Stick Man

[Dustin Adams]

Is Martin working on a thesis too?

Seriously, I miss the donkey and the stick...

Sigh. Need some chatter. It's so quiet I can hear myself think - and that's never a good thing.

[E.CaimanSands]

I expect Martin is WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! ing.

[Strycher]

I expect Martin is WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! ing.

True that. I'm sure Donkey Face would have a succinct quip, but sadly, I am neither succinct nor quipish.

[george nik.]

Unless Martin's one of the people who got the Call--and they are expected to remain silent...

[Dustin Adams]

Not across every forum thread they aren't...

Though you could be on to something, George. There's a stony silence in here of late.

Well, not from me. I keep making noise...

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

While it is gratifying to be missed, I think my status is best explained by an excerpt from one of my old blog posts:

WSR (Work-to-Sleep Ratio)
This is a measure of how likely your team members are to make mistakes at crucial moments. If their WSR for the week is 1 or less, they're probably bored. 1.25 or even 1.5 are signs of a team moving at a good pace. Higher than that, though, can be a problem. 2 is about the limit for a typical team member, and they probably can't keep that up. Rare individuals can maintain a WSR of 3 for a time.

At one point last year, my WSR was 7.5. That's just not good.

My WSR this week is slightly over 3. Not a good week. And the stress level is high (for reasons I'm not at liberty to discuss), and my head feels like it will crack open at any moment.

On the plus side, a little bit of that lack of sleep was not due to work, but due to my Mars story finally coming together. Now if I can get some sleep, maybe I can write the latest story that threatened to interrupt the Mars story.

But it sounds like we're about to enter the guessing stage for the quarter. And so it's time for me to brush the dust off my stock answer.

The stories I could tell you...
The stories I could tell you...

[Dustin Adams]

You know you're a writer when: you lose sleep over a story.

You're awesome, Martin.

I'm keeping my eye on your signature. If the NNiNN mysteriously disappears, you're busted.

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

Heh. One night of no sleep may be awesome; but three months of procrastinating on that story feels like a failure.

Yes, in my defense, three other stories and a rewrite and travel crept in to interrupt it, and almost a fourth story.

Yes, I think it was a better story in April than the story in my head in January.

But three months is too darned long for a 9,600 word story!

WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!

[morshana]

I'm procrastinating on a few stories, myself. I have a possibility for Q3 (something I wrote last year and have since tinkered with in attempt to fix its flaws), but there's a story brewing in the back of my mind, yammering to be told, along with a gazillion others, that I'm having focus issues. Being gone for a week didn't help. Threw off my momentum. Wonderfully relaxing time in Kauai, but I think I got a little *too* relaxed.

[morshana]

Is Martin working on a thesis too?

Seriously, I miss the donkey and the stick...

Sigh. Need some chatter. It's so quiet I can hear myself think - and that's never a good thing.

*crickets singing*

[DavidK]

I took the beast for a ride through the hills today so that I could think through the last bit of my current story - it's amazing how relaxing one can be with 16 liters of inflammable liquid strapped between one's legs.


http://www.davidkernot.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/WarrenResevoir2.jpg

[Grayson Morris]

But it sounds like we're about to enter the guessing stage for the quarter. And so it's time for me to brush the dust off my stock answer.

The stories I could tell you...
The stories I could tell you...

Yes, but is that really a stock answer, or is it a subtle hint that you've heard something? In which case, since only finalists are sworn to secrecy, wouldn't that have to be what you'd heard?

So, really, you've just fanned the fires. *wink*

[Rebecca Birch]

But it sounds like we're about to enter the guessing stage for the quarter. And so it's time for me to brush the dust off my stock answer.

The stories I could tell you...
The stories I could tell you...

Yes, but is that really a stock answer, or is it a subtle hint that you've heard something? In which case, since only finalists are sworn to secrecy, wouldn't that have to be what you'd heard?

So, really, you've just fanned the fires. *wink*

It must be evil Martin! Hide!

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

It must be evil Martin! Hide!

Nah, I've had Evil Martin locked in the dungeon this week. If I had let him out with the work week I've had, blood would've been shed.

But I hear rumors that he's loose in another part of the forum today...