Michael Langlois's Blog, page 16
October 25, 2011
Conservation of Focus
Trust me, this place is gonna have the best basketball court ever!
As I've said before, I'm not great at taking advice. However, on the rare occasion that a good idea can make it past my thick skull, I like to mention it.
Here are some facts:
Like physical endurance, you only have so much mental focus to expend on a given day.
Like physical activities, some forms of mental effort are much more taxing than others.
Duh, right? Folks like Tim Ferriss, David Rock, and Leo Babauta have been preaching this forever. But how many people actually prioritize around these two facts?
I never did. For years, I used time as my only real qualifier for getting work done. Did I have an open spot in the day or not? How long was it? If I could get an hour to write in an otherwise busy day, I'd take it. The dumb part is that I never took into account what I was doing before that slot.
We instinctively understand that an intense weight-lifting session is probably a bad idea right before showing up for your swim competition, but we don't have a similar grasp of mental activity. We're told that sitting down to think is just a matter of discipline and time management. And if you don't get anything done, then you suck and just need to try harder.
That's crap. You have a reserve of mental endurance, let's call it focus, and there simply may not be enough left to spend on tasks that have a very high burn rate.
From a writing perspective, content creation, which includes heavy revision, is a high burn rate activity. Do it first, or if you can only clear the time late in the day, be as much of a mental lazy ass as possible before that time (I probably don't need to mention that I'm an expert on the lazy ass part). Fill the rest of the time with low demand tasks: do some research, answer mail, blog, look up that rule about Oxford commas that you keep putting off. Tweet.
And you don't have to veg out in front of the TV as soon as you're too tired to keep up with a high burn rate activity. When a jogger gets tired, they don't stretch out on the road, they walk. Low demand mental tasks can still be done after you've completed the tough stuff, and for a much longer period of time.
If I were clever, I'd do the heavy lifting part of my writing day early so that I'm sure to get it in. Unfortunately, I hate mornings, so I try to conserve until later in the day. If I know that I have to do a lot of braining (it's clearly a word, I just used it) before my normal writing slot, then I'll suck it up and write earlier.
Also, if your day job is going to require a ton of focus on a particular day, give yourself the option of sticking to the low demand stuff. Recognize that you may not be able to sustain two high burn activities in one day. It's cool, you're only human. A word of caution: there's a difference between entertainment and rest. High involvement video games, especially multiplayer stuff, is not a recovery tactic. It can easily be a high burn activity.
All of this is obvious in hindsight. I just never put two and two together and actually made a conscious effort to protect my reserve of focus, and spend it in the right place. That one change made a huge difference in the time it takes me to write a book. As in about fifty percent huge.
Bottom line: If you're in a creative business like writing, give some thought to the conservation of focus. It really does make a difference.
Filed under: Blog Posts, Writing
October 24, 2011
October 21, 2011
Luggage Cat Says No
Sorry for the lack of posts in the last few days. I spent part of the week in Arizona, which was awesome as always. It's one of the few places in the country that feels like Texas, only (in this particular case) prettier.
Had a great meal at Olive and Ivy, which has some seriously cool atmosphere and better food:
I'm sure these people are very nice.
The only downside to the trip was my complete inability to unpack when I got home:
Cat: 1, Unpacking: 0
This is clearly the natural state of equilibrium for my suitcase, as a cat-less state was only achievable for about a millisecond at a time.
On the upside, I did manage a good bit of progress towards getting Walker out on time, so things are looking good for the 11/15 release date.
TL;DR: Was gone, now back. Walker on schedule. Cat and luggage have merged.
Filed under: Blog Posts
October 18, 2011
Haiku Contest Winners
Dramatic re-enactment: Actual judges may have been alive
My delightful pre-zombie wife (not pictured above), has completed the judging. The winners, in no particular order, are:
BRW
Wild Meat Sacks at play
Sunshine, tasty children snack
Love brains, not boomsticks
BigD
Fighting for their lives
Their friends now a bloody swarm
Playtime now begins
Jake Livak
The force is with us
Zombies won't make us back down
Vigilant we stand
Paboo
Delirium rage
Crafting foul doubly dead
Ruffians unite
Delty
School's out for summer!
Feast or famine? Life or Death?
Darwin would be proud
Each winner will receive a signed copy of Bad Radio and a Lucky Zombie Token(tm):
Man, that book is huge!
If I'm so lucky, why are my feet stuck together?
Winners, please send your address to me at langlois.mike (at) gmail (dot) com!
Filed under: Blog Posts
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October 14, 2011
Game:Eaten By Zombies
As most of you know, I love nerdy tabletop games. I also love zombies. A lot.
So, when I saw that Mayday Games had a Kickstarter project up for a swanky new zombie game, well, let's just say I hadda get me some of that. The project closed at nearly ten times the original goal of 5K, which is amazing. Why? Because, zombies. That's why.
My copy just arrived:
Looks like an ammo can. How awesome is that?
Stick, stick, zombie!
Awwww!
Here's the game description from Mayday:
In the new game Eaten By Zombies! players strive to survive as the horde of the living dead make it their goal in Death to force you to join the crowd. You must work with or against the other survivors to be the last one standing. No not standing, cowering in the corner crying for their mommy.
In the spirit of AMC's "The Walking Dead" and "I Am Legend", Eaten By Zombies takes you into a dark world of eventual death. Every turn you must venture out from your safehouse and scavenge for Swag. But not so fast, the Undead have other plans for your brains. Every day a Horde of fresh zombies will be waiting for you, and over time the threat gets greater. Now it's time for your "Fight or Flight" instincts to help you to survive just one more day. Using the swag you've got on you (ie cards in you hand) you must survive any way you can.
If you can get away or kill the Horde, you may scavenge the remains of the desolate suburbs for any Swag the neighbors may have left behind. With the right stuff and a few good friends to out run, you may just make it through this alive… well, no probably not. But being the last one to die a slow, painful death means you can claim sole victory!
With a set of over thirty different cards to start with, no two games will ever be alike. This game is a combination of Card Drafting, Hand Management and Survival Horror with a few dirty tricks thrown in.
I dunno, if that doesn't sound great to you, then all I can say is that we're very different people.
One of whom is very, very wrong.
Filed under: Blog Posts
1st Round Complete
All of the ebooks have been awarded, so if you didn't get an email or tweet, I'm afraid you were too late.
But don't despair!
The zombie haiku contest for a signed paper edition is open until midnight on Sunday, so keep submitting! Winners will be chosen by my lovely wife.
Uh, that is to say that the winning poems will be selected by my wife. Winners will have to get their own wives.
Filed under: Blog Posts
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October 12, 2011
Thanks, WWdN Visitors!
Hi there, WWdN visitors!
I guess I should have expected it, but I totally didn't. One offhand comment from Wil Wheaton, and suddenly I've have more folks dropping by in the last two days than in the last two months combined. Wow.
Anyway, to say thanks, the first ten people to drop their email addresses in the comments below, or to me directly at langlois.mike (at) gmail (dot) com, will receive a free copy of Bad Radio, as either a Kindle gift or an epub file.
Note: you don't have to be with the WWdN crowd to get a free copy, I'm totally not a jerk like that.
Thanks all!
Filed under: Blog Posts, Writing
October 10, 2011
Sneak Peek: Walker Cover Art
Click for full size!
Just fantastic. Amazing.
Walker is scheduled to be released in just over a month, so things are pretty hectic right now. Art, editing, and formatting are all in various stages of completion, so there's a lot of juggling going on to make sure that everything comes together at the same time.
That said, of all the moving parts, getting the final cover art is a huge milestone, and one that I wanted to share.
A couple of notes about how Vinny works: He asks for detailed information about the book, covering both plot information and detailed descriptions of any relevant scenes, characters, or items. This can amount to a hefty amount of information, including a full synopsis and lots of excerpts from the book. He then asks me for any ideas that I might have for the cover.
Once he has all the information, he then turns around and sends me a sketch for something about a million times cooler than the stuff I suggested. At which point I say, "Why yes, let's use THAT, shall we?"
It's one thing to be an accomplished and recognized graphic artist, but it's another thing entirely to be skilled and experienced specifically in the creation of novel covers, which is very much its own discipline.
So, along with sharing this preview today, I wanted to say thanks.
Cheers, Vinny. You rock.
Filed under: Blog Posts, Writing
October 2, 2011
Bad Radio in Print
There's much rejoicing in the Langlois compound today. Bad Radio is, at long last, available in print.
Behold!
Behind the scenes, it turned out to be no small feat to wind up with one book in two editions. The paper version was actually available weeks ago, but because of the way the two editions were labeled in the system, they were separate entities, with the paper version being very difficult to find without a pretty explicit search.
It's all good now, and many thanks to the folks representing electrons and paper at Amazon who helped get this squared away.
Cheers!
Filed under: Blog Posts, Writing
September 29, 2011
No Trunk Meats Today, Thanks
Dramatic Re-enactment!
A guy just knocked on my door selling meat. Door to door. From a huge ice chest.
The meats were flash frozen in boxes, and were obviously purchased from a wholesaler. I know, I'm probably just some kind of crazy meat snob, but I really do prefer to not to eat things out of a stranger's trunk.
Just sayin'.
Filed under: Blog Posts
