Mortaine’s Blog

Cantr II. It’s a slow-paced, turn-based web RPG (text only) that alternates between being kind of fun to being intensely frustrating. It was the Link of the Day on User Friendly last week, and I decided to try it out. There is no real-time play with it, so things really do go slowly. A simple conversation can take a week. As a result, most players have multiple characters spread out throughout the world.

Anyway, if a couple of my friends here want to check it out and tell me your impressions, I’d appreciate it. I’m kind of on the fence about it after playing for a week, though I do have a character I created today who I’m kind of intrigued by. I’d love it if a couple of folks would try playing for at least a week and get back to me, tell me what you thought.

Projects. Goals. 2004. 2005: Q1. Q2. Q3. Q4.

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Overall Projects for 2005:
Finish Witches Novel
An Eye for an Eye Revision/Polish/Submission
How Do You Spell USA? Finish/Revision

Projects for later:
Tricker Treats Revision
Write/Start Griselde Novel
Research/Write Dinosaur Novel

GOALS
Submission goals:
Work on Rejections Scrapbook
Submit An Eye for an Eye to publishers/agents
12 short story submissions over the course of the year (1/month if you need that impetus)

Time goals:
Set aside 30 minutes every weekday and 2 hours on Saturdays and Sundays for writing and editing. This will add up to 6.5 hours each week, for a total of 26 hours a month, or 312 hours over the course of a year. It doesn’t seem like much, but if March gets 50 hours of editing in (a bonus of 24 hours for that month), and NaNoWriMo gets additional time, and if I write about 1000 words an hour, it’s 312,000 words in a year, or 3 or 4 larger-than-NaNo novels.

During the rest of 2004
Buy Novel & SS Markets guide [did this yesterday]
Finish writing How Do You Spell USA?
Dec. 6-12 is BIAW: add 50 pages, 12,500 words, to the novel that week.
Dec. 20-26: 50 Page Challenge, 12,500 words.
Dec. 27-Jan 2 is the end-of-year BIAW: add another 50 pages or to the finish line that week as well. If USA is already complete, add those to the Witches novel.
Dec. 13-19: Revision Mania week: Work on Eye (), Chapters 1-3.
Post world-building exercises to website (this week, perhaps)

2005

Q1 (Jan. 1-March 31):
GOAL #1: Finish editing/revising Chapters 1-3 of An Eye for an Eye plus write synopsis and start sending out on March 1.
GOAL #2: Pull out all my existing short stories and mail out to 3 markets.
BIAW: Jan-Feb: participate in 2 BIAWs (one in Jan, one Feb.) and a 50-page challenge for the Witches novel.
OWWW: 2 crit/subs per month: submit Eye Synopsis for crits in January.
NaNoEdMo in March for How Do You spell USA?

Q2 (Apr. 1 - June 30):
April: Revise An Eye for an Eye, chs. 4-6.
May: Revise Eye, Ch. 7-12
June: 3 story submissions by the end of the month.
OWWW: 2 crit/subs per month
BIAW: Mar-Apr: Participate in a revision mania, a BIAW (April), and a 50-page challenge for the Witches novel.
BIAW: May-June: FOD the Witches novel.

Q3: (July 1-Sept. 30):
July: Revise Eye, Ch. 12-15
August: Revise Eye, Ch. 16-end
Sept.: 3 story submissions

OWWW: 2 crit/subs per month
BIAW: July-August: Revision Mania to FOD: An Eye for an Eye

Q4: (Oct. 1-Dec. 31):
October: Research NaNo Novel.
November: NaNoWriMo
December: Finish NaNo Novel
Buy Market guides
BIAW: Sept-Oct.: Work on Short stories, recharge.
BIAW: Nov-Dec.: NaNoWriMo
OWWW: 2 crit/subs per month