Quill and Ink Corner: A writing thread for the Cobbies.

I find my dreams show me the things I really don't want to see, and then explain them away so they're not so bad (or, worse case, I just wake up creeped out).

My dreams aren't usually that coherent, but I do think a lot during them... I do math and translate things into Spanish, or recall random dates and facts. Of course, half the time I wake up and I'm like, Wait, that's not the verb for "to dance..." But the other half of the time, I'm like, right I'm not in high school anymore. It's 2014 and I've been married 12 years and it will take at least an hour forty-five to get home in this traffic. Shit, the kids are going to be late to school... ;D

I have plenty of the non-coherent variety. When they are coherent like that though it is interesting to say the least and sometimes offer interesting ideas for me to consider.

I think I've been having "it's at least a month into the new semester and I haven't been to class or learned my schedule" dreams since high school, but they really picked up in college. I still have them sometimes. More frequently than my "escape from captivity" dreams that seem like they were constant in grade school.

I really need to block out a regular time to write. Which I find difficult to do with a variable hours work schedule. I keep my Thursdays open so I always have time to do my movie review blog, but I want to be writing an essay/opinion blog and fiction projects. In a perfect world, I'd set aside a few hours a day in an office room I only use for writing, but I don't have a regular time available, and all the places I can write in are places mostly used for entertainment. I tend to write a sentence to a paragraph and then dive back into the forum or a flash game for fifteen minutes.

Anyway, I need to build a habit, and I'm finding no room for the habit is what I'm saying.

edited 4th Jul '14 11:31:23 PM by tparadox

I am 2500 words form part two of my book. I am 10 cohesively coherent chapters in. I have never gotten this far. It's awesome.

Last night I celebrated the completion of my latest manuscript with an appropriately named brew. Now, editing begins.

Grats Drunky.

Despite having the outline and some of the work for the meat of the story I have rewritten the beginning far too many times. I need to just pick one and stick with it.

Tueffy, don't edit, just write. then go back and edit later. Much later.

Uncle Drunkie's book is very good... Very very good.

Finally got the right wording for my opening and the set up for introducing early characters. It wasn't simple editing it was the clumsy feel to me that was driving me nuts. With that came over 2200 words done today.

edited 19th Jul '14 4:59:32 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I'm much better at editing other people's words. A couple of months ago, I looked through something I'd written years previous and recognized the events but not the words. It was like they were someone else's. So yes, much later.

So I finished my second book, for those of you who are interested.

Currently decompressing after my first promotional event, which was a qualified success; I didn't sell as many books as I had hoped to but I learned a lot about the subject matter I'm writing (note: like last time, I did my promotion at a Private Investigator conference) and I made a lot of potentially useful connections along the way.

I also got to hang out with Madrugada for a couple days in person, which was cool all by itself.

Oh, and one more thing; the only thing cooler than holding a book you wrote and published in your hand is doing so while holding another book of the same pedigree in the other mitt. "Like a boss" comes to mind. :D

Congratulations!

I plan to go the ebook route, but I thought maybe I'd look into one-off printing just for the satisfaction of holding my book.

Double-wielding...

Grats Drunk. Glad to hear you nailed another one.

Folks I have question. Because my Saturdays at work are slow I have a fair bit of time to write. However I have a conundrum. I can't plug in devices to the computer like a USB drive for security reasons. I need to find a way to temporarily transfer my written stuff to something online so I can retrieve it at home.

Um... the old email myself trick?

I have a for work only type email set up.

Dropbox? (Assuming that wouldn't be considered a security risk in-and-of-itself...)

Google Drive set to private might work, provided you don't mind having it stashed into their memory.

They would have a heart attack over drop box and I think it is filtered. Google drive might be taboo if possible. I will have to look into that though. They likely wouldn't like it.

Hm... I'm guessing you don't have any FTP software set up on that computer either.

Is Facebook banned? Facebook notes can be set to private.

Evernote...? Gmail account email to yourself...?

Is your company's network divided into intranet-only and internet-accessible networks? (Not exactly tech-savvy here, so I'm probably getting the terminology wrong.) Because the only things that come to mind right now are trying any of the above on a computer with the lowest security level you can find, or working on it on your phone (*shudder*) or bringing in your own laptop - which is its own can of worms, pun not intended.

EDIT: Does your for-work email account have a webmail portal? You don't necessarily have to send an email to yourself if you're worried about a paper trail - you could save it as an e-mail draft and access it from home if the web portal option is applicable.

edited 25th Jul '14 10:24:42 PM by Pyrite

One trick that I've used frequently on the ship was CD-RW, since any kind of cloud storage was banned.

On my most popular fanfic, I just topped 1,000 reviews today. So stoked about that, even if at least half of them are just "good chapter" type reviews.

Way to go, Drunkie! I'll buy it when I get a chance.

edited 25th Jul '14 10:11:21 PM by BlueNinja0

I can't access common emails because of a filter. I will have to double check on drop box tomorrow when I am in. The CDRW is an option still. Facebook is definitely out.

The email is divided. But emails going out are monitored and you need a good reason to send non-work emails out.

Get a pocket notebook and a pen.

Yup.

Considering our respective ages, it's pretty funny that I'm the first one who suggested that.