Friday, July 31, 2015

Subjected to...

Why would anybody want to subject another to targeted advertising?

Good question. Why are you reading this blog? Friends of mine? Similar interests? Family? Well the first two mean that maybe *some* of the advertising will actually of interest. It is actually along the lines of my links page that I am doing a major overhaul on: I want the links to be a reflection of what I find important or useful. The advertising should be of use to someone, especially when I am writing about interesting things. Sorry family, maybe you like some of the things I do.

So why would I want to start making an infinitesimal amount of money from advertising on my blog? Here is an article on side hustle. Do I really want to write for a living? I already do. Coding.

But what this is is a small way to write a bit and get a bit of money. I am not expecting thousands of dollars, but I do need just a bit more motivation for some of my writing ideas.

Really though I have a much more lucrative side hustle already, reviewing code for Udacity. Depending on the projects and complexity of the rubric it can pay quite well, but guess what I am doing in that situation: writing. I write comments on specific parts of the code and write broader reviews for the rubric. It has really given me an opportunity to see some pretty good code as well as help those that need a bit of support to make their code work well. The only real issue is that there are waves of activity and I am usually busy with something else when they need tons of reviews done.

Why am I busy? Work, school, life.  And two of those are writing intensive. I want to work more on my universe building, or really extending our universe. I certainly know that not everything is working together right now. I have actually been doing some research on some of the tougher physics ideas, but I really have a hard time concentrating on things like that. I have also read a ton of sci-fi over the last year, choosing it over fantasy in order to just fill my mind with concepts, what works, what is wonky, what could be done better. I really want to have something believable to base a story on, I just get caught up in the world building idea.

One thing I worry about is character development. I know about it in theory, and experienced it in “the story of my life,” but there is still something that just scares me about it. I don’t want to just focus on one character’s major development, but I also don’t want to have flat characters. So how will I balance plot, characters, and the ever so essential technology? Well the technology will have posts here, but might also have some of its own material, only appearing in the story with enough context that you don’t need to go look it up, but hopefully for all those that want to they can find it.

Completely Different


Not speaking of work or side hustles, there is a group that I have tried twice that I enjoy to some extent: http://www.meetup.com/Cville-Dagorhir/. Hit one another with foam weapons… what could be more fun? It is great since you don’t need anything except a foam weapon, no armor, and if the people aren’t strict, no medieval costume necessary. The C-ville club has a few loaner swords, so it isn’t necessary to build your own right away. One issue that I have with the concept is that the head is verboten, only archers and rock-throwers can hit the head. That really messes with quickly choosing targets if you have been practicing longsword in your garage, like I have. Jessie and I will be practicing with fencing helmets and a few other pieces of protection, but much more in the Germanic tradition. But anyway, the people are nice and it is a fun form of exercise!

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