Spontaneous ∂erivation

Because my soul is not enough.

Heh, nah, I’m just kidding. But it’s that time of year for everybody who works in certain kinds of jobs: evaluation time. That means I get to spend all my time writing about work in the last year: myself, my peers, my managers; all projects, tasks, and their outcomes and how they affected the company.

In total sum, should be about 5000 words for the self review, and anywhere between 10k and 15k words total for everybody else.

What does this mean for you?

Well, it does mean my writing weekend is totally tanked.

If I get out from under before Monday, actual thoughtful posts shall appear here. At least there’s a pretty rewarding amount of formerly featured articles to go through.

Otherwise, until Tuesday, I remain writingly yours,

Arachne Jericho

… THERE’S A STRAY DIV!

WHACK-a-fol-de-riddle!

ARGH, margins all wrong! Or maybe it’s the padding. MAYBE IT’S BOTH. BRING OUT THE border: thin solid red CROWBAR!

BANG BANG BANG!

This is for another website, by the way. Although some surgery will soon happen to this one, too. All in the name of Blog Optimization.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier as a web developer. But on the other hand, I’d probably be happier getting OUT of my current team. Tomorrow I must attend a team meeting of PURE JOY. Joy so sweet and sunshiney it BURNS with GOODNESS and RIGHTEOUSNESS.

I CAN HAZ WRENCH NOW?

I KAN ALSO KNOCK SELF ON HEAD UNTIL UNCONSCIOUS

Yeah, I’m real thrilled about work now as the evening sun sets and I know my doom. People know I’m not thrilled. My boss knows I’m really not thrilled.

He thinks I’m joking when I tell him I’m willing to quit, thinks that my demand for a transfer into another team can be blocked for 18 months.

I said, yo, you know there’s this company that starts with a G that would welcome me with open arms.

He said I would never quit like that.

Yeah, whatever.

(Lest someone think I can’t last in a team, I shall remind thee that I stayed for three and a half years in the front line with a pager 24/7 for a much more stressful, albeit much more useful and closer to the business, part of the company. With a hard-core driving manager, whom I dearly love because while we worked hard, he was able to remove enough obstacles so that our projects were always on time.

I wrote and maintained and passed on a high-availability service that has never failed these past few years. When it came to my turn for leading and scheduling projects, I never missed the dates either, through three consecutive projects.

Thus I am pretty damn sure I’m not a lemon.)

But I shall blog the night away, come what may.

After I kill this Javascript bug.

WHACK WHACK WHACK…..

Currently at Discworld News at PJSM Prints. Here’s the full text:

Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, which lay behind this year’s phantom “stroke”.

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet :o)

Terry Pratchett

PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this may be further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell. I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

-o-

“Reality is almost always wrong.” — Gregory House

Okay. It’s not yet the last day of November. I may still actually finish the first draft of the second book. I really need to finish it. I need to go into December knowing that I’m worth something more than work, which currently has this groove going on it:

Funny part is, if I were less principled, I wouldn’t be having that problem right now.

And the underlying question at work is

If it weren’t for writing, I would cut ‘em open here and now.

The night is young, but not that young, because it’s the Pacific Northwest.

My inspirational song of angst is currently Walter Reed.

I’m the walking wounded
I’d say it to your face
But I can’t find my place

So tell me now, what more do you need?
Take me to Walter Reed tonight
Baby, I’ve lost the will for fighting
Over everything

There’s a few things I gotta say
Make no mistake, I’m mad,
‘Cause every good thing I’ve had
Abandoned me.

A sad and lonesome me.

Just think: House, M.D. beanie babies!

Give me a cuddly Wilson doll any day.

Optionally, maybe a cuddly stuffed Vicodin prescription bottle.

Warning: angst.

Now then. Why I write….

I’m driven. Terribly, horribly driven. Not by the muse, not by something so beautiful like that.

Why did I spend years reading writing books and, of late, trying to internalize the advice, suggestions, and rules therein?

Why did I practice writing 500 words in 30 minutes over and over, until I could nail the target in less than 30 minutes?

Why did I participate in contests that require me to write painful pieces, to see if I could draw blood into beauty?

Why did I, on the other side of the scale of reasonableness, start drinking tonic soup, ginseng tea, ginkgo tea; start exercising regularly; start trying to eat more healthy?

Why did I do everything I could to work up to some large word rate per hour?

Because, you see, my job will kill me.

I work for a prominent high tech company. And like all the rest—including Microsoft and Google—they expect you to do this:

I know writing’s pretty stressful too, but how can I put this… Over the past few years, my heart has been emptied. Right now it’s this sucking void in me. And I need to fill it.

This has happened to me before.

I hope that in 25 years I’m able to become a full-time writer, who can manage to pay the mortgage on a regular basis on writing pay alone. And I know I may not make it there. But the only way I can get better is to write, write, write.

If I don’t get there, I know I’m dead.

If I do get there, am I going to need a new obsession? I don’t know. Writing seems to be one of those occupations that is rather organic; it’s always been a component of all my other obsessions. I believe it’s what I’ve been trying to get close to, all these years.

My empty, hungry heart is why I do understand Sherlock Holmes’s dark side. And part of why I’m so driven this month, too. All my characters have this quality of unknown and unfulfilled desire, and although the base of such may be different for each one, that is what drives them—and in turn, what drives me. How they cope, deny, solve (or fail to solve) this lostness, in all the facets of such a wide scope of darkness of the soul, is what forms the themes of my work.

There it is. My inspiration.

Morbid, is it not?

But I hope it’s not too morbid on the outside, and my stories are rockin’ good reads first, and tortured literature way, way last.