Tag: writing

Posting Vacation

This has been one of those periods where I haven’t been focusing on the blog. I’ve set a goal for myself to have my Ruby book out by June 1st. Along the way, I’ve managed to start adapting a short story into a comic and also started the preliminary work on a novel. So I’ve been neglecting posting regularly. But even with the other projects, there’s still some gaps in my schedule.

Faking Fountain with Ulysses

I think the most important but often overlooked aspect of the adoption of Markdown is how plain text has made a comeback. There are many Markdown variation and flavors. Most are still used for Markdown’s original purpose—turning text into HTML. But one project has built on the idea of markdown and is using plain text to fill a different need. The Fountain project has created a plain text format that is designed for print (or PDF).

What I'm reading: On Writing

This finally became available at the library. It’s been on my to read list for while now.      [caption width=“640” align=“aligncenter”] Writing advuce to King, from his first editor.[/caption]   

Book Tour: Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy, Ch. 10

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books. First Edition cover, 1991. The very nature of this book—20 essays about writing by the best SFF authors—makes it hard to review as a whole. I think a better strategy is to look at each chapter in detail. See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.

Word Count — Week 16

It’s time for my weekly word count check-in. At the end of every week, I post a screen shot from my writing results spreadsheet. This shows the current week and the three before. My week starts on Monday. The numbers are current through Sunday night. I also only average over six days. This allows me one day of no writing that doesn’t impact the weekly totals. This was the first full week using the new “accounting” system.

Book Tour: Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy, Ch. 9

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books. First Edition cover, 1991. The very nature of this book—20 essays about writing by the best SFF authors—makes it hard to review as a whole. I think a better strategy is to look at each chapter in detail. See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.

Book Tour: Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy, Ch. 8

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books. First Edition cover, 1991. The very nature of this book—20 essays about writing by the best SFF authors—makes it hard to review as a whole. I think a better strategy is to look at each chapter in detail. See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.

Word Count — Week 15

It’s time for my weekly word count check-in. At the end of every week, I post a screen shot from my writing results spreadsheet. This shows the current week and the three before. My week starts on Monday. The numbers are current through Sunday night. I also only average over six days. This allows me one day of no writing that doesn’t impact the weekly totals. This week I started tracking editing time on Friday.

Update on Word Count and Time Tracking

I’ve been tracking my writing time since the beginning of the year. It’s interesting to see the data and the averages over time that go with it. As of today, I’ve written just over 70,000 words and spent 165 hours doing it. My time tracking spreadsheet says that I’ve spent an average of 1h 54m per day writing. Looking at the data, one thing stands out. I’ve only been measuring my “first draft” writing time.

Book Tour: Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy, Ch. 7

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books. First Edition cover, 1991. The very nature of this book—20 essays about writing by the best SFF authors—makes it hard to review as a whole. I think a better strategy is to look at each chapter in detail. See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.