What book is everyone writing right now?

[Tiktaalik]

I love Smoke Signals. It's one of my all-time favorite movies. There are not a lot of movies I'd watch more than once - I generally don't care for them. But Smoke Signals is different; partly it's the way it's told, I think. I own it on VHS tape.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

He's a First Nations poet, author, and filmmaker from the Pacific Northwest. The movie Smoke Signals is one I highly recommend watching, and is adapted from his short story collection "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven".

I put the DVD on hold at the library.

 

[Brown]

I've set aside writing stories for a while. Instead, I'm writing puzzles. My wife and have been asked to be next year's creators of a contest held at a family reunion. My goal is to create puzzles that are different from those of previous years, but not too tough.

The event is similar to something described in this thread, but it's for family and takes place in Southern Ontario.

So far I have worked out three puzzles. I think they're pretty good, and fairly easy to solve. They all yield clues that lead people from one landmark to the next. But I have to recognize that not everyone has a puzzle-solving aptitude, and that puzzles that I think are easy might actually stump some pretty smart people.

I estimate I'll have to come up with at least three more puzzles, and perhaps more than that.

The above post is followed by some additional posts describing the ideas I had for the puzzles. The event was held a little over two weeks ago. The puzzles were (mostly) a success.

There was a crossword puzzle, a logic puzzle, a rebus puzzle and a word search puzzle. All of the puzzles were super-easy. The word search puzzle probably was the most time-consuming.

Many of the puzzles included secret jokes. As expected, some folks got the jokes and some didn't, but there was no penalty for not getting the joke.

In addition, the games involved driving a route (made challenging by the city's propensity to close streets for construction with little or no notice), and spotting things along the way. For example, teams would drive a street and were asked to take note of all the names of the intersecting streets. Then they were asked, "What do all those street names have in common?" And they were ALSO asked, "But one of those street names is different from the others. Which one and why?"

I also added some old-fashioned riddles, such as:

What is made of wood but cannot be sawed?

I accepted any legitimate answer. The most creative was that Pinocchio was made of wood but cannot be sawed because he's sentient or because he would become real. The more conventional answer is SAWDUST.

Karen's father has five, and only five, daughters. The names of four of the daughters are Lala, Lele, Lili and Lolo. What is the name of the fifth daughter?

Karen. The riddle tells you that, right up front.

 

[Brown]

Just wrote a murder mystery, finished it yesterday. My wife wants me to try to sell it. By coincidence, there is a Canadian mystery television series that sometimes films about ten blocks from my house, and they are always looking for a good story....

Basically, there is a murder, and there are very few clues as to who the killer might be. No weapon, no footprints, no witnesses, nothing. Even more baffling, there seems to be no one who had any motive, so it is difficult to identify any suspects. When it is discovered, however, that the victim may have been mistaken for another fellow, then suddenly there are TOO MANY suspects, since this other fellow had loads of enemies!

The new season of this show---it's called "Murdoch Mysteries"---recently started. Last night's episode featured a scene that was shot in my neighbourhood (standing in for old Toronto). If fortune smiles upon me and I see the crew running around, I'll see whether I can flag the script supervisor. Chances are they're done filiming on location for this season, but they've come to this area quite a few times for location shots, so you never know....

 

[Tiktaalik]

Watching films and TV shows being made in several areas I've lived in convinced me as a child that I most definitely did NOT want to be an actor. It looked boring as all get-out. Writing scripts, however, sounds more interesting.

 

[gumboot]

Watching films and TV shows being made in several areas I've lived in convinced me as a child that I most definitely did NOT want to be an actor. It looked boring as all get-out. Writing scripts, however, sounds more interesting.

In some ways acting is the easiest job on the set. In others it's the hardest. Actors can piss me off, sometimes. Being an AD, I'm the one they complain to about everything. My call time is too early. Why haven't they got me to set yet. Why can't we shoot my shots first so I can wrap. My coffee isn't right. I was here until camera wrap last night and they never used me. The toilet in my camper doesn't work.

All to me, who works far longer hours, gets paid in a week what they get in a day, no residuals, no automatic broken turnaround fee, I don't get a driver, people don't bring me coffee, if I piss anyone off they'll just replace me and think nothing of it, when I walk into a store no one recognises me and throws free merchandise my way, and when the cast are being difficult and won't come to set? It's my fault.

But then I see them on set, and if there isn't a make up artist in their face it's a camera, or a costume standby tugging at their boot, or breakdown throwing dirt and blood all over them. We'll spend an hour getting all the technical stuff right, and do take after take because the focus was wrong, but if the actor fluffs a line just once the crew start muttering and rolling their eyes. They don't get a moment to themselves. They have to be perfect. They can be sick as a dog. I know that one has a lung infection. This one had a fight with his wife last night. That one was kept up all night by the baby. And they just have to put all that to one side and bare their soul to a room of fifty people. Over, and over again.

Yeah, easiest job on the set. Hardest job on the set.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Good points, all. My grandparents were actors. All I generally saw, though, was the repeated takes of a single scene, not the stuff behind it. As an adult I spent a lot of time in the general vicinity of the set at Paramount Ranch (Dr. Quinn was being filmed there at the time) and the whole thing just didn't look like fun to me. I also had to monitor filming in some areas, and it was a pain.

I guess we're getting off-topic, though.

 

[gumboot]

Have any other Scrivener users ever experienced the spontaneous wiping of their entire project? I closed up working on my book last night on the desktop, and when I went to open the project this afternoon on my laptop, the project file was completely blank.

I checked the file on my memory card and it was updated late last night. I hadn't done any Scrivener work since earlier in the evening. Got to experience that sickening moment when you think you've just lost a decade and a half of work.

Of course, I hadn't because I back up constantly, and the most recent back up on my desktop was immediately after I'd finished working the night before, so it's a case of copy-paste the backed up folders onto the memory card. But fair warning... back up your scrivener files!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Have any other Scrivener users ever experienced the spontaneous wiping of their entire project? I closed up working on my book last night on the desktop, and when I went to open the project this afternoon on my laptop, the project file was completely blank.

I checked the file on my memory card and it was updated late last night. I hadn't done any Scrivener work since earlier in the evening. Got to experience that sickening moment when you think you've just lost a decade and a half of work.

Of course, I hadn't because I back up constantly, and the most recent back up on my desktop was immediately after I'd finished working the night before, so it's a case of copy-paste the backed up folders onto the memory card. But fair warning... back up your scrivener files!

Thank goodness for back-ups.


I haven't had anything like that, but because I never read the instructions, I thought half my book disappeared but it was because I had accidentally clicked the little arrow that precedes "chapter" in the outline menu collapsing the whole file.

Not that you would have done anything as computer illiterate as me.

For people who don't have back-ups, you can install recovery software that lets one recover corrupted and deleted files.

Another time we had a major failure we took the computer in for repairs and the fix-it geek was able to recreate the whole hard dive in a petitioned area of the drive and we had access to it again.

I have Time Machine running that makes hourly back-ups and I have 3 copies of most of my work on three separate flash drives, being that I'm paranoid.


If you find out what happened, I'd sure like to know since I'm using Scrivener.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Yikes! I've had the same issue as SG, though - thinking I was in one view or section of the program when I was actually in another. For example, in my last piece I accidentally created a Scene instead of a new Chapter, and thus it appeared that my chapter file was blank - until I clicked 'Scene'.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yikes! I've had the same issue as SG, though - thinking I was in one view or section of the program when I was actually in another. For example, in my last piece I accidentally created a Scene instead of a new Chapter, and thus it appeared that my chapter file was blank - until I clicked 'Scene'.

Chapters were confusing me when I first started using the software so I just made the sub-chapters the chapters, and the chapters are 'part 1-3' in the book.

But for some reason now I can't drag and drop one sub-chapter into a different chapter. It creates a new chapter instead. I gave up fussing with it since it isn't important at the place I am in the work and I can always cut and paste.


On another note, where does the time go? November means I've now been writing for 2 years and I'm not done with book one. I need to get a move on.

 

[blutoski]

Just wrote a murder mystery, finished it yesterday. My wife wants me to try to sell it. By coincidence, there is a Canadian mystery television series that sometimes films about ten blocks from my house, and they are always looking for a good story....

Basically, there is a murder, and there are very few clues as to who the killer might be. No weapon, no footprints, no witnesses, nothing. Even more baffling, there seems to be no one who had any motive, so it is difficult to identify any suspects. When it is discovered, however, that the victim may have been mistaken for another fellow, then suddenly there are TOO MANY suspects, since this other fellow had loads of enemies!

There's at least one Christie and recently also a Foyle's War based on that premise - "death by mistaken identity". (the key plot device for the Foyle's War was inspired by a historical factoid - street signs were removed in English seaside towns to slow down any German invasion and the blackouts made finding your way at night very difficult; murderer went to the wrong house and the occupant coincidentally had the same name as the intended victim and was shot - killer learned about his mistake in the newspaper the next day)

 

[catsmate]

Thank goodness for back-ups.


I haven't had anything like that, but because I never read the instructions, I thought half my book disappeared but it was because I had accidentally clicked the little arrow that precedes "chapter" in the outline menu collapsing the whole file.

Not that you would have done anything as computer illiterate as me.

For people who don't have back-ups, you can install recovery software that lets one recover corrupted and deleted files.

Another time we had a major failure we took the computer in for repairs and the fix-it geek was able to recreate the whole hard dive in a petitioned area of the drive and we had access to it again.

I have Time Machine running that makes hourly back-ups and I have 3 copies of most of my work on three separate flash drives, being that I'm paranoid.


If you find out what happened, I'd sure like to know since I'm using Scrivener.

As an IT pro and frequent recoverer of lost data I approve throughly.
Just don't keep your backup media in the same bag as your portable computer, I've known two people who lost both that way.

There's at least one Christie and recently also a Foyle's War based on that premise - "death by mistaken identity". (the key plot device for the Foyle's War was inspired by a historical factoid - street signs were removed in English seaside towns to slow down any German invasion and the blackouts made finding your way at night very difficult; murderer went to the wrong house and the occupant coincidentally had the same name as the intended victim and was shot - killer learned about his mistake in the newspaper the next day)

It's not that unusual in real life either; we had one here a few years ago that was finally resolved a couple of months ago.

 

[Tiktaalik]

I actually keep flash drives of my books in a fire-proof safe. Paranoid indeed!

 

[gumboot]

I actually keep flash drives of my books in a fire-proof safe. Paranoid indeed!

Every six months I burn a back up of my project to DVD and mail it to my parents who store it in a fire proof box with their own valuables. Even if my house is taken out by a nuclear bomb, my writing will survive.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Every six months I burn a back up of my project to DVD and mail it to my parents who store it in a fire proof box with their own valuables. Even if my house is taken out by a nuclear bomb, my writing will survive.

Unless they live close by.

I'm curious why you would use a CD (or do you really use a DVD?) instead of a flash drive?

 

[blutoski]

If the topic is backup solutions, I'd like to contribute my strategy: offsite backup onto Amazon S3. I use an application called Arq, but it's no the only intermediary app. All my family photos and personal files are incrementally backed up daily and the storage is very cheap: 1c/GB.

 

[gumboot]

Unless they live close by.

I'm curious why you would use a CD (or do you really use a DVD?) instead of a flash drive?

No I really use a DVD, it won't fit on a CD... although actually I think it's too big for a DVD now too.

I think I never used flash drives because it was cheaper and otherwise my parents will end up with dozens of flash drives. I guess I could collect up the old ones when I go to visit.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No I really use a DVD, it won't fit on a CD... although actually I think it's too big for a DVD now too.

I think I never used flash drives because it was cheaper and otherwise my parents will end up with dozens of flash drives. I guess I could collect up the old ones when I go to visit.

Man, you've got to get some of that published. Why haven't you finished some of the beginning stuff?

Or have I forgotten something from 18 pages ago?

 

[Garrison]

So I'm still working on polishing up my previous stuff before I dare release it into the world but in the meantime I've finished the first draft of another one. Thing I'm wondering is just how long to spend polishing up the others before just biting to bullet and putting them out as e-books?