So after posting on Saturday that nothing catastrophic had happened to me while composing bits of my novel on my smartphone, guess what happened? This morning I was working on a bit for an upcoming chapter, an action sequence actually, and my phone elected to freeze up on me just as I was about to hit the period and finish the scene. This caused the Diaro app to restart and it dumped my work into oblivion... Needless to say, I was not happy. This has happened to me before, although not while I was writing something for the novel. The problem was caused either by the Go Keyboard app or the live wallpaper, so I switched to SwiftKey X keyboard and turned off the live wallpaper... hopefully this won't happen again. See why I'm superstitious?
About Me
- Mr. G
- Dan Garcia resides in San Antonio, Texas, in a household ruled by a dog and a cat. These benign overlords allow Garcia, his wife, and two daughters to live with them so long as they are served unquestioningly. The dog and cat compel Garcia to write stories of imaginative fiction and fantasy; their rationale being: the potential for supplementary income from the sale of these stories means the possibility of more treats and toys for them. Thus, when not at work at the San Antonio Public Library, Garcia is permitted to craft his tales despite the fact that this activity limits his availability for scratching and petting. Hell-Kind is Garcia’s first novel which he was allowed to type because of his opposable thumbs and agile digits; the dog and cat did all of the actual heavy-lifting for the story, and are not particularly concerned with receiving credit for the book.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Two postings in one day...
It's like a two for one sale!
So I read this article recently, this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/in-e-reader-age-of-writers-cramp-a-book-a-year-is-slacking.html?_r=1, and it really made me question whether I really wanted to pursue being a published author. The Reader's Digest version of the article is this: publisher and readers are putting more pressure on authors to put out material in a more rapid fashion. According to the article, the popularity of ebooks and reading devices has created a higher demand on authors... not necessarily an altogether bad thing; however, the article goes on to say that readers want more access to the author via social media and that they want a sense of ownership over the author's work -- the readers want to feel like they have some kind of say, that they can influence the outcome of the author's efforts.
Whoa there Bucky, now hold on just one God damned minute. I would love to build a base of readers who enjoy my stories, but I'm making one simple and plain declarative right now: I'm the boss around these here parts... keep that firmly in mind please. I'll write the stories and you, potential reader, will read the stories... it's a time-honored arrangement that has been working for a very long time. Two books a year is not that bad of a deal, and I think I can keep up that end of the bargain, but your contribution to this will be to use your imagination to participate in the fiction dream -- you need not expend any more effort than that. Deal? Shake on it? Groovy.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder...
Really, in this day and age, absence makes people forget all about you. As I have no followers, this all becomes largely an exercise for my own amusement...
I took a pretty extended hiatus due to a number of real life things that come up: moving, settling in, yard work, and other sundry tasks that make a man set aside his story. Well, I put the story aside but I didn't put the pen and notebook away. While I was making my contributions to our living arrangements and paying my sweat equity, I kept on plugging away at the story in the most low tech manner you can imagine: in a paper journal. Ostensibly, I was doing what needed doing around the house, but whenever an opportunity presented itself I kept working on the story: an hour waiting for a ride in a coffee shop or during lunch in the employee lounge at work, while waiting for the bus, or any other time I could squeeze in a few lines; or at least ponder the possibilities of the plot.
Then I figured out that I could do the same in a way that wouldn't require me to come back and transcribe my work into the computer: I started composing on my Android smart phone and tablet. With a little app called Diaro and a Dropbox account, I make a rough draft of my chapter on my phone and then upload the text file to my Dropbox cloud storage. Then it's a simple matter of opening the text file at home on my PC, copying the contents, and adding it to my novel file in WriteWay Pro -- bickety-bam, there's progress.
"Isn't typing on the phone's keyboard a pain in the ass?"
Hell yeah, it is! It took me a while to get used to it, and the stock Android keyboard was most definitely not to my liking, so I tried a few third party keyboards until I settled on GO Keyboard, and then I just had to keep at it until I got used to interface and got better at typing on a four and a quarter inch screen. My tablet is a better interface, much bigger screen, and it has a keyboard dock which is really nice -- attaching the tablet to the keyboard dock makes it into a netbook-sized portable that's nice to use in tight spaces. On the tablet, I prefer to use Google Docs (now Google Drive) because the word processor is robust enough for draft work.
"How stable and secure is this method?"
*Shrugs* I have no idea... I haven't had anything catastrophic happen yet, and hopefully I never will. (I'm knocking on wood, as I type... I'm THAT superstitious) I really want to get the draft of this novel done by September, so that I can work on the next one during NaNoWriMo in November (only six months away). In order to keep up my pace I'm going to continue to use my phone and tablet to advance my work on the story. It's possible that I could lose my phone or my tablet or both (I'd lose my head if it wasn't securely attached to the rest of me); just as it's possible that all of my electronic devices could crap out on me. Redundancy? P'shaw! I back up my work on a portable hard drive, and I guess I could upload a copy to cloud storage... but in this hypothetical, I'd be f*ck out of luck if my electronics all decided to die on me at once. Let's keep our fingers crossed that none of that shit happens.
I'm no bestselling author... hell, I'm not even a published author... so the idea of a high end data vault is beyond even a momentary consideration. There is a moral to this story, kiddies, and it's this: hit save often and make copies of your files. Pretty easy, right?
BTW: you may have noticed the snazzy word counter I added to the site; no, I'm no programming genius... believe me -- I can't code myself out of a paper bag. Fortunately for me there's folks out there who not only make neat-o gadgets like this, but they share them. Want one for your site? or just want to give the makers of this counter some love and support? Go here: http://www.writertopia.com/toolbox/meters Thank you, Writertopia!!!
I took a pretty extended hiatus due to a number of real life things that come up: moving, settling in, yard work, and other sundry tasks that make a man set aside his story. Well, I put the story aside but I didn't put the pen and notebook away. While I was making my contributions to our living arrangements and paying my sweat equity, I kept on plugging away at the story in the most low tech manner you can imagine: in a paper journal. Ostensibly, I was doing what needed doing around the house, but whenever an opportunity presented itself I kept working on the story: an hour waiting for a ride in a coffee shop or during lunch in the employee lounge at work, while waiting for the bus, or any other time I could squeeze in a few lines; or at least ponder the possibilities of the plot.
Then I figured out that I could do the same in a way that wouldn't require me to come back and transcribe my work into the computer: I started composing on my Android smart phone and tablet. With a little app called Diaro and a Dropbox account, I make a rough draft of my chapter on my phone and then upload the text file to my Dropbox cloud storage. Then it's a simple matter of opening the text file at home on my PC, copying the contents, and adding it to my novel file in WriteWay Pro -- bickety-bam, there's progress.
"Isn't typing on the phone's keyboard a pain in the ass?"
Hell yeah, it is! It took me a while to get used to it, and the stock Android keyboard was most definitely not to my liking, so I tried a few third party keyboards until I settled on GO Keyboard, and then I just had to keep at it until I got used to interface and got better at typing on a four and a quarter inch screen. My tablet is a better interface, much bigger screen, and it has a keyboard dock which is really nice -- attaching the tablet to the keyboard dock makes it into a netbook-sized portable that's nice to use in tight spaces. On the tablet, I prefer to use Google Docs (now Google Drive) because the word processor is robust enough for draft work.
"How stable and secure is this method?"
*Shrugs* I have no idea... I haven't had anything catastrophic happen yet, and hopefully I never will. (I'm knocking on wood, as I type... I'm THAT superstitious) I really want to get the draft of this novel done by September, so that I can work on the next one during NaNoWriMo in November (only six months away). In order to keep up my pace I'm going to continue to use my phone and tablet to advance my work on the story. It's possible that I could lose my phone or my tablet or both (I'd lose my head if it wasn't securely attached to the rest of me); just as it's possible that all of my electronic devices could crap out on me. Redundancy? P'shaw! I back up my work on a portable hard drive, and I guess I could upload a copy to cloud storage... but in this hypothetical, I'd be f*ck out of luck if my electronics all decided to die on me at once. Let's keep our fingers crossed that none of that shit happens.
I'm no bestselling author... hell, I'm not even a published author... so the idea of a high end data vault is beyond even a momentary consideration. There is a moral to this story, kiddies, and it's this: hit save often and make copies of your files. Pretty easy, right?
BTW: you may have noticed the snazzy word counter I added to the site; no, I'm no programming genius... believe me -- I can't code myself out of a paper bag. Fortunately for me there's folks out there who not only make neat-o gadgets like this, but they share them. Want one for your site? or just want to give the makers of this counter some love and support? Go here: http://www.writertopia.com/toolbox/meters Thank you, Writertopia!!!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The Write tools; or the seemingly Never-ending hiatus
I got a new computer! Acquired last week, actually; and it's been quite the process relocating from my old Dell laptop to my new HP laptop. I haven't had a new computer in about five years, so it was definitely time to upgrade - tools are very important in any vocation, and though my Dell was still cranking along rather well - it had developed some annoying quirks (nothing surprising with a computer of five years old... I mean, it was obsolete the moment I opened the box back when I first got it). I didn't think it would crash on me immediately or anything like that; however, I wanted to get into something new before that ever became an issue... something faster, with a bit more processing power and a lot more storage capacity.
I have to hand it to Dell for putting out one hell of a computer: that little silver and white marvel held up well over the time I owned it (coincidentally, it has a good, new home - I bequeathed it to my wife after cleaning it up for her... boy, did that take some time), and I do miss the little guy. Over the course of my ownership, I maxed out the RAM on the Dell (4 GB), almost overloaded the 40 GB hard drive with my music collection (I recall vividly how the Dell was performing like it was constipated), traveled it across Texas and to various locales around town, wrote my first novel on it, and generally lived in it's virtual space. I beat the hell out of that Dell, and it never gave up on me. He goes now to a better owner who will treat him with a lot more kindness than I ever did.
The new HP is working well so far; my favorite feature (hands down) is the enormous keyboard with its fat, Chiclet-style keys and full number pad. It's Windows 7 which I'm not very familiar with... all of the computers I use and have used thus far (except for my father-in-law's computer) are still on XP, and that's the OS with which I'm most familiar. I didn't expect that Win 7 would be all that complicated, and it's not... but it takes some getting used to. I also got myself a 1 TB Seagate GoFlex portable hard drive, so I can back everything up... it doesn't have a redundancy guarantee, but it will work for now.
The immediate question must be: why does a writer need a new computer; isn't a pen and paper all that's really required to write? My answer: "Need" is a tricky term; no, as a fledgling writer I didn't "need" a new computer... but like I said at the beginning of this entry: "tools are important in any vocation..." A computer is NOT necessary to write; used to be I produced all of my writing long hand, and then I had to set about the tedious task of typing or word processing all of the work. For me, creating my stories on a computer is a relatively new phenomenon... and I don't exclusively create on the computer: I have stacks of notebooks and journals and pens... I'm a stationary aficionado, and I rarely pass up an opportunity to acquire a new journal/notebook and pen. I even have a plethora of note taking/text editing applications on my Android phone... it's kooky. Writing is decidedly low tech by nature, I mean it seems almost deceptively simple: pen, paper, idea - done. Well, it's not quite that simple, especially not when you consider the innovations that had to be made in order for writing to even exist: language, a system of written language, tools with which to write, and material to write upon... and honestly, it's much more complicated than that if you consider the philosophical and psychological implications of writing.
Yeah, most of that is jest... sorry, my tangent... My point is this: the correct tools for you as a writer are whatever you are most comfortable and familiar with; and for me that's a good laptop computer and my hand-written notebooks - I'm not about to prescribe to anyone what tools they should use, or recommend one over the other: it doesn't matter what you write on, just that you write. I switched over to composing on the computer (it was a big switch for me) because I'm fundamentally lazy, and I wanted to save myself some steps; hence, I still make notes on paper, but I compose on the computer.
By the way, I'm now working in a creative writing management software title called, WriteWay. I'm still pretty new to it, but it's proven to be pretty good so far. I'm still learning the ins and outs, but it gives you some really nice tools to manage your creative writing projects - plot notes, outlining, character cards, research folders, and more. If you're interested it can be found here: http://www.writewaypro.com/. You can download a free 30 day trial, and test drive it for yourself; the full pro version only costs $49, which is a fraction of what Scrivener (which is for Mac only, anyway) and Dramatica Pro cost. If you are interested in a creative writing project management software title, you can see a nice side-by-side comparison here: http://creative-writing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/... it's where I found WriteWay. There is also an open source option available for free (although I would recommend making a donation to this fellow if you use his software), yWriter5 which can be found here: http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html. I don't endorse any of these software titles, not even WriteWay (which I'm still learning to use); but I like sharing information so if one of these works out for you - great!
For the low-tech bunch, Markings by C. F. Gibson is putting out Moleskine-like notebooks for a fraction of the cost of the Moleskine brand. The Markings notebooks are pretty much an exact copy of the Moleskine's Volant and Cahier notebooks (slick, plastic or cardboard cover with a pocket over a "composition book-style" stitched notebook). These are actually available at Wal-Mart. I like Markings journals (they're a pretty nice Moleskine knock-off) and I'm pretty sure their notebooks are decently made as well.
Alright; enough jibber-jabber, get to writing...
Oh yeah, the hiatus thing... We're buying a house, and that took up the majority of our free time and thought for about a month and a half. More on that news as things develop. :)
I have to hand it to Dell for putting out one hell of a computer: that little silver and white marvel held up well over the time I owned it (coincidentally, it has a good, new home - I bequeathed it to my wife after cleaning it up for her... boy, did that take some time), and I do miss the little guy. Over the course of my ownership, I maxed out the RAM on the Dell (4 GB), almost overloaded the 40 GB hard drive with my music collection (I recall vividly how the Dell was performing like it was constipated), traveled it across Texas and to various locales around town, wrote my first novel on it, and generally lived in it's virtual space. I beat the hell out of that Dell, and it never gave up on me. He goes now to a better owner who will treat him with a lot more kindness than I ever did.
The new HP is working well so far; my favorite feature (hands down) is the enormous keyboard with its fat, Chiclet-style keys and full number pad. It's Windows 7 which I'm not very familiar with... all of the computers I use and have used thus far (except for my father-in-law's computer) are still on XP, and that's the OS with which I'm most familiar. I didn't expect that Win 7 would be all that complicated, and it's not... but it takes some getting used to. I also got myself a 1 TB Seagate GoFlex portable hard drive, so I can back everything up... it doesn't have a redundancy guarantee, but it will work for now.
The immediate question must be: why does a writer need a new computer; isn't a pen and paper all that's really required to write? My answer: "Need" is a tricky term; no, as a fledgling writer I didn't "need" a new computer... but like I said at the beginning of this entry: "tools are important in any vocation..." A computer is NOT necessary to write; used to be I produced all of my writing long hand, and then I had to set about the tedious task of typing or word processing all of the work. For me, creating my stories on a computer is a relatively new phenomenon... and I don't exclusively create on the computer: I have stacks of notebooks and journals and pens... I'm a stationary aficionado, and I rarely pass up an opportunity to acquire a new journal/notebook and pen. I even have a plethora of note taking/text editing applications on my Android phone... it's kooky. Writing is decidedly low tech by nature, I mean it seems almost deceptively simple: pen, paper, idea - done. Well, it's not quite that simple, especially not when you consider the innovations that had to be made in order for writing to even exist: language, a system of written language, tools with which to write, and material to write upon... and honestly, it's much more complicated than that if you consider the philosophical and psychological implications of writing.
Yeah, most of that is jest... sorry, my tangent... My point is this: the correct tools for you as a writer are whatever you are most comfortable and familiar with; and for me that's a good laptop computer and my hand-written notebooks - I'm not about to prescribe to anyone what tools they should use, or recommend one over the other: it doesn't matter what you write on, just that you write. I switched over to composing on the computer (it was a big switch for me) because I'm fundamentally lazy, and I wanted to save myself some steps; hence, I still make notes on paper, but I compose on the computer.
By the way, I'm now working in a creative writing management software title called, WriteWay. I'm still pretty new to it, but it's proven to be pretty good so far. I'm still learning the ins and outs, but it gives you some really nice tools to manage your creative writing projects - plot notes, outlining, character cards, research folders, and more. If you're interested it can be found here: http://www.writewaypro.com/. You can download a free 30 day trial, and test drive it for yourself; the full pro version only costs $49, which is a fraction of what Scrivener (which is for Mac only, anyway) and Dramatica Pro cost. If you are interested in a creative writing project management software title, you can see a nice side-by-side comparison here: http://creative-writing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/... it's where I found WriteWay. There is also an open source option available for free (although I would recommend making a donation to this fellow if you use his software), yWriter5 which can be found here: http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html. I don't endorse any of these software titles, not even WriteWay (which I'm still learning to use); but I like sharing information so if one of these works out for you - great!
For the low-tech bunch, Markings by C. F. Gibson is putting out Moleskine-like notebooks for a fraction of the cost of the Moleskine brand. The Markings notebooks are pretty much an exact copy of the Moleskine's Volant and Cahier notebooks (slick, plastic or cardboard cover with a pocket over a "composition book-style" stitched notebook). These are actually available at Wal-Mart. I like Markings journals (they're a pretty nice Moleskine knock-off) and I'm pretty sure their notebooks are decently made as well.
Alright; enough jibber-jabber, get to writing...
Oh yeah, the hiatus thing... We're buying a house, and that took up the majority of our free time and thought for about a month and a half. More on that news as things develop. :)
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Okay... it's been a while...
What is it they say about the best of intentions?
I've been meaning to post to the blog for a while; I mean, I knew I was going to have a little bit of down time but this has gotten to be a bit ridiculous. I got sidetracked... heavily sidetracked, and I'm still sidetracked except that I felt I really needed to put something up here to explain myself.
My wife and I have been house hunting, and it's taken over every waking hour of our lives; first in the searching, then in the viewing, then in the searching again, then in the viewing again, then in the disappointing and shifty maneuvers of the realty industry, then in the searching, then in the frustration, then in the viewing, then in the finding, then in the offering, the inspecting, and the waiting... God, the endless waiting. I've been unable to concentrate on anything else... I can't seem to make my mind focus on anything else... I've got nerves rattling around in my stomach, and an inability to sleep in any great degree of comfort... and writing... well... not much of that either I'm afraid... and it's not like I don't have a lot to do.
This house hunting thing has been like a great cosmic monkey wrench in the machine works of my own little universe - talk about a distraction. It shouldn't be any great secret to anyone that writing is a creative act that requires a fair amount of concentration. Now if you can drop into a Zen-like state of empty mind where all you are doing it writing and thinking of nothing else but writing, my hat is most definitely off to you... you're a literary Bodhisattva. The rest of us mere mortals need to be able to give at least a fraction of our concentration to the task at hand, and that often means that all manner of other odd shit is going to come flying by like a mental montage of current stress points and worries.
I'd like to focus on the writing I'm currently crafting, and the revision of the writing I recently completed... but nothing doing, at least not right now. It's all out the window - all subject to defenestration by the need to acquire a permanent abode for the family. Oh, the misery of growing up and having to be an adult... what a load of shit. Hahahahahaha!!! Funny, how the things you need to do are always impinging upon the things you want to do: such is life; it is what it is, and all that garbage. I recently read somewhere (and for the life of me, I cannot remember where otherwise I'd link to it) that process of writing is more about the time you spend not writing than about the time you do spend writing. If you're not writing (and I mean actively writing with pen in hand or fingers on keyboard) then, in my mind, you damn well better be percolating something in your head because you sure as hell can't call yourself a writer if you don't write.
I've been scribbling in my old-fashioned, analog, paper notebook every chance I get; which most often is in the morning before I go to work (work, another one of those needs impinging on desires...). I'm still writing... I'm just not writing what I want to be writing; and the more astute of you might point out that I could be working on my project right now rather than wasting time with this blog that no one reads any how (and you'd be absolutely right, so fuck you... hahaha).
The moral of the story is that life is always ready to place pitfalls in your path, so fuck it. Do what you want when you want, while you can... just be ready for the bumps in the road because they are coming - just around the bend most likely, and they may suck like a thick, curly hair in a hamburger but they're unavoidable... so suck it up.
Cheers!
I've been meaning to post to the blog for a while; I mean, I knew I was going to have a little bit of down time but this has gotten to be a bit ridiculous. I got sidetracked... heavily sidetracked, and I'm still sidetracked except that I felt I really needed to put something up here to explain myself.
My wife and I have been house hunting, and it's taken over every waking hour of our lives; first in the searching, then in the viewing, then in the searching again, then in the viewing again, then in the disappointing and shifty maneuvers of the realty industry, then in the searching, then in the frustration, then in the viewing, then in the finding, then in the offering, the inspecting, and the waiting... God, the endless waiting. I've been unable to concentrate on anything else... I can't seem to make my mind focus on anything else... I've got nerves rattling around in my stomach, and an inability to sleep in any great degree of comfort... and writing... well... not much of that either I'm afraid... and it's not like I don't have a lot to do.
This house hunting thing has been like a great cosmic monkey wrench in the machine works of my own little universe - talk about a distraction. It shouldn't be any great secret to anyone that writing is a creative act that requires a fair amount of concentration. Now if you can drop into a Zen-like state of empty mind where all you are doing it writing and thinking of nothing else but writing, my hat is most definitely off to you... you're a literary Bodhisattva. The rest of us mere mortals need to be able to give at least a fraction of our concentration to the task at hand, and that often means that all manner of other odd shit is going to come flying by like a mental montage of current stress points and worries.
I'd like to focus on the writing I'm currently crafting, and the revision of the writing I recently completed... but nothing doing, at least not right now. It's all out the window - all subject to defenestration by the need to acquire a permanent abode for the family. Oh, the misery of growing up and having to be an adult... what a load of shit. Hahahahahaha!!! Funny, how the things you need to do are always impinging upon the things you want to do: such is life; it is what it is, and all that garbage. I recently read somewhere (and for the life of me, I cannot remember where otherwise I'd link to it) that process of writing is more about the time you spend not writing than about the time you do spend writing. If you're not writing (and I mean actively writing with pen in hand or fingers on keyboard) then, in my mind, you damn well better be percolating something in your head because you sure as hell can't call yourself a writer if you don't write.
I've been scribbling in my old-fashioned, analog, paper notebook every chance I get; which most often is in the morning before I go to work (work, another one of those needs impinging on desires...). I'm still writing... I'm just not writing what I want to be writing; and the more astute of you might point out that I could be working on my project right now rather than wasting time with this blog that no one reads any how (and you'd be absolutely right, so fuck you... hahaha).
The moral of the story is that life is always ready to place pitfalls in your path, so fuck it. Do what you want when you want, while you can... just be ready for the bumps in the road because they are coming - just around the bend most likely, and they may suck like a thick, curly hair in a hamburger but they're unavoidable... so suck it up.
Cheers!
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