J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Month: December 2021

A Merry Covid Christmas to You!

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On December 24

In Personal Updates

I’m in good spirits despite probably having Covid, as does my whole family. I was exposed a couple weeks ago, but thought I had dodged a bullet despite having some minor cold symptoms. I tested negative three days in a row via home tests, then on day five after exposure got a negative PCR test. All clear, right? You would think. But a few days later Kia came down with symptoms, including a fever, and tested positive for Covid. Our kid is sick too, though she has yet to test positive.

We’re all vaccinated and Kia and our daughter are already feeling somewhat better. My symptoms are 90% gone. Of course it’s possible that I actually just had a cold and am about to get Covid, but that seems unlikely. My suspicion is that Omicron can spread even if a person is testing negative. But if I do/did have Covid, I’ve had colds that were much worse.

I’m sad that we have to quarantine and won’t be able to celebrate Christmas with the grandparents, but we’ll doing something in January to make up for it.

Treatment plan has been C, zinc, bromelain, black seed, and lots of garlic.

This and That

  • Finally started The Witcher on Netflix. How did I overlook this show? It’s so good (at least for a D&D/high-fantasy fan such as myself). Might have to read the books and play the videogames as well.
  • I have a new music release out today, a single from the forthcoming Momu album Moons of Jupiter.  Momu – Io (Remixes) opened at #16 on the Beatport Breakbeat releases chart and the Jondi & Spesh Remix is featured at #3 on Beatport’s new Hype releases. The other remix is from Nosk, one of my favorite breakbeat production teams.
  • I’m freelance consulting more than I have in a long time, doing Salesforce config and project management, and well as maintaining Access and SQL Server projects. That’s only leaving me a couple hours each morning for writing, but making good progress nonetheless on some new short fiction. The project management work is harder to batch than I’m used to, but I’m building up the skills and discipline to silo the consulting work into blocks and protect my deep work/creative time.
  • As always, a reminder that my new novel The Last Crucible published by Flame Tree Press is available for sale. And a huge thank you to everyone that has read and/or reviewed any of the books in the series, or mentioned one to a friend.

I hope you are having a great winter holiday. And if you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Doing <> Training, and Natural Talent is Not Holding You Back

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On December 4

In Metaprogramming

Following the World Chess Championship, I’m starkly reminded that there are many levels to the game that I will never personally experience. Magnus and Ian are freaks of nature in their ability to recall and analyze hundreds or even thousands of games, to perform deep calculations extremely rapidly, to rival the play of even the most powerful chess engines.

You and I will never be that good.

At the same time, I know perfectly well that I can get much better of chess if I put in the time and effort. A lack of natural talent is not what’s holding me back. In a few months my ELO went from 500 to around 1100, and though it has plateaued lately, I’m fairly sure I can crack 1200 if I learn a few more openings, and maybe even a gambit or two. Of course there is a hard wall out there somewhere, some natural limit that I will never surpass no matter how much I study. But I’m nowhere near that wall. Nor are the vast majority of most people pursuing improvement in any particular skill.

That said, just playing more chess isn’t helping me much at this point. Nor will writing more words make me a great writer. Same for making more beats and becoming a great producer. In those areas, where I’ve achieved some level of basic competence, I’ve already made whatever gains I can make by just doing the thing. To get better, I need to actively study, to learn new techniques, to analyze and correct my weaknesses, and so on. It’s easy and comfortable to believe that doing=training, but it’s a lie.

Active learning is uncomfortable and makes me feel dumb. When I actively learn in chess (by studying and trying new openings, for example), I lose more games, and my rating goes down. When I try to write in a genre besides science fiction, or write music that isn’t dance music, I feel like a fish out water. But those experiments stretch my skill boundaries. And when I come back to my strengths (the London system, science fiction, dance music), I come back with a broader perspective and more tools.

Don’t give up just because you’ll never be the best. Being much better than you are now is achievable, and hugely satisfying.

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