tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64508678256637026522024-03-06T22:06:31.523-06:00Vacuum GenesisUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-57303424512360683712007-09-16T03:13:00.001-06:002008-06-22T06:32:44.335-06:00DONE<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49C4c3wRbzD_cKjo1U7o9rR04CLb8KnK80XdaFtK6dTiGWKSgzLVxnMiI6KyDXUEQygDuCfQgvOy2dA6fYM3RSE8nvM6Cj_QYSRtf1J1FGBZ22bTlmjjIv53FfYa5b1zJmZVKvLJYK_yj/s1600-h/newvac1.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110765512480106258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: pointer; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49C4c3wRbzD_cKjo1U7o9rR04CLb8KnK80XdaFtK6dTiGWKSgzLVxnMiI6KyDXUEQygDuCfQgvOy2dA6fYM3RSE8nvM6Cj_QYSRtf1J1FGBZ22bTlmjjIv53FfYa5b1zJmZVKvLJYK_yj/s400/newvac1.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><br /></div><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://sak6.wordpress.com/">CLICK HERE FOR THE NEW VACUUM GENESIS!!!</a></span><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-67897314687131398932007-09-09T04:41:00.000-06:002007-09-09T05:50:03.943-06:00Rant on Blogger<span style="font-style: italic;">There is actually something of interest at the end of this post. Feel free to skip the rant, if you wish.</span><br /><br />No major post this week--apologies all around. I'm simply too disappointed with this blog to go to any great effort. As you can tell by looking over at the top of the sidebar, there is an issue with posting pictures in that area. It has been going on for over a month, I have posted to the "help group" numerous times, others have complained about it, and a "blogger employee" has shown awareness of the problem by stating that the matter was being looked into.<br /><br />And yet, the problem persists. I don't buy into the argument that these blogs are free, and we get what we pay for. We are part of the advertising-dollar-generating stream that Google makes its billions from. I don't expect personalized service here, only that when a problem has been pointed out, somebody fixes it, or at least explains why it can't be fixed. I've had various "work-arounds" described and explained to me to resolve the issue, but frankly, I don't care to do it. The main reason that I like Blogger is that I can very easily present a semi-interesting blog, without having to learn a lot of html crap. If I have to go into the template and start dicking around with stuff, I'm not interested.<br /><br />I have a blog on WordPress, and as it turned out it was very easy to transfer all of this content over there. I am seriously considering posting a big link over here to that blog, then just continuing over there. I lose a lot in that deal, though. This blog is already established, I've got a bit of a page rank, finally, and people are starting to drop in and check things out more often. I don't know. I guess I'll think about it over the next week and decide.<br /><br />Okay, well, I guess I do have some non-rant material. I meant to put this up mid-week, and was too busy. Elissa Malcohn's book <span style="font-style: italic;">Covenant</span>, the first in her<span style="font-style: italic;"> Deviations</span> series, is available for pre-order at <a href="http://www.aislingpress.com/site/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=2&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=9&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=26">Aisling Press</a>. Here's the cover:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia7m-chyphenhyphenR_UhnulDF7emEdPdvbuMItcYddwgPzoK4p30wPvFXRCXfydfDbwb71GXcmvPu69Oz7xA9RJ2aU0UE8jmukIUxh8HX5ddwZiDca9LjO_kMUUqUk5p1HlkMajKgtnkITJskJUSoq/s1600-h/952c1608016bd489a8b3fb426048ce3c.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia7m-chyphenhyphenR_UhnulDF7emEdPdvbuMItcYddwgPzoK4p30wPvFXRCXfydfDbwb71GXcmvPu69Oz7xA9RJ2aU0UE8jmukIUxh8HX5ddwZiDca9LjO_kMUUqUk5p1HlkMajKgtnkITJskJUSoq/s320/952c1608016bd489a8b3fb426048ce3c.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5108167657899349746" border="0" /></a><br />If you dig back in the archives, you'll find an interview that I did with Elissa, in which she discusses the book, as well as her time spent editing Star*Line magazine back in the '80s. I'm definitely going to order a copy and I'm looking forward to the read. Congrats to you, Elissa! You guys can read more from Elissa at her blog, <a href="http://www.hurricanecountry.blogspot.com/">Chronicles from Hurricane Country</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-16465141321657348052007-09-02T04:28:00.000-06:002007-09-02T05:32:39.224-06:00I get by with a little help from my friends...I get up every morning at around 2:00 a.m. It is my "personal time," I suppose you could say, set aside primarily for my writing, and other creative endeavors. I love these dark, pre-dawn hours when the house is quiet--the whole world is quiet, at least over here in my little corner of it--and I can hang around with a few of my best friends. Who are these friends, you might ask? Well, let me introduce you to them. They are a bit shy--as am I--so I doubt they will be making any more appearances here. If you would like to ask them any questions, you should do it now. We like to call ourselves "The Nerbs," because we haven't figured out yet if we are <span style="font-weight: bold;">N</span>ight owls or <span style="font-weight: bold;">E</span>a<span style="font-weight: bold;">R</span>ly <span style="font-weight: bold;">B</span>ird<span style="font-weight: bold;">S</span>.<br /><br />By the way...this blog post has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I just purchased a new fancy-schmancy digital camera. Nothing whatsoever.<br /><br />First up, I would like to introduce Angel.<br /><center><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o88/sak2112/2007_0902friends0034.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a></center>She belonged to my wife, originally, and was kept in a box of her things out in the garage. I came across her one day and was immediately smitten by her beauty. She's the real authority in our little group; calm, kind, and very wise. We all love her very much.<br /><center><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o88/sak2112/2007_0902friends0022.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a></center>Isn't she gorgeous?<br /><br />Next up is this rascal, who goes by the rather unoriginal name of Beary.<br /><center><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o88/sak2112/2007_0902friends0035.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a></center>Beary is quite patriotic, as you can see, and of Scottish descent. He originally belonged to my mother, who has since passed away, and he always reminds me of her. He is also very smart, but mostly where it concerns fixing or building things. You see, he is sitting atop a complete set of <span style="font-style: italic;">Practical Handyman's Encyclopedias</span>. His knowledge is a bit outdated--the set was published back in the early 1950's--but all in all, he is quite a shrewd and useful bear.<br /><br />Next to Beary (and his girlfriend, or so he likes to think) is Regina.<br /><center><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o88/sak2112/2007_0902friends0041.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a></center>Regina is the main character in a video game called <span style="font-style: italic;">Dino Crisis</span>, of which this poster is an advertisement. Regina's pretty hot, no doubt about it, and she certainly looks good in a black leather outfit, but once you get to know her you realize that she is actually very shy and reserved. You don't want to piss her off, though. She'll open up a can on your ass in a heartbeat. Regina is a very tactical-minded person, and she is invaluable to me as a sounding-board when I am fighting my way through various plot difficulties, or trying to figure out why my novel has gone all wonky all of a sudden. I think she has the most beautiful eyes that I have ever seen, but of course, I'm far too shy to ever tell her that.<br /><br />Over here on the desk is a feisty little fellow named Irish (for obvious reasons).<br /><center><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o88/sak2112/2007_0902friends0038.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a></center>Irish was a gift to me from my wife, just this last St. Patrick's Day. He's quite a stern little fellow, and he seems rather preoccupied with making sure that I get my daily writing chores done. I think he fancies himself a writer, but of course he could never succeed at it as he has no pencil with which to write, nor any fingers with which to grasp the pencil (that he doesn't have). I sometimes suspect that he has the ability to write through me...sitting there seeming to glare hypnotically at me with his beady black eyes. I wonder how much of what I write comes from my own creative subconscious, and how much is actually channeled through me by this little green bear? I suppose it really doesn't matter. He's quite a nice fellow, once you get to know him.<br /><br />Rounding out our little 2:00 a.m. cadre is Uni.<br /><center><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o88/sak2112/2007_0902friends0042.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a></center>Not a very original name, I will admit, but, then, neither is mine. Uni was a gift from one of my nieces, back a couple of birthday's ago. Uni is very magical, and she (according to my niece, Uni is a girl) tells the most fantastic stories of far away places and mystical things. I wish I could write a few of them down and share them with you, but for some reason they always disappear from my mind sometime after 4:30 a.m., while I'm getting ready to go to work. All that is left is a vague memory of some beautiful place full of strange and exotic people, and adventure. Lots and lots of adventure.<br /><br />So, there you have us: The Nerbs. For the better part of the day they just sit around my office staring at each other; a couple of stuffed bears, a doll, a poster, and a ceramic statue. But at 2:00 a.m., when I come in here to begin my day's writing, they are very much alive. It is little wonder that these two and one-half hours are my favorite part of every day.<br /><br />I like hanging out with my friends.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-45287668489195041072007-08-26T04:27:00.000-06:002007-08-26T05:04:12.681-06:00Moments<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_bcjlN7cCGqBnt-BRSHyqDIchNMl2OffoROb43DI-pS1sUiXstZHgIlnZFjz_BKbnKyg4IpHbli7_8bKE8u_ANC_tqSr7DTCzLVjzPMMKK0V5lRcNcVYdu6flsdxwSsbEw1kutR-3QSf/s1600-h/dramatic+sky+1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_bcjlN7cCGqBnt-BRSHyqDIchNMl2OffoROb43DI-pS1sUiXstZHgIlnZFjz_BKbnKyg4IpHbli7_8bKE8u_ANC_tqSr7DTCzLVjzPMMKK0V5lRcNcVYdu6flsdxwSsbEw1kutR-3QSf/s320/dramatic+sky+1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5102954619868993170" /></a>I woke up at around 3:00 a.m., same as I always do. But this was Saturday, and as I always do on an early Saturday morning, I felt a little thrill at the notion of two days doing whatever the hell I want. There were several thunderstorms rumbling through, but by 7:30 a.m. they were all moving off to the north east. I decided to make a donut run--my little tribe loves it when I do that--and stepped outside into an absolute wonderland of beauty. The storm clouds, billowing and dramatic, where gathered along the eastern horizon, right in front of the rising sun. I ran back to the house to get our digital camera, hoping to capture some little piece of the moment.<br><br>As I was wandering around the neighborhood snapping pictures of the sky, it occurred to be that I used to notice these sorts of moments all the time. Lately--and by <i>lately</i> I mean over the last ten or fifteen years--not so much. Finally I had to stop taking pictures and just stand there, wondering why.<br><br>I wish I could say that I found some answer to that question. I didn't. The whole time that I was standing there, looking up into that awesome pre-dawn sky, I felt like I was on the verge of waking up, as if the last ten or fifteen years of my life had only been a dream. It was kind of exciting and kind of sad. Exciting because I'm glad to know that part of me...the part I think of as the <i>real</i> me...is still lurking about somewhere in there. Sad because I feel like I got off track somewhere along the way, allowed myself to be distracted from my pursuit of a goal that, now, I can barely remember.<br><br>I remember back in my twenties I used to tell people that I wanted to remember something special about every day of my life. "I don't want to go to bed one night, twenty-three years old, and wake up the next morning forty-two." Standing there with my little digital camera, age <i>forty three</i>, I couldn't help but wonder if that is precisely what I had done, all of my efforts notwithstanding. Maybe it's inevitable. At any rate, I'm awake now, and the world is just as beautiful and mysterious as it was when I nodded off, all those years ago.<br><br>I think I'm going to need to get a better camera, though.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-61817960789141597292007-08-19T03:16:00.000-06:002007-08-19T11:29:38.560-06:00Erin Arrives! (Or What's Left Of Her)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDzCnPmZdQXmoW0SVV79jVDXYH0T0YSocN31VDX6i5DQBCBKE-dsTmo0-8-Oq6SjpVxWNNIqmHcZ6knn4Nuo6axD0JLfRAosY4BBW3NtldU5Ze9ISC2_lumXniybDN3XF94oMhM3V92Chc/s1600-h/radar01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 204px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDzCnPmZdQXmoW0SVV79jVDXYH0T0YSocN31VDX6i5DQBCBKE-dsTmo0-8-Oq6SjpVxWNNIqmHcZ6knn4Nuo6axD0JLfRAosY4BBW3NtldU5Ze9ISC2_lumXniybDN3XF94oMhM3V92Chc/s320/radar01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100340889292420914" border="0" /></a><br /><br />It began raining Saturday afternoon, and as it has been so blasted hot recently I ran out to sit on the front porch with my wife and enjoy the respite. We noticed that the air smelled different than it usually smells during a summer storm. My wife, born and raised in Panama, recognized it immediately: tropical moisture. Technically speaking, I suppose most of the moisture that we get in Oklahoma during the spring and summer is "tropical," given that it streams up from the Gulf of Mexico, but this was different some how. I noticed that the rain seemed to come in waves, or bands. It would rain heavily for awhile, then subside, then increase again. It made for a pleasant afternoon, but I didn't think much of it. I assumed that it would all blow through in a few hours.<br /><br />An hour and forty minutes ago, at 3:00 a.m., I woke to the sound of rain pounding on the roof and thunder rumbling. I came into my office and turned on the weather radio, only to be hit with a tornado warning for an area about ten miles west of where I live. That got my attention, so I turned on the television and tuned to a local news outlet. The radar image above shows a very unique weather phenomenon, at least for this part of the country. The low pressure area that formed the core of tropical storm Erin, which came ashore on the Texas gulf coast and moved northward across the state over the past two days, has apparently re-intensified as it moved into western and central Oklahoma. Note that you can see a very clearly defined "eye" at the center of a very heavy band of rain. It's not a tropical storm at this point, of course, not even precisely a tropical depression. But it is certainly impressive.<br /><br />The rainfall amounts are amazing. Some areas have had nearly eight inches in just over an hour. Journalists are out and about even as I type this, and they are reporting flooding even in areas that typically do not flood. In the areas where flooding is more common, eight to twelve inches of running water is shutting down streets and highways. Two main factors are contributing to what may become a rather dangerous situation here in central Oklahoma, particularly the north central region. As the low pressure system rotates counter clockwise, bands of heavy precipitation spin off and move west to east across the same areas over and over. Also, the main low pressure system, which is causing the whole mess, is moving very slowly, meaning that those areas in the northwest quadrant of the low are stuck in an absolute deluge. If this thing slows down, or, God-forbid, stalls, this could turn into a real disaster. As it stands right now, the southern edge of this low is going to rotate right across Oklahoma City as it moves slowly west to east. There are reports of 50 mph winds and, yes, more rain.<br /><br />As soon as the sun comes up I'll run out and take a few pictures, and update the situation. A strange weather situation, to be sure. Hopefully not a deadly one as well.<br /><br />UPDATE: Shot this video at the creek near my house, flooding:<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i118.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid118.photobucket.com/albums/o88/sak2112/creekflood.flv" height="361" width="400"></embed><br /><br />...and this, not far from my home:<a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img style="width: 400px; height: 246px;" src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o88/sak2112/8_19weather010.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br />UPDATE: <a href="http://www.newsok.com/video/brightcove/?bctid=1138334603&bclid=1111621425">City of Kingfisher, Oklahoma, flooded. The water is still rising.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-58897788942821974512007-08-12T05:23:00.000-06:002007-08-12T06:01:52.217-06:00Meet Darren Devitt, Creator of PageFour<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtYZEbfj2kLY1a7OtggGIXSr8cLP13n5y4d1_04R-6xJluz8Omx5IuEt-kcS1WVHTausos-8f6tl23oaywq5nPw8Yp-1Q3s8LfzRfXN6u-jtgghHbZJz3mM1dE6cbmYIxgL2dctGhvTZsX/s1600-h/devitt01.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 272px; height: 218px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtYZEbfj2kLY1a7OtggGIXSr8cLP13n5y4d1_04R-6xJluz8Omx5IuEt-kcS1WVHTausos-8f6tl23oaywq5nPw8Yp-1Q3s8LfzRfXN6u-jtgghHbZJz3mM1dE6cbmYIxgL2dctGhvTZsX/s320/devitt01.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5097773800602981458" border="0" /></a>I am a word processor junkie. I don't know why. I've downloaded and tried just about every free word processor that you can find with a good Google search. I have a copy of Open Office which, much to my disappointment, is just as bulky and intimidating as MS Word. I think at one time I had as many as eight different word processors on my hard drive, not including MS Notepad or MS Write. All of them had features that I liked, none of them worked precisely the way that I wanted them to.<br /><br />I found Darren Devitt's <i>PageFour</i> during one of my aforementioned Google searches, shortly after The Great Laptop Crash of 2006. I was using an early 90's DOS word processor called EasyWrite, written by John Turnbull--and happily so--but, for whatever reason, it would not load or operate on my new computer. I wasn't about to use Word (see my many other rants on that topic), so I needed to find a word processor that was simple, useful, and not loaded down with a bunch of features that I would never need or use.<br /><br />Someone at the Absolute Write message board pointed me to PageFour, and I downloaded the "trial" program. I think the thing that impressed me initially about Darren Devitt, the creator of PageFour, was that--at least at that time--he gave you a fully functional, fully loaded copy of the word processor for free, without annoying pop-ups reminding you to pay for a fully registered version, or features that stop working after a certain amount of time. The "catch," if it could be called that, was that you could only create a limited number of "notebooks." I'm always inclined to do business with people who do <i>good</i> business, and I was immediately in love with the PageFour interface, so after a bit of waffling back and forth about the issue, I sent the man his $30 and got my registration key. I haven't looked back since.<br /><br />For me, it is a matter of finding a writing environment where I can work creatively. PageFour allows me to set things up the way that I want. I don't have to conform to the word processor, the word processor conforms to me. That is huge. I still move over to Word when it is time to wrestle a manuscript into its final, submission-ready format. Word works for that sort of thing. But I can't <i>write</i> in Word. Since I moved to PageFour, my creative output has risen, and frankly, I enjoy the writing process again.<br /><br />Naturally curious as I am, I wanted to learn a little more about the man who created this word processor. He very graciously agreed to answer a few interview questions via email.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">1. Tell us a little bit about you. How did you get involved in software development? Is it what you always wanted to do? What sort of training and education have you in the field?<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"></span><br><br> I've actually had no formal training in software development, and this very lack of training has benefited me down the years. It's far easier to sit in a meeting with a team of software developers and ask 'why?', when you don't have 4 years of university training telling you the question has already been answered.<br><br>I studied history at university, and moved into software development about 8 years ago. I'm honest enough to admit that my reasons were pretty much financial - a long stint backpacking after university left me 26 years old, and with no career. Programming was a lucrative field where you could move from a small to a comparatively large salary very quickly, and this was a great attraction.<br><br>What little training I did receive was very much 'on the job'. I've workedfor a number of small software companies in the UK. Each company was small enough that I was involved in critical projects, and experienced little of the corporate life style common in much larger companies.<br><br>Having said all that, I enjoy designing software very much, and what started out as a quest for a well paying job has turned into a career I've grown to love.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">2. Why did you create PageFour? What was it about all the other word</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> processors available that frustrated you to the point that you felt the</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> need to sit down and begin mapping out a new one?</span><br /><br />I began working on an early version of PageFour about a year before version 1 was completed. My feeling at the time was that much of the software used by 'normal' users - and by normal, I mean non-technical people, not in the IT industry - was far too complex, and required an understanding of computers that should not have been necessary. Computer hardware had grown so much over the previous 10 years that old rules and models no longer applied when it came to software development, but the software industry as a whole failed to act on this. I found the Windows file system in particular to have little relevance to normal users. In order to use everyday software such as MS Word effectively, the user needed to understand what files were, what saving a file meant, how the Operating System stored those files, and so much more. And I could come up with no reason why this was necessary.<br /><br />I built the PageFour 'Notebook, Folder, and Page' structure to hide all this from the user. My intention was to present the user with 'files', and an entire file/folder structure without them ever realising that that was what they were looking at.<br /><br />My Luddite brother uses PageFour for note taking as part of his business, and he still doesn't know what a file is.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">3. What was the first word processor that you ever wrote with? Do you</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> have any fond favorites among the word processors available from, say, the</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> mid '80s to the mid '90s?</span><br /><br />I was a student in the early 90s, and at the time was as technically illiterate as the next man. My writing technology of choice was a Panasonic electronic typewriter that boasted a single line LCD display. I wrote my final dissertation on this machine, and was far more careful with my typing and spelling than I am today. If anything, word processors have spoiled us a little, making it so much easier to correct and change our work. Not that I ever complain.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">4. Part--perhaps most--of PageFour's "charm," is it's simplicity, and its</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> "writer-friendly" interface. Can you expand your market-base for this</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> product without loading the program down with "bells and whistles?" Is</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> there a point at which you stop tweaking, and that's it?</span><br /><br />Now that's a very interesting question. I regularly receive emails from people saying PageFour would be just right for them if only it had one or two more features. The problem is, for each of these people, the one or two features they want are different, and satisfying them all would turn PageFour into just another bloated word processor. There will come a point when I'll stop adding new features, but I believe that's some time away yet. For example, the last major release introduced two 'large' features - a global search, and a page merger - that probably added value for most users. The difficulty is in choosing which new features to add.<br /><br />I'm firmly of the opinion that attempting to move beyond the 'niche' market of creative writers would damage the product as a whole, so have no intention of adding features simply to broaden its appeal.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">5 After PageFour, what's next for Darren Devitt, writing-wise and</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> software-wise?</span><br /><br />I have a number of software projects on the go at the moment, none of them in the creative writing field. I'm working on polishing off some small applications that I designed for my own use over the years, with the aim of making them either commercially viable, or at the very least, usable freeware. In terms of paying the mortgage, I'm busy working on an application targeting eBay sellers. Over the past year, I've helped out with the techie side of my brother's eBay business, and noticed some serious deficiencies in the software currently available.<br /><br />And of course, PageFour is still under development. The user base is growing significantly larger each month, as word of mouth plays its part, and I've become a little more aware of the marketing and selling side of the business.<br /></div><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">If you would like to learn more about PageFour, maybe even take it for a test drive, check it out </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.softwareforwriting.com/">here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. And thank you to Darren for taking the time to stop by and tell us a little bit about himself, and the PageFour word processor.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-55361856234423764152007-08-05T04:45:00.000-06:002007-08-05T05:08:16.490-06:00Three Easy Steps<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfuGl1j7Qgg_SeAMX4WNnMLLfG7NVU4_TGUfdR8iK4ZYItXT1gHl5uBYwvg329xnx3L-AVmFg9kgJAakyYd-OIirR8ewCM8m_WCxVbr1TBGNlIFJcphjxdU1p44_KLWdgr6-ro_h-Xc3A9/s1600-h/OI-56408E.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfuGl1j7Qgg_SeAMX4WNnMLLfG7NVU4_TGUfdR8iK4ZYItXT1gHl5uBYwvg329xnx3L-AVmFg9kgJAakyYd-OIirR8ewCM8m_WCxVbr1TBGNlIFJcphjxdU1p44_KLWdgr6-ro_h-Xc3A9/s200/OI-56408E.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5095166489166337074" border="0" /></a><br />Says so right on the box. "Three Easy Steps." What they fail to mention (until you get the damn thing home and read the set-up manual, which is considerably longer than three pages, I might also add) is that the pool will only work on perfectly level ground. Honestly, how many places on the entire planet are perfectly level? Doesn't Nature abhor a straight line? I abhor this friggen pool. Yes, indeed I do.<br /><br />Another thing that I learned...don't set the damn thing up under a tree. They don't make a heater for a pool this size, and the thing needs direct sunlight for most of the day. That is, unless you get some sort of perverse pleasure out of watching your children's lips turn blue and their teeth chatter whenever they swim in it. The most level stretch of ground in my back yard (one that only required three hours of digging and leveling) is right under a big old elm tree. I figured what the heck...it gets hot under elm trees, at least where I live. Not hot enough, obviously. My son hopped in the first time, shrieked, and he hasn't been back in since then. NOW I'm going to have to move the damn thing, which means I'll have to drain it, and God knows how much more digging and leveling. I hope I don't <span style="font-style: italic;">accidentally</span> poke a big-ass hole in it in the process.<br /><br />In other news, I'm trying to work out a cool interview with the guy who developed PageFour, the word processor that I use. Cool dude and cool product. Hopefully by next Sunday.<br /><br />Thank you Blogger, for screwing up my "Picture Of The Day" element over in the sidebar. That thing has worked just fine for years, now it's goofed up. Appreciate it!<br /><br />Still can't tell you the name of my Super Secret book project, but it is coming along nicely, thank you. I am out of "preproduction" and happily working away on the first draft. More on that in the near future.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-19343656242480927332007-07-22T07:31:00.000-06:002007-07-22T08:29:02.801-06:00The SearchWhen I was a kid, say five to ten years of age, I had a most peculiar habit. When alone, and given some time, I would stare into a picture until I could see things inside the picture begin to move. Oil paintings, usually, or reproductions therefrom. My mother had an eclectic taste in art that ranged from God-knows-who to God-knows-what. This was back in the days when television only had four channels, counting PBS, and went off the air shortly before midnight most nights. This is back before computers and video games and iPods and every other G.D. thing we have today to fill our minds with useless NOISE. This is back when a View-Master(tm) and a pack of reels titled <i>The Seven Wonders of the World</i> could keep me occupied for the better part of an idle summer afternoon, and happily so.<br><br>I used to wish that I could disappear into pictures. Part of it was that I wanted to escape the roller-coaster reality in which I lived, but the greater part of it, the part that matters, was that I have always longed for exotic, distant, fantastical places. As I would lay and stare at some art reproduction, I would make up stories in my mind about the people and/or the place that I was viewing. Of course, I was always the hero of these tales. God knows how many imaginary villages and villagers are left standing today thanks in no small part to my diligent (and heroic) efforts against dragons, giants, and mean stepfathers...never pictured, always beyond the horizon, just out of reach of the artist's brush.<br><br>There was one particular reproduction that I am desperately searching for on the Internet. The problem is that I know virtually nothing about it; no title or artist, just a vague recollection of what it looked like. There was a house on the right side, with a lake in front of it that seemed to span the bottom part of the canvass. There was a little boat on the lake, and one or two people in the boat. The whole of it was blanketed by trees, and mysteriously dark, while on the left side of the painting an opening in the trees (possibly with a river or a stream running through it) opened out into a brighter place somewhere off in the distance. That's about all I can recall, other than that the painting seemed very dark and moody, but in a mysterious way. I think the thing that fascinated me the most about it was that the light was in the background, and I always wondered what was beyond that opening in the trees, in the clearing beyond.<br><br>I don't know if I will ever find it again, and there is a part of me that wonders if I should even try. Sometimes the way you remember things is better than the way that they really are. Sometimes a strange and mysterious thing from childhood is revealed as mundane and simple by the stark, white glare of an adult mind.<br><br>Maybe I'm searching for something else entirely.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-13340143717990026642007-07-15T05:10:00.000-06:002007-07-15T06:07:54.436-06:00Rain<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4r3qR1ENIo3VjGFylGucYTFVhbBvsT_6WdTgZTcyJno-Ijay-6y6IOUDysb3mVeXS1XiZjRHPzfGyfyx3fi16Jdy92lpkI8LnjMPa8jRBKWgmG2B4M59obvicH8drFrMvTo2mzSiiF8Pk/s1600-h/ebay+1600.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4r3qR1ENIo3VjGFylGucYTFVhbBvsT_6WdTgZTcyJno-Ijay-6y6IOUDysb3mVeXS1XiZjRHPzfGyfyx3fi16Jdy92lpkI8LnjMPa8jRBKWgmG2B4M59obvicH8drFrMvTo2mzSiiF8Pk/s200/ebay+1600.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5087380185897883362" border="0" /></a>I like rain, and rainy days. I'm not sure why--back when I was going through a horrible bout of depression I used to think that gray, rainy weather made me feel good because it matched my "internal weather"--but whatever the reason, rainy days always seem to energize me. I wonder, sometimes, if some beautiful childhood moment is associated with rain, locked away in my subconscious. This concept forms the heart of my current book project, tentatively titled <i>Beautiful Rain</i>. In it, I explore the magic of childhood fantasy, how and why it is lost, and whether or not a middle-aged person can recapture it.<br><br>That said, you can certainly have too much of a good thing, as the picture of the rain-swollen creek not far from my house attests. By this time of year that thing is usually bone dry. It rained nearly every day here for two weeks in June, and it has rained five or six days so far in July. And it wasn't just an on-again-off-again drizzle, either. It poured, sometimes for twenty and thirty minutes at a stretch. Trying to keep up with the lawn work has turned into a nightmare as the grass never completely dries before the next cloudburst comes along. I don't care much for mowing wet grass, so when I do get a break long enough for the lawn to dry up, the crap is high enough to harvest and bale.<br><br>But for all of that, I still get a mysterious little thrill when I am sitting here in the wee small hours of the morning and I hear a rumble of distant thunder, and I lean back in my chair and wonder again what happy, wonderful thing happened in my distant past having to do with rain. Maybe I kissed a pretty girl under a tree in some back yard, or found some bright, mysterious object to add to my "junk" collection. I don't know. I may never know. When I really reach back into my mind, all I get is an image of myself with some faceless, nameless friend, walking around the neighborhood in our small town after a summer thunderstorm. In this vague memory (if it <i>is</i> a memory, and not some romantic fabrication) the storm has just passed, and the sky to the north and east is awesome with huge black storm clouds and lightning. To the west, the sky is clearing, but for some reason I always picture that it is sunset, and my friend and I are cavorting around in the strangest, most beautiful glow of "magic light" that I have ever seen. Everything is wet green and bright burnt umber. There is a sense of urgency about the memory, as if I knew that my mother would be calling me inside soon, and I didn't want this special moment to end...more intriguing, that at the age of five or six, I understood that the moment was in fact special.<br><br>I suppose that is as much as I will ever know about it, and I will never be certain if it is a real memory, or just some creative wishful thinking born of my adult mind. Something is there, though. It's like a wonderful dream that you forget immediately upon waking...leaving nothing but an ache in your heart and a yearning for some beautiful thing that you cannot quite remember. I get that feeling, when it rains.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-31378216089999233712007-07-06T01:31:00.000-06:002007-07-06T15:53:01.536-06:00Christine Norris: Return To Zandria<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrnKKNvU07XU7d_9di7GYc8nKsHgrR5l9rP_m57yXynIrsUVzMED2FsvdnWN6Sr8nZWgEZxJ4myINUNIfVAM2AOEtHTwDv40aX_G52e-WqOUyoU_Q3K_W3MYxhnn9QPbER8vqU2VbvC9t2/s1600-h/hsflowerssmall.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrnKKNvU07XU7d_9di7GYc8nKsHgrR5l9rP_m57yXynIrsUVzMED2FsvdnWN6Sr8nZWgEZxJ4myINUNIfVAM2AOEtHTwDv40aX_G52e-WqOUyoU_Q3K_W3MYxhnn9QPbER8vqU2VbvC9t2/s320/hsflowerssmall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5083986585252531538" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;" >Ivy Peterson was not ordinary. Ivy was More-Than-Ordinary because once she found herself in a very special place and had a very special adventure.<br /><br />But Ivy was far too old for fairy tales...wasn’t she?<br /><br />It has been three years since Ivy recovered the Talisman of Zandria, and her life is very different. She is no longer the shy young girl who chased a fairy through a magic gate, but a teenager, concerned with clothes, friends and school. She has nearly forgotten about the special world that exists on the other side of a thin magical veil.<br /><br />But they have not forgotten her.<br /><br />Now a crisis is brewing in Zandria, and only Ivy can help. They implore her to come to their aid, and Ivy’s memories of adventure pull her once again into the enchanted world of mermaids, dragons and wizards. Reunited with old friends, and bringing a new one along for the ride, Ivy must now lead them into the wilds of her own world, and not only keep them safe but stop an empire from falling into the clutches of evil.</span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">---Story summary of Return to Zandria, courtesy www.christine-norris.com</span><br /><br />Author Christine Norris has been kind enough to let me interview her regarding her writing, and her soon to be released YA novel, <span style="font-style: italic;">Return to Zandria</span>. Christine is a New Jersey native, and a graduate of Temple University. She began writing in 2001, and completed work on her successful first novel, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Talisman of Zandria</span>, in 2004.<br /><br />In an email interview, Christine answered a few questions about herself, her writing, and her latest novel.<br /><br /></span><b style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" >What made you decide to write children's books?</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br />---That's an interesting story. I've always liked fairy tales, and great adventures full of magic and fantasy. But it wasn't until after I read Harry Potter that I decided I wanted to try and write a children's book. I loved the stories, of course, like everyone else, but it was JK Rowling's personal story that inspired me. I thought if she could write a book and sell it, without any formal writing training, then I could too.<br /><br /></span><b style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" >Tell us a little bit about Return to Zandria.</span></b><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" ><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;">---This book picks up three years after the previous one, TALISMAN OF ZANDRIA. Ivy Peterson, who's the heroine, is now fourteen, and a pretty normal teenager. Which, if you read the first book, you know that's not how she always was. Anyway, she's worried about normal teenage things, like school and clothes. She's completely forgotten about her adventure in Zandria. They haven't forgotten about her, though, and they need her now more than ever, because there's a major crisis that only she can help them with. I don't want to give too much away, but it's all very exciting and full of adventure and twists and turns.</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Arial;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /></span><b style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" >Is <em>Return to Zandria</em> written more toward a young female audience? Is there anything in the story that might appeal to boys?</span></b><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" ><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;">---Maybe. I think more girls will relate to Ivy, but I've seen boys reading the first book, and had several boys tell me they liked it. I like to write about girl heroines, because I don't know how many relate-able female main characters there are in this age group. I think boys will like this one too - there's fighting, and dragons, and magic, and adventure. Connor, the wizard apprentice, has a bigger part to play in this book than the last. I think he'll have quite a bit of appeal to boys.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /></span><b style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" >Which was harder to write, the first book, <em>Talisman of Zandria</em>, or its sequel, <em>Return to Zandria</em>?</span></b><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" ><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;">---This one was much harder. I didn't have a story for the longest time - there was a time when I didn't think I was going to even write a sequel. This one went through quite a bit more revision, I think, than the first. The beginning was especially tough for some reason. It came out much better than even I expected it to.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /></span><b style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" >Will there be a third book in the <em>Zandria</em> series?</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br />---Everyone has asked me that, and the answer is I just don't know. I haven't closed the door on Zandria, but I'm concentrating on other projects right now, like my upcoming series, the first of which will be out next year, and a full-length Wizard Academies story. But the story for <span style="font-style: italic;">Return to Zandria</span> sort of suprised me, so there's always a chance there will be another book.<br /><br /></span><b style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" >What are some authors or books that have influenced and/or inspired you?</span></b><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" ><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;">---I have my list of 'inital' authors - JK Rowling, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein...LOL. Plus great authors like Tamora Pierce, Roald Dahl, Jane Yolen, and Madeline L'Engle. <em>A Wrinkle in Time</em> was one of my favorite books when I was young. I wore that book out, I need a new copy. One of my new favorite authors is James A. Owen, who's book <em>Here, There Be Dragons</em>, is my new favorite book. I can't wait for the next in that series, he's terrific, seriously inspirational.<br /><br />Return to Zandria is due to be released in print on July 28, and an e-book version in .pdf format is available now at <a href="http://www.lbfbooks.com/">LBF Books</a>. For more information about Christine Norris, visit her at her <a href="http://www.christine-norris.com/">website</a>, or on <a href="http://www.myspace.com/christinenorris">MySpace</a>.<br /><br /></span><i><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" >Author photo courtesy www.christine-norris.com copyright 2007 Sarah A. Lukacs</span></i><span style="font-family:Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-56648173786017267382007-07-04T02:53:00.000-06:002007-07-04T03:29:46.105-06:00Independence Day 2007<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOktxy9sKgzZdoXVt8JMJflmKMwjkGgm9OPGKCEG6bxla84o2O0fJosYfvgM67Krd1J1cqdNXBPf0x7HwgCcxVMkdgRtVndCJ7-s0yhyphenhyphenepI4fgr4JkBQBq0MwVO0ugZoDvrhFT4Jjio5Ta/s1600-h/MR29%5E010.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOktxy9sKgzZdoXVt8JMJflmKMwjkGgm9OPGKCEG6bxla84o2O0fJosYfvgM67Krd1J1cqdNXBPf0x7HwgCcxVMkdgRtVndCJ7-s0yhyphenhyphenepI4fgr4JkBQBq0MwVO0ugZoDvrhFT4Jjio5Ta/s320/MR29%5E010.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5083263600522693954" border="0" /></a>I don't have any old family pictures specifically related to the July Fourth Independence Day holiday, but this old photograph of my grandfather having broken a lawn chair while sitting down looks kind of "summery." I can almost hear my grandmother saying <span style="font-style: italic;">"Hang on, Jack. Let me go get the camera."</span><br /><br />We were pretty big on celebrating July 4th, though, for all my lack of pictures to prove the point. I think the fact that we used to be able to light our own fireworks--and create our own displays--had a lot to do with this holiday being one of my favorites when I was a child. As I got older the July 4th holiday lost a little of it's mystique for me. It turned into a bar-b-cue/beer party, with occasional forays to some park to watch a large, professional fireworks display.<br /><br />Professional fireworks displays are okay the first few times you see them, but after that they sort of suck. One looks suspiciously like all the others, year in and year out. It was a lot more fun to do it ourselves, back in the day. And exciting. Every year you could bet that somebody (probably after a few to many adult beverages) would very nearly injure himself (or someone else) trying to light some small explosive device with his cigarette. One year that stands out in my mind--even though I was only four or five at the time--my stepfather and grandfather got into a "pop-bottle rocket" fight with some teenage boys across the street. I remember being terrified as those things whizzed past my head and exploded in the yard behind me, and I remember my mom jerking me back into the house and saying <span style="font-style: italic;">"Goddamned idiots!"</span><br /><br />I recently began work at a new job and I couldn't help but noticing a big sign that the manager printed and stuck on the bulletin board: WEDNESDAY JULY 4 IS A NORMAL WORK DAY. I'm not sure why he felt the need to put the word <span style="font-style: italic;">NORMAL</span> in there ... in fact, I find it a bit insulting. I work in a place now that doesn't allow time off for holidays, and while I don't mind so much for myself, I resent that it messes things up for my family. They don't want to go do anything without me (although I have urged them to do so), and our entire July 4th celebration will probably consist of grilling hotdogs in the back yard and watching whatever fireworks we can see from the front yard later in the evening.<br /><br />Last year--when I still had a real job, and time off for the holiday--we took my son to a nearby park where the city had set up a nice little carnival/antique car show. This is the same nearby park that has the fireworks display that we can see (more or less) from our front yard. We had a blast, although putting my son on a kiddie roller-coaster that scared the bejesus out of him wasn't quite as fun as watching some drunk relative nearly blow his face off with a cherry bomb.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Those</span> where the days...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-91843871758982182912007-07-03T03:13:00.000-06:002007-07-03T03:31:03.919-06:00TTG Is DeadI see this blog as getting a lot more "chatty" in the near future. Mostly I'm sick and tired of trying to run it like an "e-zine," but as well, I am beginning to see it as an excellent outlet for "wool-gathering." Or "lint-picking," if you like the sound of that better.<br /><br />I have taken my writing off of the computer. I've gone back to the basics: a pen and a legal pad. I wasn't even going to turn the computer on this morning, but I was so wildly successful with today's writing that I thought I deserved a little reward. For whatever reason, I find that working on a computer is uninspiring for me. Maybe it is that I can type fast enough that I am more apt to write garbage (and faster!). It seems that when I write longhand, I more carefully consider what I choose to say, and how I choose to say it. And as slow as it is to write longhand, I actually get more done. On the computer I am constantly tempted (and giving in to the temptation) to "click" on something...usually the Internet. If I'm not "Internetting" then I am constantly rearranging crap...files, desktop, so on. It is all an avoidance tactic. With a pen and a legal pad, you write, or you sit there like an idiot with a blank look on your face. Those are your only options.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Tronovich Ghost</span> is dead. After over a year of effort, I finally had to play <span style="font-style: italic;">Taps</span> for the thing and let it go. Mainly I am just weary of the project. I have no "fire in my belly" for it anymore. Even if the tenth rewrite/revision cleared up all the plot and technical issues (and I'm not at all certain that it would have) I think the story would have failed do to the fact that it has become dull and lifeless somewhere along the line. The first draft had some energy, but was horribly flawed. The latest draft was much more technically sound, but had no energy whatsoever. Still, <span style="font-style: italic;">TTG</span> remains the first novel-length work of fiction that I have ever completed, and I am proud of the effort that I put into, if not the results. It has been a valuable learning experience, so the time was not wasted.<br /><br />On to better things...I am beginning preproduction work on a (I think) rather unique fantasy novel. Probably an urban fantasy, but with a nifty little twist that I "thunk" up. Can't spill the beans on that just yet, but I am excited about writing again.<br /><br />It's been awhile since I could say that.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-53859957163599075812007-06-29T02:37:00.000-06:002007-06-29T16:36:31.158-06:00This is a testThis blog is currently SCREWED UP. I changed the template without first backing up the old one, and now the "Read more..." links do not work. I apologize for the inconvenience. Technicians are busily working to resolve the problem, even as you read this...<br /><br />This is a continuation of the test. All of this will be deleted later.<br /><br />Or not. I guess I'll just make this an actual post...and a lesson. I was perfectly happy with the way Vacuum Genesis worked...it was the butt-fugly <span style="font-style: italic;">look</span> that I had come up with that I wanted to change. So I started goofing around with it and the next thing you know I had changed the template. Looks great (or at least better), but suddenly all my crap didn't work. All of my posts were of the "expandable" variety, so that you could read the teaser and then click on "Read More!" to see the entire post. Alas, clicking on "Read More!" did nothing. I clicked and clicked and clicked, but there was no "more!" for me to "read."<br /><br />I dicked the <span style="font-style: italic;">VG Blogrolls</span> section all to hell as well, but I was able to fix that. Luckily, there was no content lost; just I have to go back through every post and delete some html crap that makes it so you can't see the full post. The lesson? Back up your crap before you do ANYTHING. it is so easy to click on a thing and suddenly realize, OHHHHH NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!<br /><br />Now then, to make this an OFFICIAL post, rather than me just spilling my guts about my obvious lack of blogging skills...I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT. Vacuum Genesis will be one of several stops on author Christine Norris' "Virtual Book Tour." She'll be here next Friday (July 6th), discussing her new book <span style="font-style: italic;">Return to Zandria</span>, which is a sequel to <span style="font-style: italic;">Talisman of Zandria</span>. You do not want to miss this interview.<br /><br />(Now you know why I was trying to spruce the place up).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-87210462559666544232007-06-12T16:37:00.000-06:002007-06-12T16:40:59.535-06:00It's Up!!!Okay, not the biggest thing happening in the world right now, I will be the first to admit. BUT, my short-short (I'm old..."flash fiction" for the rest of you) "Transience" is up at <a href="http://www.nocturnalooze.com/">Nocturnal Ooze</a>. Check it out!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-64382914753675850592007-06-09T05:29:00.000-06:002007-06-29T16:01:51.739-06:00A Fellowship Of SilenceWhen I began working at my new job two months ago, everyone warned me about Mark. "He's...different," seemed to be the consensus of opinion about this slightly overweight, middle-aged man. I'm not one to form an opinion of people based on such off-hand remarks, but when a lot of different people say essentially the same thing about a particular person, it is difficult not to develop some preconceived notions. So, never having met or spoken to the man, and based entirely upon the preponderance of public opinion, I initially regarded him with some apprehension.<br><br>I was sitting in the break area by myself, eating lunch and reading. It was my second or third day on the job. Mark walked in and sat down at another table to eat his own lunch. <span style="font-style: italic;">Here it comes</span>, I thought. For those of you who have never worked in an industrial environment, I'll let you in on a little secret. There is something about the sight of a person sitting in a break room reading (anything, a book, a newspaper, a magazine...doesn't matter) that is antithetical to the sensibilities of the average industrial worker. I'm not knocking industrial workers, or calling them unintelligent. I've worked in industrial environments off and on all of my life. But it is a fact that the sight of another person reading in a break area is apparently highly offensive to most people, and brings about in them an irresistible urge to interrupt the person reading, and engage in some conversation. <span style="font-style: italic;">Excuse me. I'm in the break room now. You don't have to bother with that boring old book anymore. You can talk to me, instead.</span> Actually what they say is something like:<br /><br />"Say, gotcha a book there, huh? Whatcha reading?"<br /><br />"Well, it's..."<br /><br />"I read a thing in the paper this morning (at home, where people should do that sort of thing) about where Paris Hilton got out of jail for having a rash. <span style="font-style: italic;">A rash!</span> You think they'd let a regular person out of blah for a little blah blah blah I'd still blah her brains out, though blahblahblahblahblah."<br /><br />BLAH! Not counting my ex-wife, I've probably never been as close to strangling another human being than I have been when someone wants to interrupt my reading so they can run their mouth about some idiotic nonsense.<br /><br />So there I sat in the break area, waiting for Mark to ask me if or not I thought George Bush should be impeached, or who I'm pulling for on <span style="font-style: italic;">American Idol,</span> or whatever, and the longer that it didn't happen the more distracted I became. Finally, I looked up from my book to see him quietly eating his lunch and reading a book of his own, a great big ol monster of a hardback. I was so surprised and pleased by this unexpected fellowship of silence that I committed the very sin for which I've called so many other people to account. I blurted out: "Say, whatcha reading?"<br /><br />I've never actually farted in an elevator, but I would imagine that the look on Mark's face is a close approximation of the ones that I would receive if I were to do so. He recovered quickly, though, and in the brief conversation that followed I learned that he was a fan of science fiction, and that in his younger days he had attended a lot of SF conventions and had met many famous authors. I also learned that he was an aspiring screenwriter, and that he had an unfinished script upon which he had been working for over a decade. That was rather interesting, I thought, but by then my lunch period was over, so I couldn't pursue the subject any further. I left the man to his book and went on my way.<br /><br />Due to the vagaries of my work schedule, I didn't share a lunch period with Mark again. That, or he saw to it that my ignorant and uncultured ass was never around when he wanted to eat his lunch and read, sans interruption. I kept an eye on him, though, and I came to the conclusion that the reason so many other people didn't respond well to him was that they were a bit intimidated by him. He was highly intelligent and articulate, but for the most part rather quiet and reserved. He brought cakes, cookies, and brownies in to share nearly every other day, and in a passing conversation I learned that he liked to cook and bake. In snippets I learned that he was liberal in his political ideology, and that he had taken acting classes at one point in his life, which explained the somewhat annoying manner in which he would get on the warehouse intercom and deliver, in a James Earl Jones like baritone, the proclamation: "INbound, door SEVenTEEEEN. INBOUND, door SEVenTEEEEEEN."<br /><br />Friday, June 8, I had just arrived at work and was getting ready to begin my day when the manager walked over to me. "I have some bad news," he said. "Mark died last night. His wife said he had a heart attack." Even though I didn't really know the guy very well, and we weren't very close, the news came as a shock to me. I had just seen the man the day before, and I couldn't recall anything unusual about him at that time. "It's not really very shocking," the manager told me. "Not if you knew him. He's had a lot of health problems, and he didn't really take care of himself." That struck me as a rather crass summation, but I reminded myself that these were the same people who had warned me in the beginning that Mark was <span style="font-style: italic;">different</span>. Indeed he was.<br /><br />Indeed he was.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-59021586863844875762007-05-28T14:46:00.000-06:002007-06-29T16:04:07.808-06:00Apocryphal Ink<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj5_b9Hp34BFlK9o6VYUqrFNT8135jeDe4m2jemeqfk7az4vITJ6AYWdlvZ2bwgXIjytVSxdIXIWDbhDdexZgTa7A0EXJeo0za1wvkWgBNCu1bU8PbPvsn7Q5QTQWv5KI5oIS_Z_Ae_vOo/s1600-h/my28%23002.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj5_b9Hp34BFlK9o6VYUqrFNT8135jeDe4m2jemeqfk7az4vITJ6AYWdlvZ2bwgXIjytVSxdIXIWDbhDdexZgTa7A0EXJeo0za1wvkWgBNCu1bU8PbPvsn7Q5QTQWv5KI5oIS_Z_Ae_vOo/s400/my28%23002.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5069716545945840514" border="0" /></a><br />Bet you didn't know I used to be a "stripper."<br><br>A long, long time ago...back as far as the early 90's, I reckon, I decided that I wanted to create a comic strip. I had been reading and laughing my ass off to Gary Larson's "Farside" strip since the late 80's, and in the early 90's a friend turned me on to Berke Breathed's "Bloom County," an absolute watershed moment in my life. It was only natural that I, being the creative and artistic fellow that I am, should try my hand at writing and drawing my own strip. It looked so easy...<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirbzGcCYLpyrCXNt94D-rASK_OjbJrlcsjwcapT0SADa2qA0AghTKnGtnjurPXfPJrbTZ_IFB_yWzYD838abzoAsjzyZ-ciNY3Gk2fQnPjyyshlKwADreNLxdjrJ2a-MtIbPNGUU9vbTO4/s1600-h/mytoon01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirbzGcCYLpyrCXNt94D-rASK_OjbJrlcsjwcapT0SADa2qA0AghTKnGtnjurPXfPJrbTZ_IFB_yWzYD838abzoAsjzyZ-ciNY3Gk2fQnPjyyshlKwADreNLxdjrJ2a-MtIbPNGUU9vbTO4/s400/mytoon01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5069718667659684754" border="0" /></a>As you can see, my results were far short of my high expectations. I figured out pretty early on that I was no Berke Breathed. The fact that I couldn't draw the same thing the same way two times in a row was a big hint. Then there was the problem of a "concept" (I didn't have one), and then there was the further problem of a "signature character." Charles Schulz had Snoopy, Jim Davis has Garfield...my signature character looked vaguely like a cross between Andy Warhol and that little yellow bird in the Peanuts cartoons.<br /><br />Rather than get discouraged, I reassessed the situation. As much as I loved "Bloom County," perhaps my comic strip talents were more toward the hilarious and surreal absurdism of Gary Larson's "Farside." It had the built in advantage of only having to draw one panel, and I didn't have to draw the same characters over and over again.<br /><br />I wasn't taking any chances, though. I bought a book about drawing, and another rather expensive book about "How To Draw Comic Strips," and skimmed through them one afternoon. I needed a title. Something that stood out. It needed to rooooooll off the tongue because I could imagine people standing around the water cooler asking one another "Say, did you read (insert cool sounding title here) this morning?" Also it would have to look good on the box that the little "Page-A-Day" calendars would come in.<br /><br />In my research, I came across the word "Apocrypha." I don't remember now why, or how. Maybe it was fate. I looked it up in the dictionary and was greeted with <i>writings or statements of dubious authenticity</i>. "Dubious" seemed to describe what I was doing perfectly, and "Apocryphal Ink" was born. Things were going well, and I was thinking "syndication," when another problem arose. Beyond the obvious fact that I can't draw, it turns out that I'm not very funny, either.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUck_8hSSR0TqstS33Rrl0TCsJWnleGtj8TqGvYzwhbt36qCtTO7NPJJehsoPyO9R0Ls7TcYd6r_srBTU3qn1zmRwvM5P5rgEqX8Sm2gJp-1tcB6k15pdhPKlGwjcRHfA54hoY5_zjybSd/s1600-h/mytoon02.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUck_8hSSR0TqstS33Rrl0TCsJWnleGtj8TqGvYzwhbt36qCtTO7NPJJehsoPyO9R0Ls7TcYd6r_srBTU3qn1zmRwvM5P5rgEqX8Sm2gJp-1tcB6k15pdhPKlGwjcRHfA54hoY5_zjybSd/s400/mytoon02.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5069728778012699554" border="0" /></a>It is a testament to the talent that these people possess, I think, that they make it look so simple, so easy, so effortless, that I for one moment entertained the notion that I could emulate them. I've known all my life that I can't draw. If I gained anything from the experience beyond an appreciation for the creative work that comic strip creators do, it is the knowledge that I'm no comedian.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-50200594128401231312007-05-20T04:54:00.000-06:002007-05-20T05:00:45.549-06:00Query TrackerPatrick McDonald has put together a nifty website, the purpose of which is to provide "A Free service which allows authors to find agents and track the status of their query submissions." If enough people participate, this could be a very handy tool. Here's the link <a href="http://querytracker.net/">Query Tracker</a> and I've put it in the "Of Interest" link list as well. Check it out.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-844940713757646602007-05-19T06:45:00.000-06:002007-06-30T03:31:00.730-06:00Blogs Of Un-NoteIt has occurred to me that Vacuum Genesis is unlikely ever to become a Blogger "Blog Of Note." It may be that I refuse to run ads, and turn my blog into a cash cow for "The Man," or maybe you have to have more than ten or twelve readers. Either way, it's an honor that I suppose I will have to live without. I think it a bit unfair that so few blogs get the lion's share of attention, while the rest of us have to toil away in relative obscurity. To that end, then, I have invented the VACUUM GENESIS BLOGS OF UN-NOTE.<br><br>From time to time I will search out blogs at random (using the handy "next blog" button at the top of my screen) and bring them to your attention. These are blogs by regular shleps like you and me...people who blog their little hearts out, without recognition or encouragement. Here then are the first VACUUM GENESIS BLOGS OF UN-NOTE<br /><br /><a href="http://scorpii-ilse.blogspot.com/">Ilse's Story Blog</a><br />Some 16-year-old girl in Rotterdam : Zuid-Holland : Netherlands. An aspiring screenwriter, I think, with the longest G.D. first-page profile snippet that I have ever seen. Looks like a good kid, but I learned in this blog that it is legal for kids her age to drink alcohol as long as the alcoholic content is less than 18% WTF is wrong with those Netherlands people?<br /><br /><a href="http://babyhanlon.blogspot.com/">The Hanlon Family Blog</a><br />One of the most amazing things I guess I've ever seen. Apparently the Hanlon's baby girl, Ellie, writes her own blog entries. She looks to be about six months old. I've seen blogs written by animals...cats, usually, but of course they were much older. Truly fascinating.<br /><br /><a href="http://dhammo.blogspot.com/">Dhammonia</a><br />Arguably the Internet's most boring blog. This has something to do with reading, I think. Or travel. Breakfast figures largely into whatever is going on. Here's an excerpt, chosen at random:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In the day and a half before we left for Chicago, we managed to finish a box of cereal in 3 sessions. That is recommended for 12 cups of serving for breakfast. Not only that, the milk gallon-can, also experienced an untimely end at our hands, largely due to being mixed with the cereal. Much arguments ensued over our pigging, but our appetite prevailed.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://tabtabtabtabtabtabtab.blogspot.com/">THE SEVENTH TABLET OF ISHTAR</a><br />I thought this was going to be one of those self-serving "my absurd babbling is the highest form of art" blogs. In fact it is an in-depth and thought provoking examination of all the various ways in which one can use the term "fuck," complete with alternate acceptable spellings. Based solely on presentation, it would be easy to dismiss this blog as mindless drivel, but as the author of this blog likes to say: "THE NUMBER OF THE MONKEYS BEING INDETERMINATE REDUCES THE NEED FOR TIMING." I couldn't agree more.<br /><br /><a href="http://quincypwac.blogspot.com/">Quincy the PAWS Pup</a><br />Well I'll be damned. I had no sooner noted that most animal bloggers are usually a bit older than young Ellie (see above), when what should the same random blog search turn up but this: a blog written by a labrador/golden retriever mix pup surely no more than a few weeks old. I had always been under the impression that dogs didn't see very well, and were color blind. This blog proves one point, and calls into question the other. The color scheme on this blog would seem to indicate that dogs do indeed suffer from color blindness, but their basic vision must be exceptional as Quincy has chosen a font-size approaching that of large sub-atomic particles.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-48201526885015381222007-05-13T08:44:00.000-06:002007-06-30T03:32:02.489-06:00Lucid Dreaming (Pt. 2)If you read "Lucid Dreaming (Pt. 1)" you are familiar with what a lucid dream is, and perhaps you have done some further research on your own. In this section I will describe the process that I have used to induce lucid dreams, sustaining and controlling lucid dreams, and a few frightening (but harmless) sleep phenomena that can occur as a result of lucid dream induction.<br /><br />INDUCING LUCID DREAMS<br /><br />As I said in the earlier post, there are about as many methods of inducing a lucid dream as there are people who claim to have them. This is what has worked for me, and I discovered it largely by accident.<br /><br />It is important to understand at the outset that sleep occurs in cycles of various stages which can be measured by the amount and type of brain activity that is occurring at any particular point in the sleep cycle. The first stage of sleep generally lasts about 5 to 10 minutes and is characterized by the disappearance of alpha waves and the onset of theta waves. During stage one sleep, the eyes close, muscles relax, and eye movement slows. In stage two, or light sleep, the heart rate slows and respiration decreases. Brain activity at this time is characterized by wave-forms known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_spindle">"sleep spindles"</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-complex">"K-complexes."</a> Stages three and four are the deep sleep stages, and they are associated with slow-wave, or delta-wave brain activity. Stage five is more commonly known as REM sleep. In REM sleep, the brain wave patterns are very similar to those of stage one, but the physiological changes are markedly different. In REM sleep, heart rate and respiration increases and becomes erratic, muscles are paralyzed, brain activity increases, and of course there are rapid eye movements. While dreaming does occur during REM sleep, it should be noted that dreams can (and do) occur in all stages of sleep.<br /><br />The sleep cycle for the average person who does not suffer from any sleep disorder is, from waking: 1,2,3,4,3,2,REM. Note that the cycle reverses after stage four and repeats stages three and two before entering the REM stage. In an average night's sleep, this entire cycle can be completed up to five times, with each cycle slightly longer than the one previous. As well, the individual sleep stages tend to get longer as the night progresses.<br /><br />It is pretty widely accepted that most nightmares occur during stages three and four, the delta-wave sleep stages. I believe that most, if not all, lucid dreams occur during late REM stage sleep, or in stage one. If lucid dreams occur in stage one sleep, they may be related to a phenomenon known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia">hypnagogia</a>. To save space, I'll let you click on that and read about it. It is rather involved.<br /><br />What I have found is that if I interrupt the sleep cycle, I am very likely to have a lucid dream. To do this, I will set an alarm clock to go off after I have slept four to six hours. When the alarm goes off, I get up and go do something for at least an hour, two if I can manage it. I've found that writing (even if it is only in a journal) gives me better results, followed by reading. Watching television doesn't seem to work at all, and I think it is because the human brain process television images much the same way that it does dreams. In effect, your brain "thinks" it's dreaming and doesn't achieve the proper level of alpha-wave activity required to induce a lucid dream later. The whole point of interrupting your sleep cycle is to "wake" your brain up.<br /><br />After an hour or two, I go back to bed. While I lay there waiting to fall asleep, I plant the intention in my mind that I will have a lucid dream. Very simply, I mentally say to myself "I will have a lucid dream" ten or twenty times. That's it. The whole process. I have been able to induce lucid dreams in almost fifty percent of the instances where I have tried this simple method. After having practiced this technique for awhile, I've noticed that I can induce lucid dreams with much shorter interruptions in my sleep cycle, sometimes just getting up to use the restroom will work. It seems that the longer you practice lucid dreaming, the easier it becomes.<br /><br />SUSTAINING LUCID DREAMS<br /><br />The first time that you have a lucid dream, you will probably be so shocked to realize that you are "wide awake" inside of your dream that you will reflexively wake yourself up for real. I have learned that I can keep from waking myself up initially by telling myself "I'm lucid!" It sounds stupid, but it works. Your "anchor" could be anything. Perhaps you could tell yourself "Keep dreaming," or "Holy crap!" You might visualize an object in your hand...say a toy fire truck. Whatever you use, just make sure to get in the habit of saying or visualizing it at the start of every lucid dream, the very moment that you realize you are dreaming. Use the same phrase or object every time. This will clue your mind into the fact that you want to experience the lucid dream.<br /><br />After you have stabilized yourself in the lucid dream, you will want to sustain the dream-state for as long as possible. Many of the lucid dream websites suggest "spinning" as a way to maintain both the dream-state and the lucidity, and it actually works. I don't know why. Basically, the moment that you sense that the dream, your control, or your sense of lucidity is beginning to fade or slip away, start spinning, like we did as children when we wanted to make ourselves dizzy. Oddly enough, you will regain control and lucidity, at least for a little while longer. Some people claim to be able to sustain a lucid dream for upwards of thirty minutes. I've never come close to that. My average lucid dream lasts a few minutes, and occasionally I have been able to sustain them for as long as five minutes. I should note that these durations are approximations only; I don't actually try to time them by anything other than my own internal clock.<br /><br />CONTROLLING LUCID DREAMS<br /><br />This is a bit trickier. Your first few lucid dreams may amount to nothing more than a vague awareness that you are dreaming. With time and practice, you should be able to exert some control over your dreams. Start out with simple things. Flying and floating seem easy enough. I've never been able to make an object appear in my hand, but I have noticed that I can tell myself that a certain object will be somewhere (behind a couch, around the corner, under a potted plant, whatever) and when I go to look, there it is. The power of "suggestion" seems to be at work here. In a typical lucid dream, I might become lucid and aware that I am dreaming that I am in a park. I might then suggest something to myself like "around the corner of that building there is a playground full of circus clowns," then, when I go to look, there is indeed a playground full of circus clowns. I have noticed over time that I am able to exert greater control over my dreams, but it is a process of fits and starts. Practice, and patience, are the keys here.<br /><br />THE DARK SIDE<br /><br />There are a few things that you might want to watch out for as you explore the phenomenon of lucid dreaming. You will notice an increase in the amount of dreams that you remember, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but you will also notice an increase in the realism of your dreams, even the non-lucid ones. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on the dream (or nightmare) in question.<br /><br />If you pursue lucid dreaming long enough, you will eventually encounter a phenomenon known as "false waking." False waking can be particularly unpleasant because you become "hyper-lucid," not dreaming and aware that you are dreaming, but dreaming and convinced that you are in fact awake. In a typical false waking I will wake up (or so it seems) and lay in my bed, maybe leaning up to check the clock. I may lay there for several minutes, pondering the lucid dream that I just had, rearranging my pillows and such. Then something will happen. It could be a scary voice calling my name from somewhere in the room behind me, or a door opening that should not be opening, or, in one particularly terrifying instance, a huge demonic face appearing in the air right above my bed. Suddenly I realize that I am NOT awake, I am still dreaming, and the dream is not particularly pleasant. It is very difficult to will myself awake in a situation like that, and I have begun to wonder if what I am experiencing is a stage four lucid dream.<br /><br />Related to false waking is another phenomenon known as "Old Hag" syndrome. In an old hag episode, you believe that you have awakened in your bed only to realize that there is someone else in the room with you. As they approach (and they always do) you are terrified to realize that you are paralyzed, and cannot move. In extreme cases, the "old hag" actually reaches the dreamer and tries to smother or suffocate them. The "old hag" isn't always some old crone, it can be anything including just a dark shape or an evil, but invisible, presence. As with false waking, it is a bit difficult to wake yourself from an "old hag" experience, but the sensation of paralysis would seem to suggest that it occurs during REM stage sleep, which is actually not that far from a waking state.<br /><br />Finally, there are people who claim to have had an OBE, or out of body experience either just prior to a lucid dream, or while in the hypnagogic state of stage one sleep. I'm not sure that I believe much of what is written about OBE's--if they occur at all I suppose they are more likely to be some sort of intense lucid dream state--however, it is reported that most OBE's begin with an odd vibrating feeling, and I have experienced this phenomenon. It is not very pleasant, frankly, and I have always awakened myself immediately whenever it has occurred.<br /><br />As frightening as these experiences can be initially, over time they become less so. If you are the sort of person prone to nightmares or night terrors, or if you are at an emotionally difficult point in your life, you might reconsider delving too far into the world of lucid dreaming. You might also consult a doctor.<br /><br />Happy lucid dreaming!<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-80646023951460720782007-05-06T01:44:00.000-06:002007-06-30T03:34:50.603-06:00The Longest Thirty DaysWhen you live in Oklahoma, the very heart of "tornado alley," the joy of spring is always tempered by a certain dread of the sort of destructive weather that this season can bring. When you read stories like <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/05/05/severe.weather/index.html">this</a>, it becomes difficult to look at a calendar without mentally ticking off the number of days before the spring severe weather season ends, usually by the end of May or the first week of June. Then you see what happened in <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070506/D8OUISG80.html">Greensburg, KS,</a> on Friday, May 4, and you just want to crawl in a hole and pull the hole in after you.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNL7ASvl4k4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftornadovideos%2Enet%2F">(Hint to all of you potential future storm chasers out there...you are supposed to be BEHIND the freaking tornado, not in front of it. These goofs are lucky that the damn thing didn't turn on them)</a><br /><br />I'm not as bad as I used to be. There was a time that the coming of spring would send me into a deep depression that would start sometime in March and would last--quite specifically--until June 1st. Of course, it's not impossible, or even that unusual, to have severe storms after the first of June, but by that time I know that the severe weather season is pretty much over. I even wrote a haiku about it which, I think, sums up my feelings about Oklahoma spring rather nicely:<br /><br /><center>summertime will bring</center><center>men sorting through the wreckage</center><center>of another spring</center><br /><br />In recent years I think I have managed to take a more realistic approach to the problem. I don't get as depressed as I used to, although spring is still my least favorite season, and always will be. For the most part I avoid watching weather forecasts until the day that severe weather seems imminent--if you live in "tornado alley" long enough you can tell when you walk out the door in the morning if it's going to be "one of those days"--and I try to steer away from news stories about the damage and destruction wrought by tornadoes in other parts of the country. But try as I might, every year it seems that there is at least one outburst of tornadic violence that simply cannot be ignored. The story this time around would appear to be the horrific destruction of Greensburg, KS. I have probably seen more tornado aftermath footage than the average person, and I am telling you right now that the images I saw out of Greensburg are some of the most devastating that I have ever seen. I use as my reference the famous <a href="http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/may3outbreak.html">May 3, 1999 "super tornado"</a> that struck the OKC metropolitan area.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.cimms.ou.edu/moore1.jpg">Image 1</a></center><center><a href="http://www.cimms.ou.edu/moore4.jpg">Image 2</a></center><center><a href="http://www.cimms.ou.edu/moore6.jpg">Image 3</a></center><center><a href="http://www.cimms.ou.edu/westmoore2.jpg">Image 4</a></center><br /><br />While the May 3 tornado in OKC/Moore was clearly more devastating in terms of financial loss, and, according to the latest reports from Greensburg, total fatalities, the images are eerily similar. If anything, the Greensburg aftermath looks worse than that of the May 3, 1999 tornado, but this is only because the May 3 damage is being viewed within the context of the much larger OKC metro area , whereas Greensburg is a small town in southern Kansas that, as near as anyone can tell, was almost completely destroyed.<br /><br />It is difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend such devastation. Being a writer, and having the blessing/curse of a creative mind, I cannot help but try to imagine what it must have been like for those people, fighting for their lives while that monster ravaged their little town. My heart nearly breaks when I see those images from Greensburg, KS, not so much for the loss of homes and possessions, but for the terror that those people must have felt during those horrible moments in which nature vented her fury upon them. I turn away from those images toward my calendar. In thirty days it will be nearing the end of the first week of June. The severe weather season essentially over. Summertime. Back yard barbecues and baseball. Picnics in the park and an expedition down the creek with my son to find tadpoles and crawdads. And, in Greensburg, KS, unfortunately, "men sorting through the wreckage of another spring."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-75697618788929704782007-04-28T06:16:00.000-06:002007-06-30T03:35:36.990-06:00Lucid Dreaming (Pt. 1)I was walking down a narrow aisle between office cubicles. I stopped at the opening of one cubicle and observed a young woman who was sitting at a computer, typing furiously at her keyboard. She was an attractive Asian-American woman, and I thought that the wireless telephone headset that she was wearing gave her a certain <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> look. She turned to look at me and smiled, then she stood up and began to unbutton her blouse. Quite interested in the proceedings, I stepped into the cubicle, but she rose up off the floor and began to float toward the ceiling. At that moment it dawned on me that I was dreaming, and then it further dawned on me that I knew that I was dreaming. I had awakened inside of a dream.<br /><br />Stephen LaBerge, founder of the Lucidity Institute and a pioneer researcher in the field of lucid dreaming, defines a lucid dream very simply as "dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming." I suppose that is a good enough definition to proceed with, although it is more of a description of the experience than a definition of it. I should also state clearly that I have become a bit disenchanted with LaBerge and his "institute," along with just about every other online source that you will find when you type "lucid dreaming" into the search engine of your choice. What was once a fascinating inquiry into this strange sleep phenomenon seems to have turned into a new-age money-making scheme. The information offered by most lucid dreaming web sites ranges from pseudoscientific jargon to mysticism and spirituality. All of them have something to sell: books and DVD's, conferences at exotic resorts, and various mechanical contraptions that are supposed to help the user induce lucid dreams.<br /><br />Lucid dreaming is a very real phenomenon, as I can attest from personal experience, but it is very difficult to describe it to someone who has not had the experience. I am reminded of the conundrum in which one contemplates how to describe the color "orange" to a person who has been blind from birth. Essentially, a lucid dream is a dream during which the "conscious" or "waking" part of your mind achieves some level of awareness. You are still asleep, still dreaming, but you are <span style="font-style: italic;">aware</span> that you are asleep and dreaming.<br /><br />Lucid dreams come in many different forms. At the most basic level, a lucid dream is nothing more than a fleeting moment of vague awareness, such as I just described. The dream proceeds along its course in spite of that awareness while you tag along as an enlightened observer, or, as is more often the case, you are startled by the phenomenon and you wake--true waking--in your bed. In a more intense lucid dream experience, the dreamer is fully aware that he or she is dreaming, and the dream environment is every bit as real as the waking world. However, the dreamer is still unable to exert any control over the dream, and is again relegated to the role of an observer. In the most profound lucid dreams, the dreamer is able to exert some measure of control over the dream itself. In my own experience, the amount of control that the dreamer is able to achieve is directly related to the persistence with which he or she pursues such dream control, over the course of many lucid dreams that the dreamer has provably induced, and during which the dreamer has consciously (and repeatedly) attempted to exert some control over the dream's content and setting. Put less pseudoscientifically, where it concerns lucid dreaming practice does indeed make perfect.<br /><br />I don't care to rehash the research that has already been done regarding this sleep phenomenon. You can search the web and get as much information as you care to digest on the subject (and possibly sign up for one of those Creative Consciousness conferences in the Hawaiian Islands, while you're at it). They all provide the same basic information, using the terms that LaBerge coined back in the 70's, and they all seem to radically over-complicate the issue. I've divided the process into three components: inducing a lucid dream, sustaining lucidity, and dream control. I will cover them--along with a little section on the dark side of lucid dreaming--in part two of this article. Hopefully these simple techniques (simply described) will enable you to enjoy lucid dreams of your own.<br /><br />Which leads me to the obvious question: why bother? This is a little more difficult to answer than it would at first appear. I think you have to be a certain kind of person to seek out such an experience. Not some new-age spiritualist, necessarily, just someone who is innately fascinated by things and a bit adventurous. For example, as I write this article it occurs to me that if I could float up from the chair where I am sitting, through the ceiling, and fly off across town...I would. If I could say to myself, <span style="font-style: italic;">when I get up from this chair and go to look out the window I will see a beautiful naked woman sitting on an elephant in my backyard</span>, then I would say the words and head for the window to have a look. If those two statements strike you as frivolous or absurd, then perhaps lucid dreams hold nothing of value for you. If you go to bed at night for no purpose other than to rest from one day's labor and prepare for the next, nothing that I say here will have any meaning for you.<br /><br />I have always been fascinated by dreams, and I have never thought of sleep as nothing more than a brief, black interlude between periods of waking. It is an intensely personal experience, to be sure. If you don't believe me, just sit and listen to someone go on (and on) as they attempt to describe to you the Most Amazing Dream that they had the night before. Boring. Boring, and vaguely embarrassing. But for the dreamer, a lucid dream can be a wildly exhilarating experience.<br /><br />And of course, the sex is awesome.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-65530401605568366492007-04-15T10:23:00.000-06:002007-07-01T07:39:03.092-06:00PageFour RevisitedA few months back I wrote a piece about a word processor--<a href="http://www.softwareforwriting.com/pagefour.html">PageFour</a>--the trial version of which I was exploring. I mentioned at the time that I liked the design, but that I wasn't sure whether or not I could depend on the developer enough to turn loose of the thirty bucks he wanted for the full version. Well, shortly after I wrote that article, I got a wild hair and coughed up the dough.<br /><br />I used PageFour off and on for about a month after I unlocked it, and at first I have to admit that I was a little reluctant to commit myself to it. I have been living in the MS Word mindset for so long that, as much as I despise working with that word processor, I am a little distrustful of anything else. But the longer I worked with PageFour and explored it, the more comfortable I became. Now I use it exclusively, with the exception that I still move my rough drafts over to Word and edit them into final copy there.<br /><br />PageFour is designed for writers, plain and simple. It strips away all of the business-related junk that you have to work around in Word, and it organizes writing projects in a way that is more accessible and easier to navigate. At the top of PageFour's organizational structure is the "Notebook." A notebook can consist of anything from a single document to a mega-file containing every novel that you have ever written, all neatly tucked into their own folders. The documents that you write and store in your notebooks are called "Pages." The term is slightly misleading in that it doesn't refer to the length of the document. A page can be anything from a grocery list to the entire text of a novel. I prefer to create a notebook called "My Novels." Within this notebook I create separate files for each of my novels. Within those folders I place the various chapters of the novel, usually with several pages for notes on pre-production, characters, setting, outline, and a project scrapbook which I like to have up when I am working on the story itself so that I can quickly jot notes as I go along. Different notebooks can be organized in a way that suits the purpose of the notebook. My "Misc." notebook, for example, contains no folders or sub-folders, only pages. Everything is fully customizable and easy to access via the two panels on the left side of the screen which display all the notebooks on top, and the contents of the currently open notebook below.<br /><br />Some of the features take a bit of getting used to. PageFour automatically saves your work ever few minutes, and when you close a page. This is handy, although there is one minor bug in that if you are not working in the notebook that you intend to keep the page in when you begin a new page, it will automatically save to whatever notebook that you happen to have open. It is easy enough to move it to the proper notebook, and subsequent saves will go to the proper location. The "Archive" feature looks useful, but I haven't the faintest idea how it works. I skirt the issue by creating a "pagefour backup" file in My Documents and simply remembering to use the "save as files" option to copy an .rtf version of my documents. PageFour's "print template" feature confused me at first, but became my favorite feature once I understood it. Basically, you create a template that defines all the specifications you desire when you print your document (margins, line space, font, etc.) and save it. Having done so, you are free to work in whatever on-screen environment that you choose. Single spaced, Verdana, 18, red will print as double spaced, Courier New, 12, black, if that is what you specified in the template. As an added feature, when you print, the program asks you if you want to use the template (or some other template), or simply print "as is."<br /><br />I'm certainly not going to write a technical manual for the thing. PageFour has all of the major features that you would expect from a word processor. It has a nice spell-checker that you can set to check while you work, or turn off and check the entire document when you are finished. You can run word-count on an entire document, or some highlighted portion thereof.<br /><br />If there is anything that I truly dislike about PageFour, then it would have to be the convoluted header/footer/page numbering system. There is no "page break" function in PageFour, so in order to format, say, a novel for final copy printing, you will have to have all your chapters each in their own page. That done, I had to actually email the developer to ask how in the hell you get the program to number pages consecutively across the multiple "pages" without having to manually go in and change the "starting page number" for each document. He emailed me back, apparently there is a way to do it. but I don't have the patience to try and figure it out. It is easier for me to use PageFour as a "rough draft" environment, and simply export the document to Word for final editing, formatting, and printing. I hesitate to say that this is a flaw in the program. It could be that I am just too computer-stupid and lazy to figure it out. But I think that this part of the program could use a little work. It is far from "intuitive."<br /><br />Bottom line: PageFour is worth the $30. I enjoy writing on this word processor, and whatever minor shortcomings that it may (or may not) have are far outweighed by the sheer joy of spending my writing time actually writing, rather than fighting with the damn word processor.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-14158026342347771002007-03-31T08:51:00.000-06:002007-07-01T07:39:49.593-06:00Storm: March 30, 2007<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF4Zs1KPOEbY5MZqrnBcs7BpXQOIs91fibbpysu0FS8_feNLRFbwf5qxPSmhrN6_Aq_dCcB8fnNGM_ubGkG8Lvd0Q39gEYkgr6lGByHcsZKMKaoEdXRjkOQM_bWpUrZXwtBetFbsAn940r/s1600-h/storms+mar+29+and+30+006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF4Zs1KPOEbY5MZqrnBcs7BpXQOIs91fibbpysu0FS8_feNLRFbwf5qxPSmhrN6_Aq_dCcB8fnNGM_ubGkG8Lvd0Q39gEYkgr6lGByHcsZKMKaoEdXRjkOQM_bWpUrZXwtBetFbsAn940r/s320/storms+mar+29+and+30+006.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048103003442566226" border="0" /></a><br />As it turned out, nearly being hit by a tornado the day before was kind of anticlimactic.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWKJe_aAQCN_-QhpmJyKC2IobQhM_-_tXq1O14LMuRHtpzyxKrk8GBygMn0SV7fwPgxuYkl5z1xnP6F77DZdzHhusJ6tEjPgepP-cCuAQyXBaHpgQwjRuNn9vvDl8NLVcglWpoaUj7jnTd/s1600-h/flood2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWKJe_aAQCN_-QhpmJyKC2IobQhM_-_tXq1O14LMuRHtpzyxKrk8GBygMn0SV7fwPgxuYkl5z1xnP6F77DZdzHhusJ6tEjPgepP-cCuAQyXBaHpgQwjRuNn9vvDl8NLVcglWpoaUj7jnTd/s320/flood2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048105653437387874" border="0" /></a><br /><center>This creek on the west side of our house is normally bone dry.</center><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yN-0gIaa3xkJQjQxIPLUb5MkpfVYbgzqiUFgzFe5KwJaFL1hXR6w3mS_JZU89ka36hyLHGSP6R1xTyA4mR4YMtCGZL4nTkL0tkgzV5blf1pvOpFeO2BCaKD4G-fSTBKINllkt_foAidp/s1600-h/flood1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yN-0gIaa3xkJQjQxIPLUb5MkpfVYbgzqiUFgzFe5KwJaFL1hXR6w3mS_JZU89ka36hyLHGSP6R1xTyA4mR4YMtCGZL4nTkL0tkgzV5blf1pvOpFeO2BCaKD4G-fSTBKINllkt_foAidp/s320/flood1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048107702136788130" border="0" /></a><br /><center>And here are the same areas the next morning, after some drainage...</center><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZGEhm34WGdT9numN5EnfZNJ1Ss54w2hdGg0RnWY6J9vNWWvkdEiJ7PddincUvNOmN82afFq0BYq84m7cP8VjLVr8k0LTFLNMCUa_75V_U7_FECyeO-y7J374atgNBJoZOYWrOo-tL3Om/s1600-h/flood1after.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZGEhm34WGdT9numN5EnfZNJ1Ss54w2hdGg0RnWY6J9vNWWvkdEiJ7PddincUvNOmN82afFq0BYq84m7cP8VjLVr8k0LTFLNMCUa_75V_U7_FECyeO-y7J374atgNBJoZOYWrOo-tL3Om/s320/flood1after.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048109737951286450" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW569lVV9GQEa8puCQ77IZhczTV2bf7uMbXW9mzbZAzXKkd2J6t1UJlcOpQsP7yvyWNzFV6qtJSxrufsCpvt8TcJaI3Jtei_j-SjMFdXU1FsWFKmKAFaVFW5xh1afPPN4lc_5lEXhbHqXW/s1600-h/flood2after.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW569lVV9GQEa8puCQ77IZhczTV2bf7uMbXW9mzbZAzXKkd2J6t1UJlcOpQsP7yvyWNzFV6qtJSxrufsCpvt8TcJaI3Jtei_j-SjMFdXU1FsWFKmKAFaVFW5xh1afPPN4lc_5lEXhbHqXW/s320/flood2after.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048110197512787138" border="0" /></a><br /><center>About a foot of water overflowing the bridge over the creek...</center><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBnxvztDzO7nCrourHtMFtWJt9KyBnx5z9TP-QEYTIv5Gh7mZ5GiQLU39f6CKHIbugMVq_ApCI2xRBKpjGwAz9eI-6tpyOdL3uAwerH8OkQ3XUHipM3uTkkqbBLpSapeTHrbtTBrQndso/s1600-h/storms+mar+29+and+30+010.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBnxvztDzO7nCrourHtMFtWJt9KyBnx5z9TP-QEYTIv5Gh7mZ5GiQLU39f6CKHIbugMVq_ApCI2xRBKpjGwAz9eI-6tpyOdL3uAwerH8OkQ3XUHipM3uTkkqbBLpSapeTHrbtTBrQndso/s320/storms+mar+29+and+30+010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048112229032318178" border="0" /></a><br /><center>Sunset at the western edge of the cold front</center><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYb6R6dJ6YMfXIYL54vOI4w5lYRRUvVoY066zbXFGOdO7qidpfYJuR_GMAf2lRnVkrBGKP_TlGlfvCI7YNqwmol1gkFOHl3DsG10sxVwdB_7K7Md9CR-QKa5pDaW4bE3VJNtGCS4bqeUnA/s1600-h/added+storm+006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYb6R6dJ6YMfXIYL54vOI4w5lYRRUvVoY066zbXFGOdO7qidpfYJuR_GMAf2lRnVkrBGKP_TlGlfvCI7YNqwmol1gkFOHl3DsG10sxVwdB_7K7Md9CR-QKa5pDaW4bE3VJNtGCS4bqeUnA/s320/added+storm+006.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5048113526112441586" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-91223594763932955612007-03-28T00:44:00.000-06:002007-07-01T07:40:33.181-06:00Another TTG Rewrite UpdateThe rewrite is going remarkably well. It's going faster than I had expected, which is nice. It turns out that there are some large chunks of the fourth draft that transfer right on over. Switching to one character POV, third limited, has turned out to be precisely what this story needed.<br /><br />As I did during the first major revision, I find myself fleshing out the plot-lines more. It turns out (and I learned this from my beta reader) that the parts of the story that I had been treating as sub-plot are actually the most riveting part of the story. My original plot is slowly working its way into the background and the stories of my characters are beginning to creep forward. I'm fine with that. On the downside, it is pretty obvious to me that the further into this rewrite that I get, the more actual writing I will have to do. At the moment I am probably cutting and pasting as much as I am adding to the story. I'm hoping to expand the book to about 60,000 words. I found out that when I line-edit, I cut. And cut and cut and cut. This thing needs to be above 50k when the dust settles.<br><br>More later.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450867825663702652.post-63926879009464414482007-03-19T04:42:00.000-06:002007-07-01T07:41:57.736-06:00Shades Of GrayI'm not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination. That said, I'm not particularly fond of wastefulness either, and I've always felt that taking care of the environment and wisely using its resources are matters of responsible living, rather than a political ideology.<br /><br />I have never been comfortable with the admonition of my fellow writers that I must edit from printed copy. I understand the reasoning behind it, of course. There are certain things that I simply will not see when I am staring at page after page of text displayed upon a computer monitor. My first idea was to print my rough draft single-spaced in two columns, using a font other than the one that I normally work in (courier new, 12). This cuts the manuscript length in half, and it has the added advantage of forcing my mind to see the words rather than the story that they are telling.<br /><br />That worked. Then I came up with the idea of using the backs of these printed pages for future rough draft edits. This works too, and I intend to save all paper that has only been printed on one side specifically for this purpose. You would be surprised at how much 8.5 X 11 paper with only one printed side winds up in your house. I get it from my son's teacher, flyers left under the windshield of my car, all sorts of places. Of course, the paper needs to be in relatively good condition (not folded) or it will jam in the printer. But it works.<br /><br />Still, I wasn't really saving paper so much as I was just better making use of it. Some might say that I was saving the paper that I would have wasted had I not printed on the backsides of the pages that I had already wasted, but I think that is a straw argument. The point is to not waste any paper at all. My completed, pristine manuscript all neatly printed out and sitting on an editor's desk is not a waste of paper (to me, at least, the editor's opinion may differ from mine). Printing my novel out when I know that I am eventually going to send it all through the shredder is a waste of paper, and I don't like it.<br /><br />Enter my newest idea. I suppose other people do this; I have no reason to suspect that I invented it. I copy and paste my novel into separate chapter files, mostly because it seems a little easier to work with them in smaller portions. Then I use that nifty little "highlighter" feature in Word (yes, it is the first thing about Word that I can honestly say I like) and highlight the entire chapter in 25% gray. Working my way down the chapter, I un-highlight each sentence--one sentence at a time--so that it goes back to the original white. When I have checked that sentence for all of the stuff that needs checking and made any changes that need making, then I highlight it in 50% gray and move on to the next sentence. The whole point is to isolate each sentence (you could work in larger chunks, I suppose) from the rest of the text, and the two shades of gray help keep my eyes and mind from wandering up and down the screen reading the story instead of looking at the words themselves.<br /><br />It should be noted that this sort of intense line-edit can only be done after I am finished (or at least think I am finished) with the story editing. I don't need a print-out to story edit, and with this nifty new (new to me, anyway) method, I think I can work my way to final draft with no paper wasted on line-editing.<br /><br />And of course, that means there should be plenty of paper left to print my books on when the editors do finally recognize my artistic brilliance. Or, lacking that artistic brilliance, at least no one can blame me if we run out of paper or we all start choking to death on carbon dioxide. It's all good.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0