Star Crossed Musing

Here, it's a picture of a cute pig from the Internet. Enjoy. So, Dear Reader, the last we saw of each other was when I got that amazing survey back and could not figure out what the heck I was going to do with it. (I am much closer to doing something with it, btw, but that'll take another few months.) I had every intent of posting again, and soon, but then... well, my dissertation ramped up and ate my life. I've been making good progress, but I'm on something of a deadline at the moment, so I'm forced to ignore pretty much everything that isn't it, including this blog. I still love you all, though. Truly. Would Little Piglet lie to you? No, it would not. Oink. In life updates though, in the past five months: Both my sons are graduating high school I've finished drafts of three and a half chapters I've been a guest at a convention (Breakout Con in Toronto, ON!) I've been elected president of a game developers trade organization (IDGN!) I...

So, I really meant to post more in December, truly I did, but then the end of the semester happened, and then I fell and broke my thumb, which put a damper on my typing overall. I just got my cast off yesterday, and it's a glorious feeling. (See pic of my son cosplaying John Bender from The Breakfast Club to embody that emotion. :) ) It's sore, and I can't ask it to do too much, and I have a splint to wear at night for support, but it's so much better than it was. So I have more about game design to post, but I'm going to take a bit to do the obligatory end-of-year post. 2016 seemed like a year of huge upheaval for just about everyone I know. Some good, some bad, but lots of it regardless. My eldest son moved in with us and started his senior year again, for example. He's doing well, but it was an adjustment. My dad had health issues but is doing okay. My car got wrecked (by my son) and replaced with my parents' old minivan.  I had a chapter approved fo...

Oh friends, readers, and countrymen, what tales I have to tell you. I have returned from London and completed revisions on my first dissertation chapter. I have started writing using the research I did in London for my fourth (written second) chapter. I have been teaching a class and I have made a prototype for a new card game, which is not a thing I have ever done before. I have made hand-raised steak and ale pies for my gaming group, and shared the joy of Jaffa Cakes. My company has even just finished a successful Kickstarter for a new Chill 3rd Edition supplement -- Monsters. We not only met our very realistic (aka not lowballed) goal, but we exceeded it by 5k, and as a result will be adding extra content in the form of more monsters! Closer to home and the present day, the weather is currently giving me fits as it yo-yos from 40s to 70s and back again, all of which triggers my migraines. Metatopia is this weekend, and I am not really ready, but I am likely as ready as I will ev...

This is the delicious fish and chips I ate. That is some big fish. No, seriously. That's a MEDIUM. Really well done, too. Cod, but that's like the least adventurous fish they have there -- I just like cod. If you get the chance, go to The Fish House on Portobello Road. The upstairs waiter is this very nice Italian guy from Milan. Two thumbs way up.  My hair loves it here. It's the humidity, I'm sure. Seriously, best hair in ages.  Sweating. So. Much. Again, it's the humidity (and that I'm fat, I'm sure). Because the temp isn't that high and the exercise is not that strenuous, and it seems to depend on the room I'm in (if I'm in a room) as much as anything. Not terribly fun. Better on lower humidity days. Laundry services. Expensive, but a super nice splurge. I can't afford to do it again, but I'm glad I did it once. They even got the spot out of my skirt!  I got a coat. Actually, let's be clear -- I think I could be in love ...

So, I thought I should probably post a bit about exactly what I'm trying to research, if only to give myself a chance to work through it. My initial plan was to look at reprints of famous novels, particularly in periodical format. Specifically, I'm looking at Novelist's Magazine , and trying to figure out what changed both in subsequent printings and in this particular format of the novel. I'm looking primarily for added illustrations, but I'll also take general decoration, typeface, layout, etc. I wanted to look at two novels: Pamela and Joseph Andrews . The image to the right is the title page from an early edition of Pamela  by Samuel Richardson. This is, of course, kind of appropriate, since Pamela was such a huge hit, and Joseph Andrews is Henry Fielding's response to Pamela by writing about her brother and his adventures. Now, I know from research that both Pamela and Joseph Andrews were published in Novelist's Magazine . And obviously, the...

The coffee shop/bakery across the street from me sells the best latte I've ever had. No, seriously. It is that good. Here is it. Apparently it's part of a small chain, but if it serves coffee this good, I don't care. Also, their regular coffee is quite nice as well. The only thing I don't care for is their insistence that everything should be served on a small plank. A plank is not a plate. Even trenchers had a carved indention. It's not that hard, people. If they tell you that they have crispy bacon, they're lying. Or else "crispy bacon" is code for "not-crispy-at-all bacon, but it has grill marks. See?" On the other hand, ham hereabouts is amazing, and I don't even really like ham all that much. Public restrooms are hard to come by. Some places don't have them at all, some places hide them unless you ask. - Traveling and being an introvert is hard. I'd been pushing myself because, after all, I don't have that long...

London has a serious thing going on with avocados. I mean, I like avocados a lot, and even I am now wary of finding them where they don't belong after a single day. Caprese salad should not have avocado. Just. No. Yay, I'm staying in a Georgian townhouse, on streets with a lot of other Georgian townhouses! I can pretend I've come to London for a season and can leave cards for people! Boo, I'm staying on the third floor in a Georgian townhouse, with three flights of stairs and no lifts, as they say! And the plumbing is wonky. And there's no climate control, though the gorgeous weather currently makes that less of a concern. I can eavesdrop on everyone, and only half of them are in a language I understand! Fun! :) Doggies are everywhere! Everyone's walking a dog. It's awesome. People are generally nice! It probably helps that I'm generally nice too. I still feel like I'm walking around a movie set. I'm not sure how many days it'll tak...

So, despite the fact that I need to be dissertating (and I am, I promise!), I keep having ideas for games. Some people do this with short stories; some people do this with article ideas, or crafting ideas, or whatever. I've gotten to the point that I do it with games. Now, I'm a person who believes that it's not the idea, but the execution that makes something awesome, so I don't mind talking about my ideas. I also think there's only a couple of people in the industry I know of who might be willing to take them and run with them, so it's not like there's a huge risk. As such, I'm going to list out my game ideas and hope that they'll leave me alone until next year, when I can actually start to do something about some of them. If, of course, some of my fair readers wants to comment on some of these ideas and tell me what they think, I'd be interested. Do note, these are mostly working titles. Vovetas: My Game Chef entry from last year -- a r...

So I'm doing this taxonomy thing, and I have an urge to post progress somewhere so I won't lose all sight of it in the morass of sadness that is this particular form of archive creation. I have finished the object/term listing for what I consider the opening section of Robinson Crusoe, wherein he is a man-child trying to go to Sea in defiance of God and Father and everyone with sense. I am now into parsing his time as a slave, which goes much faster. I'm pretty sure I'm recording things that aren't anything like the objects I'm supposed to be focusing on, but honestly... rather do it and not need it than need it and have to go back and do it, right? And I know that making an archive is a pain, but even the work I've done this far tells me that it's necessary to do. I also did one for Swift's "Lady's Dressing Room," but as that's a not-overly-long poem, it wasn't too taxing (hah hah). In addition to potential objects, I'm...

So I'm at the point in my dissertation where it would be most convenient if my page count were rapidly increasing, but my most recent meeting with my advisor (combined with stupid health stuff that's mostly at the annoyance level but might be kicking into bronchitis (see you Tuesday, doc) has pulled that all to a grinding halt. Instead, I've had to step back and go into a bit of an organizational fury, making spreadsheets until I keel over. See, the thing about making a dissertation about objects and the role they play in fiction and how we interpret them means we have to talk about that very thing, and that means I'm making claims, and that means that I really ought to be making those claims consistently (assuming there is a consistent claim to be made) and that means that I need to organize the objects that are being used in my source texts into some sort of use-order, which means making groupings and deciding what those groupings mean (and along the way, what is ...

... but I've gotten a lot of work done, so that's something. I've finished three knitting projects and started on two (2!) pairs of socks, one color work and one plain that a friend requested. I'm looking at starting on a star-stitch scarf, because obviously we all need another scarf in the world, and I can't let this yarn I bought that's the wrong size for what I want to do go to waste. It's really pretty, even if it is far too yellow for me to use in a lot of ways. (I look like death with yellow next to my face. Seriously. Not a good thing.) Sephi got out of the yard yesterday and went wandering, and I went this morning to pick her up from animal control (she's fine -- the lady there knows her and knows us, we just couldn't get back by 3:30 to pick her up, given that we finally got the call at 3:25). All is well, though we have to make sure her paperwork is caught up and get all the collar batteries for the invisible fence updated. My gothic ...

So! It's the end of the year! That means it's time for a yearly wrap-up, along with everyone else's blog. :) Things I did: Got started getting tested for autism Coordinated convention stuff for IGDN Helped make the case for a quiet room at GenCon Taught engineers why communication is important Taught music students how writing fits into what they do Finished Chill and delivered it to the world Got my dissertation prospectus approved and outlined key parts of it Got my first publication acceptance as an academic  Got my first "revise and resubmit" as an academic Developed my first material for Onyx Path Met my oldest's girlfriend via Facebook (!) Discovered Hamilton Knitted some major projects, including the Pac-Man blanket, finishing Will's color stripe rainbow blanket, and a whole bunch of fingerless gloves Discovered that corn, milk, and nuts really are not my friends at all any more. :( Luckily cheese and yogurt are still on good ter...

This recurring feature of my blog will be talking about various sources I'm using in my dissertation, both in the hopes of getting my brain around them using the "can you explain this to your friend/relative/spouse/grandmother" method of understanding concepts, as well as seeing what other people think of such things and fostering some discussion. Our first topic of discussion today is Bruno Latour and his undying fights to bring science studies into the light of respectability -- and, you know, to reorient our relationships with the world as we know it at the same time. Just a little thing. No big deal. So, if you don't know who Latour is, what you really need to know is that his primary theory, using the terminology that's been largely settled on (although he's still not entirely happy with it) is a thing called "actor-network theory," or ANT for short. The jist of it is that we tend to look at the world (and particularly science) in terms ...

Okay, so I'm going to start doing periodic status posts to kind of keep myself honest about my workload and what I'm focused on at the moment. I'm working on balancing freelance gigs + coursework + school work + teaching + dissertation reading. I'm staying home today and not doing a whole lot out of the house (maybe going to pick up the ceramics I did with my stepdaughter), so hopefully I can get things done. Here's my current statuses across the categories: Freelance:  Redlines for the one of the Dark Eras for the Onyx Path book; finished one era, still one to go. Deadline of Monday.  Started in on the next chapter for Emerald City , the Interface Zero 2.0 book I'm working on. Got 500 words done yesterday -- aiming for at least that much today.  Coursework: Read another two chapters on Cicero.  Finish translating Ad Familiares 7.1. Study vocabulary. Teaching: Grade 11 1st drafts with global and local feedback for Monday.  ...

If you know me at all, it doesn't seem like this would be a problem I would have. And yet, I can assure you, it is something I struggle with on a regular basis. In looking around at the Internets of late, it seems to be something that others struggle with too, so I thought I'd write about it. So there's a thing that happens where nothing is quite right. We can envision something as it should be and anything short of that seems like a pale comparison, practically a joke. When we could have the awesome of the perfect thing, why should we be asked to settle for anything less? Why shouldn't we push ourselves to achieve the thing that is obviously so much better? This is a thing for me in my writing. It's a thing for me in my knitting. It's a thing for me in a lot of ways. It's an outlook I sort of struggle with when it comes to politics and compromise and solutions to issues at work. I have problems being invested in something and yet being flexible about ...

That sounded way more exciting than it is. It's the weekend. My kids are around, and they're watching screens, as kids do when they're not being forced to do something else. The something else is coming, so they get some screen time this morning without me making a fuss. Choose your battles, etc. Also, it's hot out today and I don't feel I can, in good conscience, make them go outside until it cools off a bit this evening. Went to see Ant Man Friday night, and I really enjoyed it -- far more than I thought I would. Paul Rudd was very good, mostly playing a straight man for Michael Douglas (who completely rocked, btw) and Evangeline Lilly (who also completely rocked). The plot was a bit disjointed at times -- no movie involving significant shape change "science" is going to be wholly on point -- but we got as much backstory as we needed, and a lot of focus on the personal relationships and stuff to keep the plot rolling. I'm looking forward to seein...

So, since a shift in my meds, I have problems sleeping in any more. I fall asleep earlier than I was wont to do six months ago, and I wake up earlier than I'd like. By 7 AM on a typical day, sleep is no longer an option. And I know, all of you who have to get up earlier than that for work (including my husband) are all playing the world's tiniest violins for me, but here's the thing: would you willingly get up at that time if you didn't have to? I don't have anywhere to be that early, and I still can't sleep in. Thankfully, we have an arrangement where my husband makes coffee when he gets up so that I can get some, and then I can sit in bed with my computer and drink some coffee, and then the world seems like it's a far better place. But this also means that I should get some work done. For this week, I need to study Latin for the final on Wednesday. So that gets done today and tomorrow. I need to work on moving my article into Chicago style so it'll...

One of the odd things about working with thing theory is how all-encompassing and yet oddly specific the words "thing," "object," and "stuff" suddenly become. Well, maybe not stuff, at least not for formal discussion. And what's worse, everyone who uses them means something slightly different by them, which only makes sense as we're all just sorta making this up as we go. We know there's something there worth talking about, but the vocabulary to talk about it isn't fully formed yet. Latour gets around this by discussing human and non-human actors, but that makes some people squirrelly about evening the playing field between people and objects (even though I like it). The difficulty, then, in writing about the ways we interact with the things we make (and what effect those things have on us in turn) is that sometimes we can be specific (i.e., what effect does a soccer ball have on the people who interact with it) but sometimes we have to...