Writing, Editing & Journalism

Life after #NaNoWriMo 2013

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I crossed the 2013 National Novel Writing Month finish line with just above 50,100 words, with 13 hours to spare. This was my third year participating, but my first “win.” Herewith some lessons:

  1. I do best when I have an outline of the work in mind before I begin, including scene synopses and character sketches. I use Scrivener for Windows, so all of this info is readily at hand. Before Halloween, I plotted out 25 scenes over 12 chapters (with a prologue) with a goal of putting a minimum of 2,000 words in each scene, one scene per day, with five days off in the month. I didn’t stick exactly to that schedule, but getting slightly ahead of target early in the month gave me some slack later in the month. All I really had to do was treat each scene like a module; it’s less daunting to write a 2,000-word scene than to write “a novel” in exactly the same way it’s easier to eat calamari instead of a giant squid.
  2. The more I finished, the easier it was to write. After about the 30k mark, the words flowed easier because I better understood the nuances of the story and the personalities of the characters. By the end, I had so much stuff I wanted to stick in that I had to discipline myself to stick to the original plan of getting all 25 of the originally planned scenes done.
  3. Syncing my novel files to SkyDrive (and removing the Office Document Uploader, the bane of my existence) means I can seamlessly pick up the work on my Surface Pro or on my desktop PC. No worries about not backing up, losing a hard drive, breaking a USB stick, yadda, yadda ….
  4. Writing with a group means you’re disciplined about it. I give credit to my friends Julie and Roux for their consistent encouragement, as well as my whole chain-gang of WriteOn! colleagues who made things more palatable and certainly more pastry-filled. I hosted a Saturday-morning write-in that, over the month, logged almost 95,000 words among our motley cast of characters. Plus, I won the “Word War Benevolent Leader” award at the Ottawa County/Grand Rapids regional TGIO party and the “Most Likely to Carry a Sub in His Car” award from Jessica’s Kentwood Library write-in. W00t.
  5. I’m a reviser. I write fairly slowly, perhaps 1,000 words per hour if I’m focused, because I write fairly clean prose on the first pass. It’s easier to reach the end if you resist the urge to re-revise already written work and instead just get things on paper.
  6. The folks who conduct the annual event remind us that, really, NaNoWriMo isn’t about writing a novel. It’s about getting the first 50k words of a novel’s “zero draft” down. The real work comes with subsequent addition, revision, editing, etc. I agree with this sentiment: I “won” but I haven’t yet written a novel. But I’ve got enough of a novel done now that to decline to finish would be a tremendous waste. The 50k mark gets you not to the end, but to the point of no return: You’re committed, so use December and the months following to wrap things up.

So what’s next? Well, I’m taking two weeks off for the end-of-December holiday season. I have sundry tasks planned for myself, but chief among them is to bring the novel up to roughly 85,000 words, plus or minus five grand. And there’s plenty of opportunity to augment it — I have some notes about scenes I need to beef up, one whole scene I need to add for context, some holes to plug … and I must straighten one of the two subplots so it’s got a stronger element of interpersonal struggle about it.
Beyond that, I’ve got a few folks who have volunteered to read the draft. I intend to give it to them so they can hack it to pieces (I don’t want nice reviews, I want mean ones — the mean ones help improve the quality of the final draft).
The novel is straight genre: It’s a detective fiction, set in modern-day Grand Rapids, with a not-entirely-loveable main character who, I think, grows a bit by the end. Sex and violence are present but muted and not at all graphic — this is probably a PG-13 book — and expletives are reserved for occasional bits of dialogue for certain characters. I’ve left the door open for this concept and the primary cast of characters to turn into a series. Maybe volume No. 2 comes with 2014 NaNo?
I think I can get this into a form ready for release to an agent. Assuming I win the 1-percent-chance lottery of finding one. If late spring rolls around and I have no bites on the manuscript, off to Amazon it goes at $2.99 a pop.
One of my bucket-list items was “Write a novel.” The draft of Sanctuary is rough, but in good shape. I’m happy with it. I crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line, now I need to bring November’s work product past the finish line, too.

Writing, Editing & Journalism

Another Quick Recap

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Time flies when you’re noveling.
So my participation in National Novel Writing Month is proceeding  better than I expected. I’m actually above my target word count for this point in the month, coming in somewhere just north of 27,000 words. I like my story: It’s mainstream detective fiction, set in Grand Rapids, about a murder and a neo-pagan cult that’s not what it seems. My main character is a private investigator whose primary subplot revolves around his dating foibles, with some color commentary on bisexuality in West Michigan.
With the time off I intend to take around the December holidays, I plan to get the novel to roughly 80,000 words and streamline the prose well enough to admit to editing by others, with a goal of pitching it to an agent or self-publishing on Amazon. The choice of straight genre and localization were deliberately planned to improve potential commercial prospects for the final manuscript.
Because of the writing, I’ve had little time for much else. I’m behind on emails and I’ve effectively shut down the Jason Help Line this month. The only things other than writing that I’ve continued to handle are the podcast and some very light contract work. Oh, and setting up a Facebook group for my 20-year high school reunion. Lord a’mercy, I’m getting old. Graduation day is closer to my date of birth than to today.
One of the big time-sinks from NaNoWriMo isn’t necessarily the writing, but the community of writing. Every day but Friday and Sunday I have a November writers’ event — and the one on Saturdays, I host. It’s great for camaraderie and for bolstering word count, but it’s time not spent on the myriad other things that would normally occupy my time in any month other than November. Last week’s Day of Knockout Noveling was fun (but given the high sugar content, not super productive). I do try to write from home, but Fiona d’Cat has taken to laying on my forearms and chest whenever I recline in my office chair.
On the bright side, I’ll have some focused time the week after next. With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, I’ll have some catch-up time (if I need it) and because I’m making classroom visits to the east side of the state for the International Year of Statistics that week, I’ll have some time at Detroit-area cigar bars to write, enjoy a premium cigar and possible a dram of Scotch or five.
Progress!

Writing, Editing & Journalism

NaNoWriMo ’12 — A Reflection

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This marked the second consecutive year I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month. The event — a 30-day voyage of creative writing — prods people to try long-form fiction. You “win” if you hit 50,000 words by 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 30.

Last year, I failed miserably; I may have hit 5,000 words in the month. The problem then was hubris: I figured long-form fiction couldn’t be that hard. So I arrived at a hybrid plot with no planning that, the more I thought about it, felt horribly confused. The artifice of a genre template obscured what ended up being the interesting kernel of a human-relationship story.

This year, I still didn’t “win” in the sense of hitting 50k — December rolled onto the calendar when I was at but 25k — but I am quite satisfied with how the month turned out. I approached the task with a bit more humility and did more pre-NaNo planning than last year, so I have a product that I can keep working on throughout the year.

Some highlights:

  • I plotted out a script that targeted at 90k words. The structure included 15 different chapters, each planned for about 6,000 words, with well-defined scenes in each and detailed notes about characters, scenes and even science associated with the plot. The goal was “modular writing” — I could have hit my private target if I did one 3,000-word scene per day.
  • I put this work entirely within Scrivener for Windows. I don’t think I could have even gotten close if I had tried a different platform like Word or even my beloved OneNote.
  • I actually stayed on track for the first week or so. Then the netbook passed on, and I tried using my tablet as a remote interface for Scrivener on my desktop at home, but that plan was much better in theory than in execution. I lost a week of progress fiddling with computers and ended up just buying a new laptop. I planned to get a Win 8 Pro tablet but … alas, nothing was on the market at the time.
  • I did lose 4,000-ish words at one point mid-month. I didn’t reset Scrivener’s aut0-save from 2 seconds to 120 seconds, thus creating version conflicts with SkyDrive. My own darn fault, because I did know better.
  • Writing with a group is great when the group is great. When the group is filled with adolescents off their Ritalin, progress correspondingly slows down. Thus, although I tried attending four write-ins per week, I skipped a few on occasion because of the dynamics of that group. The best one was probably the last one I attended, at Literary Life — just me, Brittany and the fireplace. Lots of progress.
  • Because this was a sci-fi novel, I spent a fair amount of time working through getting the science right. That included, for example, spending an hour going down the bunny hole of correctly calculating the force-of-impact of a grain of sand moving at 45 percent of the speed of light in a vacuum — and thus, indirectly, proving the residual value of high-school physics. Regardless, the slog through the first few chapters, when I had to carefully intersperse data about the universe without it sounding like a travelogue, proved more challenging than I hoped. Once I got past that introductory material, the pace of writing sped up and became much more fluid and fun.

I am going to keep going with this novel. I like the premise, and I’m growing fond of the characters. I’d like to hit my 90k marker. I’ve thought of this as the first installment of a trilogy, so we shall see. I’d like a completed novel that I can at the least circulate to agents for review and rejection.

NaNo sometimes gets grief from self-appointed literary types for giving people the impression that novel writing is easy and can be done in just 30 days. I think these critics miss the boat. The real value is that the process forces a writer to get a “zero draft” at least half-way complete, providing a framework for later enhancement and editing.

So. Will I participate next year? As Sarah Palin would say: “You betcha!”

Writing, Editing & Journalism

NaNoWriMo '12 — A Reflection

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This marked the second consecutive year I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month. The event — a 30-day voyage of creative writing — prods people to try long-form fiction. You “win” if you hit 50,000 words by 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 30.
Last year, I failed miserably; I may have hit 5,000 words in the month. The problem then was hubris: I figured long-form fiction couldn’t be that hard. So I arrived at a hybrid plot with no planning that, the more I thought about it, felt horribly confused. The artifice of a genre template obscured what ended up being the interesting kernel of a human-relationship story.
This year, I still didn’t “win” in the sense of hitting 50k — December rolled onto the calendar when I was at but 25k — but I am quite satisfied with how the month turned out. I approached the task with a bit more humility and did more pre-NaNo planning than last year, so I have a product that I can keep working on throughout the year.
Some highlights:

  • I plotted out a script that targeted at 90k words. The structure included 15 different chapters, each planned for about 6,000 words, with well-defined scenes in each and detailed notes about characters, scenes and even science associated with the plot. The goal was “modular writing” — I could have hit my private target if I did one 3,000-word scene per day.
  • I put this work entirely within Scrivener for Windows. I don’t think I could have even gotten close if I had tried a different platform like Word or even my beloved OneNote.
  • I actually stayed on track for the first week or so. Then the netbook passed on, and I tried using my tablet as a remote interface for Scrivener on my desktop at home, but that plan was much better in theory than in execution. I lost a week of progress fiddling with computers and ended up just buying a new laptop. I planned to get a Win 8 Pro tablet but … alas, nothing was on the market at the time.
  • I did lose 4,000-ish words at one point mid-month. I didn’t reset Scrivener’s aut0-save from 2 seconds to 120 seconds, thus creating version conflicts with SkyDrive. My own darn fault, because I did know better.
  • Writing with a group is great when the group is great. When the group is filled with adolescents off their Ritalin, progress correspondingly slows down. Thus, although I tried attending four write-ins per week, I skipped a few on occasion because of the dynamics of that group. The best one was probably the last one I attended, at Literary Life — just me, Brittany and the fireplace. Lots of progress.
  • Because this was a sci-fi novel, I spent a fair amount of time working through getting the science right. That included, for example, spending an hour going down the bunny hole of correctly calculating the force-of-impact of a grain of sand moving at 45 percent of the speed of light in a vacuum — and thus, indirectly, proving the residual value of high-school physics. Regardless, the slog through the first few chapters, when I had to carefully intersperse data about the universe without it sounding like a travelogue, proved more challenging than I hoped. Once I got past that introductory material, the pace of writing sped up and became much more fluid and fun.

I am going to keep going with this novel. I like the premise, and I’m growing fond of the characters. I’d like to hit my 90k marker. I’ve thought of this as the first installment of a trilogy, so we shall see. I’d like a completed novel that I can at the least circulate to agents for review and rejection.
NaNo sometimes gets grief from self-appointed literary types for giving people the impression that novel writing is easy and can be done in just 30 days. I think these critics miss the boat. The real value is that the process forces a writer to get a “zero draft” at least half-way complete, providing a framework for later enhancement and editing.
So. Will I participate next year? As Sarah Palin would say: “You betcha!”

Personal, Politics & Culture, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Assorted Reflections and Updates

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Today’s excursion into pithy commentary:

  1. National Novel Writing Month has commenced. I’m stretching my legs a bit to write a sci-fi story. My goal is to have the science be accurate but in the background; I’m really aiming for a commentary on human social evolution that just happens to bet set forward in a non-archetypal future. NaNo requires 50k words. I’m aiming for 90k, because I’d like to brush up the first draft and possibly shop for an agent or publisher. High goals, but hey. Defecate or get off the pot; I’ve been meaning to write a novel for years so why not now?
  2. To that end, I’m not only participating in local write-ins this November, but I’m also hosting one. On Saturdays at the food court at 35 Michigan. We had the first one yesterday and a baker’s dozen attended. It was great. The Starbucks baristas were friendly, too.
  3. So just about every female I’ve seen under the age of 30 seems to be wearing skin-tight clothes (including, most frequently, black leggings) paired with boots that frequently rise above mid-calf. Fashion is one thing; lemming-like wardrobes is another. At least the cellulite brigade hasn’t hopped on the bandwagon yet.
  4. Many of the regular patrons at my local cigar shop are Freemasons. They’re a cheerful, civil lot. Apparently they’re barred from asking people to join up, but they’ve hinted that perhaps I could ask questions about joining up. Alas, the Catholic Church still considers Freemasonry a grave sin. I chatted up another regular about it — a local priest, as it happens — who was quite happy to share his (utterly orthodox) knowledge of the Vatican’s perspective, with an added challenge to “return the favor” by encouraging the masons to consider membership instead in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Hmm.
  5. I refreshed my HP TouchPad to the latest release of CM9. Much improved over the version I had installed earlier this year. I also downloaded a desktop-sharing app that works flawlessly with my Win8 PC at home. Meaning, I can keep working on my novel in Scrivener on my tablet without any loss of data or continuity.
  6. Halloween was somewhat underwhelming. My office door was decorated on my behalf. I ended up doing last-minute NaNo planning with Brittany, Steve and PJ at Wealthy Street Bakery. Very helpful.
  7. The election looms. I’m planning on watching the returns with Tony in (of all places!) Southfield. He needs to fly to California early the next morning from DTW, so we’re going to watch early returns at Churchills’ cigar shop there and enjoy a fine dram of Scotch or two.  I’m cautiously optimistic that Romney will eke out a win, and I may be working Tuesday morning as a poll challenger at one of the most heavily Democratic precincts in West Michigan. Hmm.
  8. Speaking of the election, there’s been a lot of background noise about Nate Silver, the NYT blogger/prognosticator who’s been consistently “predicting” an Obama win. The whole situation annoys me. Look, as a full-fledged member of the American Statistical Association, I can say for certainty I know what Silver’s doing — he’s assessing the probability of a binary outcome, based on various undisclosed polls as inputs into his model. That’s fine. As a full-fledged member of the Society of Professional Journalists, I can say for certainty that if journalists could do stats American reporting would be of uniformly higher quality. That said, the fundamental problem with Silver’s analysis is that he’s basically got a garbage-in/garbage-out thing going. I don’t question what I understand his methodology to be; I do question the radical differences in polling that feeds his model. Polling in this cycle is all over the map. Throw crap in, you’ll get crap out, no matter how carefully you run your probability estimates. So a pox on everyone’s houses.
  9. Oh, and on top of it, American politics isn’t accustomed to a binary probability estimate for presidential elections. So moving in that direction, given that the inputs are more volatile than people give them credit for, seems like a misapplication of models. But hey, if Silver wants his 15 minutes of fame, he’s certainly earned it.
  10. I swapped out the stereo on my Jimmy a few weeks ago. The operation took longer than it should have — I needed to buy a wire harness — but I managed to get the job done without damaging anything. Yay, me.
  11. Tony I went on a brief casino trip a few weeks ago to Harrah’s Joliet and met Mark and Keren of the 360 Vegas podcast. An uproariously good time was had by all.
  12. Life at the hospital continues to pay lip service to the Chinese maxim about interesting times. I’m now officially a business analytics analyst in the Information Services team. The transition continues to unfold, so stay tuned.

November, already. Ugh. But hey — the holiday season’s a-comin’. Be glad, and rejoice.

Writing, Editing & Journalism

In the Beginning: #NaNoWriMo 2012

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In honor of National Novel Writing Month, permit me to share a short story of my own design.

In the Beginning …

… the writer created new heavens and a new earth. This new earth was without form and void, and blankness was upon the face of the writer’s notebook; and the Flash of Inspiration was moving over the face of the notebook. 

And the writer said, “Let there be a plot” and there was a plot. And the writer saw that it was good; and the writer separated the plot from other storylines. The writer called the plot Novel and other storylines he called Distractions. And there was drinking and then a hangover, the first day.

And the writer said, “Let there be a logical structure in the midst of the plot, and let it separate the plot from incoherent rambling.” And the writer developed an outline and separated the plot from the distractions not included in the plot. And it was so. And the writer called the outline Synopsis. And there were cigarettes and a nicotine buzz, the second day.

And the writer said, “Let the ideas within the plot be gathered together into a genre, and let the framework for the Novel appear.” And it was so. The writer identified his genre, and the frameworks for other genres he cast into the sea. And the writer saw that it was good. And the writer said, “Let the Novel put forth characters, protagonists advancing the plot and antagonists hindering it, each according to his archetype.” And it was so. The plot brought forth richly designed characters, protagonists advancing the plot and antagonists hindering it. And the writer saw that it was good. And there was leftover pizza and donuts, the third day.

And the writer said, “Let there be appropriate spacing in the plot of the Novel, to separate scene from scene; and let it be spaced for signs and for key points and for the passage of time, and let them provide a spatial and temporal organization to shine light upon the plot.” And it was so. And the writer made the two great spacers, the greater spacer to rule the passage of narrative time, and the lesser spacer to rule the physical relationships among characters; he made foreshadowing and flashbacks also. And the writer set them within the plot to illuminate the reader, and to separate scene from scene. And the writer saw that it was good. And there was No-Doze and burnt coffee, the fourth day.

And the writer said, “Let the Novel bring forth assorted secondary characters according to their usefulness to the plot, and let these various people help or hinder the protagonists and antagonists, and let them round out the plot with their distinct voices and development.” So the writer created a host of secondary characters, according to their usefulness to the plot, but without introducing so many that the writer derailed the plot. And the writer saw that it was good. And the writer blessed them, saying, “Be adventuresome and multiply and fill the gaping holes in the plot, and enrich the Novel’s backstory.” And there was an argument with the neglected significant other, the fifth day.

And the writer said, “Let the Novel bring forth subplots according to their usefulness: twists and turns and additional color to augment the main plot.” And it was so. And the writer made various subplots to advance the main plot through twists and turns. And the writer saw that it was good.

Then the writer said, “Let me make this Novel in my own image, after the stirrings of my own heart; and let my Novel be my own story and have pride of place in my life’s work.” So, the writer created the Novel in his own image, in the image of his own Id he created it; plot and characters and scenes, he created it. And the writer blessed it, and the writer said to it, “Be fruitful and multiply my bank account when I sell this Novel, and fill my wallet and claim crushing dominion over the Novels of all other writers.” And the writer said, “Behold, I have given you the entire month of November, and all the plot and subplots and characters and synopses to nourish you. And to this product of my heart and mind, I have given the breath of life, 2,000 words at a time.” And it was so. And the writer saw the Novel he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there were write-ins and panicked catch-up sessions, the sixth day.

Thus the Novel was finished, and all the host of novels finished for NaNoWriMo. And on the seventh day the writer finished his work that he had done. So the writer blessed December 1 and partied on it, because on this day the writer rested from all his labors.

And on December 2, the writer said, “Let there be rewrites ….”

 (c) Jason E. Gillikin, October 5, 2012

Personal

The Last Few Weeks ….

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Caught in a titanic struggle between “busy” and “sick,” the last few weeks have been somewhat less than enjoyable. Nevertheless, a few items of note are worth passing along.

  • Malaise.  Last weekend was unhappy; by Friday afternoon I got clobbered by some sort of stomach ailment that didn’t clear up until Sunday night, although it came back for a mini-encore on Wednesday. I ended up missing Mega 80s and the TGIO party last weekend (sadness) and scrubbed a planned site visit to Zeeland on Wednesday.
  • Cigar Night. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I hosted another monthly cigar night. Tony, Rob and Brad attended. We shared Tony-supplied Gispert robustos and I made bison grass martinis. A pleasant way to unwind before Turkey Day madness, even if Tony’s intervention led to a few of the martinis being more olive than alcohol. Next event is planned for this coming Tuesday, at Chop House.
  • Thanksgiving. This year’s holiday was fun … the festivities started the Friday prior, with an office potluck. My sausage jambalaya went over well — cutting back on cayenne and adding more red curry and chili powder led to a more flavorful but less intense spice profile. On Thursday, the family assembled at my mom’s house. Brian, grandma, and Sue/Robert/kids attended for a lovely meal.
  • NaNoWriMo. I didn’t “win” but I learned a ton about novel-writing, and had a blast at the twice-weekly write-ins. Kudos to everyone who made it so enjoyable, especially Duane, Jennifer, Adrianne, Liz, Nicole and Mary. This year, I discovered that it’s a bad idea to try to force-fit a character story on top of a genre template. Next year, I’ll be more ready. At Duane’s suggestion, I bought a Kindle copy of Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. The book is a largely unstructured and informal reflection by this popular Japanese novelist about his lifelong loves of running and writing, and how the two intertwine throughout his career. I’m up to the third chapter.
  • Interface Rejections. My team at the hospital grew by one member and one huge pile of work. We are now cleaning up all the daily rejections between two of the hospital’s primary systems — the facility clinical environment, and the facility billing system. Yay us.
  • Walking. I’ve driven along Butterworth Avenue often enough that I decided it was time to start exploring all the trails in Millennium Park. From the trail head near the Coke plant at Butterworth and O’Brien, I walked along the trail that hugged Butterworth, crossed the new elevated pedestrian bridge over Maynard and then skirted the lake along the park proper before looping back to the trail head by means of the Grand River path. It turned out to be a nearly 6 mile circuit — quite refreshing. I’ll have to walk (or cycle) this more often.
  • TV. I don’t watch too much television, but based on Sondra’s recommendation, I watched both seasons of Better Off Ted on Netflix. The show featured a deliciously sociopathic Portia de Rossi and the suave Jay Harrington as two of the main characters. If you seek a TV show that mixes over-the-top satire with wickedly funny dialog, you’ll love this program. It’s what The Office should have been.
  • Phone.  This week I managed to drop my phone into a sink full of hot soapy water. Although it took a few days to completely dry out, the HTC HD7 survived with no apparent problems. Yay. And even better — last week I received a Windows Phone upgrade that, inter alia, included a new Wi-Fi hotspot feature. Which works really well, although it is a bit of a battery drain.

All for now.

Personal, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Past, Present, Future

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Feels like I’ve been living my own little version of A Christmas Carol lately. To wit:

Past. Last weekend I took the scenic route home. Drove through eastern Ottawa County, and passed by the haunts of my childhood — the beautiful river views from Lamont, the rolling farmland in Marne, the dirt roads on the periphery of northwest Grand Rapids. Cruised by the three houses in which I lived in as a child (the two on Lincoln, and one at Leonard and 14th). Interesting to see what’s changed, and what has stayed the same. Prompted fond memories of my youth, but also a reflection on what “home” means; I’ve lived in five different places in the last five years, and eight places in the last 15. That’s a lot of impermanence. Although I’m delighted with my current abode, it’s hard to find a place that feels like “home” when you move around a lot, even when you move around the same metro area.

Present. In the process of moving some task-oriented stuff from OneNote to Outlook (hooray for the new Office365 subscription, and the tight integration across desktop/laptop/WP7 devices), I noticed that I’ve made substantially more progress on some of my goals than I expected. This makes me happy. The major “hard work” part remaining is the challenge from Tony, to be prepared to appear in public in a swimsuit for the water park experience during his birthday celebration in June. Last time I was shirtless in public was, oh, September 2008, when Andrew and I decided to spend the day lazing around at Oval Beach. I have the lead time to get into the kind of physical shape I’d prefer for such an excursion. Fun part will be thinking through the upper-body program. I’ve always had a slender chest/shoulder/arm profile (when not covered in blubber) so I’m thinking that a weightlifting program may be in my future. On the bright side, the June trip provides ample opportunity to prepare.

Future. As I continue to work through my novel, it occurred to me that although it’s hard work, chunking out the aspects of novel-writing into into a series of discrete steps, with deadlines, helps to sort through the work. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to “win” NaNoWriMo this year, but I’ve learned a heck of a lot already about how to write a novel, and if I can get this MS done by the end of the year, I think I could be in good shape … to write more novels. If I could find an agent — yay. If not, I’m enjoying the craft of writing, and I think that Duane’s model of putting them up on Amazon will work, too. He gets monthly royalty checks that somtimes cross into the triple digits for some of his old, early novels.

Computers & Technology, Personal, Philosophy, Politics & Culture, Social Media, Marketing & Privacy, Vices, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Assorted Ruminations

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Well. What an interesting couple of weeks it’s been. Summary commentary follows, on subjects as diverse as writing, politics, socializing and privacy. Read on, dear friends, and be enlightened.

“Society” Isn’t Responsible For Your Bad Choices

Big Al and I have engaged in several recent conversations about Occupy Wall Street, and in particular, about the nature of the main claims emanating like a vile penumbra from the protestors’ wish lists. The crux of the debate: To what extent is society responsible for the condition of people saddled with huge student loan debt and no strong employment opportunity?

Although Alaric refuses to state categorically that he thinks the protestors are totally free of moral culpability for the current condition, he does seem to argue that they aren’t solely culpable and therefore deserve a personal bailout. He asserts that the overwhelming social message that “college is the key to success” means that people really had no other choice if they wanted to be successful, and that colleges have misled many students about the value of their chosen courses of study. As best as I can tell, his position is that the social pressure to attend college mixed with bad or misleading counsel about the options available for majors means that many unemployed students were effectively sold a bill of goods. Therefore, in the interests of the macro economy, it makes sense to lighten their load and to implement reforms to prevent such from happening again.

Our debates have been lively. Although I appreciate his perspective — and do, in fact, concede that social pressure is a not-insignificant contributor to the higher ed bubble — I cannot agree that debt-laden students get a pass. For one thing, imprudence isn’t a virtue. Yes, I’m sure some people really did think that a degree in puppetry would be fulfilling — but did they bother to check the expected labor market for such a focus? Research is abundant and free, beginning with the Department of Labor public databases. As an ethics major, I realize that the only job I’m qualified for is one that requires “a degree, any degree” — no one is actively looking for someone with a B.A. in moral philosophy. I knew that going into it. I made my choices, and I have to accept my consequences. Choosing to go in willfully blind doesn’t provide a layer of insulation for when times get tough.

I get that for many people, life is challenging. I don’t think it’s society’s problem.

Evening of Cocktails and Fine Dining

Last Saturday I welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with Jon and Emilie, Tony and Jen, and Joe. We started with cocktails at Tony’s office in Lansing, then went to Copper for dinner. The meal was delightful and the company was heavenly. We had a great time and settled on the dates for the “All Things Tony” trek to The Happiest Place on Earth in early June.

Scotch Is Good for the Soul

Good Scotch whisky is proof of the existence of a benevolent God. In recent weeks, I’ve enjoyed Ardbeg 10-year (a staple of Jim Murray’s list of top whiskys) and now I’ve laid hands upon another rare bottle of Ballentine’s 17-year. Add to that a good deal on Lagavulin 16-year, and life is good.

But added to the mix: Gentleman Jack. I saw a fascinating Discovery Channel documentary on how Jack Daniel’s is made, and it impelled me to pick up a bottle. Glad I did. GJ may become my default sipping whiskey.

NaNoWriMo Is Harder Than It Looks

So I’m writing a novel. It’s harder than it looks. The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to produce a minimum of 50,000 words in the month of November. Some people have already met their goal, and bully for them. I remain stuck in the low four figures, mostly because I started late and have been planning as I go. The prose I’ve generated so far, I’m mostly happy with. And I purchased Scrivener for Windows — an all-in-one writing application for professional writers — and sync its data files with SkyDrive so I can pick up on any of my computers. So far, so good.

The “discipline thing” presents something of a self-improvement opportunity. My goal is to generate 80,000 words and shop it for sale. As a published writer of non-fiction work, I hope I have at least a tiny bit of credibility to get an agent to look twice at my submission. But if not — it doesn’t matter much. I’m enjoying the craft of writing for writing’s sake.

The fun thing about NaNoWriMo? The social aspect. There are active forums and chatrooms for local areas. The “Ottawa County – Grand Rapids” group has been a blast. I’ve done two write-ins with fellow novelists already, and will do more in the coming weeks. It’s been motivating, and fun to connect with fellow local writers. Even if Elizabeth insists on circulating a paper chat room while I try to write and even if Jennifer won’t bring me Scotch. At least Adrianne gave me chocolate because she’s a nice person.

I’m Not a Commodity: Or, Facebook+Spotify Sucks Huge Donkey Dick

Having read of the hype around Spotify, the streaming music service recently made available in the U.S., I was eager to install the app on my phone and enjoy a wide library of musical bliss. The downside? The only way you can actually register for Spotify is to log in with your Facebook account and agree to share an astonishing amount of personal information (including your name, age, location, friends, and profile details) with Spotify. There is no other way to gain access to the music service. Spotify, seemingly caught off-guard, insists that people can create dummy, empty Facebook accounts if they wish — which seems to defeat the purpose.

Long story short: I refuse. I uninstalled Spotify. And for good measure, I logged into Facebook and stripped all of my data from the service. I deleted all my photos (except a really crappy one for the profile), untagged myself from everyone else’s photos, removed all my personal profile details, and set all privacy settings to the most restrictive level. I even “unliked” almost everything I’ve liked in the history of Facebook — only a few dozen things, but still. My profile is now mostly an empty shell devoid of useful marketing data. Fuck you, Mark Zuckerberg.

Note to Big New Media: I’m a human being, not a data profile. I own my information. You don’t. I grow weary of being offered “free” apps or services only to discover later that the fine print says that you get to commodify me into a package of information that you can sell to others and that I have no say in the matter (not even to opt out or to at least curate what gets shared). I’m also out of the game of “logging in with Facebook” (or Google, or Twitter, or …) — give me the chance to log in using de-identified information, or forego me as a customer. Next up for scubbing: Google. I’m watching you, Mountain View.

State of the GOP Presidential Race

Here’s what I know. Most significantly, Rick Perry managed to disappoint me; I can forgive a bad debate performance, but not a 100 percent failure rate in debate performances. Mitt Romney really does look like the default nominee, and despite Erick Erickson’s bloviations, I think he’d be a strong contender and a solid POTUS. Notwithstanding my lack of enthusiasm for his early debate performances (where he came off arrogant and picking fights on social issues he didn’t need to wage) I think Jon Huntsman might be the best man for the job — he’s sufficiently conservative, smart, polished and experienced. Paul, Gingrich, Bachmann and Johnson should probably exit, stage right. And Herman Cain? He just needs to implode and retire from the race before too much damage is done to the GOP brand. Between the sex scandals and the implausibility of 9-9-9, the risk to Republican seriousness is high.

What a Difference A Gigabyte Makes …

Last week, I acquired for the low, low price of $44 a 2 GB memory chip for my netbook (the package also included an 8 GB micro-SD card). I installed it, booted up the machine — and it purrs like a kitten. Still not quite as fast as my full-sized laptop at home (what, with its dual-core Athlon processor and 4 GB of RAM) but the netbook is keeping up admirably with a dual-boot Win7+Fedora16 setup.

Truth be told, I think I’ve finally settled on an all-Microsoft approach to data management. My laptop, netbook and smart phone all run Microsoft OSes, and I use Windows Live SkyDrive for all my personal cloud storage. I’m increasingly centralizing information with OneNote, conveniently synchronized across all my screens. Although it’s not a perfect setup, I’m satisfied with it and am more productive than I was in the days of miscellaneous FTP syncing and random OS mixes.

… Also, a Single Settings Tweak

The only non-MS device left in my portfolio is my HP TouchPad. Granted that I acquired it at firesale prices, I find WebOS to be snappy and elegant. I was tempted to install the CyanogenMod tweak to push it to Android, but why screw around when WebOS works? The only problem I had — and it frustrated me to no end — was TouchFeeds, an RSS reader that’s simple and robust. However, it would hang the tablet on occasion and sometimes be mind-numbingly slow. Slow, to the point I wanted to chuck it at the window and grind my boots on the shards just to show it who’s boss. Funny thing, though: Simply changing the TouchFeeds setting to stop auto-mark-read-as-you-scroll completely fixed the problem. Now, I just push the “mark all read” button and it flies like a dream. Sometimes, just screwing around with settings solves problems.

Pictures on the Wall

Last weekend, I finally got around to printing 21 4-by-6 photos for the huge wall-mounted photo display I got for a steal a while back. Picking which 21 I wanted to print prompted a delightful trek down memory lane. It also reminded me of how bad of a job I do at taking pictures, despite having a 5 MP camera in my HD7. Now the display is prominenly affixed to the wall of my living room.

Writing, Editing & Journalism

NaNoWriMo: Taking the Plunge

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Aided by the counsel of my good friend Duane, I’ve decided to take the leap into actually writing a novel instead of merely intending to write one. The National Novel Writing Month — conveniently contemporaneous with “November” on the calendar — provides aspiring novelists a loosely structured environment for pulling together a work of fiction of 50,000 or more words.

So far, so good. I’ve registered an account and posted my introductory message in the Ottawa County/Grand Rapids local forum. Yay. I’ve done a bit of initial planning, but still have some work to go before I’m ready to actually put prose to e-paper.

It helps to have a firm plot concept in mind. The narrative, the major characters, the setting — it’s all in my mind’s eye, which marks a point of departure from my previous tinkering with fiction work.

Next steps include finishing my plot grid and character studies. I figure I’ll be ready to actually write on Thursday. I’m excited. Even if I’m not successful, I’m glad for the opportunity to hone my craft of writing.