kittens/Writing Life

September 2022 Goals

Posted on by Theresa

Hey, look! It’s only the 2nd of September and I remembered to post my goals! I’m already ahead of last month…

Speaking of last month, how did I do?

  • Finish edits on All Rocs and send it off for proofreading. EBOOK HAS BEEN LOADED TO ALL THE RETAILERS!
  • Continue twice weekly release schedule on Kindle Vella for The Ghostwriting Blues. DID THIS!
  • Add another 10k to the next Penelope Standing cozy mystery. Maybe? I think I did, but I’m not sure where I was at the beginning of last month. (I’m currently at 31k, so no excuse next month.)

I’m giving myself an A, mostly for setting reasonable goals for once. Also, I’m an easy grader.

September Goals

  • Load the paperback of All Rocs.
  • Finish the rough draft of the next Penelope Standing cozy mystery.
  • Continue twice weekly release schedule on Kindle Vella for The Ghostwriting Blues.
  • Stretch goal: edit the mermaid story and send it off to the anthology. (I’m still on the fence about this one — I don’t write a lot of short stories, and maybe this story is terrible. But maybe it’s okay. Who knows? But really, the worst they can do is reject me, so I should do it.)

Random Business Stuff

In my quest to get my life together, I have acquired a whiteboard. It has sections for “This week”, “Upcoming”, and “Someday”. So far, it has been helpful. We shall see if it remains so.

The other thing I’m doing is taking every other Friday off from the regular projects to do something different. Maybe it’s writing a short story for my Patreon supporters, maybe it’s tinkering with a novel I won’t be writing just now. Mostly, it’s to avoid stress and burnout. This schedule is another thing that will need to be re-evaluated down the road.

Obligatory Pet Picture

This is my current foster kitten, Poppy. She’s an absolute delight and will be returning to the shelter to be spayed and adopted next week (or possibly sooner). I’ll miss having her around. (Except for all the typos she causes by walking on the keyboard.)

White woman with a tiny tortoiseshell kitten on her shoulder.

kittens/Writing Life

August 2022 Goals

Posted on by Theresa

So… It’s the 8th of August, and I just remembered that I never wrote my goals post at the beginning of the month. (Usually, it takes me a week to remember to give my dog his heartworm and flea medication and I write the blog post right away. This time, I flipped it.)

How did I do in July? Let’s see:

  • Write the first draft of the next Penelope Standing cozy mystery. I got 23k written. A little less than halfway through.
  • Continue to load episodes for The Ghostwriting Blues on Kindle Vella to keep up with a twice weekly release schedule. I did this!
  • Come up with a revision plan for All Rocs after I get feedback from my critique partners. (I have a pre-order date for that one, so depending on how much needs to be changed, this might take priority over everything else.) Did this and I’ve been working on the revisions.
  • Learn more about Facebook ads. Try not to spend a zillion dollars while doing so. Spent a bunch on advertising The Ghostwriting Blues. I’m waiting to see if that made a difference to my Kindle Vella bonus before making more experiments.
  • Stretch goal: write more episodes of the space opera serial. Ha ha, did not even look at this.

Meh. I’ve felt very unfocused lately. Let’s hope that changes soon.

August Goals

  • Finish edits on All Rocs and send it off for proofreading.
  • Continue twice weekly release schedule on Kindle Vella for The Ghostwriting Blues.
  • Add another 10k to the next Penelope Standing cozy mystery.

Obligatory Pet Photo

Foster kitten Humphrey (aka, Humphrey NaughtyKitten) is adorable and very, very needy. He’s going back to the shelter to get neutered and adopted in two days. I’ll miss his little squeaks and oversized personality, but I suspect I’ll get more work done.

kittens

How to Set Up Your Own Kitten Cam!

Posted on by Theresa

So I have this new group of foster kittens that have some health issues. But one is also very, very shy, so I wasn’t sure if he ever came out of the box he was hiding in to eat or play. The obvious solution? A camera to spy on them. And of course, me being me, my next thought was… Can I stream them to Twitch so everyone can see them?

(Short answer: yes. Link at the bottom if you’re just here for kittens.)

I had a couple requirements:

  1. This had to be relatively easy to set up and maintain. (No, I didn’t really want to write kitten cam code.)
  2. It had to be cheap. Really cheap. That applied to both the camera itself and ongoing costs (ie, no monthly subscription fee).

Researching this turned out to be a complete pain in the butt. So here’s the documentation in case you, too, want to stream your foster kittens.

Security Disclaimer

Is this camera secure? I doubt it. Most security cams aren’t (sorry!). But this camera is being used in a bathroom only housing foster kittens. Sure, someone could hack into it and they could… watch my kittens. Which are being live-streamed on Twitch.

Worst case, they could enable the microphone and listen to the bathroom fan (stinky kittens!). I suppose they might be able to filter that out and hear the sounds of me in my house. I’ve accepted that risk. I’m tragically boring.

But that’s me. Your situation may be different. If I had kids, I might think twice about having anything like this in the house.

Also, if you own an Alexa, your security is already a joke. You might as well set up a kitten cam.

How to set up your kitten cam

  1. Get a camera. If your camera is going to be more than 6′ away from your computer, the search term you’re looking for is “IP camera”. Here’s an affiliate link to the one I bought (Wansview Q5). It’s worth the $30.
  2. Set up your camera. The Wansview was pretty easy. You download the app, create a login, give it your wifi router info, and then it gives you a QR code you hold up in front of the camera. That’s it.
    At this point, you should be able to view the kittens in the camera app. (And yeah, it wipes out your battery quickly. My phone got hot.) So now we move to the part where we bypass the camera maker’s app.
  3. Download and configure the OBS software (free!) to your computer. Watch this video for instructions. He shows three ways to configure the stream — I used the first one (direct streaming via RTSP). In the Wansview app, you can get the RTSP URL under Settings-> Local application -> RTSP. (*** SEE UPDATE BELOW ***)
    When you configure OBS, you will point it at your Twitch account, so you’ll have to create a Twitch account if you don’t already have one. (It’s free.)
  4. Hit “Start Streaming”.

That’s it. It really is as simple as it sounds.

*** UPDATE 17 August 2023 ***

After a year of kittens smashing the camera into the bathroom tiles, the night vision stopped working. (Honestly, I’m surprised it lasted this long. Kittens are the most destructive forces in the universe and I never expected a $30 camera to withstand this abuse.) I bought a replacement camera (same make/model) and had some trouble getting RTSP to connect correctly to OBS. The solution:

  1. Upgrade OBS to version 29
  2. The media source GUI now includes a section called “FFmpeg Options”. Set that to rtsp_transport=tcp  rtsp_flags=prefer_tcp
  3. Restart OBS

That solved my problem.

The only other issue I’ve had during the year was kittens chewing through the cable. I replaced the cable with this about four months ago and so far they haven’t destroyed it despite gnawing on it constantly.

Ready to watch some kittens?

https://www.twitch.tv/tm_baumgartner

(Obviously, this will be offline if I don’t have any fosters when you’re looking at this.)

kittens/Writing Life

July 2022 Goals

Posted on by Theresa

You know it’s going to be a great month when you’re already six days into it before you remember to write any goals. But hey, sometimes that’s how I roll.

First — how did it go last month? (And that really is a question, because I just had to go copy that text and I don’t remember what it says…)

June Goals

  • Release All Gremlins on June 30th. DONE! Go buy it!
  • Finish the full first draft of All Rocs. DONE! It’s with my critique partners right now.
  • Continue getting weekly episodes of the space opera serial (Independent Flight) out on Kindle Vella. Um. I’m two episodes behind. (But literally nobody has been reading it, so there’s that whole “if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it matter if you blow off the weekly release schedule?” question.)
  • Outline the next Penelope Standing book. It’s mostly outlined-ish. I mean, I know who did it, and I know the structure of it, but I failed to write down what has to happen in each chapter after chapter five. (Funny story: I reached the end of chapter five last night and I’m sure that won’t slow me down going forward, ha ha.)
  • Write the bonus epilog for All Gremlins to convince people to sign up for my newsletter. NOPE!
  • Stretch goal: edit & load the ghost story on Kindle Vella. (The full draft is written, but I need to fix one character arc, so this may take more time than I have available.) I’ve edited/loaded a bunch of episodes!

I did also start messing around with Facebook ads, which is a whole time and money suck that I need to master sooner or later. And I had foster kittens.

I’m an easy grader, so I’ll give myself an A. Mostly for the kittens.

July Goals

  • Write the first draft of the next Penelope Standing cozy mystery.
  • Continue to load episodes for The Ghostwriting Blues on Kindle Vella to keep up with a twice weekly release schedule.
  • Come up with a revision plan for All Rocs after I get feedback from my critique partners. (I have a pre-order date for that one, so depending on how much needs to be changed, this might take priority over everything else.)
  • Learn more about Facebook ads. Try not to spend a zillion dollars while doing so.
  • Stretch goal: write more episodes of the space opera serial.

Obligatory Pet Picture

I had to take pictures of the kittens for their adoption profiles at the shelter. Anyone who knows me is cringing — I’m a horrible photographer. But I took a lot of terrible pictures and accidentally got a few good ones, including this one of Curry. It captures the whole kitten body and experience.

Writing Life

A Quick Gantt Chart

Posted on by Theresa

I was looking into Gantt charts, just to see how difficult it would be to set one up. But also, I’m cheap, so I was looking for one I didn’t have to pay for.

You can do this in Excel or Google Sheets, but it’s not really meant for that. Setting up dependencies looked like a pain. In the end, I decided to use Google’s javascript charts library. The online documentation is decent and this did what I wanted. It took about 15 minutes.

All I did was:

  1. Copy the basic example and modify it for my tasks. For my purposes, I wanted each task to depend on the previous one. (I kept things very simple.) So the first task (Outline) had a start date and expected duration, and everything after that just had an expected duration.
  2. I saved the modified file to my hard drive (test.html) and then told my browser to open that file.

Live copy that hopefully should open a new tab:

Gantt Chart

Here’s a snapshot of the what that should look like:

Source code:

Uh… I can figure out how to make a Gantt chart, but including the source code in this post has defeated me. However, if you click on the live copy link above and then right click and “View Page Source”, you can save it from there.

(My changes were in the “data.addRows” section where the tasks are defined. Plus I had to increase the height set in the options.)

 

Writing Life

June 2022 Goals

Posted on by Theresa

I was recently joking with some author friends about setting up Gantt charts to figure out our publishing schedules. (As a programmer, I hated Gantt charts, but that had more to do with managers assigning a fixed end date and using the chart to calculate the number of days available for each task. That’s the exact opposite of their purpose and is probably the top reason software release dates slip.)

Uh, I hadn’t really meant to rant about Gantt charts. Where was I? Oh yeah. Release dates! I set up the pre-order for All Gremlins Great & Small (June 30!), started calculating backward, and had to change some of my May goals.

I probably should set up a Gantt chart to keep my publishing schedule on track.

May Goals

  • Add another 30k works to All Rocs (book 2). Ideally, I’d finish the book this month, but we’ll see how that goes… I think I came close to 30k. I’m about 5k from the end, but I wanted to go back through and make the book more coherent before writing the ending.
  • Address the pacing problem in All Gremlins. Did this. I’m halfway through the final read-aloud pass, and the manuscript will go to the proofreader this Monday.
  • Edit the Jackpot Drift short story. If I get it done in the next two weeks, it will go out with the newsletter. Nope. Didn’t do it.
  • After the short story is done, update the website with a page for free short stories. Nope. Didn’t do this either.
  • Stretch goal: write a bonus epilog for All Gremlins to convince people to sign up for my newsletter. Absolutely did not do this.

I’m still an easy grader. I’m giving myself an A-minus because I got a lot done, even if it wasn’t the stuff I said I was going to do. Can I plan better next month? We shall see.

June Goals

  • Release All Gremlins on June 30th.
  • Finish the full first draft of All Rocs.
  • Continue getting weekly episodes of the space opera serial (Independent Flight) out on Kindle Vella.
  • Outline the next Penelope Standing book.
  • Write the bonus epilog for All Gremlins to convince people to sign up for my newsletter.
  • Stretch goal: edit & load the ghost story on Kindle Vella. (The full draft is written, but I need to fix one character arc, so this may take more time than I have available.)

Obligatory Pet Photo

A lovely Alaskan husky mix lying down, with one foot in the foreground and his face blurry in the background because his legs are so long. He's a good boy.

Writing Life

May 2022 Goals

Posted on by Theresa

It’s May Day, so sing the Internationale and leave flowers on your neighbors’ doorsteps! But it’s also time to evaluate progress on last month’s goals.

  • Get feedback on All Gremlins (book 1) and make a plan for editing. My critique partners identified a pacing issue before the second half of the book, but I think that will be fairly easy to address.
  • Add 30k words to All Rocs (book 2). I’m hoping to cannibalize some of these from an earlier draft, but I haven’t looked at it yet. That might slow me down. (This is my Camp NaNoWriMo goal.) I ended the month at 28k, so… close.
  • Edit the short story I wrote in March and send it to my newsletter subscribers. DONE!
  • Finish writing/editing the second short story. (It will probably go out in the newsletter next month.) I finished writing it, but it still needs a lot of editing.
  • Update the website:
    • Add a page with free short stories (if you sign up to the newsletter). NOT YET
    • Make the newsletter signup call to action more obvious.
    • Add a page for the Vella serials.
    • Add some info about my Patreon to the home page.
  • Stretch goal: write a bonus epilog for All Gremlins to convince people to sign up for my newsletter. (Yes, I have decided to focus on increasing my newsletter subscribers. You probably noticed.) NOPE!

I came close to finishing my goals and I’m an easy grader, so I’m giving myself an A- for the month.

May Goals

  • Add another 30k works to All Rocs (book 2). Ideally, I’d finish the book this month, but we’ll see how that goes…
  • Address the pacing problem in All Gremlins.
  • Edit the Jackpot Drift short story. If I get it done in the next two weeks, it will go out with the newsletter.
  • After the short story is done, update the website with a page for free short stories.
  • Stretch goal: write a bonus epilog for All Gremlins to convince people to sign up for my newsletter.

Obligatory Pet Picture

This one’s from the end of 2018, but I really love the colors.

Writing Life

Reading/Listening/Watching

Posted on by Theresa

Writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. When I first started writing, I worried about whether I would unconsciously copy the things I read, but it turns out to be just the opposite. Taking in media in any form allows the brain to riff off different ideas, and the neurons playing on something new makes everything better.

Anyhow, here are some things I’ve been checking out lately…

Written

Adventures in the Liaden Universe by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee — This is some of my favorite space opera ever, and there are dozens of novels and novellas following the characters. (And the authors are still adding to the series!) Reading these books is like taking your brain on a spa day, except without the part where strangers are touching you.

The Eye of the Gods by Odette C. Bell — More space opera! And episode one is free, so check this out if this is your genre.

The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben — Everybody’s heard of Harlan Coben, right? He’s a thriller writer whose books are in every airport. Somehow, I’ve never read anything by him. And this book is very readable, with likable characters. But… there are some technical tricks being used to obfuscate the fact that the plot is really thin. Plus, everyone gets hit by the “happily ever after” wand in the last chapter. So, it’s not a bad book, but it kind of feels like a lazy book.

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben — This one I got from the library, just to see if all his books are like the last one. Meh. So far, I’m not totally loving it, but I haven’t abandoned it yet, either. Jury’s still out.

Romance Your Brand: Building a Marketable Genre Fiction Series by Zoe York — In case the title didn’t give it away, this is a writing craft book. Lots of good information here, and if I followed it more faithfully, I’d be rich and famous (or at least higher on the lists).

Audio

Killing Gravity by Corey J. White — Apparently I’ve been on a space opera kick lately. I loved this book, and the narration is excellent.

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty — Confession time: I originally started this (last year? the year before?) in written form and got to a point where I just bounced off it because I didn’t care about any of the characters. And I nearly did the same thing with the audio version, but I kept going and I’m glad I did. This book is pretty amazing.

Network Effect by Martha Wells — The Murderbot Diaries are my “middle of the night when my brain won’t shut up” audiobooks. I’ve listened to this book enough times that I can drift off in the middle of any part and know exactly what’s going on when I next pick it up.

Watching

White Collar — Yes, this series has been out for a few years. But I like the episodic format with almost no violence.

The Rockford Files — Yes, the show from the 70s. Lots of driving. OMG, so much driving. I find it helpful to keep hitting the “fast forward 10 seconds” button in the car chases. Also, the men look even older than they really were (tanning + smoking really did a number on their skin), so Rockford hitting on all the women just seems vaguely creepy. Anyhow, it reminded me of my childhood in the hideous area near Los Angeles. I’m not sure that’s really a recommendation.

Random Cactus Picture

Writing Life

Penelope Standing’s Holidays of Choice

Posted on by Theresa
Penelope Standing isn’t very good at following the rules, so why should she follow a standard calendar? Here are some of her favorite holidays!

March 15: Kick a Fence Day
Given that many fences in town have been “built” by Red and Sons, it’s a good idea to kick each post before the windy season. That way you can fix it before it falls down completely, or at least prop up the dodgy sections.

April 22: Judge Your Neighbor’s Garden Day
This isn’t an official holiday, but the raised eyebrows and slow shaking of heads is most common at this time of year. If a house makes a particularly poor showing (weeds!), a quiet “Tsk!” may even be uttered.

August 17: Buy Your Dog a Cheeseburger Day
As you might expect, this is Brutus’s favorite day of the year. Penelope also buys extra for the dogs she regularly walks, at least the ones that aren’t on special diets.

February 7: Skip at Work Day
What, you’ve never seen a mail carrier skipping before? How about a dog walker? You should try it sometime!

November 1: Leave Extra Candy Out for the Mail Carrier Day
You don’t want to eat all that Halloween candy anyhow, right?

June 25: Get Doggy Drugs and Update Your Collar Tags Day
Look, in a perfect world, the people setting off the fireworks would be the ones running the streets in a panic instead of half the dogs in town, but the world is far from perfect. So this is the day to make sure that you’re prepared for what many dogs see as the end of the world. Talk to your veterinarian, and make sure your dog has a collar with tags that list your current address and telephone number.

Ready for more Penelope Standing? Death Walks a Dog is available widely for just $0.99!