Workaholic blues

Things just seem to go from bad to worse lately, and something’s got to give. I can feel the stress fractures forming and needs to change soon. Between the recent problems at my day job (which has taken up all too much of my attention) and the contract work I’ve been doing for myself, I’m exhausted. The work has taken over, leaving family and writing in the dust, and I’m not happy about that.

I enjoy my work at dito, and the contract work I’m doing is proving to be nothing but hassle. Working 4-5 hours a night after an already full day at Ditto is not fun. The original intent of Battleaxe Technologies, Inc. was to develop some web sites and commercially saleable software that I have either partially written or designed. So far, I haven’t been able to manage one bit of what I intended. Instead I took the road most easily travelled and accepted some contract work doing customizations of Postnuke, a Content Management System (CMS) that I now consider to be a vile and poorly implemented disaster waiting to happen.

So where do I go from here? My heart tells me to take the road less travelled, and follow my own desires. Doing contract work may be a financial success, but at the end of the day, if I had to choose between money and contentment, I’d choose contentment hands-down. I’d rather be spending my free time of my own accord, so what’s holding me back?

On top of all of this, I’m still trying to finish first draft edits on the short story I’ve been working on for the past two months. If I had more control of my free time, I might actually be able to follow the schedule I had set for myself. My desire to write has not waned, only the time available to do so.

The time for hard decisions is at hand.

Twists of the screw

The past weekend was busier than most, even for me. The plan I had of building servers on friday fell apart, thanks to a screwup by Fed Ex. The hardware was delivered on Saturday, but the fun didn’t end there. It turns out I ordered the wrong case/power supply. The motherboard wouldn’t fit in the case.

I went to a local computer store and bought two “server” cases. The board fit perfectly, but it turned out the power supply didn’t have the right connector required by this board. Without it, certain on-board peripherals didn’t work, such as the video. Quite a pain in the ass. I ended up returning the cases.

My own server was much less trouble. I managed to order the right case, and I had no troubles getting it assembled and configured.

Along with all of that, I managed to revive the rotting corpse of Project Dolphin in the form of Project Orca. I’ll leave a detailed explanation of what that is for another time.

Growing pains

Never let it be said that working at a post dot.com era start up is uneventful.

We’ve finally managed to outgrow our hardware. While this painful from a cost perspective, it shows that we have built a successful and growing business. So now the fun begins.

It’s easy to call up Dell and order new servers. They also charge you an arm and a leg for it. Up to now, all of our servers are Dell-made, thanks to the venture capitalists of the dot.com era. It’s just not as feasible now, when we’re operating on a tight budget.

So I’ve decided to build our own servers. I can buy the parts and assemble them for almost a third of the cost, using the same quality equipment. Over time, I’ll assemble a farm of these servers. This will even make my job easier. With some standardized hardware, I can create images of the machine. Then adding a new farm to the cluster becomes a trivial task. I’m all for making life easier in the long run, even if the short term means working the weekend to assemble and configure servers.

Scheduling

Routines are good, especially when it comes to writing. Establishing a schedule was difficult at first, but eventually I got into the routine of writing at lunch, five days a week. A good start, but that’s just what it was, a start.

To continue the positive pattern, I’ve decided to build on the routine. I’m setting the alarm and waking up early every morning. I’m starting at six o’clock, and I’ll start at five next week. That way, I’ll have roughly ninety minutes in the morning to write every day, and another fourty-five minutes at lunch. With that, I should be able to finish a short story in under two months, like it seems to be taking me at the current pace.

Don’t quit your day job, kid

The weekend is nearly over and I realize that I’ve accomplished none of the writing I intended to do. I wanted to get a head start on revisions to “Temperament” (or whatever I decide to call it in the end) so that I could submit it to group this week. That doesn’t look promising. Even if I can get some time to write tonight, I’ll be hard-pressed to finish the edits that I know it needs before I can give it over for public consumption.

I read some comments today from someone who went to a book signing by Robert Jordan recently.

“If you are writing two hours a day you won’t cut it.”

He continued, saying that he works eight to ten hours a day, seven days a week. Last year he only took five days off. It’s comments like these that always chafe my hide. If by “cut it” he means pumping out mamoth volumes every two years and stretching out the expectation of readers over as many volumes as you can get away with, then I hope I don’t cut it. I want to write and be published, but not at the cost of quality over quantity.

Once, when I was a much younger man, I made the mistake of asking a published writer what advice he had to give an aspiring one. He replied, in a gruff, bitter voice, “Don’t quit your day job.”

I expect that published authors are bombarded with such questions from people who want to become writers. In truth, they are difficult questions to answer. If I’ve learned anything over the years of writing, it’s that there’s no one right or wrong way to do it. You have to discover for yourself what works for you. If any advice should be given, it’s that.

Busy days

The past few days have been busy ones. Work has been a nightmare the last few days. Some poorly tested code made it into production, which caused no end of problems. Luckily the bug was found and eliminated today. This is the first night I’ve been able to relax since Friday.

Now I can finish catching up on other work this week, and devote some time this weekend to my edits on the current work in progress, Temperament. I’m hoping to have it ready for group in a week and a half.

Pyramid House

We have driven by this house several times over the years and I finally decided to stop and take some pictures last weekend.

Pyramid House

This Pyramid House is quite the site to see in person. I would love to find out the story behind this house sometime. Someone has put in alot of work to build this. The main building, the pyramid, is fairly large. The various statues and decorations around the grounds of the compound are also nicely done. There is a second building on the right side of the yard that has a Gift Shop sign above its door. I hope this means that the house will eventually be opened for public tours.

Broadbrand Bliss

After more than a decade of being on dialup, I finally have broadband! It wasn’t an easy road. I had several close calls and near misses in the past. Sprint’s Wireless DSL came out and tested for service at our old townhouse, but the tree’s blocked line-of-sight. At the new house, we’re more than 30,000 feet from the central office, ruining any chances for normal DSL service. AT&T doesn’t offer Internet Cable service here, and I gave up on them after the second year where they would tell me it was coming ‘next quarter’.

West Waves rode to the rescue upon a silver steed of aluminum mesh. They’re a local wireless provider. I’ve been talking with them on and off for a few months.
When they originally came out and tested the signal, it was clear. I spent a few weeks to check on restrictions for the mesh dish they would need to install on the roof, and by the time they came back to check, some trees between our house and their tower had grown and blocked the signal. Back to the drawing board.

They were trying to get their equipment up on a water tower within a mile of the house, and were hoping to be in place in December. I called to check on their status, and it seemed like they were stuck in the red tape within the local political structure. Hope was waning.

Cut to two nights ago. I was sitting and working on edits for my current Work In Process before writers group when my phone rang. It was Dena. West Waves had called with wonderful news. They were up on a new (different) tower closer to the house. I called them back immediately, and they were out at 9am the next day to test the signal.

It was excellent. Perfect line-of-sight from my roof to their antenna. The installer returned at 5pm with all of the necessary equipment. After a few hours of working on the roof and attic, we moved to the basement and began to set things up. We had to do a bit of tinkering. I had to reconfigure my network and they had to adjust the bridge used to, well, bridge the wireless signal to an ethernet cable.

I’m now online with a solid, reliable connection. The speeds are good (512/128) and there’s very little latency. I’m happy with that.

Marion E. Wade Center

C.S. Lewis' wardrobeJ.R.R. Tolkien's writing desk

Several months ago we went to the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College. The center is home to a large collection of works by several British authors including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

I just found the pictures I took, and I’ve posted them in the gallery.

Admission was free. Naturally, all of these authors works are all protected because of their age-induced fragility. They still have quite the display of literary works, including the writing desks of Lewis and Tolkien, the wardrobe that inspired “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” as was as various personal effects of each author. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon.

I’ve long been a fan of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, so it was a special treat to see the wardrobe, the original map of Narnia, as well as a letter he wrote to a class of fifth grade children. I even ended up buying a nice lithograph of Aslan the lion to hang in my library.

Halt, load, rewind

The new year has arrived, bringing with it new challenges and opportunities. I’ve reset the yearly story stats (which were rather pathetic). I have already had my rant on resolutions. I do have goals for the new year – small, manageable ones. Spend more quality time with Dena. Improve my writing, and by extension, maintain a consistent writing schedule and submit stories when they’re done.