Doug Farren's Blog, page 28
October 28, 2012
10-29-2012: The Perils of Not Outlining
Last week, I spent a great deal of time thinking about a tiny piece of my current work in progress. It revolves around how a potential enemy could gain access to an unsecured link into the military's communication network. Because of my work schedule, I didn't get any writing done - just a lot of thinking. By the time Saturday rolled around I still had not solved the problem but while thinking about it my subconscious had been busy revising what I had previously written. Saturday is the day we usually go to the bookstore. I write and drink wonderful coffee while my wife reads. I fired up the laptop, opened up Scrivener, and started re-reading the last few paragraphs to get the creative juices flowing. That's when my brain informed me that the plot needed a bit of action and I would have to throw out most of what I had written last weekend. Even though I've ended up rewriting the last two chapters, my subconscious was right and the story is better with the new material.
Peacekeeper is starting to solidify into a respectable novel. I have a whole list of things I need to go back and fix but I won't work on those until the rest of the story is complete. With my work schedule of late and the holiday season upon us, it's going to be a challenge to finish the first draft before I start working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for the refuel outage. I will do my best. As for retirement - I seriously doubt I will be retiring any time soon so slow writing will just have to continue.
I've said this before, I don't do outlines. The story pretty much comes to life as I sit at the computer. Often, this way of writing can result in the destruction of previously written material to make the story better. I've tried outlining, it doesn't work for me. The human brain is a marvelous hunk of complexity and it works in mysterious ways. I've come to trust that little voice I hear every so often because more often than not it's right. I also know that when I'm 'in the groove' and the words are flowing off my fingers as fast as I can type, I might, at times, discover that I'm writing something I never planned. Instead of stopping to figure out what the heck is going on, I just keep writing. I love it when I can surprise myself.
Yesterday, I dropped by Createspace to change the cover on "Off Course". I discovered two things: 1) Createspace has a new distribution channel which I did not know about - I signed on. 2) My prices were way too high. I went through every single book and dropped the prices as low as I could while still making a tiny profit. I'm surprised someone hadn't said something about such high prices. I think Createspace must have lowered their production cost allowing me to sell the books at a much lower price. If you want to buy a printed copy - check out the new prices.
In other news, we have taken over custody of two very lovable outdoor cats. They're brother and sister. I love cats but I'm also allergic to them which means that even though they are allowed in the house they will be spending the majority of their time outdoors. For the summer, we bought them each a small cat house where they can sleep during the night. For the winter, I built them a house. I took a child's playhouse, set it on a platform, sealed up the openings with plexiglass, insulated it, put up a shelf for them to sit and look out the window, installed a small thermostatically controlled heater, and gave them a heated pad to sleep on. It took some training but they now use the cat door without any problems. Late last night I discovered a flaw in my design - I forgot to caulk the edge. The carpet inside the house is soaking wet because of all the rain we've had. It wicked in from around the edges. A dry floor was installed and caulking will be done first thing in the morning before I head to work (I'm on second shift this week).
Peacekeeper is starting to solidify into a respectable novel. I have a whole list of things I need to go back and fix but I won't work on those until the rest of the story is complete. With my work schedule of late and the holiday season upon us, it's going to be a challenge to finish the first draft before I start working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for the refuel outage. I will do my best. As for retirement - I seriously doubt I will be retiring any time soon so slow writing will just have to continue.
I've said this before, I don't do outlines. The story pretty much comes to life as I sit at the computer. Often, this way of writing can result in the destruction of previously written material to make the story better. I've tried outlining, it doesn't work for me. The human brain is a marvelous hunk of complexity and it works in mysterious ways. I've come to trust that little voice I hear every so often because more often than not it's right. I also know that when I'm 'in the groove' and the words are flowing off my fingers as fast as I can type, I might, at times, discover that I'm writing something I never planned. Instead of stopping to figure out what the heck is going on, I just keep writing. I love it when I can surprise myself.
Yesterday, I dropped by Createspace to change the cover on "Off Course". I discovered two things: 1) Createspace has a new distribution channel which I did not know about - I signed on. 2) My prices were way too high. I went through every single book and dropped the prices as low as I could while still making a tiny profit. I'm surprised someone hadn't said something about such high prices. I think Createspace must have lowered their production cost allowing me to sell the books at a much lower price. If you want to buy a printed copy - check out the new prices.
In other news, we have taken over custody of two very lovable outdoor cats. They're brother and sister. I love cats but I'm also allergic to them which means that even though they are allowed in the house they will be spending the majority of their time outdoors. For the summer, we bought them each a small cat house where they can sleep during the night. For the winter, I built them a house. I took a child's playhouse, set it on a platform, sealed up the openings with plexiglass, insulated it, put up a shelf for them to sit and look out the window, installed a small thermostatically controlled heater, and gave them a heated pad to sleep on. It took some training but they now use the cat door without any problems. Late last night I discovered a flaw in my design - I forgot to caulk the edge. The carpet inside the house is soaking wet because of all the rain we've had. It wicked in from around the edges. A dry floor was installed and caulking will be done first thing in the morning before I head to work (I'm on second shift this week).
October 17, 2012
10-17-12 Peacekeeper and Scrivener
Peacekeeper is beginning to move along albeit slowly. I'm having a hard time finding my 'groove' recently. I believe the issue has to do with distractions. There was a time when I did a lot of computer programming. I loved it and there are times I miss the thrill of watching a complex piece of code execute flawlessly. Speaking in the tongue of C or VB was always fun. A few weeks ago, I was asked if I would like to finish a project I started nearly 2 years ago. Even though the possibility of being allowed to continue work on the project is slim (manpower issues) it triggered that old 'programming' mode inside me. I've been reading a couple books on Visual Studio and C# programming. That's my major distraction right now.
I recently picked up a book titled Philosophical Explanations by Robert Nozick. I didn't realize that philosophy books were so hard to read! It's like reading a book on quantum physics when you have only a knowledge of basic algebra. Heavy stuff. But, I'm plugging my way through this massive 650 page book in the hopes of expanding my limited awareness of my surroundings. I also have magazines to read as well as several books on how to improve my writing and some science fiction I've been wanting to get to. Time seems to be something I'm in short supply of. Anyone know where I can buy some more? Perhaps when I'm retired. . .yah--like that's going to happen soon.
I thought I would give one final update on Scrivener. My bottom line after using it for quite some time now is that I like it. I haven't tried to compile anything yet but for creating the first draft of a book I find it to be most useful. The ability to display document notes as well as two separate documents simultaneously is a big advantage. I like that it remembers where I left off. There are ways of getting something about the same with Word or OpenOffice but it's not as smoothly integrated as Scrivener. In the past, I would have to create two documents and then open then up and resize them so I could see them both. With Scrivener it's part of the program. I do have one word of advice - read the manual carefully! I wanted to work with my manuscript as a single, large document and I thought Scrivener had a way of doing so. It took some digging and I had to read the words carefully but I did figure out how to do it. Many of the features are not self-evident so, please, read the manual.
I recently picked up a book titled Philosophical Explanations by Robert Nozick. I didn't realize that philosophy books were so hard to read! It's like reading a book on quantum physics when you have only a knowledge of basic algebra. Heavy stuff. But, I'm plugging my way through this massive 650 page book in the hopes of expanding my limited awareness of my surroundings. I also have magazines to read as well as several books on how to improve my writing and some science fiction I've been wanting to get to. Time seems to be something I'm in short supply of. Anyone know where I can buy some more? Perhaps when I'm retired. . .yah--like that's going to happen soon.
I thought I would give one final update on Scrivener. My bottom line after using it for quite some time now is that I like it. I haven't tried to compile anything yet but for creating the first draft of a book I find it to be most useful. The ability to display document notes as well as two separate documents simultaneously is a big advantage. I like that it remembers where I left off. There are ways of getting something about the same with Word or OpenOffice but it's not as smoothly integrated as Scrivener. In the past, I would have to create two documents and then open then up and resize them so I could see them both. With Scrivener it's part of the program. I do have one word of advice - read the manual carefully! I wanted to work with my manuscript as a single, large document and I thought Scrivener had a way of doing so. It took some digging and I had to read the words carefully but I did figure out how to do it. Many of the features are not self-evident so, please, read the manual.
October 11, 2012
10-11-12 Short story complete
This last week has been an incredibly busy one for me. Even though I've been off for the last 7 days, I've not had much time to write. We have taken over the care and feeding of a pair of cats (brother and sister) from across the street. Mamma cat had kittens some time ago and lost both of them. We decided to get them spayed and neutered. With winter on the way, we decided to set them up with a nice shelter. My wife ordered a playhouse which I had put together a couple weeks ago. I spent most of my 7-day finishing that project. The playhouse now has plexiglass windows and is insulated. There is a nice ledge inside for the cats to lay on and look out the window. The floor is carpeted and a heated pad is as well as a heated water dish are inside. Tomorrow we begin introducing the cats to their new home.
I also spent time doing family things. We drove to Sandusky to visit my daughter. I spent time mulching the leaves and putting the outside in order for winter. Even though I was busy, I still managed to squeeze in some time for writing. I put Peacekeeper on temporary hold in order to work on a short story. The people I went to Launchpad with are putting together an anthology of sorts and they put out a call for short stories. I normally don't write them but an idea for one did pop into my head. I didn't want to forget about it so I decided to write it to make sure it was complete before the submission deadline. The first draft is now done.
Peacekeeper will be back on my radar as of tomorrow night. I'm rolling to night shift starting on Thursday night. I can usually get a few hours of writing in when I'm on this shift. But, things are starting to get very busy at work so I may or may not have the time. I will have to go back and edit the short story in the near future but until then I'll be working on Peasekeeper. I have a little over 30,000 words written right now.
Right now it's a little after three o'clock in the morning and I'm pretty tired. I need to stay up for at least another 3 hours. If I try to work on Peacekeeper I will fall asleep at the keyboard. So, instead of working on writing, I'll be firing up an action-packed movie (Avengers comes to mind) to keep me awake. Hopefully though, when I next blog I will be able to report some progress on Peacekeeper.
I also spent time doing family things. We drove to Sandusky to visit my daughter. I spent time mulching the leaves and putting the outside in order for winter. Even though I was busy, I still managed to squeeze in some time for writing. I put Peacekeeper on temporary hold in order to work on a short story. The people I went to Launchpad with are putting together an anthology of sorts and they put out a call for short stories. I normally don't write them but an idea for one did pop into my head. I didn't want to forget about it so I decided to write it to make sure it was complete before the submission deadline. The first draft is now done.
Peacekeeper will be back on my radar as of tomorrow night. I'm rolling to night shift starting on Thursday night. I can usually get a few hours of writing in when I'm on this shift. But, things are starting to get very busy at work so I may or may not have the time. I will have to go back and edit the short story in the near future but until then I'll be working on Peasekeeper. I have a little over 30,000 words written right now.
Right now it's a little after three o'clock in the morning and I'm pretty tired. I need to stay up for at least another 3 hours. If I try to work on Peacekeeper I will fall asleep at the keyboard. So, instead of working on writing, I'll be firing up an action-packed movie (Avengers comes to mind) to keep me awake. Hopefully though, when I next blog I will be able to report some progress on Peacekeeper.
September 28, 2012
Backup plan saves the day
About a week ago my wife’s hard drive began reporting eminent failure from the drive's SMART system. I've been working 12-hour nights and I let it go, hoping it would last. I did, however, create a system image just in case it didn't last much longer.
The other day, it began sporadically rebooting. I pulled her failing HD out and replaced it with an identical one from a system I had retired a year ago but kept around in case I needed it. I fired the computer up with the Windows Recovery CD and restored her entire system in about an hour. Twenty-four hours went by and then I got a call at work telling me that the Quicken file we use to track our money was out of date. Oops! I had totally forgotten that Quicken was the ONLY program that stored data on the C: drive!
I was not worried though. Because of how I had set up our backups everything was easily fixed. I use I-Drive to back up our financial stuff. Quicken makes a backup copy after every 5th time it is closed. I also have a batch file that runs daily to copy the Quicken master file and backups over to the I-Drive which is cloud storage. You might be thinking that I was still out of luck since the daily backup would have already overwritten the cloud version with the older version – and it did. But, I-Drive maintains a history of previous versions. It was a simple matter to go find the version that existed prior to the HD replacement and restore it. All my wife had to do is reenter the changes from a day ago – a piece of cake since I told her to keep the receipts set aside until I fixed the issue.
The above situation simply proves a point I’ve been trying to impress upon others for a long time – hard drives can and do fail and having a good backup system in place can prevent data loss. I use I-Drive to backup my financial data and Dropbox to synchronize my book files between the various computers I might be using. I also have a large 2 TB network drive (Seagate GoFlex Home if you're curious) that is used to back up all of the other data I have laying around. I periodically make system images which are stored on external drives. I keep my data (well most of it anyway) separate from the operating system drive. For the REALLY important stuff I have a small portable drive that either sits in our firebox or in the bank's safe deposit box.
I have always been a fanatic about backing things up – and now I know why. Now it's time to write!
September 24, 2012
Writer's block and how I overcame it
It happens to every writer-the dreaded blank mind-writer's block. It might last 60 seconds, an hour, all day, or for much, much longer. This happened to me while working on Peacekeeper. I had just finished writing a scene and was about to begin chapter 15. Nothing, nada, a blank mind. Crap! I have a rare opportunity to spend 4 hours writing and I've got nothing. Crap!
Writer's block can be devastating to a writer who thinks they must write a certain number of words each day. I write what I can, when I can and when writer's block hits I have to put writing aside and let my subconscious mind work its magic. I close down Scrivener, get up, and walk away. But, I don't stop thinking about the problem. I do other things to help take my mind off the novel. I read, mow the lawn, get things done around the house, watch TV, or surf the web. The trick for me is to get my mind on something else allowing the subconscious to work. I will periodically check back with the problem, reminding my hidden self that there's something that needs resolved. I think about the problem driving to work, while taking a shower, and as I'm trying to go to sleep. The last seems to work best.
This time the block lasted 3 days. The solution, as it normally does, came to me seemingly out of the blue. I was sitting on the couch with my wife watching TV when my subconscious alerted me to the fact that it had solved the problem. An entire scene suddenly popped into my head. Being a good husband, I didn't just get up and run to the computer room. I will admit that my interest in the program playing on the set was now close to zero. I ran the scene over in my head, told my wife about the epiphany, and then proceeded to fill in the details. By the time my wife had to go to bed, the scene was clear with words on standby to be typed.
I was working my way into a night-shift schedule and after my wife hit the hay I hit the keyboard. I managed to hammer out quite a bit before sleep started to interfere. I was forced to go to bed with more words ready to write. The next day I continued writing and as I did the next scene unfolded without any problems.
If writer's block strikes, perhaps simply walking away for awhile will help break it. The subconscious mind is a wonderful, incredible, tool. Let it do it's job and keep prodding it until it produces an answer. Peacekeeper is now at 29,300 words. Hopefully, I will have time from 0300 until 0630 (I work from 1830 till 0630 but the second-shift crew doesn't leave until 0300) for the next 3 days while I'm on night shift to add to that count.
Just finished "Beginnings, Middles & Ends" by Nancy Kress. You can read my review on GoodReads at: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68317.Beginnings_Middles_Ends. I'm now starting a rather thick book titled "Philosophical Explanations".
Writer's block can be devastating to a writer who thinks they must write a certain number of words each day. I write what I can, when I can and when writer's block hits I have to put writing aside and let my subconscious mind work its magic. I close down Scrivener, get up, and walk away. But, I don't stop thinking about the problem. I do other things to help take my mind off the novel. I read, mow the lawn, get things done around the house, watch TV, or surf the web. The trick for me is to get my mind on something else allowing the subconscious to work. I will periodically check back with the problem, reminding my hidden self that there's something that needs resolved. I think about the problem driving to work, while taking a shower, and as I'm trying to go to sleep. The last seems to work best.
This time the block lasted 3 days. The solution, as it normally does, came to me seemingly out of the blue. I was sitting on the couch with my wife watching TV when my subconscious alerted me to the fact that it had solved the problem. An entire scene suddenly popped into my head. Being a good husband, I didn't just get up and run to the computer room. I will admit that my interest in the program playing on the set was now close to zero. I ran the scene over in my head, told my wife about the epiphany, and then proceeded to fill in the details. By the time my wife had to go to bed, the scene was clear with words on standby to be typed.
I was working my way into a night-shift schedule and after my wife hit the hay I hit the keyboard. I managed to hammer out quite a bit before sleep started to interfere. I was forced to go to bed with more words ready to write. The next day I continued writing and as I did the next scene unfolded without any problems.
If writer's block strikes, perhaps simply walking away for awhile will help break it. The subconscious mind is a wonderful, incredible, tool. Let it do it's job and keep prodding it until it produces an answer. Peacekeeper is now at 29,300 words. Hopefully, I will have time from 0300 until 0630 (I work from 1830 till 0630 but the second-shift crew doesn't leave until 0300) for the next 3 days while I'm on night shift to add to that count.
Just finished "Beginnings, Middles & Ends" by Nancy Kress. You can read my review on GoodReads at: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68317.Beginnings_Middles_Ends. I'm now starting a rather thick book titled "Philosophical Explanations".
September 16, 2012
Time management
Jake Kerr, a fellow Launchpad 12 attendee, posted an interesting tweet the other day: "My recent promotion at work has been the absolutely worst thing to happen to my writing. Need more hours in day." I feel his pain! I have a job that demands a lot of my time. I also try to give my wife head of the line privileges in the list of things I must do. Writing is often item 3 or 4. But, proper time management can allow me to squeeze a little bit of writing time out of a busy schedule. The key to proper time management is to get your priorities straight.
I cannot write when there are people talking around me, especially if the conversation involves anything I might be interested in. I can, however, read during those times. To write, I need to concentrate and think about the scene I'm trying to develop and how I'm going to put that scene into words. I can't do that when there are distractions. When I read, I am taking in information and I have developed the ability to tune out the rest of the world. What that means for me is when I have some time but I can't concentrate on writing I can read. That allows more time later to write. At the moment, I'm reading books on how to write which are important to me and therefore have a fairly high priority.
If I find myself with time at work, I think about my current project. This allows me to start writing almost as soon as I sit in front of the keyboard. I might only get a paragraph or two written before something interrupts but that's a paragraph I won't have to write later on. Let me give you an example of how I manage my time. Yesterday my wife went out with a friend leaving me to myself for most of the day. I had a huge list of things to do. I did 2 of them while she was in the shower. While I was doing another I thought about what I was going to write. Two other items needed concentration so I thought nothing of writing. When everything was done I could do one of several things; Read, watch some TV and relax, surf the web, or write. I grabbed the netbook, set myself up outside, and spent 2 hours writing.
This morning I had several things to do including updating this blog. This blog is writing. As soon as it's finished I will fire up Scrivener and keep working on Peacekeeper which I thought about this morning during breakfast as well as last night in the shower and while falling asleep. I have words in my head ready to hit the keyboard.
I just finished reading "Characters and Viewpoint". I give it 3 stars. Good information but a bit heavy on the examples. I think the examples could have been shorter as reading too much of an example detracts from the lessons the author is trying to give. Overall though it was a good book. I also finished reading "Spider Star" by Mike Brotherton, the person responsible for Launchpad 12. I also give it 3 stars. Good reading. I am now reading "Beginnings, Middles, & Ends".
Peacekeeper has undergone some revisions since I last posted making the word count now 26K. As Stephan King would say, 'The delete key is your friend'. I ended up throwing out large chunks of stuff I had copied in from 'The Elite of the Alliance'. I am now into completely new material as I have diverged too far from that ancient novel for me to use it anymore.
I have about an hour before my wife gets up. Gee, what should I do? Surf the web? Tweet? Watch a science fiction show I've been wanting to see? I know - WRITE!
I cannot write when there are people talking around me, especially if the conversation involves anything I might be interested in. I can, however, read during those times. To write, I need to concentrate and think about the scene I'm trying to develop and how I'm going to put that scene into words. I can't do that when there are distractions. When I read, I am taking in information and I have developed the ability to tune out the rest of the world. What that means for me is when I have some time but I can't concentrate on writing I can read. That allows more time later to write. At the moment, I'm reading books on how to write which are important to me and therefore have a fairly high priority.
If I find myself with time at work, I think about my current project. This allows me to start writing almost as soon as I sit in front of the keyboard. I might only get a paragraph or two written before something interrupts but that's a paragraph I won't have to write later on. Let me give you an example of how I manage my time. Yesterday my wife went out with a friend leaving me to myself for most of the day. I had a huge list of things to do. I did 2 of them while she was in the shower. While I was doing another I thought about what I was going to write. Two other items needed concentration so I thought nothing of writing. When everything was done I could do one of several things; Read, watch some TV and relax, surf the web, or write. I grabbed the netbook, set myself up outside, and spent 2 hours writing.
This morning I had several things to do including updating this blog. This blog is writing. As soon as it's finished I will fire up Scrivener and keep working on Peacekeeper which I thought about this morning during breakfast as well as last night in the shower and while falling asleep. I have words in my head ready to hit the keyboard.
I just finished reading "Characters and Viewpoint". I give it 3 stars. Good information but a bit heavy on the examples. I think the examples could have been shorter as reading too much of an example detracts from the lessons the author is trying to give. Overall though it was a good book. I also finished reading "Spider Star" by Mike Brotherton, the person responsible for Launchpad 12. I also give it 3 stars. Good reading. I am now reading "Beginnings, Middles, & Ends".
Peacekeeper has undergone some revisions since I last posted making the word count now 26K. As Stephan King would say, 'The delete key is your friend'. I ended up throwing out large chunks of stuff I had copied in from 'The Elite of the Alliance'. I am now into completely new material as I have diverged too far from that ancient novel for me to use it anymore.
I have about an hour before my wife gets up. Gee, what should I do? Surf the web? Tweet? Watch a science fiction show I've been wanting to see? I know - WRITE!
September 7, 2012
Peacekeeper update
My short story was rejected by Lightspeed magazine. There's no shame in that. Many authors get rejections on good stories and I'm not upset at all. I've submitted it to Analog magazine. They have a 5 week wait before replying to submissions. If Analog turns it down (very possible) then I will put it up on my website. I will let you know what happens.
Looks like most of the Launchpad friends came back from Chicon-7 with some sort of flu - they're calling it the chicrud. Appropriate. Oddly enough, I've also come down with some type of sore throat that's been lingering for 4 days now. It doesn't slow me down but at night it makes sleeping a bit difficult because that's when it decides to get dry and more sore. Taking zinc and supplements to fight it.
Peacekeeper is coming along nicely with over 30,000 words now sitting inside the hard drive. This book is a bit unique for me because I'm using chunks from another book to create this one. I copy a chapter and then spend a couple days editing it, adding new material, and deleting huge pieces of it. Now that I have 7 novels under my belt I can easily see why 'The Elite of the Alliance' could never have been published! The storyline is about to diverge from that old novel and new material will soon be flowing.
I am constantly amazed as to how the subconscious mind works. One of the scenes I copied had the main character save a passenger liner from pirates. There are no pirates in the GA universe! But I needed to do something to add some adventure and mystery at that point in the book. I rewrote the scene adding a bit of mystery to the book. Truthfully, I didn't have much more beyond that. The other day, as I was thinking about stuff much farther along in the story I discovered that I needed that scene to help knit together the developing story line. Same goes for the bit I decided to put at the beginning. I did it to kick-start the book. Now, it's going to play a pivotal roll in things.
Finally, I sat down and put together a list of cons I will be attending next year. Not sure what I will do there, but I'm going. Next year is going to be a busy one for me. The nuke plant I work at is shutting down for refueling between 3/18 and 5/5. That's 12 hour days, 6 days a week. Writing might just be put on hold. But I should manage to attend the following: Millennicon (3/15 - 3/17 in Cinncinatti, OH), Convergence (7/4 - 7/8 in Bloomington, MN), and Dragoncon (8/29 - 9/3 in Atlanta, GA).
Looks like most of the Launchpad friends came back from Chicon-7 with some sort of flu - they're calling it the chicrud. Appropriate. Oddly enough, I've also come down with some type of sore throat that's been lingering for 4 days now. It doesn't slow me down but at night it makes sleeping a bit difficult because that's when it decides to get dry and more sore. Taking zinc and supplements to fight it.
Peacekeeper is coming along nicely with over 30,000 words now sitting inside the hard drive. This book is a bit unique for me because I'm using chunks from another book to create this one. I copy a chapter and then spend a couple days editing it, adding new material, and deleting huge pieces of it. Now that I have 7 novels under my belt I can easily see why 'The Elite of the Alliance' could never have been published! The storyline is about to diverge from that old novel and new material will soon be flowing.
I am constantly amazed as to how the subconscious mind works. One of the scenes I copied had the main character save a passenger liner from pirates. There are no pirates in the GA universe! But I needed to do something to add some adventure and mystery at that point in the book. I rewrote the scene adding a bit of mystery to the book. Truthfully, I didn't have much more beyond that. The other day, as I was thinking about stuff much farther along in the story I discovered that I needed that scene to help knit together the developing story line. Same goes for the bit I decided to put at the beginning. I did it to kick-start the book. Now, it's going to play a pivotal roll in things.
Finally, I sat down and put together a list of cons I will be attending next year. Not sure what I will do there, but I'm going. Next year is going to be a busy one for me. The nuke plant I work at is shutting down for refueling between 3/18 and 5/5. That's 12 hour days, 6 days a week. Writing might just be put on hold. But I should manage to attend the following: Millennicon (3/15 - 3/17 in Cinncinatti, OH), Convergence (7/4 - 7/8 in Bloomington, MN), and Dragoncon (8/29 - 9/3 in Atlanta, GA).
September 3, 2012
Short story renamed
After getting some very favorable feedback from an award-winning author concerning my first-ever short story I decided to take his advice and change the name. What was once titled 'Obsessed with Life' is now 'Gift Giver'. The story has been through final editing, converted into a manuscript format, and submitted to Lightspeed magazine. If accepted, I will be locked out from publishing it anywhere else for 4 months - typical for such contracts. After that, I will submit it to Analog magazine.
Work is progressing on Peacekeeper. I think I've solved most of my problems with the plot and the few remaining ones should work themselves out as the words hit the hard drive. I've been taking large chunks of 'The Elite of the Alliance' and dropping it into Scrivener for use in Peacekeeper. The delete key has become my friend as 'The Elite of the Alliance' was written 25 years ago and is in need of some serious changes. One thing I've got to watch out for though is to not let the action of the book drop off. I have some ideas about how to keep things moving while my lead character is becoming a Peacekeeper but there are some small risks associated with the technique I plan on using. I did it in 'Honor Thy Enemy' and it seemed to work out well. I plan on bouncing between Wilks's time in the academy (which is important) and action that is happening all across Alliance space. I hope it works.
About half of my friends from Launchpad are at the Worldcon in Chicago (Chicon 7). I wish I could be there with them but the logistics just didn't allow it. I hope to head to Dragoncon next year as well as a couple of smaller cons to get my feet wet before then. I keep in touch with most of them via Twitter.
It's beginning to look like retirement won't be an option for me for at least another 5 years. That means I will have to manage my time to balance family, working, writing, and social networking (listed in order of priority). It's a juggling act that can often become frustrating. Not having to work would free up a huge block of time allowing me to have more time to write and work on my social network. Time management is very important for the working writer! For instance, yesterday was spent doing quarterly taxes and a family cookout. This morning was taken up by social networking (this blog for instance), updating my web site, and looking into advertising options. You don't see writing in there do you? That will be later - don't worry.
Work is progressing on Peacekeeper. I think I've solved most of my problems with the plot and the few remaining ones should work themselves out as the words hit the hard drive. I've been taking large chunks of 'The Elite of the Alliance' and dropping it into Scrivener for use in Peacekeeper. The delete key has become my friend as 'The Elite of the Alliance' was written 25 years ago and is in need of some serious changes. One thing I've got to watch out for though is to not let the action of the book drop off. I have some ideas about how to keep things moving while my lead character is becoming a Peacekeeper but there are some small risks associated with the technique I plan on using. I did it in 'Honor Thy Enemy' and it seemed to work out well. I plan on bouncing between Wilks's time in the academy (which is important) and action that is happening all across Alliance space. I hope it works.
About half of my friends from Launchpad are at the Worldcon in Chicago (Chicon 7). I wish I could be there with them but the logistics just didn't allow it. I hope to head to Dragoncon next year as well as a couple of smaller cons to get my feet wet before then. I keep in touch with most of them via Twitter.
It's beginning to look like retirement won't be an option for me for at least another 5 years. That means I will have to manage my time to balance family, working, writing, and social networking (listed in order of priority). It's a juggling act that can often become frustrating. Not having to work would free up a huge block of time allowing me to have more time to write and work on my social network. Time management is very important for the working writer! For instance, yesterday was spent doing quarterly taxes and a family cookout. This morning was taken up by social networking (this blog for instance), updating my web site, and looking into advertising options. You don't see writing in there do you? That will be later - don't worry.
August 24, 2012
Scrivener update
Quite some time ago I mentioned that I was going to give Scrivener a good try by using it to write Peacekeeper. I used to use OpenOffice primarily because it could output directly to PDF, it was free, and it always returned me to where I was working in the document when I last closed it. I also had a tiny netbook that ran Linux and OpenOffice ran on it quite nicely. Now I have all Windows machines and I recently switched to using Word. There are advantages to that program as well: it highlights possible grammatical errors, everyone can read the files it produces, and all my publishers require it for submissions.
But I kept hearing such good things about Scrivener - so good I had to give it a try. My initial response was "this won't work for me". It lacks some essential features (I'm using the Windows version - the Mac version is an entire version number ahead). It won't do mirror margins, page numbering and header/footer formatting are tricky, and the native file format is incompatible with every other word processor out there. Despite these issues, I went ahead and started using it for Peacekeeper. I'm now a fan!
Scrivener has some unique features that I've come to love. The ability to keep notes for each chapter as well as for the document as a whole is the one I love the best. I also use the dual editor feature which allows me to keep all of my reference material handy at the bottom of my screen. I have reference documents for characters, general notes, alien life forms, and planets. The program also keeps track of where I was in each document (chapter or reference document in my case) so when I reopen it I just start typing. It's a VERY handy program. I accidentally left Scrivener open on my desktop last day when I went to the bookstore. I added 4 chapters and edited another one while there. I was surprised to find that Scrivener didn't complain and the changes were picked up without issue on the desktop machine. There is a warning in the manual not to do this sort of thing but the program handled it without any problems.
So what about the issues I mentioned? No problem. After compiling the final document (Scrivener's word for generating a final output file) in Word format, I can open it in Word and do my final editing, pagination, margination, and all that stuff. But, for actually writing - Scrivener is now my chosen application. It's inexpensive too and the owner is very receptive to feedback. If you're interested you can try the program for free. Their website is: http://literatureandlatte.com/trial.php
Peacekeeper is being written by scavenging chapters from an unpublished novel I wrote back in the 80's titled "The Elite of the Alliance". This should make writing the story faster than generating it from scratch. Still, there's a lot of editing to be done. So, if you see a quote like I made above that said I added 4 chapters in a single day, that does not mean I actually wrote them. I moved them into the book and they need to be edited. Still working on the issue of the AOH but I think I'm closing in on a possible solution or two. In the meantime - the writing continues.
But I kept hearing such good things about Scrivener - so good I had to give it a try. My initial response was "this won't work for me". It lacks some essential features (I'm using the Windows version - the Mac version is an entire version number ahead). It won't do mirror margins, page numbering and header/footer formatting are tricky, and the native file format is incompatible with every other word processor out there. Despite these issues, I went ahead and started using it for Peacekeeper. I'm now a fan!
Scrivener has some unique features that I've come to love. The ability to keep notes for each chapter as well as for the document as a whole is the one I love the best. I also use the dual editor feature which allows me to keep all of my reference material handy at the bottom of my screen. I have reference documents for characters, general notes, alien life forms, and planets. The program also keeps track of where I was in each document (chapter or reference document in my case) so when I reopen it I just start typing. It's a VERY handy program. I accidentally left Scrivener open on my desktop last day when I went to the bookstore. I added 4 chapters and edited another one while there. I was surprised to find that Scrivener didn't complain and the changes were picked up without issue on the desktop machine. There is a warning in the manual not to do this sort of thing but the program handled it without any problems.
So what about the issues I mentioned? No problem. After compiling the final document (Scrivener's word for generating a final output file) in Word format, I can open it in Word and do my final editing, pagination, margination, and all that stuff. But, for actually writing - Scrivener is now my chosen application. It's inexpensive too and the owner is very receptive to feedback. If you're interested you can try the program for free. Their website is: http://literatureandlatte.com/trial.php
Peacekeeper is being written by scavenging chapters from an unpublished novel I wrote back in the 80's titled "The Elite of the Alliance". This should make writing the story faster than generating it from scratch. Still, there's a lot of editing to be done. So, if you see a quote like I made above that said I added 4 chapters in a single day, that does not mean I actually wrote them. I moved them into the book and they need to be edited. Still working on the issue of the AOH but I think I'm closing in on a possible solution or two. In the meantime - the writing continues.
August 21, 2012
Odd computer problems
I've been having some odd little computer problems over the past week. Not sure what the deal is. The Google Chrome browser has a strange glitch now when I open up a site in a new tab. I have to move to another tab and then move back before things start to work properly. I've had to reboot a couple of times because my quad-tuner card is no longer recognized by Media Center, and downloads seem to be running slow even though speedtest shows I have a 35 MBPS download connection. Just before writing this, Google+ wouldn't let me enter a post - kept saying "Opening". I might have to switch back to Internet Explorer if things keep up.
Today's APOD article is a fascinating video of DNA. If you like science of any sort this is one video you've got to see. You can find the video on YouTube as well at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjPcT1uUZiE&feature=player_embedded
I've finished "Obsessed With Life" and have had it reviewed by my copy-editor (my wife) and my dad (thanks Dad!). So far the comments have been good.
I got some more work done on Peacekeeper over the weekend. I'm still unsure how the meat of the story is going to play out. I've got this little issue with the Army of Humanity and why they are building modern warships, who is supplying them with the weapons, and where are they hiding the ships. Plus, there's always the question of what are they planning to use them for? This wouldn't be the first time I've started a story and not known what I would do once things got rolling.
Today's APOD article is a fascinating video of DNA. If you like science of any sort this is one video you've got to see. You can find the video on YouTube as well at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjPcT1uUZiE&feature=player_embedded
I've finished "Obsessed With Life" and have had it reviewed by my copy-editor (my wife) and my dad (thanks Dad!). So far the comments have been good.
I got some more work done on Peacekeeper over the weekend. I'm still unsure how the meat of the story is going to play out. I've got this little issue with the Army of Humanity and why they are building modern warships, who is supplying them with the weapons, and where are they hiding the ships. Plus, there's always the question of what are they planning to use them for? This wouldn't be the first time I've started a story and not known what I would do once things got rolling.
