throw it all away!

i reread some of the early chapters of my book and i was pretty tempted to throw it all away, in one dramatic sweep into the trash can. i take solace in the fact that i'm not the only writer to have felt this way. the task of rewriting feels overwhelming. all the plot threads that i left behind because i wans't quite sure about them, well, it's not time to deal with them, weave them into the fabric or just pull them out. all i can think is how long and how painful writing it the first time was - how can i possibly rewrite it now? i knew this day would come, but now that it's here, the reckoning seems much mroe than i'd anticipated.

so i've lost a little hope, and a lot of courage. i'm not going to give up. i've come too far for that. but i do feel as if i've bitten off way more than i can chew, and rather than swallow it, i'm just going to choke on it all. i don't want to compromise on my novel, but i'm so exhausted, i'm not sure i have what it takes anymore to get it up to snuff. maybe i'll let it sit and age for another 5-10 years.

so you think you know your geography?

i came across this game, the ultimate geography quiz. you're given a city name and a country, and you have to pinpoint it on the map. you can pit your wits against another person, if you dare.

geosense.

because there are no rivers, and only the largest lakes visible, it can be really tricky to pinpoint cities in some of the amorphous countries. like salt lake city.

i got to within 40 km accuracy. not bad, i guess. the game points out how woefully ignorant of all the countries in africa or those of the former ussr.

i miss latin

yes, i studied it for five years. yes, it's a dead language. no, i don't consider it a waste of time.

with my knowledge of latin i can:
1. hold a coversation with the pope, with minor changes
2. exorcise demons
3. read the aeneid

i love latin. the language is really unlike any other, even the other "romance" languages. the key to understanding and appreciating it lies in the declension. the nouns and adjectives have a different ending, specific to its role in the sentence. if its the subject it has one ending, another if it is the object or possessive - this is like english and other language pronouns, but latin also has the dative and ablative cases, indicated movement or reference to the noun, taking the place of prepositions. the result: you can scramble words around, allowing for that glorious iambic pentameter. by placing words next to each other, too, you can imply a relationship, though the adjective would technically refer to another noun. i wish i could come up with an example. i'll try to find one.

anyway, i've noticed that my study in latin affects the way i write. there are certain grammatical patterns that i've picked up and deploy. i put down a sentence and it just feels latin, the formality, the placement of the words. again, the lack of example is making my case weak here, but i'm not so good at providing on demand.

suffice it to say, the study of any language, even a dead one, is never a waste of time.

cool free games

okay, since i'm unemployed, i play games to amuse myself. also since i'm unemployed (an just 'cus i'm a penny pincher in general) i don't want to fork out a alot of dough for games.

fortunately for me, there's a wealth of free games out there! the ones i like best are browser based.

anyway, here's one of my favorites:

Psychiatrie fur misshandelte kuscheltiere.
Don't worry, there's an English translation for the game: Asylum for Abused Stuffed Animals.

This game just stole my heart. I still think about it, though it's been a good two or three weeks since I've played it. You're a psychiatrist in training, filling in for the doctor while he is on a trip, at the mental institute for mishandled stuffed animals. You're job is to rehabilitate them, by recommending treatment and slowly coaxing the past out of each of four stuffed animals, using a combination of dream therapy, drugs, play therapy, and other options. It is simply quite adorable and also poignant. I was amazed too, by the complexity that went into it, both in thought and in execution.

Bottom line: You will never look at stuffed animals the same way again.

too big for their britches?

i've noticed google's been having problems lately with their service. the chat on gmail is frequently unavailable, at least once or twice a day now, and i've been getting more server errors when i try to log into my gmail. furthermore, on sites that use google ad sense, the loading of the ads can be prohibitively slow... it's made me give up on a couple sites because the ads were taking forever to load.

i guess i can't complain too much - after all, it's all free. but it's frustrating, too. perhaps they need to invest in more hardware and infrastructure.