Looks like I’m changing how I write again. Not the writing style, but the applications that I use to actually write, manage my writing, and produce the output files I need.
Looks like I’m changing how I write again. Not the writing style, but the applications that I use to actually write, manage my writing, and produce the output files I need.
And while I won’t say I have completely regretted this car, I am not entirely fond of it right now. There are little things about it that just drive me nuts and–frankly–I wouldn’t suggest this vehicle to anyone.
I’ve enjoyed a rather interesting week. Some of the events will require their own blog posts (um, actually a series, sorry). But, overall, it was a good, scary, and exciting holiday season.
I picked up Raising Demons for Fun and Profit at ICON 34 this year. It was from a small publishing house in Cedar Rapids called Sam’s Dot Publishing. Partially, I picked up the book to look at the quality of print but also because it had a pretty next cover on it. The book itself is a collection of short stories by a single author, Mark McLaughlin, with some additional writers on some of the stories.
I’m pretty much done with Castle Age over on Facebook. The game ended up being a nice distraction for a month or so, but eventually the lack of variance (grinding) and overwhelming advertising overcame my interest in the game. In the last week or so, I was just playing for the sake of playing the game.
So, I gave up on the game.
Ended up seeing some of the chatter on Twitter, mailing lists, and the blogs about Avatar. As I said before, I liked the movie. But, listening to others trash it got me rather depressed. Fightertype decided that if the science was not perfect and the plot was simple, there was no reason to ever see it. Ever. Basically, she damned it without seeing it. One of the blogs said it set back sci-fi back 20 years. On a mailing list I listen to, they were talking about every damn flaw about the movie, tearing it apart. Like the tactical idiocies of the the bad guy or the fact they should use mass drivers (asteroids) to solve the problem. All these little things, like spite bubbling up between the cracks of a sidewalk.
My definition of a good movie?
I enjoyed watching it.
I don’t read in massive depths into the story. Yes, it had a relatively simple plot, but it brought a nice little flutter to my heart and I enjoyed the time watching it. I don’t see why it has to be trashed when people didn’t rant that much about the variable length masers with blessed crystals (lightsabers), the complete inability to put guard rails on anything over ten stories (Star Wars, Star Trek), apparently the common occurrence of time travel that only goes to Earth 1970-2010. Most movies have simple plots, weak science, and bland characters. The point is not to rant about the horrors of the plot and just go to… enjoy yourself.
But, I’m a shallow person.
Last week was my first week at the local writer’s group. It was a fun experience, though I was shy as all hell and should have shut up after the first few sentences. But, they opened up talking about the strength of characters and the depth they bring into the first chapter.
I read about a guy and his dog.
They talked about the balance of the female characters to the male. And how the scene complimented their relationship.
I read about a place in New York.
Absolutely everything they said was accurate. It was helpful to the writer. It just wasn’t what I read. I don’t see depth and richness in a story. I don’t see movement in pictures. I simply got on that simple, shallow approach to enjoying my fiction: did I enjoy it?
Okay, got that off my shoulder.
Saw Avatar this weekend. To be honest, I only saw 15 seconds of commercial once up to seeing it, so I had no clue what to expect or any opinion of the movie. It means I went into the movie with no preconceptions of the movie.
(As a note, not watching television has a real benefit.)
Yesterday, I got a second shot at using Google Ads to try selling my self-published book. I got the first freebie from my office supply shipper (apparently, if you buy a grand worth of file cabinets, they give you stuff, go figure). Sadly, I managed to burn through the $100 credit over two weeks and got a grand total of one sale. That is not exactly a great rate, $20 advertising dollar for $1 in sales (it was a PDF download).
This time, I changed a few things. I have the same credit as before but from a different source. I cleaned up and simplified my website, tried to make it as purchase-worthy as possible. And created a few ads with different wording, to see if one sells better than the others.
Creating ads is definitely a skill I don’t have. I think I can get it, but I need to fumble around a lot more before I make more in sales than I spend (which is kind of the point of advertising).
On the other hand, I offered my layout services to a friend for their own book. They saw my novel and thought it was amazing; kind of strange having a skill that someone wants. They may not ask me, but I probably wouldn’t say no to typesetting their book(s).
Spent a rather large time today working on my Simple Notes theme for websites. Still has a few rough edges, like not embedding the fonts and some interface quirks, but otherwise it looks pretty good.
It is frustrating doing website themes. Right now, I use WordPress, DokuWiki, MantisBT, and Simple Machines Forum. Each of these has an entirely different way of skinning their application but I want each of them to have a common “look and feel” with the least amount of work. But, things don’t work that way. If I really wanted a nice, consistent look and feel, I pretty much have to do the same theme five or six times. One for each application and also my initial static page.
Call it the programmer in me, but I hate repeating code. I keep looking for a library or platform or framework where I can create this theme one and have it applied to everything. But, instead I’m struggling with using a metaphysical crowbar to jam everything together, copying code over and over. Which makes it a nightmare when I realize I missed something and have to copy that fix across six different versions.
While working on Rough Blue, I started created a PHP template library that worked across all those applications. It is still rough, but every time I hit a road block, I look for some other smarter person who already did it.
Haven’t found that person. Or that library.
Oh well, I’m happy with it so far. If I keep using my WTF library (or figure out how to get client-side XSLT to work without crashing Firefox), I might see if it can help someone else.
My last class is finally over. That last little essay (got a bit cocky though) got finished somewhere in the middle of the week. I’m already approved for graduation, and I got a 98% score according to the online course. So, that should give me a 3.9 GPA for my master’s program.
Given that, and ignoring my irrational fear that I somehow missed a class, I’m completely done with college. I probably won’t go on to the doctorate program at all. Instead, I’m going to focus on something more enjoyable.
Like fiction writing.
Haven’t gotten much of it in the last few days though. Work is winding up for a deadline next Friday and hopefully there won’t be any overtime this time. We also had a pretty impressive snow storm and a nastier set of confusion. The snow removal guy never showed up, so I had to shovel the 20-30 inches worth of snow myself.
Yeah, whine, whine. Still did it and I wasn’t even that sore for more than a day. We are also watching one of Fluffy’s co-workers Lab puppy for the week. It has been… interesting. I keep forgetting that some dogs consider horking up a tug rope as a sign of affection.
I’m still working on that website design probably for the rest of the weekend. Fluffy is working on her own designs since she needs to brush up on her skills. And, for some reason, I really struggle to teach her programming; we live well together, but we don’t exactly work well together.
I’m also hoping this means the three people who read this will actually see more posts.