Outlining 2014

This is normally the sort of post that would fall on New Year's Eve or Day for symbolic effect. On both days I was lying on a couch with a high fever, scarcely able to eat solid food, shivering and coughing under a blanket, watching Battlestar Galactica as fluids of varying colors and consistencies escaped the orifices of my face. In a general sense, the year of 2013 and its transition into our current solar revolution was . . . far from ideal.

In the past ten weeks or so, I've accomplished little that I've set out to, fallen well behind of my goals regarding writing output, allowed myself to become embroiled in a situation I knew would do nothing but drain me mentally, spiritually and phyiscally--and it did that quite effectively--and was incapacitated by illness for a week. That last one also wrought serious havoc with my sleep patterns, the consequences of which I'm still trying to negotiate two weeks later.

What's more, I'm getting sick of making these sorts of posts: I feel driven to push forward just so I won't have to keep explaining why I've not done so, and can talk about more interesting things. At any rate, arse-covering over. Moving on . . .

My hope is for 2014 to be the year in which I transition to my significantly more adventurous life. The key point here is to set out--whether to Japan, directly to Southeast Asia, East via Europe or what have you--this summer. That means more research, planning, saving money, and building up portable sources of income until the departure date. June is looking like a good possibility, though if things went exceedingly well, May wouldn't be out of the question.

I have two hard limits on how early I'd leave, regardless of good fortunes. First, PAX East, which I'm attending with friends, takes place in April, from the 11th through the 13th. The second is getting the injury to my right hand taken care of. My sincere hope is that this is something that will be addressed before PAX, but given the amount of bureaucracy involved in health insurance in the US, one can never be certain.

That being said, I'm looking at 2014 as two distinct blocks of time: the period preceding my departure and the period following. At the moment, I'm still not absolutely sure of the shape of the latter, so in choosing objectives to pursue right now, I'm focusing in on those I can realistically achieve by June. While I have more general ones like 'save money,' 'increase income' and such, I have more personal ones as well, specifically . . .

• Increase prose output to 3,500 words per day, Tuesday through Saturday (17,500/week)
• Migrate all content to a fully-functional version of the mutable (Currently just a test page)
• Adhere to a blend of the 'primal' dietary philosophy and the 'Leangains' protocol for rebuilding my weight in a healthy fashion (Still aiming for 77 kg, having dropped to 68 kg while ill; have only recovered to 69 kg thus far)
• Learn Japanese and Khmer to a conversational level

What may be conspicuous to those familiar with me is that this list is relatively short. In my ongoing effort to be more focused, deliberate and de-stressed in my life, I'm intending to strip things back for the next few months. Yes, all the things on my absurdly long list of things I'd like to do apply, but trying to force as many of them to happen at once as possible is not productive, it's just overwhelming.

I have this bad habit, I think, of looking back nostalgically to the period from age 15 to age 17 when I was very productive as a writer, turning out 7,000 words on a typical day, and as many as 10,000. Appreciating that level of output is not wrong in and of itself, but to do so without appreciation for the years of momentum that went into such a thing can be counterproductive. If I had held myself to such a standard when I was a wee lad just starting out, I'd have been crushed by my own expectations.

So, rather than try to pile everything into my day from the start--and acknowledging that things are going to be hectic for a while when I start wandering around--in 2014, I want to try phasing things in bit by bit. Building up my writing output, building my site, getting back into regular exercise, and learning two languages gives me plenty to work with, especially on top of existing work. Focusing in solely on those things right now gives me the space to breathe a bit and adapt more readily to them.

As time goes on, I'll grow more comfortable with certain workloads--writing, language learning, exercise--and other workloads will shrink--the work on the site will become simple upkeep and adjustments when the core functionality is in place, and freelance work will be less and less of a factor as my creative income increases. I'll exercise discretion in determining when to take on new endeavors and what those should be, and continue to phase things in gradually. After all, I have a lifetime.

Still learning,
~L

Three Months of The Mutable

If I were feeling particularly facetious, I might refer to this as a quarterly review; frankly, I'm just feeling gassy and still a bit sick, so let's move this along.

This most recent update marks the twelfth consecutive week of the mutable, my program of self-publication. At the end of the day, this is what everything else is all about: fulfilling my dream of making my living off creative works alone. There have been ups and downs, and I've learned a great deal, but I want one thing to be made clear above all else: I am deeply grateful for the experience thus far.

In purely monetary terms, the venture is off to the sort of slow start I had predicted. I currently have two sponsors averaging roughly $4/week, which puts me at 0.89% of my goal. Thankfully, the reasons for this are quite obvious: the page is barely visible as far as the internet at large is concerned. In three months, it has received 363 pageviews, of which at least half appear to be from bots/crawlers of some sort. The means most readily available to me for correcting this are:

A) Migrating the content to my VPS as soon as possible
B) Putting content up on Youtube that directs attention to the writing
C) Linking to the site wherever possible

Both B and C make a lot more sense if A is already accomplished. I had really hoped to have this taken care of three weeks ago, which segues neatly into the second point of review: output.

Both in terms of volume of writing and secondary endeavors, my output continues to be a disappointment to me. There's always some distraction cropping up that I allow to completely derail me, to the extent that for two weeks in a row, I failed to put out any new prose, and that after weeks of missing the actual word count goal. Having managed to update with some new prose these past two weeks, I'm still well behind the volume of output I'm aiming for. This just comes down to effort and discipline.

Meanwhile, I've done far less drawing than I'd like, and haven't even embarked on language study yet. I've also not made any meaningful progress with coding. Here, what's lacking is a set of small, day-to-day manageable goals. In the case of drawing, just saying I'm going to sit down and draw for an hour might be fine, provided I was more experienced. At this novice stage, though, I need to be focusing primarily on exercises that help me build the fundamentals: gesture drawing, shape and form construction, straight lines, perspectives--and maybe mix some free drawing time in there. Meanwhile, saying I'm going to practice a given language or 'study coding' for an hour is a functionally useless description. My goals needn't necessarily be ultra-precise, but just having any at all would help with both motivation and perspective.

The more rigorous planning I've been wanting to switch to continues to elude me, in part because my failure to keep up with my schedule leaves me rushing to catch up on Sunday and Monday--both of the days I'd use for planning and relaxation otherwise. With the half-month remaining, I hope to focus on streamlining my process so that I can enter 2014 with a clear vision of what the mutable really is, execute on it swiftly, and bring myself that much closer to my dream.

Still learning,
~L

A Big Push

I initially titled this entry 'The Big Push,' then I realized that I would, undoubtedly, have many other big pushes in the future, so why set myself up for backpedaling and excuses later? Indefinite articles all up in here.

So, what is this particular 'big push' about? Well, beginning from a place of zero prior knowledge in the area, I pushed through a weekend of learning how to configure a server for web hosting with no assistance or management from the hosting provider. This was all in the name of getting the REAL the mutable up and running as soon as possible. I hit a few snags, but ultimately I have the server mostly secured and in testing I was able to get a public-facing test page to load properly for myself and others. I still have a couple more steps to take to lock everything up to my satisfaction, but while I'm figuring that out, I can also start really digging into coding the site. The sooner I can migrate my content to a distinct domain--and roll this blog into it--the better.

I'm also going to start experimenting with a new approach to my weekly writing, where on Sundays, instead of a sixth day of writing, I just use that time to outline and develop things. Currently, it feels like I'm hitting a productivity bottleneck owing to trying to combine plot/character construction with prosecraft, which is just asking for difficulties. Tuesday through Saturday can be for writing and editing, with a clear direction as determined by Sunday planning sessions. This would mean that the weekly output would be about 17,500 words once I reach the target of 3,500 words/day, which is still acceptable, as it allows for 3 or more distinct blocks of content each week--enough variety to keep me happy.

As soon as I have even the barest functional alpha version of the mutable up and running, I'll be linking to it here.

Still learning,
~L

Limitations

There are times when I am made acutely aware of the limitations of my way of life. I live close to the bone, trading income for the opportunity to focus on what I love first and foremost. Of course, I aspire to a state where the pursuit of what I love provides for me on its own--that is what this blog is detailing the process of--but in the interim, my life is like a string under great tension: it holds steady as is, but is always on the verge of snapping.

Most of the time, these limitations are manageable, minor things. Little money, a need for far greater caloric intake than most people, and the desire to make healthy ingredient choices means there's a fair bit of figuring that goes into making groceries work week to week, and the math works out that I typically fall ~500kcal/day of my desired intake levels. Or I don't have the money to invest in a membership to a proper gym or the space to build my own setup on the cheap, so I limit myself to bodyweight exercises as my sole method, when I'm getting to the point where I'd rather use them as the centerpiece of an approach that also employs powerlifting and olympic lifting.

Sometimes, the limitations make for deeper frustrations. This is the first post I've made from my desktop computer in quite some time, because nearly 3 months ago, the motherboard shorted out. Of course, in the process of diagnosing the issue, I ended up purchasing a replacement power supply (not necessary!), had to mooch a spare graphics card off my best friend (this was also not the problem part), a replacement motherboard (this was the problem initially), and a replacement CPU because mine broke in the process of removing it from the old motherboard.

Now, I have the desktop functioning, but it's only allowing me to use half of my installed RAM, and the Solid State Drive that had been relatively cooperative in the month leading up to the motherboard short-out, is now freezing more frequently than it ever did. This would be taxing enough if I'd been able to address the situation immediately, but my tight finances mean that the whole process became wildly drawn out, and roughly $300 later, the computer works as well as one $300 cheaper. Replacing the SSD will be anywhere from another $100 to another $180. The RAM issue is something I'm still hoping I can resolve without needing to purchase anything new.

Then, there are the times the limitations are legitimately troubling. I injured my right hand severely doing parkour eight weeks ago, and while it no longer hurts or impedes me in day-to-day function, it is bad enough that the wrist will not support significant weight, leaving me unable to do upper body exercises. I've tried to make the best of it by focusing on lower-body and core development (which needed to catch up anyway), but I can't pretend it's not a worry. If I had more money, I'd readily be able to consult a doctor, get it examined and get a surgery if necessary. As it stands, I can't afford any of those things, and have been hoping it would heal on its own. Its condition hasn't really changed noticeably in the last few weeks.

That being said, I am committed to trying to make the best of things. I lost a great deal of time I should have spent writing on trying to fix my computer, but I the time I did spend writing went very well--things flowed quickly and easily, and I had a great deal of fun. I also have access to all my language-learning resources again, so I can start my studies. I can't do upper-body exercises, so I'll continue using this time to build my core and legs up more. I'm also going to ramp up the aggression with which I pursue freelance work; even one extra contract would dramatically improve my position at this point.

Here's a look at the sort of Tuesday-Sunday schedule I have in mind for the immediate future:

06:30 - 08:00 : Exercise
08:00 - 08:30 : Hygiene
08:30 - 10:30 : Writing
10:30 - 11:30 : Drawing
11:30 - 13:30 : Writing
13:30 - 15:00 : Nap
15:00 - 15:30 : Lunch
15:30 - 17:00 : Japanese
17:00 - 18:30 : Freelance
18:30 - 19:00 : Dinner
19:00 - 21:30 : Freelance
21:30 - 22:30 : Free Time
22:30 - 00:00 : Khmer
00:00 - 01:00 : Coding
01:00 - 02:00 : Free Time

It's a tight schedule, no doubt about that. As always, the intention is to drive down the size of those 'Freelance' blocks with increased revenue from writing. The other area that potentially has some give is, surprisingly, the writing blocks themselves. Presently, I have four hours devoted to it, but if I'm pushing for an output goal of 3,500 words/day, then churning out and editing that much is something that could become a 3-hour process as I get back into it. Of course, I have plenty of non-prose writing I'd love to have more time for, and that might be where I'd take it from, as I want to convert freelance time to music time first and foremost.

I'm also not sure how things will work out with the language study process. I may find that 90 consecutive minutes would be better spent broken up into two 45-minute blocks for each language. Maybe I'll find that one hour each for three languages at a time is a better fit; I honestly can't say, since I'll be approaching it from an entirely new angle.

Still, exciting stuff.

Still learning,
~L

Environmental Studies

Three cheers for misleading titles! Huzzah! Huzz--no? Fine.

This post has nothing to do with the study of the natural terrestrial environment. Instead, it's based on the first project in my grand web-design/programming self-education scheme: configuring the development and production environments for the workflow ahead. My intention is to keep the process as simple as possible from step to step and limit configurations and installations to what I will be using immediately. With that in mind, these are the objectives for Project 0.

• Set up a Debian VirtualBox
• Install and configure Git for version control
• Install and configure vim for coding
• Install and configure Apache, nginx and Lighttpd server softwares
• Install and configure PostgreSQL database software
• Configure a Debian VPS (I'll be using Digital Ocean)

Since my initial projects will focus on relatively simple web design and learning C, this is the extent of the preparation I need to undertake up front. I'll need to make 100% sure I'm comfortable with the basic technology trio of HTML/CSS/JS before I worry about wonderful-but-optional things like jQuery and Node. Same goes for programming: I want to take some time cutting my teeth on C before I touch Assembly, and some time learning tight and efficient coding habits before I move on to something more lax like Python. Along the way, through general usage, I'll naturally build up my comfort and proficiency with Git, vim, bash scripting, servers and SQL.

The next project, I've already decided, will be a single-page directory that points to all of my assorted projects. Eventually, this will be replaced with a proper portfolio, but for now it should be sufficient.

In other news, today's writing went really well, despite my frustrations throughout last week. I crushed the target word count in one hour, and that was with the occasional interruption. Yay!

Still learning,
~L

A Better Outlook on Missed Marks

This week, I didn't meet my word-count goals for my update to the mutable. And I'm fine with that!

. . . well, okay. I'm certainly less than thrilled that I fell as short of the mark as I did. It's also a bit of a kick in the head that I struggled so much to turn out what I did without much of an understanding as to why. My concentration was utterly lacking this past week, meaning I struggled to achieve over several hours of dithering about what I can typically crank out in one hour without strain.

All that being said, I stuck it out, and I wrote something every single day, no matter how hard it was. In recent years, if faced with such stumbling, I'd just give up on the effort until the next cycle of that activity began and tell myself 'Okay, this time for real!' as if I was under some sort of obligation to get things perfect every time or just hold back until I could. That is, of course, a character flaw that needs to be purged from me before I can achieve my full potential in any endeavor, so to stick with the writing even when I was so scattered I could barely speak a coherent sentence tells me what I'm doing is working.

This upcoming week, I'll be repeating my attempt at last week's progression (1100 words on Tuesday up to 1400 words on Sunday) and sticking to my schedule. The important thing isn't to rush towards the output level I'd like, but to keep focused on reinforcing the habit of writing every day.

My intention is to take my first foray into the web design/programming self-education sphere this week and document the process. For the time being, that will end up on this blog, ideally as part of my daily updates. Wish me luck.

Still learning,
~L

Getting There From Here

In my last post, I promised I would talk a bit about how I intend to proceed with my endeavors in the immediate future. My long-term goals and concerns have remained largely unchanged. Meanwhile, here's the current run-down of projects

Fitness
I did a real number on my right hand practicing parkour a few weeks ago. While it's healed enough that it no longer impedes daily function, the portion of the palm that runs from the wrist up to the little finger still feels tender to the touch, and putting weight on it is rather painful. I'm hoping to get my hand X-ray scanned soon to see what the nature of the damage is. My fear is that it could be an occult fracture, but I'm hoping it's a bruise of the periosteum.

While I'm frustrated by this, I've taken advantage of the time to start building my core and lower body up to my upper body's level. I've been doing hill sprints every other day, allowing my legs to gradually acclimate to the new stress. When I've reached the point of steadily doing ten hill sprints per session, three sessions per week, I'll throw two isometric stretching sessions into my week as well and work towards the front split, side split, pike and back bridge.

Writing
This one has been going well! As I've already detailed, my output has consistently increased each week, and I'm currently on track to hit my goal of 3,500 words/day before the end of the year. I want to pick up the pace on poetry as well, but getting inspired to write a poem is a rarer occurrence lately. I think two poems a week would be a good target, and I'd consider a three-poem week exceptional.

What needs work in the process of making writing my sole income source is my marketing. It has been three weeks since I started putting myself out there, but my Facebook page has only three followers, my Twitter has thirty-one--but God knows how many of them actually pay any attention to it--and my Tumblr has four. Part of it is being a relatively new regular content producer. Part of it is that writing doesn't often attract large audiences as quickly as music or visual art. Most of it, however, is that I've yet to make my web-presence cohesive. So, given that, let's move on to . . .
 
Building Web Presence

In the case of my two blogger pages, replacing them with a proper the mutable website is the answer, but Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr remain separate. Learning more about properly customizing those will help me make an impression, but beyond that, I need a content strategy that links them all together with a 'voice.' Presently, I post snippets of the day's work on Tumblr and Facebook, link to the Tumblr entry on Twitter, and make occasional commentary on literary culture. I intend to continue doing these, albeit striving for greater regularity. The following ideas are under consideration:

• "Word of the Day" : In which I choose an interesting word and provide the definition.
• "Song of the Day" : In which I recommend a song for followers to check out.
• Humorous tweets : Fairly self-explanatory. I do find odd stuff funny, though, so I don't know if this would build a dedicated niche audience or just get nowhere.

. . . and, well, that's what I can think of at the moment that's specific to social media outlets. The other major exposure-boosting tool would be Youtube videos. There's also a bit of a learning curve on these, as I have no video-production experience, and producing videos of quality is important in differentiating myself as a content creator. Ideas for the content itself include

• Language Learning Videos : Videos in which I practice concepts from the languages I'm learning, inviting commentary and corrections from others.
• Tutorial Videos : Covering various subjects where I know enough to walk someone through useful concepts. With the exception, perhaps, of specific technology-related tutorials, the emphasis here would be on teaching broadly applicable concepts through an example, rather than just teaching the example itself.
• Performance Art : Monologue and other forms of solo performance art.

I've also considered a podcast, though this poses the question of what I and my hypothetical co-podcasters could discuss for 45-minutes-to-an-hour in an entertaining way, something I'm not really sure of yet.

Web Design and Programming

I have a clear idea of how I'm going to go about this. While there is a true programming component to most dynamic web design, I'm going to separate these into two parallel tracks. I'll approach both with a mixture of reference material and hands-on experimentation, setting myself specific, well-defined projects on both the web and non-web tracks, and I'll allow things to develop naturally from there.

I haven't picked my first projects for each, yet, but I know that on the web side, I'll be looking to start with refreshing my HTML/CSS experience and gradually start implementing more and more Javascript functionality--eventually learning to draw on various techniques like AJAX or JSON and libraries/extensions like Backbone, jQuery and Node. I can create a portfolio page to show the results off and possibly solicit more lucrative freelance work along the way.

On the non-web side, after some consideration and pulling in advice from various sources, I'm thinking of starting with C, then learning an assembly lanaguage (MIPS or ARM), then C++. Where I'll go from there, I'm still considering. Learning Assembly, C and C++ before anything else somewhat undermines the idea of an 'increasing complexity' approach, but would build a strong foundation of following stricter standards of clean code. I would probably take a look at Python, Ruby or Java next. We'll see.

Visual Art and Graphic Design

Starting with very fundamental drawing exercises here: exercises for drawing straight lines, for judging the lengths and angles of lines. These will be more bread-and-butter for a while, until I'm satisfied with the improvement enough to move on to 2d shape and 3d form drawing exercises. I'll also start doing simple drawings of actual subject matters in parallel to these, and study on the results to determine where I need to focus more. My intention is to create a gallery for this journey, which can hopefully inspire some people who want to draw but think they "don't have talent" and therefore can't do it, to try anyway.

These efforts with visual art will innately improve my graphic design skills, but I also need to develop greater acuity for layouts, color composition and typography. I'll be rolling these efforts into my web design practice.

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That's the current state of affairs. I have a lot learn and just as much to refine, but I'm eager to do so.

Still learning,
~L