I haven’t written anything new on Wine yet, though that’s hardly surprising. I have so little energy to write in the evening, which is why I’m doing all my errands over the course of the week, so I’ll have Saturday free. I plan to write — Wine and other things — for pretty much all of Saturday. Wish me luck there.

In other news, I did a rather odd thing on Monday; I stumbled upon an anime pirate that was selling fansubbed DVDs. Normally, I avoid such dealers, since they’re profiting from a non-profit fan activity. But I was tired, this dealer had a large selection of impossible-to-find titles, and a strong desire for anime gripped me. I kepting adding titles to my shopping cart — Turn-A Gundam, Kodomo no Omocha: The Junior High Years, Macross Zero, New Dominion Tank Police, Earth Defense Family — and, when I looked at the cart to finalize my order, my brain fizzled. It said, “Duuuhhhhh…Okay,” and I ordered over two hundred dollars worth of anime.

Weird. But I am looking forward to receiving my purchase. Or, I was, until I checked a few moments ago to discover that it’s backordered. ARG!

It must be God’s punishment for sin in my life. ;-)

Spent much of last night fretting over Wine to Those in Anguish, which is…rather hard to define in a few words. It’s an anime idea I had years ago, and put into pre-production, only to deep-freeze when I realized I had no script.

I’ve never abandoned it. I believe that it’s a strong work. There’s emotion in it; it has the stuff of life. But I never could write the script. It never came together.

The reasons were many, but primarily, I had no story. I knew what had set up the story, and had a very interesting, complex backstory. But I didn’t know how the characters would act once I kicked off the story itself.

So, last night, I asked myself about the characters, and scribbled down a ten-step outline. And I think that I have enough, now, to write a story.

Now comes the more important point. Will I actually sit down and write it?

Well, I certainly enjoyed the con. Lots of fun. Here’s what I bought:

• Grey lain bag from Mythwear. Plenty big enough for my laptop, with plenty of pockets. I’m thrilled.
• Someday’s Dreamers DVD 1
• Last Exile DVD 1
• Mobile Suit Gundam DVD 3
• Someday’s Dreamers Soundtrack CD
• Trigun Soundtrack CD
• Spirited Away Soundtrack CD
• Haibane Renmei Soundtrack CD
• Rurouni Kenshin OVA 2 Soundtrack CD
• “Blue” (Cowboy Bebop OST) CD
• A little Bulbasaur plush keychain, because the booth babe begged me to buy it

Here’s what I watched:

• Scrapped Princess — A decent fantasy series
• Onegai Twins — A surprisingly strong romantic story is embedded in all the fanservice
• Gunslinger Girl — To quote AnimeNfo.com, “It’s a sad story about suffering girls who have lost their past but continue to live. After they were being brainwashed, they can kill with an innocent face and without hesitation at all. They don’t think through their deeds and don’t feel any pity. But behind their cute disguise, they destroy themselves and refuse to grow.” Ick. I’m sorry I watched it.
• PlanetES — My favorite of the con. It’s a hard SF series with strong writing. Only one of my readers is going to understand this, but it’s essentially Mighty Space Miners the TV show. I am not exagerrating.

Here’s what I attended:

• A panel on voice acting, hosted by two wonderfully kind voice actors who gave their opinions on the state of the industry, the difficulty of voice acting, and a host of other issues.
• A panel on translating anime and another on translating manga, both of which shared a panelist: Dan Kanemitsu, a funny, thoughtful translator who’s worked on a ton of anime and manga. Fascinating.
• X/Y, in which two fans gave X: The Movie the MST3K treatment. It was a horrible film, really, and they did a great job of making fun of it.
• Otaku Unite!, an excellent documentary film about the anime/otaku phenomenon.
• “Name That Anime Tune,” a game show where the crowd was invited to identify anime music. I actually did pretty well; better than the average fan in the audience, I think.
• An anime music video discussion panel, which included the guys behind Doki Doki Productions (“Right Now Someone Is Reading This Title”, “The K-Team“, “Anime Mascot’s Day Off”, and the extremely disturbing yet hilarious “Lollipops, Sunshine, and rrrRRRrrr”) and Lee Sheng (“Stress”). This was one of those extremely low-key Sunday morning panels where most of the guys on the panel were nursing hangovers and there were only half a dozen other people in the room.

Here’s the next writing challenge:

Describe a character, physically and psychologically, in one sentence. Purpose: Clarity of description.

I note that nobody has posted their own response yet. Go on. It’s anonymous. It’s the cool thing to do.

Weird day today. I actually managed to get up early, so I could be at work before a 9:00 meeting. Yes, that’s early for me. Yes, I’m okay with that. The meeting was about Rockwell Collins’ acquisition of the company I work for, and how that would change benefits. Nobody’s being let go; we were acquired as a whole unit so that Rockwell Collins could get into the flight simulator business. But our 401(k) will be changing slightly, etc.

Andn I’ll be leaving work shortly, to stop by the bank and Greenberry’s before I go to Anime USA.

Last night was rather odd, too. I got home late—working extra hours so I can leave work early today—and expected to crash. But I wanted to get in at least some time on Cronan The Scheduler, a BeOS application I volunteered to bulid for Dane of leBuzz. And I did. I just walked over to Pendragon, plunked down, and coded. And now, Cronan can read in a crontab file. Woohoo!

I’ve completed my writing exercise for this week. Go to the Writing Challenge webpage to read it and add your own result.

I’ll debut next week’s exercise tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’ll be at an anime convention this weekend, Godwilling; it’s very close to my house, which I think is awfully considerate of the con organizers. This is the con’s second year, and I didn’t go the first year, so I’ve no idea what to expect—masses of sweaty, overweight fanboys crowded into dim hallways? Half a dozen confused attendees? Bored con staffers lounging in corners, glazed eyes staring at passing con-goers? Weird panels with nervous guests whom nobody’s heard of?

Can’t wait!

Have you done that writing exercise yet? I’ll post my results tomorrow, and set up a system that will let you post your own.

I take my trusty digital camera with me everywhere. If I don’t, invariably I want to take a picture but don’t have my camera with me.

As a result, I’ve taken a number of photos with my Kodak DC5000, and uploaded them to my pictures site. There’s lots of stuff there.

I’ve noticed that I can take better pictures now than I could, say, a year ago. There’s something about being able to take a picture anywhere that makes me think about what framing and composition. I think about how the picture will look, instead of just pointing and shooting.

You can see the difference; compare Alexandria City Hall to Tree At Sunset.

It’s amazingly time-consuming to pursue one’s dreams.

Take my animations as an example. A friend knows an artist who is willing to try animation. Through our mutual friend, I requested some art samples…and I haven’t seen the mutual friend in weeks. So, now I have to contact him and work out a time when we can meet. Arg.

It frustrates me, and it pushes me a little distance away from animating. This isn’t even work, and it’s hard.

Nearly missed Brennen’s wonderful Standing Bear essay. And I mean “essay” in a broad but American Heritage Dictionary–approved sense.

Saturday’s relaxation was a wonderful product of Friday’s industry. I realized that I spend much of my Saturdays out doing errands, and that I’d really like to have a full day free to write, or animate, or cook, or whatever. So, Friday night after work, I ran to the bank and Greenberry’s, taking care of some online errands, before tacking eastwards to lead my Redemption club. We had a great time, too; I played with four kids.

So, I spent Saturday lounging around my apartment, watching some anime (Haibane Renmei) and generally recharging my batteries after a rather long work week.

And it paid off: That evening, I rewrote Ghost Story, and the new beginning is much improved. I’m anxious to continue writing it, which is always a good sign.

Here are the four areas that I want to concentrate on for the next three months:

• Animation — I want to produce matrix experiments lain, a Matrix spoof.
• Programming — I want to finish prototype 6 of Contract Tycoon and write a few little applications for Syllable.
• Writing — I want to write 10,000 words of Seeing Things Invisible and two short stories.
• Exercise &mdash: I want to be running three days a week for three miles per run, and I want to run in a 5K race sometime around the end of January.

Part of that writing effort includes completing writing exercises. I write best when I’m completing exercises; they keep my writing muscles tuned.

So. Here’s the plan. I’m going to post a writing exercise here. I’ll wait a week, and then will provide webspace here where people can anonymously post their completed exercises. I’ll post mine as well, also anonymously.

Do you want to improve your ability to write? Try this exercise:

Choose two nouns, two verbs, and two adjectives at random. Write a rhyming poem incorporating all of them.

Purpose: Creativity in word usage and combination.