Category: Resources

Jesse van Dijk did a wonderful design project, coming up with a visual presentation of a vertical, sea-side community, built inside a dormant volcano. The result are exactly as cool as you’d expect from the premise.
I’d desperately like to write stories in that city.

Or maybe you just want to have a little fun. Check out the Random Conundrum Generator at Abulafia.
Some of them are interesting…

Once, your moral depravity nearly killed you – will helping those in need finish the job?

And some are … well, kind of silly.

Now its just a question of which will pull you down – deep-seated prejudice or a natural disaster.

To which I say: “It’s a random generator: interesting + silly is what it does.”

Characters for an Epic Tale.

My name is Jonathan Coulton and I’m a musician, a singer-songwriter and an internet superstar. This site is chock full of music, news and me-related merchandise – if you’re not that familiar with who I am and what I do you can use the links above to get started.

First: Johnathan is a great musician, and his songs are fantastic. You should be listening to him.
Second: this is a really smart series of pages for introducing new fans as well as suggesting where to go next. Steal this idea, internet people.

First I talk about money management advice from John Scalzi, and now time management?
Well, it’s a crazy time for me right now. When spring is in the air, and a wedding (and marriage) are on the horizon, a young(er) man’s thoughts turn to…
Google Calendar.
Thanks to a tip from the terribly useful Parent Hacks, I’ve been poking around the Zen Habits website, which has really been resonating with me, mostly due to the timing of my discovering it — right now, I NEED some good advice or organizing multiple, unrelated tasks.
How unrelated? Consider the bullet list of ‘to-do’ items on my ‘as they occur to me’ notepad:

• Bendy straws.
• Send hard copy of Hidden Things to [agent]
• Copy [list of DVDs] to external HDD (DRM can Die in a Fire, in my humble opinion)
• Get replacement tuxedo elements
• Get tux info for groomsmen
• Short story for Wicked Words
• Car shopping
• SPACE WHALES! BUBBLE NETS! SINGING!
• Research preschools
• For Galactic: […] (plot thing that people don’t need to see)
• [TV Pilot idea I dreamt last night]
• Editing Galactic RPG for Matt

And that’s just what I’ve written down in the last two days. Most of those have been crossed off in the last hour or so, as I have transferred them from the easy-to-carry notepad to Google Calendar and generous time slots where they have the best chance of getting done (early in the day, before other stuff can pile up) — all of which is part of the “Zen to Done, Mini-version” that’s proposed by the Zen-blog author, an edited version of which I have scribbled down in the front of that same notepad.

1. Collect – tasks, ideas, projects, information. Categorize as you collect.
2. Process – take that collected list (and/or your email or snailmail inbox) and:
   1. Trash it.
   2. Delegate it.
   3. Do it (if it’s quickly done).
   4. File it (such as writing ideas or tax information).
   5. Add it to the calendar/to-dos (see “plan”)
3. Plan – Set up Big Jobs for the week: either Important Stuff or an intentially-clumped series of little things.
4. Do – Do the big things early in the day. Don’t multitask. Focus.

I recommend checking out the site if it’s something that seems remotely useful; it’s helped me get a tremendous amount of important things done in the last week or so since I’ve started working through things with this method, and (far more importantly) leaves me the time I want for things like:

• Date Night!
• Swing dancing!
• IMAX with Kaylee!

Which, to-do lists aside, are far-and-away the most Important Things.

John Scalzi offers up some tips on handling money when you’re working as a freelance writer.

Why am I offering this entirely unsolicited advice about money to new writers? Because it very often appears to me that regardless of how smart and clever and interesting and fun my fellow writers are on every other imaginable subject, when it comes to money — and specifically their own money — writers have as much sense as chimps on crack. It’s not just writers — all creative people seem to have the “incredibly stupid with money” gene set for maximum expression — but since most of creative people I know are writers, they’re the nexus of money stupidity I have the most experience with. It makes me sad and also embarrasses the crap out of me; people as smart as writers are ought to know better.

I’m lucky (*knocks on wood*) that in addition to fiction writing (which brings with it what I tend to think of as not-entirely-ironic Fictional Income), I have a ‘regular’ paying job that requires, at it’s core, good writing as a key talent (note: Scalzi’s rule #2, and my own realization, long ago, of rule #1). Thus, I continue to hone my use of those little word-thingies, and get paid like a regular joe (complete with all the behind the scenes tax-paying that I don’t have to deal with).
Still, it might be nice to one day work only on projects that interest me. If or when that day arrives, I hope I remember where I put this link.
For that matter, a number of his points are useful for anyone who — you know — uses money.

It makes absolutely no sense to save or invest money if the return rate for that investment is less than the annual percentage rate of your credit card debt. Net, you’ll lose money (especially if you’re investing from scratch). You need to buy down that credit card debt as quickly as you sensibly can. It is your number one debt priority. Once you’ve paid down your debt you can begin saving and investing. But pay that debt first.

Bohemian Word Werks – Writing blunders
Specifically, 20 of them, a lot of which I’m happy to say I already try to avoid.
My one guilty moment of head-hanging shame? Starting the story with someone waking up (or being woke up). Of three full-length stories, I’ve done that twice.