K.D. Sarge's Blog, page 59
October 23, 2011
New-to-Me Time-Waster
I went through it all, though (since yesterday) so it's safe for me to talk about it.
Have you seen Set Phasers to LOL yet?
This is me, dying laughing. Most sites, if they include SF stuff at all, will mostly make fun of the fans. I can't tell you how many "will never get laid" jokes I've seen by people who actually don't know anything about geek stuff at all. This site still has some of those, but mostly–no, mostly the site is by geeks for geeks and oh lord it restores my faith in humanity.
Rea...
October 22, 2011
Keeping History Straight
The Dream'verse is a big place, and a lot of people live in it (this happens with universes) and a lot of books take place in it (seven and counting.) For years I've been looking for a way to keep track of things in the name of consistency.*
I tried spreadsheets, but spreadsheets are unwieldy and it's hard to make comparisons (for me, anyway). I tried wikis. Wikis are excellent for tracking facts, but for tracking chronology…not so much. I tried a manila folder, but manila folders–let's just f...
October 21, 2011
Hold Your Horses (Internet Rant)
Remember those internet rants I said were a waste of time? Here's me, wasting some.
In a newsletter type email today, I read about a woman who is outlining a novel for NaNoWriMo that she hopes to publish as an ebook in early to mid December.
…
…really?
Okay, fine. Maybe she is just that amazing a writer, she can toss out fifty thousand words in a month and they will be gold and with a week of editing that story is truly ready for publishing. Maybe. But I think the odds are much greater that this ...
October 14, 2011
It's HOW Many Days Till NaNo?
This is me. Flailing. I must edit before I plan, or I won't edit, but omg, omg omg, it's getting so close and I should draw a map and wait I haven't named all my characters yet and oh, oh, crap, I haven't figured out if it's a caravan or…
Seventeen days. AAAAAaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Yeah. I love NaNo. 
October 10, 2011
plz?
In other news…has anything ever been accomplished at any meeting in the history of time?
No really. Ever?
October 9, 2011
Failure IS an Option
"It's not fair," my 13yo will whine.
"You're right," I'll usually say.
"I worked a lot already!" she'll point out.
"Yep."
"I should get to go!"
"You're right," I'll agree again. "Now. How much does [the mountain, the clock, the rain] care about everything you said?"
I'm trying, you see, to teach my daughter that we have to deal with reality, not some cockamamie cooked-up version of "fair" where everything that you want comes to you because you deserve it.
October 8, 2011
Perhaps We Should Run Away Again
For MY mental health, I need to withdraw. Also my head hurts and it is pissing me off. KD retreat day, for the moment at least. I will get away from everything and take my writing in there and get my ass back into the editing that I took too much time from. I need to learn not to do that–just take a day here and there, not drop it till I'm done with other thing. I need to learn to work on multiple projects. I am a writer, dammit. And I'm going to beat the child with ALL THE SPOONS.*
From day 6...
October 6, 2011
A Check-In
So it's been a while since I proclaimed my goals here, and I haven't checked in recently.
1. To WRITE, not play on the internet. Well…let's just say I haven't had a lot of time for playing on the internet lately. Oh, and I got two stories in to Turtleduck Press on time (pretty much), so that's some writing. That's good.
2. To WRITE, not clean, so stay on top of stuff. I have this friend who likes to clean other people's houses… Bless her!
3. To sell books and become independent so promote. This ...
October 5, 2011
Using the Save the Cat! Beat Sheet
Editing Joss is not as much fun as writing him was, but it's still been pretty fun. (I'm getting back to that tonight, I swear!) I'm using Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet among other tools to figure out what's missing that needs to be in the book, or what is there that shouldn't be. It's not as easy as Blake tends to make it sound in Save the Cat!, but it's working.
The thing is that I don't tend to write straightforward plots. Yeah, Knight Errant centers around a love story, but the book is really ...
October 4, 2011
About #3GoodThings
So the other night I sprung #3goodthings on a friend, and it occurred to me I've never explained it. Sometimes I just do it, and sometimes people join in. In my head, this is how it works. YMMV.
Negativity is everywhere, and the internet makes it easier to shout our complaints into the ether, so a lot of people spend much of their internet time doing just that. I don't think that's such a great thing. I'm a big fan of snark, but I don't think everyone everywhere should be doing it all the...
