January 2011
Throwing Out Words
Submitted by jlpowers on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 12:00amJust Because You're Published...
... doesn't mean that you don't have to throw out words.
After 36 books that are consistently on the NYT bestseller list... Laurell K. Hamilton twitted today:
"About to throw out nearly a week's worth of pages. I think it's the right thing to do, but damn . . . it still hurts. ... I've argued with myself for about two days. I should have known when the book went from speeding to crawling that I'd lost my way."
Moral of the story: It's not just you, and you're not a "failure" as a writer if you're gotten off the story's track and have to throw out pages to get back onto the right track.
Every writer has to throw out pages -- it's just a fact of the writing life -- so stop giving yourself a hard time because you, as a new writer or not-so-new writer, have to toss pages. Suck it up, quit whining, and do what's right for the story. The sooner you do it, the sooner you can get back onto the right track and start writing productive pages again.
Mind you, I'm certainly not saying it's easy to throw out pages. It isn't, not for any writer. I'm just saying that the earlier you admit to yourself that you've lost your way, the less you have to throw out, and the sooner you can find the right way and productive words.
The key, of course, is figuring out _when_ you've gone off-track, and for each writer's it's unique, and it sometimes is unique for each book. (Read more)
A Website Two Days
Submitted by jlpowers on Thu, 01/27/2011 - 10:45pmYesterday afternoon, I started an upgrade on my www.PowersWebDesigns.com website. I did it partly because the site was so old that I coudn't do what I wanted to do on the site, and partly because I knew I had several sites that needed to be upgrated, and when I'd tried to upgrade them a couple months ago, the process failed miserably.
And, well, this adventure wasn't any better. An upgrade that has taken me 1/2 hour in the past, took me 8 hours to get back to ground-zero. **shaking head** I really don't know why... but that's the way it was.
So lesson to everybody out there wanting somebody else to do their website for them:
It doesn't always go as fast as it should, and the unforseen can, and often will, happen.
So suck it up and pay your web developer for their time, instead of bitching and complaining. Believe me, they weren't having a good time, either.
Anyway... finally, about mid-day today, I got the website back to where I started, but on the new version of the code.
Then, since I had new code, I didn't want to put the old template back up, because I was tired of it, and it didn't look as professional as I wanted... sooooo... I went on the search for a new template. Silly me. *sigh*
After trying several templates and not liking them, I found one, eventually. And... because I'm me, I couldn't handle the fact that it was a fixed-width rather than fluid-width. (The fixed-width was so wide that it meant I couldn't easily read the site on my fancy-dancy tablet computer) That was an adventure-and-a-half to fix. Maybe I'll post the picture of the stack of color-coded highlighted pages of code that it took to finally figure out what they were doing with the template. But... anyway... I got the new template up. (Read more)
Inspired or Intimidated?
Submitted by jlpowers on Tue, 01/25/2011 - 9:41amI read a blog post this morning by an author that I like and I've followed her blog almost from the day I started following blogs. And I couldn't decide whether it inspired me, or made me feel inferior.
http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2011/01/24-days.html
***************Begin Quote*****************
"24 Days "
Most times we don't keep track of all the things we do and changes that happen to us from day to day, and I thought it would be interesting to see how January went for me. Tonight I started compiling a list of things I've noted in my first 2011 personal journal, both good and bad, and so far this month I have:
************************************************
And she goes on to list the things she's done in the first 24 days of this year.
As you are reading her list, I want you to realize that she has rheumatoid arthritis to the extent that she can't type for more than a few minutes at a time, she 'wrote' all those pages using voice-recognition software, and she has at least one kid at home (high school age) and a hubby and she does most, if not all, of the cooking in the house. (Read more)
My Blackberry Is Not Working!
Submitted by jlpowers on Tue, 01/18/2011 - 5:39pmI got this from my brother and couldn't resist passing it along.
If you love British humor and plays on words... this is for you.
"My Blackberry Is Not Working!"
One warning:
- Put your drink down
The moral of the video (to make this a writing-related post) is to be very careful about the words you use in your stories.
Do the words that you use mean the same thing to your readers as they do to you?
There Is NO Privacy On The Internet
Submitted by jlpowers on Tue, 01/18/2011 - 12:00amFor a couple days, this issue has been going around the various loops and blogs that I read, and I've resisted posting it because I figured y'all have seen it already. But John Scalzi came up with another twist on it, so I thought I'd share.
Here's the initial story:
"Today’s Writing Contest To Run Like Hell From"
And here's the update:
"First One Publishing and 404 Pages"
In essence, the first one talks about a writing contest with really awful rules, like: "By submitting an entry, all entrants grant Sponsor the absolute and unconditional right and authority to copy, edit, publish, promote, broadcast, or otherwise use, in whole or in part, their entries, in perpetuity, in any manner without further permission, notice or compensation."
And Scalzi goes on from there, ripping apart the contest rules. **shaking my head at contest sponsor** Did they really think they could get away with it?
The second entry says that the original web page with the rules has been taken off the sponsor's website (hence people getting the "404" which is the web page error message saying the computer can't find the page).
But his blog entry also goes on to state that no web page really disappears on the web... and he links to the page that Google has cached (held in storage on Google's computers to make page loading faster). You may have to go to "View => Page Source" to read the whole set of rules... but they are there, for the whole world to see, even after the original page was taken off the website.
So, morals of the story: (Read more)
Lack of Facial Symmetry in Villains
Submitted by jlpowers on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:00am
I'm wandering the web today, and I can't help but run into pictures of the Jared Loughner, the guy who shot all those people in Arizona. And as I'm looking at the picture, I notice how different the depth of the eyes are in his face. So I decide to play a photoshop game that's a good time waster.
I took this picture, split it down the middle and mirrored each side of the face, so I now have three faces. The left face is the left side of the face, mirrored on itself, and the right face is the right side of the face, mirrored on itself. The center face is the original.(click picture for larger version)
And it's seriously creepy.
So, as with all good experiments, I decided to try it on myself, just to see what happened.
Which is equally creepy... but then I realized that I wasn't looking square at the camera. So I found a picture where I was looking square at the camera.
And with this one, where I'm looking at the camera almost square, other than the hair and the lighting, I'm pretty symmetric. (Read more)
Villain's POV in Romances
Submitted by jlpowers on Mon, 01/03/2011 - 12:00amWhat is it with romance authors who are spending half the book in other people's POV (not hero/heroine' s POV)? And most especially, what's with the authors who spend huge chucks of the book in the villain's POV?
Yo! Authors! IT'S A ROMANCE!!! By definition, if the book is shelved in the romance section of the bookstore, it's a book about the relationship between the hero and heroine! What the hell does spending half the book in other people's POV have to do with the romance and the relationship?
And what in the world makes you think that I give a rat's ass about the villain? It's a ROMANCE! Why would I-as-reader care to spend a third of the book reading about the villain and all the things the villain is planning on doing to the hero/heroine (H/H)? I read romance books to read about the romance, and about how the hero and heroine work together (or work at odds) to solve their problems, not to read about some moron who I couldn't care less about!
**Deep breath** Okay... calm down...let's try to look at this situation rationally. :-)
As I pondered why so many authors are spending so much time in other people's POVs, it's coming across to me as "lazy author".
It seems that the author doesn't want to sit down and do the work to figure out how to present the information that the author thinks the reader needs to know, from the H/H's POV. So, the author goes the lazy route and throws in other POV characters to present the information that the author deems necessary.
I beg of you... resist this temptation!
Because if you don't, I'll quit buying your books, like I've already quit buying (and reading) three of the authors who used to be my absolutely favorite authors. (Read more)
Cleaned The Boys' Game Area Today
Submitted by jlpowers on Sat, 01/01/2011 - 11:57pmStayed up late last night and celebrated the new year with chosen family. Stupid amounts of food were consumed, and a good time was had by all. I left two kids there and came home with the elder two kids.
This afternoon, while #2-son was at work, I rousted #1-son from his computer game and put him to work with me cleaning their game area in the basement. It was awful! One of those cases where it was so bad that I'd been putting off doing anything about it. But, today was the day. So, #1-son and I cleaned for about 2 hours, then #2-son got home from work and I brow-beat him into helping. Between the three of us, it took us about two more hours, but it's now CLEAN! :-) YAH!!! :-)
Just in time for chosen family to come over for pizza, games, and to go through the boxes of books to see if they wanted any before I got rid of them.
But, unfortunately, they only took a few books with them, so need to do something with the rest. The good news is that while I was visiting last night, one person suggested a used book sale at a local elementary school, which happens the middle of January and that would mean I could make some money off of the kids' books. And a second person said they'd take the left-overs to their mother who works in a library that has a huge book sale every year.
So... I'll put up with the boxes for a couple more weeks, take the age appropriate stuff to the school book sale, then give the rest to the library. It works for me. :-)
And, I keep going down and admiring the gym area, game area, and library. It's all so clean and nice. Wow! :-)
Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have the ambition to clean the laundry area, and then the WHOLE basement will be clean. A first! :-)