Writing Ideas For Everyone

Ever wanted to write a novel?

I know when I am engrossed in a good read,I become more than envious at how some authors can virtually carry us away to places and scenes using descriptive language. Obviously, or so it would seem, some people were born to write. Many we assume are natural writers. But we only see the finished product.

Like preparing a delicious culinary dish, writing a good story can be as straight forward as following a recipe. Learning any craft or solving a problem involves breaking things down into individual component parts. Solving each little problem one at a time and combining those solutions until the larger problem is solved.

If someone were to explain to you how to bake a cake, you would be given a list of ingredients and the quantity of each ingredient and further instructions on how to prepare and combine those ingredients.

Most authors still follow certain regimented rules of writing to achieve their ends .While we may have visions of these authors typing away and the words and descriptive prose and verbage just coming to them in waves of creativity and spontaneity , in reality almost every paragraph was researched, planned out, and rewritten numerous times to achieve the desired effect.

Writing can be a process you can break down into multiple problems and solutions.

Just like there are many recipes on baking a cake, there are many ways to go about writing a novel. In the days ahead I will layout some common methods used in the writing process. Some of the topics and sources I will share will be.

Sources of Inspiration

Prewriting and Prewriting Strategies

Revising and Editing

Publishing

B&N Hits A Home-run With Nook Color Update.

I have been considering a tablet pc for a while now. I have read up on the current offerings and think I have narrowed it down to one that technically is not even a tablet . The Nook Color e-reader. This is not your fathers or mothers e-reader though. Its not even last years Nook e-reader. With the current updates this e-reader now has e-mail , apps, and a flash enabled browser.

It even has a productivity app for cloud docs and word processing. Basically this Nook is all I really need to fill that portability need . I spend most of my time on the laptop but it is not nearly as portable as a tablet pc or the Nook and I rarely take the laptop on the go with me because of this.

Political Correctness Is Tyranny

Suppose everyone has heard about NBC censoring the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance during the telecast of the US Open Sunday. Sometimes people and corporations do things so utterly stupid you can only shake your head in disbelief and move along. Its a bit unnerving to know that a company as large as NBC did not realize the back-lash this censoring would unleash.

Most would probably agree that that NBC’s faux pois was motivated by a misguided attempt to be politically correct. Many agnostics and atheists have come forward and blasted the censoring . While I have no evidence or proof , I would venture to say that most felt this was a very arrogant and foolish decision on NBC’s part.

What ever you believe or do not believe , corporations are getting a bit bold in promoting their own hot-button political agendas. Now while NBC is in the business of doing news, its ironic that they choose to censor out a pledge being recited by some school children. Are we to conclude that NBC only broadcasts what they want us to hear ? If it runs contrary to their agenda, will they not broadcast it ? Is this fair and balanced ? All fair questions, and NBC should be put on notice.

Also its a bit unsettling to learn that Google likes to support their political agendas through their search engine. Just was wondering what the stock-holders feel when a few people at the top within Google find it necessary to beat their political drum within their web apps. Google’s flip-flopping on gay marriage support.

Again, these companies should stick to being neutral on hot-button political issues. Its clear that collectively there is a conflict of interest . Unless those at the top want to play God. Just stay out of politics and stick to what you do well Google.

 

Why Not Privatize U.S. Prisons Or Make Them Self Sustaining ?

After coming across this article , my thought processes went kind of like this. Why doesn’t the federal and state government allow some privatization of prisons through-out the country. Or at least try to make them self sustaining  ?

O.K. , I know, prisons are not (in their present state) profit-making institutions nor are they self sustaining. But with the amount of “man-power” available, and a diverse range of skills and talent , why not put that man-power to some use.

This would benefit not only the economy, but perhaps would also help to rehabilitate some of those people and prepare them when they are released back into society.

Currently state and federal institutions rely on tax levies to operate the prison systems . In financially strapped California, the prisons have become over-crowded .

The Supreme Court has ruled that California must reduce their current prison population by 30,000 in two years.This came about because of the conditions in the prisons has reached such a state of over-crowding that it can be deemed cruel and unusual treatment. Also the safety of prison guards is a concern .

The easy answer would be to build more prisons, but the money is not available to do that. Currently California is reorganizing  and spreading out the prison population across the state and asking local jails to help out with the distribution of the prison population.

So what the general public is facing is large numbers of potential dangerous criminals being released into society because we insist on relying on a system that is obviously not sustainable in the current economy.

Putting In A Retainment Wall.

Long over-due I have finally got around to doing some landscaping around the place. Earlier in the month I planted four azalea bushes, a mungo pine, and a plum bush. The azeleas are blooming like crazy . Most of these plants went in around the front, facing the street. To add some curb appeal I thought that bordering out the planting bed with stone/concrete bricks would look good.

So after doing a little research on building retainment walls I went to the local home improvement store and picked up thirty six stone blocks,a brick chisel, some masonry adhesive, and eight bags of paver base gravel.

I took two days to dig out the outline and do a preliminary setting up of the first course of stones.I need more stone. Already had to go get twenty five more and will need to get another twenty five before all is said and done. I ran out of time so I will take some pictures, when I find my camera,and explain how I went about this. Though the first course is layed it is only a fitting. I will remove them and dig a little deeper and lay out af foundation base of several inches of paver base gravel. Then I will reset the stone and level each one as I go.

The addition of the stone retainment wall/border really made a dramatic improvement of the curb appeal and I received several compliments. All in all I spent about two hundred and fifty dollars for the plants , stone , and materials. I do not know of any single thing one can do for the money that will pay for itself and increase the value of your home than to do some carefully thought out landscaping.

I will post pics soon and updates on how everything is going. For now , I am in the middle of my work week and I work 13 hour days so I will not resume this project for several days.

Updating To Windows 7 , Is it Worth It ?

I spend most of my computer time on the laptop . Its just much more comfortable to be on the couch as opposed to sitting at the desktop. I have a Dell Inspiron 1521 AMD Turion . I upgraded the RAM to 4 GB and it was running Vista Premium. I have heard a lot of the negatives about Vista.

If you are not running your display at its highest settings and you tweek how many programs you have running at start-up, its not as slow as some would have you believe. Especially since there have been some upgrades by MS that have addressed some of the speed issues concerning Vista. Having said that it , Microsoft had a difficult task of following up XP with something better. XP was up to that point the best operating system that has ever come out of Redmond.

I still have Windows XP Pro on the desktop and it has performed admirably since 2004.

Recently I upgraded the Vista laptop to Windows 7 Ultimate. Cannot say I have noticed much of a difference so far. The upgrade was a fairly straight-forward process.
Go to Microsoft Store and downloaded the upgrade. Cost 212.00 plus tax.Not cheap !!!

After the file downloaded and I clicked Run, it took almost 8 hours for the upgrade to complete. A long upgrade process but it went smoothly, just takes awhile. The reason I wanted to upgrade was the difficulty I was having running Virtual Machine Virtual Box on Vista. From everything I had heard you could do it but was not having any luck. I suspect that the Oracle VM VirtualBox only works on Vista Ultimate.Still a little fuzzy on what versions of Vista VM will run on.

The great thing about Virtual Machines is that you can run other operating systems on your pc without the hassle altering your boot sector , etc. In the near future I will give Virtual Machine another whirl and post the results here.

In summary its too early to come to any definitive conclusion on the advantages of upgrading Vista to Windows 7 but will post periodic updates on my obeservations.

Is Your Data Safe On the Cloud ?

In two words,absolutely not. No more proof is needed than the recent news of Sony and LastPass getting infiltrated by hackers and user information being compromised. The latest casualty, LastPass could turn out  to be the single largest infiltration catastrophe ever. Stay tuned to see how this turns out.

LastPass’s slogan; “The last password you will have to remember.” , may become a rather grim irony.

LastPass Infiltrated by Hackers

LastPass is reporting some suspicious activity has been discovered on some of their servers and user data may have been compromised.

LastPass is a popular cloud based solution for password management.

Since they are experiencing an overload of hits to their site, a link is not provided .

Osama Bin Laden Killed

Reporting on tv that Osama Bin Laden is dead and his body is in the hands of  U.S. troops. President Obama to make an announcement in moments.

Chinese Authorities Block Easter Service in Beijing

I don’t usually blog about political subjects but this article kind of touched a nerve . We take a lot of our rights for granted. The right to assemble and worship being one. I really found this a bit arrogant on the part of the Chinese authorities .

For years we have heard about the lack of basic rights of individuals in other countries , its really nothing new. This article kind of just slapped me in the face with the reality of it all.

Shame on the Chinese government . And to think the US continues to be the biggest importer of Chinese  goods.

I think I will go out my way in the future to not buy Chinese made goods. Even if I have to pay more.

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