Adam Heine's Blog, page 35

Just Testing, Please Ignore

I'm just playing with a new comment system. Don't know if I'll use it. This is not the post you're looking for.

Twitter Unfollows and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (Also, a Chart!)

I don't automatically follow people back on social media, but once I decide to follow someone, I rarely unfollow. Unfortunately, it does happen. The likelihood of getting unfollowed can be determined (sort of) from the following chart.





What constitutes signal?

Anything funny.
News I want to know.
Interesting links.
Talking to me directly (esp. saying nice things to me or retweeting my tweets).
 What constitutes noise?

Follow Friday tweets, thank you's, and any other random list of...

Confessions of an Ascetic Writer

My previous confession proved to me I'm not alone in these things, and I know ascetic writers are more common than analytical ones. But still, I feel the need to confess...



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I can't listen to music while I write. If there are words, I sing them (and sometimes type them -- seriously!). If there are no words, I still get caught up in the story the music is telling, and it becomes impossible to tell my own.



Sometimes I can edit with music, but even then, if I listen to an epic song during a so...

Stubborn as a Ninja

So. Naruto.



For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Naruto is a ninja orphan, shunned since birth. He's determined to make the village to notice him, even proclaiming loudly that he will be the next Hokage -- the greatest ninja in the village.



Everyone laughs because it's ridiculous. Naruto is loud, foolish, and pays zero attention. He fails most tests, and when he does pass, it's by some fluke. How could he possibly be a ninja, let alone the Hokage?



But throughout the series, Naruto ha...

On Description

So, I suck at description. In the previous round of querying and beta reading, poor description was the #1 complaint. It's not that I don't know how to do it, it just doesn't come naturally to me.

But I'm learning. And the fact that it doesn't come naturally to me means I'm a good person to teach it.



Because, of course, I have an algorithm:

Imagine the scene. This sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many times I just don't care what a scene looks like as much as what happens there...

Writing When You Hate Writing

Some days, this is exactly how I feel.



Sometimes it's the novel's fault. As I plow through the draft, crap gets built on crap, building into a gargantuan pile of whatsit that I'm just going to have to fix later. Mistakes and weak plot points devolve into puzzles I no longer want to solve. And I've already used all my stock phrases and have to think of new ways to make people look, shout, cry, and laugh.



Sometimes it's the query process' fault. Being a tad insane, I've been charting my r...

Putting Your Hope Where It Belongs

By now, the entire world knows I'm querying Air Pirates and, as a result, am subject to the entire toxic cocktail of emotions that implies. (Seriously, can we nominate querying as a leading cause of bipolar disorder? That's how it works, right?)



But also I have a great many awesome friends both on and off the internet, who constantly tell me encouraging things. Yes, I most certainly am looking at you.



I got one comment in particular I want to share with you. A good friend reminded me that r...

Sketch: Everyday Superhero

Cross-posted from Anthdrawlogy.





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His tweet says, "Had justice peas again tonight. So. Awesome."

Why Aren't You Linking Yet?

It is 2011. The internet as we know it is old. It's older than the Matrix and Star Wars Special Edition. It was born in a time when Michael Keaton was still Batman, Joe Montana was a 49er, and people freaked out because Mortal Kombat was too bloody.



So why are people still writing comments like they've never seen a link before?

Great post! And did you hear they're casting white actors for Akira? I know, right! I blogged about it here...

Patching e-books

Apparently, Amazon has been wirelessly updating error-ridden books, and it raises the obvious question: Should e-book patching even be a thing?



I'm torn. I mean, technology-wise, I think this is great, though I can see the potential abuses all too clearly.



Patching is not a new thing. Computer games have been doing it even longer than George Lucas.* Even print books get the occasional story-tweaking revision. So let's not pretend this is some new, infuriating thing that Big Publishing is...