Thursday, January 31
Mutants unite!
Monday, January 28
15,000
I believe it was Albert Einstein who said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. So this time, with my current project, I'm doing it differently. First, instead of just cranking out 75,000 words in a Kerouac-spree and then never going back to clean it up, I'm going slower. I'm printing out pages, I'm copy editing pages, and I'm going back in and cleaning and fixing my e-copy and then printing it out again.
Instead of being insane, the goal is to finish the writing with a fairly clean first draft (rather than the sketchy ones filling my drawer). Not sure I'll get done by my leap year day goal of Feb. 29, but I do think I'll be pretty far along.
So, using this method, I topped the 15,000 word mark last night, and when I printed the clean copy out today I was up around 45 pages.
Instead of being insane, the goal is to finish the writing with a fairly clean first draft (rather than the sketchy ones filling my drawer). Not sure I'll get done by my leap year day goal of Feb. 29, but I do think I'll be pretty far along.
So, using this method, I topped the 15,000 word mark last night, and when I printed the clean copy out today I was up around 45 pages.
Sunday, January 27
Fun fact of the day
Did you know they teach student drivers to hold the wheel at eight-and-four these days, instead of the ten-and-two my friends learned? They do. It's so when the air bag blows in a collision, your arms won't fly up and break on your face. Or break your face. So there you go: fun fact of the day.
Thursday, January 24
Video of the day
Nick checks in with a YouTube video he shot in Turkey of what can only be described as a camel-wrestling tailgate party from his trip to Canakkale. Dig the music. Go. Go.
PS, check out Nick's story in Time-Out Istanbul about an Iraqi heavy metal band.
PS, check out Nick's story in Time-Out Istanbul about an Iraqi heavy metal band.
Boom
Wednesday, January 23
Cell phone novels?
Believe it. Japan's cell phone generation has created its own popular culture by tapping out novels, written by thumb on their cell phones. Seems they're taking over the best seller lists, too. NY Times has the story. Thanks to Jeff for the tip.
Tuesday, January 22
Thing a Day
Need a kick in the pants to do your (creative) thing? Sign-up for "Thing-a-Day" and create a new habit in February.
Wednesday, January 16
Andy
I've lost another friend. Last summer, it was Frank. And we're still hurting about Emma. This time it's Andy Prouty. Andy was 47.
I was a childhood friend of Andy's. I grew up in the Proctor Heights in California; our family moved to the hillside neighborhood when I was seven, and we lived around the corner from the Prouty family, six or seven houses away. Andy and I quickly became friends even though he was a bit older.
We spent a lot of time playing together and having sleep-overs throughout my years at Rincon Valley Elementary, playing games and sports with the neighborhood boys (mainly boys like Shaw Kobre, Chris Neumann, Jimmy Panting, Mike Hassen, Marc Coudeyre, and sometimes the Wallrich boys or Tommy Morales). We were in Boy Scouts together for a while, too, until I quit [I see in his obituary he stayed with it]. As kids do, we went our own ways in junior high, and I didn't see him at all after high school.
One of my favorite childhood memories about Andy is this: As kids we frequently played "Emergency," which was our own recreation of the then-popular Saturday night television drama about Los Angeles paramedics and firefighters. Andy created a whole set of "pretend" first aid kits, portable CPR units, oxygen tanks and boxes of other gear for us to play with. It was very cool.
We'd run around his house or yard, or my house or yard, and rescue people trapped in various places. Andy and I would help someone who we would pretend had fallen off a back deck, for example, or who got stuck in a tree, or trapped under a truck [the piano bench, I recall, served as a wide variety of vehicles], or wrapped inside a bicycle, buried under a tumble of boxes, wedged under a ping pong table, and so on. Sometimes our older sisters would let us bandage an arm, or splint an ankle, or wrap an ace bandage around a head. He always played John Gage, and I was always Roy DeSoto. I think the roles were assigned to us due to our hair color. Those were good times.
Most of all, I love the fact that Andy grew up to be a firefighter. Go hug your loved ones.
Here we are together, on our front lawn, in 1970:
I was a childhood friend of Andy's. I grew up in the Proctor Heights in California; our family moved to the hillside neighborhood when I was seven, and we lived around the corner from the Prouty family, six or seven houses away. Andy and I quickly became friends even though he was a bit older.
We spent a lot of time playing together and having sleep-overs throughout my years at Rincon Valley Elementary, playing games and sports with the neighborhood boys (mainly boys like Shaw Kobre, Chris Neumann, Jimmy Panting, Mike Hassen, Marc Coudeyre, and sometimes the Wallrich boys or Tommy Morales). We were in Boy Scouts together for a while, too, until I quit [I see in his obituary he stayed with it]. As kids do, we went our own ways in junior high, and I didn't see him at all after high school.
One of my favorite childhood memories about Andy is this: As kids we frequently played "Emergency," which was our own recreation of the then-popular Saturday night television drama about Los Angeles paramedics and firefighters. Andy created a whole set of "pretend" first aid kits, portable CPR units, oxygen tanks and boxes of other gear for us to play with. It was very cool.
We'd run around his house or yard, or my house or yard, and rescue people trapped in various places. Andy and I would help someone who we would pretend had fallen off a back deck, for example, or who got stuck in a tree, or trapped under a truck [the piano bench, I recall, served as a wide variety of vehicles], or wrapped inside a bicycle, buried under a tumble of boxes, wedged under a ping pong table, and so on. Sometimes our older sisters would let us bandage an arm, or splint an ankle, or wrap an ace bandage around a head. He always played John Gage, and I was always Roy DeSoto. I think the roles were assigned to us due to our hair color. Those were good times.
Most of all, I love the fact that Andy grew up to be a firefighter. Go hug your loved ones.
Here we are together, on our front lawn, in 1970:
Wednesday, January 9
Protagonize
"Protagonize is a creative writing community dedicated to the (nearly) lost art of the add-venture, a type of collaborative interactive fiction. One author writes a story, and others post branches to it in different directions. The result is an organic, evolving story where everyone can participate."
Kind of simple, but sometimes amusing.
Kind of simple, but sometimes amusing.
Monday, January 7
10,000
I'm more than 10,000 words into my current project, or about 36 pages. It's going well. I still don't want to jinx it too much by writing about it, but I will say this: it's a history of the future.
Tuesday, January 1
Happy
May all your dreams come true this year. Remember, you may have to work for them.
