In Which I Make a Wiki

This morning for a couple of hours we had Winter Solstice snow in Christchurch. It was oh so exciting, but it did not stick around for long. Alas, the cold did linger, as it tends to do. Well, at least from this point on the days will be getting longer, not shorter.

Mid-winter and mid-summer are the times when it suddenly strikes me that I live in a different hemisphere than most people who speak my language. While those of us who live in NZ have been experiencing an Antarctic blast, Twitter keeps bringing me little snippets of people enjoying this mythical "summer" thing: mentions of barbeques, trips to the beach, ice-cold drinks, etc. It's funny how in the middle of winter, summer feels illusionary, and vice versa. Or maybe that's just me?

Writing Update

I've been pushing on with my novel Reality Shifting (see word count below). I've had to put the revisions of Symmetry Breaking on hold due to burnout, but I hope to get back to that soon.

When I've needed a break from writing, I've been brainstorming for another story I want to work on later in the year. It is a sci fi story that I think will be serialised rather than a novel, as the story is coming to me in discrete chunks. A complex world underlies the story, so I have started putting together a wiki for the series in Evernote. There are three great things about making the wiki in Evernote:

• It is easy to put together and edit across all my devices (with the small exception that the links between pages have to be inserted via the desktop app)
• I can share it with whoever I want, and I can even make the wiki notebook public (i.e. it could be a bonus for readers in the future)
• I already have Evernote and know how to use it (whereas if I downloaded a wiki-specific program, I would then have to teach myself how to use the thing).

All in all, this is an excellent idea and I can't believe I haven't thought of it before. 

A Random Picture

Because I feel like it, here is a random photograph taken by me.

At Ginkakuji (The Silver Pavilion), Kyoto

I've been thinking about Kyoto a lot, for a few reasons. One is that I am reading a book set in Kyoto nearly 1000 years ago (Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter). The other is that I have been doing some research into Heian Period Japan because of another story idea I have. 
I have lots of ideas.

Current progress on Symmetry Breaking:

Revision on a brief hiatus

Current progress on Reality Shifting:

Currently Reading

Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter by Richard Parks

Tweet

Tazawako

On the 5th of August I went to Lake Tazawa in eastern Akita Prefecture. I wrote about the trip several weeks ago. Here are the pictures.

Tatsuko (?) Hime. I think I've got that name right. She is a character in a local folk tale.

Sumiko and myself.

Iwate

On the 31st of July I visited a few places in Iwate Prefecture. Here are the pictures.

This is the campsite we stayed at. It had very good facilities, perhaps too good. It was supposed to be a seaside campground but I couldn't see any sea at all.

Then we drove to an area where we would be able to ride a tourist boat. These are pictures of the area where we waited for the boat.

Taken from the boat.

The purpose of the boat ride was to go out and look at these rocks. Apparently every now and then the sea hits these rocks in such a way that it makes a huge splash.

This is in Ryusendo, one of the largest limestone cave systems in Japan.

This water is 93 metres deep.

From higher up.

The first thing we saw when we came out of the caves.

A decoration on a bridge.

The same water that was in the caves.

The hills that I went tramping around the inside of.

Matsushima

Before I left Japan I did a little bit of sightseeing. I have already written about those trips but I never got around to posting the pictures. Here are some pictures from Matsushima, where I went on the 30th of July. Here is some information on Matsushima from Wikitravel.

On the tourist boat.

I think this might be an oyster farm, but I'm not sure.

A statue at, I think, Zuiganji. The following photos are from the same place.

A hideously garish tourist boat. This is not the boat I rode.

This is another temple, but I don't know what it was called.

Just to prove they really do eat them . . .