2008 - Page 3 of 5 - All the Billion Other Moments

Writing Updates: June 2008

Here we go again. By now you should know the drill. I wonder where the time went, then blab on about my writing this month. I think I’ve been letting these posts take on too much weight so I’m going to try and breeze through this one ((If you notice any glaring mistakes, please let me know)) . I apologize for the lack of variety in my postings, but I’ve been using what free time I can on my writing.

Writing Updates: May 2008

June is here, so it’s time to post my monthly writing update ((Yes, June has been here for some time, but it was June 1 when I started this post. That tidbit serves as a preview for how June is going so far.)). My concerted effort to try to hit at least 550 words a day in May paid off, and I often found myself blowing past 1000 words some days when things really got going. I was able to build good momentum that carried me from day-to-day ((I also made a conscious effort to follow my own advice.)).

I managed at least 13,697 words this month. I’m not sure what the exact number is because I’ve become accustomed to pulling my totals from my twitter archive and I found that a few tweets I thought had gone out either didn’t or were lost ((Just to be clear, I don’t blame twitter for my own carelessness.)). Even without my full number of words I did better this month than last, and that’s what matters. Of course, since I finished the big project, the question now is “What’s next?”

Continue reading “Writing Updates: May 2008”

Links of Interest (May 9th 2008 through May 29th 2008)

IETester: IETester is a tool that runs the rendering and javascript engines from IE8b1, IE7, IE6, and IE5.5 in a single process so you can see how each one mangles your site in it’s own unique way (currently in beta).

Tags: [tag]IETester[/tag], [tag]Internet Explorer[/tag], [tag]webdesign[/tag],
POC : Implementing HTML 5 Video Element using JavaScript and Flash: A proof of concept allowing use of the ‘video’ tag from the HTML5 draft spec, and having it work, even though browsers don’t yet support it.

Tags: [tag]standards[/tag], [tag]HTML5[/tag], [tag]webdesign[/tag], [tag]hacks[/tag], [tag]javascript[/tag], [tag]flash[/tag], [tag]video[/tag],
Audible.com and Blackstone Audio Royalties: SFFAudio shares some information from Robert J. Sawyer on the royalties he receives from audiobooks.

Tags: [tag]Blackstone Audio[/tag], [tag]audible.com[/tag], [tag]audiobooks[/tag], [tag]Robert J. Sawyer[/tag], [tag]royalties[/tag],
Characteristic Confusion: While investigating line-height Eric Meyer used font-family: Webdings to display “Oy!” (Webdings doesn’t contain ‘O’, ‘y’, or ‘!’). Firefox 3 unexpectedly displayed “Oy!”, which, it seems, is technically correct, leaving him asking “which is less correc

Tags: [tag]CSS[/tag], [tag]font-family[/tag], [tag]line-height[/tag], [tag]Eric Meyer[/tag], [tag]unicode[/tag], [tag]webdesign[/tag],
Growl for Windows – alpha now available: Growl is one of the three apps that excited me enough to buy a Mac, and it’s one I really miss when I’m on my Windows box.

Tags: [tag]Growl[/tag], [tag]software[/tag], [tag]windows[/tag], [tag]notification[/tag],

Novel Snippet

I’m going to be leaving my latest novel draft to sit for a while, but a good number of people cheered me along so I thought I’d toss out a small snippet in case anyone is interested in reading it.

Be warned: It’s rough, this is not my greatest work, and possibly not even a good example ((I’m currently too close to this one to be in any way objective at this point.)). Also it shows at least one quirk of my early drafts that may be a deal breaker for some folks.. When I’m writing along and I come across a character ((Or a place, or race of strange creatures, or a new flavor of pie. Pretty much any noun.)) that I’ve yet to name, I just pick a word ((Usually a word that describes who they are, or what they’re doing in the first scene they appear)) and place it in brackets ([ ]). I do this because I’ve found stopping to decide on a name can kill my momentum deader than dead. Also, as I have developed rather strict language rules for this world I can’t just pull something out of thin air. So even though the second guard is a major character throughout the novel, so far I know him only as [Driver], because when he showed up, that’s what he was doing.

So, if after all that you still want to read it, I hope you enjoy it.

Well that’s done

WIP Novel

[progpress title=”First Draft” goal=”97778″ current=”97778″ previous=”86446″ label=”words”]

Just a quick post to note that yesterday I finally typed “THE END” on the first draft of this latest novel. I’ll post about it in more detail soon, but I wanted to thank all the folks who offered encouragement and support throughout the process. You know who you are. I’d list you all, but I’m sure I’d leave someone out ((and I’m already running late this morning)) (but if you can always list yourselves by leaving comments).

Writing Updates: April 2008

May already? I feel like I just posted one of these. Sorry for the lack of other content around here, but I’ve been pretty much spending any and all time I carved out to write on the novel. How did I do on the “write every day” front? Well, I missed two days in April: my eldest daughter’s birthday, and my wife’s birthday. I’m happy to excuse myself in those cases ((thereby avoiding the feeling I let myself down, which can derail things if I let it.)).

I cranked out 12,926 words, making April an improvement on last month. While I did miss two days I was more consistent in my output I’m pretty sure this comes down to having a daily goal of 550 words, which I didn’t always make, but it seemed to work better than “some words”. Read on for the breakdown

Links of Interest (April 10th 2008 through April 22nd 2008)

Matthew Wayne Selznick Signs Book Deal: Author and Podcaster Matthew Wayne Selznick signed a deal with Swarm Press to re-issue his novel “Brave Men Run” in paperback. Congratulations Matt!
Tags: [tag]books[/tag], [tag]Matthew Wayne Selznick[/tag], [tag]Swarm Press[/tag], [tag]Brave Men Run[/tag],
Take notes during phone calls with friends and family: One of those “that should have been obvious” suggestions. I’ve conditioned my brain to filter out most things that aren’t useful to me right now. This doesn’t mean I’m not interested in people’s anecdotes, and schedules, it just means I’m unlikely to remember them without some reminder.
Tags: [tag]lifehack[/tag], [tag]notes[/tag], [tag]friends[/tag], [tag]family[/tag], [tag]memory[/tag],
Ajaxian Featured Tutorial: Hacking transparent PNG support into IE6 with IE PNG Fix, CSS and jQuery: Ah, IE6. I’m pretty good at getting it to do what I want, but it’s very existence makes most of the things I have to do harder than they should be. This tutorial deals with one of the harder issues, PNG transparency in positioned background images.
Tags: [tag]hacks[/tag], [tag]Javascript[/tag], [tag]jQuery[/tag], [tag]ie6[/tag], [tag]png[/tag], [tag]ie[/tag], [tag]webdesign[/tag],
YouTube – Sigler Book Tour (Seattle Q&A) Part2: In the second part of the video Scott covers such diverse topics as Sci-Fi Channel’s lack of foresight and how when it appears he has made a mistake it is actually sabotage by J.C. Hutchins.
Tags: [tag]video[/tag], [tag]Natalie Metzger[/tag], [tag]Scott Sigler[/tag], [tag]books[/tag], [tag]QandA[/tag], [tag]Sci-Fi Channel[/tag], [tag]JC Hutchins[/tag],
Sigler Book Tour (Seattle Q&A) Part1: I’m not lucky enough to live near any of the book stores Scott Sigler was signing at, but luckily Natalie Metzger captured this video of one of the Q & A sessions.
Tags: [tag]video[/tag], [tag]Natalie Metzger[/tag], [tag]Scott Sigler[/tag], [tag]books[/tag], [tag]QandA[/tag],

Writing Updates: March 2008

March was not a great month for me. I got pretty sick, and on March 24th I was too out of it to write. But I did manage to go eighty three days straight without missing a day. I’ve also been working long hours, which caused me to somehow miss another day as well. I’m still not feeling 100%, but I’m getting there. I wrote 11,781 words this month, making it my worst so far this year.

Links of Interest (February 21st 2008 through April 1st 2008)

INFECTED Trailer: Amazing film-style trailer for Scott Sigler’s novel Infected (available now in hardcover).
Tags: [tag]Scott Sigler[/tag], [tag]Infected[/tag], [tag]trailer[/tag], [tag]Kevin Capizzi[/tag], [tag]Earl Newton[/tag], [tag]Tom Krymkowski[/tag],
OverDrive to offer DRM-free audiobooks via Borders: Time to try unshackled e-books, too?: This can only be good news. OverDrive has an interesting history with DRM. They have always claimed to be unable to work with iPods due to Apple’s proprietary DRM, while failing to make clear they were using Microsoft’s proprietary DRM.
Tags: [tag]OverDrive[/tag], [tag]audiobooks[/tag], [tag]DRM[/tag],
garfield minus garfield: Take Garfield (the comic strip) and remove the title character, and you’re left with something darker and disturbingly funny.
Tags: [tag]comics[/tag], [tag]humor[/tag], [tag]Garfield[/tag], [tag]mashup[/tag],
‘Lego Universe,’ a brick MMO, is in development: I haven’t been real interested in Massively Multi-Player Online games in a while, but the idea of a Lego based MMO might change that.
Tags: [tag]Lego[/tag], [tag]MMO[/tag], [tag]Lego Universe[/tag], [tag]games[/tag],

Go Listen: PodCastle

Not a hoax! Not a dream! PodCastle, the fantasy audio magazine from the folks who bring you Escape Pod and Pseudopod, launched today. The first story is Come Lady Death by Peter S. Beagle, read by Paul S. Jenkins (of The Rev Up Review). Check it out.