With coronavirus/COVID-19 and stay-at-home in the picture, about time I finally settled back on the creativity bandwagon.
As per usual, I won't go ahead with the following tasks unless I announce them right here. I meant to start settling down with them a week or more ago, but instead had to settle down (with) a nephew affected by FL's statewide school closures.
Everything I really wanted to do for ages...will eventually come to light. Without further ado, running down a backlog that has lingered on since before G+'s closure:
- First and foremost, a return to the manuscript for Unspooled #1 (en route to a six-part saga). Starting with a belated intro post on Writer Sanctum (KBoards' spiritual reboot)--a try with NaNoWriMo went nowhere--followed by the perfect first line to the entire series (haven't lost it yet), and then a preview represented by the preliminary draft's first 1,000 words (on Inkbunny and also on Steem/Partiko). Leading us to...
- The first several bars of our Mendelssohn-influenced score for installment #1, to be composed not on Noteflight (where I've long tried my luck), but on the more promising and more HTML5-friendly Musescore (which I discovered last month on my open-source tune hunts via Wikimedia Commons). (A few bits and pieces may be generated by WolframAlpha, just as long before.) Leading us further to...
- Feedback on/suggestions for the Various Artists compilation "soundtrack", wherever I can find help. Back in late 2018, I managed to bring up Book 1's suite up to the equivalent of four opening CDs (plus a closing one codenamed "U"), along with a bundle of outtakes; later on, I retooled that of the Grand Finale (Book 6), and determined "opening-credits" pieces for the other four (plus the outro for Book 2). Understandably, a growing collection of Autrison acetates from February 2019 onward have sidetracked this mission. (Autrison, more or less a skeleton operation at this writing thanks to the pandemic's impact and the majority of its staff now in the Panhandle, is the Giraudel, Dominica vinyl company in the Dixwell universe.) As mentioned time and again, Unspooled features civilised talking animals--which brings us back to...
- An opportunity to negotiate with one "SkyPup" on Inkbunny re: his call for competent commissioners. If you were around for this feed's Plus era, I could make a good anthro artist (as my improved design of Unspooled's Samson Dixwell proved back in early 2015).
- Moving on to geofiction: Overhaul each and every recent QGIS experiment of mine, now that I see a staged elevation "uplift" method as the only feasible way to salvage them--but not without a WGS-to-UTM conversion in the process. ("Uplift", in that the resulting landmass rises out of a seamount generated by r.surf.fractal + Wilbur's Calculate Function feature + QGIS' Raster Calculator, on a bathymetric base supplied by NOAA. The second is especially important, since I don't want the land extents to overshoot beyond the project bounds.) Starting tomorrow, we're saying goodbye to the old Rogatia--much bittersweet as it is to announce it--as we phase in a fresh new design which I hope carries the spirit of the original Shropshire, Elmshire, and Yorkshire. Also on the do-over docket, Novissima and Veritas from late 2019, and St. Isabel from 2017-2018; in the months ahead, Cicaldia + Tovasala and a revisit to Vigesima.
- As for Tovasala: Resume development on the Relformaide Dictionary, starting with a revert of the hacking residue at the Referata wiki's Site Settings and a few new roots. (Referata.com itself has suffered from a prolonged "Database error" since sometime in February--meaning no visible "Main Page" or FAQs for now--but as far as I can guess, the sites it hosts are luckier, including the tie-ins for Unspooled and The Sevton Saga that I once invested in. Someday soon, I'll check back with founder Koren.) In related news...
- Experiment with (Semantic) MediaWiki at ByetHost if Referata goes awry in the near future. If all goes well, everything from the conlang to the raccoons to a catalogue of Autrison's wares (sorted by old A#### and new AN#### number) will find its way there. That is, as long as the MW installation process rolls on without a hitch. (In time to come, a best-of G+ collection on WordPress.)
- Revamp and refocus my official PBWorks site, because I don't just publish for the Kindle anymore.
- Last but not least: Drop the "Brandon" in my profile's location byline, effective tomorrow morning. It's now little more than a year since we moved a few miles east to Dover, anyway.
And so ends part two of today's bulletin; here's your go-to for part one this afternoon. Having a doubleheader in one day is once in a blue moon, compared to how things once were on G+. Next we meet, performers in the Panhandle vs. the pandemic of a century as the Notebook reopens; till then, resteems take effect. Once again, please stay safe, wipe everything down, wash your hands...and God bless.
If you're an author, illustrator, animator, or the like, then please drop me a line.
P.S. Saying hi to--and following--one @pawpflawf by handle. (Already found @bleuxwolf; anthros remain a hard find on this platform, but I'll keep looking out.) Also thanking recent guests @beemengine and @filipino.
P.P.S. If SteemViz doesn't load, there's always steemd.com for all your source-code needs. (As an example, here's part one's breakdown.)
P.P.P.S. Beats me how I'm receiving downvotes on my recent posts--from suspected bots who have practically no other activity nor campaign--when quality remains a priority of mine. Either @steevc and/or r/Steemit can shed light on the issue soon, or this Publish0x essay by Juan Molina from last December is doing its best to explain what's happening.
P.P.P.P.S. The Jpop scrobbling test referenced in MN #406 (from last July) took place on July 11, not June 11 as originally mentioned. Seems I mixed up my months back then; while we're at it, why not double the one-week editing deadline for Steem material to two (so that we users don't regret it as much)? I understand Reddit gives you six months, and G+ had it made with indefinite time, but still...
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