Maybe it's just me, but I've been seeing a lot of writers referring to their Work in Progress (WiP) by a code name lately. Since I'm as much of a trend-follower as the next E! zombie and I want to limber up my fingers for some proper fiction, I thought I'd post an update about what I'm working on at the moment.
Project Oh God It Burns is a complete pitch at the moment. It took me about... a week? Maybe two weeks? to get this down in type. It's a very fun little short story, and I'm feeling optimistic about it. I've got a little over a month to polish it up before the deadline comes up, so I'll be coming back to it on odd days for awhile.
Project Lost in the Woods is a bit more problematic. It's also a complete pitch, but one I'm much less confident about. I came up with what I think is a brilliant little plot point to include, but it needs to get set up right at the beginning of the story, which means rewriting the entirety of my pitch. I have no excuse not to get this done, but the fact that I have to depresses me to no end... couldn't I have thought of this a little sooner? Like, before I wrote all this stuff I have to junk now?!
Project Long Hard Slog Over Cracked Glass is a novel pitch, it is not complete, and I have my doubts that it's going to get done by deadline. I have the plot outlined, I know who the characters are and what they want, but I just can't make the damn thing feel feasible. It would be much less of a problem if I didn't have to hit certain story points, but I'm writing to an existing piece of fiction and I can't go too far away from what's already in print. I'll get a pitch done if nothing else - I'd go crazy otherwise - but I might to wait for another year to actually get it to editorial.
Project Sexy Golem is still percolating in my brain and I'll be starting it in August, or whenever I get the first two projects outlined above pitched. (I'll do Long Hard Slog in parallel if it doesn't get done on time.) This is the only original work I'm thinking about at the moment, and it's one of those stories I simply can't not write. It's like an unquiet ghost that floats next to your bedroom window at night and stares. (Or anything that stares. It could be a cute little puppy that stares. The point is that you'll do anything it wants if it'll just stop.)
So that's my workload. If I fail to mention any of this ever again, you have my permission to come over to my house and punch me in the face.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Hacked: The Resolution
This is a follow-on from my last post, so start there if you haven't read it. I'm going to start out with a huge shout out to Amazon here: they've handled this entire incident with pure professionalism, unlike some other companies I could name, but won't because I don't even own a PlayStation.
As of today I have a new Amazon account, using my original email address. This was very easy to set up. My wish lists and gift card balance are going to be moved over to the new account. My Kindle books won't - Amazon doesn't have that capability - but I've been offered a gift card to cover the cost of the books and repurchase them. So I'll be buying Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey twice, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas yet again. The rest, we'll see - UR was a fine story, but I'm not sure I'll ever want to read it again.
I've also been offered a credit for the MP3s on my Amazon Cloud drive. Happily, I'd already copied those songs to my computer, so I don't really have any reason to buy them again. Unhappily, I only had 99 cents of MP3s in the first place.
My Amazon Prime account won't transfer, but I did get refunded for the time I didn't use, and I intend to sign up for it again. It really is ridiculously awesome to get free two-day shipping on the amount of stuff Amazon has available.
The only problem I've had with Amazon is dealing with my Kindle. I had to deregister and reregister the device with my new account, which should have deleted all of the old books I'd bought through Amazon automatically - not an ideal result, but expected. What actually happened is that all of the old books were not erased, but ended up in a weird "hidden" state on my Kindle. This included books I hadn't bought through Amazon, but loaded manually onto the Kindle. And, for some reason, a few books I did buy through Amazon (i.e. Fear and Loathing) stayed readable.
Because I'm relatively honest (and because I'm getting a gift card to cover the repurchase) I wiped all the old files from my Kindle, as Amazon intended. Still, if I'm going to have to deal with drive-wiping DRM, I'd like it to at least do the job thoroughly and correctly. I'd especially like it if all the eBooks that aren't under DRM stayed put. Luckily I kept backups of those, so no harm done.
So is all forgiven? Heck no. I'm still changing passwords everywhere I go. I had to close two credit cards that might have been compromised, and my third card keeps getting locked out by my bank's fraud prevention measures because I've hardly used it before. My purchase history with Amazon is gone, and I actually did listen to their recommendations sometimes, so I'm going to need to rebuild that by hand. And the jerk who did this will, in all likelihood, get away scott free - I've only held back from throwing his email address to the spambots because I know he'll probably never check it again.
But "David Ford", wherever you are, whoever you really are, know this: You're no hacker. You're not Kevin Mitnick, you're not Adrian Lamo. You're a cracker, Ford, just a thief with a PC. And when you inevitably fuck up and get busted, no matter how far away you are, I'll know. And I'll laugh like a Goddamn madman.
As of today I have a new Amazon account, using my original email address. This was very easy to set up. My wish lists and gift card balance are going to be moved over to the new account. My Kindle books won't - Amazon doesn't have that capability - but I've been offered a gift card to cover the cost of the books and repurchase them. So I'll be buying Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey twice, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas yet again. The rest, we'll see - UR was a fine story, but I'm not sure I'll ever want to read it again.
I've also been offered a credit for the MP3s on my Amazon Cloud drive. Happily, I'd already copied those songs to my computer, so I don't really have any reason to buy them again. Unhappily, I only had 99 cents of MP3s in the first place.
My Amazon Prime account won't transfer, but I did get refunded for the time I didn't use, and I intend to sign up for it again. It really is ridiculously awesome to get free two-day shipping on the amount of stuff Amazon has available.
The only problem I've had with Amazon is dealing with my Kindle. I had to deregister and reregister the device with my new account, which should have deleted all of the old books I'd bought through Amazon automatically - not an ideal result, but expected. What actually happened is that all of the old books were not erased, but ended up in a weird "hidden" state on my Kindle. This included books I hadn't bought through Amazon, but loaded manually onto the Kindle. And, for some reason, a few books I did buy through Amazon (i.e. Fear and Loathing) stayed readable.
Because I'm relatively honest (and because I'm getting a gift card to cover the repurchase) I wiped all the old files from my Kindle, as Amazon intended. Still, if I'm going to have to deal with drive-wiping DRM, I'd like it to at least do the job thoroughly and correctly. I'd especially like it if all the eBooks that aren't under DRM stayed put. Luckily I kept backups of those, so no harm done.
So is all forgiven? Heck no. I'm still changing passwords everywhere I go. I had to close two credit cards that might have been compromised, and my third card keeps getting locked out by my bank's fraud prevention measures because I've hardly used it before. My purchase history with Amazon is gone, and I actually did listen to their recommendations sometimes, so I'm going to need to rebuild that by hand. And the jerk who did this will, in all likelihood, get away scott free - I've only held back from throwing his email address to the spambots because I know he'll probably never check it again.
But "David Ford", wherever you are, whoever you really are, know this: You're no hacker. You're not Kevin Mitnick, you're not Adrian Lamo. You're a cracker, Ford, just a thief with a PC. And when you inevitably fuck up and get busted, no matter how far away you are, I'll know. And I'll laugh like a Goddamn madman.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Hacked
Grammar issues aside, yes. Yes I am.
So I'm getting ready to leave my office when I decide to check my email one last time. This is to make sure I don't miss any important messages, i.e. the wife has a dinner preference, or my dentist appointment has been rescheduled for the third time.
As it turns out, I have two important messages. One is a receipt from Amazon.com, informing me that I just purchased $300 in Amazon gift cards. The other is a notice from Amazon.com, informing me that my account has been shut down for "possibly unauthorized account activity".
My first thought was "No shit, Sherlock". My second thought was "Holy fuck, I've been hacked!"
What followed should have been immediate triage, but I had to get home to my own computer to do it, and I work an hour away from home. There are few things that will cause a man more stress than a one hour commute when his bank accounts are likely being mailed to Botswana. One of those things is having this happen when there's beach traffic.
Anyway. I made it home with my sanity intact, let the dog out in the backyard, and powered up my laptop. Step one was making sure that my bank accounts were intact: Amazon claimed that my credit card information hadn't been compromised, but could they guarantee that? No. Fortunately the only suspicious activity in my account was a test charge from Amazon for the $300 order, which disappeared before I even called my bank. I may end up cancelling my cards and ordering new ones on general principle, but for the moment my finances appear to be safe.
Step two was changing every password I could get my hands on, starting with my email account. Thankfully I did not use the same password for Amazon as I do for my email account. I shudder to think of the shitstorm I might have suffered if I did. On principle, I changed the password anyway, and updated some others to be a bit stronger.
At this point I started to relax. Then I remembered all the shit I have tied up in Amazon. I use Amazon Prime, so I may well be out $70 in annual subscription fees. My wife shares my Prime account, so she's screwed too. And I have a flipping Kindle! Do my eBooks transfer to a new account I set up? What about the 99 MP3s I just bought for 99 cents that are floating around in Amazon's cloud storage? Did I just lose those? What about my recommendations?
*huff huff*
I wish I had an answer for those questions, but right now I don't. I'm still waiting for feedback from Amazon on all of them. I'm also waiting to see if I'll need to use a new email address for my account - right now, all signs point to "yes", which annoys me no end.
Still, as ways to get victimized by a fucking criminal go, things could have been a lot worse. Amazon did a great job reacting to the threat, and I should come out of this with minimal losses. The hacker, whoever it was, was a fucking idiot - odds are I would have noticed the problem today regardless, but he could have been a lot more subtle and probably got something out of the attack. Instead he tripped an alarm immediately by being greedy. Finally, nothing else was compromised (so far as I can tell), and I've been retaught the three D's of passwords:
- Don't use weak passwords.
- Don't reuse passwords.
- Don't forget to change your passwords.
Burn his house down! Burning people. He says what we're all thinking!
Friday, May 13, 2011
Fun Times Ahead
Before I get started, I want to put something on the record. This weekend my sister graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law. Not only that, but she's already passed the Bar exam and, once she's taken the Oath, she'll be a full-fledged lawyer licensed to practice in the state of Maryland.
My little sister is all grown up, and she can get my ass out of prison if need be. I'm very proud of her.
At the end of this month I’m going to West Virginia for a few days on a fishing trip. My dad is a member of a hunt club that maintains a cabin up in The Mountains, and while I don’t hunt*, I do enjoy going along for some trout fishing and hiking.
*I spent four years on Annapolis High’s NJROTC Rifle Team, commanded it for two, and qualified for an Expert marksmanship medal, but I still don’t think my dad would trust me with a gun in the woods. Which is a moot point, because he bow hunts, and he is wise to do so. Rifle season in West Virginia always seems to end with a new batch of “thought he was a deer” stories.
If my memory serves, this will be the first time I’ve gone up to the cabin since my wife and I got married. She is not taking this as well as I would have hoped:
I may have to build her a widow’s walk before I leave. That’s probably going to blow our security deposit straight to hell, but whatever I can do to make her feel better.
In the meantime, there’s writing to be done. I’m smack in the middle of Black Library’s open submissions window. Right now, I’m revising a pitch for a short story that I’m quite pleased with - the idea’s been percolating for awhile now, and with another week or two of polish I’ll be glad to send it out the door.
I’ve also been working on a novel pitch, but I’m starting to think that I’ll need to wait for the next window to submit it. I’m three drafts in, and I’ve got a handle on the characters, the world they’re operating in, and the general thrust of the plot. What I don’t have are all the little details that I’ll need to convince the Editor Gods that I can be trusted with 200+ pages to fill.
And, if I’m honest, I might be better served pitching a short story that includes some of the characters I’m working with and gives me a chance to show that, yes, I can write about genetically-enhanced killing machines in an interesting fashion. It certainly can’t hurt my chances.
Regardless, once July gets here and the window closes, I’m going to be switching over to my own stuff for awhile. I’ve had a book rattling around in my skull for two years now: one that I wrote a draft of, badly, for NaNoWriMo. I shelved that draft, but I’ve never been able to shake the concept. It’s stayed in my head, putting down roots and using my idle thoughts to germinate and sprout in new directions. I think by now, it might just be ready to bloom.
I might even be able to start posting word counts again.
My little sister is all grown up, and she can get my ass out of prison if need be. I'm very proud of her.
At the end of this month I’m going to West Virginia for a few days on a fishing trip. My dad is a member of a hunt club that maintains a cabin up in The Mountains, and while I don’t hunt*, I do enjoy going along for some trout fishing and hiking.
*I spent four years on Annapolis High’s NJROTC Rifle Team, commanded it for two, and qualified for an Expert marksmanship medal, but I still don’t think my dad would trust me with a gun in the woods. Which is a moot point, because he bow hunts, and he is wise to do so. Rifle season in West Virginia always seems to end with a new batch of “thought he was a deer” stories.
If my memory serves, this will be the first time I’ve gone up to the cabin since my wife and I got married. She is not taking this as well as I would have hoped:
Wife: I just realized that it is super inconvenient for you to go to WVA the end of the month. I have a work function that I HAVE to be at... I won't even get to leave until...8? Maybe later? Who knows when I'll get home. The Corgi baby will be absolutely dying by the time I'm able to get home.
Me: That is inconvenient. Not extremely inconvenient, but inconvenient. We could always see about asking my mom or sister or someone to drop by and help the Bugbear out - it's not like I'll need my house key in West Virginia. No biggie.
Wife: Or you could just not leave me? *puppy eyes* The boogeyman will get me since you won't be there.
Me: I'll leave you a crowbar to deal with the boogeyman. He doesn't like that.
Wife: Bullshit. Boogeymen LOVE crowbars. Just one more tool that they can disembowel me with.
Me: Oh for... You have GOT to read the fucking Hogfather one of these days. Boogeymen? Not a big deal. A few quick whacks with a blunt instrument and they go running. If that doesn't work, throw a blanket on them and wipe them from existence.
Wife: In that person's world.
In the REAL world. The boogeyman rapes you and disembowels you with whatever is handy.
Also vampires. Vampires that enjoy sucking blood out of people's feet. One of those could get me!
Me: Nobody's getting at your feet when you're tucked in bed. The worst thing that's going to happen is that Lina sneaks upstairs and licks your hand again.
Wife: Lina just likes to look out for me and make sure I'm OK.
Me: I'm putting the whole boogeyman thing on the blog by the way.
I may have to build her a widow’s walk before I leave. That’s probably going to blow our security deposit straight to hell, but whatever I can do to make her feel better.
In the meantime, there’s writing to be done. I’m smack in the middle of Black Library’s open submissions window. Right now, I’m revising a pitch for a short story that I’m quite pleased with - the idea’s been percolating for awhile now, and with another week or two of polish I’ll be glad to send it out the door.
I’ve also been working on a novel pitch, but I’m starting to think that I’ll need to wait for the next window to submit it. I’m three drafts in, and I’ve got a handle on the characters, the world they’re operating in, and the general thrust of the plot. What I don’t have are all the little details that I’ll need to convince the Editor Gods that I can be trusted with 200+ pages to fill.
And, if I’m honest, I might be better served pitching a short story that includes some of the characters I’m working with and gives me a chance to show that, yes, I can write about genetically-enhanced killing machines in an interesting fashion. It certainly can’t hurt my chances.
Regardless, once July gets here and the window closes, I’m going to be switching over to my own stuff for awhile. I’ve had a book rattling around in my skull for two years now: one that I wrote a draft of, badly, for NaNoWriMo. I shelved that draft, but I’ve never been able to shake the concept. It’s stayed in my head, putting down roots and using my idle thoughts to germinate and sprout in new directions. I think by now, it might just be ready to bloom.
I might even be able to start posting word counts again.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
I'm Still In Love With Horus, Baby
I've been enjoying Lady Gaga's new song Judas and, at the same time, rereading the first few books in the Horus Heresy. This has caused, shall we say, odd thoughts.
I can't sing worth a damn (my only "D" in middle school was in Chorus), so if any musically-inclined fans of Warhammer 40,000 want to do something with this, I'd love to hear about it. Keep in mind that the original song lyrics are not mine, none of the characters are mine, and any attempt to profit off this will make powerful people very angry at you.
I can't sing worth a damn (my only "D" in middle school was in Chorus), so if any musically-inclined fans of Warhammer 40,000 want to do something with this, I'd love to hear about it. Keep in mind that the original song lyrics are not mine, none of the characters are mine, and any attempt to profit off this will make powerful people very angry at you.
Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us
Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us
Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos
Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos
[Verse 1]
When he comes to me, I am ready
I'll burn the galaxy if he needs
Stand with him when his Legions march to slay
The Master of Mankind that he betrays
I'll burn it down, burn it down, down
Imperium with no crown, with no crown
[Chorus]
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby
Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us
Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us
Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos
[Verse 2]
I couldn't serve a man so purely
His soldiers all embraced his prideful way
The Emperor abandoned us to die,
Chaos has given us a new way
I'll burn it down, burn it down, down
Imperium with no crown, with no crown
[Chorus]
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby
Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us
Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us
EW
[Bridge]
In the Imperial sense,
I am beyond repentance
Sworn traitor, heretic wretch, corrupted mind
But to the warp-sighted sense
I just speak in future tense
Horus kill me if offensed,
Or close your mind next time
I wanna serve you,
But something's pulling me away from you
The Emperor is my virtue,
And Chaos is the daemon I cling to
I cling to
[Chorus]
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby
Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us
Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us
Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos
Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos
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