Personal Think Tank

Quick post...as I'm Dashing out the door. Busy day!

I'm curious though. What do you want to see created? Built? Developed? Brought to LIIIIIIIFFFFFEEEEE!  In regards to our craft. Technology wise.

Anything?

Is there something you thought of in the wee bitty hours of the morning that you went, "Man, writing would be so much easier if I could just...."

Or did you recently watch an episode of Torchwood, and after wiping the drool off your face from eyeballing Barrowman for 45 minutes straight, you thought, "Wow. That gadget would be Really Useful!"

Personally. I want them to develop a way I can e-mail someone a document and I don't have to choose the TYPE of document to send. RFT. PDF.  DOC. DOCx. WRD. QRTY. JKASS. Whatever. I  get so annoyed with this because inevitably the type I choose isn't going to work with wherever I send it. They have a Mac. I don't. They have a typewriter, I have an telegraph. Something to that effect. I want 'them' to figure out how to hit 'attach to e-mail' and THAT'S IT! Just send the stupid thing. BAM! Done! And the person on the other end can open it no problem because THEIR computer is freaking smart enough to figure out what Type of document it needs it to be translated into to read it! *tweak*

Ok. I've had some whiskey. I'm ok now.

So what fantastic new technological advancement have you thought would make huge improvements to our writing craft?

And why hasn't it been done yet?!

Blockage

I know we don't like to talk about it. I know we all like to just pretend that it doesn't exist.
But Foot Fungus is here, and you really should use that cream.

So too for Writer's Block. Wouldn't it be great if there were a cream for that?

Breaking out of writer's block is hard. Generally I set things aside and wait. And wait. Things will stew in my brain, for lack of a better term, all on its own. And suddenly the plot point that was sticking will wake me up at f'ing 2am and not let me get back to bed until I write it down.

However. Sometimes. I find that if I write about something completely different and totally trivial and 'throwaway'. Something that has less importance. Something that doesn't make me feel like the whole balance of a world I'm creating is going to get thrown off kilter if I screw it up. I get my rhythm back.

In the Less Technical Days of Yore, I would sit and write really horrible poetry. Angsty love poems. I was a very angry lover apparently. Or maybe I was just having a string of bad days. Hence the writer's block.

NOW, however, there are some Great sites that you can go to that provide you with writing prompts. For Book ideas even! (If you can't come up with one on your own...) These three are the three that I go to most regularly. Where do you go?

Creative Writing Prompts!

One Minute Writer Blog!

Tumblr Writing Prompts!

My favorite is the tumblr. Mainly because, along with everything else, I'm a very visual person. So seeing a giant picture is great for getting my creative grey matter pulsing.

What do you all do when that giant wall of writer's block doom looms? Besides curl up in a ball, muttering to yourself about the evil leprechauns in super tight pants that stole your brother from his crib.

Should NOT have watched that movie last night....

Method to the Madness and Technology Fail

Speaking of using technology. If someone could explain to me how Dropbox is "supposed" to work. That'd be great. Thaaaanks.... Grrr. Been trying to get/find/load a picture of my workstation for the past 20 minutes. Not happenin'. Anyhow...

My idea for today! Send me pictures of your glorious work stations! We're all curious how we all work! Don't "clean for the maid" either. I want to see How You Work >;) In all your fantastic mess! Hey. Whatever works for you. If it's as neat as a pin. Orderly and color coordinated...then Obviously you don't have to share your space with anyone else.

Send them along to unicornbellsubmissions@gmail.com and I'll do a big post on Saturday. Sort of like the funnies.

Also. I'm curious to know about you. Mainly because this whole 'serious' writing thing is a fairly new endeavor for me. (Only maybe 2 years or so). And it's been interesting trying to fit it in with my regularly scheduled life, so to speak. My husband is very supportive. In a Mommie Dearest sort of way..."Are you finished writing your novel yet? Can you start looking for publishers yet? Are you famous yet?" Sorry sweetie. Gotta pay the bills the normal way for One More Week!

When do you write? Morning? Evening? I generally get my writing done in short bursts. Few hours in the morning. Longer stretches on the weekends. (If I have time, like if it's raining...) Maybe an hour found here or there. And then I do my edits between clients. I found this GREAT app. (Don't laugh!!) for my phone. Have you heard of the Pomodoro method? There's an app for that! No. You don't NEED an App. But it was free. And it forced me to focus in the short amount of time that I had available to write.

Do you listen to music? I never DID. But then my husband had surgery on his ankle. So now, when I write on the weekends, he's in the very next room, which is literally 4 feet away, on the couch watching TV. Can't be helped. So I need something in my earbuds to whitenoise the tv away. I tried Jazz (Cause I love Jazz.) Too distracting. I can't have words in my playlist. Just ambient floaty noise. Being a massage therapist, I'm REALLY good at Ambient Floaty Noise. For example...This guy...

Do you Munch on things? (Twizzlers...or Popcorn...) Drink Liquid Libations? (I generally wait till AFTER. My plots make far more sense the less whiskey I pour on them...)

Last but not least...Are you a One Hit Pony? That makes no sense. HA! Do you work on one story at a time. Pour your last drop of blood and marrow into it. Or do you work on several at once flitting from one to the other making each your Favorite Ever! Personally, I work on one thing at a time. All consuming. I've tried the other way. It breaks my brains.

Technically Speaking

So I was just up in "The County" of Maine for about a week.

For those of you that don't know this is Aroostook County. Land of Potatoes. Get to Portland Maine and head about 4 hours North. Then. To get to where I was, head another hour further North. Lots of trees.

And Mosquitoes. CRAZY mosquitoes.

Anyway. The first night I was there was the 3rd of July, and my hometown does this celebration called Midnight Madness where all the local businesses stay open till Midnight and serve free stuff, games in the streets for the kids, bands playing...all sorts of fun stuff! So I went to that. And I didn't get to my parent's house till maybe 11:30pm or so. Long after they'd gone to bed.

Much too late to wake them up to ask them for the password for the Wi-fi. Crap.

Now. For most of you this may not be a problem. But I, thinking I was being all clever! SOOOO clever! Stored what I was working on at the moment on google docs cloud. (I HATE hatehatehate Word...but we'll get into that later) Thinking I could just access it all week and then zip it back into scrivener when I got home.

Bam!

Nope. Need the wi-fi's to do that. Damn you google doc's!

So that night I just took the night off from writing and read...(poor me.)

Then I got to thinking...I was REALLY dedicated, used my Drive App on my phone. As annoying as it would have been.

Which got me thinking about how much I use my smartphone for my writing craft.

Which made me remember a blog post I read a while ago someone had posted asking what apps people use that pertain to their writing craft.

So I'm curious!

How low or high tech do you go? Are you a notebook and pencil kind of person? Or do you have a laptop/computer that you'd be lost without? Are you constantly scribbling notes and ideas on slips of paper? Or do you have an app on your phone for that? Or are you like me and kinda somewhere in between?

The next day I asked my dad for the wi-fi password. He said, "I gave that to you the last time you were here! You don't remember it!"

"Dad. I haven't been here for over a year. You haven't changed your password since then?" (Stalling cause no I didn't remember it...)

"Of course I have! Let me check..."
Yah...he'd forgotten the password too...

The Finer Points

So we've covered our basic needs.

What else does a world need to function? How deep do you need to go?

Religion and Politics. The major headliners. The two generally go hand in hand. Maybe the political structure in your world is the same thing as your religion. Maybe you've suppressed the religions with a overzealous military regime. However you handle it, ultimately you need to understand how these major pieces work in your world. (Or don't work, as the case may be.)

Art. Is it inspired by religion? Or is it more free form? Again. These are just details. Not that you NEED to have art in your book...just that you might possibly need to know the origin of it. And if you have art, the difference between art inspired by religion and art inspired by nature is pretty big, from a society standpoint. (If you want to go THAT deep...)

Weapons. What type of society are you building? What type of weaponry do your people need? Do they buy? If so, from where? Do they make their own? Think of the details of that as well. How does one MAKE a bow? How long does it take to cure a willow branch to make a proper bow arm? How do you even string the thing properly? Or are you going to go the "gloss over route". "Hayden was a master bowman. No one knew quite how he created his masterpieces, but he made the most incredible bows in all of the seven kingdoms." (why are there always seven kingdoms....ever notice that?)

Technology. This one is somewhat tricksy. Personally, I'm in favor of a 'less is more' approach for this one. Unless it's hard Sci-fi. But even then, possibly stick with made up stuff? (IMO). I think the problem with using real technology comes in because things get outdated so blazing fast. You start writing your book on an iMac, and finish on a hologram a year later. But in that book you've put in a reference (or 7) to your trusty iPod. Which is now woefully outdated. None of the cool kids are using them anymore. I think it's best to keep it as general as possible. Get down to the essence of what it is you're doing. rather then using brand names (is that ok anyway?). Say 'Music Player'. 20 years from now when people are still reading your book they'll automatically fill in whatever the new 'music player' is right then.

So. Did I miss anything? What other topics for World Building have you struggled with? How have you kept track of your massive amounts of World Building Research!?