I’ve been working a lot on Archive Fragments, completely rethinking it to explain some of the important characters better. Doing a mind map and some planning. Have gone as far as I can with the “just write something” mode of working. That’s how I work to get a feel for the shape of things. When I left my last job the guys kindly bought me a novel writing book that I’m really getting into, although a lot of what is says are things that you kind of know if you have done some writing and thought about it.
I strongly recommend Quicksilver by Neal Stevenson. It’s absolutely fascinating to read about how intellectual life started in the 17th Century and how England was by far the worst-off trading country in Europe but, interestingly, the development of natural philosophy started to make it dominant. Plus all of the court intrigues and the politics of keeping your court poor so they depend on you, which is why Louis XIV build Versailles outside of Paris to force his court to have 2 houses. Plus the flow of gold betwen warring parties – very interesting.
Very excited about AF, but can see it’s going to take a while before I have anything I can send to anyone. I suppose though that you can always send the submission pack and see if anyone bites. I’ve been using google documents to do the actual writing because I can work on it anywhere I have a web connection.
I’m missing working with the people at my old job, but not the work, not even slightly. I think I took the piss for most of the last 6 weeks, even though I did’t want to. I have no idea what would have happened if I had’t found another job, maybe I’d have gone postal – just as well I don’t own a gun!! They also gave me some Argos vouchers that I spent on some headphones, a Bluetooth dongle and a camera so the kids can wave at their mates when they’re on Messenger.
New job quite challenging. I’m helping the config manager do his job before his contract finishes at the end of the month (or thereabouts when he finds a new contract anyway). It’s all Unix scripts and Java stuff, I’m in my element. Have also helped the poor mug who’s had the Oracle database work dropped on him get some things going.
Commute is great. Takes about 50 minutes and practically no queues. We also work a 38 hour week which means we finish at 12:15 every other Friday. I’m adjusting to starting work at 8:15, but only leave about half an hour earlier than I used to leave to get to the old place for 9 ish so pretty good. Supposed to leave at 4:45 but guess what? I have’t done so yet.
People are really easy to get on with and we have a good laugh. I feel so much better being busy with interesting things to do, I can’t describe it.