Block[ed] Diversions
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I'm on day four of National Novel Writing Month[^]. Day one was off to a good start - I started with zero words and finished out the day with 1,200. I roughly doubled after day two to about 2,600. Day three - this is where it gets bad....back to zero :( Technical writing is simple - start with a goal and write towards it. For me, writing a story is entirely different. I tried my goal method from technical writing, yet it is too targeted - I'm not trying to write about a moral or whatever - just a story, so the goal does not work well. I have been reading one-line book reviews to help me get started again. Do you have any one or two sentence ideas? I thought about a programming-related story but not too sure how I can work in code, coding, or design into a story. By the way, happy Diwali :)
Erik Westermann
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I'm on day four of National Novel Writing Month[^]. Day one was off to a good start - I started with zero words and finished out the day with 1,200. I roughly doubled after day two to about 2,600. Day three - this is where it gets bad....back to zero :( Technical writing is simple - start with a goal and write towards it. For me, writing a story is entirely different. I tried my goal method from technical writing, yet it is too targeted - I'm not trying to write about a moral or whatever - just a story, so the goal does not work well. I have been reading one-line book reviews to help me get started again. Do you have any one or two sentence ideas? I thought about a programming-related story but not too sure how I can work in code, coding, or design into a story. By the way, happy Diwali :)
Erik Westermann
Ouch... Man, I wish I knew about that thing earlier... I might have participated. At my fastest, when I was churning out some well-established (Detailed outlines REALLY help) parts of my third novel, I was managing 8-12 pages a day (Though sometimes I stopped for several days to accumulate ideas)... If I was writing a story that was less important to me, I could probably manage to sustain that for a month. Would need to outline it beforehand, though, and I have another personal project lined up now...
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
I'm on day four of National Novel Writing Month[^]. Day one was off to a good start - I started with zero words and finished out the day with 1,200. I roughly doubled after day two to about 2,600. Day three - this is where it gets bad....back to zero :( Technical writing is simple - start with a goal and write towards it. For me, writing a story is entirely different. I tried my goal method from technical writing, yet it is too targeted - I'm not trying to write about a moral or whatever - just a story, so the goal does not work well. I have been reading one-line book reviews to help me get started again. Do you have any one or two sentence ideas? I thought about a programming-related story but not too sure how I can work in code, coding, or design into a story. By the way, happy Diwali :)
Erik Westermann
You could write a story of blood, vengeance, freedom, sin, punishment and glory! It could begin somewhat like this.... Once upon a time, there was a gal who wanted to simplify his boring work, which consisted in receiving the purchase orders and write the units received down to its log books. One day he met a fellow rookie developer who wanted to show off his programming skills in *met, a fancy and new programming language...
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I'm on day four of National Novel Writing Month[^]. Day one was off to a good start - I started with zero words and finished out the day with 1,200. I roughly doubled after day two to about 2,600. Day three - this is where it gets bad....back to zero :( Technical writing is simple - start with a goal and write towards it. For me, writing a story is entirely different. I tried my goal method from technical writing, yet it is too targeted - I'm not trying to write about a moral or whatever - just a story, so the goal does not work well. I have been reading one-line book reviews to help me get started again. Do you have any one or two sentence ideas? I thought about a programming-related story but not too sure how I can work in code, coding, or design into a story. By the way, happy Diwali :)
Erik Westermann
Wow, came back from the dead? :-D I suppose we can see some new book reviews soon then! :rolleyes:
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Code Project Forums : New Posts Monitor This application monitors for new posts in the Code Project forums.
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Wow, came back from the dead? :-D I suppose we can see some new book reviews soon then! :rolleyes:
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Code Project Forums : New Posts Monitor This application monitors for new posts in the Code Project forums.
Hi Nish - It's nice to be back...I was never really that far.
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
came back from the dead?
Not dead - just buried in life and work (thankfully in that order, yet life and work are so intermingled that they are sometimes indistinguishable). I have been reading a lot - the latest is Domain Specific Languages by Martin Fowler. I had a hard time getting my head around DSLs but saw the light after getting into dependency injection/IoC and then reading this book. Domain Specific Languages bought added the structure to get me to the tipping point. I'm still writing a great deal (technical, mostly offline for clients and now trying a novel). Maybe book reviews again soon - Safari Books Online[^] is great!
Erik Westermann
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Ouch... Man, I wish I knew about that thing earlier... I might have participated. At my fastest, when I was churning out some well-established (Detailed outlines REALLY help) parts of my third novel, I was managing 8-12 pages a day (Though sometimes I stopped for several days to accumulate ideas)... If I was writing a story that was less important to me, I could probably manage to sustain that for a month. Would need to outline it beforehand, though, and I have another personal project lined up now...
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)Ian Shlasko wrote:
I wish I knew about that thing earlier... I might have participated
It's not too late to start - it takes just 50,000 words by the end of November! It's great that you have a published series! Closest I've come to SciFi is Hitchhiker's Guide :-\
Erik Westermann
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You could write a story of blood, vengeance, freedom, sin, punishment and glory! It could begin somewhat like this.... Once upon a time, there was a gal who wanted to simplify his boring work, which consisted in receiving the purchase orders and write the units received down to its log books. One day he met a fellow rookie developer who wanted to show off his programming skills in *met, a fancy and new programming language...
Rosendo Lopez wrote:
blood, vengeance, freedom, sin, punishment and glory!
That covers about 98.3% of all books :D
Rosendo Lopez wrote:
Once upon a time, there was a gal who wanted to simplify his boring work
..sounds more like a book about someone with an identity issue, or a bad keyboard ;)
Erik Westermann
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Ian Shlasko wrote:
I wish I knew about that thing earlier... I might have participated
It's not too late to start - it takes just 50,000 words by the end of November! It's great that you have a published series! Closest I've come to SciFi is Hitchhiker's Guide :-\
Erik Westermann
Haven't published a series yet... I've published half a series, and written 3/4 of one... Still one more book to write before I move onto the next saga :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
I'm on day four of National Novel Writing Month[^]. Day one was off to a good start - I started with zero words and finished out the day with 1,200. I roughly doubled after day two to about 2,600. Day three - this is where it gets bad....back to zero :( Technical writing is simple - start with a goal and write towards it. For me, writing a story is entirely different. I tried my goal method from technical writing, yet it is too targeted - I'm not trying to write about a moral or whatever - just a story, so the goal does not work well. I have been reading one-line book reviews to help me get started again. Do you have any one or two sentence ideas? I thought about a programming-related story but not too sure how I can work in code, coding, or design into a story. By the way, happy Diwali :)
Erik Westermann
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Erik Westermann wrote:
how I can work in code, coding, or design into a story
Not sure, but I'm sure it would feature killer hamsters if that's any help?
Tried a few approaches - maybe on to something. Does not have any killer (.*)...yet!
Erik Westermann
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I'm on day four of National Novel Writing Month[^]. Day one was off to a good start - I started with zero words and finished out the day with 1,200. I roughly doubled after day two to about 2,600. Day three - this is where it gets bad....back to zero :( Technical writing is simple - start with a goal and write towards it. For me, writing a story is entirely different. I tried my goal method from technical writing, yet it is too targeted - I'm not trying to write about a moral or whatever - just a story, so the goal does not work well. I have been reading one-line book reviews to help me get started again. Do you have any one or two sentence ideas? I thought about a programming-related story but not too sure how I can work in code, coding, or design into a story. By the way, happy Diwali :)
Erik Westermann
I'll start it off for you: BEGIN . . . . . END you can fill in the rest ;)
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
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I'll start it off for you: BEGIN . . . . . END you can fill in the rest ;)
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
I thought you would go with something like this (being a C++ guy - based on your sig):
{
// etc...
}Erik Westermann
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I'm on day four of National Novel Writing Month[^]. Day one was off to a good start - I started with zero words and finished out the day with 1,200. I roughly doubled after day two to about 2,600. Day three - this is where it gets bad....back to zero :( Technical writing is simple - start with a goal and write towards it. For me, writing a story is entirely different. I tried my goal method from technical writing, yet it is too targeted - I'm not trying to write about a moral or whatever - just a story, so the goal does not work well. I have been reading one-line book reviews to help me get started again. Do you have any one or two sentence ideas? I thought about a programming-related story but not too sure how I can work in code, coding, or design into a story. By the way, happy Diwali :)
Erik Westermann
Erik Westermann wrote:
Technical writing is simple
Think so? You must be doing it wrong, then. Coding is simple -- you set (or are given) a goal and write toward it. Technical writing is about, among other things, understanding the product, understanding what the customer wants to do with it, understanding how to construct a document to make it useful, understanding how to manage information efficiently across suites of documents, and understanding English grammar and usage well enough to be able to explain it all to whatever readership will be reading it. That's 20-years-of-practice-and-your-work-might-just-be-passable simple, which is why we're all buried under so many terrible product manuals, and spend half of our time guessing and playing trial-and-error.
Erik Westermann wrote:
start with a goal and write towards it.
Given that the only possible goal you could have is "Help customers to use the product to do what they want to do with it", I'll agree with that.
Erik Westermann wrote:
writing a story is entirely different
Indeed. Stories are about people, so if you find that you're spending more time writing about the plot elements (or, unholiest of all unholies, having characters lecture each other about plot elements): stop, and just remember that you're writing about people living through situations, not about plot elements with people thrown in.
Erik Westermann wrote:
Do you have any one or two sentence ideas?
You're not really asking to be given story ideas, are you? I think "Get Real!" would be the obligatory answer to that, but, if it's just inspiration you're looking for, I threw a few ideas up here[^], a while back, for a completely different reason. Just make sure that you read and fully understand point three in the box at the bottom of the introductory page.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I'll start it off for you: BEGIN . . . . . END you can fill in the rest ;)
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
Hey thanks - your begin...end actually helped me. Up to 800 words now :)
Erik Westermann