First Published: 2023 November 6
Oh gosh, it’s been a long time since the last time I blogged about dnd. I had a fun campaign with that druid, though it fizzled out for reasons.1
Since then, I’ve started playing pathfinder with another set of friends, and I just had the session zero for another dnd campaign that’s about to start. I’ve realized that I really enjoy playing a simple character in DnD, probably because my own life is less than simple. Barbarian is a class that tends to take a direct path to the solution of each of its goals, which is something that I really like.
This character is a plasmoid2 zealot barbarian3 For my background, I took something that was called like raised by giants, which has the fun effect of making my first attack each turn do even more damage. It’s going to be a fun character to role play and roll play4, and I’m excited to hang out with these friends more.
One consequence of session zero just happening today, though, is that I lost the evening, which is when I tend to do a majority of my writing. I was told that the event would end by half past eight at the latest, but then we started chatting and playing other games. I certainly don’t regret the time I spent with them, for all that it will absolutely make getting to my writing goal today a little more difficult.
I don’t have much more to add about this, so I may as well start brainstorming some information about my character. I randomly rolled myself into Neutral Evil, which I think means that I’m intrinsically selfish but have a normal attachment to the laws. I think that works well with the background I gave my character, who I’m realizing probably deserves a name. Let’s go with Goob.
Goob landed in the wild mountains outside of (insert setting’s mountains)5 when it was a small creature.6 As I grew, surrounded by the giants, they adopted me as one of their own.
I always knew that I was different than the other children. For one, they never seemed to relax quite as much as I did, always holding onto their weird bones. For another, they were all much larger than me. Still, I grew up loved and supported, as much as my parents were capable of expressing what that meant.
In time, I grew older and chose a path for myself. Something about the stark beauty of the mountains called to me, and I found myself meditating on the beauty that I saw. One day, some goblins7 came up to our mountain and disturbed the peace. I felt a divine presence guiding my blows as I grew more enraged, throwing the goblins off of the cliff.
When the fight was over, I found that I had gone into what my people called a battle trance. It did not seem safe for me to stay among them any more, for what if I did something I would later regret while under the throes of a trance? I went down the mountain to learn to control the urges that called me towards violence.
While in the (insert name of whatever political entity the campaign starts in)8, I began to make a name for myself as a sword for sale. Well, to be more accurate, as a battleaxe for hire. I joined with9 my party because (insert whatever plot reason here). My dream is to control my rage well enough that I am once again safe to live with the other giants.10
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! I don’t love the way that the story is going still, but I’m hopeful that it’ll start to turn around. If not, eh, I will finish it anyways because I want to practice some skills that writing it will help me practice. Maybe if I start each session with what I hope to learn, I’ll do a better job of writing.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I’m about a fifth to a sixth of the way through. I’m planning to finish the chapter after posting this blog, since writing the blog felt easier when I got home.
Did I blog? Wow! Another day with another blog post.11
Did I stretch? Whoops! Need to stretch still.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? My rosary wasn’t rushed last night, but it wasn’t particularly good. I did the Angelus at around noon, but it was somewhat thoughtless.12
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I did end up addressing another letter to a friend last night, and I posted the letter that I wrote on Saturday this morning. That’s technically progress, so I’m counting it.
people got busy and then moved away, to be exact↩
which is a race I’d never heard of in 5e. Wildly, it also is not a humanoid, which I suppose makes sense like explicitly, but is a fun thing because of how many low level spells explicitly only target humanoids↩
a subclass I’d never heard of. Tl;dr, it gives me extra damage on the first attack of each turn.↩
get it?↩
I legitimately have no idea, it’s some homebrew campaign, so this whole story is of course only as canon as the DM wants it to be. I think it’s good to consider what my character’s motivations are, on a slightly more visceral (fundamental? low?) level than the DMG often recommends↩
Using it here, because I’m going to say that plasmid has no gender/sex. Given that I’m explicitly an amorphous blob that can change shapes if I want to, I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to think that I wouldn’t have any explicit sexual characteristics.↩
n.b. I’m happy to switch this for whatever other cannon (or canon I suppose) fodder mook we’re going to be killing by the million in the campaign↩
wow this is a fun game of madlibs↩
or am about to join with? Not totally sure what the party is getting together over↩
hmm not a great character motivation, but I suppose it’s as good as I’ll get.↩
I keep forgetting to type ’blog, but I also don’t know if the two words are identical to me. Might be worth thinking about at some point↩
it’s kind of cool that I now know the prayer well enough for it to ever feel thoughtless, not going to lie↩
First Published: 2023 November 5
It’s been quite a while since my last reflection on the Sunday Mass readings. There are a number of reasons for that, but especially in light of my recent musing where I said I wanted to do more religious writing, spending a musing a week explicitly reflecting on the Bible feels like a good way to practice that. Also, since the last time that I’ve written a reflection on the readings, I finally learned at least one reason I tend to have trouble connecting the first reading and Gospel to the second reading. According to the notes in the edition of the Bible I use most, the Gospel passages were chosen to try to give a relatively full accounting of the different Gospels over the three year sequence. Each of the first readings is chosen to match the Gospel, whether by showing something prophetic Christ did, or simply just by focusing on similar themes. The second readings, however, are not chosen to match the other two. Instead, they are just supposed to trace through the letters, with the goal of giving a good summary of each letter.1
Anyways, nearly two hundred and fifty words later, let’s talk about today’s readings. The first reading comes from the book of Malachi, which I’ve now learned is the final of the twelve minor prophets in the Bible, and is the final book before Matthew in almost every translation of the Christian Bible. Malachi, as it turns out, means messenger, which leads some to believe that the name of the book is referencing a title, rather than the given name of the author.
The first reading is a warning to the priests of the Jewish people. It can be read a number of ways, I am certain. However, the choice of Gospel passage makes it clear to me what interpretation we’re expected to take from the reading.
In the Gospel, Christ talks about the way that the Pharisees and scribes of the people are not living in accord with the covenant the Almighty established over His people. Despite that, Christ acknowledges, along with, it seems, every Gospel and New Testament Letter writer, that the Pharisees still have authority over the people of Israel. He says “do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,”2 before immediately warning the listeners not to act as the Pharisees do.
That is an interesting admonition for me to reflect on. I feel like I tend to have difficulty accepting truths that come from people who I know do not act according to them. If someone tells me that something is healthy and will make me a better person, but does not do it themselves, there is a level of disconnect that I personally struggle to connect through. And yet, as the Gospel points out, this is not a unique or novel situation that I find myself in.
There are two ways that I can read the instruction.3 First, people in authority over us making orders that are within the standards of their authority should generally be obeyed.4 That is, if a boss tells his employees to clean the building, that is his right.5 If the employees do not clean, even if the boss does not, then they are in the wrong.6
The other way that I can understand this is that people can be flawed and recognize that about themselves. I, for instance, know that exercising regularly makes me feel better physically and emotionally. I know the same is true for me about having a regular prayer life. Despite this, I do not exercise regularly, and my prayer life7 needs plenty of work. If someone was feeling generally down about things, I would8 advise them to try praying and exercising more. Even though I do not do it, it’s still good advice.
How much more true can that be for people who have dedicated their lives to studying and interpreting the Word of the Almighty? When a priest or bishop today makes a theological point that I disagree with, I have to recognize that he has gone through significantly more formal theological training than me. Even when what they say is clearly wrong to me, it is still worth the time it takes to understand where they are getting their thoughts from.
In the time that Christ was preaching, the Pharisees were the voice of the people, speaking with Mosaic authority, rather than the priestly power that the Sadducees spoke with.9 It’s interesting that we start today with a reading discussing how the priestly caste will be ignored, and then we see Christ disagreeing with the major opposition to the priestly caste. I’m sure that there’s something deep and profound in the framing, but I can’t find it right now.
The second reading, in stark contrast, is simply a message of evangelization. We, as Catholics, are called to spread the faith to the whole world. I know that I’m not great about doing that, both because I am afraid to evangelize and because I do not live a good Catholic life. There is nothing I can do but try better tomorrow.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did, but I don’t really like where the story is going right10 now. I hope that’ll change tomorrow, but I’m worried it won’t.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I finished the chapter that I started last night. It felt either like a really strong chapter or a really weak chapter. My beta reader thought it was an incredibly strong chapter, which is nice. I think I’m a little in my head about the book because I got a review which glowed about how different my writing style is from the normal. I didn’t think I had a distinctive tone, so that was a bit of a shock to me.
Did I blog? See that? It’s been almost a full week of daily posts, all of which are quadruple digits.
Did I stretch? Oops! I’ll stretch when I post this.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? My rosary was incredibly rushed last night, I did a rushed Angelus today, and I struggled to pay attention during Mass. So, all in all, prayer is not going great.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? Shoot! I knew I forgot something. Ok, before I stretch, I’ll address the letter that I wrote last night so that I can post it in the morning. Depending how I feel after a few minutes away from the computer, I may also write another letter or at least address an envelope.
I’m less positive of this claim, but it’s what I remember interpreting the answer as. At the very least, I am positive that it said the second reading is not inherently connected to the other two readings, but that the other two readings are intrinsically designed to work together.↩︎
Matthew 23:3a (ish)↩︎
standard disclaimer: I am not a theologian or a consecrated. This is me thinking and reflecting as I write the musing, not a guarantee of a normative theological opinion, let alone the absolute truth↩︎
even with all of these disclaimers, I feel uncomfortable with the sentence, which says a lot about me↩︎
interesting that I A, assume that the boss is a man, B, call it his right.↩︎
again, in this entirely hypothetical situation I’m constructing↩︎
as I’ve discussed numerous times↩︎
of course assuming so many things here↩︎
apparently, if I trust Wikipedia↩︎
typed write at first↩︎
First Published: 2023 November 4
I think I mentioned this in my last monthly reflection, but last month I went to an embroidery showcase!1 It was a really cool experience, in part because i hadn’t realized how diverse the field of embroidery was. I had in my mind an image of just like the way you can add a small pop of color to a piece of clothing as the whole of embroidery.2 I was3 wrong about that.
The first exhibit4 was a display of temari balls. Temari, as the display informed us, is a Japenese form of embroidery where you make intricate5 designs in a ball filled with rice hulls.6 The designs were beautiful, and they had pieces at every level of finish, beginning with raw rice hulls and ending with a beautiful almost fractal pattern.7
That, of course, was only the first table we saw. There was a lot of free form embroidery, which I had expected. There was also a lot of cross stitch, which I had not realized was considered a part of embroidery. Again, in retrospect, it makes sense that cross stitch would be featured in the Embroidery Guild, if only because the materials and skills cross over so well between the two hobbies.
There was another kind of embroidery that instantly caught my attention, however: counted thread embroidery. Similar to cross stitch, it is worked in a regular fabric8 Unsurprisingly, as a child of the digital age,9 the fact that the designs were worked onto grids was fascinating to me. By and large, the designs worked in counted thread embroidery did not rely on different stitches to add texture and design elements, instead relying on color, material, and to a small extent, thickness of worked thread to make their designs.
Anyways, as the four of us walked through the exhibit, we were stopped multiple times by older women who encouraged us to join the guild. It was really sweet, and all of us were tempted, though I think we all decided independently to wait to join until next year. When one of the recruiters found out that we were all getting our Ph. D.s in Chemistry10, she was elated and told us that there was a former chemical engineer for the state DNR in the guild. We met her, and we bonded a little bit over the fact that embroidery, especially counted thread embroidery and cross stitch, are very rewarding if you have the sort of mind that a Ph. D. chemist does.11
In a fun turn of events, she was the one who had set up the temari ball exhibit, and was more than happy to tell us a lot more about the craft. It was fascinating to consider the fact that a lot of the skills I’ve been working to develop as an analytical chemist12 apply really well to a craft like making a temari ball. The fact that all four of us had taken a course on machining and CAD made the conversation all the more enjoyable.
When we’d gone through all of the art at the show, we stopped by the sale they had. I got a book on designing Bargello patterns, mostly because it was filled with pretty designs and had a section explaining terminology. The others each got their own different books, and we went to a craft store to get supplies.
Since then, I’ve started trying to learn how to embroider. Right now, I’m still new enough that I keep being surprised to learn things. It’s fun, especially since I haven’t been a novice in this way in something for a long time. Dealing with not knowing what questions I should be asking is a skill I’ve let fall a little bit by the wayside, especially during my latest degree, which is meant to focus almost entirely on delving deeply into one or two small questions. Still, it’s something that I really enjoy, especially because I can see the ways that it intersects with so many other skills that I have or want to have at some point. The fact that there will be a social aspect to the craft in the future, as my friends and I join the guild, only adds to that.
For all that the only print resource I have for embroidery is a book on designing Bargello patterns, I do not think that I will likely end up doing too much Bargello work. Bargello embroidery, for those not in the know, is a form of counted thread embroidery based off of some extant art in Bargello, Italy. Its emblematic style13 is relatively long vertical stitches being used to the exclusion of any other stitch. As a person who personally loves the textural differences that vertical and horizontal lines can make, I don’t think that I’ll be too reliant on the style. That being said, I am also now enough of an adult to do the scales of my different hobbies.14 I’m perfectly willing to believe that practicing a simple Bargello pattern will become essential for my development as a fiber artist, and I’m willing to grit my teeth and bear it, even if I do hate working on the pattern.15
Thus far, I’ve almost exclusively made a small pattern with gradually increasing numbers of threads, to see the way that the shape differs as it gets thicker. It’s interesting that the object seems shorter when it has more threads, especially since I can pull out a ruler and see that the grid based fabric is, in fact, still a grid. I also find that I generally like the more filled in look more, which makes a fair amount of sense. I’ve always been interested in texture as a part of creative media, but that interest has tended to be more in the way that light reacts16 with the media being worked. I suppose the canvas I’m stitching into is, in many regards, the media I’m working, but it doesn’t really feel like it, at least right now. There is a part of me that really does enjoy looking at the canvas underneath the thread, which I’m now realizing might be my issue.
I do enjoy negative space in art, but I tend to feel like its use needs to be intentional. Right now, the designs I’m working don’t feel like the sort of art that need explicit negative space. It’s more than plausible that I will change my opinion as I continue into the craft and make more intricate artwork. In fact, I’m almost positive that I will find a use case for nearly every thickness of thread I’ve worked so far. I just don’t know that they’ll be my standard block.
Anyways, this has been a shockingly long and rambling musing. In summary17, I went to an embroidery show with friends a few weeks ago. It was filled with really cool art and decorations. I’ve started embroidering and I really enjoy it.
Daily Reflection:
as it turns out, I did not. Interesting. Ah, I put it in my daily reflection, so unsure why it didn’t count for the month. Anyways.↩︎
it sounds ridiculous to say so now, but I didn’t have anything else to connect the word to then↩︎
obviously, in retrospect↩︎
I feel like that’s the wrong word. Table? unsure↩︎
and, relevant for the crowd of physical chemists I went with, very mathematical↩︎
traditionally, at least. As I looked up the art elsewhere I saw people using more or less anything you would use as a replacement for filling.↩︎
the entire room was filled with signs asking for no photography, which we respected.↩︎
wikipedia informs me this is called even weave fabric, and happens when the warp and weft are the same size. I had never considered that a fabric might not be like that always, but I suppose it makes sense.↩︎
we’ll ignore the fact that not all of the people I’ve known feel similarly about grid based designs and imagery↩︎
which, in retrospect, is probably not the most common answer for a group of four twenty somethings at an event to give, for all that it’s a common one for me↩︎
I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s there↩︎
e.g. tolerances, how to fix mismeasurements, how to understand what a physical change on one part of an object will do to the rest of it, how to fudge (which is technically slightly different than fixing a mismeasure)↩︎
as far as I have been able to ascertain↩︎
I think that the common phrase is eat my vegetables, but I happen to enjoy eating vegetables. That is, doing the parts of the hobby which feel less rewarding as a task you have done but which better enable you to achieve what you would like to do in the hobby. I feel like the concept of practice your scales is something I could (should) absolutely go into much more depth over sometime this month, both because I’m realizing as this footnote grows ever longer that I have a lot to say about it, and also because I know I’ll run out of ideas for what to blog about well before December rolls around (to say nothing of the fact that I also would, as of now, at least, like to continue this blog well into December and onward. I’m a little sad when I look at the whole month of October and see only two posts.↩︎
not that I think I will. Truthfully the only part of embroidery I haven’t fallen in love with is threading needles, but that just seems like a skill I’ll get better at with practice, especially given how little I see people complaining about it/struggling with it↩︎
I tried a number of words, and even though I don’t really like reacts, it’s the best one I could find↩︎
for the youth, tl;dr↩︎
First Published: 2023 November 3
Interestingly enough, one day ago today I sat in front of my computer without any idea what I would blog about. Today I have a slightly different issue. I am going to play games with friends tonight,1 and had2 every intention of musing about that experience. However, as I may have mentioned before,3 I’ve started writing on a website which I find very helpful for getting me to write often and well. One feature of the site is that it sets semi-arbitrary goals for me to hit with regards to word count and pace.
Unfortunately, though the overlap is close, it does not always align perfectly with the number of words that I have left to write in a chapter of my web novel. In this case, I finished a longer than standard chapter with 200 or so words in my arbitrary goal.
“But wait,” I hear you4 ask, “why not simply let those remaining words go to waste? Or, even better, why not simply start another chapter?”
To that, I reply,5 “I hate losing progress for work that I’ve begun, and I need a blog post more than I need another chapter of my book at this exact moment.”
Now that I’ve addressed the concerns, I can start writing about the game night I went to tonight. It was a good time! I got to spend time with friends, and I got to play a fun game of chance and skill!6
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? Once again, I managed a 2000 word hour with a friend, and did my writing for the day.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I did! I finished it and sent it to my beta reader hours before this post. Once again, it felt even easier today than yesterday.
Did I blog? As you can see, we are now on day four of the streak.
Did I stretch? I did! This morning no less.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? Once again, I did the Angelus. Last night’s rosary was pretty rushed.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I got a friend’s address, which is technically progress in writing letters. Tomorrow I should actually write a letter, though.
specific games not listed for a variety of reasons↩︎
have?↩︎
though I’m not sure when, given that I more or less stopped blogging↩︎
I don’t know why I assume my readers (who don’t exist) are going to loudly comment on my writing↩︎
I guess that since I did, in fact, take a break from writing in the middle of the last footnote, I am the reader↩︎
or many iterations of a fun game of chance and skill, I suppose, depending on the framework you take.↩︎
First Published: 2023 November 2
Yesterday I talked about how my goal for this NaNoWriMo is writing something more explicitly Christian. I said that I did not have the time or energy to discuss what that meant in that post, and I do stand by that. However, as I tossed and turned in my bed last night, I thought about what it means to have Christian writing.
Of course, like anything else, the concept exists in a spectrum. At one end is something like the Golden Compass, which is a fiction book meant to mock and denigrate the Church.1 At the other end of the spectrum2 is something like Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s Jesus of Nazareth, which is wholly a reflection on the Lord, more a work of theology than of creative writing.3
Closer to the areligious side would be the works of Ernest Hemmingway, a devout4 Catholic who actively tried to avoid being labeled as such in his writings. My scale may not be absolute, because I don’t know how to rank Tolkein, who created a wold which was completely in line with the Catholic faith, though not meant to be seen allegorically, against Lewis, who wrote didactic tracts on faith with the slimmest metaphor.
Of course, there are plenty of non Christian fictions written by non Christians. As someone who is, however, I wonder about how it should be reflected in my writing. I don’t think that, at this phase of my life, at least, I’m called to be writing pure theology. Certainly I’m not well enough read in the theology or formed in my faith5 to feel as though I have things that need to be said to the world of theologians.
However, I do also have a platform. As of this morning, I have almost twelve hundred followers on my webnovel, and my chapters are read an average of almost 4000 times. With an audience like that, I have to wonder if there’s something I can do to spread the Gospel, if only covertly. Certainly I don’t want to suddenly shift the tone of my book to something explicitly religious, for two reasons.
First, I don’t really love didactic Christian writing as a genre. There are books I’ve read that I really enjoy, but I find that I tend to get too caught up in where the metaphor falls apart. I don’t feel confident enough in my ability to portray nuance to where I think that I could write something without leading people astray.
I also feel like didactic Christian writing tends to only stand when read with that intention.6 That is,7 while I feel like a work of art tends to stand on its own, even when divorced of its context, I find that a lot of didactic writing requires people to be seeking out a book that will lecture them in order to be enjoyable.
That leads to the second concern I have, which is that a blatantly Catholic piece of writing is not what the readers of my book have sought out. Now, there is an argument I respect that people do not always know what they want, but I don’t know if it really holds here. After all, there is almost no cost to people dropping my story if they do not like it, and I don’t know if the morals I’m espousing in the book are particularly non-Christian.
I guess that question is certainly one that I have. To what extent does a work I write become Christian and what are the important parts of a Christian fiction to me?8 There’s something to be said for the idea that a Christian book can be as much about the worldview it espouses as any particular theological point.
In that regard, I think that my web novel is at least somewhat Christian in its view of the world. Violence is not something that the main character idolizes, and his family is filled with people who care deeply for each other. Man made institutions are ultimately fallible, but people by and large are good and motivated by a desire to see the world improve. Without adding a messianic character, I suppose that it’s hard to get too much more Christian, especially given that Christ is9 central to the Christian faith.
I don’t know if this musing did what I wanted it to. I think that I wanted to find a way to write in a way that I considered more Christian, despite never really having considered what that would look like. Instead, I think that I’m walking away from this posting with the idea that I should just be more intentional about the morals I’m espousing implicitly and explicitly in my writing. I don’t think that I’m good enough at writing or thinking to effectively weave in allegory yet, though that is something I should consider.10
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? Yes! I did a writing session with a friend, and it was really fun. I think I ended up writing close to 2000 words in that hour, which is near what my maximum WPH has ever been.111726/1700. I continue12 to grow ahead of schedule.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I did! I finished it and sent it to my beta reader before finishing this post. Interestingly, the writing of the chapter was far easier than it felt yesterday. I guess there’s something to be said in consistency, especially in terms of making something which is not inherently difficult seem easier.
Did I blog? I did! I thought about the post over the day, which was good, and wow we’re now on a three day streak! That’s super cool and I’m excited to continue it further.
Did I stretch? Unlike last night where I forgot, today I was too rushed before leaving home13, and I wore dress clothes14, so couldn’t really stretch during the day. As with last night, I am again going to stretch after posting this.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? I did an Angelus again today around noon, and I went to mass. I also went to mass last night, which I forget if I mentioned or not. I also tried to focus on the rosary last night, but did not do a great job.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I thought about one of the letters I want to write.15 I did not, however, write the letter or in any other demonstrable way make progress on my goal of writing more letters. I didn’t16 know if I would be able to today yesterday, though, so I’m ok with this.
I
I think? I’ll be honest, I heard that as a child and saw a few things which corroborated that story and was never interested in researching further. I’m fully willing to believe that it is not true.↩︎
in my own world view, and compressing any orthogonal things into one single projected axis↩︎
Ok so I’m absolutely realizing that I should have two axes (hmmmm, maybe not. I don’t actually know if that’s the case↩︎
maybe faithful? I’m not sure which word is better for describing someone who was self professed a poor Catholic but who still believed strongly and deeply.↩︎
despite framing like this, I’ll be the first to say that the two are, though not mutually inclusive, at least fairly well linked. It’s not two distinct axes, but the two don’t overlap exactly↩︎
Hmm that’s not well phrased, let’s see if I can say that better↩︎
the two words that every author afraid of not making sense loves↩︎
if you couldn’t tell, I’m using this posting as a way for me to consider these questions, not because I already have the answers and I’m leading you to them as readers. It would be funny if I, the person who just said that I dislike didactic writing, would have done so, and I won’t say that I never do that. Here, though, I’m really exploring the thought as I type. (One side effect of learning to type without self editing is that thoughts become much less filtered as you type them. In the book I’m writing, this often manifests in new plot threads being picked up, often in ways that I never could or would have considered. Here it means that I’m approaching the question through the lens of each word I type, which is a weird thing to realize)↩︎
shockingly enough,↩︎
I suppose I’m trying some allegory in the NaNo book I’m doing.↩︎
which is funny when you consider that my sprint writing pace can often meet or exceed 60 wpm, implying that I’m writing for less than half of the hour.↩︎
maybe the wrong word for day two, but c’est la vie (la vie)↩︎
see the whole doing a writing session with a friend before work↩︎
because I was singing at a mass tonight↩︎
A year ago today, a friend invited me to go pray with her. She’s one of the people to whom I want to write a letter, and so it seemed somehow relevant↩︎
It will never not be strange to me that didn’t and did not have such different connotations↩︎
First Published: 2023 November 1
Well, it’s another November, which means it’s time for another installment in “I1 try my hardest to drive myself insane by doing something related to NaNoWriMo again.” In 2018, when I began this blog2, I did not have the drive to actually write a novel. Instead, I attempted to add fifty thousand words to my ’blog postings over the course of the month. As I am sure you3 can guess, I was unsuccessful at that mission.
By 2019, I had forgotten about my musings well before November rolled around. 2020 and 2021 likewise passed by me without anything to point at.4 I suppose that there may not actually be all that much from 2021, given that I worked on the same journal from November of 20195 through August of last year.
Last year, as I certainly remember, I attempted to do NaNoWriMo for what I had a vague idea was my first time ever. As it turns out, I had made an account back in 2011, and had attempted to do NaNoWriMo that year. I, unsurprisingly, failed at that goal.
Last year, however, I was successful, at least in terms of writing 50000 words of fiction and finishing one narrative. The two did not align with each other, as I needed to start a sequel in order to get to the needed word count. Of course, I gave up on the story almost as soon as I could. One year later, I have no interest in revisiting that story.
I also wrote a story this past April, as part of a writing competition for the website where I currently post my ongoing novel.6 I made it to the word count for that book7, but was tired of writing it by the end of the word count and rushed the ending.
Well, rushed may be a bit of an understatement. The book was set over the course of twelve years. I spent all but fifteen hundred of the words on the first three weeks, then rushed through the next twelve years in the remaining word count. One commenter’s reply was that they were grateful that I did not leave the work unfinished, for all that the ending was incredibly unsatisfactory.
So, that brings us to November. As I mentioned yesterday, I am also trying to revive this ’blog and get further ahead in my other book at the same time. Will it work?
Who knows.
Will I burn out before the month is done?
Almost certainly.
Am I still going to ride this train for as long as I can, in hopes that I might be able to salvage a number of words from the situation?
Absolutely.
Anyways, the book this year is something I’ve never tried before. I realize I’ve only really written third person limited in the past, so I’m writing this book in first person. Now, whether that’s going to be a good idea is yet to be determined.
The general plot of the book is that there’s an order of vampire fighting werewolf priests in the modern day United States.8 I’m not sure how much of the balance I’ll have between conversation and action, but given that I’ve spent all of today’s content9 on the main character getting ready to meet with the monastery, odds are good that this book will also end up somewhat rushed.
In any case, it’ll be the book I try to write.s I’m hopeful that I can tell a story, and a story with faith, since I haven’t really touched my faith in any of the writing I’ve done.10 I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it to anyone’s satisfaction, let alone my own, but I have been thinking a fair amount about how to interface my faith and writing.
I feel like that topic deserves far more consideration than I can give it at this point in the night.11 It’s currently past my bedtime, and I’m well above my word goal for the day.12
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? Yes! I did two fifteen minute sprints13, 1798/1700. Nice I am 100 words ahead of schedule now.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I did! I just finished it, and, as seems always true, it felt much harder to write the chapter at the beginning14 than it ended up being.
Did I blog? I am blogging now! Currently working on a streak, which is nice.
Did I stretch? Shoot! I will do that as soon as I finish here
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? I remembered to do an15 Angelus just before noon, when my alarm went off. Otherwise, I tried to be more mindful about my prayer last night, for all that I don’t know if it really was.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I found my stamps, envelopes, and cards. I also addressed an envelope. That feels like enough for the day, especially since I want to make the letters feel as easy as possible. Tomorrow I’ll try to address another letter, but we’ll see how I’m doing on time.
I
Initial draft said my first name, but I am unsure if I’ve ever posted it here, and may as well do a little bit of not self doxxing if I haven’t↩︎
I keep wanting to say ’blog, and I think that I might just start doing that from now on↩︎
the hypothetical reader↩︎
on this site, at least. I am almost certain that there are any number of artifacts that I can look at.↩︎
interesting, I had not connected that I finished that journal midway through what could have been another NaNoWriMo↩︎
the more I write, the more uncomfortable I get with ending sentences in prepositions. I know that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the prior sentence reading “for the website I currently post my ongoing novel on”, but the construction reads weirdly to me now. I wonder if that’s a sign that I’m getting better at writing.↩︎
fifty five thousand, five hundred and fifty five, to be exact (on the word count, not on what I wrote. I think I got somewhere closer to 57,000)↩︎
well, in the modern day. I think that the plan is for the order to exist across the whole world, but the main character, and therefore, story, all will take place in the US. Right now I have it set near Ann Arbor, but that is entirely just because I wanted a single location cue and it was the first vaguely metropolitan location that popped into my mind↩︎
two words less than eighteen hundred↩︎
well, at least I haven’t touched on my faith intentionally in any of the fiction writing. The many reflections on the readings I’ve done here aren’t counted, for obvious reasons. It’s also probably obvious that I have a Catholic world view given the other writing I’ve done, but I am not the person to analyze that.↩︎
I wrote this post in three sittings, the third of which begins with the final sentence of the prior paragraph.↩︎
which is approximately 5000↩︎
with pauses as needed to complete quests↩︎
and middle and end↩︎
admittedly rushed↩︎
First Written: 2023 October 3
Shoot, somehow it’s the end of October. I really feel like I blinked and suddenly the month has completely vanished.1 Despite the fact that this month is gone without any blog postings, I still managed to keep up my five a days.23 As a result, I can still give some highlights for the month.
This past month I:
Went to a fancy PChem banquet in the department
Gave my last planned talks for a while!
Talked to children!4
Met with a high school friend
Visited home
Made ravioli
Went to Rocky Horror Picture Show!5
Went diving for the first time in ages!
Let’s see how that lines up with my things I was excited for from last month’s reflection.
I have a friend staying with me! That’s always exciting.6
I’m giving two real talks this week!7
There’s a cool dinner tomorrow I get to go to8
I’m going to a school to talk to the kids about careers in STEM!9
I’m going to a science fair next week!10
Hey, that’s pretty close to overlap. As always, there are new and exciting things that I did not know I was going to do at the start of the month. I also set my standards incredibly low, which made it easy for the lists to overlap. Let’s see how we did against last month’s goals, though.
Blog more. I somehow blogged less.
Get ahead on Jeb. I am planning to write another chapter of Jeb right after I write this post, which will technically be slightly ahead.
Keep my home clean. My home is about as clean now as it was at the start of the month, which is nice. It fell apart in the middle, but I got it back.
Pray better. I’ve started doing a daily rosary before bed, which is, at the very least, more prayer.
Stretch more. I stretched a total of five times, compared to 6 in September. Whoops.
Get back into writing letters to friends. I wrote not a single letter. I didn’t even address a letter wow.
So, as expected, I did not do a great job on my goals. But, there’s always the future to improve, and that’s what my goal is now. Next month, I’m excited for the following:
Going home for Thanksgiving
Doing NaNoWriMo with a friend
I’m guest teaching a class, which is fun.11
I’m going to a cool discussion about Pascal.12
Once again, a fairly small list, though one that’s spaced a little more over the month, which is probably good for me. Goals for the upcoming month:
Write 1700 words a day for my NaNo project. I averaged more than this last year, and I think that I can do it fairly quickly, especially since I even plotted this novel.13
Write a chapter of Jeb every day. So, this is such an outlandish goal, except that I don’t do as many social activities anymore, and I will already be in the swing of writing for NaNoWriMo. If I cut myself off from writing too much more than 1700 words a day for that, the extra creative juice will have to flow somewhere, and it may as well be into Jeb.
Blog every day. Now, lots of people say that the correct way to build a habit is by picking a single incremental change to your life and implementing it. They’re probably right. Nonetheless, I want to do my best here, rather than simply doing something. I very often have monthly goals of writing more blog posts, and this month I will already have the daily momentum of Jeb and NaNo to keep me blogging.
Stretch every day. There is really nothing about my life that is not improved when I stretch more. Given that I will be hunched over a computer more this upcoming month14, it is almost certainly going to be necessary for me to at least stretch my neck, shoulders, and hands. Also, there’s now a club diving team at my school, so I can go diving again. My body was not flexible enough for it last time, but that’s only more reason for me to improve.
Improve the cleanliness of my home. Last month I raised my standards for what my home should be like. I would like to do that again.
Pray better. I have gotten to the point that a daily rosary is what I do, but it’s not always15 particularly mindful. At a minimum, it would be good for me to be better about that.
Write letters to friends. At a minimum, there are three people I owe a letter to and at least one other person I would like to send a letter to. We’re almost at the time of year that holiday cards become appropriate, and I could consider doing those this year.
This means that I’ll have a daily reflection that looks like:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? /1700
Did I write a chapter of Jeb?
Did I blog?
Did I stretch?
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary?
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends?
Of course, there are reasons for this (which I will not be discussing on this blog but it seems important for future me to remember) (also present me)↩︎
I’m sure I’ve blogged about this before, but, in short, (hmm is that too many commas in a row? probably, at least in that the essay as a whole will suffer)↩︎
with a few exceptions that I fixed↩︎
I keep being told there’s a better way to frame this, but wow I cannot find it↩︎
a live cast version, which was fun↩︎
Saw this in my notes but wasn’t sure if I’d already mentioned it↩︎
They were fun!↩︎
mentioned↩︎
I did not end up talking to kids much about careers, though I did enjoy talking to them↩︎
I did not do that. Oops↩︎
though I should really reach out to the prof and figure out what, exactly, that will entail↩︎
I’m not entirely sure what about him, because I didn’t write that down, but the bishop will be there, which is cool↩︎
unheard of, I know↩︎
or, as I am right now, reclined with my arms cocked weirdly↩︎
read: often↩︎
First Written: 2023 October 1 First Published: 2023 October 311
Well, another month as flown by, carried away on the wings of time.2 As you3 can tell from the lack of posts lately,4 there are many updates since the last time I talked.
In short, I:
Bound a book with friends!5
Made cookies in lab6
Did not win a pinball tournament
Learned blender7
Did a graduate recruiting event/weekend
Went to a workshop on how to effectively give and receive feedback8
Had a poker night with friends.
Saw the relic of St. Jude.
Let’s see once again how that compares to the list that I tried to make about things I was excited for this month.9
Running more than five miles again!10
Swimming with friends!11
Giving my final talk in the parks for the season12 Coincidentally, this is also the final of the talk series for any speaker.
Recording a song!
Being ready for my upcoming talks
Maybe13 give or at least hash out details for me to give my first invited talk at a college I do not attend.
Oof ok. So, I did do the first three of those, but I had already done them by the last reflection. I did not record a song, which is a bit of a shame. As you might guess from the lack of postings lately, last month was not a good month for me in many regards.14
I’m mostly ready for my upcoming talks, though that’s a brand new development. Yesterday I gave a practice version of the talks to my groupmates, who resoundingly hated the talk. In their defense, I agree with absolutely all of their comments. They mostly boiled down to the fact that a public presentation should be a story that’s somewhat educational. Instead, all that I had was a list of facts.
As a result, I more or less restarted, this time much more focused on collecting pretty images than anything like having a coherent set of facts. After all, it’s far easier to make a coherent set of facts when you have a story than it is to make a story from a set of facts. I don’t think that I have quite enough content yet, though, so I’ll need to think about other ways that I can pad the content. One option is obviously just to add in some more specific facts about what the different kinds of months are?15
I started hashing out the planning for the talk I’m giving at a real school. It’s for sure happening, which is really nice. I even have a date16 nailed down, which is great. Other than that, I vaguely know what I’m going to talk about.
So, what am I excited for this month?
I have a friend staying with me! That’s always exciting
I’m giving two real talks this week!17
There’s a cool dinner tomorrow I get to go to
I’m going to a school to talk to the kids about careers in STEM!18
I’m going to a science fair next week!19
All in all, it’s looking like it’ll be a pretty calm month, which will be nice, especially with how hectic my summer was.20 I’m sure that I did a bad job with my goals last month, but let’s see just how bad.
Finish/make my talk on the eclipses. Hey nice! I did it.
Make my home clean again. Also did this. Well, at least I made half of my home really clean. It’s the half that anyone has a reason to see, which is good enough.
Blog more! Objectively, I failed at this goal.
Stretch and exercise more. Technically I did this! I made it to the gym a couple of times with a friend.
As before, sleep enough, and try to prioritize sleeping earlier. I think I did this. It was hard, especially since I felt like I needed tons more sleep than I should.
As always, be more intentional about prayer. That was a mixed goal. I started to pray a rosary every night, which is nice. I’m not always praying it well, but that’s progress at least.
Actually get ahead on my book. Oof. Ok so I did plot out to the end of this arc, but I’m writing so far off of that plan. I’ve been basically writing each chapter as I need it.
Write more poetry. I did not write any poetry.
Write or record a song. I don’t think that I did this.
Write five things I like about myself every day21, three things I’m excited for, and ten things I’m grateful for. Well, I gave up on this quickly, but was then told it’s ok that i did.
Goals for this month:
Blog more. I feel like this is self explanatory
Get ahead on Jeb. As above.
Keep my home clean. I like how it looks right now and I like that I can do things in it.
Pray better. I’ll need to spend some time figuring out exactly what this means.
Stretch more. I need to start taking care of myself.
Get back into writing letters to friends. I have fallen so hard off of this, and a lot of my friends deserve responses to their letters.
Whoops↩︎
Someday I’ll learn how to write poetry. Until then, we all get to deal with this↩︎
hmm who is the you in this situation? Is it potentially future me?↩︎
this phrasing implies that I expect to have active readers, which I don’t think I do↩︎
which should go in my yearly goal post↩︎
well, office, but close enough↩︎
for a very, very generous definition of learn↩︎
I think? The point of the session was a little muddy to me↩︎
I wrote everything before this on the first, and nothing has really happened since then, so that still works, I guess.↩︎
I did it on the first! I think I pr’d↩︎
did that this morning/early afternoon. (it was a long swim time↩︎
I am ninety percent sure I’ve used the program name in this blog before, but if I haven’t, this will not be the first time. I did it, in fact, last night! It went really well. Without (many) spoilers, there were like seventy people again!↩︎
depending on Bureaucracy↩︎
it’s much better now, though↩︎
idk, I’m really lost and not feeling particularly inspired by anything right now↩︎
i think↩︎
real in the sense of a talk that was explicitly asked for and that I have legitimate plans for↩︎
I should probably prepare something for that↩︎
kind of? it’s a like “this is what science research is like for graduate students” event at a local high school↩︎
it says something that giving two talks and two school visits is a boring month to me↩︎
starting now↩︎
First Published: 2023 September 14
Today I had the opportunity to see the relic of St. Jude.1 It was a beautiful experience, made more so by the fact that I got to sing at a Mass led by the Bishop.2 Unfortunately, that did mean that it’s later now than I’d like it to be, and continuing to blog will take more time than I think that I want to spend.
No progress on eclipse talks.
The fight was slightly improved, if only because I ran into stuff.
Let’s go! Continuing to blog
I stretched this morning. I had planned to stretch again tonight, but it seems a little late for that.
No exercise outside of walking around.
I woke up before seven again, which is nice. I’ll also sleep in tomorrow, because I’m still recovering a bit.
I woke before my alarm!
In addition to praying in front of the relic, going to Mass, and spending some time praying after Mass, I also spent fifteen minutes in silent prayer at the chapel on my walk to work. I forgot how much that really makes my entire day better. I left and just felt better.
I finished tomorrow’s chapter today!
I don’t know if the net progress on plotting question is relevant anymore.
No poetry.
No album work.
After going to the chapel, writing things I like about myself was much easier.
Three things I’m excited for was also easier.
Gratitude journaling was as well.
I think that I tried to cultivate joy.
First Published: 2023 September 13
As I mentioned yesterday, I have done a number of things during my downtime from blogging. I’d say one of the most fun of them was going to a friend’s euchre tournament last Saturday.1
I think that I knew how to play euchre before the tournament, though I’m not entirely sure if I ever actually did. For those who don’t already know what euchre is, it’s a trick taking game. As far as I’ve ever played it, it has four players.2 The deck is comprised of a standard deck of cards, though with only cards 9 and higher.
Each hand is played in the same way. The dealer passes out five cards to each player, then turns up the top card of the remainder. If someone wants that to be the trump suit, they tell the dealer to pick it up, at which point it becomes trump, and the dealer gets to replace any card in their hand with it.3 From there, the person to the dealer’s left leads with the first trick. If no one tells the dealer to pick it up, the card is discarded and everyone once more goes around and can choose to pick trump. If no one does the second time through, there
Points are scored at the end of each hand. If your team4 took a majority of the tricks5, you get a point. You get another point for taking all five tricks, and another if the other team called trump. I’m told there’s also a benefit if you choose to go alone, though that was banned at the tournament I went to.
For those who’ve never played a trick taking game, the general rules are that high cards win a trick. Each trick’s suit is the suit that the first player led with6. However, the trump suit always beats any other suit.
In euchre, you are mandated to play in suit if you can, including if you have trump in your hand. That’s an interesting variation, and one that I’ll have to consider more as I keep playing it. I’m sure that it does things to the strategy that I did not immediately think about.
Euchre also introduces an interesting variation on trump, where the Jack of trump suit becomes the highest value card. The second highest value card is the jack of the other same colored suit.78 After that, trump goes down ace, king, queen, 10, 9. It’s kind of fun that jack goes from being a middling card to the best one if and only if the suit is trump. I’m not sure how that impacts when you should have the dealer pick up the card, but I am certain that it will.
Ok so, explanation of euchre out of the way, let’s talk about the tournament. Of the twelve participants, three had played before, and I vaguely knew the rules of trick taking games. I ended up on a team with one of my group mates, and we got absolutely destroyed in the first game. I primarily blame luck for that, as it’s hard to win a game when you don’t have any trump cards in your hand.
The winning teams all rotated, and the second game began. Just as time was running out, we were down one point. I was dealer, and I gave myself9 the ace, queen, and jack of spades, along with the jack of clubs. I also had the nine of clubs, but that doesn’t matter as much. What’s most important is that the card that declared suit was the king of spades.
Obviously, no one else wanted spades to be trump10 When the choice came to me, I, obviously, took it, and immediately declared that we had taken all five tricks as time was called for the game. That lucky streak remained in our next game, and we ended up winning 2/3 games, which put us in second place.11 It was a really fun time, and then the hosts took us to their back yard for a fire.
The fire was incredible, especially because they had some fancy fire pit with holes in the bottom, which means that the fire both never suffocated and also burned incredibly hot and fast. The fact that the wood was incredibly dry probably helped that, but it was mesmerizing to watch the flames.
I’m watching a blender tutorial after this, which is progress, if only meta.
I’m going to clean after the blender tutorial! That is some fighting against entropy.
Blogging streak is returning, which is great and fun and exciting and happy.
I actually did stretch, which is wild to me. It felt nice, but wow is my entire body stiff. I should stretch again tonight.
No exercise today, but I did walk, which is good.
I went to bed a little late last night, but set the alarm for much later.
I woke up before my alarm and everything!
I’m not sure that I’m not sick, so I stayed out of the chapel on purpose today.
If I write more Jeb today, which I plan to, I will be ahead, which is nice.
Book remains totally plotted, though I have been considering dropping the total number of chapters from 500 to 400 or even 300. At a rate of three chapters per day, there are a little under two and a half years left in the book. I would rather it be done before then, which either means I need to have fewer chapters or release them faster.12 Every hundred chapters I drop is about two thirds of a year less, which is weird to think about.
In actual reasoning, though, I’m not sure if the third, fourth, and fifth sentences describing the book actually need and deserve their own total arcs.
No poetry, for all that I should.
Oh gosh, that’s something I keep forgetting to do. I will work on my album after cleaning and tutorial.
I just now wrote 5 things I like about myself.
I just now wrote three things I’m excited for.
As above, just wrote ten more things I’m grateful for.
I think that in general I’ve been doing pretty well cultivating joy. I certainly am living more in the present, which is nice.
how was that only a few days ago? It feels like so much time has passed since then↩︎
and I’m almost certain that there are variants for fewer, though I haven’t noticed any for more (or fewer, I suppose)↩︎
they do not reveal to the rest of the players what card they replaced.↩︎
you and the person sitting opposite you↩︎
three or more↩︎
which is the benefit of leading↩︎
so if trump is spades, the Jack of Clubs, etc↩︎
oh, that does also mean that the jack is now a part of the trump suit, not the other suit, interestingly enough↩︎
somehow↩︎
because I held basically all of it, so they didn’t.↩︎
behind one of the two teams with absolutely no experience with the game, which is kind of funny.↩︎
or both I suppose↩︎