Wasted Time

Do you ever find yourself tired, or simply not in the mood to be working, but still down on yourself for doing silly time-wasting things?

I suppose it depends on your definition of time-wasting activities. Since I work at home, it becomes working time all the time because the split between a workplace and a resting place (home) disappears. Not that it matters so much – you can read articles about how people are merging their home and work lives more and more because of excess hours worked and whatnot.

Sometimes I sit here thinking I should be writing, but fatigue eventually hits and nothing productive gets accomplished. I could watch tv, or play a mindless game online, or just smile at my daughter when she’s awake. I’m just not going to beat myself up over it for awhile. Not every single moment can be focused toward the goal.

Posted on 12 July 2009 by ransomnoble 1

Odds and Ends

Funny, yesterday I said Dawn and I had trouble gettting our schedules to mesh. Then we managed the interview last night – so check it out here.

If you checked out Crys’s blog yesterday, you saw a bunch of stuff about the struggles of self-published and small press authors. See Vivian’s response and more information at her blog here. I learned something from both of those yesterday!

In other news, I’ve been turning over my last manuscript to see what’s salvageable. There are good things and bad things about it, and it just keeps popping through my head. How much work should I put into something if I’m not sure I can publish it? It’s not keeping me up at night (I have a little one to blame for that), but I wish I had a good answer. Perhaps tomorrow will bring more insight and I’ll have fewer ideas popping in my head. (Not likely, but I don’t mind the new ideas!)

Posted on 11 July 200911 July 2009 by ransomnoble 0

Challenges

I’m one of those people who’s always looking for a challenge. I like being able to accomplish things, and writing has its own to manage.

These challenges can stretch the writing abilities. I took a piece to my writing group today, and they thought I could make it into a picture book. Funny, I just hadn’t looked at it that way. It would require a few changes, but it’d be cute.

I thought I’d never written anything like that, but it turns out I was wrong. And all of that from a prompt that said to have a story where something makes odd noises at night and not a horror story. Good thing, since I’m not much of one to write horror stories anyway. (I don’t read them much either, if you’re wondering, and I stay far away from the movies. My overactive imagination does not deal well with most of those.)

Sometimes, it’s just nice to try to stretch in that way. To take a stock prompt or random stretching of ability and turn it into something to be proud of.

One day I’m going to take up the challenge of not ending sentences with prepositions… but not in my blog. Here you can read me just like you can listen to me – a little incorrect, but generally well-meaning.

Posted on 9 July 20098 July 2009 by ransomnoble 2

Book Club

I haven’t been part of a real book club yet. I’m not sure if it’s because of where I’ve lived recently or if I just don’t know the people running them.

A friend of mine said it might be cool for my book to be part of a mother-daughter book club. It sounds like a fun idea, even though my daughter’s too young yet, so sometimes my mind wanders to books that might be fun to put into that kind of thing.

It really makes me want to browse the bookstores and Amazon. (Amazon because I’m sure there are quite a few books, like mine, that would be good for that kind of club but are not available in stores.)

Posted on 7 July 2009 by ransomnoble 0

Who do you know?

So many times you hear about people who “made it” – they knew someone. The road to success is long and difficult, and I think just about everyone has help along the way.

Most of us don’t know the celebrities personally. We don’t know the people who brought them fame and/or fortune. What we have instead is friends and family who will help us in any way they can.

I’m not going to win an Oscar, most likely, so you won’t see them drag me off the stage trying to thank the people who helped me. I’m okay with that – I’m a writer and I don’t really do screenplays.

What I try to do, though I think I’d better keep better track next time, is write acknowledgments. There’s one in the front cover of my book. I realized I forgot someone recently, but it’s probably too late to add them right now. My old neighbors let me use their fax machine when I needed to figure out how to receive a copy of my book. (My husband, ever helpful, kept asking why it couldn’t be emailed.)

I moved, and I still miss my neighbors. I have a new neighbor who seems cool, but they made my old house a really nice place to live.

Posted on 30 June 200929 June 2009 by ransomnoble 2

Geek Appeal

Traveling with Baby

Throws the entire schedule off. Hers and mine!

I forget how much we almost have a schedule until we start messing with it by driving several hours to see family. Last time it wasn’t so pronounced. Hopefully she’ll manage to get back to something regularish… soon!

If you didn’t see the interview with Katie Hines yesterday, check it out here. I’m excited to say I’ll have another interview coming up, details when I get them.

Posted on 25 June 2009 by ransomnoble 2

Editors

A magazine asked for editors on Twitter, and several people passed it on. Great thing about Twitter – I have food for thought.

Requirements include excellent language and grammar skills, which makes sense. How does one prove this on a resume? I bet prior editing experience would be good. What else? If you have no experience, how would you get there?

I have a friend whose grammar is stellar. She always corrects my Midwestern turns of phrase which leaves prepositions at the end. While I have some quirks, my grammar isn’t horrible. That said, I couldn’t prove it on a resume. Gee, I’ve had more calculus classes than most English majors think exist, but not a single literature course in college. Rhetoric fulfilled a requirement; we never talked about how to use the language. Somehow I ended up a writer anyway. Not that being a writer necessarily means great grammar or spelling or even good use of language. It helps. It separates the mediocre from the good and the great.

That still leaves me with how I’d prove it on a resume. I think the short answer is, I can’t.

Posted on 24 June 200923 June 2009 by ransomnoble 2

Who do you look up to?

When you’re focused on a goal, keeping it in sight with daily activities and marking progress. I know a lot of would-be writers probably wish to be someone like Stephen King, but I wonder if that’s just because he’s a household name by now.

[Not that Stephen King isn’t worthy of esteem, he’s worked very hard to get to where he is and deserves it!]

However, not all of us have that inner horror muse to titillate the masses. I struggle, though I know I have my fans, and I can accept that I might never have a name that’s known in every household. It won’t stop me from trying!

I think about that sometimes. Am I content to keep on with the small presses? It’s difficult to only be available online. I’d love to walk into the brick-and-mortar bookstores and see my books there. It’d be easier to put together book signings and appearances.

Then the difficult part of being an artist- the doubt- hits. What if I’m not good enough for that? On the other hand, if I never try, I’ll never know.

Posted on 23 June 2009 by ransomnoble 4

Father’s Day

What do we expect out of a father character? Probably much the same we do in life – someone who lays down the law and is the disciplinarian in our family.

Not all fathers fit this bill. I’m not sure even most do today, but we still carry over the expectation from before.

I didn’t have one of those fathers in my book, The Art of Science. I opted instead to make the mother into the ‘bad guy’ parent, and the father the one who stayed home and nurtured the children more. It didn’t make him less of a parent or a man; it changed his style.

I’m thinking about the next book already. (what author doesn’t?) Maybe this time it’ll be someone more conventional who fills the father’s role.

Happy Father’s Day to the traditional – and not so traditional – fathers out there.

Posted on 21 June 200921 June 2009 by ransomnoble 1

Ransom Noble

Science Fiction Writer