New Pieces

For the last few days, I've been going through another artistic binge, and these are some of the results. I think I have a few more pieces in me for this round, too, so expect to see those in the coming days or weeks. Just so long as it doesn't interfere with my writing, I'm happy to indulge my artistic impulse when it deigns to come around!

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Desert Industry

This rendering came about when I realized that I hadn't done a close-up of a building in quite some time. And I don't think I've ever done a rendering from the roof of a building before. I started with these goals in mind, not sure what the rest of the landscape would look like, and then finally decided on desert. This provided an excellent opportunity to employ a volumetric sky, which is particularly vivid. I'm also rather pleased with the contrast between the different levels of sand throughout the background, and the plywood boards scattered throughout the wet sand in the lower left.

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Industrial Fog

This rendering was actually a byproduct of working on my Desert Industry image. I was experimenting around with the top of the building, and wound up with this view of the striking tin knob that features in this image. Right away, I knew I had to make a rendering centered around that feature. This required a completely different sky from the other rendering, however, and I also needed to work in the fog effects (which I think came out particularly well on the lower-left). I also had to add the railing to this side of the building. The net effect is something that is more like a ship at sea than anything else, actually, which I really like.

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Brain Stem

This is only my third rendering in Apophysis. It's not as vibrant as Flame Belt was, but I think there is some interesting form here. I had to do a LOT of post-processing work in Photoshop to cut out ancillary clutter (and to remove the entire cyan hue, incidentally), but I think the result was quite interesting.

Progress continues

Four pages today. I'm still in a section that is rather tricky to expand/revise, but I thought it went rather well. I didn't revise my content from yesterday yet, though. I'll have to revise that, plus tonight's content, this weekend. I have high hopes for this weekend being especially productive for writing.

The stats as of today:
-38,000 estimated words.
-44,805 actual words.
-Six-and-a-half fully-revised-and-expanded chapters (109.5 pages total).
-Eleven completed chapters in all (152 pages).

Chernobyl Countryside

My latest rendering. This is a rather dismal picture, but I enjoy a bit of desolation (in art) now and then. It seems fitting, with Halloween coming up. The towers pictured are actually all the #4 tower from Chernobyl. Also of note is the angle of the "camera" in this image. At least in the last four or five years, I haven't done many renderings that had the camera pointed upwards.

Art Show at Stephen Parrish's

The always-humorous Stephen Parrish (for some reason, I always have to give him some sort of title when I blog about him -- last time, it was "the indomitable." If you read his blog, perhaps you will see why he inspires this.) has taken it upon himself to do a showing of some of my art. Wow. I'm touched just that someone outside my immediate family would like my art that much, but some of his commentary is the sort of thing you don't expect to hear until your eulogy. I'm really blown away.

At last, progress.

Four and a half pages today. Two pages of that was all-new content, and the rest was unusually heavy edits. I also revised the five pages I wrote last Thursday. Last Thursday! How has it been six days since I last wrote anything? Well, sometimes life, trips, and all that, just gets in the way. I was also fearing the revisions/expansions that I knew I would have to make with this scene (they were pretty deep), and I think that also helped to keep me away. But I think it turned out pretty well -- I'll feel better about this scene once I have a chance to revise it once more in the coming days. Hopefully tomorrow, as long as I can make myself come back and do some work again.

The stats as of today:
-37,500 estimated words.
-44,243 actual words.
-Six-and-a-half fully-revised-and-expanded chapters (105.5 pages total).
-Eleven completed chapters in all (150 pages).

Further Website Updates

Well, I've been too tired the last few days to do any writing, so I've been getting some other things accomplished that I've been putting off. A number of the posts out of yesterday's plethora were ones that I've been meaning to make for a while, for instance, and today I've been twiddling with the look of the blog/website yet again.

This is always how it is for me with websites. Ever since I put up my first site in 1998, I've had the bug of continual upgrades. Usually there's just something that isn't quite right with whatever design I've put together, and it bugs me until I finally do something about it. Gradually, the design congeals into something I'm happy with. I'm glad that the UI design aspect is only a secondary part of my day job, or I'd probably go insane. Modeling business practices in code is much easier and faster (most of the time).

At any rate, I think the site is gradually hitting the level where it will be hard to make changes without making something worse (which is what usually makes me settle on a given design). I think the addition of the new header helps bring the whole design together, and the new selection of colors is a lot more striking. Also, I've switched to sans-serif fonts, since those are easier to read on-screen (serif fonts are easier to read on paper).

Anyway, I've been tired because I went out of town over the weekend, and then I had to get up early today for a monthly meeting of technology executives that I attend. Tomorrow I should be fully-rested, and I expect to get back on a proper writing schedule.

Robot Insurance

Useful for when that upcoming robotic insurrection finally happens. Any day now!

(As an aside, I've never seen Sam Waterston do humor before -- that makes it even funnier, for me. A couple of times, he almost smiles while delivering his lines.)

Write this... or that... or maybe...

I recently saw the link to this video over on Pub Rants, the blog of literary agent Kristen Nelson. I thought it was just too funny not to share.

Global Flag

The indomitable Stephen Parrish recently had an interesting post (originally by his brother) about the idea of a global flag. I had never really thought about this idea before, but since I'm more of a believer in globalism than nationalism, it is an idea that really resonates me. Evidently it also resonates with a number of other Americans. The basic idea seems to be that we would still display national pride, same as we display state pride in the US, but that we would place the global allegiance first -- same as we place the national allegiance first in the US.

I don't necessarily think that some sort of world hegemony is called for, but that's not really what this is about. You can't go to a university these days without hearing a lot about globalism, the global economy, et cetera, and I think that this rising global consciousness is a good thing. It isn't that we shouldn't have a sense of national identity, or be proud of where we come from (on a city, county, state, or national level) -- it's that we should also be conscious of our membership in the global community to which we belong, rather than thinking our hierarchy of citizenship ends at the federal level.

Also, this particular post of Stephen's included a link to this quiz that helps identify which American presidential candidates most match your views. I definitely learned something about many of the candidates from this quiz (I don't follow politics that closely), so I thought it was worth passing along.

Building an Elephant

Building an Elephant, by Sean Ferrell, has just recently come online at The Adirondack Review. This was the first piece of fiction I've read by Sean, though I have been keeping up with his blog for some time. Needless to say, I was really impressed by it -- hence this post.

First, my few small complaints. I felt like there was a pattern of occasional missing commas, which I suppose is a fairly minor grammatical quibble (and I have a tendency to use too many commas, so I have little room to talk). There were also a few cases where I would have liked to have a little more description of the emotion felt by the characters. "I felt happy about that" is perhaps the example that jumped out at me the most -- this really seems like a "show, don't tell" moment.

However, that's pretty much all I can say that is negative about this story, and that's really saying something (I'm very nit-picky, even with multi-published novelists). The ideas behind Building an Elephant are really what captured me most of all, though the voice is also quite strong, the writing is solid and efficient, and the descriptions are vivid. You can tell that this author knows what he is doing, in effect.

I don't want to spoil the plot, which is quite surprising given the opening, so I won't discuss the specifics here. Suffice it to say that Sean Ferrell isn't just bragging when he says that his work is cross-genre, and off the beaten path (in a good way). This is a science fiction story, but it doesn't really have the tone or feel of that genre (and I'm a fan of that genre, so I should know). The way that the science-fiction elements are described in this story felt more like magic realism to me, albeit with sci-fi elements in place of the magic.

I suppose my one other quibble would be that this story was rather guy-focused, with the girl next door being more the traditional "girl-next-door sex object" than a true character, but even this was handled in an adept, interesting way. This story is, at heart, a story about a teenage boy and his father, and I thought Sean very much captured the proper tone for that. The sci-fi elements are brilliantly woven in to this basic narrative fabric, and provide both world richness and interesting plot devices, while also raising a great many ancillary questions.

The greatest praise that I can give this or any story is that it made me think. I read this last night, and found myself thinking about the characters and world of this story as I went to sleep. Off and on today I've still been thinking about it, and thus was compelled to write this mini-review, which I don't normally do (actually, I don't think I've ever done this before). The sci-fi elements in some ways inhabit the edges of this story, but they were what made me think the most -- and the way in which they were presented (as just part of ordinary life, too "mundane" for much background explanation) is a big part of what made this such a compelling read. I wouldn't have ever thought of telling this story quite like this, but the story is definitely the better for it.

I don't feel there's any value in trying to give this some sort of arbitrary score or rating, so I'll just end on this note: go read it.

My sister

This article was recently in the paper at the university of my sister, Catherine. I had to take this opportunity to brag on her just a bit -- she's one heck of a classical singer (not to mention pianist). She's at UNC on a music scholarship, and was recently in her first opera there. She's done quite well in many state and regional completions over the years.

I remember when my wife and I first went to see Catherine sing when she was still in high school. She was singing "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" from Phantom of the Opera, and we were blown away. She was already a really accomplished pianist by that point, but none of the family had any inkling that she was such a good singer until then.

After that, she starred as Lily in her high school's production of the Broadway version of The Secret Garden (she was at Enloe, a huge music/drama school, so this was a really big deal). She sang The Prayer as a solo at my wedding, and later sung it in an incredible duet at Enloe that I still think is better than either of the Josh Groban versions (and yes, I am biased toward my sister, but am also a Josh Groban fan, so that's still saying something).

She's working on a degree in music now, doing ecumenical singing for her scholarship, and always working on various performances and competitions and such. Suffice it to say, I am really proud of her.

Media Credit: DTH/Anthony Harris

Catherine Park, a Kenan Voice Scholar, signs the acoustical curtain I-beam on Friday at the topping-off ceremony of the new Kenan Music Building.

Amateur Lightsaber Duel

RVD2 is a 10-minute fan video of a light saber battle. Parts are a bit silly, others are a bit gritty, but overall I thought this was a really well-choreographed, well-thought-out action sequence. I'm surprised that some of the ideas presented here haven't been in the official Star Wars movies, actually. I don't generally go for this sort of thing, but someone showed me this one, and I thought it was too clever and good not to share.

Yankee or Dixie Quiz

I thought this was an interesting quiz, because it focuses on word and phrase usage in different parts of the US. See which parts of the country your own usage most agrees with -- most people are something of a mix. Personally, I was 63% Dixie, which sounds about right. How about you?

Restarting page numbering in word

This question gets asked a lot, so I thought I'd answer it here: "How do I omit the page number from my title page (plus however many other Table of Contents / Epigraph pages, or whatever else you've stuck in up at the start), and then have it start at page 1 at the start of my first chapter?"

1. Start out with no page numbering at all.

2. At the top of the page that you want to start numbering from, do the following: under the Insert menu in Microsoft Word, choose Break, and then choose one of the "section break" types.

2.a. If you've already got a page break properly in place, choose "Continuous" to not mess that up.

2.b. If you want to insert a page break with your new section, choose "Next Page" to do so.

3. Make sure your cursor is still on that same page that you want to start the numbering from, and then once again go to the Insert menu. Choose Page Numbers, use whatever settings you like, and then choose Format on the Page Numbers popup. Under the Formatting popup, change the "Continue from previous section" radio button to say "Start at 1" instead.

This divides your document into two "sections," each of which can have independent page numbering. You can actually use this same technique to divide your document as many times as you want, and have all sorts of different page numbering schemes (such as no page numbering at the very start, then roman numerals for an Introduction, then regular Arabic numerals for the main content, and then lettering for appendixes).

But, for manuscripts, remember that you'll just want to keep it simple and just have the Arabic numerals for the main content, starting in your first chapter.

Passing 100 Revised/Expanded Pages!

Five pages tonight! At first I mostly did a lot of revising of older content, because I was starting a new scene with Lela, who I hadn't written for in a week or so, and I needed to get back into her head. But once I got back into her head, it went very quickly. It was hard to write her perspective at first, but during my last sequence of scenes with her, I finally found the method for it, and now it's really enjoyable.

A lot of tonight's content was actually brand-new, but since I also outright deleted a two-page scene that is now redundant and which was crappy in the first place, my net word count actually didn't increase that much. And, I'm actually happy about that, since I'm still in the revising/expanding stage of things. My goal of 80,000 estimated words was seeming too far off a few months ago, before I started this process (I thought I might run out of storyat 60,000 words or so), but now I'm legitimately concerned that the entire story might not fit in just 80,000 words.

I'm confident that it will work out, though, and actually it's a good feeling to have too much content. It makes it easy to justify dumping any marginal content -- every scene must count, since I only get so many. As long as I end up between 80,000 and 100,000 estimated words, I'll be happy, but I'm still going to do my best to make sure that each and every scene really counts -- see my earlier post from today for what I mean by that. So far, so good on that score!

It also strikes me that it is now day 4 out of 31 for this month, and I'm already 25% of the way to my monthly goal. It's particularly good to be ahead because I'm not going to have much chance to write for the next three days -- and some of the other weekends from this month are looking pretty doubtful, too. Family events have to take precedence, of course, so that just means that I'll be getting fewer weekdays off from writing this month. As long as I keep ahead of things over the next couple of weeks, I should be in good shape for hitting my goal of 160 total pages, though.

The stats as of today:
-37,000 estimated words.
-43,585 actual words.
-Six-and-a-portion fully-revised-and-expanded chapters (101 pages total).
-Eleven completed chapters in all (148 pages).

"Running Around"

I used to have a concept that I called "running around," which referred to scenes in books or movies that just had characters churning with no real purpose. The characters move from place A to B, or we see them do some activity, or they chat in a non-characterizing way -- something like that. At any rate, things are happening, but the story is not really progressing in any meaningful way.

I said I "used to have" this concept because I feel like it's a little bit too restrictive now. Sure, there are books and movies that have this problem, but they are comparably rare, because the conditions are rather specific. More recently, I've come up with a new way of thinking about the core issue to which I was reacting, and that is: to be really engaging, no scene can do just one thing.

In other words, a scene can't just be about plot movement and still be fascinating. Sure, if you watch a character working through a mystery or interviewing people, or going to lunch where a fateful event is going to happen, that moves the plot. But there has to be something else there, as well: characterization, "trenchant little insights" (as Anne Mini would say), some sort of ethical or emotional struggle, or tension feeding from sources other than just the current scene's activities. Or something else that intrigues the user or draws them along.

I don't think that every book has to use this approach to be publishable, an enjoyable read, a bestseller, or what have you. I'm simply pointing out that, to me, the very best books have a lot going on in pretty much every scene, multiple sources of tension and interest, and it's all woven together in an expert manner with solid writing. For example: THE DOOMSDAY BOOK has events going on in the past with Kivrin, the future with Mr. Dunworthy and the others, and multiple simultaneous mysteries; ENDER'S GAME has Ender's various struggles, many of which are co-mingled within the novel's timeline, and also has the related-but-separate storyline with Peter and Valentine; TWILIGHT has romance, supernatural events and revelations, as well as Bella's various ongoing life events; THE DARK IS RISING has Will's family and daily life alongside his quest for the signs, intermingled with the various things The Dark tries to do to thwart him, and the various things that Merriman and the others are doing to help him. And I presume I don't need to mention that the Harry Potter books are the same way.

All of these books are so significant, at least to me, partly because of how rich and varied they feel. There is always more than one thing going on, and always the tension of wanting to know about something else in the story while I'm reading whatever scene -- yet instead of distracting from the current scene, that desire enriches it. Somehow, books like this evoke the feeling that "anything can happen" better than any others.

I still thoroughly enjoy books like THE GOLDEN COMPASS, A THOUSAND WORDS FOR STRANGER, or I AM LEGEND which, to me, don't quite seem to have this level of interweaving, but their semi-linearity always leaves me wishing there had been a little more. Don't get me wrong -- each of the books I just mentioned are brilliant, have numerous surprises, and are among my favorites ever. However, none of these three reach the level of poignancy for me as the other books I mentioned, partly because all those twists and turns happen one at a time. Or, when events are happening in an interwoven manner, the interest-factor of one plot thread is overshadowing the others to the degree that the story feels more linear than it is.

Now, the qualifications (in the sense of limitations, not credentials), because, boy, does this post need them. If I haven't made this abundantly clear, this is all my opinion, and is also not meant to be taken as an insult to any of the books or writers on my second list. I picked from among my very favorite books for all the books mentioned in this post, and divided them into categories of those that can make my chest ache with simultaneous pain and pleasure to think of them (the first group), and those that I love, but which I didn't connect with on that same level (the second group).

If you disagree with me, or your list is reversed, don't let that detract from the core message here: this post is about writing, and I really do believe that having a very-interwoven plot, versus a slightly-more-linear one, is what differentiates the very best books from the "simply" great books. As a writer, moreso than as a reader, that's a very interesting prospect to ponder.

Finished with chapter 6!

Whew! I thought this was going to take me two sessions, but I managed to get it completed in one. Five and a half pages today! Sorry that this post is so short (as most of my posts have been of late), but all my writing energy has been going into my manuscript. I imagine most of my readers understand, since most of them are writers themselves. I'll try to have a more insightful post sometime soon, to break up the continual status updates.

The stats as of today:
-36,750 estimated words.
-43,331 actual words.
-Six fully-revised-and-expanded chapters (96 pages total).
-Eleven completed chapters in all (147 pages).

Still working on that sixth chapter

Five full pages, today. I didn't get anything done yesterday because I was caught up in day-job work stuff. This looks like one of those weeks where being a CTO is going to bleed over into my writing time, but I'm going to try to keep to my writing schedule as best I can, regardless. Honestly, there's always something, so if I don't make time when things are busy, I'll never have time. Tonight was a good night, though -- tough scene to revise, and a lot of expansion was included, but I'm happy with the result. I'm hoping to finish up chapter six in one or two more sessions.

The stats as of today:
-36,500 estimated words.
-42,750 actual words.
-Five-and-a-half fully-revised-and-expanded chapters (90.5 pages total).
-Eleven completed chapters in all (146 pages).

A little more on chapter 6.

Only two and a half pages today, but I'm all right with that. I got the content that I wrote last time edited, which was good, and I also figured out a minor plot point that had been holding me back with the rest of this chapter. I took yesterday and Friday off, and had intended to take today off as well, but just couldn't stay away that long at once. I've been feeling really tired, and fairly sick (just a cold or allergies, I think), so that's been putting a crimp in my writing. I slept for about 12 hours last night, which is extraordinarily rare for me.

Fortunately, I already had 84 total pages for September, and my goal was 80, so I had earned a couple of days off. Now I'm up to 86 pages, so that's even better for ending the month. Here's hoping I can reach 160 pages total by the end of October!

The stats as of today:
-36,000 estimated words.
-42,091 actual words.
-Five-and-a-portion fully-revised-and-expanded chapters (86 pages total).
-Eleven completed chapters in all (144 pages).

Solid Progress on Chapter 6

Five and a half pages today, and most of that was new content! And in only two hours, amazingly. Some scenes flow, some don't. Some days are good, others not so much. It's hard to find any root cause for why things go well or badly on any given day, but suffice it to say that I'm happy the writing went well today.

The stats as of today:
-36,000 estimated words.
-41,954 actual words.
-Five-and-a-portion fully-revised-and-expanded chapters (83 pages total).
-Eleven completed chapters in all (144 pages).


PS -- Finally my time is set correctly on the blog again. It was always an hour behind, and I couldn't figure out why. Most of the time I remembered to correct my post times, but sometimes I forgot. I'd looked through the blog settings multiple times in the past, and finally found the time zone setting tonight. Turns out I was on Cayman Islands time, of all places!

PPS -- Looks like the fix to the time zone as auto-set all of my old times ahead by an hour. Darn. Since I post right near midnight most nights, it's set most of my posts forward by a day. At least things will be correct from now on, though.

PPPS (Is that even a thing? I don't think that it is) -- So, I went back and fixed the dates/times for the entries from the last month, at least (I'm anal like that). However, I apologize for those of you who use RSS readers, because it likely marked a bunch of posts as new, when they really aren't. You can safely just hit "mark as read" for every post after this one in the reader (as if you're hanging on every post, anyway). That's all the P's and S's for tonight, I promise. Good night, all!