Another Update, Finally
Well, my plan to post a monthly update didn't quite work out, but two-plus months later, here I am again. This is what's been going on.
Writing: I would like to be able to report more enthusiastically on the progress of my revision than I actually can. I wrote in my blog about my problems with distraction, and these tendencies have been an obstacle to getting much done, though I'm happy with the work I'm doing when I actually do it. I have next week off for birthday celebrations and a visit from family, and I'm hoping to return from vacation ready to buckle down and get some serious writing accomplished.
FOGcon: One of the pleasant distractions in March was FOGcon, a new science fiction/fantasy literature convention in San Francisco. vito_excalibur was on the organizing committee and convinced me to attend, even though I'm not particularly well-read in SF/F. I ended up participating in a couple of panels, and the whole con experience was way more fun and way less intimidating than I'd expected. I spent most of the weekend hanging out with iphy and laurenhat, and I also got in a pre-con visit with calendula_witch, who I hadn't seen in years.
My general con report is on my blog. The one thing I wanted to write a bit more about, mostly for the benefit of desireearmfeldt, is the LARP I participated in. My only previous involvement in a live action roleplaying game had been one time in college when a friend and I hung around observing a session of Vampire: The Masquerade that some people we knew were doing. I've read various descriptions of LARPs and always been curious about how they actually work.
The game we did was based on Hamlet and is from a series called Parlor LARPs, designed to be played in a couple of hours with minimal preparation. Here is a review of the game by the person who ran the game at FOGcon (though this is an older review, not based on our playing of it).
In this LARP, the characters are all from Hamlet. The game is set during Act 4, at an event that doesn't exist in the play (a going away party for Hamlet), but everything that happens before that in the play is part of the backstory. I took the relatively small role of Marcellus, the guard who saw the ghost of Hamlet's father. Hamlet was played quite wonderfully by iphy.
As it turned out, I wasn't the only participant without LARPing experience, and in fact I don't think that anyone playing had more than limited experience. Because of this, the game started out pretty slowly. There was a lot of people going up to each other and saying things like, "Um, do you know anything I might want to know about?" and an awful lot of calling the gamemaster over to ask how to resolve interactions.
Right at the beginning, I saw Claudius put something into Hamlet's glass, and I had to ask the GM if I was allowed to take action on that or if I wasn't meant to have seen it. He said I could go ahead and do whatever I thought was necessary, so I got the glass away with Hamlet while attempting not to cast any suspicion on the king, who I was supposed to serve loyally. After the game, the woman playing Claudius asked how I'd known to take the glass away. "I was standing right next to you when you poisoned it," I told her. She laughed and said it hadn't occurred to her to conceal her actions, because she hadn't thought of it as part of the game to make sure the other players couldn't see her.
After about half an hour, everyone started to get a better grasp of how to move the game along, and while there were still many pauses and questions, we did eventually bring the game to a satisfying finale. Hamlet and Ophelia got married, and I think only Claudius ended up dead, so it was certainly a departure from the play. I now have an understanding of how LARPs work, and I can imagine how a more complicated game with more sophisticated players might go. I'd be interested to try another LARP sometime.
Swimming: This is one area of my life in which I'm really pleased by my progress, so yay! Since I last posted, I've been continuing to swim consistently, usually twice a week. Lately I've been making a habit of going to the pool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with the expectation that I'll often have a conflict on one of those days. I think last week was the first time I actually swam three times in a week, but I'll be happy to do that again whenever the timing works out.
To my surprise, swimming laps has moved from a tolerable form of exercise to an activity I genuinely enjoy doing. It's a chance to get outside (usually in the sun, with the great weather we've had), it feels good to move through the water, and swimming seems to help with some minor but persistent aches and pains I've been dealing with. I think I've also figured out how to swim with proper enough form. Most excitingly, I now spend my swim time thinking thoughts other than "Is it almost time to stop?" I find I can often come up with writing ideas and solutions to plot problems while swimming, which is a pretty great situation.
I wanted to mention that I'm using prescription swim goggles, in case anyone might benefit from knowing they exist. Before I started doing laps this fall, I hadn't really used goggles at all. I grew up swimming with my eyes open in every kind of water, but like so much else from my youth, I can't comfortably do that anymore. Goggles are a good idea. Even better are goggles that provide vision correction. Uncorrected, I can see well enough to navigate the pool area, but my first couple of times, I found I was handicapped by not being able to see the faces of the lifeguard and other swimmers to know if someone was trying to communicate with me. I got these goggles and have been very happy with them. You don't need to obtain an actual prescription, just know the diopter number from your glasses or contact prescription, which is a number like -3.5. My eyes are conveniently close enough that it works to have the same strength in both eyes. If yours are different, you can buy two pairs and swap out the lenses, or find a store selling the lenses individually.
Knitting: Not only did I not post an knitting update after last time (hey, nobody nagged me!), but I'm not sure I've even done any knitting since then. I'm hoping to change both those conditions in the next few weeks.
Okay, that's all for this time. Thanks for reading!
Writing: I would like to be able to report more enthusiastically on the progress of my revision than I actually can. I wrote in my blog about my problems with distraction, and these tendencies have been an obstacle to getting much done, though I'm happy with the work I'm doing when I actually do it. I have next week off for birthday celebrations and a visit from family, and I'm hoping to return from vacation ready to buckle down and get some serious writing accomplished.
FOGcon: One of the pleasant distractions in March was FOGcon, a new science fiction/fantasy literature convention in San Francisco. vito_excalibur was on the organizing committee and convinced me to attend, even though I'm not particularly well-read in SF/F. I ended up participating in a couple of panels, and the whole con experience was way more fun and way less intimidating than I'd expected. I spent most of the weekend hanging out with iphy and laurenhat, and I also got in a pre-con visit with calendula_witch, who I hadn't seen in years.
My general con report is on my blog. The one thing I wanted to write a bit more about, mostly for the benefit of desireearmfeldt, is the LARP I participated in. My only previous involvement in a live action roleplaying game had been one time in college when a friend and I hung around observing a session of Vampire: The Masquerade that some people we knew were doing. I've read various descriptions of LARPs and always been curious about how they actually work.
The game we did was based on Hamlet and is from a series called Parlor LARPs, designed to be played in a couple of hours with minimal preparation. Here is a review of the game by the person who ran the game at FOGcon (though this is an older review, not based on our playing of it).
In this LARP, the characters are all from Hamlet. The game is set during Act 4, at an event that doesn't exist in the play (a going away party for Hamlet), but everything that happens before that in the play is part of the backstory. I took the relatively small role of Marcellus, the guard who saw the ghost of Hamlet's father. Hamlet was played quite wonderfully by iphy.
As it turned out, I wasn't the only participant without LARPing experience, and in fact I don't think that anyone playing had more than limited experience. Because of this, the game started out pretty slowly. There was a lot of people going up to each other and saying things like, "Um, do you know anything I might want to know about?" and an awful lot of calling the gamemaster over to ask how to resolve interactions.
Right at the beginning, I saw Claudius put something into Hamlet's glass, and I had to ask the GM if I was allowed to take action on that or if I wasn't meant to have seen it. He said I could go ahead and do whatever I thought was necessary, so I got the glass away with Hamlet while attempting not to cast any suspicion on the king, who I was supposed to serve loyally. After the game, the woman playing Claudius asked how I'd known to take the glass away. "I was standing right next to you when you poisoned it," I told her. She laughed and said it hadn't occurred to her to conceal her actions, because she hadn't thought of it as part of the game to make sure the other players couldn't see her.
After about half an hour, everyone started to get a better grasp of how to move the game along, and while there were still many pauses and questions, we did eventually bring the game to a satisfying finale. Hamlet and Ophelia got married, and I think only Claudius ended up dead, so it was certainly a departure from the play. I now have an understanding of how LARPs work, and I can imagine how a more complicated game with more sophisticated players might go. I'd be interested to try another LARP sometime.
Swimming: This is one area of my life in which I'm really pleased by my progress, so yay! Since I last posted, I've been continuing to swim consistently, usually twice a week. Lately I've been making a habit of going to the pool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with the expectation that I'll often have a conflict on one of those days. I think last week was the first time I actually swam three times in a week, but I'll be happy to do that again whenever the timing works out.
To my surprise, swimming laps has moved from a tolerable form of exercise to an activity I genuinely enjoy doing. It's a chance to get outside (usually in the sun, with the great weather we've had), it feels good to move through the water, and swimming seems to help with some minor but persistent aches and pains I've been dealing with. I think I've also figured out how to swim with proper enough form. Most excitingly, I now spend my swim time thinking thoughts other than "Is it almost time to stop?" I find I can often come up with writing ideas and solutions to plot problems while swimming, which is a pretty great situation.
I wanted to mention that I'm using prescription swim goggles, in case anyone might benefit from knowing they exist. Before I started doing laps this fall, I hadn't really used goggles at all. I grew up swimming with my eyes open in every kind of water, but like so much else from my youth, I can't comfortably do that anymore. Goggles are a good idea. Even better are goggles that provide vision correction. Uncorrected, I can see well enough to navigate the pool area, but my first couple of times, I found I was handicapped by not being able to see the faces of the lifeguard and other swimmers to know if someone was trying to communicate with me. I got these goggles and have been very happy with them. You don't need to obtain an actual prescription, just know the diopter number from your glasses or contact prescription, which is a number like -3.5. My eyes are conveniently close enough that it works to have the same strength in both eyes. If yours are different, you can buy two pairs and swap out the lenses, or find a store selling the lenses individually.
Knitting: Not only did I not post an knitting update after last time (hey, nobody nagged me!), but I'm not sure I've even done any knitting since then. I'm hoping to change both those conditions in the next few weeks.
Okay, that's all for this time. Thanks for reading!