk. And another still at the library waiting for me to pick it up.

 

I feel behind on my reading all of a sudden.

 

-David

 

Horse Girl – 806 words (chapter 7 total: 806)

 

<excuses>The past few weeks my writing output has been hit and miss. Sometimes life gets in the way, neh?</execuses>

 

But I’m still moving forward. I tallied up the word count as of chapter 6, and I’m sitting just past 28,000 words. Not a bad bit of work, if I do say so myself. If I keep up the average per chapter that I’ve been seeing, the finished book will be in the 70,000 word range.

 

Over on John Scalzi’s Whatever, he mentioned The Gender Genie the other day, a Web-based test which purports to predict the gender of a writer based on 500 or so words of text. I played with that some the other day. So far, giving samples from my Stevie chapters, the Genie predicts me as female. Which is good, I think, since I’m writing it from a female perspective.

 

To test it further, I gave it samples from my NaNoWriMo novel, The Summoning Fire. As I hoped, the stories that had a female leads were predicted female. And the stories with male (or nonhuman) leads were predicted male. Mostly. I think one story with the Old Man was predicted female, but it was a pretty close call, based on the statistics.

 

Neat, neh?

 

-David

 

by David Michael

 

 

“I’m sorry, Stevie.” A man’s voice. Dad’s voice?

 

In her dream, Dad held her close, a hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair as he apologized, like he always used to do when she needed comforting. “Things will be back to normal,” he said. “Soon.”

 

Then they stood in the practice pen, and Dad held Jack Rabbit’s reins while Stevie mounted. The practice pen became an open field, with the sunlight washing over them–

 

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Horse Girl – 1208 words (Chapter 6 total: 5516)

 

I didn’t expect to hit 1200 words today. My goal for the day was to finish chapter 6. I did both. Go, me.

 

If I can, I’ll get chapter 6 edited and posted today. Otherwise, it’ll happen tomorrow, after I get chapter 7 started.

 

-David

 

How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein.

 

Iron Kingdoms Character Guide by Privateer Press took a while to bulldoze through. Campaign setting source books are like that. It’s all about inundating yourself in fictional histories of make-believe nations, religions and organizations, while figuring out how you can use that flood in your own weekly D&D game. I like the Iron Kingdoms setting. It’s a well thought-out and, for the most part, well-written campaign world. But it’s a lot of information to soak up in a short timeframe. I will be picking up Iron Kingdoms World Guide soon. But not until after I’ve read a few un-related books.

 

-David

 

Horse Girl – 559 words (chapter 6 total: 4308)

 

I didn’t expect to have no production yesterday. Gotta stop that. Zero-word days really hammer the average.

 

Chapter 6 is looking like it will be another 5000 word chapter. Plus, I’ve rather re-interpreted the original outline for the chapter. I think I’m covering the story points I planned to cover. It’s just the details of how I’m doing the coverage is changing. And those changes could ripple-accumulate through the remaining chapters. Not in bad way, I think. And not in a way that will invalidate the rest of the outline. Just in a way I didn’t expect.

 

In fact, overall, I like the ideas that came to me in this chapter. They expand the magical/mystical aspects of the book (though not too much) and they provide the foundation for a crisis coming later.

 

I’m wanting to get this chapter finished tomorrow. So I can get it posted either tomorrow or over the weekend.

 

-David