Thursday, September 11, 2008
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Too too funny to ignore
They call it "lolcatz" -- those cat pictures with words on them, like a cat hanging by a claw from a knotted rope with the slab text urging, "Hang on there baby, Friday's coming!"
Stephen at Live Granades has carried the genre to a new place: Star Trek. Check it out!Thursday, March 15, 2007
Wow! Still Here!
I guess storage is cheap! (Laughs with some delight.) I sure am glad this is still hanging out there in cyberland, and that I still have the password! I really need to redirect the images. ... ... ... ...
OK, so, since the last post.... Life changes.... Responsibilities wax and wane, employment and educational opportunities multiply and drop away.... ... ... I guess I could summarize thus: I've had happier, healthier, and heartier days and I've had killer headaches, heartaches, and hard rows, but all-in-all recent months have been more better than bad.
If ya know what I mean....
OK, so, since the last post.... Life changes.... Responsibilities wax and wane, employment and educational opportunities multiply and drop away.... ... ... I guess I could summarize thus: I've had happier, healthier, and heartier days and I've had killer headaches, heartaches, and hard rows, but all-in-all recent months have been more better than bad.
If ya know what I mean....
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Writing... ah Yes...
As my friend Kristen pointed out, I do actually have more than one screed on the stove. I have had a picture story for young children (The Telescopic Witch) refused by over a dozen publishers. It needs an artist. It also needs to be sent to the next dozen publishers.
There's Fables in the Forest, a play (mostly in rhyme) for children's theater, that's finished as far as I can tell. (I'd love to send you a PDF of it, Kristen, as I've always valued your thoughtful criticism.) Now, how does one market a play? I've got ideas, such as a public reading this spring, and am leaning on people-who-know-people to get it read in the right corners, but....
Underway, I have Pinto Pegasus (working title) "almost" completed. When I put it away some years ago, it wasn't long enough for a novel or short enough for either a picture book or a short story. I've only recently determined that it could be a "chapter book," a form of children's literature that wasn't popular when my kid was reading at that level. It is a candidate for the next piece out, after the play.
Then there's my picture book story about a man who has a bad day until someone turns his streak of ill humor around for him, and yet another about a pair of grandchildren on a quest for their grandmother.
Then there's my epic poem (still more kids' lit) The Rainbow Seeds -- Kristen may remember that one from our writers' group days. It's hit a snag about four-fifths of the way through, and ultimately will need an artist for publication.
And, finally, when I get tired of looking at the world for a child's eyes, I work on a series of adult science fiction stories that are part of a future universe that I call "The Crone Cache." Some of the shorter stories are finished; one is entered into a competition. Then there's a s-f romance (a new sub-genre) that I wanted to be a short story but that has turned into a novella and may yet turn into a full-length novel. (I'm thinking about taking a short story writing class as I have problems writing to that length.)
I wouldn't mind self-publishing, but since most of the stories I'm writing need illustrations and I can't afford to pay an artist right off (and am not sure I have the ability or self-discipline to illustrate them myself); selling them to a publisher is my best option.
Obviously, there's the issue of actually completing most of them, as well.
It's not that I don't know how the plot twists to resolution. I tend to go with verse for children, a brain strain that I run from after a while. The adult stuff is, by its nature, longer and more involved, and the work (so far) mostly outlasts my drive to see it done.
Then there's the matter of money.
My tastes in food and clothing are, well, let's just say that I know quality and prefer it. I have a kid in college who needs funding, and a horse and a dog, and computers to fix and upgrade, and software and internet expenses, and a serious reading habit from 'way back. (Paperbacks cost nearly $8 now! Reference books for computing matters generally run $35-$50.) There are classes I want to take. Submitting manuscripts isn't free, either. I hate depending on others to support my mess, and tend to not even ask, so not having my own money puts me in a horrid humor. (Whine, whimper, whine. Ugh.)
Even self-publishing generally requires cash on the barrel, with a few exceptions (such as lulu.com, which I am seriously considering for a few non-fiction writing projects).
So, the question remains: how can I both make money and have the time/energy to write and market my work? I can't believe that it's not possible to do both.
There's Fables in the Forest, a play (mostly in rhyme) for children's theater, that's finished as far as I can tell. (I'd love to send you a PDF of it, Kristen, as I've always valued your thoughtful criticism.) Now, how does one market a play? I've got ideas, such as a public reading this spring, and am leaning on people-who-know-people to get it read in the right corners, but....
Underway, I have Pinto Pegasus (working title) "almost" completed. When I put it away some years ago, it wasn't long enough for a novel or short enough for either a picture book or a short story. I've only recently determined that it could be a "chapter book," a form of children's literature that wasn't popular when my kid was reading at that level. It is a candidate for the next piece out, after the play.
Then there's my picture book story about a man who has a bad day until someone turns his streak of ill humor around for him, and yet another about a pair of grandchildren on a quest for their grandmother.
Then there's my epic poem (still more kids' lit) The Rainbow Seeds -- Kristen may remember that one from our writers' group days. It's hit a snag about four-fifths of the way through, and ultimately will need an artist for publication.
And, finally, when I get tired of looking at the world for a child's eyes, I work on a series of adult science fiction stories that are part of a future universe that I call "The Crone Cache." Some of the shorter stories are finished; one is entered into a competition. Then there's a s-f romance (a new sub-genre) that I wanted to be a short story but that has turned into a novella and may yet turn into a full-length novel. (I'm thinking about taking a short story writing class as I have problems writing to that length.)
I wouldn't mind self-publishing, but since most of the stories I'm writing need illustrations and I can't afford to pay an artist right off (and am not sure I have the ability or self-discipline to illustrate them myself); selling them to a publisher is my best option.
Obviously, there's the issue of actually completing most of them, as well.
It's not that I don't know how the plot twists to resolution. I tend to go with verse for children, a brain strain that I run from after a while. The adult stuff is, by its nature, longer and more involved, and the work (so far) mostly outlasts my drive to see it done.
Then there's the matter of money.
My tastes in food and clothing are, well, let's just say that I know quality and prefer it. I have a kid in college who needs funding, and a horse and a dog, and computers to fix and upgrade, and software and internet expenses, and a serious reading habit from 'way back. (Paperbacks cost nearly $8 now! Reference books for computing matters generally run $35-$50.) There are classes I want to take. Submitting manuscripts isn't free, either. I hate depending on others to support my mess, and tend to not even ask, so not having my own money puts me in a horrid humor. (Whine, whimper, whine. Ugh.)
Even self-publishing generally requires cash on the barrel, with a few exceptions (such as lulu.com, which I am seriously considering for a few non-fiction writing projects).
So, the question remains: how can I both make money and have the time/energy to write and market my work? I can't believe that it's not possible to do both.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
On to the Rest of My Life
I began writing as a newspaper reporter and loved it enough to return to college for an appropriate bachelor's degree. Then the divorce left me responsible for my very young child. It didn't take long to realize that journalism's long hours and short pay didn't measure up to the Mom Responsibility.
With the discovery of a previously unknown knack for technology, the capability to hold a steady 9-to-5, and a certificate in Tech Writing from Durham Tech, I supported the two of us for many years. I found tech writing to be very much like reporting, using the same interviewing and writing skills to translate geek speak to ordinary, easy-to-follow English.
My last full-time tech writing job lasted nearly two years and grossed roughly $50 thou a year. It practically drove me into a mental breakdown, what with an hour-long commute bracketing the strain of working with an all-PhD staff, most of them specializing in math that I could never in a million billion years understand. Even so, I could have hung with it longer, but during the last several months of that job I had the dubious pleasure of dealing with my employer's sister as a co-equal writer, in spite of her exactly zero years' worth of experience (but fifty years' worth of self esteem).... I try not to dwell on it.
So now, five years after the dot-com crash brought such irrationally exuberant foolishness to an end and tossing in the throes of a crazed economy with a shaky employment outlook, I come to the conclusion that a standard tech writing job is no longer a realistic goal for this Boomer.
I got into tech by explaining how to use software to ordinary people. As part of that, I've become expert-level proficient with content creation software such as word and image processing and publishing applications -- the brand really doesn't matter as the techniques among each of the various disciplines are pretty much the same. If you know one word processor or one vector-based illustration package, you easily can figure out the others.
Around here, most of the employers who once hired writers to produce manuals and online help and web content and such don't want writers any more. They want coders who also write. (Ever wonder why online help and manuals read as though English is not the writer's first language?)
I can manually code HTML, and I'm pretty good with light scripting, but I draw the line at learning yet more complex coding languages -- Java and PHP and C+ and the like.
I'm a writer, daggumit, and a content creator! My challenge is -- should be -- understanding the differences of the various media in which content delivery takes place and writing to take advantage of the strengths of each medium while minimizing the inherent weaknesses. (Web publication is quite different from paper publication, for example, and a user manual is quite different from a "getting started" brochure.)
There seems to be little call for such.
So I have to change that career path yet again.
But, to what?
With the discovery of a previously unknown knack for technology, the capability to hold a steady 9-to-5, and a certificate in Tech Writing from Durham Tech, I supported the two of us for many years. I found tech writing to be very much like reporting, using the same interviewing and writing skills to translate geek speak to ordinary, easy-to-follow English.
My last full-time tech writing job lasted nearly two years and grossed roughly $50 thou a year. It practically drove me into a mental breakdown, what with an hour-long commute bracketing the strain of working with an all-PhD staff, most of them specializing in math that I could never in a million billion years understand. Even so, I could have hung with it longer, but during the last several months of that job I had the dubious pleasure of dealing with my employer's sister as a co-equal writer, in spite of her exactly zero years' worth of experience (but fifty years' worth of self esteem).... I try not to dwell on it.
So now, five years after the dot-com crash brought such irrationally exuberant foolishness to an end and tossing in the throes of a crazed economy with a shaky employment outlook, I come to the conclusion that a standard tech writing job is no longer a realistic goal for this Boomer.
I got into tech by explaining how to use software to ordinary people. As part of that, I've become expert-level proficient with content creation software such as word and image processing and publishing applications -- the brand really doesn't matter as the techniques among each of the various disciplines are pretty much the same. If you know one word processor or one vector-based illustration package, you easily can figure out the others.
Around here, most of the employers who once hired writers to produce manuals and online help and web content and such don't want writers any more. They want coders who also write. (Ever wonder why online help and manuals read as though English is not the writer's first language?)
I can manually code HTML, and I'm pretty good with light scripting, but I draw the line at learning yet more complex coding languages -- Java and PHP and C+ and the like.
I'm a writer, daggumit, and a content creator! My challenge is -- should be -- understanding the differences of the various media in which content delivery takes place and writing to take advantage of the strengths of each medium while minimizing the inherent weaknesses. (Web publication is quite different from paper publication, for example, and a user manual is quite different from a "getting started" brochure.)
There seems to be little call for such.
So I have to change that career path yet again.
But, to what?
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