rec

At a grammar site, I ran into the following, both of which are correct. The distinction is very useful, and as I edit I think back on the examples. 1. My brother Kyle took the train to Paris. 2. My brother, Kyle, took the train to Paris. Remember, both are correct, but they have different meanings. What are the meanings?

Some people might think that all writing at GA is organic. rec

When an author decides not to publish his novel serially--in weekly or periodic chapters--and waits until a novel is finished, he opens up the possiblity of what I call 'writing randomly." I think there are a number of advantages of writing randomly. Writing randomly is not necessarily writing chaotically. The author has to have an outline or a good notion of how the novel he's writing is to be structured. But he doesn't have to write it starting at Chapter 1 and ending at Chapter 19. He can start wherever he wants--in the middle, at the beginning, at the end or anywhere in between. A caution: writing this way is not for every author, by any means, but it is an approach that works for me. I consider the scenes of a story like an island in a volcanic archipelago. Each scene is an island that keeps growing over time. Ultimately the islands are connected together, but for a time they are independent of one another. Under random writing, scenes in a story are independent islands, but they are finally linked together as the novel is finished. I see a number of advantages to writing randomly, particularly when the entire novel is continually under flux. 1. At least for me, a scene is never entirely out of mind; ideas to change or improve a scene can occur at any time between the start and completion of the novel. A scene is never finished until the novel is near completion. Thus, new ideas and approaches can be incorporated in each of the major scenes. 2. Details of a scene can be added when the author thinks of something that can enliven a scene. As I visualize a scene from time to time during the writing, I often think of details that I didn't include at the outset. 3. Ideas and approaches can be moved from scene to scene. For example, in my new project, Palouse, which involves the love between a prodigy musician and a gay fellow musician, I have a line that I intend to use. At first, I thought it could be used in a face-to-face between the musician and his gay admirer: "I play Bach. You are a messenger of Bach." The same idea can be used in another key scene between this gay man and the prodigy's mother to convince her of the importance of the relationship between her son and the gay man. If I had committed to writing the novel serially--and releasing it that way--the choice of where to use it might have been foreclosed. There are some disadvantages, of course. 1. Putting the scenes together may require careful editing, plus an amount of cogent writing to join them. 2. Finishing the story requires discipline. The danger is that the story may never come together "perfectly." A periodic deadline for chapters may force the author to keep working toward completion of a story, but if the story is written randomly, there is a tendency to never finish it. That is, there are always scenes that can be changed and "improvements" that can be made.

Well, now that you are overwhelmed with information, it's time that you gave me some feedback. Click on Questions - 1 to get started. Since this is the first time for this writing project, please try to respond here. You can either copy and paste the contents of Question - 1 of just answer by number. I'm looking forward to the feedback. My next posting, I think, will be a listing of the critical scenes in the novel. I like to identify the scenes and then keep coming back to them when a notion strikes me--for example, a clever or apt (in my opinion, in any way) snippet of dialogue. The random way of writing allows me to do this. I can go back and forth with elements of the story; that is, I don't have to pump out a new chapter every so often. rec

In my hosted site are three new documents related to the Palouse Story. First, there is a summary of the story, at least as it stands today. Second, there is a description of the main characters, which outlines some of the characteristics of those characters. Finally, there is what I call an age table, which keeps track of the ages of the main character. The main reason for this table is as reference for a story that will extend over a decade or so. As an aside, I decided to assign birth months and days to each character. To do so, I simply opened the World Almanac to the Entertainers section, where birthdays are listed. I started at one name and used the months and days of the names that followed. The table was created in Excel; here it is portrayed as a word-processor documents. I made a story decision based on the age table. I had decided early to bring in Jake Cantwell's roommate Kingman into the story. But in trying to correlate the ages of the Kingman family and put it into the right timeframe, the only way it could happen reasonably is if Betty Kingman was pregnant with her son at an early age, which must have been a result of a teenage pregnancy and to the possiblity of a shotgun wedding. The next posting will address some of the decisions that I have made, and I would appreciate other writers' comments on those decisions. Then, I'll post a document of the key scenes that will occur in Palouse, which will give another chance to comment. rec

The Palouse River flows from Idaho through Eastern Washington into the Snake River, after tumbling over what I understand is an impressive falls. The country around the river is called The Palouse. It is rolling wheat land cut into by deep canyons. The play of light and colors during the year makes it, I am told, a magical place. I've only been through it once, but during the course of the book, I'd like to make a more extended visit. Washington State University in Pullman and the University of Idaho in Moscow are on the Palouse River. Palouse is a native American tribe that inhabited this area. It's pronounced pah-loose. rec

After considerable back-and-forth on the logistics of this project, I think something has been worked out. I will post the documents that I write on my Hosted site, Rec's Forum, but any discussion/feedback/comment should come here at the Writer's Corner. In this way, the group of documents that chronicle the writing process will be in one place an accessible without a great amount of seaching, but the discussion postings can be made on an ongoing basis. The only drawback to this logistical approach I see is that quotations from the original documents will have to be cut-and-pasted into this forum, so two browser sessions might have to be opened to accomplish that easily. The first posting is a summary of the background newspaper story. Because of copyright issues, we cannot post the original several-part series that described in great detail the life of the cello prodigy who provided the inspiration for the fictional story that I intend to write over the next year. Unfortunately, the set of newspaper articles is behind a pay-archive screen. [i don't remember paying for them, so there might be a way around it.] The second posting here is summarizes the themes from the news story and the changes from those themes. To this point I don't expect much in the way of feedback from participants in the forum, but as I outline the characters opportunities will arise. The next posting, probably tomorrow, will be the summary of Palouse as I see it now, followed by a description of the major characters. rec

You're not the only one who's unclear. This is an experiment and what works is really up in the air. I'll post some initial decisions/directions/research and see what happens. There will be information provided by me--e.g., a spreadsheet of the ages of the major characters, the plot outline as it stands today, some background information about the characters, the setting in time. Then, there will be problems to address--e.g., the stages of the relationship between the two major characters, the accuracy of the research on religion, on the music business, etc.--for which it would be useful to have others' observations. I'm anxious to try this experiment, but I'm not sure how it will end up rec

This is the first of a series of a chronicle of the writing process for my next novel, Palouse. rec

Sharon, I've been using an HP laptop with an AMD 64 processor and 1GB of memory for the past two years--with great satisfaction. I notice from a Fry's ad that there are two better and cheaper (alas) HP laptops for $999. The one that I think is marginally better has an AMD64X2 processor, 2GB of memory, a 160 GB hard drive, built in wireless, a DVD read/write drive, a 15.4" screen and Windows Vista Home Premium. The other has the same price and has a slightly better Intel Centrino Duo Core processor, has 1GB less of memory, but it has Windows Vista Business, which may be a bit overkill on the operating system. Both these machines would be excellent purchases, and with the Student Version of Office 2007, would last a long time. I would go with the first because of the extra memory. The processor speeds are ample for just about anything. I don't know if there's a Fry's in your area, but the prices and models would be indicative of other places (where you might bargain), or you could order through frys.com. rec

For comments on the story

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I don't think there is a single answer to this question. From the readers' side, a steady and timely release of chapters is the best way to be able to keep track of characters and plot without having to re-read earlier chapters as each is released. However, I doubt that most readers do re-read what has been done, and the nuances of plot and character are lost to them--to the detriment of the author's intent. For myself, too many times I will ask who-the-hell-is-that-character, but I don't bother to go back an re-read earlier chapters because the story just doesn't seem to merit that attention. That attitude hurts the author. From the writers' side, there are two basic considerations. First, most stories are written for a reader, so the observations in the previous chapter merit attention. Second, and probably more important, is that an author's writing style may dictate whether to complete the story first or to publish it serially. Some authors write linearly--from the first to the last chapters. For those, both options on publishing are open. Others, of which I consider myself one, write more randomly, working on disparate parts of a story as my imagination turns to them, before, finally, tying the scenes together in a novel, perhaps with significant revisions to reflect changes in plot or emphasis. Writing a later chapter might require changes in an earlier or even later chapter. For the random-approach writer, then, the option to publish serially is just not open. The story has to be completed (at least in good-draft form) before it is released. In short, the serial release of a novel as it is written requires a specific type of writer. Combining the readers' and writers' perspective, I suggest that an author at least complete a rough draft of the entire story. The rough draft can form the basis of a serial release while allowing the author some latitude to make changes suggested by readers. Under this approach, the reader is virtually assured of a completed story (even if parts of it have to be released in rough draft), and the author achieves some of the advantages of a serial-release exposure of his/her work.

I'd strongly recommend some very positive stories about gay youth from Driver Nine at http://www.storiesbydriver.net/ In particular, Falling Off a Log and Summer Storm are good introductions to his series of stories. It's too bad that Everyday Love is no longer officially available, because it is a wonderful coming-of-age and gay-acceptance story. After those, I would recommend Plan A, Plan B, Plan C and Plan D. rec

I see that the fanfiction site is registered to www.tucows.com, which is a much larger site that provides Windows shareware and may be legitimate. I'd suggest that people notify Tucows about the plagiarism; if they don't know about it, they may be willing to yank the fanfiction site. If they do, they should have a serious problem on their hands. rec

It depends. The extra battery life is a real boon, but I don't go on long plane trips, and most of the time I have AC power nearby, so I rarely use my battery that much. I think you can upgrade later to the more-cell battery, if the cost is too much now. And having two batteries is nice. rec

I had serious problems with my Toshiba Satellite laptop, so, at the moment, I won't buy another Toshiba machine, even though I liked the computer for the first year or so that I had it. What happened is that the battery would be used up even when the machine was plugged into AC power until the computer turned itself off for lack of battery capability. Only then would it accept a recharge. The problem apparently existed with other users, because there were posts on some of the computer advice sites asking for fixes to the same problem. Toshiba was unhelpful; their site had no information on a problem that existed with a least a number of users. So I junked the Toshiba and bought a Compaq (HP) Turion 64 bit laptop a year ago and have been extremely happy with it. I had one mechanical problem that required a return to the factory. HP had my computer picked up by UPS on Monday afternoon, and it was back in my hands on Wednesday morning, all repaired--and with a new BIOS installed--at no charge. They won my business for a good long time with that kind of service. rec

Compaq/HP has one hell of a buy at Best Buy: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1153997317199 It has the Turion X 2 chip, a gig of memory, an 80 gig hard drive, etc. All for $799 on their Wednesday sale, and it may be that HP will pay the shipping. Anyway, that's a good price for what you can get. rec

and now we are 5--at least i am

love them

Happy B'Day

Do get built-in wi-fi capabilty. Do not get less than 512 MB of memory--better 1 gig. Get the higher end processor chips--Athlon not turion, and various Intel chips not Celeron Expect to pay $800 or more.

Lots and lots of water.