Post by chriscrawford on Sept 3, 2016 7:26:27 GMT -8
Last March I began second-stage treatment for prostate cancer. This is nothing serious; we caught it very early and I have always taken the "strike early with the strongest possible measures" approach. Moreover, my particular form of prostate cancer is not terribly dangerous.
The first step in this round of therapy was an injection of a hormone that suppresses the growth of the cancer. This happened in early March. It is supposed to last three or four months. However, it appears that, in my case, the damn stuff won't go away. It has now been nearly six months and I am *still* experiencing some of the side effects of the hormone. I have always been especially sensitive to all medications, but this one is really clobbering me. During April, May, and June, I was useless. I could handle simple stuff but my mind was too fuzzy to accomplish anything serious with Siboot. In July my mind started clearing and by August I felt ready to resume working on Siboot.
However, August has not been anywhere near as productive as I had hoped. I have been able to handle simple problems: cleaning up some minor bugs, adding some simple features, and tidying things up. However, when I attempted some major changes, I found myself staring at the screen, blinking in incomprehension.
I have good days and bad days. Just last week I had a major realization: the game is seriously flawed because there is no emotionally intense conflict. I need people yelling and screaming at each other. So I set to work on building a set of new verbs that would provide such interaction. This, it turns out, is not easy, because the new verbs must integrate smoothly into the existing verb set. I wrote down lists of potential verbs; eventually the list was nearly 50 verbs long. Then I started the integration process, whittling down the list. I now have it down to just six verbs. I think that these verbs provide a good range of possibilities while still fitting into the existing structure reasonably well.
I need to take a few days to make sure that this is the right list, and then I shall start putting them into the storyworld and writing all the scripts necessary to make them work -- a big job that will take me a while.
I'll be seeing the doctor next week to determine if there's anything we can do to clear this hormone out of my system.
The first step in this round of therapy was an injection of a hormone that suppresses the growth of the cancer. This happened in early March. It is supposed to last three or four months. However, it appears that, in my case, the damn stuff won't go away. It has now been nearly six months and I am *still* experiencing some of the side effects of the hormone. I have always been especially sensitive to all medications, but this one is really clobbering me. During April, May, and June, I was useless. I could handle simple stuff but my mind was too fuzzy to accomplish anything serious with Siboot. In July my mind started clearing and by August I felt ready to resume working on Siboot.
However, August has not been anywhere near as productive as I had hoped. I have been able to handle simple problems: cleaning up some minor bugs, adding some simple features, and tidying things up. However, when I attempted some major changes, I found myself staring at the screen, blinking in incomprehension.
I have good days and bad days. Just last week I had a major realization: the game is seriously flawed because there is no emotionally intense conflict. I need people yelling and screaming at each other. So I set to work on building a set of new verbs that would provide such interaction. This, it turns out, is not easy, because the new verbs must integrate smoothly into the existing verb set. I wrote down lists of potential verbs; eventually the list was nearly 50 verbs long. Then I started the integration process, whittling down the list. I now have it down to just six verbs. I think that these verbs provide a good range of possibilities while still fitting into the existing structure reasonably well.
I need to take a few days to make sure that this is the right list, and then I shall start putting them into the storyworld and writing all the scripts necessary to make them work -- a big job that will take me a while.
I'll be seeing the doctor next week to determine if there's anything we can do to clear this hormone out of my system.
