Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Words of Parting Post 23


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It is submitted. I would have done a better job on the cover letter, but that part of the process was unexpected and I had to rescue a new user at the paying job and lost the last fifteen minutes of my lunch break.

It's gone and I'm so not ready to dive into where I left Stellar Gift of Death. I'm not being completely idle though. I figured out how to put the language into the wiki, so I'm working on that. Next will be a standardized planet information tiddler, and I think I'll be ready for Zy and crew next Monday. If I get a chance between the paying job stress to relax.

Monday, March 28, 2011

2011 Fiction Word Count Week 11


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The editing added a few words to the total.

2011 Fiction Word Count Week 10


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Worked on language creation and editing this week.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Words of Parting Post 22

Words of Parting

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METRICS
Lost Words: 0
Added Words: 33
Total words for the first draft: 4969
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: Finished filing in all the Atsejhkigom words, settled broad details about the planet so when I came back to it I won’t have to make all that up again, tweaked descriptions, and I stayed under 5000 words!

I also found a new helpful website: Astronomy by John D. Fix: Seasons Interactive. You get to see how the sun moves across the sky from a point in the Northern Hemisphere for any type of axial tilt you chose.
The Bad: Now I have to decide how I’m going to handle a brand-new language and spell checker. All I keep coming back to is this:
She right-clicked to check the online dictionary… And it confirmed that the spelling was wrong, but that was it. The dictionary was supposed to suggest the correct spelling based on the letters it had, but with two reporters in the household, one of whom was also a member of the Justice League, the Kent dictionary was customized with so many added words, proper names, foreign terms, alien terms, ultra-dimensional terms and jargon that Lois never trusted it. It might be giving her the proper spelling of convivial or it might be giving her the correct spelling for the marriage contract by which the queen of Junius 4’s third moon thought she was automatically betrothed to Clark’s first male offspring.

Chapter 6: Curtain Time in Cat Tales: Riddle Me-tropolis by Chris Dee

Yeah, I get twitchy about the oddest things at times, but let’s face it, between my original fiction and the fanfiction I write plus my consistent bad spelling, means I see more words underlined in red than not. I think I would like to have multiple custom dictionaries so when I type “dzahgom” in a Piper of Shadows story it is underlined, but not when I working on something in the Zy Universe.
What I'm looking forward to: Submission! I have 3 days before it’s due. I’d like to send it early and I still need to make sure the formatting is correct.
What I'm not looking forward to: Figuring out Microsoft Word tricks. :p

Friday, March 25, 2011

Triangulation Entry Post 21

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METRICS
Lost Words: 0
Added Words: 2
Total words for the first draft: 4936
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: Working before the paying job is working so far. But I need to see how it works out for me long term.
The Bad: I’m not done with this story yet?!
What I'm looking forward to: I love these crazy kids but I’m really ready to ignore them for a while.
What I'm not looking forward to: Figuring out the planet in five days! Deciding how much translation to do!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Triangulation Entry Post 20

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METRICS
Lost Words: 53
Total words for the first draft: 4934
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: If I keep this leaving home at 5:15am schedule, I have plenty of time to write at the paying job before I have to start the paying job. That’s an important factor to consider.

I finished substituting the alien words this morning. I still have a few issues with conjugating, especially where I was using gerunds. I haven’t covered that chapter yet in Holly Lisle’s Create a Language Clinic. Goal for today, I guess.
The Bad: Did I mention driving at 5:15am? Double checking that I used Atsejhkigom in dialogue and left the English meanings in the narration, except for terms that shouldn’t have a direct to English meaning. And I’m still working on describing the alien planet hurt by a super volcanic explosion two generations back.
What I'm looking forward to: Finishing all the Atsejhkigom substitution.
What I'm not looking forward to: Figuring out the planet before my time is up. There’s only a week left!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Triangulation Entry Post 19

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METRICS
Lost Words: 1
Total words for the first draft: 4987
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: Started replacing my descriptive place holders with the alien words I have invented. What I’m trying to watch out for is substituting too much and losing the context. Back on Sunday, I played around with a simulation program exoExplorer. It is based on the already discovered exoplanets, so I can’t recreate the alien world I’m dealing with exactly, but it was helpful in figuring out atmosphere conditions and what a gas giant looks like if its moon is inhabited.
The Bad: Mondays suck when it comes to trying to work. It took two hours and I never found time to work on the story. Today isn’t much better.
What I'm looking forward to: Plug the alien words into the text.
What I'm not looking forward to: Figuring out the planet before my time is up.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Triangulation Entry Post 18

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METRICS
Lost Words: 42
Total words for the first draft: 4988
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: Started replacing my descriptive place holders with the alien words I have invented. So I have lost words instead of gained. Also, in the interests of not losing anything on this world and culture, I made two new sheets for Holly Lisle’s Create a Language Clinic: Character Names and Glossary. Sure, I could have wrote out all the information on loose-leaf and put it in the same binder along with the other completed worksheets but this way is a whole lot less messy.
The Bad: The language is coming along fine, but I haven’t even started on the planet landscape. *headdesk* I have figured out the cataclysm that nearly wiped out the Erochians (or Atseggairaas in their native tongue); it was an eruption of a super volcano; massive devastation, loss of life, and shake up of culture of which this story is only seeing a fraction of. I’m planning on exploring it more later on in the Zy’s universe series.

But it means an edit of what little outdoor description I put into the last scene taking in the linger effects of an eruption that big and just how did moderately space-faring species survive. Ha! Never thought I’d be glad for skimping on description before.
Fave line:
What I'm looking forward to: Plugging the alien words into the text.
What I'm not looking forward to: Figuring out the planet.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

2011 Fiction Word Count Week 10


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Progress! Not a whole lot of progress but if everything goes according to plan stop laughing!, I should finish the Triangulation story in time to send off.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Triangulation Entry Post 17

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METRICS
New Words: 234
Total words for the first draft: 5030
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: Finished the transition.
The Bad: Must finish the language and figure out the planet landscape.
Fave line: “I do not always want what is best for me.”
What I'm looking forward to: Plug the alien words into the text.
What I'm not looking forward to: Figuring out the planet.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Tin Man: Prince of the Outer Zone Post 2



I didn't spend all day working on these graphics. Friends came over and I got out of the house for hours. But by the time they got here, I had already done most of the hard work (figuring out the scale and make different colored circles). This one is actually not done to scale, but shows the celestial mechanics. Just remember the distance between Nonestica and the braycenter of the system is 1.414 AUs.

The next two graphics were both created to scale, albeit not the same scale for each. It was not fun when what scale I decided worked for the suns meant the smallest moon would be represented by only 4% of 1 pixel.




Tomorrow I'm taking the day off and working on the original fiction that has a deadline. Have to build an alien language, but NO MORE MATH!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Tin Man: Prince of the Outer Zone Post 1

Thanks to an astro calculator page I stumbled upon (and have saved the heck out of now), I finally managed to finish THIS!
Nonestica Solar System Details
Created: 03/11/2011
Star 1:
Primary
Star Mass (sols): 1.1
Star Luminosity (sols): 1.2
Average Radius (sols): 1.1
Star 2: Secondary
Star Mass (sols): 0.8
Star Luminosity (sols): 0.8
Average Radius (sols): 0.8

Primary star and Secondary star are 2 AUs apart with two separate orbits around a common braycenter. Orbital period is 49932.45 seconds.

Stellar Habitable Zone:
Inner Limit:
173484406 km or 1.15965512 AUs
Ideal Distance: 211566348 km or 1.41421356 AUs
Outer Limit: 253879618 km or 1.69705627 AUs

Planet 1: Nonestica
Orbit Data:
Periapsis Distance:
211534400 km or 1.414 AUs
Apoapsis Distance: 211534400 km or 1.414 AUs
Orbital Period: 445.54 days
Orbit Eccentrecity: 0
Insolation (W/m^2): 1400.42292
Planet Information:
Planet Mass (Earths):
1.054038
Diameter (km): 13547.17
Surface Gravity (ms^-2): 9.15979437
Planet Density (kgm^-3): 4838.63118
Surface Area (km^2): 576563351
Rotation Period (seconds): 86164.2 = 23.9345 Hours
Albedo: 0.3237
Axial Tilt (degrees): 23
Length of seasons: 111.25 days
Moon 1:
Orbit Radius (km): 384403
Orbital Period (seconds): 2309928.69 = 26.735 days
Diameter (km): 2882
Rotation Period (seconds):
Moon 2:
Orbit Radius (km): 412913
Orbital Period (seconds): 2571616.80 = 29.764 days
Diameter (km): 6502.65
Rotation Period (seconds):
Moon 3:
Orbit Radius (km): 550557
Orbital Period (seconds): 3934656 = 45.54 days
Diameter (km): 3476.28
Rotation Period (seconds):

The largest moon's orbit around the planet is the basis of a cycle, which equals 30 days. The annual however is 445 days long, which divides into 14 cycles of 30 days and 1 cycle of 25 days.
Don't worry if it doesn't make any sense, or very little sense. I'll post a graphic as soon as I clean up my sketches in a graphics program.

Besides learning that my algebra skills have deteriorated (hence the happy dance when I found the calculator because I could stop trying to figure out how to solve the equations in Excel), I learned that I am NEVER building an inhabited binary star solar system in any of my original fiction. I don't care how cool Tatoonine and Tin Man looked. The above was a PAIN IN THE ASS to figure out and I'm still not sure if the math is all correct and it balances or if the planet will be eventually pulled into the suns and burnt to a crisp. (Just add a gas giant with your imagination so that doesn't happen, okay?)

Nice solitary stars with multiple planets from now on. Unless AstroSynthesis v3 makes it insanely easy. :p

What took longer was making sure my new 15 cycle long annual didn't mess up the timeline I had already built. There were a few minor adjustments to make (and near as I can figure out the equinoxes and solstices shift by cycles every annual so i gave up on plotting them), but overall, my rough guesstimates held true. Even included the unplanned sequels that were written out of order.

What about ages? I really don't see the need in keeping Earth and the O.Z. in some calendar lock step. DG spent fifteen years on Earth and returns to the O.Z. fifteen annuals after she left it. Slippers who were born under a twelve-month calender can still celebrate birthdays on a fifteen-cycle one, even though thinking about the extra months will probably generate headaches. It has been 118 years on Earth since Dorothy Gale disappeared and it has been 118 annuals since she appeared in the O.Z.

Does there need to be a month to cycle correlation between the two solar systems? Not for my writing needs. Thank the gods!!!!

Okay, moving on from the math, this is what else I have. I worked out the noble class hierarchy of the O.Z., even though a good many positions are open because the Sorceress wiped out the nearest claimants to the throne.

SERIES TITLE: Nonestica Tales
TITLE: Prince of the Outer Zone
GENRE: fanfiction, action-adventure
TYPE of FICTION: Novel easy
COMPREHENSIVE CONCEPT: DG and Wyatt Cain must save their son from the Scourge of the Royal House even if it plunges the O.Z. into another war.

A bad guy:

The Scourge of the Royal House, played by Susan Sarandon and in the costume. It's too fabulous not to use. :D

A new kid:

Meet the youngest Cain so far, the title character. :D Played by my nephew.

A new annoyance:

Lord Gruffudd Porfirio, Duke of Glikkus played by Hugo Weavering.

Along with the same familiar faces.

Triangulation Entry Post 16

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METRICS
New Words: 13
Total words for the first draft: 4796
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: Thursday night, I finally got a chance to handwrite the transition between the opening and the fight since I had to wait for traffic to die down before going home. I finished the transition, but unfortunately, I didn’t give the traffic enough time and didn’t get home until nearly 8:00 p.m.
The Bad: I only managed to delete the extra words and type in 13 news ones before the end of the day.
Fave line: . Instead of legs, this being’s torso ended in a long tapering tail like a [name of a snake-like animal], but most of his body he held upright.
What I'm looking forward to: Language building is showing some progress; I think I have names for all the characters now.
What I'm not looking forward to: Finding time to work on languages and other details.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

2011 Fiction Word Count Week 9


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Filling in the comments section of the marathon spreadsheet is helpful when I don't think the word count reflects how busy I've been.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Triangulation Entry Post 15

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METRICS
New Words: 520
Total words for the first draft: 5581 – 253 = 5328
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: I know how to handle the transition, which is overly wordy right now so I don’t miss any of the good points that I came up with.
The Bad: Paying job has been crazy since March 4th. I spent too much of the weekend cleaning and doing fun things to take my mind off stress.
Fave line: “Spending all his time convincing you to repeat his words to me does not change anything. I thought he understood when I didn’t listen when he said them first.”
What I'm looking forward to: Language building is showing some progress; I think I have names for all the characters now.
What I'm not looking forward to: Finding time to work on languages and other details.

Friday, March 04, 2011

AstroSynthesis v2.0 Trial run

As I've mentioned before, I'm looking for software to help with my drawing deficiencies. Floor plans typically involve straight lines, so I'm good there with a ruler. But let's not talk about my larger maps.

Zy's universe (literally) has shown up my weakness when it comes to working solar systems. I understand the concepts in Stephen L. Gillett's book World-Building, but working the equations out on paper and visualizing what that means... so far the result has been to chunk it all aside to deal with later.

There is no more later. The Triangulation entry story must be submitted by March 31st. And I need to work out the math for their local time and some visualization of what the planet has gone through must go into the description. And since hiring whoever built Pandora for James Cameron is out of the question, I need a solution that won't hurt my head.

So software, namely software actually created for RPGs set in outer space. When I gamed, my groups weren't so into maps so I had no idea how big the market was for this. However a lot of the free ones on the net are random generators with a limited degree of control over the variables, (which I suppose works just fine when the party takes a wrong turn at Planet Albuquerque and you as GM need a new planet fast). AstroSynthesis by NBOS came up high in my searches, lets you configure just about everything, and it comes with a free trial period.

This is actually my second trial run. I had tried the program on my old computer before it died and figured out I really needed help with the Goldilocks Zone around stars. AstroSynthesis puts distance planet is from star and temperature and orbital properties under your manual control, which isn't a bad thing until Gillet's equations figured in AUs and AstroSynthesis using kilometers had me boiling and freezing the habital tidal locked moon around a gas giant I was trying to build. A glance at the forums saw I wasn't the only one concerned and the creator promised version 3 would have a warning that the planet was getting out of the Goldilocks zone.

"Version 3 is probably what I want to spend money on, since it will have more checks on the things I'm screwing up." And then came the computer melt-down of 2010 and I put planet building on the back burner again.

Forward to last weekend where I knew I would need to be doing orbital calculations for Mealte's homeworld very, very soon and having a conversation over the O.Z.'s planet as shown in Tin Man. I was just using Earth's calender there, but with it being a planet of a double star system that means its orbit is probably further away to match the temperate climate of Vancouver, Canada.

"That's the perfect test for AstroSynthesis! I know it has to match Earth, so I'll just tinker with the distances until I get there and see how long the orbit is. If I can do that, I can probably safely move onto complete original planets that are not tidal locked to gas giants. And then I can really have fun with the time periods between Earth and the O.Z."

Or looking back now, make myself tear my hair out and chose to not use what I had learned in the stories. *Shrug*

First I tested a new random generator Star System Generator by donjon. That gave me numbers to start with for a planet in the Goldilocks zone orbiting a K7 orange star and a red dwarf. That's not the star system for the O.Z. but I had a distance I could plug in now.

Using AstroSynthesis: me and its zoom feature (not that it really has a zoom feature) are not friends. Getting it to select a star system was nigh impossible and if I started the animated tour of the galaxy, the program froze while bouncing around the sector of space I had just created.

But I finally managed to create a double star system with a hospitable Earth-like planet with three moons. I got an orbit map of the planet and moons. Next stop is the orbit map for the entire system! And the ability to select that was grayed out.

This did not match my previous experience with calculating orbits, but I finally found the answer. Version 2 doesn't have orbits around double stars because the math couldn't be pre-calculated. But it's coming in Version 3.

Please see World-Building by Stephen L. Gillett, specifically pages 29 - 31 and 146 - 150. My comprehension of these sections is it is doable but complicated.

Again the results of my test is Version 3 is what I should spend my money on. But there is no ETA for Version 3. It was supposed to come out last year and didn't.

*headdesk*

Looking back at options, I found Cosmographer 3 by ProFantasy Software. What it can create is gorgeous to look at and it appears to be "put this object here" drawing, which I can do. I'm afraid that I'll still have the same won't do double star system issue, it won't check my math (planet is too close to the sun so it has no water, silly user!), and the price. In order to get the program to run, I'd have to shell out $112. That also gives me Campaign Cartographer 3 and Fractal Terrains, so I'd be able to use it for planet-side drawing for everything I write, but still! There is no demo version for Cosmographer to test first.

*headdesk*

I'm going to send them an email asking my questions, but I doubt I can buy it until next year.

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Triangulation Entry Post 14

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METRICS
New Words: 965
Total words for the first draft: 5061 – 253 = 4808
What I hate about my writing: DEADLINE PANIC!
The Good: Reached 965 words: The end of the story has been reached! Reached 509 words: I’m not giving into the deadline panic. In fact since the paying job has calmed down today, I’m going to power past 509 words and see what I end up with.
The Bad: Reached 965 words: I still have to bridge the gap between the beginning and the fight sections, and fill in the language, culture, description details. And keep it under 5000 words. Reached 509 words: Two days of stress on the paying job plus the looming deadline for this story equals I feel like shit today with not enough sleep and my back in knots.
Fave line: “I have words of parting and I will say them.”
What I'm looking forward to: Some quiet time to build languages. I thought it would be lunch today. I was so wrong about that.
What I'm not looking forward to: How that’s probably not going to happen this weekend.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Triangulation Entry Post 13

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METRICS
New Words: 594
Total words for the first draft: 4096 – 253 = 3843
What I hate about my writing: Fitting all the pieces together.
The Good: Wow, I made it to 500 words and handwrote the ending in one day.
The Bad: Oh dear Lord and Lady, what a day! I started the paying job at 6:30 a.m. and luckily got off at 4:00 p.m., but had very little time in between to type. But I managed to finish handwriting the ending scene. The typing I managed to finish at home before bed time.
Fave line: “This is true. But I know better than you how it feels to live buffeted by decisions made that you have no say in.”
What I'm looking forward to: Some quiet time to build languages. I just don’t know when that will be.
What I'm not looking forward to: Making it all fit together. There’s at least 253 words I know I will be cutting out, but I’m not sure how many more will join that number as I try to bridge the beginning to the fight scene.

Idea for Ferris

The way he got vamped: he bit the vampire feeding off of him in a trying to fight the bloke off way.