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viiictory, thirty-eight times …

centaur 0

Woohoo! I have successfully written 50,000 words in the month of April, completing my 38th writing challenge (counting November Nanowrimos, April/July Camp Nanos, and Script Frenzy).

This was a pretty rough Nanowrimo, given the prepwork that I had to do ahead of Clockwork Alchemy.

But, I did it, and learned so much about my story and the overall arc of the series as well. So, huzzah!

So, I am really churning with the edits on this one, but here's a segment which is relatively coherent:

The trim, egg-headed man emerged from Air Force One like royalty, the crowds of military personnel actually cheering him as he descended. At his heels, a lantern-jawed, white-haired man followed, grinning broadly, waving awkwardly at troops that seemed to like him even more.

Both kept smiling as they strode towards Jeremiah, but their body language

“Oh, my,” Jeremiah said. “They hate each other, don’t they?”

“Now, that,” Marcus said, “is an understatement.”

The pair stopped twenty meters from Jeremiah, on one side of a rough ring of Secret Service agents that made Jeremiah feel like she’d just entered a gladiatorial arena; she wondered what the agents thought they would do if the Scarab decided to go all apocalyptic on them.

“So,” the President said. “You’re … Commander Willstone, correct?”

“Sir, yes sir,” Jeremiah clicked her heels, watching, without appearing to watch, a larger group of dignitaries forming up just outside the ring of Secret Service agents. “I am Senior Expeditionary Commander Jeremiah Willstone, and I am at America’s service, sir.”

“Are you?” the President said. “I hear that you gave our security detail some trouble.”

“I heard that too,” the challenger said. “I notice you refused to be disarmed.”

Jeremiah nodded; her blunderblast remained slung over her back.

“My people use nonlethal weapons,” Jeremiah said, “even this impressive blunderblast, which I will demonstrate later. From a security perspective, however, consider it just show: I’m the weapon. If I had wanted to blow up your plane, I would just have pointed at it.”

The President shifted, just slightly, but the challenger grinned.

“Will you demonstrate that for us later?” he asked.

“Er—yes,” Jeremiah said. “Of course, sir—”

“Not on my plane,” the President said.

“Ah!” Jeremiah said. “No, of course not, sir. I’ll use our psychic’s car instead—”

“Commander!” the Owl said. “I just got—you’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding—”

Jeremiah Willstone and the Watchtower of Destiny

Oh my. I hope they manage to convince each other to work together without blowing anything up.

Nevertheless ... viiictory!

Onward.

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty-four day one two one]: light at the end of the tunnel

centaur 0

Less than 3000 words to go on Camp Nanowrimo. This was a challenge, but we're close to the end now.

I think I was behind for essentially the entire month this time:

Note to self: don't try launching an anthology, launching a Kickstarter, serving as guest of honor at a con, and running a business all at the same time as doing a Nanowrimo project to write 50,000 words in a month.

Still, almost there ...

-the Centaur

Pictured: Sunshine through a really cool tree in Alum Rock Park, and some scary yet hopeful graphs. Yes, that was 8,000 words this last Sunday. That was a day.

[twenty twenty-four day one two zero]: aaalmost there …

centaur 0

Staying on target. Wrote 8,000 words yesterday, only ~5000 words left to go for tomorrow. Gonna try to put a bit more of a dent in that before I crash tonight.

One cool thing happened today: I figured out EXACTLY WHY a certain mysterious plot event happens.

Now I just need to figure out PRECISELY WHO is responsible for it ...

-the Centaur

Embodied AI Workshop Call for Papers Still Open!

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Our call for papers is still open at https://embodied-ai.org/#call-for-papers through May 4th! We're particularly interested in two-page abstracts on the theme of the workshop:

  • Open-World AI for Embodied AI
  • Generative AI for Embodied AI
  • Embodied Mobile Manipulation
  • Language Model Planning

Submissions are accepted through May 4th AOE (Anywhere on Earth) at https://openreview.net/group?id=thecvf.com/CVPR/2024/Workshop/EAI#tab-recent-activity ...

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty-four day one one nine]: still behind

centaur 0

Still trying to get ahead on WATCHTOWER OF DESTINY. Lots of progress today though, on multiple levels: a lot of words written, and some very good ideas for both this book and the overall series, based on some background reading about computation and technology based on closed timelike curves, from the computer scientist Hans Moravec and the physicist David Deutsch. Nevertheless ...

This is not the worst I've been behind, but it's in the top three, and it ain't pleasant.

Back to it. I want to push it a little bit more today if I can.

-the Centaur

[drawing every day 2024 post one one seven]

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Okay, technically, this is Photoshoppery, and not a drawing, but it is my art, and it is 2:41am, and I would like to simultaneously announce that if we make $20K on our Kickstarter, we're definitely doing a sequel anthology, and also to announce that I'm very behind on Camp Nano, so I am going to bed.

One thing to note on this (which is composed of our existing art, plus public domain NASA images) is that it can take a variety of different layered images to create the above effect. I cut the original cover artwork into three different pieces to create the original backdrop, and added two more (with 50% opacity erasure of the edges to make the starfields blur together). The stars needed a similar treatment (that's two copies of the binary stars, tilted to make the swooshies work well, which themselves also had to be faded). The cover itself had some filters applied to make the art look like something, but a nonspecific something.

Lots of techniques. Real drawing resumes tomorrow - two of them, to keep up drawing every day.

-the Centaur

[drawing every day 2024 post one one six]: a quick sketch

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Focusing on WATCHTOWER OF DESTINY, so here's a quick sketch. It started out as a rando, but I think it evolved into one of the "big three" characters from f@nu fiku---I think this was The Warrior.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

[drawing every day 2024 post one one five]: more foot bones

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Interestingly, not the same as the previous drawing (see below) - another drawing from the same page, which seems like it might be on the opposite side of the foot, as the tarsals are laid out differently.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty-four day one one five]: prioritizing wordcount

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Way behind on word count, please enjoy this picture of sushi at One Flew South in the Atlanta airport.

Lots of work to do, not much time left to do it.

-the Centaur

P.S. Oh good grief! This blogpost is having trouble uploading its images, so I'm rabbit-holing on trying to post a simple update, instead of typing words! AAA! Turns out the problem was the wi-fi in this Barnes and Noble Cafe, which allows me to download gobs and gobs of images, but chokes when uploading even relatively small files. I have seen this before at internet cafes and I can't quite tell why that is happening.

The Neurodiversiverse Kickstarter is Still Going

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Hey folks, this is a reminder that we still have a Kickstarter going for The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters! While the campaign is running, you can reach it at neurodiversiverse.com or by searching on Kickstarter. This hopeful, empowering anthology explores neurodiverse encounters with aliens, and we'd love your help paying our authors more money (and, if we reach stretch goals, doing an audiobook or even a sequel)!

Please check us out, like, back and share!

-the Centaur

[drawing every day 2024 post one one four]: lovebirds, redux

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Drawn aaalmost completely from memory ... I could see a blurry image of the previous day's drawing through the previous sheet in my notebook ... but this time, with construction lines to help guide me.

I think it turned out far better than the previous effort, even though elements of the previous drawing were more accurate to the original photograph.

You start off drawing what you think you see, then move to drawing what's there. But at some point you should transition beyond that to drawing what will make the viewer see what you saw, which is not necessarily the same as replicating what a camera would have seen in the place of your two eyes.

Drawing every day, even when flying.

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty-four day one one four]: zoom zoom

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Mostly flying back from Clockwork Alchemy today (and catching up on wordcount on CITADEL OF GLASS, which I am now thinking is going to be titled THE WATCHTOWER OF DESTINY).

A long day. Regular posts resume tomorrow.

-the Centaur

Pictured: Artwork in the Greenville airport, and a glass of iced tea from One Flew South.