If these guys are right…

…we'll see a lot more movies and books about kids growing up. Oh wait…r>;-)

Writing: Is the Process the Solution?

It seems like that, if you take a closer look at Howard Michael Gould on "Page Fright", that is. To be honest, this is pretty much the way I'm approaching my own book-projects or articles (the longer ones; blog-posts are handled in a different way, or not, it depends ;-)). Every writer should read the above mentioned post. But (you guessed it, didn't you?), there is something I have to add and spare you the learning-experience in the process.

Especially when starting book-projects, Backups, no BACKUPS, no [louder] BACKUPS. They not only give you some peace of mind, they are an insurance for everybody involved, thus they should be distributed to another location (hint: gmail for example). Let's face it, even the most elaborate work ends up as a couple of kilobytes, or a megabyte max when zipped, so what's keeping you from storing it somewhere else? Right, nothing. What about the format of the backup? Either XML or some other format that transports well between different programs (with the added bonus that you're able to compress it into really small files).

The proof of the pudding was the size of the compressed XML-files of a 400-odd page book compared to the same book in Word-format, the former was about 500 KB, the latter some two to three megabytes. It might be not your cup of tea (or coffee), but, in worst case, XML can be changed in almost any text-editor available on a computer. This is not to suggest, that everyone should start writing in XML, but to take a closer look if the software used for writing is able to export the data in this format (and read it back in without loosing anything, of course). It might save your day, when your writing-software wants to phone home before letting you make an important change and there is no way of connecting to the Internet. Just a thought.

Technorati Tags: writing, backup, XML

Technorati Tags down? [update]

Is it just me or is there a problem at Technorati and the tagging system? I just researched (OK, clicked) the Vampire Chronicles tag and have been told, that there are no tags for the subject. Strange, indeed.

For the un-initiated, searching for a tag displays a list of blog-posts tagged with this, well, tag.

Everything is working OK again, no idea what happened.


Technorati Tags: Technorati, Tags

Some Books are like old Friends

I mean it, seriously. The current project is (almost) finished and I wanted to read a book. The question is, am I able to really enjoy reading a new book, or do I need something familiar, a.k.a. one of my all-time favorites? I don't think I'm ready for option one, yet. Working on a book is just that, work. Appreciating the narrative of a new book requires, IMHO, a different mindset than the one I have right now. Therefore I decided to search my all-time favorites and found just what I needed:

Good Omens

I bought the UK-paperback years ago – the first edition is from 1990 – I went through the book at least three to four times and enjoyed it immensely. The same goes for this time around, I really love this book.

Back to my opening statement, isn't it nice to open a book, feel right at home, paired with the expectation of the things to come? Basically the same as watching one of your favorite movies, you know what to expect, you know how it ends, you're free to enjoy this work of art. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett delivered just that – if you are into British humor, of course.

The book is still available and there will be a new paperback edition hitting the US-shores in December, if I understood it right. So, if you never heard about this book, take a look.

Technorati Tags: Books, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

A Glitch in the Matrix, no Template, Sorry.

There was a little glitch in the template, that prevented not only the viewing of the blog, but seems to disable the Atom-Feed, at least temporarily. Apologies for that.

Still, the new Blogger is awesome. I'm almost done with a bigger project—more work than it seemed when I took the tast, but to whom I'm talking to… Sometimes it's simply hard to judge a writing project.
:-)

I'll be back soon, promised.

Movie: National Treasure

I watched National Treasure for the fifth or sixth time yesterday (DVD). I know it's an older movie, I'm still trying to get through my backlog. ;-)

IMHO: It is a story well told. Not flawless, but really gripping. I wouldn't watch a movie that often if it's not well written, even the comical sidekick works (something I'm not always too fond of). Kudos to the actors / actresses / actorpersons(?) as well, the story wouldn't work without a good cast. The well written dialogs and the impecable timing of the cast executing them carries the story over a couple of, let's say, hard to believe plot points, that would not work otherwise.

For example: Nicolas Cage's and Diane Kruger's characters should sport a visible download-socket. Why? Because they seem to have the contents of Wikipedia and Enceclopedia Britannica available for their perusal at any given moment. Granted, there a people in this world with a lot of knowledge at their disposal, but still… On the other hand, seeing the cast spending lots of time in a library might be believable, but is boring to watch. It would slow down the story to a grinding halt. The camera-work and the production design adds to the believability (is this a real word?) of the film, I'll try to catch a re-run in a movie-theater—if possible—just to see the sequence when the treasure is found in its full glory.

I really like the movie and would recommend it to everyone with a fable for fast-paced action which tells a story as well.

Technorati Tags: National Treasure, Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, good writing, Movie

Books: Finished reading Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

I finished reading Blood Canticle by Anne Rice, the latest incarnation of the Vampire Chronicles I got hold of. As mentioned in this post, I really liked the book. Now I'm done reading and I have to say: I really like this book.

IMHO, it maintains a subtle balance between the style of the first couple of books in the Vampire Chronicles series and the more contemplative tone of the later ones. I'm not saying that I didn't like the narrative used in the later books, but I'm still not done with Blackwood Farm, yet. BTW: It seems to me, that having at least an idea what is going on in another series called Lives of the Mayfair Witches by the same author helps to enjoy Blood Canticle even more.

I recommend this book to all readers of the older books, new readers should start from the begining, means start reading the other books first. Interview with the Vampire is still an all-time favorite of mine, the same goes for the other books in the series.

Technorati Tags: Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice, Books

RSS looks weird

Yes, the RSS-feed looks a bit weird at the moment. I switched to the blogger beta and the blog was transfererred. All posts seem to have the same publishing date in RSS. New posts should not be affected.

Just in case you need to know. :-)

Layout changed, Content stays

Longtime readers might notice that the layout has changed, the content is still the same. I'm still fighting with the new system to add an e-mail address that is not that easy to harvest for spammers.
Cross your fingers, please. ;-)

A Faster Way to Train the Spellchecker in OS X

Every author has to love the built-in spellchecker in OS X. Sure, most of the applications in use by authors come with their own spellchecker, isn't it fun to add new words to all of them? That's what I thought. I don't know about you, but I prefer the systemwide solution any time. ;-)

It is just a question of right-clicking to add new words to OS X's spellchecker, but what about transferring lists from one Mac to the other, or bulk-insertions? Let's try the Macintosh-Way™: There has to be a dialog somewhere. Sorry folks, not this time (I could not find a GUI-way of doing this). OK, we have to follow the path of the Geek.

If we never added a word to the custom dictionary in the past, we have to do so now. Type a word, e.g. the name of one of the characters in the new book that's always garnished with this wiggly red line, distracting our attention. Right-click and add to the dictionary. Now comes the geeky part, go to the Library folder in your home-directory and into the folder named Spelling contained in there. You should find a file named en (if you should work in more than one language, then there might be other files as well). Open the file with a suitable text-editor, e.g. TextWrangler or BBedit and you'll see that the added word is in the file followed by a delimiter (looks like a question-mark turned upside-down). Now you're able to add new words to your hearts content (don't forget to copy the delimiter) or paste the words from another machine into this file.

Check your spelling while doing so! ;-)

To cut a long story short, this seems to be the easiest way to add new words to your custom dictionary, used be all well-groomed Cocoa apps.

Technorati Tags: OS X, OS X Spellchecker

Do you want syrup with this book? (On-Demand printing woes)

Lee Goldberg writes about the Espresso Book Machine in his post The End of Book Warehouses?. There are some valid considerations to use such a system, but I buy most of my new books because I had a chance to leaf through the pages first.

Call me old-fashioned, but discovering new authors/books is a hands-on experience [at least for me], so if a book-merchant – utilising said machine – is willing to produce all the books I might be interested in for me to have a look first, I'm fine with the system.

I have to agree, though, that the method allows to purchase books faster that are on my shopping-list anyway. But the latter would pose a problem for the likes of Amazon, printing a book in a matter of minutes beats overnight delivery all the time. ;-)


Technorati Tags: Books

Books: Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

I recently got hold of the book Blood Canticle by Anne Rice.

I'm into the first 80-odd pages of the book and have to say: GREAT! Great story-telling, great scenes, in short: I love this book. It is so different to Blackwood Farm. The main difference – at first glance – is the fact that Lestat does the talking again, means he has written the book.

I found the book by accident, I wasn't actually looking for another book by Anne Rice since I was not able to finish Blackwood Farm, yet.

I'll keep you posted…

Technorati Tags: Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice, Books

The Top-Ten Geeks on TV

How are Geeks portrait on TV, how believable are they? What is missing in this list are Geeks in Sci-Fi Shows, it is just not that easy to judge someone reversing polarity on a warp-engine.

Here are, without further ado, counting down from 10 to 1, the Top-Ten of the TV-Geeks. [IMHO, of course ;-)]

• 10. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) (The X Files)


• 9. Dr. Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) (Stargate: Atlantis)


• 8. John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) (Lost)


• 7. Dr. Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) (Stargate SG-1)


• 6. Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)


• 5. Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda) (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)


• 4. Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz) (Numb3rs)


• 3. Detective Robert Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)


• 2. Marco Pacella (Richard Kahan) (The 4400)


• 1. Dr. Nigel Townsend (Steve Valentine) (Crossing Jordan)

And as honorable mention for coolness: Dr. Al Robbins (Robert David Hall) (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation).

Technorati Tags: TV, Geeks on TV, Top-Ten Lists

OS X: Supplied Scripts

From the stating the not so obvious department: There is a plethora of scripts on every Mac, waiting to be used. Thing is, they are there, but you'll have to know where to look. The key to activate them is the AppleScript Utility app in /Applications/AppleScript/. Start the application and activate Show Script Menu in menu bar, this gives you a new menu-item (looks like a scroll) with all kinds of menus in it. Happy exploring.

I never thought of that feature as unknown, until a friend asked me about the menu.
;-)

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OS X, AppleScript

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Laughter

The post Can the canned laughter by Kevin Levine is a very interesting read. You should read it in its full glory. My favorite part is quoted here:

Can the canned laughter:

…
One final note: On CHEERS and FRASIER we used recorded laughs from our own shows. Not so with other series. A lot of the laughs you hear were recorded fifty years ago. Many of the people you hear laughing are now dead.

Talk about leaving a legacy. Grandma may now be a distant memory but she’s still with us, every week, laughing at Jim Belushi.

(Via By Ken Levine).

Kind of scary, isn't it? OTOH, who would notice?

Technorati Tags: Sitcom, TV

Who is to blame for a bad Story?

I just finished reading the post Q: Who's Fault Is It When The Story Of The Movie Is Bad? at The Artful Writer. I have to say, that I agree with the final statement, but, seen from a writers point of view, some of the people involved with the development of a story are in the same responsibility as the editor at a plain vanilla book-project. It's their decision if a story or a subject, for that matter, sells. I know, doing something creative (like writing) and sell in the same sentence, but, let's face it, writers have to eat, too. ;-)


My point is, no book or film (besides the well-known exceptions) is created by one person alone, be it the input of friends or co-workers or the guiding comments of the editor (or whoever has to make the decisions while writing a script), there will be influences from the outside nudging, or even steering, the development of a story. If everything goes well and the whole project is a success, everyone is happy. If not, one or the other will utter 'told you so! So, yes, Failure is an orphan.

Technorati Tags: Writing

Books: The Map is Missing!

My girlfriend started reading the latest book by Jilly Cooper titled Wicked!. Jilly Cooper is one of her favorite authors and she waited for four years to get her hands on the book.

She told me, that really likes the book, but that one important feature (present in all other Jilly Cooper books) is missing: The map that shows the location of the houses the acting persons live in.

I have no idea if the publisher just dropped it, or if the author herself decided not to use it this time, but readers tend to notice the little things. Something, we as writers, should keep in mind; needless to say, that the same holds true for the publishers, as well.

Technorati Tags: Books, Fiction, Jilly Cooper

HDTV: Did they blew it already?

According to Bud Meyers' article The End of the Early Adopter or A Declaration of Independence, they did.

A thought-provoking opinion piece, which should be placed – for everyday viewing – over the desks of every single executive working in the entertainment industry (the name says it all, doesn't it?).

Technorati Tags: HDTV

Hackman Double spotted at Soccer-Match

I don't know much about Soccer, but I saw a guy – the coach of Portugal's national team, apparently – who is a spitting image of Gene Hackman.

His name is Luiz Felipe Scolari. They could be brothers, seriously. The other thing I noticed, is the fact that both of them have a Steven Hill-like on-screen presence. ;-)

[IMHO: There are not to many actors sporting a presence like Steven Hill in, e.g. Law & Order or Gene Hackman in most of his acts.]

My favorite quote from Luiz Felipe Scolari during a press-conference is (asked why he turned down the job as coach for the british national soccer team): I want to work somewhere, where I can wear shorts all the time and need the sea in close range. The only other team I'd be interested in would be the one of the Maledives.

Technorati Tags: Actor, Gene Hackman, Luiz Felipe Scolari

John August: I want a cheap, slutty DVD player

John August is obviously looking for a DVD-Player:

I want a cheap, slutty DVD player:

I don’t want a princess. I want a whore.

…but I’m officially sick of trying a disc in three different players before finally getting it to work on my MacBook.

I suspect my ideal DVD player is a no-name made in Guangzhou which can play drink coasters. If anyone can point me towards it, thanks in advance.

(Via johnaugust.com).

IMHO: Smart move, the DVD-Drives in the computers my brother is using die periodically thanks to the copy-protection schemes on commercially available DVDs. Swapping the slot-in drive in a laptop is a PITA (excuse me). The other thing is: DVDs written in a computer – given that the writing machine isn't brand-new – tend to be a little bit off track, tricking the internal DVD-drive to get off track, too. I can't prove this theory, but I got the feeling that the loss of a couple of DVD-drives had something to do with that. Still IMHO, mind you. ;-)