Distractions and Trials

This is mostly just a comment to let all my thousands of readers (Ha!) know that I am, indeed, still alive.

My mom has just had surgery for cancer, we might be moving soon, and the day-job has been crazy.

All this has been slightly distracting from writing, though I've managed to get a tensy wensy amount of editing done.

I've learned a few things though this, though. I really think I'm supposed to be writing, and I've done a lot of imagineering work on a few of my works in progress. This is really helpful, as I've gotten stuck in one or two of the other books I've been working on. Now, I just have to make time to sit down and write....

Off-Topic Maps rant

So I just downloaded iOS 6 for my iPad.

I'm not really impressed. I hear there's a lot of under-the-hood improvements, and if you have a new iPad or iPhone 5 , there's some new features. But my iPad 2 can't use any of those.

So, what do I get?

Well, YouTube is gone. And there's a new maps app.

A worthless maps app. In the places I go, there's a pin for one gas station. That's it. One, out of hundreds. Yes, I'm talking most of central Michigan. No restaurants, hotels, nothing. There are almost no points of interest on the map.

Oh, and that one gas station, the pin was about a block away from the stations actual location. And when I found my house on the map, the address was wrong. And a local park had the wrong name... it goes on and on.

This wouldn't be as aweful, except the Google maps app that this atrocity replaced had all of these things and more - and they were in the correct location.

Sure, there's turn-by turn directions now... but what good are they if the map can't find where you're going and, even if it does, it takes you to the wrong spot?

So, what does this have to do with writing?

Well, I've been working on my first book for about five years now. I'm really eager to publish it, but I want to get it as good as I can before I send it out.
Sure, I keep learning more about writing fiction as I go, and if I waited until it was perfect I'd never realize it.
But I have to balance that with not releasing a crappy book that I just tossed together.

Warp drive may be possible

http://www.space.com/17628-warp-drive-possible-interstellar-spaceflight.html

I have a few friends who don't like science fiction. Oddly enough, when asked why, they all say something along the lines of "It's just not realalistic."

When I hear news like the artical above, it amuses me. I like to look at shows like Star Trek and think about all the "unrealalistic" stuff that said friends specifically pointed out.... that we now have today.

Do a search for science fiction troupes, and warp drive is near the top of the list. Hmmm....

What reasons have you heard for not liking sci-fi? Or what's you're favorite piece of tech from sci-fi that's become science fact?

Saw this post:
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/03/25-things-writers-should-stop-doing/

I have trouble with number 2 (darn day-job ;)  )

How about you? Or, feel free to encourage me (read: yell at me for not writing.)

Making ePub books the easy way

Many of you may be familiar with my ePub tutorial over at www.jedisaber.com/eBooks/

If you are, or if you are thinking about self-publishing, or if you need to edit any of your ePub books for any reason, I've now posted the first part of a Sigil tutorial:

http://www.jedisaber.com/eBooks/Sigil01.shtml

The first part is a brief overview of what Sigil can do, and what all those buttons are. Coming soon, importing your book into epub using Sigil, and formatting your content.

 

The top part is the menu and toolbars, much like every other application out there.
The pane on the left shows the contents of the ePub Container (This should look familiar if you've read my manual ePub tutorial.)
The middle pane shows the contents of whatever file you've opened from the left pane. Sigil can edit any part of the ePub file, including XHTML files (your book), CSS files, the ePub structure files, and you can add images to the ePub file right from Sigil too!
The right pane is the TOC, or Table of Contents, viewer. This is the stuff that shows if you press the Table of Contents button in your e-Reader.
Sigil can edit XHMTL files in either WYSIWYG, or code view, or a combination of both. (CSS files and the ePub structure files can only be edited in code view.)
Let's look at what the toolbar buttons do....

For more, check out the full tutorial at the link above, and check back in the next few days for the other parts.

A Sad Day

Today's a sad day. My church has decided it no longer needs a church library. The good news is that I've managed to get a couple of carloads of free books. The bad news is at least one whole dumpster's worth of books got thrown out, and I didn't even get to look at any of those.

It's another sad reminder that not that many people are reading anymore. And it's a crying shame.Not just for the entertainment that -at it's worst- is better than most of the stuff on TV; but also for the fact that a lot of people in the church today have questions about what they believe, or why, and the answers have been molding away in the church library (well, more mildew than mold, but...)

Most of the people in the church didn't even know we had a church library either. I've been thinking for a while about doing reviews on this blog. On the one hand, everybody reviews books. On the other, I obviously need more ideas for content, and perhaps someone reads my blog (I know, I'm crazy...) that doesn't read any of the others. So, in the near-future, look for mini-reviews for books I love, and links to some of those other sites when they review a book I love too.

Camp NaNo 2012... failed??

So, June is over. Did I fail at Camp NaNo?

Well, that depends on how you look at it. I didn't manage to get 50,000 words written in a month. Work was crazy, various things intervened, insert the usual excuses here.

That said, I wouldn't say I failed. I did manage to get at least a handful of words written almost every day. For me, this is a big improvement.
I tend to just dive into something, and revel in staying in it as long as I can without coming up for air. Like swimming, when I do come up, I spend a lot of time just trying to catch my breath, then I want to do something else for a while before diving back in again.
I do this in a lot of areas, not just writing. I tend to bounce from hobby to hobby that way too, and I'm left with a lot of projects that are half finished. They all eventually get done, they just get set aside for a while until my interest swings back around to them.

So that's something I got from NaNo this time. Consistency. Getting a little bit done every day is better than getting a lot done once a month. I'm going to try to learn from this, and get a little bit of writing done every day until something's finished.

Right now, I have four writing projects I'm working on. Two of them are done (one of those hasn't been edited at all) and two are still in draft. I'm going to do my best to finish the six draft of A New Threat and get it to my critique group this July. I'm also going to try to write a little bit each day on Wings of Truth (working title) until the draft is done. Then, edit Threat From the Past, then finish An Unwanted Apprentice, and THEN I'll let myself work on book three of the Psygen Chronicles (The Stones of Xernock) oh, that one's going to be fun to write....

Camp NaNo!

It's July, and that means it's time for Camp NaNoWriMo!

Time to do another 50,000 words in a month! I must be crazy!
This go-round, I'm working on the story that is as of yet unnamed that I posted about last time.

Also, I've added a "Friends" page to my site where I link to the websites of some of my other author friends. Go check 'em out, they write good stuff too.

http://www.aarondemott.com/friends.shtm

The Muse is mean, sometimes...

Ive been working on editing, and I did finaly come up with a new name for the Guardians. (You can find it if you poke around here a little...) In other news, my Muse hit me upside the head with a folding chair when I got out of bed this morning. I really have to edit the books I have written, and finish the others that I've already started, but the Muse was insistint. So, I'm a tad over 4,000 words into a new story... I really do *like* to finish things...

More on names...

I'm thinking of possibly making a word up. (Hey, it worked for Lucas... ;) )
Other than that, I'm also looking at the in-universe explanation for the name of the group. "Guardian" just doesn't cut it. Some back-story (that will be fleshed out more in book four...):

Thousands (or so) of years ago, the world's governments collapsed (for various reasons) and anarchy and chaos reined. The powerful and rich people that were left wanted to restore order (peace is good for business, so is war. Outright chaos, not so much...) so they started a program to create the ultimate super-soldier. There was no one to tell them that any methods were immoral or illegal, so things, um, got a little out of hand. The program was both a complete success, and a complete failure. The first batch of super-soldiers were stronger, faster, smarter, and had powerful PSI abilities. They also had the moral code of a bunch of hungry, maddened, polar bears that had sat on a few too many pointy branding irons.
This first batch, the Alpha group, broke out of the lab and terrorized the world.
The people responsible were hesitant to try again, but they needed something as strong as the Alphas to fight the Alphas. Beta group was a complete failure, none making it to term. The Delta and Gamma groups DNA was toned down a lot though, and were, for the most part, successful. They were raised in foster families, using traditional, time tested parenting strategies from periods in the past that the romantics liked to say produced only gentlemen.
These were the Guardians. They were raised with high morals and ideals, and would not only restore order, as planned, but also save humanity from being exterminated by the Alphas.

So there's the history in a nutshell. As you can see, I doubt the scientists, foster families, or the 'guardians' themselves would really call themselves that. They fill that role in the beginning of "A New Threat", but not when they were first named. So I'm trying to come up with something sounds unique, cool, and would fit the in-universe storyline.