Zen Ken

Back in 2010

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:35:01 -0800

Today is my first day back to work and really in a lot of respects, back to the internet. With the exception of reading a swath of news feeds every few days I didn't really spend time on the internet these last few weeks. It's actually been very relaxing, and I tried to stay away as long as I can.

2009 has not been a real banner year for me. It's had a lot of downs for me, though I supplied (through effort and will) my own sort of ups - NYC marathon, writing another book in November, a personal best in physical fitness tests and such. I suppose it's a lesson that perseverance and will can alter an otherwise emotionally down year and it has definitely stemmed the tide, if not reversed the flow of things.

While I don't think the change of the year number signals true change, but the emotional switch can signify things.

I think I have resolutions this year, but I'll need to go back and look at last year's to see what I've accomplished and what I have not. FYI, if you're a New Year's resolution maker/breaker it is interesting to note that people who write down their resolutions (I prefer goals) are statistically more likely to achieve their goals than those that don't. It's food for thought.

2010 will be a good year.

Next up: Resolution review and finalizing last year's Book List (which is woefully out of date).

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Very cool - what would Earth look like with Saturnian rings?

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:54:36 -0800

What Earth Would Look Like With Rings Like Saturn

Very cool.

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QotD: The Tech Effect on Quality Time

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:52:24 -0800

How have technology and the Internet changed the way your family spends time together?
Sponsored by LifeScoop: Bringing You Tips for a Connected Lifestyle.

I've noticed the last 4 days of the rQotD look like a little bit of farming for information. If you can't figure out how the Internet has changed people's lives, then you really need to read more.

That said, I definitely think it's fractured attention spans, reduced the emotional band to widen the apathy and only manage to hit the peaks and troughs of emotional response, and provided a wealth of informational access that library systems could only hope to do (tapping that information still seems to elude most people though).

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Okay so I lied

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:49:06 -0800

I didn't write anything last night. I decided to sleep.

I wrote the last 40,000 of the 50,000 novel in about... 4 days. Not a lot of good writing, but I think besides being busy as hell at work and weekends being filled (first weekend - NYC marathon, second weekend - drill, third weekend - High School reunion) I didn't give myself any time. And to be honest, of the time I had I was a bit daunted about writing the second book to the 'trilogy' that's in my head. Why? Everyone knows that most second books are so - so. You don't have to build up the context and world (done in the first book's premises), but you have to continue the arc from the first book and leave yourself room to write the third book. I've never written a book before, let alone a trilogy, but I get an overarching sense that that I'm just reflecting a lot on how a screenplay is written. The average screenplay (per Syd Field) has three acts and two big plot points that mark the transition from Act I to Act II and Act II to Act III. At least, that's how I've approached these books. I've changed something at the end of Book 1 that sends Book 2 in a new direction, which (hopefully) will send Book 3 into another direction (or more or less come full circle).

Plus, sequels suck. You have a great ending for the first book, but you just KNOW you're not done with the story. How do you give your next book a treatment that doesn't feel like you rubberstamped the first or went to boringasshitvillewith200extrapages? I think the problem is that you try to rework things in the first book using the second book. I know I did, but I think writing the second book is going to give me plenty to do on the rewrite of the first. Time to amplify and dampen subplots (or, in the case of the first book... write subplots that didn't exist until the second book).

I think I'll have a lot to contend with on the final book. It'll have a lot of baggage from the first book. Loose ends to tidy up (that need tidying. Not everything in life is a neat little package and I'm not going to bother resolving things that were never meant to be resolved as a part of the story), and end with at least a profound finish, if not a big one (with fireworks and end credits and more stuff blowing up).

Of course.. what do I know? I'm not a professional writer. I'm making this up as I go.

FYI both books are written from women's POV. Not sure I succeeded, but I don't try to write women as 'feminine' I write them as they are. Or rather how I feel they write themselves.

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November - Busy beginning, middle and end

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:36:21 -0800

NYC Marathon

Nanowrimo 2009

November 1: NYC Marathon

November 2-29: Work like crazy

November 30: Finish nanowrimo under the gun.

I'd say I'm back, but I've been saying that for a few months. Since I'm done writing for a bit, I'll just say 'will write more tonight'.

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Interesting....

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:03:53 -0700

A quote from Supreme Court Justice Scalia:

"I mean lawyers, after all, don’t produce anything. They enable other people to produce and to go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of freedom. That’s important, but it doesn’t put food on the table and there have to be other people who are doing that. And I worry that we are devoting too many of our very best minds to this enterprise."

Hammer, meet nail. I'm all for lawyers enabling productivity, but if everyone's a lawyer, who's the worker, the doctor, the mason, the engineer, the scientist, the inventor? And I think too much lawyering begins to tip things backwards, into counter-productivity. It was something to ponder.

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It's October. Time to rewrite.

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:19:39 -0700

Nanowrimo is coming up next month, and my first book has been dormant pretty much since the beginning of December. It's time to dust it off, rework it as much as possible and generate new ideas and directions for the sequel coming up in November. The original draft is 19 chapters long. If I edit and revise a couple of chapters a day, that'll leave me half of the month to write new material that's obviously missing in the second half of the book (speed writing to get to the end of the story drops off a lot of things).

Also, I'm on an Ian Fleming novel spree (very dated and interesting 1950s lens of the world - did we really think that way then?). And watching a show called Mad Men. It's like watching the world my parents grew up in, and it's amazingly good. On reading this paragraph, I feel like I'm slowly traveling back in time.

Hmm. Need to update my Books and such venues.

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Long trips, weddings and anniversaries

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:23:21 -0700

Hi Vox. Long time no write.

I just got back from a week and a half long set of back to back trips. Attended the wedding of my best friend, celebrated my birthday (which happens to be also the anniversary of joining Vox).

I can't say that I've written much in the last six months or more. Actually, it's pretty abysmal at the lack of blogging I've been doing.

If anyone is reading the new Dan Brown novel, I can save you the trouble - it sucks. While he's clever and using pieces of knowledge and symbology to tenuously tie things together, he still can't write a decent story. His characters are worse than B movie cookie cutter, and he tends to repeat himself as if he's writing to 5th graders with ADD. And, if you're paying half attention, you'll realize the location of the lost symbol and who the bad guy really is within the first 50 pages of the book. To say it was disappointing is giving too much credit. I think The Da Vinci Code was (sadly) his best piece of writing. Everything before and after is going to be seriously mediocre. But who care, right? He and his non-editing editors made their million. Man, I wish I could do that just once. :)

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QotD: My Very First Movie

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:59:13 -0700

What is the first movie you saw in the the theater?

I was five years old. Star Wars. I don't remember a lot of it at the time, but it was dark, smoky and had lots of lasers. After that it was a pretty steady diet of drive-in movies. I guess there was something special about that movie to make my parents see it in a real theater.

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Thanks, Mr. Hughes

nobody@vox.com(Zen Ken) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:31:58 -0700

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