That’s what this is. Really, it is, only it’s voyeuristic on your part. I bare a part of my soul, or consciousness, or even a little creativity in the hope that you’ll read it and love it. Maybe it’s more like internet dating. Filling out a check list of things to make me seem interesting enough to peak your interest.
Here goes.
Not really.
(You didn’t actually think I’d try after that build up)
No, today is a slow day creatively speaking. I spent most of my zesty energies into putting together this bare skeleton of a webpage. Copying and pasting my books into menus was an exhausting workload of key strokes and mouse movements.
So I’ll talk technical.
As you can see, from this and my books, I like:
This.
I love it.
See, I don’t like commas, or periods, or anything but hyphens and parentheses. Sometimes a colon. Sometimes a fragment. Other times a run on. Maybe I do like periods.
I also loathe Word. I love it for writing research papers that are short and easily held in my head as a single narrative. But that’s rarely the case with fiction, or larger papers for that matter. So I use Scrivener. Been using it for a few years now. It was originally developed for screen writers so everything is broken down into scene-act structure which makes it perfect for writing novels in a dramatic way. It’s also great for writing everything else. Notes, papers, assorting random mental spewings. They all fit in well. Give it a trial run and watch all the videos, you’ll fall in love with it (and it’s cheap!).
My pillows are shedding feathers. How does that happen?
Literature wise, I like post modern. I still read Pride and Prejudice, and watch the PBS miniseries (the second one), and have a soft spot for Poe and Lovecraft, but I like the weird. I love the freedom of post modern. And I like that they don’t rely as much on plots forming neat arcs so much as the exploration of what literature can do. Pynchon is the hallmark of this. Rereading Gravity’s Rainbow again brought me right back to the world of beautiful writing and the lack of coherence. It makes sense in its own right, but not so much outside of that. I’d kill to write like Pynchon (maybe just strangle a puppy).
And one last thing. If you read my chapters/book, send a comment my way. I’m insecure like that.
James
jameswilliaml 
I so want to try Scrivener, but I have so much on the go right now, learning a new software seems daunting. I’ve been told it takes many many hours to learn… Is that true?
I’m looking forward to reading your blog 🙂
Could you do me a favour though, and either put a widget on the side or a box below the comments so I can follow you by email? I rarely go into my reader.
Thanks 🙂
It takes forever and it doesn’t. To get basic functionality out of it doesn’t take much time at all. It’s like word in that respect, only a little more complicated at times and sometimes easier. Both have enormous typesetting powers. But you can sit down, open a page, and write like any other program. Then comes compiling. This is where it has a lot of power. You can output your work into just about any conceivable file out there. That includes LaTeX.
So if you’re looking to just dive in, you can do that. But a few youtube videos later and you’ll be doing things you couldn’t dream of in word. I’d suggest you give the trial a shot and watch a video on how to use some of it. After maybe half an hour you’ll be comfortable with the basic workings.
Thank you so much for this! I’ll download it on my weekend off and give it a try. 😀