Playmobil Nostalgia

This is what happens when you’re an adult with some disposable income. You spend it on things like these. Thanks Ebay!

I went all out and spent about $30 on old-ass PlayMobil figures. If you’re wondering why I have so many of the little boys in the blue shirt and white pants, it’s because that was the one I had in particular as a kid. Just that one. We were poor, ok?

I got him when I was in the single digit age-group (I forgot from whom). For whatever reason, I had named him “Bob.” I had Bob for several years and I loved that little guy. In my teens (or tweens?), my youngest brother, who was a toddler at that that time, broke poor Bob in half while I as away at school. I was traumatized by it. I cried! I also never forgave my little brother. I hate him. (I really don’t hate him.)

And now, I somehow found myself on a PlayMobil fan site that had all the background and history on the toys and… decided to just buy some Bobs to replace the one I lost. For good measure, I bought a bunch of little friends for him too.

Now I have an army of Bobs and one Bobbette. They will take over the world.

 

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A Cat Named Zeus

I moved in with my boyfriend. He has a cat named Zeus. Zeus is a house cat. And he is a super scaredy cat.

Cat Named Zeuz

House cat, so forlorn.

I’ve never actually had a pet before. (Unless you count a turtle. They don’t really count, though.) I was a little apprehensive moving in. I am allergic to cats.

Cat Named Zeuz

But I’ve found that I am only “mildly” allergic. I’ve developed a tolerance of sorts. I used to get really itchy and sneezy. But now I only get that way when he scratches me.

Cat Named Zeuz

I pet him very carefully. I learned that I can’t pet his tummy. His delicious furry tummy. He is very sensitive there. Apparently.

Cat Named Zeuz

It taunts me.

So I take these kinds of pictures of him. They are kind of indecent.

Cat Named Zeuz

Meow.

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I’m Still Alive: 2014 Edition

Dear World,

I suppose this is my annual “I’m Still Alive” post for the year.

I moved a couple of time since the last post. I would like to stay in one place for at least 2 years before another move (bleh), so here’s to hoping everything remains stable. I haven’t really been working on the personal business stuff since I’ve gotten back to working full time at a more demanding job and started working on a masters degree. So the business-for-fun, the writing, and other intensive hobbies have kind of tapered down. Now that things are kind of settled in terms of moving, working, and school, I think I can slowly get back into the fun stuff. Yeah, it’s time to get back to work, work on the fun stuff!

Love,

Ann

cat-no-work-allowed

Cat says, no work allowed!

 

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Notice Anything New?

So you notice a lot of new, old posts? Yeah, I’m slowly migrating my various blogs (writing, origami so far) into this one. It would be cheaper an easier than trying to manage 4-5 different site content and WordPress installs. So here I am! Consolidating!

 

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Moving to WooThemes

So the last post before I lost the site was how I had moved this site from Thesis Themes to WooThemes (Canvas). I’ll most likely be moving some old sites to WooThemes and most new sites that will be created/is in development will be using WooThemes instead. And as this move was not part of the backup, here I am writing about it again.

The last cached version didn’t really go into the hows and the whys, so I thought I’d flesh things out a bit. So why am I switching frameworks?

The Cons about Thesis:

  • Thesis 2 had launched recently. It feels like a totally new framework. It has a lot of great things going for it. Unfortunately, most of these are/feels fairly technical. While I can write a bit of code myself, I do not consider myself a developer. Learning and then moving everything over to 2.0 is possible, but it will take a whole lot longer for me. I really don’t have the time.
  • I understand that Thesis 2 is still new, but again, I don’t have time to wait for it to settle in and have available all the plugins and skins that I will need.. like right now.
  • There is currently no clean upgrade path from Thesis 1.85 to 2.0. Again, this is a problem with that time thing.
  • I do not create all that many sites anymore and only have a few here and there. So the out-of-the-box-SEO benefit of Thesis no longer matters that much. Since I only have a handful of sites now, I have the time to tweak and manage the necessary plugins for the non-Thesis sites to fill in the gaps.
  • I don’t like how Thesis has functionality that overlaps what WP core does. An example would be the featured image functionality. This has caused some headaches on my end. Integration is not it’s strong point.
  • Most of my current Thesis sites are using 1.85. DIYThemes say they will continue to update and support the 1.x versions right now, but what about the future? WP will continue to evolve. With Thesis 2 being worked on, will 1.85 be kept up with? Where is it in the priority scale? I don’t like this uncertainty.

The Pros about WooThemes:

  • The theme I am primarily (almost exclusively) working with is the Canvas theme. It’s very easy to use with and is super intuitive. At this point, my requirements for the functionality of the site is basic. So as long as the foundation is solid, being able to “skin” it with custom CSS is good enough for me.
  • As mentioned previously, I don’t create all that many sites for myself anymore. I also am extremely picky in taking on freelance web design projects, so I don’t have to worry about that either. Now, I have the time to focus on just a handful of sites and I can keep things lightweight by just downloading the plugins for the functionality that I need.
  • WooThemes has terrific support and a great community. Things are constantly being updated and I can get the help when I need it. I feel like they will be around forever. It gives me a nice feeling of security.
  • My main reason for my move to WooThemes as opposed to other frameworks (Headway, Genesis, Catalyst) is that my primary source of income is from the sites/brands that currently sell things or will do so in the future. The shopping cart platform that I use is WooCommerce which is actively developed by WooThemes. They have fantastic plugins for the shopping cart and really fantastic support. So why wouldn’t I buy the themes from the creators of the shopping cart platform that I use? Integration between the two is seamless and easy. I like that!

So there you have it. These are the main reason for the switch. Of course it’s not to say that I am giving up on Thesis forever. I am just pursuing other options that make more sense to me given my changing business model. AnnAgain.com will most likely be the Thesis 2 playground once their documentation is more complete and as soon as I find the time to do so.

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I am an Idiot

So one of my crappy shared hosting accounts had expired and I didn’t think much of it. This particular account was used mostly for testing purposes, but I didn’t realize/had forgotten that this blog was hosted there…

After a few notices from the hosting provider that I didn’t care too much about, *POOF* everything was gone and deleted.

Including this blog.

*Sigh*

Fortunately, I had backed it up somewhat. Unfortunately, the backup was only up to the end of 2010.

This blog wasn’t tended to as frequently as the other ones because it’s not part of my business, per se. It’s mostly something I use for fun. So of course I did not set the usual bare minimum automated backup tasks. Heck, I didn’t even subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed so I can’t use the saved feeds to scrape the old posts back.

Hell, I only even noticed this thing was missing because I wanted to test some  things.

I thought about finding the cached search engine versions, but seeing how this blog isn’t all that popular, the posts were barely crawled to begin with and is very incomplete.

I have no idea what’s missing. It’s OK for the most part, but it still kind of sucks that it’s gone.

Hmm. So I guess it’ll be a new start eh? Yeahh…

Edit: Some good news, sort of. My Tumblr is still alive. I had made some cross posts there… like a whole one post..

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Macross Origami

Macross Origami

Just want to direct your attention to this Macross origami that actually transforms! It’s in Japanese, but diagrams don’t need no translating, so have at it!

What is Macross? It’s an anime. Yes, I am a geek. We’ve already established that.

Also, yes, I’m trying to get back into blogging here again. I have lots of paper n stuff to fold and show off. Also, I miss you blog.

 

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Pantsers and Plotters in Writing

My writing activities were fairly closeted in the past so I did not feel the need to be involved in any sort of writing community. It was only after finding out about and joining NaNoWriMo a few months ago that I finally cared to participate.

As with all communities that exists in the internets (think MMO gaming to dollhouse building), the writing community has its own definitions and acronyms every n00b had to learn. Of interest to my n00by-ness was the term “pantser” often used alongside “plotter,” particularly when describing plotting and story building. Here’s what they mean:

Pantser

A pantser is a writer who writes their story “by the seat of their pants,” so the saying goes. Pantsers do not outline or do any sort of intensive preparation. Most pantsers seem to start with a concept they are interested in writing about and go with that. Some may start with the characters themselves and introduce them to scenarios to see what they do. Some may simply start with a cool sounding title and build a story around that. It’s a “let’s see what happens” kind of attitude.

Stephen King is an example of a famous pantser. In his book On Writing, he tells us that he doesn’t outline. I was genuinely surprised to learn this.

Plotter

As the name indicates, a plotter is a writer that plots out their story before the actual story writing. The level of plotting and planning can range from an outline to complicated mind maps and world building.

An example of a famous plotter is J.K. Rowling. She didn’t come out and say it like Stephen King did, but she demonstrates it quite clearly with the various tables and diagrams she released publicly. There have been blog posts that deconstructs how J. K. Rowling plots and plans with the table below.

J.K. Rowling’s Plot Table for HP, The Order of the Pheonix

J.K. Rowling’s Plot Table for HP, The Order of the Pheonix

So What am I?

I am most certainly a plotter. I had no clue there were such people as pantsers. I always thought plotting was how it was done and never considered pantsing any of my stories, ever.

Now, I’m not saying plotting is superior to pantsing or vice versa and I am not interested in debating about it (apparently, this is a sticky subject for some people). If you are a pantser and that is how you write, then good for you. For me, plotting is my thing and I doubt I can pull off pantsing an acceptable story.

I’ve always been a planner. I write lists for everything. I like math, I like programming, I like efficiency, and I dislike uncertainty. I probably sound terribly dull to a pantser, but that’s fine by me.

I view pantsing as an emotional way of writing (not that it’s a bad thing!), because it deals with people and their personalities. I see many pantsers’ story built around their characters. Plotting is more of a logical (I am thinking “if, else” statements here) way of writing. A plotter’s story is about events first with characters written in, or at least that’s how I do it.

How I do it

My plotting starts with a bit of world building. Depending on the story, I can base it off a familiar world (e.g. medieval England, ancient Rome) or develop a 50+ page wiki that documents religion, geography, the magic system, and languages.

The starting point is knowing what the place, people, culture looks like. With the situations and plot developments that I want to have happen, I place my characters in said situations, and then give them a back story to explain why they reacted that way. It’s sort of working backwards (only except it’s not).

The novel I’m writing is an epic fantasy and will span a few books (not sure how many yet). Such books seem to average from 90k to 120k words. My bullet point outline (not including the accompanying wiki or other documents) is currently sitting at 5k words and it is still not finished. To be fair, my outlines are quite detailed. When it’s finished, it is a matter of filling in the descriptions and dialogue when I finally sit down to write the story.

And since I know everything (or most things) about my story and how it progresses, I’m able to weave certain bits of referencing, clues, foreshadowing, Chekhov’s guns throughout the story as I’m writing it. I find that these discoveries are incredibly satisfying to me as a reader (or watcher.. of shows like Lost), and I want my readers to feel the same way.

In Conclusion

Every writer is different. Not everyone is a pantser, nor are they all plotters. Between themselves, pantsers have different ways and reasons for constructing their stories, and different plotters have different ways of plotting. The point is to tell a story without regards to how we get there. Just write!

So are you a plotter or a pantser? If you’re a pantser, how does it all start? If you’re a plotter, how do you plot?

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The Problem with Names & Code Name Ravenite

I’m a weird one. For my fantasy NaNoWriMo story, I work out the plot, twists, turns, character personalities, scenes, world setting, and even the linguistics before I know my main characters’ name.

The same level of thought does not go into naming my minor characters. I am happy as long as it fits the linguistics and setting, but otherwise, I will just pick it out of a name from my name database and continue on with my story. For my main characters, I can’t just choose willy nilly and be happy with it. It has to feel right too.

What’s your name?

Currently, I have two main characters, a male and a female, and one importantish minor character, another male. The minor guy had his name since the very inception of the story. His name is Damien… or Damian (most likely Damien). I’ll figure out the spelling later. It was easy for me to choose the name. He is a minor character after all.

I’ve known my female MC for about 5 years now (yes, the story is 5 years in the making.. in my head), but she never had a name that stuck. That was fine by me, because her name is not important to my story (per se), it was what she did that mattered.

Enter NaNoWriMo. As soon as I signed up for this year’s NaNo, I resolved to finally give this girl a name. I jumped between quite a few and once again, nothing sounded right. I spent a few days adding thousands of names to my DB and found nothing. It was frustrating. I had her whole life’s story with no clue what her name was. I lost sleep over this malarky.

So I took a break from finding her name.. to figure out what the male MC’s name was.

Lucky me, his name was found after a brain storming session, mumbling random vowels and consonants together (and getting strange looks from unsuspecting passerby). I decided on Leonce the very moment I said it out loud. It just felt right to me.

Hello Leonce, nice to meet you. 

Since Leonce is an actual French name (it means “lion” if you haven’t already guessed), that pushed me to make up my mind on the linguistics and etymology of his country. (It was a draw between French and Spanish. Just to clarify, I’m only using the language as an influence, not the actual history or culture. The culture in my story is a mish-mash between ancient Greek/Roman, Medieval England, and my own ideas. It’ll make sense later. Promise.)

Deciding on the linguistics forced me to look at French names for my female MC as she is from the same country as Leonce. This helped narrow the field considerably. The next step was to download a bunch of French baby names from somewhere (lost track of source, sorry) and began the process of elimination. It took about two days to go through everything. I even had a rating system. A handful of names were neck and neck (in my rating system), but I kept going back to this one name, Elodie. It sounded so right. Finally deciding on it was an awesome feeling (Dear family, please ignore my random dancing in front of the computer).

Elodie, Elodi, Elody, Elohdie, Elohdi, Elohdy, Ehlodie, Ehlodi, Ehlody.

<in Dave Chappelle’s voice> Gotcha bitch!

Damn, it felt good. Now I can move on to more important things.. like thinking up the title of the first book.

Code Name: Ravenite

Don’t worry, I am not as psycho with the book name as I am with the my FMC’s name. I haven’t actually written the book yet (though I do have a 8k+ outline), so I am not too worried about deciding on the name yet. Besides, I expect it to come to me during the writing process.

I did decide on a code name/project name though. Ravenite was initially the working title. It is named after a certain metal found in my characters’ world called Ravenite. Unfortunately, Ravenite was renamed to something else (not sure what yet, but it’s not Ravenite), so this name is no longer relevant to the story.

I’m just keeping Ravenite as a code name due to laziness and the desire to get on with my life. The names will come to me when they do (I hope).

So have you ever encountered character/place/object naming problems for your fantasy stories? Tell me about it!

P.S. I’ve begun hash-tagging the Ravenite related tweets in one neat place. Feel free to follow it!

Update: Looks like I’ll be changing my MMC’s name to Leone instead of Leonce. I am just paranoid that readers will pronounce his name like they say Beyonce’s name. Ick. Still love the name Leonce though!

 

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