Slowing Down
Posted: Sat 28 November, 2009 Filed under: D4D™, Writing Leave a comment »Things might slow down here on D4D for a while – I’ve got a couple of writing ideas that I want to make a start on, and I’ve only got a finite amount of time for writing.
So there’ll still be regular updates here, just that for the next [time period] it might not be a daily thing. We’ll see.
Of course, if the ideas don’t pan out, I’ll be back to writing this stuff instead. Swings and roundabouts, and all that rot.
Pseudonyms
Posted: Mon 16 November, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Thoughts, Writing 1 Comment »Over the weekend, Belle De Jour, one of the last remaining published ‘anonymous’ bloggers (which should really be pseudonymous bloggers, but let’s not be picky) has come out and revealed her ‘true’ name. There was also a piece in TechCrunch by Paul Carr about this, which made for interesting reading.
While I (for obvious reasons) don’t have an issue with pseudonymous bloggers, I do think that Carr’s point is equally valid – if you’re going to write something under a pseudonym, don’t go out and get a book deal. The concepts of pseudonyms and fame are pretty much mutually exclusive – yes, there are some people who’ve managed both, but not really during the current media-driven Age of Celebrity.
For me, some (OK, a fair number) people know my ‘real-life’ name. I write as Lyle to keep things separate from the real world – I don’t want a Google search on my real name to bring up D4D™, and I don’t want searches on D4D™ to easily bring up my name. I believe it is possible to make a connection or two these days, but I still try to keep the two apart as much as I can.
But I don’t want fame or a book deal. If I were looking for that, I would’ve done things very differently with D4D. (I mean for one thing, I’d have had a theme for it, rather than just random sweary rubbish) And for the writing I do where I would like/love/dream of getting it into production, of seeing the writing become properly known, I write in my own name, and on a totally different site.
I don’t have a problem with people writing pseudonymously, nor with them deciding to remove that pseudonymity in order to re-join the two parts of their lives. That’s fair enough. I do object to the media forcing people to lose their pseudonymous lives (as happened with Girl With A One-Track Mind when her book came out) but that is – apparently, at least – not what’s happened with Belle de Jour.
As usual, I don’t really know where I’m going with this – it’s just a random spattering of thoughts. I suppose I just end up being bemused a bit when people get the book deal and still think/hope they can stay behind the pen-name.
No NaNoWriMo
Posted: Sun 1 November, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, The '09 Writing Project, Thoughts, Writing 2 Comments »Despite wanting to get back into writing, once again I won’t be taking part in NaNoWriMo (Or National Novel Writing Month, to give it the full title)
Both Andy and Gordon have written their thoughts about it, which pretty much resonate with my own. I think that while it can be good, I don’t actually want to write somerhing where, as the NaNoWriMo site puts it
The only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
The idea is that you just write, you don’t (in theory at least) spend loads of time thinking about story arcs, characters, events and the like. It’s the equivalent of writing a brain-dump, a stream of consciousness. And that, I think, is my problem with it. I don’t like reading that kind of book – why the blinking sun-stunned chuff would I want to write one?
As it is, with D4D™ I’ve written some 800,000+ words (which is pretty sodding gobsmacking in itself) which is the equivalent of roughly eight novels. Obviously I know it’s not eight novels, but it does work as a comparison figure.
I’d like to go back to writing something ‘proper’ – it’s been an aim for a while, and will continue to be so – whether it’s a screenplay or something more novel-like. But I want to do it properly, not just as a “Write 50,000 words in a month” project. I’ve got some ideas that need developing – and there’ll be more about that in a different post sometime soon – but I honestly don’t think NaNoWriMo is for me.
Of course, if we come back at the start of November 2010 and I still haven’t got any of those ideas out into ‘proper’ writing, I might have a bit of a rethink on that.
Reorganising and Rationalising
Posted: Fri 23 October, 2009 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Photography, Web Development, Writing Leave a comment »As part of the run-up to my birthday – and yet another of the “Five Year Plan” rundowns, as at that point I’ll be 3/5ths of the way through – I’ve been starting to think about some site organisations and rationalising a few bits of what I’m doing.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m anywhere even close to having sensible levels of life/work, but I’m trying to do something about some of it, at least. In some ways, weirdly, it means I’m going to have more to manage, but that’s OK too.
One of the projects I’d had on the cards this year was to merge my ‘creative’ sites together, so that the Photography and Writing stuff would all sit under one roof. I did it back in April/May time, and what it’s actually meant is that I’ve not added much to either site – which of course wasn’t the expected action at all. So I’m spending a bit of time separating the sites again, and going back to (almost) how they were a year ago. Retrograde steps or what?
In hindsight, while it was logical to think about putting the two ‘creative’ sides into one place, the two bits don’t actually go together all that well. Putting the two in one place led to more separation and confusion than the seperate sites did/will, and while in some aspects it’s now a wasted effort, at least I know for sure that the idea didn’t work, and (to some degree) why it didn’t. Sure, it’s annoying. But like the man said, “It’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t”.
There’s other bits of rationalisation and thought in the offing, but that’s the starting point. I’m sure I’ll write more of the other stuff over the next two weeks. For in two weeks time, I shall be 38. And that’s pretty scary in itself.
Writing Tasks
Posted: Sun 11 October, 2009 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), The '09 Writing Project, Writing Leave a comment »Now that I’ve got the new job sorted, I’m hoping to take the time to look at what I want to do.
I know there’s the five-year plan, and that’s still ongoing. There’s plans and ideas that still need to be put into action, and I’m working on those slowly but surely. I’ll get there – although that five-year plan might still end up as a six or seven year plan, with the other stuff that’s been going on.
At the same time the last few weeks has also made me think about other options, whether this web geekery stuff is really for me. I think in general it is, because I like doing a lot of the stuff still. But I’ve ended up working with a lot of bell-ends this year, and a number of people who really weren’t up to the standards they said they were. All of which leads to a fair dollop of disillusionment.
So while I’m doing this proper job, I’m going to aim to get a couple of writing projects started. Again, this is kind of revisitng something I said I’d do back at the start of the year, and that I haven’t got round to. The aim is still the same, to have something done by the end of the year.
I’ve still got the time to get some stuff written, and draft out a couple of ideas as well. I just need to be more organised about taking the time to do some writing, I think.