A New Beginning

Hello!  I had an excellent trip to Pittsburg with my Son.  We visited the Pitt campus and took in two Red Sox games at PNC Park.  It was a little chilly-- but such a lovely stadium. And excellent food (looking at you pirogies). 

More importantly, I submitted my NYC Midnight/100 story.  I was tasked with the following:

• Genre: Historical Fiction
• Word to be included: Edge
• Action to happen somewhere in story: Sunbathing

Good thing I practiced my historical fiction earlier in the week.  :-)

Unfortunately I am not able to share the story until after it has been judged, but then, I will surely post it here. 

In the meantime, to help hold you over, I offer you a 100-word SciFi story: A New Beginning

Now I need to start working on some 1000 word fiction, and get back to writing that mobile game.

peace, greg

Final tune up

Fial tune up before NYC Midnight/100.

My first 100-word historical fiction. :-)

The Night Before

feedback always welcome

peace, greg

Travel and Tribulations

Hey folks --

The past few weeks have been travel heavy, with trips to Wisconsin and Massachusetts.  I will be heading to Pennsylvania this weekend as well. The MA trip included a stop at the cabin in the woods that my family has had since the early 60s (predates me).  The picture in the upper right of the blog is from that cabin. I expect to spend a decent amount of time there this summer.  It's a good spot to ponder and write.

I attended the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County's monthly meeting last weekend. We (I am now a member...) had a guest speaker, author Aimee Pokwatka. She was a fabulous speaker and had lots of interesting advice for aspiring authors (how she outlines, does drafts, reverse outlines, ...). She also had a handout collecting her thoughts and suggestions on finding a literary agent and writing query letters (a term I had not heard before). I purchased her two novels but have not had a chance to open them yet.

Tomorrow night, mindnight, kicks off nycmidnight/100. I am very excited.  It's a bit of a drag that I won't be able to dedicate the full 24 hours to the contest as I will be on the road to PA and at a baseball game. I should be able to scratch out some notes in the car, and hopefully get something decent submitted. My expectations on advancing are quite low, but I absolutely am looking forward to the feedback they will provide back on the story I submit.

What else?

Met with my accountant and financial advisor this morning. We talked a fair bit about S-Corps and LLCs, and the benefits and downsides of both. Clear next steps for me -- make sure I capture expenses accurately, and go talk to an attorney about starting an LLC.  They also teased me a fair bit, which I probably deserved.

I am enjoying my new keyboard, but there is one downside so far. I can't use my fingerprint to unlock stuff, like you can on the native apple keyboard. Not that big a deal, but it was convenient way to unlock 1password.

Lastly, head over to my Stories page for 4 stories and links to 32 vss365s.

peace, Greg

NYC Midnight

I am so excited. My lovely wife pointed me to NYC Midnight - which runs a series of writing challenges during the year.  I had no idea!  Coming up later this month is a "100-word story" challenge. You get the genre and prompt at midnight and have 24 hours to submit an original story. I am totally doing it.  Unfortunately, you can not share your story on social media (or self-publish it) until 10 days after the judging is done. Although the challenge is on April 19/20, the judging takes a few months as I think they get a LOT of stories.  So, I won't be able to share what I submit until June.

There are many genres I have not written (or really red). I need to practice.

Over the last week (while I also had an amazing adventure to Madison, Wisconsin, and Boston, Massachusetts), I put together two 100-word stories.

Just Desserts

Resin, to live

It's that time of year

Productive day!

I sorted out my getting the game on to the phone problem from last night. Turned out to have nothing to do with joining the Apple developers program (which I am still waiting for approval for) - but rather a setting on the phone allowing developer mode.  It would have been really handy if the error message had said anything about this...

Anyway -- it's not a complete game, but it does run on an iPhone, it does capture touch input, and it works better than the version in the course (IMO).  So I am feeling pretty happy. Baby steps.

Writers Space Saloon: Mixing Mystery with SF/Fantasy

I went to my first writer's group meeting. Virtually, but it counts. We had a guest speaker, Esme Addison, who discussed her books and fielded questions from the audience.  For me, her process and experiences were more interesting than the specific details of her novels.  I am not sure I am in the majority there (meaning a few people were into discussing the novels). I did like how the moderator of the group brought it back around, and I think everyone (including Esme) got something out of the session.  I'll go a few more times for sure.

Look what came today!

It is definitely different than the Apple external keyboard.  As I said earlier, I will wait a few weeks before giving the final review. 

today's vss365:

fling

Last but not least!

I collected and uploaded all my tax info to my accountant.  No extension needed this year. Phew!

And we are going to discuss whether I should make an LLC in a few weeks, which interestingly was a question someone asked Esme. (she did make one).

Inch by Inch

A few hours ago I was really expecting to post an update about my first mobile game with screen shots and excitement.  I am taking Unity Mobile C# Developer Course from gamedev.tv, and it has been both fun and frustrating. I managed to get Unity updated (its been a few years) and then update visual studio code, and get it connected, and then get SourceTree and Github working again, all so I could make the first game in the course.  I got the game working in the simulator, and that was fun.  It's labeled beginner+ and actually the instructor goes at a really good pace.  I don't know Unity or C#, but I do know programming, and he found a good sweet spot. I could follow along and then elaborate. 

Anyway the first game is not that exciting, but I got it working in the simulator.  But am I now a few hours in to trying to get it working on a real mobile device.  I had an old version of Xcode, but I can't upgrade it in the AppStore because I am still running MacOS Ventura and apparently it does not work.  I can't upgrade this laptop to Sonoma (or whatever the next version is) becuase it is too old, apparently.  So I then figured out how to download a newer version of Xcode but not the latest (apparently 15.2 still works...). I was thus able to build the application, but I can't seem to sign it correctly.  The error message suggests I need to register the device with the apple developer program... which I am not a member of. So I have spent the last 30 minutes trying to do that.  This requires ID verification.  A photo of my drivers license did not cut it... go find the passport. that seems to maybe have worked. But they wont approve it until tomorrow I think. 

Anyway so much yak shaving.  My sympathy for all of my previous temas is so high right now!

So hopefully something to share later in the week. 

latest vss365s:

• stone
• lamp
• slither
• cacophony