Matthew Supert

It is now October 7th and Nanowrimo starts on November 1st. Last year was the first year that I in earnest attempted (and successfully completed) Nanowrimo. It is an accomplishment that to this day I am extremely proud of. I wrote a book in a month. That book is still far from finished and is mostly scattered ideas, but there are about 65,000 words in that project file that I continue to slowly work on. 

I initially wasn't going to do Nanowrimo this year. My success of my book from last year was scuttled by little action in fine tuning and editing the story for the rest of the year. I went from cranking out the 50,000 words in a month to barely going back and editing the first few chapters the rest of the year. I suppose in some ways it was meant to just sit for a while. My original plan for Nano this year was to basically edit my book from last year. I spent approximately three months planning last year's story so when mid-September hit and I got those emails from Nano that it was approaching I figured I had no chance in planning something for this year. 

Nanowrimo though has this certain desire to it that I have felt creeping up in my mind the past couple of weeks. It is the same sort of creep that I have felt from other very tough events I have done in the past, like Tough Mudder. At the time of doing it, it is sometimes an incredibly painful process. There are moments of brilliance, but mostly extended periods of pain and frustration. If you successfully come out the end though there is this sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that is difficult to describe. 

I have been quietly talking about Nano on and off the past couple of weeks with Megan and she sort of encouraged me to just go ahead and try and do something. I think this is a habit of mine that I often do. I fester on topics or ideas for weeks at a time and then finally there is a tipping point where I do them. 

Up until about a week ago I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to write about. I have material from last year's book that certainly will most likely go into the second novel of that story so I could have started on phase 2 of that story arc. I didn't quite want to do that though. The fact that I don't have the first story completed has be a bit afraid of taking off in the second books arc. I did have an epiphany though. Last year when I was writing I accidentally misspelled a couple of words that resulted in two characters. I have a tendency with my typing and muscle memory to mistype common words. "The" for example almost always comes out at "teh" when I type. 

The words word "Apath and Spice" were the resulting words.  At the time I just threw them into my character notebook for last year's novel and figured I could incorporate them into the story at some point as a sort of Bauchelain and Broach type cameo seen in the Malazan novels. After looking at the names though heir style didn't fit with the other naming mechanisms I used for the rest of the book. That book borrowed heavily from a Persian influence so I didn't feel there was a way to fit those names in effectively. Instead I decided to take those characters for this year's novel and make them their own identities set in some sort of sci-fi universe. They are going to be a husband and wife team that are going to take a lot of influences from Cowboy Bebop. I don't think they will be bounty hunters, but they are going to have something that causes them to get into some over the top adventures. I like the idea of conflicting personalities that I can draw upon from my own relationship with my wife. We have these "events" in our daily routine that I sometimes find hilarious and I think could make for good material for a story. 

My structure this year is to actually write the novel as a collection of short stories. I think based upon the character structure and my influences from anime and other sci-fi that would make an ideal format for these two characters . I am taking some heavy influence from the Gotrek and Felix novels on this one since those are all essentially a collection of short stories placed into a novel. 

I am now rather excited to try and put this novel together over the next month. I have to spend the next few weeks fleshing out character profiles and also developing the 7-10 short story ideas that I have for the book. Hopefully I can once again complete a Nano.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned in my post "Coming Full Circle on the Bicycle" was in the process of looking for another bicycle to add to my list to do some tour riding with my dad and brother. I have spent the past several weeks doing quite an extensive amount of research on the bike touring world and this past Saturday I went out shopping for bikes.

So I spent the better part of five hours on Saturday shopping for a touring bike and I actually ended up with something I totally wasn't expecting, the Novara Safari from REI. I went to three different bike stores and realized that I just couldn't get comfortable on any of the bikes with drop handlebars. I am not sure if my arms are too short or what but I either felt my arms were too far extended or my legs were too bunched up.

Meg and I had a fun time yesterday riding out to Kuiper's Farm near Elburn to do some apple picking. It was a gorgeous weekend and this is something we have wanted to do for a while. 

Nothing particularly interesting about the ride itself, but I can tell you that you can put a bag of apples on a motorbike. 

I haven't been playing my Wii U much lately. I have been trying my hardest to try and get some time into Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate on the console. I have spent the better part of the past month though just getting frustrated with that game. I wanted to try and like it. I was in the mood for something very "Japanese feeling", but I just couldn't get myself to like it. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing most of the time and I unfortunately found most of the combat pretty boring. 

My lack of interest in that game had me not really wanting to pickup the Wii U for a while. I finally had to give in and I am thankful I did. I should have thrown the towel in on that game weeks ago and I opened up Pikmin 3 that I downloaded with the purchase of Mario Kart 8. Now Pikmin is quite a good game. It is what I would call the perfect "laid back" experience that Nintendo does so well. The game is calming with very subtle music and design elements.  Tension in the game is mostly low and the payoff really comes from wandering around the world looking for fruit for your ship. 

It has also been the best game to utilize the Wii U's gamepad so far. Not only does it make good use of the map functinality, but the Wii U's pad acts as a communicator device which pays off really well. It is definitely worth the pickup. 

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to get into biking a bit more. I was first considering picking a road bike, but after doing some thinking on the matter I decided that I didn't really want to be trekking out on the side of the road by myself biking. I have a motorcycle for that and to be honest the Illinois roads are pretty boring at 60 mph, I can only imagine how boring they are at 25 mph. 

I opted instead to get back into some trail riding with the mountain bike I already had and I spent a good portion of the summer of 2012 and some of 2013 riding different trails around the area. I loved it, but it unfortunately also has fallen off my radar a bit this past summer. I am a bit disappointed in that. It was also last year that I decided I needed to pickup a new commuter bicycle and I picked up a nice single speed that has for the most part worked out quite well. 

For father's day the past several years, my dad, brother and I have gone fly fishing up in Wisconsin. Every year we have pretty much come back empty handed. I have decided that fly fishing just isn't in our blood so I have been thinking the past couple of months of some new ideas that we can do for a father's day weekend. It just so happens that my dad and brother are already both pretty biker bikers. While motorcycling up in Wisconsin this summer I have also noticed quite a bit of touring bicyclists on the roads and it struck me the past week here that the answer seems to be right in front of me. Let's do a weekend of bicycle touring. 

I have floated the idea out to both of them and they both seem receptive to it. Now my single speed bike is a great commuter bike, but it is unfortunately not built for longer tour riding like this would be. This is what has now led me back full circle into looking for a larger road bike for some touring work. Thankfully it seems like it is the end of the season so I may be able to get a good deal on something somewhere. There are a few good contenders in the mix right now. 

Trek 520

The Trek 520 seems like a popular entry choice for most people in the touring world. Trek makes great bikes and my 820 mountain bike is 15+ years old now and still going strong. A new 520 though is quite expensive (over $1,000) so if I am going to go this route I will likely keep an eye on Craigslist to see if I can find a used bike. 

Surly LHT

This appears to be another highly recommended bike, but it is unfortunately also very expensive and not quite as prevalent in the used market arena. The good news though is that I can easily buy just the frame and potentially build a bike with this route. Something worth considering. 

Novara Randonee

This is a bit of a dark horse. My research online indicates that it is actually a very good bike and it can be had right now for under $1,000. Hopefully I can pair that up with my REI 20% discount and get a great deal on this bike. This may be an easy entry for me to "get in the game" if I cannot find a Trek 520. 

For the past few months I have been pursuing the internet for a turntable to put into the living room. I have a few vinyl records that I have collected over the years and I have a couple of more on the horizon that I could see myself getting. I am not looking to do any crazy music setup for a lot of listening; the convenience of iTunes and Airplay is too great, but for a select few albums I think I could definitely enjoy listening to them on vinyl. 

The turntable craze must be in high gear though as the prices for some of these old turntables is through the roof. Turntables that should be under $100 are asking for prices well over that number. The prices only escalate from there. I am sort of find this processing turning into the same frustrating you get when buying a car, spending a lot of time haggling over minutia only to walk away from the deal exhausted.

I suppose I will see how this endeavor goes and whether I will just break down and purchase a new turntable. The turntable itself is only a part of the entire process. I still have to at least get a set of bookshelf speakers as well. My old stereo receiver I believe has a phono input so that should hopefully be good to go on that front. 

Autumn is upon us and I am getting back into the swing of things for music recording. I had a great session in the studio yesterday and I am sitting on nine songs that are in various states from "complete" to just sketches. I need to take some time over the next couple of weeks and just get these songs knocked out and recorded. 

I am also itching though to get some additional music gear. I am not sure exactly what I am looking for, but probably something a bit specialized. I have had my eye sitting on Craigslist and not much has been popping up. Right now the front runners are two of the Dave Smith tabletop boxes; the Mopho and the Evolver. 

Both boxes I think have a really good long lasting type of sound I could fit into my setup. However, I do have a slight worry that they aren't distinct enough for me. Even with VA synths, how many subtractive synths can I really add to the list? 

The other front runner candidates are from Waldorf. I really am enjoying the Blofeld right now and the Pulse 2 seems very appealing, but again suffers from the same concerns I have with the DS boxes. The Streichfett is also a nice candidate at the moment, but I fear it may be a bit of a one trick pony. So I am a bit stuck at the moment. 

If anyone has some boxes I should check out, let me know. 

I was out in Plainfield yesterday and walked past an AT&T cabinet that was emigrating this beautiful drone sound.

I assume it was from the A/C on the unit and the way the air was moving through the vents. It was so subtle but really beautiful. I tried to capture a moment of it in my phone.

Work on my book from last year's Nanowrimo is still moving along and in some respects I have finally found a sort of groove. I am not working on the book everyday, but I am trying to get some editing in at least once a week. Most of the characters and places in the book now have names and I think I have successfully put in a first edit for the first couple of chapters. The books is still incredibly rough around the edges, but I think it is at least comprehensible in those sections now. I am going to continue to chip away at the book. 

I won't be doing Nanowrimo this year, but I am again hoping to have some form of a draft of this book finished before the end of this year.  

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My volume of books so far this year hasn't been really high, but that is probably because the majority of the books that I am reading seem to be in the 800+ page range. I have continued to work through the Malazan series and I am now on book #7 with Reaper's Gale. 

This book so far has been the hardest to get through and it is really a slog. I personally just don't have much of an interest in the story line that is happening in Lether and the characters really are not that interesting. I am close to 50% of the way through the book and we have finally be reintroduced to some of our Malazan favorites and I did get one new character called Beek, who seems like he will certainly turn into a great character in the future. 

I think after this book I will need to take a break from the Malazan series and catch up again on some of my Sci-Fi reading. I am really looking forward to reading Unstable Prototypes, which is the follow up to Joesph Lallo's Bypass Gemini. I also have on my radar to get back into the Entire of the Rose series. I read the first book in that series several years ago around 2001, and while I wasn't a fan of the main character, I did find the world very interesting.  

I would also like to read the follow up books to N.K. Jemison's Inheritance Trilogy. A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was one of the best books I have read in the past few years and I really would like to see where that world goes as well.