TWIC:drawing, generators, formatting, words

Just when I'd promised to keep away from TWICs and Quora, I've found something cool for TWIC and wrote a Quora answer I am proud of.  Hmm.  Well, I didn't spend much time surfing on Quora so that's something.

The cool thing is auto draw. That's the description of a new Google tool, My drawing and the suggestion.

Here is the direct link to the tool.
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I've written about various online idea generators, ones that offer a list of names or possible book titles, or fantasy maps. You can probably find them here. Here are two more: Fantasy name generators and Seventh Sanctum. From the latter, a list of names for 'dark rituals'!

Accursed Communion of the Ever-living Avatar of Winds
Conjuration of Ensnaring Spectres
Demonic Ceremony of Misery
Dreadful Demigods' Ritual of Wickedness
Ever-changing Invocation of Foul Demigods
Fiendish Ghosts' Working of Chambers
Foul Demigod's Ritual of Omens
Incantation of Flesh
Incantation of the One-Hundred Gods of Death
Invocation of the Decree of Unholiness
Legendary Sacrifice of Crystaline KnivesLurking Beasts' Evocation of Agony

And Anime Powers generator:

Cable Blaster
Crushing Enlightenment
Exploding Harpoon
Fist Inhumation
Future Knuckle
Gleaming Blast
Green Club
Heaven Persuer
Hot Kill
Keen Program
Paramour Battler
Ripping Ward

My son always wanted me to play Pokemon with him - not the card or video games, but us acting out our own fights and such.  We had to plan our special attacks and abilities. I tormented him so much by choosing "Good dancing" or 'sense of rhythm' as my ability. Eventually he stopped asking me to play. Hmm. Now I feel bad.

There are a lot more generators there and some writing ones. From Plot Twists:

A string of numbers turns out to refer to a medical formula.
Because of a solar flare, the lead suddenly reveals a hateful side - which makes things much easier
Due to torture a character has to be hospitalized.
It's revealed that everything that is happening is all a dream. That's when everything becomes stranger

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Publisher in the proper format for Amazon and Kindle is now easier. Amazon offers new software for formatting:

If you've prepared a book in Microsoft Word, Kindle Create (Beta) helps you convert it so it's ready to publish to Kindle devices and apps. Kindle Create (Beta) makes it easier to go through the file conversion process, preventing the kinds of errors that can slow down publishing.
Kindle Create (Beta) helps you

• Preview and edit your book as it will appear in Kindle format--before you publish
• Create and edit your table of contents while styling your book. Add professionally-designed themes to make your eBook better-looking and easier to read

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The lessons Wendig has learned in writing 20 books in 5 years. There are 25; here are 3.

3. THE MUSE DOESN’T HUNT YOU, YOU HUNT THE MUSE
Waiting for inspiration is a fool’s game. You hunt it. You summon it. Writing is an act of laying traps for the Muse. Writing does not follow inspiration. It goes the other direction. You become inspired through the act of writing, of telling stories. Just sitting down and doing the work lays bait. It’s an alluring trail Reese’s Pieces meant to draw the extraterrestrial Muse into your house. 

4. IDEAS ARE EASY
For a long time I thought ideas were everything. I thought them precious pearls, when the reality is, they’re just driveway gravel. I got a hundred ideas whipping around my head every day, and the majority of them are sounds and noises — grunts in the dark, a gibber, a wail. I used to write them all down. I’d hoard them like a crow hiding colorful strips of ribbon in its nest. Now, I let them go. I shove them back out the door with not a moment’s interest. Then I wait. If those little bastards come back, if they sneak in through the vents like John McClane, if they creep in through the boltholes like a mouse — well, okay then. That’s an idea that wants to haunt me. That’s an idea whose grunts and gibbers might turn into a song. They’re all still driveway gravel, but maybe once in a while one of those pieces of flinty limestone has some quartz buried in there — something crystalline, with depth, with shine, something worth looking at. At the end of the day, though, no idea is worth anything but the work you give it. You still gotta polish that stone. You still gotta write it all down and make it shine. 

5. FIND YOUR DAMN PROCESS — THEN CHALLENGE IT
I often tell a story about how it took me five years to write — or rather, figure out how to write — Blackbirds, and that journey involves me learning I needed to outline my books before I write them. Some folks take that lesson as me telling them: “You have to outline.” But that’s not it. I have to outline. I don’t know what the fuck you need to do; you have to figure that out. You have a process. So go find it. Maybe that means writing 2k every day, reliably. Maybe it means writing 15,000 words every other weekend. Maybe it means you write in coffee shops, or in the crawlspace under your house. Maybe it means you eat a handful of bees before you begin. I dunno. That’s on you to figure it out, and while it’s important to figure out what you write and why you write, it’s also incredibly necessary to figure out how you write. You may think how you write is the way others have told you it must be, but that doesn’t make it true. Also important: when your process isn’t working, you need to evolve it. Your process isn’t one thing forever just as you aren’t one person forever. Challenge it. Change it. See the river and go with it.

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Sergei Prokudin Gorskii was a remarkable photographer a hundred years ago. That link goes to an image search in his name. Here he is on Wikipedia and at the Library of Congress. From the Google Search:

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The drawfee channel on Youtube.

Welcome to Drawfee, where we turn dumb ideas into even dumber drawings!

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Words with prefixes but not without.  You can be 'disgruntled' but never 'gruntled'.

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito.

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