The Writing Groove: Getting It Back
Well, last night proved to be good for my mental health. I churned out 1203 words, some in The Spellweaver of Dern and some in a new short story that I just had to write because it was driving me nuts. The new story is being called “Steam Engines” at this point, because it lacks a true direction and lacks a fancy title. However, it involves disaster in a world where magic is provided by great steam engines suspended by chains attached to floating islands. Right now it’s focused on the family of the man who is in charge of maintaining the engines and what happens to he and his family when the engines stop and he can’t fix them. It’s a really interesting story right now. Don’t know where it will go, but we’ll see. In other news, now that I’m back into writing I can finish up a lot of my stories and then do that horrible thing called “Editing”. I hate editing in more ways than one. It’s terrible; I should just learn to write well enough to not need editing…ha! I think on the top of my list will be the two fantasy shorts I’m writing, one of which is finished, the other almost finished. I want to get them up to publishable quality and out the door. Then I’d like to finish this new one and “Soul For Sale.” There are only a few stories I think are only a few inches from publishable, and it is those stories that I want to focus on. And having said all this I think I have sufficiently wasted enough of your time! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Sitemeter Changed and I’m Not Happy
So Sitemeter, the website I use to track my traffic, has changed it’s entire interface…and I don’t like it. True, the new interface is pretty and reorganized, but it’s also slow as hell. I can’t even get it to the stats section. It just sits there on “loading” the whole time, and the pages I can get to run like crap. If this doesn’t improve in the next twenty-four hours I’ll be forced to go elsewhere for the same service.This is something that really pisses me off about software designers. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Seriously. What was wrong with Sitemeter’s previous interface? True, it wasn’t beautiful, but it was simple and really easy to use, fast, and graphically un-intensive. That meant it got the job done without having to be flashy. I want a system that works fast. I don’t have time to dilly daddle while trying to figure out how many people have visited my site. I’ve got other things to do, like writing blog posts, or writing in general, or reading. The new Firefox (3.0 I think) did the same thing, making the interface look new and beautiful. The problem? It ran like crap. So I downgraded and I won’t upgrade ever again. And if they force me to upgrade, I’ll go elsewhere for my browsing needs. There’s absolutely no reason to change an already functional interface. None. And if you’re going to change that interface, you should at least offer a “classic” view or skin or something so that people who don’t really give a crap about visual beauty in their software don’t have to deal with it. The good thing about Windows Vista is that it upgrade its interface, but allows you to go to a classic interface. I’ve left my Vista the way it is, because it doesn’t run slow for me, but XP had the same thing and it did run slow, so I used the classic interface.The way I see it, software designers need to realize that people who like their products probably don’t care if you try to make it look prettier. A lot of us really don’t care. We’re happy with the product as it is. If you need to upgrade, do so without fiddling with the way it looks. There’s really no reason to upgrade the visual layout if all it’s going to do is slow things down. Moving on. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Systematically Organizing
So my girlfriend and I have been organizing my writing according to “promise” and level of completion, which is a rather strange way of organizing one’s work. We’re trying to figure out which works are worth continuing while also figuring out which works need only editing, which works are good and need finishing, and which need rewrites or are simply too “unfinished” to really say whether they suck or not. So far it’s looking good. Quite a few short stories prove to have some value, which makes me feel happy considering some of these stories are from years ago when I wasn’t all that serious yet–I was sort of serious, but I admit that a lot of my writing at that point was going in all directions, so I have become a bit more focused today.So far it’s proving interesting, but we’re just in the beginning of the process. I’m hoping this shift in my writing will really help in the long run. I would like to have a novel at least written by December of this year (not including The Spellweaver of Dern). So, that’s that, just so you all know what’s going on with the writing and what not, in case any of you care. Anywho! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)