Finally Finally Finally! Third revision of Ziggy’s first book is done. Now I’m looking for beta readers to read it and give me feedback on strong and weak parts of the story. Synopsis This is an autobiography of a man trying to find his place in the world. That world is the Kingdom of Willis, where Wizards are regulated, elves are under siege, Gnomes and Dwarves have locked themselves away, and an undying tyrant is feared by all.

It’s no secret Ziggy’s book is based off a DnD campaign that I ran many years ago, but due to the miracle of Intellectual Property law, I’ll probably have to obfuscate that in the book. The problem is identifying the legal lines in this situation;Â it’s unclear what I am and am not allowed to use. Let’s take the lowly Rust Monster in my book, Rusty. Wizards of the Coast does not appear to own a trademark on the term Rust Monster, however Gary Gygax did invent the creature for the first edition of DnD.

If you ever see me talking to myself, I’m just working through ideas for my book, honest… Here’s a good example of what I’m chomping on right now. So I’ve been thinking, why does Ziggy’s Aunt Makuran hate Ziggy so much? Why does his cousin resent him? First off, Ziggy is adopted, so take that into account. Originally I thought it was because she was upset that Keltrem was made chief instead of her(since she’s female), and resented him for it because she is the eldest child.

So I’ve been pretty quiet since I hit 100k words- what’s been going on? Round of layoffs at work Friend diagnosed with cancer Another round of layoffs at work. Jackie became a pampered chef consultant Finances have been wiped out from christmas and getting her PC stuff off the ground. 10% paycut at work Guitar lessons are now done because no one can afford them. Have been reading Manuscript Makeover for ways to improve my book Decided to do an initial cleanup of the first draft of my script, then rewrite the outline before starting draft #2 started yet another opensource project- this time it’s a collection of Nagios Plugins.

Well, I’ve got this turd polished well enough to release Ziggy 1.0. There’s still a lot left to do, and a lot more to add, but this is a good place for people to start looking at it. Feel free to download it and take him apart- I’ve included the very truncated Dribbly.xml profile (dribbly is surly, be forewarned) and kept ziggy’s real config under wraps. enjoy!

Happy birthday to me, I live in a tree, happy birthday dear me- happy birthday to me. -Ziggy

11:13 -!- lori [45dddd1f@A3455140.59D83169.126F8B2.IP] has joined #irc 11:13 jesse are you there? 11:14 he might be 11:14 want me to go get him? 11:14 sure why not 11:15 * ziggy runs off with a pickled herring under his arm 11:15 yo 11:16 what is jackie's work number? 11:17 *shrug* 11:17 I don't know. 11:17 well what good are you? 11:20 we're all wondering that 11:21 well, other than sperm donor- he seems to have gotten that down.

ok I need help- I need some ur mom jokes. I’d come up with my own but I’m heading over to ur mom’s right now. Just leave them in the comments. -Ziggy.

For those that are not familiar with Ziggy, he is a character based on a DnD character from a few years back and has taken on a life of his own. He’s made an appearance in my Willis module for Neverwinter Nights (based off the same campaign), a book that I’m writing, several sketches as to what he looks like, and an IRC bot written in perl. The IRC bot is what has really shaped his personality, and he’s become pretty much another member of the group.

Hrm… I think I’ll try something new this year. As some of you know, 12/31 is my birthday, and I’m 26 now. That makes it twice as good to look back on my life and reflect. So what’s changed? Quite a bit. I always had a goal growing up, that when I was 25, it would be the one of the best years of my life. Looking back, I think that it very well could be.

I saw a Goat today. His name was Charlie. Charlie was a nice goat. He wore pants. He said to say hi. -Ziggy