For those in countries will peculiar inheritance laws:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html
For the rest of us living in nations where the legal systems isn't tweaked for the maximum feeding of lawyers it still contains some good guidelines. After all, you may want to explicitly give away your intellectual property to someone, at least as much of it as the law permits.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Crap
And what a disaster it turned out to be.
One lousy game. People not showing up and the most important of all not even returning calls. Crap! Rant! Whine!
Ok, done.
One lousy game. People not showing up and the most important of all not even returning calls. Crap! Rant! Whine!
Ok, done.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Playing VTES
Tonight is Scotsman night. Our weekly VTES get together which promises a few really good beers, and that's an 's' there.
With a few rebuilt decks all that remains is to cram one together from scratch.
Tomorrow I'll have time dedicated for writing again. Already looking forward to it.
With a few rebuilt decks all that remains is to cram one together from scratch.
Tomorrow I'll have time dedicated for writing again. Already looking forward to it.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
More VTES
Time to write a proposal for the EC. Budget, staffing and an attempt to fix the event chronologically as well as geographically. The former is of course more important than the latter -- Gothenburg isn't that large a city.
There's an opening for running it in tandem with the early August Gothenburg party. We'll have to see if that is a realistic option. Hotels may be a problem for arriving guests. If possible it would be fantastic. The city's lively as it is during summer, but it surely comes into full bloom during the main events, and the party is one of them.
There's an opening for running it in tandem with the early August Gothenburg party. We'll have to see if that is a realistic option. Hotels may be a problem for arriving guests. If possible it would be fantastic. The city's lively as it is during summer, but it surely comes into full bloom during the main events, and the party is one of them.
IKEA hellrace
Sour thumb, almost sturdy wardrobe in place. Apartment liberally littered with small plastic bags, almost readable instructions for how to set the thing up and more paper that I want to admit, but it's in place.
The piece isn't too ugly, which, considering the price tag it had is a good thing. And it's almost complete. Doorknobs would have been a good idea. Doorknobs will be a good idea, and as we're headed out into assemble yourself furniture paradise in a week, well.
So, a week from now I'll have a sour thumb again, and a few bookshelves and a cupboard in place, and I'll rant, and I'll think that it was at least cheap. And the apartment will once again look like a battlefield. Go figure.
The piece isn't too ugly, which, considering the price tag it had is a good thing. And it's almost complete. Doorknobs would have been a good idea. Doorknobs will be a good idea, and as we're headed out into assemble yourself furniture paradise in a week, well.
So, a week from now I'll have a sour thumb again, and a few bookshelves and a cupboard in place, and I'll rant, and I'll think that it was at least cheap. And the apartment will once again look like a battlefield. Go figure.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
VTES, no writing
Meeting today about the EC 2007. That would read European Championships 2007 in V:TES, a fun strategic card game I'm playing with some regularity.
August or September next year we'll run the tournament here in Gothenburg. Looking forward to it already.
August or September next year we'll run the tournament here in Gothenburg. Looking forward to it already.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Taking shape
Eleven chapters, thirteen shorter independent parts and 64 thousand words. This is where the story must have achieved a shape of its own.
I'm not talking interesting or catching. That comes a lot earlier, but when you stand there in the bookshop, paperback between your fingers and stare at the title of your newest acquisition there are a few things you take for granted.
The flipping it over and flipping it open parts are already over and done with. The blurb on the back of the cover was the second thing you checked. The front cover always comes first, but if you've read a fair share of books that isn't enough. A book's not just supposed to look pretty. So you read the blurb and you've read half the first page and you opened your wallet and bought it.
Now what? You've already made that entire chain of writer-agent-publisher a little happier, because there's one copy less to be sent back. At least that's what we're told, we as in writers.
Well, this is where I started, or almost.
Somewhere late in the start, where the distance between thumb and forefinger tells you that the story should have gained a direction, it had better, or you're going to put the book away, and you're going to tell your friends it was boring.
The part I've reached is the middle. The dead on middle of the middle -- in the middle of middledom. Where the story is balancing on the edge of first half or second half. I have come to where the story needs to be about what the story is about.
Did that sound strange? No worries. It doesn't have to sound right, because you'll instinctively know when you encounter it. If you don't here's another point when you put the book away. This time your friends are going to be told it was bad. Odd, isn't it? You read a quarter and the book is boring, but if it's good enough to keep you halfway it becomes bad.
Anyway, this is the part we don't read so much about. Especially those of us who are unpublished yet. Get that first book inside the loop no matter what! Bad idea. You see, the putting books away department of readers is something possibly even worse than never getting published. This is where a book starts tanking. Tanking happens after the writer has lost his or her publishing virginity. After the word debut can be used as an excusing factor.
In the genre I'm primarily interested in, tanking walks around like a juggernaut somewhere around book number two in a series. That is bad news for the publisher and even worse for the writer. It could even herald the end of a writing career, and so I'll spend some time on the what makes a reader put away the book, thank you very much.
For my part, I have to decide if my book has taken shape or not, and that means reading a first draft still under production, and that, quite frankly, is painful. There are continuity problems unresolved from the earlier parts, chapters that need splitting up, scenes that must move far away from where they are now, and we're talking pages here, not landscape, and scenes that simply has to go. It is, in other words, not anything a reader with his mind intact, would want to read. It is also what I need to read, because I have only written the story this far and that is by no means the same as reading it.
Ugh, yuck and blaeh.
What we do for our words.
I'm not talking interesting or catching. That comes a lot earlier, but when you stand there in the bookshop, paperback between your fingers and stare at the title of your newest acquisition there are a few things you take for granted.
The flipping it over and flipping it open parts are already over and done with. The blurb on the back of the cover was the second thing you checked. The front cover always comes first, but if you've read a fair share of books that isn't enough. A book's not just supposed to look pretty. So you read the blurb and you've read half the first page and you opened your wallet and bought it.
Now what? You've already made that entire chain of writer-agent-publisher a little happier, because there's one copy less to be sent back. At least that's what we're told, we as in writers.
Well, this is where I started, or almost.
Somewhere late in the start, where the distance between thumb and forefinger tells you that the story should have gained a direction, it had better, or you're going to put the book away, and you're going to tell your friends it was boring.
The part I've reached is the middle. The dead on middle of the middle -- in the middle of middledom. Where the story is balancing on the edge of first half or second half. I have come to where the story needs to be about what the story is about.
Did that sound strange? No worries. It doesn't have to sound right, because you'll instinctively know when you encounter it. If you don't here's another point when you put the book away. This time your friends are going to be told it was bad. Odd, isn't it? You read a quarter and the book is boring, but if it's good enough to keep you halfway it becomes bad.
Anyway, this is the part we don't read so much about. Especially those of us who are unpublished yet. Get that first book inside the loop no matter what! Bad idea. You see, the putting books away department of readers is something possibly even worse than never getting published. This is where a book starts tanking. Tanking happens after the writer has lost his or her publishing virginity. After the word debut can be used as an excusing factor.
In the genre I'm primarily interested in, tanking walks around like a juggernaut somewhere around book number two in a series. That is bad news for the publisher and even worse for the writer. It could even herald the end of a writing career, and so I'll spend some time on the what makes a reader put away the book, thank you very much.
For my part, I have to decide if my book has taken shape or not, and that means reading a first draft still under production, and that, quite frankly, is painful. There are continuity problems unresolved from the earlier parts, chapters that need splitting up, scenes that must move far away from where they are now, and we're talking pages here, not landscape, and scenes that simply has to go. It is, in other words, not anything a reader with his mind intact, would want to read. It is also what I need to read, because I have only written the story this far and that is by no means the same as reading it.
Ugh, yuck and blaeh.
What we do for our words.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
The ins and outs...
... of using the service aren't always as obvious as they may seem.
Oh well, now what I wanted published is published rather than what was accidentally published.
Don't worry, I'll find another error to commit later instead.
Oh well, now what I wanted published is published rather than what was accidentally published.
Don't worry, I'll find another error to commit later instead.
And writing done
A full 2.1k done today. That fills my quota for the day with a small bonus tagged on top. 64k total now. Definitely in the realm of book length manuscript.
Story flows on as well. Of course, this is a first draft and I'm staring a major rework in the face later, but I had counted on that from the start.
Story flows on as well. Of course, this is a first draft and I'm staring a major rework in the face later, but I had counted on that from the start.
Writing some more
Almost at weeks goal now, and a full three hours of writing ahead of me. Yum!
And yes, this place is a lot faster than the previous.
And yes, this place is a lot faster than the previous.
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