Happy Thanksgiving from A Far Sun

I got so busy (and feeling somewhat burned-out, as well) so I put the story down awhile. I think I last wrote some content on October 31, and not until Sunday night did I start back into it, again. I did write about 7K words in my other story, Rider on the Storm (the current working title), and I've figured out a few things in that plot, too. I also realized I transited into act two at about the 20K word mark, so the estimated length of 80K is sounding about right. Of course, because of the way I work I won't really know how long it will be until I actually get there. It's more funner, that way!

I'm still not completely satisfied with how I'm introducing my main antagonist in A Far Sun, though. It seems it ought to be more grandiose in keeping with his personality, but I'm going to write some more and see how it goes. He will start causing some real trouble, and really soon, so perhaps my worries are unfounded. Somewhat.

On a related note, my stepdaughter Emily has moved in with us. I haven't started prevailing upon her for story collaboration, yet, but could that be far behind? She's very intellectual (which I knew) and I'm finding she keeps me on my mental toes. Feels good. One of the very necessary abilities for writing (that I've found) is the ability to pour out the words very quickly, and the constant need to keep up with her, conversationally speaking, helps keep those gears well-oiled and functioning smoothly. As I said: it feels good.

Also, with her in residence it might make for more convenient illustration cajolery. I'd like to get some illustrations of my characters to begin adorning the website with. We'll see.

Life is an adventure

My stepdaughter is a senior in art school. Money is tight, so we have offered to have her come live with us. This really is much easier and less expensive than trying to help her monetarily, otherwise. As long as we don't fall on any really bad financial hardships, collectively, we should be fine.

Now my biggest problem is clearing out our office (really the front bedroom in our two bedroom condo) to make room for her. This means no home for either of our desktop computers. I've started looking into making my computer an Ubuntu Linux file share, since it has 1.5 TB of disk space, but I still do need to boot a Windows machine for no other damn good reason than I am chained to Quicken for home financial management. Methinks I will start looking for a better alternative, but not right away.

My wife Carmen will get a new laptop, probably with Ubuntu, for all her web surfing and letter writing needs. Open Office and Firefox are both familiar in this household; she uses Firefox already so there's no real problem.

We're already wireless, here, so we should be in good shape with just a couple purchases of new laptop equipment. For printing I'm going to look for a wireless printer that supports CUPS, and we'll all use it for our everyday printing needs. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to print, wired, to either of our existing printers (both Dell, BTW), but wired printing would mean moving to where the printer is. Who knows, it might not be a huge problem.

On a personal note, I am very excited to have Emily here. I could gush on and on about how great she is, but in the off chance she actually reads this blog, I think I'll just say what I've already said and leave it at that.

I know there are a lot of logistical things to be worked out, but these should pose no real problem. The dog will probably have to learn not to bark at night if/when she gets up, but we're all prepared to deal with him when the time comes.

I may or may not post more about this change in our lifestyle as time goes on, but I thought I would at least share, this time.