Project Update

A month has elapsed since the last full update. I’ll try to keep this one more to the point.

As usual, a summary of the projects:

1. Project A — Write the novel, “The Adventures of Commitment Man”
2. Project B — Write 100 word stories for family and friends, and present them as gifts
3. Play chess online
4. Blog every day
5. Take camera everywhere, and pretend to be a Japanese tourist

And then the success, or lack thereof:

1. One month ago I had written 20,043 words. One month later I have written 20,043 words, leaving my progress this month at a very nice round number. I need to post more of those damned affirmations — or possibly just listen to them.
2. As I happily announced in a mini-update on this topic, the stories in this batch were all written, but just needed to go through the quality control process.
   Quality Control suggested I alter one story, and rewrite another. I ended up rewriting both.
   Last month I had completed one story, written two that needed editing, and conceptualised another.
   I now have 5 completed stories to give as gifts, and an additional two stories to donate to charity.
   My progress is thus 6 stories completed this month. Applause
   1. In addition, four stories are printed and framed and ready to ship. The one still outstanding will be printed tomorrow. Thus, I require certain Canadian family members’ postal address.
   2. blah
3. I played chess. If you find the screen-grab illegible, click it for the full-size version.
   The best way to see whether I’ve been playing much or not is to check whether the RD (rating deviation) score has become smaller. Smaller it is, the more accurate my rating is.
   To check whether or not I’ve been getting any better, look at the rating column. A higher rating indicates a better player.
   Actually, if you really really care — read the FICS FAQ
   And if you’re thinking “what the hell is crazyhouse/suicide/whatever?” look for it on this page.
   The results are:
   1. Played three blitz games — lost them all, which is probably why I only played three. Rating withers away another 57 points to a pathetic 1012
   2. Played six lightening games — kicked ass. rating rocketed up 260 points to 1485. Still a crap rating, but a marked improvement.
   3. Er. That’s it. But those are only the rated games. It is possible to play unrated games, but the server doesn’t keep track of them. I played quite a few unrated wild games, but honestly haven’t played too much recently. This chess thing needs a little attention.
4. Number of posts since 6 May 2007 (not including this one): 17. That’s a 55% success rate. Whoopee! Applause
5. Photos. Hmm. This counting photos thing is a little stupid, and I think I need to rather set photography projects. I’ve been pondering it a little, but nothing no solid ideas have yet coalesced. More on this in the future.
   I will reveal the number of photos taken in the past month though, just because:
   Total photos taken with the Pentax K100 is 962. That’s 198 in the month, which amounts to about 6 shots a day (down from over 12). I guess the enthusiasm might be wearing off a little. All the more reason to devise some photography projects, because I’d like to get better at it.

In summary I can say that I’ve had a generally good month, although the complete lack of progress on CMan is worrying. It is offset my the success on the 100 word gifts, so I’m not too disappointed with myself. Now that that batch is completed, any recreational writing I do (that isn’t blogging) will be commitment man. Perhaps I should rephrase the affirmations to reflect that. Make the affirmation smaller scale. “I will write the next 1000 words of a full-length novel” perhaps?
The success is in no small part due to my previous affirmation regarding following only useful links. Admittedly, some useless links have been followed, but considerably fewer than before. All techie and news sites have been relegated to the abyss. I hardly even feel tempted to investigate them any longer.

Stopping now before I have to add a Rambling Waffle tag.
Actually, that’s also something I did, since it was technically “blogging.” I gave the tags I use some thought, rejiggered them into broad categories, and tagged all of my posts appropriately (mostly). Which is why the rambling waffle tag now exists.
Really stopping now.