Weekly Update - November 22, 2024
Novel
Plotting is going well.
Did you know that Jon Franklin thinks a story happens when a sympathetic character encounters an obstacle and a conflict is triggered, and the character has to do something about it?
I have read it so many times I know what he means, but going a good job is something else entirely.
Miscellaneous I
Resource for IP questions for board game developers. It does come with the 'I am not a lawyer tag':
Screenshot:
It's scary to think all your hard work can be questioned because of something a judge decides. In college, or maybe post-college, I remember using open source writing editors for rules PDFs.
That way if I publish the rules, and make a profit, I won't be breaking any licenses.
I wondered if I was overthinking it - but if you think about it, Microsoft owns the fonts in Microsoft Word, or at least is licensed to use it in some way.
I assume so - it is possible that Microsoft themselves made a mistake, and they get into trouble too, without realizing it. Or it could be free, and they don't care.
As far fetched as this sounds, it's a good fear:
Legal battles are hard to win for individuals. I can't compete with any giant on their playground.
In a world where you can do everything right, and get criticized for it, there are somethings and some people I didn't leave to chance.
It's been very difficult keeping all my plans, creative works, and ideas in a box for 15 years, but I am glad I did it. My original plan was to reveal when ready, not preemptively.
It saved me a lot of attention, and unlike movie direction, writing is a massive effort, in silence.
Technically I wasn't ready in 2023, since I was aware of my weak plotting skills, and publishing this content is not really needed for a career in writing.
Lot's of writers shy away from the public eye - Gege Akutami is the pen name of the creator of Jujutsu Kaisen, it's not his real name.
Due to my circumstances, however, I decided to forego pseudomyity even before I was ready.
I realized I had to give up something to get what I want, and among other benefits, being public does help the world, and could help me support myself as a teacher.
It also opens me up for attack, and controversy - it's something I'd rather avoid if I can, since my heart is always in the right place.
I had to completely redo my approach, and started publicizing my writing in the hopes that I can have a CV and literary reputation as I continue to focus on fulfilling the requirements of being MAANG+ ready.
I also stood to gain in several ways, like supporting causes I believed in, or learn a lot both in writing, and from others. I believe a lot of good happened, while the fear of problems hasn't really gone from the horizon, and never will.
Another thing I realized is that, I learned the most from teachers who were ready to learn, criticize and weren't afraid of being completely wrong.
This realization made me feel that my time as the world's #1 writer had come to an end before it even started, and it was time to start preaching, and getting criticized by young people.
Then after I started writing content for students on this site, I started realizing I already was #1.....I just needed to slow down, a lot, and work hard on stretching what I wrote until students could grasp and use it.
My writing improved even more, surprisingly.
My humor improved too! I realized that if I wasn't funny, past me would give me grief for being a terrible teacher.
Long story short, half of my jokes would happen when I would become bored of hearing myself explain to students...I would be so bored of my own voice repeating in my head:
So,
Therefore,
As you can see,
As I have proven,
Obviously,
As I explained before,
Winning at war is a system of intuition, but science is proven. So art of war is similar to philosophy, than science. Got it?
Can you beat me in chess now?
JJK is awesome....Wait, you don't understand how this anime advances SFF in very subtle ways, and is the landmark SFF that might even eclipse me?
What, don't you know how to write a story? ..........oh. Well, you're in the right place.....hopefully.
When I was a child, I had to read textbooks of long things that usually amounted to something I didn't understand, or was obvious anyway.
Now I ask you to watch GIFS - you don't know how lucky you are.
How hard can it be to read 1000 words with GIFs from anime you don't care about?
The last line never happened - point being, the frustration of my ideal student triggers my humor.
The student that always observed my mother, or was asked to not sit between reps by Steve, realized I had to break down my thoughts by 2000% so even an idiot can understand me....an idiot like me.
I still feel bad for these teachers, but also random teachers.
I think the idiocy that attracted mentoring from these teachers, was actually a sort of a lack of identity, that took everything offered - even my teacher's mistakes, and the wisdom they gained from it.
Random Access Memory: My mother joined me in an art school in Hyderabad when I was a child.
The teacher would have us do work, and for some reason my painting was color pencil based, and that of my siblings was acrylic based.
I think I wasn't cooperating.... She took water and splashed it on my painting.
She said, "Your painting won't get spoilt even if I put water on it. DO YOU KNOW WHY?"
I think her point was that my work was intentionally harder that others', but I had to co-operate. I believe there was another subtle point that I had potential.
I co-operated, but didn't really get it until last year.
Plus, it's weird that something in me attracts teachers in a way my batch mates don't get taught, mentored, scolded, or coached.
Looking back, I think my drawing really was much better than others', though I mostly thought about when I can leave class to read about King Arthur's fables in their library.
I think her name was Rachana.
Hence, building on previous teachers, I hope my articles for novelists will help people who are better than everyone, be better than me in writing.
Miscellaneous II
What users say when they use something created from perfection:
The fibonacci in the Mac makes me smile!
Vendors, when a build errors, and you're on call:
Go, go, go!
We have 10 minutes before we miss this window. We are DevOps, and the first line of recon.
Protect the product, isolate all errors, and report back immediately.
Dollars are at stake here.
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