Tools of the Trade, Part 3 of 3

Saving the biggest guns for the end, today I'll be talking about OmmWriter and Scrivener.

OmmWriter. 

This app annoyed the crap out of me, but in a fit of rage I found its niche. It shuts everything out. Completely. No distractions, no intrusions, no worries. It's like going to the spa for writing without strangers touching you. As you can see by these images, Ommwriter not only shuts out the rest of the distractions, it cleans your desk as well:

Are you easily distracted or prone to procrastinating while writing? Remember, any hour not spent writing another kitten dies. And the following graph produced by scientific guess-work shows where your attention wanders while trying to write: (results may vary)

That is scientific evidence you just can't argue with.

And finally, the big dog in the kennel, Scrivener.

Firstly, this is a fairly big application as it is more than a word processor. It's power comes, in my opinion, from two major functions:

• The organizational features of notes and revisions, all within one application with an user friendly UI.
• The wide range of electronic publishing formats. Yep, straight from your first draft to Amazon, just like most everyone else.

My workflow is chapter based and name each one descriptively so that as start re-reading I can easily move chapters about with the drag of a mouse. This works great in more complex chapters where I can place each scene in its own container and move each about the chapter or book independently.  

I have had some issues with Scrivener which I feel is important as I would not want you facing the same headaches I've been plagued with. First, when saving and opening your Scrivener Projects in a cloud space, like Drop Box, take care to ensure that the project on one computer is truly out of the project before opening it in another machine. In debugging some of my issues these looked to be a common issue with writers working with other writers or editors, and corrupting their project. To be clear, "corrupting" is not good.

Another issue that has plagued me is the Scrivener Projects are not OS agnostic. Create a Project in Mac and Windows has a problem with it. While this may not seem like too big a deal right now, when you send off the 70,000 word manuscript to your editor for revisions and tracking changes, you may be in for some problems if they are running a different OS.

A serious consideration to the above is your start-up time. What does it take to learn the new interface and all it can do? Remember the kittens! Below is a scientific map showing your ramp-up speeds and learning torque for the three main editors listed:

As you can see Scrivener, with the longest learning curve also requires the greatest amount of understanding. Have you used it? If you haven't you'll see what I mean. OmmWriter is so silly easy, but that's all it is. It does one thing, and it does it very well. 

So in conclusion, whether you are a Microsoft Word maven or a vim cowboy, at the end of the day it doesn't matter what you use, so long as you slap down the words. But like a joiner or cabinet maker, the better you know how to use your tools, and the sharper you keep the edges, the better the finished product.

Resources

• This guy has documented a small part of his process using Scrivener for his kickstarter
• Scrivener in use
• This gall gets into the guts of it
• Step by Step on Scrivener
• If you are still intrigued, here are the official Scrivener videos
• http://www.literatureandlatte.com/video.php

Resources for the the past 3 parts

• www.ommwriter.com
• www.literatureandlatte.com
• www.sublimetext.com
• www.openoffice.org
• www.trello.com

Holy F@^#ing S#!?

I have been in some discussions about the use of swear words in writing. There are authors who love them in general, others who use them as just an extension of some of their characters’ personalities, and some authors are limited (usually by genre) as to how many and which words they can use.

Swears words are just like any other word in the English language. They have power when it is given to them. When it comes down to it, swear words are really just words that show a degree of emotion.

A swear word compared to its non-offensive counterparts operate in the same manner ‘good’ and ‘amazing’ compare to each other. If someone uses the word ‘darn’, in most cases, they aren’t usually that upset about something. Now if that person were to use ‘damn’ instead, then it would be understood that the person had a stronger connection to that thing. So there is a time and place to use them. A swear word should really be used in situations where it could actually be left out and still have the sentence make sense (when used as an adjective/adverb). If it’s used as a noun, it gets trickier to test if it was used appropriately. It’s more dependent on the context in this situation. For instance, the phrase ‘That’s bullshit’ would have to be tested by replacing ‘bullshit’ with words like ‘crap’, similar to the same test as ‘darn’. All in all, swear words should be used when they portray the appropriate emotion, with the exception of it being a characteristic of a character that does not use them at appropriate times.

There have been stories which use profanity in them that are completely clashing to the motif of the book. I have read books in which halfway through a swear word was used. While it fit the appropriate reaction to the event for the character, it created a dissonance in the book. The character was a noble of a city set in a medieval locale and he went off swearing up a storm. Up to this point, no profanity had been used in the book and even the main characters, who were assassins, didn’t use such language. So to go from no use what so ever to four f-bombs in a row was very distracting and caused me to lose my flow. The scene had such a disruptive effect that I put the book down.

Often the problem of using them for the portrayal of a character’s personality is the overuse of them. A character that drops an ‘f’ bomb every other word or tries to use it in every part of speech that is possible, can become annoying to a reader. The repeated use can, but doesn’t always, create a jarring effect and ends up ‘breaking up the illusion’ of the book. Similar to typos and plot holes, when a jarring effect happens, it can cause the reader to break their flow. If a reader’s flow is disrupted, it detracts from their reading experience. This often causes them to lower their opinion of the book and possibly go as far as to stop reading it, if it has happened on multiple occasions.

The other consequence of overuse is the loss of meaning in a word. In an episode of a TV show several characters confronted another character about his use of the word ‘divine’. They pointed out that ‘not everything can be ‘divine’’. If people use swear words too much, they eventually degrade the meaning of the word to the level of their less obtrusive brethren. Which is, of course, simply no good. ‘Darn it’ should be used in a sense of disappointment, while ‘Damn it’ should be used when one seeks to call forth the wrath of the gods down upon their intended target to have it smitten into the nether.

I also believe that swear words are something that should not be used by children, not until they understand the word’s true meanings. Of my experiences with children who use swear words, I’ve noticed that they use the words as filler words or simply adjectives. Because it’s seen as ‘cool’ to use the words around their peers, children use them without knowing what they are actually saying, which of course leads to the misuse of the words. No person should have to suffer through that.

The use of profanity in literature has its purposes but should, above all, be used with consideration. It can be used tactfully to enhance a character or situation in a book. But if used without thoughtfulness, profanity can really deteriorate the quality of a book.

This One Might Be a Bit Autobiographical

It wasn't the long hours that bothered Steve so much. That just came with the territory. Sixteen hours on, eight off had been the expected schedule since Steve started in this field. And that's a good day. It didn't count the emergencies, the nightmares, the cram sessions, and, honestly, pretty much his workstation's entire college experience. Steve didn't even want to think about what happened when his workstation had its own kids. Assuming he ever did.

Nor was it the lack of appreciation. So humans didn't get it. What else was new? At least they still admitted their ignorance. The heart, the lungs, most of the spleen: they got all that figured out. But when it came to the brain, they still had no clue. Imagine how awkward it would be when they finally did figure it out, only to notice the tiny workstations where they figured their logic centers would be.

No, what really bothered Steve was how DUMB most workstations could be, including his own. Day in and day out, he'd make the perfect decisions, set up all the plans needed for his workstation to succeed. And what did the human do? Nothing! Just let instincts and biological impulses wreck everything again.

At least for day 11,529 of the job, Steve could punch out. His workstation had finally gone to bed, so after the usual nightly maintenance, (running the Dream-defragmenter, making sure bladder levels were low enough that he wouldn't have to rush back into the office for an emergency payload release, that sort of thing,) Steve punched out. He needed a freaking drink.

“Look, Steve, it could be worse,” Steve's friend Anna (short for Annathesiopolarious; workstation operators had weird names,) assured him back at the Beagle Tincture, the finest drinking establish you could find inside of dog. “Your human's hormonal levels are pretty decent, your sanity-bug reports are clean, and you're well within acceptable neurosis levels for a human in this setting. And you're well past puberty. You should be able to ride this person well until the warranty wears out.”

“That's not the point,” Steve (short for Oscilistevosipede, but anyway,) argued. “I don't just want to ride it out. My human's achievement to potentiality ratio is barely pushing acceptable. I know he wants to do more with his life, but he doesn't do it. And when he looks bad, I look bad.”

Anna nodded. “I had that problem before,” she said. “My human had the same barrista job for like, seven years. Every day, I beamed 'get that Master's already' to her for hours on end, and every night, she watched other people sing badly on television and then went to bed. I finally gave up and just ordered a copy of Personal Epiphany, Office Edition. Worked like a charm.”

Steve downed a shot of beagle fluids (don't ask,) and groaned. “I looked into that. It's not in the budget. I'm still in debt for Inner Peacemaster version 5.0 that I got him years ago. Turns out it worked too well. Contentment levels went through the roof, so he wouldn't do anything. Just wander around, thinking how awesome everything was. But humans can't eat awesome thoughts. God knows we tried that.

Sighing, Steve pulled out a brochure. “The best we can afford right now is a Willpro update. Hopefully it will at least give him the motivation to keep a sleep schedule, maybe avoid the random napping habit.”

“Is that really the best you can expect?” Anna asked. “I mean, there has to be some step in the right direction.”

Steve looked at the list of plans he had for his human and went all the way to the top of the list. “Well, let's see if I can at least get him to make a blog post or something. We can go from there.”

Tools of the Trade, Part 2 of 3

Let's continue our discussion of different tools writers can utilize. Today, I will be touching on the next two:

• Open Office
• Trello

1. Open Office (www.openoffice.org) is an Open Source suite of popular business tools, such as spreadsheets, presentations, graphics....and of course a Word Processor. Why would you use this over, say Microsoft Word? OpenOffice can be downloaded and used entirely free of any license fees. This is the tool I use to copy and format chunks of writing for the critique group. It allows me to save files in .doc format (.docx if you prefer) and open them in another location for printing, like from my wife's computer that has Microsoft Word and a really nice laser printer. Likewise you can print from the office, or Kinko's, or church, or wherever. Going back to the carpenter in the first blog post, you may not need this tool every time you sit down to write, but when you need it, it's there. For free!
2. Trello (trello.com) is an organizing tool that can come in handy for writing with others, or working with a group of beta-readers. Here it is, straight from their website: Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process. 

Think of it as an online organizer of post-it notes where you can invite others to review, add, post and edit. Yeah, I think you're starting to see the light. If you are collaborating with another writer (or writers), maintaining communication with beta-readers, or managing a writers group,  Trello makes working together easy. Even if you just want a way to keep track of your notes online, so you can access them from your office to your mobile phone or tablet to your home, Trello is a great way to get that done. 

Next week I conclude this series with two more tools, OmmWriter and Scrivener. Stay tuned!

Tools of the Trade, Part 1 of 3

The next time you see a carpenter working you may notice there isn't a single all-in-one wonder tool but rather a wide collection of tools to choose from; and like carpentry, writing has many tools as well. What is in your toolbox? Do you use just one tool? Is that good enough? To illustrate my point, I'll use my own workflow as an example: 

• Chicken scratch in journals, notebooks, and at 750words.com
• Sublime Text 2 for "special" formatting and some other crazy stuff
• Trello to organize ideas
• Open Office to share chunks of words for critique groups (.doc files)
• OmmWriter when I need to shut out the world and just write
• Scrivener to bring it all together

For me, it is a hodgepodge of places where I find time to write: lunch breaks, coffee shops, heavy traffic. A lot of stuff gets scratched into small journals and notepads. The fun comes later when I try to decipher what I wrote.

Over the next 3 blog posts I am going to cover the above list in detail, starting here with the first two:

1. Pen and paper. As easy as this sounds, it's not. For me, the pen has to be "just right" and the paper nice and thick. I was working through some Bic 537R's and moved on to a couple of Wexford .7mm's, which is a size I prefer. I'm always open to suggestions on finding the right mix here.
2. Sublime Text 2.  This is a wonderfully simple yet powerful editor. I do a lot of web development programming in my non-fictional world and this is the tool of trade for developing code. You may never have heard of it, or if you have, you may be thinking I'm a nut job for offering this as a writing tool, but hear me out. This does what none of the others do. Multiple Cursor Control. Sublime Text may not be a good fit for every writer, but for those of you looking to work more effectively with plain text that will translate more cleanly to html, it may be just what you were looking for. It's the bee's knees. Check it out:

edit jan31

I wanted to provide several resources for Sublime Text:

• The first https://gist.github.com/eteanga/1736542 is a list of short cuts for the Windows version. If you review shortcuts you may quickly see the power of this editing tool over the more normal choices. 
• The next are the the go to videos for learning about Sublime Text (https://tutsplus.com/course/improve-workflow-in-sublime-text-2/) May of the topics included will be beyond the requirements of the normal writer...but who wants to be normal?
• For a bit more technical know-how on using Sublime Text 2 for writing, see http://www.macstories.net/roundups/sublime-text-2-and-markdown-tips-tricks-and-links/

       Next week I will cover how I use Open Office and Trello.

Dreamleaks 1: Let's Play Hockey

This is the first of a series of stories I call Dreamleaks. A dreamleak comes, appropriately enough, from a dream I recently had, one memorable and weird enough to justify recording. I then attempt to make a semi-coherent narrative out of the dream logic at play. In this case, the originating dream came just last week and demanded my attention. I could even see a video game around the concept, but for now, it will have to to this tale, a little something I call Let's Play Hockey.



Aaron Jacobksy knew he should be excited. After all, this was the moment he dreamed of all his life. The years in high school and the minor league, the countless hours spent practicing or recovering from injuries instead of spending time with his friends, and most importantly, the absolute obsession with learning even the tiniest details about the sport. All of it would be worth it, because now, he was in the big leagues. In just a few minutes, he would be starting the first game of the first season of the 2006 season.

But despite all this, he mostly felt scared. What if he really wasn't good enough to play at this level? What if he made an ass of himself, humiliating his family and even worse, letting down the fellow players he once idolized. His peers now, he realized.

Coach Roberts looked back at his newest rookie and seemed to understand. “Kid, I know what you're going through. I've seen it a thousand times. Hell, I felt the same way when I started. But you're gonna do great, kid. Nothing can really prepare you for the big leagues. If you have the heart to get here, then you've got all you need. Now, I won't say it won't leave you with a few scars,” he pointed at the gash across his face, one that left his eye permanently blind, “But the good will make up for the bad.

“Besides, kid, if you ever need me, any time at all, you just call, and I'll be there to help you out. We're in this together kid, as a team. You me, Erik, all the boys, and everything else besides. Now get out there and make me proud.”

As he spoke, the opening buzzer rang, and Aaron joined his teammates on the ice. The rink looked so different from this perspective, he thought. He watched it on TV and even as a spectator feet away, but neither truly captured the experience in its entirety, the sheer weight of the building itself. It almost felt mythic, its presence so overwhelming that Aaron nearly missed the start of the game.

But as the puck dropped, Aaron's hesitation vanished, replaced with the energy of the game. Aaron felt himself as a part of something bigger, his instincts override any doubt he had, and he had become one with the game – for about three minutes. Then he got his first trip to the penalty box. Aaron didn't even know why; nothing serious, like getting into a fight. Probably just some technical rule he briefly forgot.

Except as he left the ice, he wasn't directed to the penalty box. No, he was sent out of the arena entirely. Instead, he found himself in a perfectly normal bar. Formally dressed men and woman flirted and drank, oblivious or indifferent to the man in full hockey gear standing there with a confused look on his face. If these people were aware of the hockey game, they didn't show it. Light music played in the background, and for lack of anything better to do, Aaron took a seat. “Coach?” he mused to himself. “What just happened?”

Suddenly, the phone rang, catching Aaron by surprise, especially since he didn't even notice the bar had a phone until now. “You doing okay down there, kid?” Coach's raspy voice asked Aaron.

“I guess so, Coach, but what am I doing here?” Aaron asked. “And what's happening in the game?” It suddenly dawned on him that he didn't even know what the score was.

“It's close, kid, but don't you worry about that now. You got to just ride out this penalty,” Coach explained, or rather failed to explain.

“Okay, but why aren't I in the penalty box?” Aaron asked. “I never saw someone just go to the bar before.”

“It's like I said, kid, nothing can prepare you for the real thing,” Coach said. “Once you're playing, it's a whole different game.”

“So when can I get back in?” Aaron asked. He also realized he had no idea how long he was down here, or the time in general.

“Sorry, but we're not putting you back in right away. We need you to go to the dungeon first.”

The dungeon! Wow, they really must be cracking down on players this season. “What dungeon, Coach?”

“It's just to the right of the bar,” Coach explained. “And watch out down there, kid. The monsters are fresh at the start of the season, and they added damage squares this year. So make sure you watch your step, and for God's sake, kid, take off the skates first.”

Monsters? DAMAGE SQUARES. “Coach, this doesn't sound like hockey to me,” Aaron admitted. “I don't think the NHL rules ever mentioned any of this.”

“Of course not, kid, who said anything about the NHL? You're in the big leagues now, the secret games. And we've got more than winning a cup here, believe me. Now, don't worry kid, I wouldn't ask this of you if I didn't think you could handle it. Now, here's what you're gonna do. Once you're in the dungeon, look to see if any of the monsters can be tamed. We can really use an electric type in this match, and maybe a few ghost monsters. Once you defeat and tame them, bring them back here, and we can enchant the puck with them. It always helps to have a few monsters ready to summon when you get the last quarter.”

There can only be one explanation, Aaron reasoned. Coach Roberts had gone completely insane. That scar must have brought about some brain damage. Aaron grabbed the phone and took off, looking for some proper authorities to call, or at the very least a bathroom. As he took a right out of the bar, he opened the door – to find a stone labyrinth waiting for him. Strange figures lurked in the shadow, and as he cautiously made his way inside, Aaron narrowly avoided stepping into a pool of some sizzling gray fluid. Ah, right. Damage squares.

“Hey, Coach, can I talk to you?” Aaron heard one of his players on the phone.

“Can it wait, Erik?” Coach asked. “I'm guiding Aaron through his first trip through the Nether-rink.”

“It's kind of important, Coach,” Erik insisted. “You see, I had a confession to make. Between seasons, I sort of – became a wizard.”

A long silence passed, before Coach got back on the line. “I gotta let you go, Aaron. It turns out that Erik's a wizard now. Don't worry, that's probably good news. A lot of All-Stars were wizards. Hell, Gretzky could turn somebody into a newt like you wouldn't believe. But it's got its risks, too. And frankly, I can't afford to lose another eye.” Just as the phone went dead, a horror loomed over Aaron, black lightning crackling about it. Aaron sighed, raised his stick, and kicked off his skates. This was going to be a long season.

Dracula's Bloodlust

I read Dracula by Bram Stoker which I downloaded free from Amazon for Kindle. To be honest, I never had any interest in this novel because I didn’t know anything about Bram Stoker. If I wanted to read a nineteenth century novel, I preferred the usual Dickens, Twain, Poe, Hawthorne or Melville. Stoker didn’t make the list. However, I became curious about Dracula because I have seen it frequently on Amazon’s list of top giveaway novels.

I figured Stoker must have something going for him if his novel is in the Top 5 while I have to hustle the social network to make Top 50 in the giveaway world (Top 10 in Denmark -- go Danish).

Okay, so I broke down and downloaded a free copy just to check if the novel was as good as the old Dracula movies based on the Stoker novel. And to learn any tricks to up my position on Amazon. Afterall, Stoker did something right.

I enjoyed reading Dracula. It has the same kind of appeal to romance readers as the old Dark Shadows TV soap. You know the kind of story that involves the usual “boy meets girl” mixed in with a lot of blood sucking? Lesson 1: Problem Jane Austen never had to deal with: It‘s easy to love your girlfriend while she’s alive but it’s a lot tougher once she’s undead.

Stoker used a first person narration that I like. The entire novel consists of a series of papers supposedly collected by the author from diaries, letters, medical reports and such. The plot is the one you may be familiar with if you’ve watched the old Bela Lagosi vampire movies or any of the more recent remakes such as Francis Ford Coppala’s 1992 version. Other versions you may be familiar with include the 1922 silent classic Nosferatu and Christopher Lee’s 1970 version. There are many others, of course. You can check one list of the top 10 Dracula movies by clicking here.

I write novels with a focus on the strangers and monsters among us. Dracula fits the bill for me. I recommend reading it because it is the classic horror novel of the vampire sub-genre that defines the vampire character in a way that worked for authors and movie makers until a certain romantic glittery teenage vampire moved to Forks, Washington.

Don’t let the nineteenth century publication date fool you. Dracula by Bram Stoker has a delightfully modern feel that touches on a full range of emotions. It’s a must read for those who love a little romance mixed in with their well-sucked neck. To find the novel, do a search on Amazon for it because there are so many versions to choose from.

Speaking of well-sucked necks, well, not exactly, but on the topic of strangers and monsters among us, you may want to visit my writer’s blog for the latest fiction post. You can jump there by clicking here.

Don't forget to click the social share buttons below. Spread the good word.

Date Is In Past

This is a short story I came up with after one too many customers at work gave me a delivery date for 2013.

Date is in Past

Sandra awakened to the dulcet sounds of someone pounding on her door. Not the best way to start a Saturday, she thought to herself as she struggled into consciousness. She had no idea who could possibly want to bother her this early on the weekend, and her imagination went to all sorts of bad places before a chipper voice behind the door announced, “Package for Ms. Drescoe!”

“A package,” Sandra moaned. “I didn't order anything.” She certain didn't order anything to be delivered on a Saturday, nor would she unless, say, a life was a stake. A life she happened to be fond of. Still, she reasoned, deliveryfolks are paid not to look mortified at a grown woman wearing pajamas and bunny slippers, so she might as well get it over with.

“Tachyon Shipping!” the eager young man, who clearly somehow missed out on the memo that people should be sleeping at this hour, said as she opened the door. “Here you are, ma'am!”

Sandra took the package and peered at it suspiciously. “Tachyon shipping?” she said. “I never heard of you.”

“Nor would you, ma'am,” the deliveryman said. “We haven't been created yet.”

“I'm sorry, what?” Sandra asked. She was tired, but not that tired. “That doesn't make any sense. How could you deliver a package if your company doesn't exist?”

“Doesn't exist YET, ma'am,” he clarified. “We are around when you placed this order. In fact, we were the only company able to place your order on the requested date.” At this, he handed Sandra the order sheet.

After looking it over, Sandra recognized her signature, but the dates seemed odd. “Delivery date: January 11th, 2014. Order placed, January 7, 2015. Huh?”

“That's correct, ma'am. About a year from now, you will place this order to deliver to your past self. Or your present self, as you understand it,” he explained. “Don't worry, a lot of our customers are confused about this, what with them not having placed their orders yet.”

“But why ...” Sandra began, before it dawned on her. Oh, of course. Her future self (she was still way too tired to question that statement,) must have meant to place it for January 11th, 2015. Sandra did this all the time. Every time a new year came along, it would take her at least a month before she remembered to fix that on dates. “Come on, surely you must have thought it was a typo.”

The deliveryman shook his head. “Ma'am, we don't ask questions, we just deliver the orders,” he said.

Sandra gave up on arguing. Reason should never be applied on the weekend before noon, anyway. She opened the package to reveal a copy of a movie. One that wouldn't come out for another ten months.

Now, Sandra's mind got coffeed up. “Do you realize the possibilities I could do with this?” she asked herself. “I could send myself winning lottery numbers, stock tips, anything. Or at least bootleg a copy of this movie before it even comes out.”

The deliveryman took a few cautious steps back. “I wouldn't recommend it, ma'am,” he insisted. “Profit-based time travel is made illegal in 2085, and the time regulators have been given retroactive authority. Besides, most people find it difficult to pay the delivery fees and still come out ahead.”

“What delivery fees?” Sandra asked, but he just held up a bill. One with more zeroes than Sandra had ever seen in life. To be paid upon delivery. Not even seeing her (she assumed) new favorite movie a year in advance would be worth that. She tossed the package back at the deliveryman, slammed the door shut, and immediately made two new years resolutions. First, she would be much more careful when ordering packages from now on. Secondly, she would somehow find a way to punch her future self in the face.

Meanwhile, the deliveryman sighed. Yet another deadbeat. Eh, well. They always paid eventually, or at least their great to the nth power descendents did, though by then, inflation made the bill little more than pocket change. But that would be a problem for the billing department. He had to worry about his next delivery.

“Let's see, deliver to Mr. Chester Jenkins, or his closest previous of kin, January 11th, 15.” 15? Maybe the customer just shortened the date, but as an employee of Tachyon Shipping, he couldn't take that chance. Great. The ancient Romans made for the most demanding customers. And they were really lousy tippers.

Happy solstice!

Whether the summer solstice has deep spiritual significance for you or simply marks that happy time of year when longer days give you more time for outdoor fun, today once again marks the point in the year where the earth's axial tilt points the planet's northern most directly at the sun, making the sun appear furthest north and for the longest day-period of the year. And even all that technical detail can't offset the wonder of full day from 7 am to 7 pm, with dark falling after 8:30 even around Chicago,and closer to 10 in points further north, like UP Michigan or Nova Scotia.

I've been thinking about technical details in relation to writing recently, which just resulted in a post on the subject on my about-writing blog, Starting Your Story. The gist of this post, "The importance of being accurate," is that even details utterly unimportant to your story or argument can distract and annoy readers when you get them wrong.

This explains, in large part, why I've not yet done anything with some delicious story ideas I came up with on my trip to England and Wales nearly 5 years ago. I could flesh out stories, but I don't have the background to be sure I wouldn't get an everyday detail absurdly wrong. Even if I made the point-of-view character an American like me, I'd worry.

However, I do know a couple of people who've spent time in England, grew up in England [including a fellow writers group member] and/or live there now, so perhaps I need to just rough something out and run it by one or more of these folks for a plausibility check.

I just posted an essay on using conflict in writing on my "StartingYourStory" blog. At the end, I challenged readers to take a look at their most recent writing and identify the conflicts they included. So, just for fun, here's something I wrote at a recent meeting of our Write Time writers group (from the prompt, " I didn't know that brown cheese burned so well." ... and it turns out to have all sorts of conflict ... but see for yourself:

 I didn't know that brown cheese burned so well. Of course, I’d planned on serving it cold, sliced, with crackers and fruit.  God, the fates or the heat-death of the universe had other plans for my cheese, it seemed.

“Cal, you gotta come see this.” My roommate, Jess, can never be bothered coming to me—I always have to go to her. “It’s brilliant. We gotta do this at the party.”

“Jess, it’s just a few people coming over for drinks before we see a movie. It’s not a Hollywood premiere or anything.

“But look at this recipe—I love that flamed Greek cheese. “

“Don’t have time to shop—I’ve got gouda and Swiss and that Norwegian stuff your boyfriend loves.”

“Well, use that then, Callista. What could go wrong?”

What indeed…