Being inefficiently efficient the dragon way

Last year I went to the RWA conference. It was a rather premature move because I had a quarter of a manuscript to my name.

I'm very glad I went. I learned a lot. And one lady made a comment about using Dragon naturally speaking that hit home hard. Whenever she got really behind on her writing, she said, she used Dragon.

I almost fell out of my chair. I knew that Dragon existed, but somehow I had never considered using it. The thoughts "I type really, really slowly*" and "dictation programs help you type really, really fast" had never connected.

So when I got home, I ordered a copy. Then the fun started.

It arrived pretty quickly, but I was catching up on other long holiday related backlog. So it sat next to my PC for a month or so in it's pretty green box.

When I did eventually get 'round to installing it, I discovered that I didn't have enough RAM. Not a problem. I checked online for my upgrade options, set of to the city, bought RAM and installed it. After all that, I was obviously much to tired to actually install Dragon as well.

So it sat next to my PC for another week.

Then life happened in the form of a parental visit, my sister's wedding, a two thousand mile round trip and other fun things**. When my head stopped spinning there was nothing next to my PC. In all the excitement I had put the little green box away for safe keeping. I have *no* idea where I put it.

I've been searching for the last three weeks. At this accounting it remains very well and very safely hidden.

All in all I've spent a lot of time on an efficiency program that I have yet to use. Not very efficient of me, when all is said and done.


*I not only failed typing in grade 9, I actually got 0% for it. If they could've given me a negative score, they probably would've. So, yes, typing is not my best thing.

**It's amazing how many really great things can happen in a month.

New Month's resolutions

I have never gone in for New Year's resolutions*. Not beyond thinking about trying to do that or the other. I have tried making a resolution on my birthday, but only once and it ran into the plothole of dooooom where it is currently still languishing.

But I am getting old and decrepit. Life is passing me by. I am almost 27!!!! The only way to halt the decay is to try new things. This year I decided to try resolutions.

Then I realized: A year is a very long time. It formed a heavy mental barrier. Every resolution I considered had me thinking: I can resolve, but I wouldn't make a year and I know it.

So I decided to break it down. My only New Year's resolution is to make monthly resolutions. This works on two levels:

1) I can keep to almost any resolution if I only have to do it for a month.

2) Most habits take 4 weeks to form. If I do keep my resolutions for a month, I'll probably end up keeping them a good while longer.

I am pretty fired up about keeping my resolutions for Jan.

How many of your resolutions are still going strong? Do you even make resolutions? If you do, do have any secrets on how to keep them?




* Two years ago I did make a New Year's resolution to buy more shoes and handbags. I had a terrible tendency to only buy new ones when what I had was way past shoddy. It was a good resolution and I kept it, but I have a nagging feeling it doesn't really count. Can't imagine why.

A pretty step

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step ... but the N1 between Paarl and Worcester isn't a bad start either:



Just two things to note:

1) Common rookie mistake: Getting speeding fines because you spent so much time gawking at the view, you missed the change in posted speed limit.

2) Driving a thousand miles in a day is actually a pretty bad idea.

Yes, of course I've done both of these.

Being professional about your hobby/blog

Now you might not have noticed, but my posting schedule is kinda erratic. Obviously that is not what I am trying to be professional about.

And the writing itself, well it happens when my real life gives it a chance to. So what on earth am I going to yammer about?

Well, ranting.

Ranting is a lot of fun. It's fun to read and it's fun to write. It can also be very, very unprofessional.

I have been thinking about this of late because I had a topic I really wanted to rant about. Unfortunately the rant touched on my work a bit more closely than hardhat hair. I felt very strongly about the topic.

I thought about it for a while before deciding that blogging about it would be inappropriate. My decision not to blog my rant came down to two facts:

1) My rant would only add another angry voice to the debate. No one really listens to angry voices and everything I wanted to say had already been said better by others.

2) Commenting on the topic in a public forum would have been unprofessional and I am not.

Both points weighed heavily on my decision making scales. They left the fun-factor-of-ranting sitting sky high and swinging its feet.

My question then is this: Where do you draw the line as far as professional on-line behavior goes? What would you never do and where are your grey areas?

Those who are about to die, look pretty

I went to the Armor section of the Metropolitan Museum when I was in New York a few months ago. My first thought upon getting close to a suite of armour for the first time was: Ooooh pretty!

It was also my second, third and fourth thought. "Damn, these guys were short," came in at about five, but after then I defaulted back to pretty for pretty much all of the rest of my visit.


I mean look at this stuff:



The closer you get, the prettier it gets:



And you have to wonder why. Why did anyone go to this much trouble?

Some of it is surely down to the fact that most of this stuff belonged to royalty or people aspiring to royalty. Apparently royalty really went for the curlicues.

Some of it must be due to professional pride and economic good sense. If you are going to spend a lot of time making something it might as well look good. And if it does look good, it is more likely to sell. And if you use gold you can charge more. Armorers had to eat too.

But I think most of it was about dressing for success. What counts in the business world probably counts double when you are fighting for your life. If confidence can give you an edge and if pretty armor makes you more confident*, then those curlicues are not about aesthetics, they are about survival.

We all still do this. We reach for the pretty armor when ever we want to do well. For interviews and presentations and first dates it makes sense. Impressions are important for these. But looking good boosts your confidence even when looking good should have no bearing on what you are doing. My best hair and makeup went along whenever I wrote thermodynamics and I don't think I am the only one who does things like this.

The question then is: Why does looking good have such a big impact on how we feel?

* Not to mention the massive benefits involved in inspiring confidence in your followers.

Things not conducive ...

... to plotting a novel:

1. The arrival of your new kindle. (There goes a weeks worth of free time :) )

2. Awesome new projects at work that force you to realize you really don't remember all that much about 3de year thermodynamics.

3. The hunt for your 3de year thermodynamics text book and notes (successful - eventually).

4. People who borrow your red pen and forget to give it back.

Things surprisingly conducive to plotting a novel:

1) Music festivals (It kinda helps that I was the designated driver).

I have the basic sequence of events down, but I am still working on what each character feels and shows in each scene. Oddly enough, the story has sex, drugs and rock & roll and I decided that it would have all of those long before I even thought about going to Joburg day.

Plotting: More important than I initially thought.

I thought I was the kind of writer who could write by the seat of their pants. Turns out that I'm not. It is a surprising realization to have with 30% of the book done.

I have written myself into quite a few plot holes over the last year and a bit, but I have always found ways to tweak things and go on. Unfortunately continuous tweaking can turn a book into a bit of a mess.

Don't get me wrong. I love the whole mess. I firmly believe parts of it are really beautiful messes. Nonetheless it is a mess. I have a few characters I adore and one or two scenes I love, but the story that is supposed to hold these scenes and characters together is not up to standard. Not at all. In fact the story lets the characters down.

After quite a bit of thought I decided to try building a strong framework before attaching the details. Yup. I might have to plot first and write later.

For my current work in progress, that spells disaster. I am so locked into the story, weak as it is, that scrapping it and starting fresh is a beyond me. So I'm putting it aside.

I am starting over. New characters, new setting, hell, new genre if it comes to that. Although doing it over differently is a good way of learning, the new wip could be a dead end. My creativity might not work unless I write by the seat of my pants. Even if that is so, I know that this will not be a waste of time. Every time I have tried something, I have learned something. A lot of the time I have simply learned what doesn't work for me.

If this new plotting tangent falls into that category, trying it will still give me enough distance to look at the characters I love and shuffle them into a story that actually works for them.

At the moment I have some ideas for a regency romance with a bit of magic and some ideas for a contemporary romance with a bit of angst. By Friday I will probably have decided which to go for.

Plotting will be a new experience, if there are fun bits, I will share.