Hello, again!

I suppose I’m a terrible blogger.  But here’s really not that much of major interest to me.  I read four books in the last couple weeks, some on loan from my mother.  The loaned ones were nice enough, but not very memorable.

I’ve posted more fic on the fanfic site.  The reader stats page are almost mesmerizing, to watch the little bar braphs go up as reader find your post, and hopefully enjoy it.

Alas, even though I posted two new chapters in two different ’stories,’ I only got three reviews.  This is disappointing, as one had been partly written on a previous reader’s request.  Also, new chapters in the same stories the week before got almost three times as many comments.  The new ones were better, IMO.

There was some wonkiness in the comment system, which may have helped reduce it.  But I’d hope other reviewers would be willing to try again as I had for a review I wanted to send.

But it does make one blue.

My life is blue enough right now, seeing the reviews come in is one of the high points of my week. <sigh>

This is making it harder to contemplate the physical problems I’m going to have to use the other computer I need for some research for coming chapters.  Facing discomfort, at best, if no one will appreciate my efforts, seems a waste of effort.

Like I said, very blue.

Summer blues…

Not much going on.  We’re between summer heat waves right now, not that I consider ninety degrees that much of an improvement.  I’m researching hindu religion for a snippet right now, and even wading through the many summaries in wikipedia takes a lot of time.

One IT friend from another state offered to help talk me through recovery of some things off my terminal old hard drive, but finding when he’ll be free to do so is taking a while.  Alas, my budget says I can’t just give it to some professionals.

Most other writers I like seem to be doing other things right now, and I’m having enough trouble walking that my good computer is still painful to access.  Apathy and blues seem to rule, aside from occasional MS snippets.

yay!

Yay!  My muse came to set a spell, today.  I managed to finish a short fanfic that’s been partly finished for over two months…

Of course the real problem, is that am woefully short on that classic requirement for a writer or performer: ego.  That means, I take comments way too personally.  (unless and until it becomes totally obvious the writer is a nut)  But as I usually give someone else the benefit of the doubt, I go through a fair piece of angst until they reach the nut-point.

I haven’t stopped writing, I’m still putting out thousands of words in a journal/self examination/fiction.  Sorry, but I wouldn’t even publish a chunk of it unedited for a large cash prize.  A small piece or two have already been recycled in a module, so its not been as useless as I once thought.  But it is odd the skeletons I have dug out of storage, and linked into the journal narrative.

I’m letting the small ficlet, rest a little bit before I post it.  I’m sure at least one person will read it after pushing it through babelfish into swahili and back.  But this is a test to see if I’m really going back to writing for others, or continue my study of my own id/ego/superego.

I do know if I resume publishing, I have major revisions/rewrites I’m not looking forward to…

procastinators R us

So many things to do, and I’m both restless and exhausted.  To much so, to concentrate on much.  This fluffy side story doesn’t seem to be approaching an end to its main plot.  Since I have to finish the draft before I’d even consider publishing any of it, my writing time is going into a black hole.

Though it has given me another story idea, a good dream vision that I immediately stole for a D&D session, and some character insights that will probably curve back into my main fanfic.  Like a journal, parts have also worked like some kind of Rorshak test, so I’m learning things even if its not anything about writing.

But I’m like the kids begging uncle remus for the end of the story, and its not happening.  Themes, issues, problems, emergencies, and strange characters appear and are resolved.  Soon, or 50k words later.

The only good thing is that I’m even getting restless with it, and one of my other stories, only in a partial first draft, is starting to call for attention.  I can’t say I’ve got writer’s block as I’m still writing about 4k words a day.  But nothing for publication…

Also the forums i visit seem pretty slow right now, and the new stories in the Pit (what a lovely nickname, guys) aren’t appealing for setting or create the urgent wish to know what happens next.  One that has an interesting idea, promptly failed the plausibility test, even for a fantasy story.

Ah, well.  Maybe one of the stories I like will publish tomorrow…

Another holiday gone

Its late, and I’d hoped to get more done.

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak…

Yup…

Yup, still here.  spent a week or so pretty much off-line.  Just spent a couple hours catching up on the various boards.  Next I’ll read all the fic that came out in that 10 days.

Was off with mostly RL stuff.  Only thing fic related is my off-line journal.  Bits of it have already been scavenged for a D&D game Sunday, for future revisions of my main story, and a new story.  The revisions are looking very iffy, as my longer stories get little response.  If no one reads them, I might as well just skip posting and stick to the rarer short pieces.  Not that I’ve stopped writing the longer one, just stopped posting.  So, the summary is, that I’m still writing a lot, between the journal and unpublishable long epic, just little posting.

Though my journal is reaching huge file lengths on the crummy, old laptop I use for it.  It’s so old, (how old is it?) It’s so old, a wireless modem won’t even install properly.   Its really, really safe from viruses tho

Murphy’s Law being what it is, that machine has lots of space on the HD, unlike this one.

The plane is circling…

My muse seems to be taking a vacation.  I have a few ideas and things to research once some RL problems get addressed. (nothing that wouldn’t be improved by gobs of money, alas!)

So, not doing any writing for release right now.  I still have the last ten chapters of the 2nd book, my answer to being indecisive or greedy enough not to choose sides in the fen debate.

I do know I may do a major rewrite of it someday, to expand parts a few comments said were too sparse.  But then again, I do like the old dramatic thing of leaving some things off-stage.  One of the things I like are stories where not every detail is there, the FX people and sometimes over-detailed books I’ve read were far more disappointing than leaving me areas to ponder.  My imagination is often more vivid than what the author describes in detail… leaving me disappointed.

Its a tricky balance, as you have to not leave too many areas for the imagination to play with or the reader will drop out of the story.  Too much detail, and I wonder what kind of idiot the author thinks their audience is, to explain the plot development that was obvious 100 pages ago.  In great detail, yet.

Then to complicate things more, is using specialized knowledge the reader/viewer doesn’t know.   Like if a bit of knowledge in a mystery was known to the lead in  mystery, but never mentioned until page 329 while they wander around the story in circles forgetting it until the climax.  I don’t mind if they’ve forgotten it on camera, or some kind of sleight of hand they didn’t realize they knew it until later.  That’s perfect, as the PC or reader should be smacking their heads saying, ‘oh, shit!  how did we miss that?’  That’s the perfect way to do it.  But not foreshadowing or leaving the hook out ahead of time, and using a deus ex machina just plain sucks.

On the other hand, I think I’m up to the 4th hand by now , there is the word or phrase that just boggles me.  I know my vocab is large for my region, but sometimes the net polyglot nails me.  And I’m coming to really hate online dictionaries as they never tell me what I’m looking for.  I was looking for ‘epiphany’ as a synonym for realization, and all I found in the 1st three sources was ‘enlightenment.’  Not the same.  Finally my internal thesaurus found it.  So I don’t want to put anything to regional or period in my stories, as I want to communicate the idea without forcing my readers to stop reading to look it up.  There is a handful of terms that brings me to a screeching halt, and I’m reluctant to read those stories or authors now.

Well, on to summarize this rambling, my hopes for writing:

• Not too much detail.  Some things offstage are far more effective than onstage.  Twilight Zone dealing with censors was much scarier than many horror movies with their buckets of blood.  A powerfully written almost-kiss can get more interest than a 5 page love scene.
• Enough detail.  Don’t leave too many or too big holes in the narrative.  Covering the missing sections or a transitions over time, lightly is okay.  This is probably a weakness of mine, as expanding what I’ve already alluded to, in detail, feels like ‘dumbing down’ the story.
• Use specialized knowledge carefully.  Too much and you’re showing off, not telling a story.  Using it, without foreshadowing, at the end is a cheat. (amazingly, our hero just got that gadget in parcel post to make all Klingon engines lose power for thirty minutes…) I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn, low milage fer ya, lady! [#1 and #3 combine to make a cardinal sin of talking down to the reader]
• Language! Language! Language!  Be really careful to stay reasonably close to the vocabulary of your audience.  That’s why jargons and net slang are so dangerous in writing, as your readers may have a different hash table in their brains and think you mean what you don’t.  Not that you can’t override the default vocab lookup (hash table*) for a specific term, but you should pair a tiny bit of exposition with uncommon usage.
• Hackneyed plots.  (didn’t say much at all, maybe in another post)

That’s why most network TV drives me up a wall…  I usually can change channels 1/3 of the way in and do something else, as it rarely has any surprises.

huh, look at that

This is what happens when you see a button on the dashboard that says, ‘press this’

You start recording dribble to share with the world. I think I’ll stop here before I embarrass myself.

Welcome to the mostly empty blog…

I don’t expect to post much in here, but thought I might as well use it if its available.

Right now, I’m dawdling from digging out my checkbook for the tax man.  state and federal are done.

by thursday it may be finally warm enough to use my main computer.  the most powerful one is directly connected to my router for speed, and I really don’t have another place to put it.  We had a brief heat wave last week, but I was too busy reading/writing to notice. (it hit 65)

That machine also has my cool peripherals like my picture frame appearing scanner.

On the blue side is some persistent legal/medical issues… but I have no wish to dwell on.

music: big band

Hello world!

This is a test.  If this had been an actual post, it would have content…