Doug
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Posts by Doug
Are we overexposed?
Feb 26th
Let’s face it, the days of privacy are just about over. And who do we have to blame for their dismissal? Ourselves. First, we found each other on Myspace, connected on BeBo, facebooked long lost friends and tweeted daily activities. Now everyone’s buzzing with google. And in the future? Who knows. As they say, the possibilities are endless.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love social media just as much as the next guy. As you can see to your right, I’m a frequent tweeter tweet-head twitterer twip twit user of twitter. I have those updates posting to my facebook account, and now they also display to the few people I might’ve missed on Google Buzz. If you want to know what I like to read, you can check out my shared items on Google Reader, or the list of books I’m reading and have read on Shelfari. Maybe you want to hire me? You can see my professional information on LinkedIn. I also blog semi-regularly if you’re interested in my thoughts. Occasionally I even talk to people in real life!
A man and his Kindle
Jan 8th
Christmas has come and gone again, and this time it has left me with an electronic reading device. You might’ve heard of Amazon’s Kindle, a nifty gadget that allows you to wirelessly download and read books. Another way to think of it is “an iPod for books,” which is a pretty accurate description. It can hold over a thousand books, but also has some other nifty features.
First off, it’s sleek and light. I was surprised and impressed when I took it out of the box and plugged it in for its first charge. It sort of reminded me of a data padd from Star Trek. For one glorious moment I was Geordi La Forge, reading the specifications on a Klingon attack cruiser to Captain Picard. Only I wasn’t La Forge at all, I was still Doug, and I was reading the user’s guide. (Which you have access to on the Kindle itself, not surprisingly.) It just has that new tech look to it that gadgetphiles love.
Speaking of that first charge, it took about 2 hours and the battery has yet to dip below half power in two weeks! I keep my wireless connectivity turned off unless I’m shopping for a book or looking something up on the internet, though, so you might see a different measure if you keep the wireless on. And yes, you read that right, you have wireless 3G access to the internet anywhere you go for the best price of all – free!
Fantasy Football, new books, and new friends
Sep 22nd
Sometimes you dig in, give it all you got, and still come up short. The Killer Bees, my Fantasy Football team in its sixth year, lost the second game in a row – despite recording the second highest point total in the league. The upside is I gained a spot in the rankings even with the loss, the downside is I’ve got to find a way to stop the slide if I plan to get to the playoffs.
The Carolina Panthers, my favorite professional football team, also finds themselves in a 0-2 situation. I’ve noticed that when I have a good season, they have a good season, and when I have a bad season so do they. Maybe we mimic each other due to the fact that I own one of their players (Steve Smith), or maybe it’s some weird coincidence. Even so, last year I had a dominating regular season (like them) and lost in the first round of the playoffs (again, like them). It’s a little freaky.
Update
Jul 15th
Well, as you can see, this is not the start of the aforementioned series of reviews. I’ve not yet been able to write said review and, in the interest of not leaving you all hanging, I thought I’d do a generic update. I haven’t been able to sit down and get a blog out lately, mostly because I’ve been busy with work and trying to get my joint writing work “Knight’s Woman” edited – among other things.
Some other updates since my last blog:
I’ve reduced my simming presence to a single simm, mainly due to the lack of time I’ve had to commit to it. I do not discount my previous comments on the importance of simming if you are a writer, but in the same regard I cannot hold positions that I’m unable to fulfill.
What’s in a title?
Jun 8th
I’ve decided to start a series. I thought of a great name for it. I thought the name should be “Book Reviews of Books that have been Reviewed way too much.” But then I decided that was way too long, so I switched it to “Book reviews of books that have been reviewed 100 times.” It’s a little catchier, maybe, but still too long.
So I picked out a good thinking rock and I pondered, with one hand under my chin and my other arm draped across my knee. I sat that way for a while, just thinking and staring at the ground. Then it hit me.
“Book reviews of books you should’ve already read.” Thinner by two words, sleeker, shinier. But it still didn’t have that something, that oomph that makes you want to park and read through my thoughts on some classics. I needed something better. Something catchier.
You are what you read
Apr 20th
Apologies for my absence in general, things have been hectic lately.
I started classes over at Gotham Writers again, which is always a good thing because it gets me writing and it forces me to set aside time for reading, reviewing and studying the craft. The problem is I have two classes this time and the workload is heavier than I was expecting.
In short, I have one to two free nights per week that I can devote to classwork and enough work to last three or four nights. Mostly, this work involves reading. Reading assigned stories and novels, reading lectures from my noble instructors and reading the work of my peers.
Stephen King once said something like “if you want to be a writer you need to do two things: read a lot and write a lot.” Several other great writers have made similar statements about reading. If you’re learning, studying, and attempting to perfect a craft – shouldn’t you observe successful practitioners of the craft?
Inspiration and Editing
Mar 24th
I’ve been thinking about inspiration lately. A lot of writers get asked that famous question, where do you get your ideas from? I already spoke a little on my muse and how I like to write, but I don’t think I’ve spent much time on inspiration itself.
I get inspiration from all sorts of places. I get inspired when I read work from other writers. I get inspired when I’m in the shower or driving down the road or grocery shopping. I get inspired when I’m walking around in a book store. I get inspired when I’m dreaming.
I think inspiration is what drives us as writers. I think that’s when the magic happens. And it really is a sort of magic. We sit down and we write and we get to that place where the words are just spewing from somewhere we can’t even put our finger on and then when we step back we’re in awe at this beautiful creation and we can’t believe it’s not already sitting on the bestseller shelf at Walgreens. Then, later, we come back to that same piece and we scowl and we turn our head like someone has stepped in behind us and thrown up all over it. Inspiration clouds us, and yet, it’s where we get the raw material from.
Dreams
Mar 6th
An idea came to me last night in a dream. It was a story idea, of course, as I’m struck with them at almost any given moment without rhyme or reason. Usually I hunt out a pad and pen to scribble down whatever line of dialog or narrative hits me – but this time I thought about it for a while before I wrote it in my idea book.
I thought about how personal of a connection this one was. It deals with the thought I often have of finding my Father or visiting with him even though the last time I saw him was almost 7 years ago.
This isn’t the first time an idea struck me in this manner – on the contrary it happens quite often. I think it’s something that happens to a great many writers. I know that the popular story from Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame is that she awoke from a dream about the first book and set out to write it. That dream has certainly done well for her.
