No. No I did not.

Generally speaking, I like the new spellchecker in Google Docs. That is, I like in in concept. In practice, I sometimes wonder whether crowd-sourcing spellchecking to the Internet is such a good idea.

This seems like a fine time to set out my writing plans for the year. I think I noted in a previous post that I’m not working on Derelict primarily right now – I have wonderful ideas for it, but it involves a restructuring that’s . . .  big. Characters are being cut or combined, neat things are happening, and I don’t feel like going into the details until I know them myself so . . . Derelict is firmly on the back burner. I’m still working on it, but little bits at a time. When I get around to finishing it I’m probably going to start from scratch. (Goddamn it.) On the other hand, they say it’s not a good idea to try and finish your first book first, so . . .

Ironically, my main writing project then isn’t prose at all (mostly). I don’t know that I’ve talked about Zosias much on this blog – I’m too lazy to Google, so it will have to remain a mystery for now. Here, find out for yourself if you’re curious. Yes, I know that that probably took more effort than actually looking it up myself, and I don’t care.

Anyway, a casual observer with access to the Zosias files (such as, say, one of the other devs) might think that not much is happening on that front right now, and they’d be right. I mean, I’m two bloody months into the year and . . . yeah, not much. But work is coming! I just need to finish moving, finish getting on a shift where Kat and I can work together raising Summer instead of her only seeing us together in the car, catch up on sleep, and other various excuses. More to come later.

Current music: Other Side of the World by KT Tunstall

. . . also, hologna: for when you only want to appear to be eating bologna.

Okay, I still haven’t bothered to mess with my camera, but if I had you would see a sheet of paper with a whole bunch of lines, some numbers, a few made-up names, and the words “Fae Calendar” at the top. I’ve been looking for this for ages. Like, at least a campaign and a half. Pity, the names aren’t nearly as good as the placeholder names I came up with.

Also found while moving: Everything. But then we boxed it all up, so I don’t know where it is any more.

But here’s a funny story! About a week ago, right before we started moving, I misplaced my associate’s discount card. (I haven’t been working for Wal-Mart long, but Kat’s been the accounting associate there almost a year, and I have one because I’m her hubby.) I thought I was going to have to report it missing and get a new one, but then we started moving and lo! There it was. So I popped in to grab a few things on my way between apartments, and when I used it the register locked up and made S. have to call a manager over because it was actually the card I lost and reported missing a year ago. After I was confirmed not to be some nefarious thief impersonating myself, I got back to the old apartment and found my associate’s discount card on my desk. By process of elimination, I determined it to be the right one.

Current music: Goodbye To You by Michelle Branch, and the sound of Summer playing with something she shouldn’t be. Be right back.

We’re mostly moved into our new apartment. I’d have pictures, but the camera and the batteries were packed separately and I really can’t be bothered to figure out how to get pictures off my phone via USB. I’m sure it’s really easy.

The biggest hurdle right now is getting all the boxes unpacked and everything put away. My desk didn’t survive the move – it was a huge particle-board affair that looked quite nice and was basically functional, but also on its last legs. I’m typing this right now on Kat’s old desk, which she has generously gifted to me; I don’t have my second monitor set up because it’s not a flatscreen and doesn’t fit, though I might give fitting it another good try in a few minutes. On the box front, I have a lot of help from Summer, who if not very precise in her unpacking is at least enthusiastic and energetic. If I just pick up things she unpacks and put them away, I keep a very brisk pace going.

We’ve been wanting to move out of our old apartment for ages; last April I put my foot through the deck (of a second-story apartment, mind) and, after a month or two, convinced the management to screw some plywood over the hole. They told me they’d have the whole deck replaced next week, and it’s almost a year later . . . Suffice it to say that, when an apartment opened up at a place we’ve been keeping an eye on near work, we jumped at the opportunity. Oh, and despite my foot going through the deck again while we were moving out, no one has been injured beyond a scrape on my heel. Of course, the apartment management still wants the breaking-the-lease fee. I think I’m going to have a talk with code about whether we have to pay the lease-breaking fee when moving out of an apartment whose only entrance or exit is a rotting deck with holes in it that the management has been promising to fix since April.

Right. That doesn’t bring this blog anywhere near up to date, but it’s been long enough since I promised to update it regularly that I figure that goal has expired. Besides, I need to move my computer wiring behind the desk before it drives me nuts.

Current music: The Final Countdown by Europe, but only because I got to the end of the post and remembered that I still hadn’t unpaused my music from earlier.

I’ve been curious for a while what my traffic statistics look like, and too lazy to check. I guess now I’ll know.

Anyway, a quick writing update: Due to the aforementioned, I’m not where I hoped to be in Derelict. That’s okay though, because around the turn of the year I had some really good ideas for it. Ideas of the sort that work really well with the world and framework I have in the story, but pretty much require it to be a very different book. So, I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago: putting Derelict on the back burner, and working on something else as my primary writing project. Conventional wisdom is that if you have a book you’ve been working on half your life, you should stick it in a drawer and move on to the next one, and then maybe come back once you have a few finished books under your belt. I’ve resisted this, and to be fair it’s not universally true – see Patrick Rothfuss – but it really is good advice. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit fed up with Derelict at the moment, anyway.

So, for the time being, Derelict is on the back burner, and I’m making Zosias my primary writing project.

Right, that about covers it for now. Current music: A Thousand Miles, by Vanessa Carlton. Er, no, now it’s Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu Daisukki, by Mini Mori. For future reference, these songs do not pair well. Also, wtf is the latter doing in my playlist or, you know, on my computer? Sometimes listening to old music collections is dangerous.

I forgot to include The Masterharper of Pern in the Ninth Fall time period, what with it being a prequel to Dragonflight and all. But seeing as how I remember it being one of my favorites, it pretty much has to go in.

Also, erm. Most of the shorts set in the 9th fall are collected in A Gift of Dragons, with the last one in that collection generally considered undatable, so . . . I guess that’s on the list, too. *cough*277*cough*

What are you looking at me like that for? It’s a static list. I swear it’s static. As long as none of the five or six or so active series on it publish any more books before I’m done, it’s going to just hold still. Right? Right.

• The list, based on the NPR Top 100 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of All Time, and subtracting those books I have read, currently stands at 275 books.
• This is because there are a crapton of series in there.
• In many cases I could probably skip other books in the series but prefer not to.
• In some cases I have decided to skip other books in the series for various reasons.
• For example, I’ve previously read numerous Drizzt books, but never the Homeland trilogy, so I’m just reading the Homeland trilogy. Yes, I know I said I’d skip the Drizzt books this year. Shoot me.
• For another example, I’m not only reading the first Pern trilogy; I’m reading the rest of the books in the Ninth Fall era. This only comes to about ten of them, and the Ninth Fall is my favorite time period in the series. I may also read some of the 9th fall shorts, like The Girl Who Heard Dragons and Runner of Pern, which puts me in severe danger of accidentally reading the rest of the stories in the collections they’re in.
• For a final example, only one of the books in Pratchett’s Discworld series is on either list. I could read the whole Discworld series, but it’s forty books long and then I wouldn’t have any more to look forward to. Pratchett’s books are tasty treats that I save and savor.

This list is looking more and more like a two- or three-year goal, especially considering that since setting the goal I’ve read 37 books, of which 12 were listed titles. This is almost a perfect ratio of 2 non-list books to 1 list book – indeed, the only reason it isn’t is because I’m not at a number divisible by three. The next two I’m likely to finish are Dragondrums, which is listed, and Legends from the End of Time, which isn’t, and if that goes as expected it will be a perfect 2:1 ratio when I hit 39 books. This is not intentional, just amusing.

And, erm. If I maintain that 2:1 ratio, this list might take a little while.