Collecting Shinies

Today, the awesome Danni blogged about the things she collects, and it got me thinking.  I know I collect stationery, that much is obvious (and usually either her's or Clairabel's fault, I firmly maintain), and what started out as a fondness for gel pens is starting to grow into something a little worrying now.

I collect books too—but that's kind of obvious too.  I've got a to-read stack that's reaching alarming proportions, and it's not counting all the Kindle books.  I can't help that either, because books just look and smell right.  They're a comforting weight in your hand, and a less comforting weight on your shoulder when you're trekking back to the bus station.

I'd love to collect models, but they're usually eye-bleedingly expensive.  I stick to the Togainu no Chi Shiki and Akira figures I got a few years back, even if Akira is a pain to dust; they're both gorgeous and so far most people overlook the fact Akira's flashing his underwear.

So I thought about it some more, and then I realised with a faintly sinking sensation that what I actually collect is computers.

Not in the "new one every year, cutting-edge technology" sense—not that I wouldn't love to—or the "obsessive Apple fan" way (I don't own anything Apple), but in a more haphazard "I need something and then I get grossly attached to it" or (more often) in the "I don't need it but I don't care" way.

So... uh...

I should introduce a new member of my family now, shouldn't I?

This is the latest part of my collection and part of the first category of 'needs': a new desktop PC bought for the intention of actually being able to render images in less than five hours without crashing at the thought of it being 2500px tall.  Here I'll qualify that this isn't actually something Sixteen's can help: he's a laptop and they're not really designed for things that make them overheat quickly, such as colossal images that only Amazon want at that size.  (The image on the screen is at 2500px tall, for reference; that's a 17" monitor and the image reaches to Kirill's hips.)

The dusty desktop in the background isn't mine, by the way.  It's my mother's, and she never got round to naming it.

So far it's working well.  We've had some issues with my 3D content that are nothing to do with the PC and everything to do with the issue of absolute pathways in save files and changes in OS—I'm only familiar with Windows 8 in terms of 8RT on the Surface so it's taking some getting used to—and maybe a few computer games have sneaked onto there (but they work so nicely I couldn't possibly ask them to leave again...).

There has, in fact, been only one real issue.

The "Name your PC" screen cropped up and I had a complete brain freeze.  It's like naming characters in games: it's something that requires great thought, lest you give it a strange or inappropriate name that completely skews either its personality or your perception of it (depending on which camp you're in in that regard).  And what with my newest project being on my mind a lot lately, I may have called it "Echo".

Still, it could be worse, right?  I could have named it after a man who went mad and coded himself into a computer system.

Hell, one day I'll end up naming a computer Durandal and then I'll be really screwed.

So... please say hi to the newest member of my technological family and most recent part of my favourite (and most expensive) collection!

Writing Dust & Ash: Starting The Process

The other night, I wondered 'aloud' on Twitter whether anyone would be interested in following the creation of a book, from first flailing ideas to an actual finished product, bearing in mind that I am about as far from a proper, professional author as you can get.

One person liked the idea, so guess what?  I'm doing it.

Not just because Danni was interested (though it is a big part of it—no one wants to work on something no one's interested in) but also because it's something I might learn from the experience of and—fingers crossed—help keep me focused.

The project I'm going to be working on is one that crashed into my head a couple of days ago out of nowhere (I suspect it got lost en route to someone actually competent's imagination) and, in my case, the 'working on' bit of the process usually comes after characters with names decide they're going to infest me.  Sometimes even when they don't have names.

And 'names' is exactly where this all started, so it's where I'll start.

The Initial Idea

One thing I have in common with a lot of other writers is a notebook I use to jot down names that have either come to me out the blue, or I've seen somewhere and liked, or that might not even be names at all but could be worked into one.  They either sit on the page and wait until they're needed, or they randomly attach themselves to characters: for instance, Kirill wasn't supposed to be called Kirill, but once the name was attached nothing else seemed to work until I stuck with it.  In this case, I'd jotted down two names a couple of months ago: Dust and Ash.

So far, so generic.  At the time, I looked at it and thought, "I bet they investigate supernatural crimes in modern fantasy or something," and promptly forgot all about it.

I was working when suddenly I realised, apropos of nothing, that Dust was a twin and his brother was called Echo.  Echo had been born second, was a little smaller, a little quieter, and followed his brother everywhere.

And then I realised that Echo didn't follow his brother everywhere; he'd led the way once.  Echo was dead.

Refining The Idea

It's not much, but it's a place to start.  Now I've got the kernel of an idea, I've got questions I can ask: why is Echo dead?  How does Dust feel?  How does Ash, Dust's best friend, take it?  What genre is it?

For me, this is the part where I start to work out the plot.  Life is significantly easier when the plot appears first because you can sit down and start to work out the kinks almost immediately, but in this case I've still got a lot of work to do before I can get to that point—like find the plot.

For me, this involves asking more and more questions and writing down everything in another notebook.  Being me, I have different pens and inks for different stories at this stage: it's handy if you use one notebook for every idea.  I don't do it all in one go—I can't, it doesn't all pour straight out of my head, although damn I wish it did—so I write what I can and go away and do something else, and if something else comes to me, whether it's a question, an answer or a random idea, I scribble it down.

Music Helps

No, really.  I'm not kidding.  Sometimes, something in a song can spark an idea I might not have otherwise had, or made me realise something much quicker than I would have without it.  I usually construct playlists for stories I'm working on, which is partly a procrastination exercise (my favourite hobby), and partly because while I might not actually hear it while I'm writing, as I tend to tune it out, it helps keep the outside world from encroaching—always handy when you share an office with a parrot—and feels like it helps keep me focused.

In this case, I'd heard a song on the radio in the supermarket earlier and I couldn't get it out my head, so I looked it up on YouTube.

While listening to the lyrics, I realised something important: Echo's body might be dead, but Echo himself is not.  This gives me the genre: fantasy of some flavour.  And if Echo's soul is somewhere else, then it means someone has done this to him, which gives me the shadow of a villain—and a lot more questions.

And for no apparent reason, I can see a tea shop / café, which gives me something to think about for world building: what kind of fantasy world needs a tea shop?  Probably a fairly affluent one with good trade links and plenty of social time; now I can start to work out where Dush, Echo and Ash live.

This is about as far as I've got.  I still need to work out who the villain is and what he gained from doing what he did, what Dush and Ash are going to do about it, and an actual plot (always a good idea, right?), but it's a starting point.

Next time, I'll talk about plotting and, hopefully, I'll be able to start working on this in earnest.

Craft Sunday: A Slightly Less Nekkid Box

I know I said these would be occasional but I guess this is a little ridiculous.  Sorry about that.

Still, I've not had much to blog about in this regard.  Or at least, looking at all the photos, it turns out that how I feel and how I've been documenting it haven't quite matched up, so this might turn out to be a little longer than expected.

Two months ago, shortly after my first post, I met up with my fellow Notts NaNoers (my local writing group as well as my local NaNo group, and all at least as odd as me in their own ways) and after chat and food, @anikadaniels and I went and examined the paint department of the Broadmarsh Wilkos.  To be honest, I didn't have much idea what I was looking for and I'm pretty indecisive, so having Anika with me was a great help, particularly when it came down to narrowing a surprisingly large amount of wood stains and varnishes down to particularly 'steampunk' colours.  We settled on Teak and Antique Pine.

The first thing I've learned about painting wood is...

Shake the goddamn bottle properly.

That, to the left, is Teak.  Or at least, it would be if I'd given the bottle/can the thrashing it clearly needed, because it came out looking remarkably pine-y.

In hindsight, that photo is hilarious.  You'll see why, assuming you haven't already scrolled down or seen a later picture.  But still, let that be a lesson to you all.  If you're going to paint something, really, really shake the can, because otherwise you'll end up with a wishy-washy colour.

So I picked the damn thing up and gave it a proper shake.

Significantly better results.

Still a bit light though; I wanted to go for something deep and rich.

It should be noted here that I'm doing all of this with a very cheap paintbrush that I'd bought specially for the job.  I've got proper paintbrushes and there is no way I'd use one with wood stain or paint, but cheap ones from The Works do a remarkably good job, even if I had to clean what looked like glue off the one I'd chosen for the job—which came from a sealed pack.  I suspect whatever they used to glue the bristles in leaked somewhat.

So I kept on and the more coats I applied, the darker it got, until I
settled on a nice dark colour.

Using a brush gave the effect of it being made out of real, solid wood, rather than the balsa wood it's actually made out of, and looks better in person than these pictures would lead you to believe.  I started out by painting the inside of the box just to test it (and you can see why above), but after a while it became...  I don't know, just something that felt like it should be done.  I know I'm planning on covering it over, but it didn't feel right to leave it naked.

I'm undecided about covering over the inside top as well, so I painted that too.

It's quick-dry paint so it didn't take too long to get through layers, and I still have a lot left which is handy as my mother has now put in her request for one too.  (I don't think I can make an industry out of it.  I'm having a hard enough time sticking to writing.)

I've designed the top, but it's still as yet unpainted, because I'm not wholly sure how to approach it.  I don't know whether to outline the cogs in waterproof pen and then paint, as the cogs are supposed to be Antique Pine while the rest of the lid matches the box, or whether there needs to be a design in the middle.  I've considered buying watch parts too and simply attaching a real cog in the center.

On that note, if anyone knows of any good UK-based sellers of steampunk construction pieces or jewelry box items, I'd love to know about it.  I'm particularly looking for interior chains to stop the lid opening all the way, but anything would be good.

All that was done over the course of May.  At the start of this month (June), I headed to John Lewis in the Victoria Center with @SplitShilo and @AgentNotts, where we proceeded to ooh and ahh over the various fabrics, some of which are eye-wateringly expensive.  If I won the lottery I'd just camp out there and sniff material, I swear.  We examined all the fabrics and I stupidly neglected to bring the actual box along to check colours, but both my friends are very talented artists and could take a good guess at the colour I meant, and in the end we settled on this particularly nice burgundy taffeta.  I only bought half a metre (£3) but there's a lot there for the size of the box.

I've yet to figure out how to actually line the box, so any details there would be greatly appreciated.  It's probably not a good idea to start a project like this without any actual idea what I'm doing, but being thrown in at the deep end is the best way to learn.

Probably.

Not that I could resist the lure of all the fabrics entirely.  I did end up splurging on some expensive but beautiful material.

I've got no idea what I'll do with it, but the squares are surprisingly large and the material's pretty thick.

I even ended up buying a £35 sewing machine (for light work).

Now I just find myself wishing that my sum total knowledge of sewing wasn't a couple of weeks of art classes where we all made T-shirts to a pre-ordained design and size.

I still have it, sixteen years later.  It still fits.

That doesn't say much for the T-shirt; I hope this is a much greater success.

Adventures With The IRS - Receiving An EIN

As I'm in the preliminary stages of preparing for my first "proper" ebook release I realised that I needed to stop faffing around and (finally) apply for an EIN from the US Internal Revenue Service.

The thing is, I'm terrible with phones.  Anything that involves calling people I will try to put off time and again.  It's hard to believe that I was actually a legal secretary once upon a time (well, four or five years ago) and therefore had to field calls all the time.

As a result, it's been pointed out to me that with the amount of time I've now spent avoiding calling the IRS, I could have just faxed them the relevant form and had the EIN...  so, with that in mind, I loaded up Skype with £10 credit, sat in my office, steeled myself and gave them a call.

Whereon, having selected option "1" from the automated system... I promptly ended up on hold.  Their opening hours are 6am to 11pm EST so I was actually ringing around 10am, pretty much when other people finally screw up the courage to ring about tax issues, but I was only on hold for about 6 minutes, which was impressive.  If I'd been ringing the UK version I'm pretty sure it would have been significantly longer than that.

When my call was answered, I'm not entirely sure I made myself clear straight out the gate (I'm really out of practice with phones...) but once we got past my stupidity and he identified the fact that I'm clearly an idiot he spelled everything out for me and made it all significantly less scary.  We went through the form SS4, which I'd already filled out in Acrobat (you can download both it and its help file here), and I discovered that I am apparently unable to phrase the letter "D" (it's the Midlands English accent), which made life difficult as my address contains a few of the little blighters... but about ten minutes later he gave me my EIN and also answered my question on whether I have to file a 0 amount to the IRS for tax purposes (the answer is no, you just file taxes in your own country as normal).

So I'd like to extend a huge thank you to the lovely Mr. Witt, should he ever see this (and hopefully I've got his name right; I'm terrible when I panic), because he spelled my name properly, he made the whole process easy, quick and painless, and he also made me laugh (intentionally).

If you're putting off getting your EIN because it seems daunting, or because calling the US is a frightening and potentially expensive experience, don't.  It's a super-easy process, especially if you've already completed your SS4, you get your number straight away over the phone with a confirmation posted to you, and the best part?

As I called using Skype, a 15-minute phone call cost me 35p.

Efficient and affordable.