Category: Chatter

I spent last weekend at Ohio LinuxFest, present on ZFS and meeting readers. First, the obvious question: how did things go between a BSD Unix guy and a whole bunch of Linux fans?

It was kind of like visiting a parallel universe–the GNUniverse, if you will. And unlike Star Trek, that universe’s inhabitants are perfectly friendly.

The program heavily featured system administration and community presentations, where a BSD conference would have had more code. (That’s not a complaint, just an observation.) Friday had a single track of talks, while Saturday had six. This meant I skipped a couple of talks on Friday–I’ve been a sysadmin since 1995, and if I must sit through another talk on GNU screen someone’s getting a serious wedgie. Saturday’s program had an embarrassment of riches, however.

The keynotes were excellent. I particularly enjoyed Catherine Devlin’s talk on open source in the US government. 18F is a great example of how a government agencies can be perfectly competent.

On a BSD-specific note, Ken Moore from iX Systems talked about the new system management tools in PC-BSD TrueOS.

For a small conference OLF treats their speakers quite well, with lunch every day and a pre-con party on Thursday night. They also did an excellent job of communicating with speakers. I knew exactly what was going on, my timetable, and the presentation requirements. Knowing simple things like “our presentation gear is VGA, please bring an adapter” helped everyone a lot.

OLF did have a couple of extra surreal notes to it.

If you watch an SF show with parallel universes, somehow all of the major characters appear in slightly different form. This is absurd–changing the universe around you would change your interests, your personality, and possibly even your very name.

I’m pleased to report, though, that in the GNUniverse of a Linux conference, Andrew Fresh and Peter Hessler are still hackers. Their names have changed, to “Justin Smith” and “Andrew Pullins.” They even wear hacker T-shirts. Their allegiances have changed, however…

The meds are starting to work. I’m feeling better. Not great. Not good. But better. Better enough that I should be making some words. And I’m having a terrible time making words. My writing discipline has collapsed this year, because I’ve been ill.

This happens to every writer–really, any self-employed person who works fully independently. Us indies need to get our discipline back every time something goes wrong.

For me, the trick to getting things back together is to set goals that succeed or fail quickly. These goals give me a quick shot of victory, or confirms that I suck.

For these goals to work, though: someone has to know about them. Someone must know if I succeed or fail. Otherwise, I don’t push myself.

Thursday, I leave for Ohio LinuxFest, to talk about ZFS.

That gives me three days. I could slog into the next tech book, or grind out some words on my current novel, but on Thursday I’d feel like I’d just poked along. No real failure, but no real success either.

I’m giving myself three days to write a short story. There’s a hard word cap of 10,000 words. At 1,000 words an hour, that’s a maximum of ten hours labor in three days.

Some people do challenges where they write a story a day, but they’re up to speed, not coming back. They also write much shorter than I do–I call 10K words “flash fiction” and 80K “a brief novel”

I’ll post my progress on Twitter. Wednesday or Thursday, I’ll follow up with a blog post reporting success or failure.

(This is a “blog it so I can refer folks to it later” post.)

Last year, I wrote 403,000 words. Not great, but not terrible.

So far this year, I’ve written 130,900 words. That is terrible.

I also seem to have passed an awareness threshold. In the last few months, I’ve been offered speaking and teaching opportunities at half a dozen events, including big events like LISA and MeetBSD.

I’ve had to turn them all down. Which sucks. I want to expand my readership, and conferences are a great way to do that. Especially conferences that pay my expenses.

Ditto for the fiction opportunities I’ve been offered. (Which really tonks me off.)

It turns out there’s a reason why I’m tired all the time. Why I can’t concentrate. Why my productivity is in the toilet. Why flying somewhere and returning leaves me wiped out for a week.

Why I’m not doing my usual September writing retreat in Oregon.

Why I’ve had to take bloody naps.

I’m anemic. My blood marrow has shut down, and isn’t making more red blood cells. The ones I have are old and tired, and not doing such a good job of hauling oxygen around my innards.

There’s no reason for alarm at this point. My physician said “hmmm… that should have worked” and sent me to a blood specialist. I’m on more meds. They haven’t used words like “aplastic” or “pernicious.”

If I worked for someone else, they’d just have to put up with me falling asleep at my desk. But I’m self-employed, so my boss isn’t nearly so understanding.

Why am I posting this?

• If you’ve offered me a wonderful speaking or teaching opportunity and I turn you down, this is why. Yes, I want to expand my readership–but if I fly to Georgia and back in the space of a week, I’ll be flat on my back for a week afterwards. Add in a time zone change, and it’d be ten days.
• If you’ve asked me to contribute to a book bundle and I say no: this is why.
• If you’ve offered me exciting work that I’ve inexplicably turned down: ditto.

I am maintaining my existing commitments. I made those commitments already understanding my health. You’ll note that there’s only two of them. The furthest requires a three hour drive, and that’ll require rest breaks. (I’ll be fine at Ohio LinuxFest; I arrive early the day before, and I’m scheduling nine hours of sleep a night.)

My morale wobbles unpredictably between “not good” and “f— anemia.”

The bad news is: it took too damn long to find out this was going on. The anemia’s slow, stealthy progress hid the depth of the problem. It’ll take a while to recover.

The good news is: I’m expected to make a full recovery. There’s no reason at this time to think I’ll need vocabulary words like “aplastic” or “pernicious.”

More bad news is: you can’t do much to help me. The only thing I can do is wait for the meds to work, which will take a whole bunch of time. All I ask is that my readers understand why I’m slow in producing new books this year.

The great news is: I’m under medical advice to eat more cow.

I’ll be in Scottsdale, Arizona, for a few days on family business.

Readers, fans, and detractors are welcome to join me Friday 15 July 2016, 6PM, at Frank & Lupe’s Old Mexico.

And yes, there’s a gelato shop within walking distance. Several, actually.

I’m very hopeful that, while this might not be my last trip to Scottsdale, it will be the last trip to Scottsdale in the summer.

Here’s the interesting things about blackmail: it only works if the victim permits himself to be embarrassed. A victim who is willing to release everything renders himself invulnerable to such threats.

People have wondered how I make a living as a writer. It all depends on how you sell your product.

Sorry, David. You’ll have to buy your books like everyone else. Meet me in the alley if you’re still interested.

Two exciting things happened. First, we have a water heater, kindly provided by the fine folks who sponsored FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS.

A few hours after getting it, my missus declared that she believes the old water heater never worked. At all. She is also highly in favor of water pressure in a shower. Apparently my standards for heat and pressure are lacking.

Secondly, my author copies of FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems arrived from Tilted Windmill Press.

I’ll pack some of them up for shipping this weekend.

I posted this on various social networking sites, but I should probably put it here too.

I’m in Scottsdale, AZ, this week, on family business. I have a couple readers in the Phoenix area, so I’m inviting them, and everyone else in the area, to join me for dinner on Friday night at the Roaring Fork at 6PM.

I should probably mention: while I’m issuing the invite, you get to buy your own meal.

KB suggested the Brat Haus, which looks nice–except that almost all the seating is outside. And I’m thoroughly convinced that the only reason Phoenix was built is because this is where the founders’ last camel died.

So, if you’re in the Phoenix area, show up. Tell me why my books suck. I’m used to it.