Tech Week
Anybody who knows me better than what I've demonstrated with my website and Facebook prowess(AHAHAHAHAHA) is aware that I consider technology and computers a necessary evil. I never wanted or attempted to assemble a website until the book publishing made it a heavily recommended thing to do. I knew if I was going to open myself up on Facebook, I was going to do it with a professional account because I didn't need a bunch of random folks digging around in my personal history. I never wanted to mess with Twitter... ok, I'll be honest I still don't like or understand Twitter but I'm there! The Tweets go out at least as often as my blog, so that's something, right? #hashtag allthehashtags #morehashtags
I still haven't messed with Instagram, and frankly it just feels like One More Thing to keep track of at this point. Time will tell. Maybe if I can teach it to be lazy and do the work for me like my Twitter feed I'll consider it.
So when one of my friends suggested I get a webcam, I have to admit, I kind of freaked... Oh for f*** sake.
Let me rewind that a bit so this makes more sense. Last week I was talking to one of my buddies on Messenger (because I'm so damn trendy like that). He was hinting around at inviting me to his D&D game that he has running on Fantasy Grounds (an online tabletop system for RPG games). Short version (shocking, I know) I opted to join the game. Turns out they have a livestream and the other players all have webcams showing their involvement from their side. It was casually suggested that I should get a webcam so the others could follow my reactions as well... because... the FUN! After a fair amount of hemming and hawing, my one friend asked me for my mailing address. By the power of Amazon, it was declared that I would be receiving my shiny new webcam by Friday (today). Yay?
So all afternoon I've been dinking around with this webcam like some sort of deranged damned chimpanzee. I've come up with a way to hang backgrounds behind me so that the horror story that is my office/laundry room/cat box closet/storage room doesn't show up in my video feed. I didn't want a webcam, but I'm kind of infatuated with the confounded thing. It takes pictures, and videos, and I can make goofy faces at myself and... and... What? I entertain easy, ok?
My hope is that this webcam will also come in handy in the event some podcast type person eventually wants to interview me via online methods. Or if some business type meeting needs to happen over Skype or whatever... because that's a thing, right? I've heard of that somewhere, I think.
In other tech related news (kind of). This new D&D campaign has lit a creative fire under my significant duff. Not in writing book 2... oh goodness no. (Ha... ha ha!... *nervous laugh*) No, I spent a crazy amount of time putting together two different magic manuals for D&D 3.5 themed spell casters - one of which I will use with my new game character. The other manual was actually developed more for research purposes for a character that will appear in book 3 (and technically already appeared in Ash to Ashes). I've toyed with the notion of really honing the editing and formatting of the manuals I've done. I've already saved one of them as a PDF. I'm just not really sure what my limitations are in sharing them since the content is literally ripped verbatim out of the existing WotC manuals. I have to admit, I thought it might be kind of fun to release PDFs with character classes that appear in the books as they come out. Then again, I also thought it would be fun to avoid getting sued for copyright infringement, even if that majority of the material is considered Open License at this point. The really fun thing about getting back into a D&D game is that it actually has sparked a creative drive I'd kind of been lacking for a while. My buddy Lynn had actually helped with this a few weeks ago also. (At some point there will be a short story available, probably in e-book and limited print. It's already been heaped onto the to-do list.) Something about brainstorming ideas just gets things back in gear for me. Getting tired of hearing my own excuses kind of does it too.
REMINDER: I will be in Lawrence, KS Next Saturday for FREESTATE COMICON! Saturday, October 21, 2017, 10 a- 5 p. at the 4-H Fairgrounds.
Christmas, Hanukah, Yule, and others are all just around the corner. Halloween is a great time for tricks and treats! Nothing beats the treat of reading a personally signed copy of a fun and fantastic book! Come see me in Lawrence and make that happen for yourself or someone you love/like/care about/barely tolerate!
