Posted on

Zelazny

I’ve been thinking about an interview with Roger Zelazny that I read a few years ago. I remember very distinctly a few of the things he wrote:

“I try to write every day, four times a day… It doesn’t sound like much but it’s kinda like the hare and the tortoise. If you try that several times a day you’re going to do more than three sentences, one of them is going to catch on. You’re going to say “Oh boy!” and then you just write. You fill up the page and the next page. But you have a certain minimum so that at the end of the day, you can say “Hey […] at least I didn’t goof off completely today.” I don’t get writer’s block. I’ve slowed down sometimes. I can always write and that’s the thing with three sentences at a time, even if you’re feeling sluggish you can always get three sentences out.”

I’ve always found Zelazny’s attitude towards writing very inspiring — there’s no mystique about it — in his opinion, someone with one short story to their name is as much a ‘professional’ as someone with umpteen Hugo’s and 50 books in print.
Just a thought.
[update: finally found the interview over here]

Posted on

Tools

I discovered a neat little freeware (!) program called Rough Draft, a light word processor specifically designed to help one write a book or screenplay. There are a variety of features included in the program to make writing in these formats easier, and it seems pretty useful. Also interesting since it’s more robust than, say Notepad or Metapad, without getting into the bloat that is M$ software
The Roughdraft homepage is here.

Posted on

Journals

I think I’m going to start carrying my old journal with me. It’s not a big bulky item, and I’d always promised myself that I would eventually fill in all the pages in one of those blasted things, sometime during my life.
I made it pretty far into the journal on my first go-round before things started getting intermittent. Starting the website was the death-knell for the poor little book, but I might be able to fill in a few more pages.
Why? We’ll, I’d like to keep it and a pen handy for those (few) times when I think of something to write down for this book and I don’t have a computer at hand (when I wake up from a dream, or when I’m in the car or at a Con or someone’s house. Something.
On the other hand, a little ‘reporter’s notepad’ is 1.38 at any local gas station, and even smaller than the journal (though it doesn’t have the cool cover.
Thoughts?

Posted on

DVD Space Madness

Picked up the Ep. 1 DVD (Randy is buying a DVD player — who am I going to schlep off old VCR copies of movies to, now that he’s joined the tech revolution?), and I’m doing that thing.
You know, that thing.
They’ve tweaked the movie, right? There are little bits and pieces of scenes that didn’t used to be there that aren’t now.
So I’ve seen the original theatre version (obviously) a couple (*coff*) times, and I’m trying to spot these new bits. But it’s been awhile, and I’m second-guessing myself.
“Is this bit a new bit, or an old bit that I’d forgotten about?” I barely watched the movie, trying to see the bits. Forest for the trees, I suppose.
This never happened with the Original Trilogy vs. the Special Edition… I’ve seen the originals way too many times to not recognize the changes. While I appreciate the new scenes and bumped-up production values, the scenes and lines that they Changed were a flat-out mistake. How the hell could Greedo miss at that distance!?!
One nice thing about the DvD: I can skip the midichlorian scene seamlessly.
What the hell were you thinking, George?

Posted on

Shopping list

I must remember to go out and get a couple pumpkins for Halloween after Farscape and before I work on the game for tomorrow.
Re-reading that, could I be more of a geek? (When deciding the answer to this, remember that I am blogging the entire evening’s events).

Posted on

Pigskin Picks, Week 7

This week, it’s Dead Men Walking (ver. 4) versus the Necrotic Spleens. Dead Men lineup:
QB Doug Flutie (Chargers)
RB Edgerrin James (Ind)
RB Shaun Alexander (Sea)
WR Rod Smith (Den)
WR Troy Brown (NE)
WR Jimmy Smith (Jax)
Kicker Jason Elam (Den)
Defense: Tampa Bay
The Dead Men are currently 5-1 and leading the league by the rotting hairs of our chinny-chin-chins.

Posted on

“to be conti–DAMMIT!”

Been meaning to mention this. I love Farscape. Love it.
BUT I HATE “TO BE CONTINUED” EPISODES.
And they have hit me with TWO tbc’s in a ROW this week. I’m going to explode with the anticipation.