Friday, November 3, 2017

Something is better than nothing. Usually.

The past six months have seen the Jorune project thwarted left and right. The last 48 hours have been good.

SHOLARI v2n1 print edition is finally real. PDF has been available for a while. But it is real.

SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL is in the email for subscribers. I have decided to release the second sampler to boost subscriptions.

I have scars but survived the past several months.

Oh yeah, revised the symbol for
Sho-Caudal, based on Miles'
hidden communication on the
2nd Edition Jorune world map.
I had the motherboard of my iMac (six years old and running day and night most of the time, rendering or downloading when I wasn't actively on it). Lost time there. About a full month between backups restores, and Apple helpline not helping. They even escalated me to my very own tech support genius, but they couldn't help either. Full month - pffffffttt.

The motherboard helped two hard disks fry. Lost LOTs of art, text, MP4s, MP3s, PDFs, and ePubs. Pffffttttt. And Pfffftttt FM. This means whole catalogs of files were eaten. It included some — actually quite a bit — of the older files, like original files and art for Chessex, Alien Logic, and early Sholari source material. And I have mention my entire collection of animated features in MP4 files, entire science fiction library (including films, radio series, talking books, games and uncounted PDF and ePub eLibrary files — I can't count them because they are no longer here. But only HALF of my music library was eaten. But so was my entire electronic comic book library... over 2tb lost so far. And my major collection of ebooks in PDF, ePub, djvu, .mobi, .palm, and other formats - which I had been in the middle of organizing along Dewey Decimal guidelines for easy location - Pffffttttt. Lost a lot of source material, drafts of current projects, and another four weeks there. Pffffttttt.

I got a replacement Win10 machine that was apparently DOA, but I don't know Win10 machines so I wasted time not being able to do work on that machine and sent it back to the supplier. Had a 100% wasted three weeks there.

A friend helped me get into a low-end Mac Mini, then boosted the memory and disk to be just a little above the bottom of the barrel. I had three external disks remaining and organized files. I went through over 200 of my 400 CD/DVD backup data files to get some files back into a usable method. Allow another week for the first pass to get the most important, but some things are just gone gone gone.

Apple upgraded to 10.13 and got buggy with it. Lost more than a week there.

Adobe upgraded to CC 2018 without asking and got buggy with it. Documents on which I was working could not be opened with the new CC 2018. One feature I used at least once a week has apparently been removed from Photoshop. InDesign, in which all of the Jorune releases are done, wouldn't let me edit documents. I could look at them, and save them, but I couldn't make changes except to add a Note, and I couldn't export them. Lost most of the last two weeks there.

There may other bombs in the Adobe battlefield I simply haven't encountered YET.

But in the last seven months, I have lost more than three months to hardware or software problems. In addition to having to WRITE a lot of the material I publish. And draw some. I had a schedule. I no longer have a schedule, and the trickle of money I thought the work might produce went bone dry.

A whole raft of people stopped responding to my emails, so I developed a bad attitude on giving a shit if I hear from them. And I shifted gears to work on projects with people who respond - if I just wanted to play with myself I wouldn't need Jorune.

I almost swore off Jorune - again - except I have a commitment to the SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL people, and made public noises about finishing the ORFA: JORUNE. So, I will do those.

GOMO GUDE: THONEPORT was published, revised and published again. I may do a third version to make it fit in the format of a couple of new GOMO projects. If I do the new GOMO projects.

SHOLARI MAGAZINE v2n1, PDF and Print have been published.

SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #1, #2, #3, and #4 have been published.

It's not like I haven't done anything. Lately. I have. That's six separate publications - seven if you count the previous Thoneport. My previous production, outside Third Edition stuff, was Four - Three issues of volume one SHOLARI and one ANNALS OF THE TANSOOR HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

I will take some breathing space from Jorune and wait to see if there are any discussions, projects, opposing viewpoints, or clearers-of-obstacles who appear. I will work on SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL and release them as they are done.

Quietly, to fulfill my commitment.

I think that following through on commitments is a good thing. I think doing what you say would do is a good thing.

But that's just me.

I almost have the COLLECTED DANSTEAD TRAVELLER and COLLECTED BORKELBY'S FOLLY completed - both over 80%, but I want them to be 100% or as close as I can get. I will probably work on those.

Eventually, the mood may pass and I will complete GOMO GUIDE: TAN IRICID and SHOLARI v2n2 - I have what goes there, it just has to be fleshed out and reorganized and illustrated and edited and layed out and proofread and published.

If you want me, I'll be in my villa overlooking Dra-Eeli and protected by my loyal Croid guards, who finally understand "Don't eat that one." I think. We will find out.

It was embarrassing last time.

No comments:

Post a Comment