Tag Archives: Writer Resources

Publishing, School, Writing

New Semester, New Beginnings

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Gotta love coming back after a summer of not blogging only to discover your site has stopped working thanks to a random WordPress update while you were away. Serves me right for being away so long. The good news is everything is almost back to normal. I just have to reinstall two plugins that I had to FTP in and remove just to be able to login. Then WordPress wouldn’t update to the latest and greatest and in fact couldn’t find the update page. After some intensive Google searching though I managed to find someone else who’d had the same problem. Turns out one little line added to a config file magically fixed the issue. Woot!

Now that I’m through an exceptionally lazy summer (where writing is concerned anyway) and I also have my main computer back up and running, it’s time to head back to college. This semester started strangely schedule-wise with classes starting the Wednesday before Labor Day. This meant my first week excluded ALL of my writing classes and included only my required English Literature class. Then Labor Day came along and I still haven’t been to my Create Writing Poetry workshop. Ah well, next week. Next week.

I was actually pretty upset about the whole scheduling thing until today when one of my teachers happened to mention that this semester is extra long and ends on a Tuesday. Clearly they’re making up for their own scheduling stupidity. Would it really have been to hard to start classes on Monday even though it would have been August 31st? Apparently.

The classes themselves have been good so far, though it’s really hard to say at this point how they’ll really pan out. The first sessions are all syllabus readings and constant introductions. Today I had both my non-fiction and fiction workshops. Pretty sure I’m going to like both but man am I going to be busy with three workshops and my lit class. Then there’s my own writing and publishing that I have to find time for.

Speaking of my writing, I just got Avatars & Identity from a copy editor I found on a site called Fiverr (it’s like the eBay of personal services without any actual bidding). Started going through his edits and discovered that at some point in my life I completely ignored what I’d learned about commas. Apparently I’m allergic. (Not really, I just think the so-called rules call for so many commas that they break up the flow of narrative.) Still, I’m accepting most of the changes since I want my book to be on its best behavior when I submit it to the Kindle Scout program.

For those who haven’t heard of this yet, and I’m sure there are many who haven’t, Amazon is becoming a full-on publisher with their Kindle Scout program. The way it works is you submit a fully completed and copy edited novel of at least 50k words with an awesome cover, blurb, and one-liner. They’ll shop it around to a select group of readers. If the readers and Amazon’s own people approve you’ll get to sign a contract. This contract in fact. After reading and hearing about all of the horror stories regarding contracts with the big publishers I was very happy to work through Amazon’s very simple and straightforward contract in fifteen minutes flat. It’s for worldwide e-book and digital audio rights for a 5-year term that renews barring poor sales or voluntarily on the author’s part. There’s even built-in guarantees that if you don’t earn enough through royalties you will get all of your rights back. From a new author standpoint I have to say this contract is a better deal than what you’d get from almost anyone else. I’m super excited to get Avatars submitted and see what happens.

 

Whelp, that’s enough for now. Homework beckons.

FuzzyAdventures, Gaming

Let the Fuzzy Adventures Begin!

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With my summer now in full swing (even if the weather disagrees), I’ve started work on my new Fuzzy Adventure series. This was item 6 in my post about what I planned to do this summer and I’m super excited to get to work! I’ve done a test session already with a short run through Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to see how my setup works:

A screenshot of an initial Fuzzy Adventure test run.
A screenshot of an initial Fuzzy Adventure test run.

 

I’m using a StarTech USB3HDCAP to hook up my consoles to my PC and XSplit to handle both the Twitch streaming and video recording. The cool thing about the capture box is it can handle any console so I can play and record on anything from my old NES up to PS3. Since I just picked up Ni No Kuni I may end up doing a regular Let’s Play as I work my way through that.

As for the Fuzzy Adventures, I anticipate doing at least one episode per week. Each episode will probably include about an hour or more of game time (no doubt subject to the game being played) along with the written portion.  Since this is all new to me I’ll have to see how much writing is involved for each hour of game play.  I’ve also engaged the services of a professional graphic artist to handle the graphics for the videos. I really want something that looks well-made. All of this should be ready within the next week or two. Can’t wait to get started!

Writing, Method

A Time for (Non-Epic) Change

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

As most will be unaware, I do two Live Writing events every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:30 PM CST. This is where I write for about an hour or so while streaming to my Twitch channel. Afterwards I upload the resulting video to my YouTube channel for archival viewing. It’s not the most exciting thing ever conceived to watch but it really helps keep me writing at least twice a week on something other that school work. Yet for the past couple of weeks it has been impossible to keep to this schedule due to intrusions on the part of real life. Now it is apparent that my selection of 1:30 PM for the starting time was in error. It also got me to thinking about my schedule, for this semester I’m in, over the summer, and next fall. I knew my Live Writing would change over the summer but I hadn’t anticipated the multiple conflicts that would arise. It turns out that I regularly need my down time in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays for medical appoints and other things that have to get done. Thus I am led to posting my first ever poll!

What time do you think my Live Writing should take place on the T-days of the week? I’ve put in some time possibilities but left an open answer you can fill in as well:

[polldaddy poll=8747366]

 

 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

My Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

My Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

My Live Writing, Editing, and other videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFZHBRlGb3-RFEr2BXQPi-Q

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

kaGh5_patreon_name_and_message

 

Career, Writing, Inspiration

Week 2 – Getting Very Excited

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

I’m now in to my second week of my serious writing project and I find that I’m really enjoying it. I frequently don’t feel the awesome inspiration that started this project several years ago, but I’m learning in a way that seems to be sticking that I don’t need to have that feeling to write. It is fascinating to me just how much of what I feel about writing seems to depend on just how I look at the task. When I think of a finished book and just the sheer number of pages, characters, scenes, and plot that make up that book it is incredibly intimidating. Always has been. That intimidation leads to fear of failure. Well, it does for me anyway. I don’t know about anyone else, but I really don’t like failing at anything. I know it is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean I like it. So that fear and intimidation give my inner critic a hard to ignore voice. “Oh, I’m tired today. Anything I write won’t be good.” or “I don’t know how to really get in to that inspired mood so that I can just practically will my book in to existence.” Very sill stuff when you take a step back and look at the objections of your inner critic more rationally. Still, not all of his observations are silly. “Am I really good enough to do this? I have to eat after all.” That one has stopped me more than once.

One of the things that is really helping me kick that inner critic to the curb is the daily writing routine Stephen King recommends in his On Writing book. I’ve already proven to myself that 1,000 words a day is a very doable, even easy, target for me to hit. There have been a few days where I checked my word count several times before I actually hit my daily minimum. Then there was last Sunday when I managed to put down 2,300 or so words and nearly finished an entire chapter in one sitting. I think this, as much as anything else, is helping me to overcome my inner critic and build up my confidence. I am proving to myself every day, in a way that can’t be dismissed, that I can do this. That in fact, I am doing it! Every time I think and/or re-realize that, I can’t help but get excited about what I’m doing. I also feel like I’m really taking control of a life that I’ve let drift for years. I have no illusions that I have much control over my life, but at least this is something I’m doing for myself. Proving this to myself. It’s a good feeling.

Oh, I also stumbled across a pretty amazing resource for any aspiring writers out there. I’ve only scratched the surface of the great information here, but it’s getting me even more excited about my writing and my prospects for some day making a living off of my writing:

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=9358

Tons of good information there. It’s made me realized that I need to treat writing much like I do my interest in computers. I need to read up on it a bit every day to stay up to date with where the industry is, what successful writers are doing, what new tech or trends are changing things up, etc. I should know at least as much about writing as I do about the HD 7970 3GB graphics card powering the visuals on my computer. I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m excited to get to it.

Career, Writing, Inspiration

On Writing

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

As part of my more serious effort to really get in to writing, I ended up buying Stephen King’s book On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft. I have to say it was an inspiring read. The first half is devoted to Stephen King’s life in an effort to explain how he came to be a writer. I was pretty surprised to find out about his various addictions and battles with such. I’ve never been a big reader of horror novels and so far I’ve only read one (now two) of Mr. King’s books. Still, that first half was a page turner. The second half was where he really got down to his thoughts on the process of writing. He pointed out that many people who try to break in to the industry look for some trick or “magic bullet”. He quickly debunked the idea though. Funny enough, this actually made me realize that part of me had believed, or at least hoped, that such a trick did exist. After all, how much easier would it be if someone could serve up the Secret to Writing Success on a silver platter? I don’t know why any part of me still believed something so silly, but “hearing” the truth from Mr. King was actually pretty liberating. His tips on writing are very common sense, and one in particular I remind myself of every day: in order to get good at writing one must read and write constantly. There is no magic bullet to suddenly grant a prospective writer unending glorious inspiration. It takes daily perseverance to bring out our inner creativity. I found this gem of insight to be particularly inspiring. This, coupled with his advice to ignore our inner critic as best we can, has actually helped me tremendously.

Previously, my attempts at writing always started out high on expectations and grand ideas. A few times I even managed to get some serious amounts of words written in single sessions. The problem was always the next day. Inevitably, the mood of inspiration I had felt the day before was squashed by the various daily demands on my time: sleep, work, food, people, and my own entertaining distractions. It was just so much easier to come home after a long day, play some video games, eat dinner, and maybe watch a movie or read a book. Much easier than sitting down at my computer and ignoring my enormous Steam game library. Mr. King pointed out that it is only with daily writing that we can train our brains, including that stubborn creative muse, to become accustomed to the whole process. Really, it’s not rocket science and is incredibly obvious once it is pointed out. It makes me wonder why writers tend to seem mysterious and inscrutable to those of us who simply enjoy the fruits of their secretive labor. Back to the point though. He recommended that new writers start out writing 2,000 words a day. He noted that his personal minimum is 4,000 (!), a rather intimidating sum. For myself, I’ve decided on a starting daily requirement of just 1,000 words a day on my current project, not including any other sources of writing.  I have found this to be a very reasonable number to start with. This is only my first week trying, but I’ve already made more progress on my story in less than a week than I have in the past 10 years. So cheers and a huge thank you to Stephen King for deciding to write and then finish his memoir in spite of his brush with death and his painful recovery. This hopeful writer greatly appreciates your help.