WritingSucks

Naming A Character

The majority of my characters only have a first name. If I was doing this the proper way I would have a complete character profile with first and last name, mother's maiden name, shoe size, and topics this character would discuss in therapy.

But, most of my characters have one name, not like Cher, but like Susan. Except one. This character needed a first and a last name. I've been calling him something else the entire time I have been working on my book. A real name that everyone knows; someone this character resembles. So today that needed to change.

I Googled "Name Generator" and was pleasantly surprised. There is a generator for pirate's names, and quite a few for fantasy elfin druid characters. But I just needed a regular name, something special, but not something unpronounceable.

I found the Fake Name Generator, which supplies a full name, address, social security number, and credit card info for your fake person. I hope this is fake, if it is all real people's information for easy fraud transactions I apologize. I mixed and matched names, and no matter what I did there was a real somebody with a Facebook account and everything.

I finally gave up and just used a name I liked. So some guy in Botswana has the same name as my character, and so does a geneticist in Berlin.

Fonts Go Green

Recycle, reuse, and reduce...the amount of ink you print. Ecofont has developed a "swiss cheese" font, reported to save up to 20% of ink when printing your manifesto.  Save the ink! I guess the little things really do add up--less ink, less printer cartridges, less cursing when you have to pony up for a new ink cartridge, and less bulky things in landfills.

The font is free to download, and use.

Bubble Calendar

Christmas may be over, but I'm all up for giving gifts to help kick the New Year off right. You better be awesome 2009. This is what I want when I wake up on January 1: The Bubble Calendar. How satisfying would it be to pop one of these each day? Kudos to you bubble calendar dudes.

People--The Novel

"A tale of people that collide into each other. That fight with each other. That seek for acceptance, friendship and love."

Want to help write a novel? Want to throw your novel in the trash and feel the warm fuzzies of collaboration? Make Literature Online is giving everyone the chance to be a part of the big picture.

"Make Literature Online proudly announces the launch of New Collaborative Writing Project. Join us in creative writing adventure and magnificent reading experience. At the place where fiction reinvents itself, you have unique opportunity to create literature history with us ."

Everyone may submit a chapter of the novel, and then it gets added to a catalog, where other members can rank and discuss your writing. If they like it it becomes part of the new novel. I assume that means your name will be on the book somewhere and that you can quit your day job and tattoo "Novelist" around your left ankle in Old English font. Or you can sit in your library and drink Olde English and not feel guilty about that novel you were supposed to write yourself.

It's Called "Save As" For A Reason

This is a Public Service Announcement. It's about saving your documents, and it is brought to you by the I'm A Dumb-ass Research Council.

I keep my book saved in my email account. Then when creativity strikes, about once a month for three minutes, I open the document, type away, and then re-save the document and email it back to myself. This means it is always there, even if I don't have my laptop I can access it on a different computer.

Yesterday, I opened the document and began working. When you open a Word document from an email it opens in Compatibility Mode. Here is the PSA: At this point you should do a "SAVE AS" and save it to your desktop or into a folder on the computer you are using.

Don't get distracted and then forget to do this. You might forget that you are working in Compatibility Satan Mode and keep hitting the little save icon at the top of your document. You think you're being responsible and saving every few sentences. You are, but it is into some kind of ether, a ghost soup. Every time a save dings a ghost gets indigestion.

Long PSA short, I lost about two hours of work. The best two hours of work I have ever done I am sure. Now I have lost all motivation to recreate what I was working on. Save As, Save As. Happy Thanksgiving.

A Q&A with Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum

Here is a link to a Q&A with author Kristen Sundberg Lunstrum: Chronicle Books Blog. I read Kristen first book of short stories, and she is now releasing her second book entitled "Swimming With Strangers." I enjoyed her comments on her writing process--it is nice to see that not every successful writer writes every day:

"I wish I could say that I keep regular writing hours and meet a particular page count each day (doesn’t every writer want to be one of those writers?). As it is, I’m a fitful and tediously slow writer, and there are often long spans of time between projects for me. I used to feel guilty about these fallow periods, but have come to see them as a necessary and useful part of the process—time to read and think and read some more, so that I can return to the page later with a better sense of craft and, hopefully, a slew of new ideas, too."

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing. And sometimes you just need to step back for a minute, or a month, and get a new perspective. Or that could just be my latest procrastination excuse.

Writing Weekend #2

A few weeks ago I did another writer's weekend at a local hotel. A hotel I've decided caterers to swingers. I got a great rate on the hotel, and the fee included a happy hour, complete with two complimentary drink tickets, and free breakfast. Both nights I attended the "happy" hour and it consisted of an assortment of couples sitting around with stale popcorn, their drinks, not talking, but scooping each other out. All while Fox News played in the background. It was a really weird vibe.

The "happy" hour ended at 7:00pm. The second night I had my notebook and was leisurely finishing my popcorn when promptly at 7:00pm the "bartender" marched over and told me I had to leave. I looked around and realized all the  swingers had slinked back to their bedrooms. I felt as if I had been cut off like Nicholas Cage in "Leaving Las Vegas". Yet it was still light outside. Now remember, this was the lobby of the hotel, not a separate bar within the hotel. I slinked back to my room with just my notebook.

I spent most of the weekend watching television, hanging out my window, and eating an entire box of Cheez-Its. There was little to no writing completed, and I felt miserable that I had wasted time and money without accomplishing anything. Monday evening, after I had been back at work for a day, I was able to sit down and come up with the beginning of the book. I realized that sometimes with writing it only happens when it happens. You can't force it just because you got yourself a weekend at the local Hedonism resort. 

A Writer's Life + Cat

Authonomy.com

Harper Collins has a good idea to beat the slush pile. Instead of submitting your manuscript to overworked assistants you can upload it on Authonomy.com, the community will read it and vote on it. And then if you rank as one of the top five writer's for that month you'll make it to the editor's desk. They are seeking to "flush out the brightest, freshest new writing talent around.

I think it is a great idea, but it still freaks me out. I'm not ready to put all, or even half of my story out there for free eyeballs. But if I don't find luck the traditional way you can bet that I will be uploading my beast onto their server in no time flat. Good luck to all the writer's who are brave enough to share their stories!

The Algebra of Writing

I waited until my last semester of college to take Algebra, and then I flunked it. And then I got a tutor, and then I flunked again. Someone finally took pity on me, so that I could get my degree, and allowed me to enroll in some kind of remedial math class. Needless to say, da maths makes me sweat. This statement about conflict in a novel makes me want to try and locate my old tutor:

"The degree of believable contact contained in a a story or scene (x) is directly proportional to the level of reader interest in that same story or scene (y) and the span of the reader's attention (z)."