Empty Streets

Blog Post No. 511

I work a lot of early mornings, a few later evenings, and not a lot in-between. It means having to get up extra early (mostly to avoid rushing) and dealing with the dreaded cl-open (closing one night an opening the next morning). Working any shift comes with positives and negatives (though nothing is as bad as a mid-day shift). I tend to like to get my work over as early as I can so I can have as much day as possible before bed, but evenings have a special quality of quietness (even with a building full of people dancing to loud music or sitting through a class).

Re-Enjoyable

Blog No. 193

I’ve just finished ripping through the Percy Jackson books (by Rick Riordan) again. I think it’s the third time I’ve read them, but I don’t keep track of that stuff much. This year I’ve made a conscious effort to make reading more of a daily habit. As a writer, it’s a necessity, and it’s a good way to spend the last hour or so of your day. I haven’t exactly met my goal of a book a month. Sometimes I can’t seem to find the time, or the book isn’t quite good enough for me to make the time. Sometimes I just have to priorities writing (which is still a touchy topic at the moment). Either way, from January to May I had only had four books read. The last one was slower than I’d like, and I didn’t have another book lined up yet, so I figured it was time to go back to some books I had previously enjoyed and knew I could get through quickly. Partly to beef up my count (Christian is a reading machine this year) and also because I had a hankering to experience that world again.

Daylight Saving Time is a Jerk

Blog No. 173

Daylight savings sucks. What the heck world (or at least countries who follow the archaic rule). There has been study after study about how daylight savings is a bad thing. Productivity goes down, accidents go up, people are inevitably late (or early depending on the season) and sleep cycles are put out of whack for weeks if not longer. It costs money and I believe it shortens people’s lives. And for what? An extra hour of sunlight? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for that sunlight, but at what cost? Besides, it’s already been figured out that we’d get the benefits of the time shift all year. So why only do it in the summer? Let’s make this switch our last and stay at the hour ahead forever.

The Second Time is never the same

Blog No. 142

I am a big fan of the book Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. I wouldn’t call it my favourite, but I do like it enough to have given it two reviews on this blog in the past. It’s a fun ride that swerves sharply down memory lane. Highly praised and being adapted into a Stephen Spielberg film, I don’t really need to go into too much detail about it. The second offering from the author is called Armada. It has been out for a couple of weeks and even before it was finished, the movie rights were snatched up. Excitement has been rising since the book’s announcement shortly after the publication of Ready Player One. Everything was pointing to Armada being another fun, reference laden sci-fi story. I expected to love it, ordered it as a hard cover, and waited eagerly for it to arrive.

Editing is Hard

Blog No. 123

One of the major parts of my writing day is looking at other people’s stories and giving them an edit. Often I’ll catch a couple of typos, notice some structural weak spots and grammar mistakes, and make a bunch of suggestions on how I think the story could be improved. The things I notice jump off the page (fresh from the pile of new story elements I learned about) and if the story is well written, I can be done a couple thousand words in half an hour (extrapolate for longer stores, chapters etc). Sometimes there is a lot more to point out and the task becomes an arduous task filled with long winded explanations and edits based on assumptions and what I know about the author, but usually things go smoothly. If I can avoid supplanting the writer’s voice with my own, I find I add something to the story, helping the author and learning something about my own writing in the process.