Hi there. Already thinking about Christmas

I want to make a wind up toy where when you turn a crank, the sleigh and reindeer rock up and down as if surfing the wind and clouds.

I worked out the basics here.

And this is where I am today.

I used the paper to measure how much room I will need for the base. More than  two feet! It is a big prototype!

And what would it look like with a cute dinosaur in Rudolph's position?

I can't recall what the schematic calls for, but I will use a 2X4 for the base, straightened and re-curled paperclips to hold the crank shaft and the crankshaft itself will be a straightened and refolded coat hanger.
 

First and finish thoughts on Nanowrimo

Note: I wrote the first part of this entry for Quora.

First writing session- fantastic!

I am not much of a writer. Here on Quora, I mostly do one-pass essays in answer to questions so there isn’t much polish and there are foolish typos.

That latter problem is no problem for Nanowrimo - I try (and mostly fail) to ignore them and keep going.

The problem for me is writing outside of Nanowrimo. On Dec 1, I typically keep going, writing a few hundred words. By Dec 5, it is a single hundred words and I take a break for Christmas that lasts ten months…until the next Nanowrimo comes around.

I have written the full name - the full abbreviation? - several times. From now on, it will be Nano - SEO be damned!

The thing is, after that ten month break, I am ready to go.

This morning, November first, I started writing at 12:00:30 am. And it was beautiful. Not the writing exactly; there were good-enough words and circumlocutions as needed. But the flow of ideas, that was wonderful. That is why I write for Nano. I have ten words written and need to make a decision. I make it and suddenly three hundred words tumble out. Decision time again. Huh, that was a strange choice - let’s keep going. Two hundred more words and now not exactly as my outline beside my computer suggests. Something more is needed here; Fantasy name generators to the rescue and I don’t have to hesitate and think about a cool name that isn’t a letter away from Mithrandir. Three hundred more words. I am stuck briefly. Time to describe the surroundings. Okay, I see a way forward. Now there is a meeting of two people who might not get along. This is a heroic fantasy- will I use a cliched threat-and-size-up-the-opposition meeting or try something new? Thirty seconds later, I am trying something new - not as suspenseful but more real to me.

It is now 1:30 am and I have just over the day’s minimum done. As I lie down, three ideas come to mind and I scribble them down before turning off the light.

I am not much of a writer but I write the hell out of Nano!

...

...

...

I finished 50,000+ words on Nov 28. 

The last two days, I have written nothing further on the story.

I started the story with five ideas and maybe three or four plot points that I wanted to hit. I would say that most of the writing in the past month was exploring the fantasy world. I created a few different magic systems, the treaties between Dwarves and Humans, a variety of near-deities that live on the world and much of a human kingdom. I did fill out a few plot points but would say that what I made was the world the events would take place in. 

One thing I learned or confirmed, was that when I have a good idea of a specific part of the story, the words pour out wildly fast. I pumped out 2000 good words in an hour and that included a bathroom break. Other days, when I knew I wanted "Keith should learn about XYZ magic here from Feena" but nothing else, those 1,700 words came painfully slowly. Enough pantsing. The next time I work on a story, I will have it better worked out. I already know how surprising things can grow and change during the writing process but my preparation will be greater.

One trivial thing I need is a list of acceptable names. I would again and again have a bit character appear for what I thought was one scene but turn into five and include a few lines of dialog. In first draft style, I simply called these characters "Guard" or "the red-shirted man" But a scene later I felt I had to give him a name. So simple having a list of good names would have been useful.

So I would have been better off with "Lord Selo is one of the bad guys. He rules lands in this area (Map). He had a wife (name) and three children (name, name, name). He has two principle advisors(n, n) and three of his knights are (n, n, n ). Even without giving these characters much in the way of characteristics having their names handy would have helped me organize the plot and my writing.

I need to add about a thousand words of plot to my current story. Then I let it sit until I want to finish it. Then, I think I will go back to my Steampunk story. It is still the most fun and interesting for me and has the more rational plot so far.

I've taken a big step! And 'interesting' stuff

Today, while walking with my wife, I told her I wanted to publish a book in 2019. I wanted the same thing in 2018 and also 2017, 2016 and maybe even 2015 but this is the first time I have told anyone.

The admission or goal came out as we studied some interesting driving near our home in Penetanguishene. I suppose there is a metaphor or parable about taking a different path I could offer here but it seems to obvious and less fitting than it appears.

There is a private road paralleling the main one. It is a private road servicing some condos. At the far end and in the middle, out of sight, are two entrances to the street. The private road at this end just carries on beyond the condos for no obvious reason. It sure looks like there should be a connection to the street, but there isn't. I guess the angled curb meant it was easy to make that connection to someone apparently in a hurry.

On with my story. Searching for an ironic euphemism, I called the driving 'interesting' while I was wondering it 'impaired' or 'stupid' were better. I took some pictures and my wife told me I always took pictures of interesting things.

At this point I told her I wanted to publish a book next year. She was appropriately appreciative and admiring.

Then I tried to explain my train of thought. In the writing I had done already, I wrote most slowly, most painfully, the parts of getting from A to B. But when writing the interesting parts, my fingers flew over the keyboard and I think I even made fewer mistakes even while writing faster. So I needed to find and make more interesting parts of my currently unfinished stories so I could write them faster.

Oh, she was and is still supportive. I realize the previous two paragraphs sound like the setup for a joke. "She was admiring, I explained myself, now she is divorcing". No, I just wanted to write about writing interesting stuff. And describe my excitement for next year.

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Alright, exciting stuff. Last year, I read one and a half books of Butcher's Furies of Calderon series. Everything in this story is exciting. The action jumps from scene to scene without let up. So much stuff happens. And I didn't exactly become bored by the action but did want more detailed world building laid out in a more relaxed manner so I could admire it rather than grasp at hints in the furious action. I liked it but couldn't finish - I felt too tired by it.  I do want to return to it as it had a lot of what I like in my fiction. Maybe I just need to rest up before diving in.

In 2018 and also maybe in 2017, I started to read City Stained Red by Sam Sykes. The story is different in feel than Butcher's but shares the same reckless, headlong action. I thought I liked such things. I definitely admire Sykes' ability to smoothly insert back story into the action.  There were no flashbacks or "as you remember, ...." which are too obviously meant for the reader to catch up with. Instead, with believable banter and dialog, the back story is fit into the action. Again, I do admire this and Sykes' book is probably the best book I couldn't finish. Much better than many books I could and did finish.

I don't know. Those two books - or a series and a book - were somehow 'too' interesting for me. How can I describe the story I want to write: Interesting and exciting but also with 'educational' parts? Parts where I show off my world building? I guess I want something like Niven's Ringworld where the location itself is a character. Or Hillerman's police procedurals set in Navajo territories where again the landscape and culture figure so strongly in the stories.

TWIC: Quora, poor artists, interview, writing graphic novels

On Quora, how to make fantasy character more intriguing.

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Also on Quora, an author, I think Mercedes Lackey, wrote about how she does not do seat-of-the-pants writing now. She needs a clear ending before she starts writing. As this is (one of) my problem, it is good to hear that I can be, and should be proactive about it. She suggested Beat Sheets which the link offers an explanation of. Here are some of the beats, minus the explanations:

Opening Image -
Set-up –
Theme Stated (happens during the Set-up) –
Catalyst –
Debate –
Break Into Two (Choosing Act Two) –
B Story –

Similar templates for organizing a story.
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The National Writing Project Knowledge Base.

We believe that the Knowledge Base will be useful for a range of Writing Project work. Nonetheless, we particularly wanted to address the needs of potential teacher leaders who will enter Writing Project sites via new pathways beyond a traditional summer institute. These might be teachers in a hybrid summer institute, for example, or in a year-long program focused on a specific content area, or in a program for community-based educators. Our goals have been to identify foundational resources with the elasticity to introduce Writing Project principles to an increasingly diverse population of teachers as well as to gather content that is specific enough to speak to emerging teacher leaders from such a range of experiences.

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Stress over bills doesn't build character and improve your writing; it is just stress.
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CBC interview with Canadian author Dania Tomlinson.
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Maggie Tokuda-Hall asks for, and gets, some help on how to write for a graphic novel.
Jeff Rider, in that thread, says:

I still write a LOT of the physical panel descriptions, specifically to position characters in a shot so the 1st speaker is in the correct position, indicate mood via facial expression, or indicate time of day and light sources. ESPECIALLY if I’m working with a new Collaborator.

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Thinkin' about the new year

I have some concerns that don't really fit this blog and are a little too personal for me to share. I wrote a sort letter to myself as a way of thinking through resolutions and such. Here is what I am willing to put online:

I want to be a writer. I have spent a lot of time thinking about writing but not much time actually writing. This mess of an essay doesn't count. I have five Nanowrimo books maybe halfway completed and I need to finish one and try to sell it. I need to do this to see if I can do this professionally.
I made a list of things I want to measure at this camp. They include:
Writing: mostly this should be number of words written that day toward completing a book.
Other Creative: This might be wood carving. I don't know what else but I do want to encourage myself in this area.
Hours spent Outside: I love being outdoors but I hate leaving my apartment. I don't care what the numbers are at first, I only want to know if I should change them.
Hours slept: I nap a lot. It is time to cut back on naps.
Hours spent on the computer: My son is not alone in using the computer too much. It is time to see how long I am sitting here and then decide how long I should be sitting.
Exercise: I think this is clear enough. It is tough for me to exercise in the winter but i have to find something to do.

TWIC: at camp, Microsoft Word, grit, balance, planning

I start my This Week In Creativity roundups the day after the previous one is posted. So I am writing this on Tuesday the eighteenth. Between now and the time this is posted I will start work at an ESL and science camp. I really can't say if this will be a shorter post than usual or not.

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Encouraging grit and imagination in the classroom. This sounds like the perfect post for me. Actually the Sci-Am link starting this paragraph only describes the videos and idea.  The videos are at Imagination Institute and look to be a version of TED talks.
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Using Microsoft Word to write a book? Among book snobs, the idea is nearly revolutionary. The industry standard is probably Scrivener or the like. But Tallulah Lucy defends Word.

My trilogy is currently sitting at 316,078 words, which amounts to 732 Microsoft Word pages. It’s all in a single doc.
I’m not saying that to impress anyone (it still needs to be edited down!). Only because a few people I’ve chatted to seem to think that you need some fancy writing software to write anything of that length. I actually find Word really easy to use, and it’s all because a few years ago I figured out how to structure a document for a novel.
Here’s what I do, and hopefully it can help you too.
1. Navigation Pane
Under “View” on the main menu, check “Navigation Pane”. This is the key to the entire thing. The Navigation Pane allows you to view the document by headings, pages or by search results. The headings is the important thing, as you will be able to navigate directly to each heading by clicking on it.
2. Scrap yard and Marker
The first thing I type is Scrap Yard, the second is Marker. Both of these should be on their own lines and set to Heading 1. You will find Heading 1 under Styles on the Home tab of the main menu. Then they show up in the Navigation Pane. You want to start typing your novel above this.
3. Using headings to structure the novel
Something that I know I vastly underestimated when I started writing was how much time I’d spend skipping back to check stuff. Whether it’s a character name, a piece of dialogue or what the hell happened in That One Scene, I do it at least three times in every writing session.
Now for each section of a story that I write, I will use headings so that I can easily find that part again.

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I offer links to various archives and collections of public domain art and such in these posts. As they are public domain, one can snip and mix and match to make new art. For someone with my shaky hands, this is a better option than drawing new stuff. Anyway, the following archive is not public domain, I think, but is another example of barely restrained creativity; 25 or more years of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine are in Archive dot org.
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Balancing work and life, and hustle

Good Hustle:
-Constantly striving to improve
-Professional, courteous, positive
-Pursuing what you love
-Should be praised

— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) July 17, 2017

Bad Hustle:
-Missing sleep to work more
-Compromising health for sake of craft
-Missing out on relationships
-Should not be praised

— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) July 17, 2017

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And Sergio Pereira on a writing and life balance:

That said, there are moments when I need to breathe. This week, for example, I had one of those flustered, overwhelming feelings. You know, that feeling where you ask yourself what you are doing with your life. It bums you out and you start to think negatively about stuff, which makes matters even worse.
...
Mental health isn’t a joke. If you’re feeling down, it’s your brain telling you that something is wrong and you need to fix it. Burning out won’t impress anyone and does more damage than good in the long run. Learn to listen to the signs that your mind and body emit and respect that balance is needed. Trust me, sometimes delaying that piece of writing by a week or a month will be worth more than completing it right now.

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Should you plan your story ahead or not? Every attempt I have made to writing a book has stumbled to a halt roughly 80~90% in with no clear idea of how to wrap it up. This is true for stories that I had excellent plans for (plans until the end, of course) and for stories I made up from the start with no pre-planning.

The question of whether or not to plan, and how much planning to do, is a particularly weighty one when it comes to novel writing. Because novels are heavily reliant on structure, and because they are such a massive undertaking by any measure, outlining might seem both practical and necessary—a way to make the abyss of the blank page feel a little bit less … well, abyss-like.
But is outlining actually necessary? Of course not.
When it comes to writing a novel, the only thing that is necessary is actually, you know, writing it. How you get there is entirely up to you. But should you outline?
Though advice often comes in the form of absolutes (you must write every day; you must show, not tell; you must kill your darlings), I’m wary of them under any circumstances, and I think they’re especially useless when it comes to process. While not knowing how to proceed is a very common problem, the particular psychological hurdles of starting (let alone finishing) a project are individual. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

The tiny bit of wood carvin experience I have informs me that a fairly solid plan is necessary before starting. I can't just whittle your way into an interesting carving. I need a few pictures and diagrams and measurements before blade touches wood.
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John Grisham offers writing advice.
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Quantity eventually create quality.

TWIC: keeping up, saving time, resting, rowling, banning, cycling, plotting, changing, burning

I fell behind in my Nanowrimo word count but today typed nearly three thousand words and am keeping up. In one hour, a new day begins and I need another sixteen hundred, sixty-seven words but for this hour, I am caught up! (written Nov 3)
As of November 6 evening, I was on track, with 10,020 words, twenty more than needed. I am struggling with this story. My word choices are just fillers right now; there are so many times where I think, "I know there's a better word. T--, th---, tr---, ar... Okay, later."
To cheer me up, here is some terrible writing by great writers.
Nov 8: I'm having a tough time working through the story and events my heroes are experiencing. The story for the bad guy is just pouring out my fingers. He is steadily becoming more interesting. And I feel bad for beating the hell out of him. Word count-wise, still on track as of mid-November 8.

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time saving tips from a guy who spent thirteen years drawing a comic. Video. I hope to watch it but needed to record the URL here before I shut down the computer. The audio volume icon is missing from the task bar and I am hoping that restarting the computer will make it reappear.
Anyway, the video looks interesting.
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A rested brain is more creative. An excerpt:

How have you come to define rest, and what are some of the biggest misconceptions about it?
What I mean by rest is engaging in restorative activity. It's not necessarily completely passive for one thing. We tend to think of rest as putting your feet up, and you've got the margarita and you're binge watching Orange Is the New Black. For people in my study, their idea of rest was more vigorous than our idea of exercise. These are people who go on long walks covering 15 or 20 miles in a day or climb mountains on vacation. For them, restful activities were often vigorous and mentally engaging, but they experienced them as restorative because they offered a complete break from their normal working lives.

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What it was really like to write Harry Potter The excerpt contains a quote from Rowling, that I put in italics.

Even though Harry Potter strolled into Rowling’s head fully formed, she still spent several years mapping out the seven books, and then she spent another year writing the first one, Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone. Rowling rewrote Chapter One so many times (upwards of fifteen discarded drafts) that her first attempts “bear no resemblance to anything in the finished book”—which was especially frustrating since Rowling was a single parent and her writing time was entirely contingent on her infant daughter, Jessica.
Whenever Jessica fell asleep in her [stroller], I would dash to the nearest café and write like mad. I wrote nearly every evening. Then I had to type the whole thing out myself. Sometimes I actually hated the book, even while I loved it.
Rowling also had to waste her already limited time on nuisances like re-typing an entire chapter because she changed a paragraph or, even worse, re-typing the entire manuscript because she hadn’t double-spaced it. 

There is more. Rowling had a lot of stress. Maybe the sort of stress that earning a million dollars deserves but still is not pleasant.
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The value of challenged books.

...as the comments from readers demonstrate, these books help them negotiate the transition from childhood to adulthood, by introducing them to fictional characters dealing realistically with the complex and confusing world that young people confront. Some themes emerged from the responses:
● This book made me more empathetic, tolerant, and accepting, of myself and others. It helped me relate better to others and talk to them about things we never would have discussed otherwise.
● This book made me realize that I’m not the only one with problems; it helped me feel more normal and less alone.

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Using a bike-desk at 30% Vmax improves or maintains efficiency. I have long been interested in a treadmill desk and discussed the subject with a coworker. He didn't feel he could type well enough to be worth it while running. I had suggested that the goal wasn't top speed running but simply to get more exercise than sitting. These results, on a bike desk, rather than treadmill, make it all seem reasonable. Too bad a good treadmill for this usage runs around $1500.

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In the first minute of this Tales of the Unexpected episode, Roald Dahl describes the effort it took him to get it right.

The original story is quite short. But I am such a ridiculously slow writer it took me something like five months to get the thing finished which is more than 600 working hours. That probably sounds quite silly to you.
But in trying to work the plot out properly I took so many wrong turning and went up so many blind alleys that I nearly went crazy. Don't forget a short story writer is working in miniature and he can't afford to splash his paint all across the canvas. He has to be extremely precise. I find it quite difficult.

Indeed. This is one of my favorite stories by Dahl and it clearly had to be carefully plotted. I do think there is more humour in the written story
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The project post-mortem as a (poor) mechanism for change and improvement.

A lot of effort has gone into detailing the processes for an optimal post-mortem. These outlines all tend to look the same. A typical workflow might entail a project and team survey followed by a team debrief that leads to actionable next steps for "next time." But the idea of the post-mortem is challenged by our cultural tendencies: It's not that we don't want to be better, but rather we don't think we need to be better--as a group, that is. As much as we may tout collaborative work and team relationships, we're primed for individual success.

...

It may be more useful to invite the team to critically evaluate the project before it begins and then assess these flags throughout the project. This exercise needs to go a step more than identifying risks to the project that get documented as assumptions in a statement of work, but should talk about why the project might fail within the organization--and open the door to all possibilities.

The article may include insights but seems to devolve into case studies that show one technique worked (or didn't) once but offers little statistically significant data.
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Frank Herbert on writing

It comes as a shock to many in our print-oriented civilization to be told that language, the basic tool of the writer, is more oral than written. Contemplate those thousands of years of oral tradition before we ever ventured to carve symbols in clay and stone. We are most profoundly conditioned to language-as-speech. The written word is a latecomer.
Before you will believe the reality of a story, someone must stand up on that printed page and speak. His words must have the characteristics of speech. They must reach your ears through your eyes. Under the onslaught of non-print media (TV, film, radio, cassette players…) this is becoming ever more necessary. The oral tradition has never really been subjugated.

Man, certain dead people sure do publish a lot of books!
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Sam Sykes on creative burnout and frustration. He went into detail, over the course of  16 posts. I enjoy his insights and don't want to offer too much here; go follow him. However, here are six of his tweets on the subject. Note that they are threaded chronologically with the newest on top.

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Thinking about carving my (golf)balls.

I have carved the cores of a few golf balls before but am suffering from a lack of imagination for any of these.  I tell people my hobby is wood carving but I haven't done enough to get good enough to want to do more yet.

In the past, I have carved two elephants into cores.

The lower ball in the picture has a strange pattern drawn on the shell and '2015' so I've clearly had it for a while.

At the upper right is a Pasteur Milk golf ball. I have worked at a school near Pasteur Milk in Korea and the company once funded the school.  I want to give this ball to a teacher there.  He is German and teaches history.  His hobby is bug-hunting. Hmm. Beer-drinking mosquito?

Online resources for golfball core carving:

Suggestions from the Northwest Carvers Association.

III. Preparing the center for carving: (All sorts of subjects can be carved into the center. Here are hints to doing a face.

a. Planning and drawing the face:

1. Patterns can be found in many sources--magazines, books, paintings. You can copy expression and muscle movement from your own face.
2. Find the center, place lines. If you plan to use a hat or a beard you need to be sure to have space for these. (See Example 1)
3. I draw the nose a bit larger to leave room for error (See Example 2)

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Patterns from carver's compantion. Here are some cropped examples:

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I think this carver's exchange is ongoing.  You register with them and commit to carving one golf ball a month for six months and send off to others while collecting the same from six other carvers.  I guess this means you could carve the same thing six times.

Life of SurprisesAplenty and plans for the future

I am unemployed.

I am looking for work and a white-skinned English speaker in Korea with a clean record will always find work.  I would prefer to work at a university, as I have for more than 12 years, but I will to settle in the short term for more ... work.

A quick discussion of ESL teaching at a Korean university:   Honestly and sadly, the single best part of being a 'professor' (some universities bestow that title, while others stick with the more honest 'instructor') is how little there is.
At my last university, I worked twelve to sixteen hours a week, thrity weeks a year.  Those were class-time hours and I had other duties, but they weren't scheduled and repetition reduced their volume greatly.  And naturally, I worked off campus, but when I wanted a month or two to do something else, I had it, and was paid.
The students were polite and many, even most, wanted to learn but few were driven or excited by the non-major, mandatory ESL classes.
At children's after-school classes, the English being displayed was not much lower than that of my uni students; the biggest difference was that, instead of being too active and disruptive in class, my uni students were too sleepy.
Teaching at an extended learning school for adults was great; the students were eager and since they were paying, they focused on the material and tried to use English.  On the other hand, classes for adults are scheduled early and late; I used to teach 6:30 to 12:00 pm and again in the evening 5:00 to 9:30pm.

Back to me and this blog.

I want to be a professional writer.  I am trying to write every day but it is so easy to leave my writing for later and later until there is no more later left and I go to sleep. This is my chance to see if I can do it.  I've completed Nanowrimo a few times but I haven't completed a book.
I started this blog because I was curious about what it means to be creative.  It became a diary and study notes on creativity research.  I want this blog to continue in these functions but advice from authors and creatives is that I need to be in the public eye and producing interesting content as a way to promote my style or brand or self so that a future, hypothetical book will sell the first few copies.
There is an author I follow on Twitter and I have mentioned this person on my blog, how recycles posts. This probably means the author has more time to write the books that pay the bills but I think it reduces the value of the author's social media outreach.  I digressed lengthily on ESL teaching so I'll save my thoughts on social media outreach for another post, but I want my posts here to be fun, to be of Goldilocks length and not to get in the way of my book writing.

Here are my ideas.  As I work these out, I will likely assign specific days to  individual ideas but for now, I will work through the list once or a few times to see how they work out.

Creativiti ideas:

Clickbait answers and guesses I have found links and suggestive images as 'promoted content' at the bottom of various blogs. They are often of the, "How did this woman become a millionaire at age 25?" and a picture of a woman showing a whole lot of leg in a luxury car.  I am going to see if I can guess how or why "Doctors don't want you to see this video!"  I may actually follow the link and read or watch that video but I don't think I need to.

Exploring Incheon I am unemployed because my wife was transferred to a new city, Incheon, and I followed her here. In my fifteen-odd years in Korea, I have visited Incheon only once so now I can be a tourist again and explore a city that is far less grimy than I had been led to believe.  This will not necessarily be 'creative' but perhaps my photos will be of exhibition quality.

TWIC Naturally, I will continue This Week In Creativity, where I post a number of links to relevant material.  In the past, this has been to author's blogs, archives of public domain images and somewhat scientific articles on the study of creativity.

Evolution I have another blog, one focused on evolution and creationism.  I will try to post material there on a weekly basis and post a link to this blog for anyone interested in the subject.

Education Can you teach someone to be creative? Can you teach so as not to damage your student's creativity?  I have written on the subject before (and given lectures and seminars on the subject) and you can expect more of the same.

Animals I was joking earlier about 'exhibition quality' photos.  I have some eye for framing but my images are typically more educational than stylish or artistic.  Still, when you take a lot of pictures, a few turn out pretty well.  Expect images of local animals here.

Book reviews As a wannabe writer, reading is a good way to learn the craft.  I read a lot but tend to skim through a book. Case in point, despite all my reading, I still have trouble with basic grammar and punctuation.  I don't expect this to become a grammar blog but I will write about ideas found in different books and how the authors describe things.

So, these are my goals.  Let's see what happens!

Plotting your story

Openculture has a hand-drawn spreadsheet of JK Rowling's plans for part of Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix.  The page only shows the plot for part of the book and my image below has been cropped so if you want to see the whole thing, follow the link

Nanowrimo is ongoing and I can see the end...of the month, but not the story.  I will reach 50,000 words but I don't know when the story will end.

If I have a plan or technique for writing a novel -and I can't say I have as I haven't finished one -I guess it is to read 2-3 books on appropriate research topics, then write a first draft. Then, once I know what I need to know, do more research.  I need a big piece of paper to get organized on and Scrivener's bulletin board feature isn't tactile enough for me.  I prefer real paper and inks of varied colours.

Writing!

First stage of planning something? reach for the paper. Also, Busan Writing Group and Good Professing

Apple has a fancy new iPad Pro that the firm hopes will be favoured by designers.  And yet, most designers start with paper in their design process.

I've heard good things about Slack. They love it at 99% invisible.

For my more-limited organizational work, I too go to paper and a coloured Sharpie or disposable fountain pen.

Via Wired which led to these survey results.
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The Busan Writing Group will join us in Nanowrimo this year and their first book has been published.

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Finally, a PDF on How to be a good professor.
The word 'creative' pops up at least once but I've included it mostly so I remember to reread it and consider my own work.

Crossposting: Summer plans

I have too many blogs.  Here I write about creativity and writing.  At creationevolutionbusan, I write about evolution and science. And at surprisesaplenty.wordpress.com, I write about other subjects, mostly family life, teaching and travel.

At the Surprisesaplenty site, I wrote this:

This summer I appear to have a lot of free time.  I hope to work an ESL camp in August and have a few other commitments but essentially I have time to work on my own projects.  Most of these projects deal with writing.

Writing Plans and Goals:

• 13 blogposts for 6,500 words.  Why 13?  I can't recall why I chose this number.  Somewhat more than two a week, I guess.
• 3 short stories: Working titles are 1) Ants, 2) Vampire on a boat and 3) Hyperbaric Chamber.  I'm figuring 2,000 words each
• Push forward one or all three of the books I have started and let sit.  30,000 words is the goal and I don't mind jumping from book to book as seems fit. Working titles are 1) Return of the Haloed Hunter, 2) the Distancing Engine and 3) Creationism's worst arguments
• 2 letters per week to friends.  Around ten letters and 2,000 words.
• Perform research and planning for future "Crowded Sky" story. As much as 5,000 words.

To keep the writing interesting, I have made further goals.

• I want to write over the course of a full day.  That is, at least once in the month write from 12:00 to 1:00 AM, once from 1:00 to 2:00AM ...
• I want to write in a variety of locations.  The local mountaintop has a good table. There are some nice libraries to write in.  I'll talk about coffee shops in a moment.  Eulsookdo Eco Centre might be a nice place to work in for an afternoon.
• Soundtrack: I may use Ommwriter which has its own soundtrack but otherwise it will be autoplayed classical music starting with some Janecek and letting Youtube suggest from there. Away from Internet connections, Doug and the Slugs and other 80's music would work; the tunes are so familiar that they can be white noise or a fun background as needed.

Snacks: I bought snacks for my Nanowrimo writing and I will definitely eat in front of the computer but I need to show restraint here.  My weight is slowly dropping and I want to keep it going in that direction.  Controlling my weight is my greatest concern this summer.

Fitness:

• 18 runs with an average of 7.0 km.  I hope to attempt a solo half-marathon this summer late one evening and have been working out the course and where to place energy drinks along the way.  I am currently at 96 runs over the past six months so only the weather could prevent reaching this goal.
• Run faster than a subway train.  The local subway stations Seo-dae-shin and Dong-dae-shin are about 500 meters apart and the train takes 2:35 seconds from doors open at Seo- to doors closed at Dong-.  Further, this route is slightly downhill.  I can easily run this fast on a level surface but Seo-dae-shin is deep underground. I have no qualms or conscience problems about using the escalators but even with that assistance, there is a big climb at the start of the run.
• Swim 2km at a time. Korean pools are crowded with conversationalists and it is hard to get an unbroken swim in.  I am likely to need to stop a the end of a lane a few times.  Today, I did 1250m, with breaks and could have gone farther.
• Find 3 snorkeling places in and near Busan
• For at least 6 days, eat three meals, plus one snack plus one sweet drink.  I snack a lot and plan to spend a lot of time in front of a computer so this will be a challenge.

Education:  I am enrolled in 3 MOOCS.

• The Bilingual Brain
• Modern Korean History
• Archaeology of Portus

Family

• Teach my son to swim.
• Go on a weekend trip with the family. I would prefer a swimming site but that is negotiable.
• Read two books with my son.  I don't want this to be a purely teaching experience but one we both enjoy.  Tintin is a good contender here.
• Work on the farm.