Keith D. Jones's Blog, page 8

Do Androids Dream Revelations

For whatever strange and unknownable reason, I'm convinced that the rest of the world and everybody in it doesn't understand Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and I've finally gotten around to ranting about this over at stormsdream.com.

http://www.stormsdream.com/journal/jo...

Flute Vignette, No. 1

Flute Vignette, No. 1, has been uploaded to stormsdream.com. The first new musical composition in almost two years. Yay.

Pyrrhic Kingdom at Barnes & Noble

Pyrrhic Kingdom is also available at Barnes & Noble in both dead-tree and Nook Book formats. Yeah, I suppose this didn't really need its own entry right after the last entry about Amazon availability.

Pyrrhic Kingdom at Amazon

Pyrrhic Kingdom is available at Amazon in both dead-tree and Kindle formats. Yay!

Stormsdream RSS Retired

Yeah, I got rid of my RSS feed. Didn't really see much point in keeping it up. Hardly updating my website anyone. The RSS feed was one less thing to worry about. So the recent news update I did post on my website didn't show up here because of the lack of an RSS feed.

Journal: Three Months Waiting

It's been about three months, more-or-less, since I finished the first-draft of my Shakespeare adaption, and I suppose I really should get around to actually calling it by its new name in this here journal. All part of the service, right? If I don't actually refer to it by name, then it's less real, which doesn't entirely make sense unless I do a little more to explain.

I've been terribly, horribly paranoid about the whole process. Really, it's rather unlike me. I have absolutely no idea why I have been so completely and utterly convinced that somebody is going to steal my idea. The arrogance alone in simply just imagining such a thing really isn't worth getting into. My own little ego head and leave it at that.

Anyway, I've been paranoid, as I said. Been more than a little reluctant to describe what I've been up to. Mention the specific Shakespeare play that I've adapted or the kind-of things I've done to it as part of the adaptation. Been really very cagey. Reluctant to talk about. That kind-of thing. Silly, really.

News: Redesigned Website, version 5

The new website design is finally live. I'm sure there are lots of little bugs and things that still need to be worked out, but there you are. The biggest change and the reason I wanted to redesign the website in the first place is the page is now centered on the screen. I know. I know. Very silly reason for a redesign. I also wanted the text to scale so that you could actually read it on a portable device, but I couldn't quite get that part to work the way I wanted. Or happpy with. Or whatever. Whole process took much longer than planned because this is only one of about six things I try to do with my very precious and limited free time. But, it is done. Yay!

Journal: Vignette Plans

Long ago and far away, the plan was to work on a simple adaptation and on musical vignettes. The day-job was proving to be a serious pain in the ass, devouring far more time and energy than it had any right to be consuming. Needs of the world and all of that bullshit. Keep a roof over your head. Don't starve. Yeah, yeah. Bullshit, like I said.

So, the plan was to maintain some level of a reason for living by working on projects in the evening that wouldn't leave me so devoid of life and energy that I didn't simply keel over dead. Hate that day-job, did I say that already? Anyway, the plan was that an adaptation wouldn't devour as much mental energy. Musical vignettes wouldn't leave me so drained that I wouldn't be able to function. I remember the days—nights, really—working on The Magic Flute or The Etymology of Fire where I would fall asleep with pen in hand. Whatever word or sentence on the page left half-finished. I would startle awake at some ungodly hour past midnight to discover a great big ink stain on my pillow, which would invariably make me incredibly angry.

Knew this couldn't go on. Not as young as I once was. Sure, The Magic Flute may have been written on an average of four hours of sleep per night, but those days were long past. That and the doctors I worked for at the time kept telling me that I was killing myself by keeping up that schedule. These days I average five hours a night, but that's beside the point.

Journal: Editing Adaptations

Okay, the heavy lifting is done. The first draft of my adaptation of a Shakespeare play is complete. Next stage is tricky, waiting three to six months before starting to edit. Don't think I'll manage six months. I'll be lucky if I can wait three. The thing is it's important to wait. I can't spot my own typos and mistakes if I don't take a break from the text. I'll just edit in my head. The break is important. Also, I'm more likely to notice poorly written bits with a break. Just look at The Etymology of Fire, for example. I think I deleted about a third of the text in the editing stage. Probably an exaggeration. Just felt like a third of the text because I was the one doing serious damage to my own writing. Murdering lots of babies and little darlings and all of that. It was worth it, my opinion. I think Etymology of Fire really flows. Best written of the three. I know. I know. Biased. What can I say?

Anyway, the editing stage is going to be tricky for this new Shakespeare adaptation thing because there is very little text to be edited down. I mean. It's short. It's spare. It's downright minimalistic. So, there's not much that can be cut. Hopefully, the edit will mostly consist of spotting poorly done turns-of-phrase that I will be able to improve. Optimistic and all of that.

Funny thing about me and my approach to writing. I'm very much the warts-and-all type. First draft is also the last draft. Minimal editing. Editing is at the text level. Plot is locked. Chapters and scenes are locked. Characters are locked. Fix the grammar. Hunt down those typos. Fix descriptions. If something was described as on the right before, then please make sure it is always on the right. It shouldn't bounce around from left to right. Oh, unless that's actually important to the story.

News: Updated ePub xhtml Formatting

Finished revising the xhtml formatting of all three ePub copies of my novels and finally got around to uploading the new versions to my website. Also, uploaded the new xhtml versions to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Shouldn't really notice a difference reading the books; however, under the hood, the code is completely different. InDesign always made things so complicated. The latest version of LibreOffice exports a much cleaner html file, and Sigil has evolved to the point where it is easy to build the .epub yourself. The Faire Folk of Gideon is the only one that should look noticably different with a more interactive table of contents. Of course, it also now includes an xthml table of contents that isn't interactive at all. Probably easy to confuse the two depending on the ePub reader.