Vegas and deadlines
Was in Las Vegas last week, from Tuesday to Friday, since a friend had a spare bed in their hotel room and all I had to cover was the flight (surprisingly cheap - a total of $80 return trip SFO/LAS) and expenses. Which were higher than I'd planned, to be honest.
Turns out I really suck at gambling. Suck in discordance to statistical probability; you're supposed to win about 45% of the time so that you'll be encouraged to keep playing and lose ALL your money. Instead, I got so bored and discouraged (losing once in a while is to be expected, losing the majority of the time is reasonable, losing ALL the time gets boring fast) that I walked away from the tables with "money I was prepared to lose gambling" still in my pocket.
This is a good thing. I have an addictive personality and the last damn thing I need is another, however psychological, addiction.
Posted a lot of photos on Facebook.
It was nice that I also got to see a lot of the city. In addition to the friend I was staying with, I was able to meet and have sushi with Gwen, who I'd known for almost a decade online but never actually met until now. She's a vet who lives in the actual Vegas, as opposed to the Strip; she drove me around and showed me a lot of the functional city.
As a Bostonian currently living in the Bay Area, I was astounded by how cheap the housing was. There were banners up advertising condos for sale "in the $100Ks." That kind of money wouldn't buy you a trailer in metro Boston (if the area had trailer/RV parks) or a parking space here. Rent must be through the floor as well. Sadly, the low density means that as a non-driver the place would likely be non-livable.
Also met up with my friend Lisa, from Boston. She provided some excellent chemicals and we saw more of the city. It was good to see her, too - we hadn't hung out in years.
Things I didn't do include get a lot of writing done, despite having my laptop. I should be doing 2,000 words a day - they don't have to be good words, they just have to be written. And Legion 2 has a VERY straightforward plot; road trip through nomad-infested wastelands to what the characters think is safety, being Plot A, and the siege of Ft. Hubris (which in fact is surrounded by thousands of angry nomads) is Plot A, with tertiary Plot C being the attempt to rescue everyone. It all comes together at the end.
It's hovering around 40,000 words right now, with the second act (nomad uprising) just getting started. Target wordcount is 100K, max is 120K. I've set a deadline of June 1 to have the damn thing completed, so that I can go to production and hopefully have it out by July 1 if not sooner. Might not be a bad idea to commission the cover art now, for that matter.
Then I move on to Desert Clash, the sequel to Desert Strike, and then Emigrant 2: The Conscript. After Conscript, although this may be 2017, I write Legion 3: Children of the Legion, Desert Strike 3: Desert Kingdom, and Emigrant 3: The Exile. I have new ideas, but these are successful books whose sequels will also sell. Financially, I can't afford to experiment much when there's proven success to follow up on.
Turns out I really suck at gambling. Suck in discordance to statistical probability; you're supposed to win about 45% of the time so that you'll be encouraged to keep playing and lose ALL your money. Instead, I got so bored and discouraged (losing once in a while is to be expected, losing the majority of the time is reasonable, losing ALL the time gets boring fast) that I walked away from the tables with "money I was prepared to lose gambling" still in my pocket.
This is a good thing. I have an addictive personality and the last damn thing I need is another, however psychological, addiction.
Posted a lot of photos on Facebook.
It was nice that I also got to see a lot of the city. In addition to the friend I was staying with, I was able to meet and have sushi with Gwen, who I'd known for almost a decade online but never actually met until now. She's a vet who lives in the actual Vegas, as opposed to the Strip; she drove me around and showed me a lot of the functional city.
As a Bostonian currently living in the Bay Area, I was astounded by how cheap the housing was. There were banners up advertising condos for sale "in the $100Ks." That kind of money wouldn't buy you a trailer in metro Boston (if the area had trailer/RV parks) or a parking space here. Rent must be through the floor as well. Sadly, the low density means that as a non-driver the place would likely be non-livable.
Also met up with my friend Lisa, from Boston. She provided some excellent chemicals and we saw more of the city. It was good to see her, too - we hadn't hung out in years.
Things I didn't do include get a lot of writing done, despite having my laptop. I should be doing 2,000 words a day - they don't have to be good words, they just have to be written. And Legion 2 has a VERY straightforward plot; road trip through nomad-infested wastelands to what the characters think is safety, being Plot A, and the siege of Ft. Hubris (which in fact is surrounded by thousands of angry nomads) is Plot A, with tertiary Plot C being the attempt to rescue everyone. It all comes together at the end.
It's hovering around 40,000 words right now, with the second act (nomad uprising) just getting started. Target wordcount is 100K, max is 120K. I've set a deadline of June 1 to have the damn thing completed, so that I can go to production and hopefully have it out by July 1 if not sooner. Might not be a bad idea to commission the cover art now, for that matter.
Then I move on to Desert Clash, the sequel to Desert Strike, and then Emigrant 2: The Conscript. After Conscript, although this may be 2017, I write Legion 3: Children of the Legion, Desert Strike 3: Desert Kingdom, and Emigrant 3: The Exile. I have new ideas, but these are successful books whose sequels will also sell. Financially, I can't afford to experiment much when there's proven success to follow up on.