New Project Launch – Manuscript 8
It has been sometime since I posted on here and I apologize. I’ve been focusing on my short fiction in order to produce some publication credits. Some of the work is out for review, some of them are still in progress, but I decided two weeks ago that the project sitting on my easel needed to see the light of day. It has been there since last year and it was destine to be Manuscript 7 (then a short story got too long, I expanded its scope, and it became Manuscript 7 (a novella)). After prepping a bunch of work and short stories, I decided I needed to get back to my true joy of novel length fiction. So being insane, I took my first vacation day in years to being the new project. Over three days I outlined, cooked, and wrote – rinse and repeat. I am sitting at ten chapters at the writing of this post. I forgot how much more joy I get in writing a novel where I have zero limitations on length. I can let the piece breath and go down rabbit holes. I am excited.
Read MoreLet’s Talk About Jobs
Normally, I wouldn’t post about the climate of the nation, but I feel it is important to discuss jobs. Personally, my career has me working in a technology space that works on analytics. We collect and display data for our customers, and this allows our customers the ability to make decisions based on in depth information. However, it also allows them to be more productive with less. As such, there is a logical conclusion that can be made: producing more with less will mean you need less workers. Which brings me to my main point, many positions in this country (the ones that are growing) are for highly educated individuals, and those positions, are working aggressively to automate systems.
Every business begins with a basic idea, and that business, if it catches on, will need to continue to grow and evolve their core product. This is the root of capitalism, you grow and produce more profits. This leads to innovation. However, with the core being growth, a business is not focused on the impact to the surrounding systems around them (environment, population, and the entire ecology of our world) – some business do actively try to review what they are doing to the surrounding world before making a decision. (click [Read More] for the rest of this diatribe)
Read MoreNew Category Alert: It’s Just Business
I’ve created a new category for the website: It’s Just Business. As an Italian American, I find this humorous though it is rooted in the mythos of the Mafioso – who have killed over money many times. I think legitimate business also kill people, just not with a gun, and through legal means. Therefore, I chose this as the title of the category for a specific reason.
In this category, I will use my master’s in business administration (MBA) to analyze business and our surrounding world. These reviews will be coupled with my bachelor of science in philosophy and sociology. My goal here is not to “stir the pot” but provide an objective (which is not even possible because we all have biases based on our background (there’s my philosophy and sociology degree)) review of what is happening around us through the lens of business. These will be longer posts, so the [Read More] button at the bottom of a post will actually be useful, I will call out when to use the button. I hope you enjoy these posts, and that they help you analyze what is happening around us in a different way.
Read MoreState of the Theodore
It has been a long time since I updated the blog section of the website. There are some contributing factors to this, but I’ve always maintained that the blog part of the website is the last priority when it comes to my writing. As such, I’ve been focusing on revisions of existing manuscripts, reading, writing short fiction, research, and prepping the next major manuscript. My tendentious (golfer and tennis elbow) is still plaguing me (writing eight hours a day at work and then writing when I get home is hampering the healing process) but it is getting better. I have begun doing exercises to strengthen these tendons which is giving me decent relief. But, sitting down and cranking away on a manuscript is still difficult – though short fiction is possible (I’ve written four new long form short stories over the last two months).
However, I feel that I need to do a stint of blog posts. So, there should be a significant amount coming out over the next couple of weeks. These are ideas I’ve been jotting down and wanted to focus on. Also, I will be updating the section “My Journey to Writing” either today or next weekend – it is severely outdated. Then, at the beginning of the new year, I will begin work on Manuscript 8 which will be a long format novel with intertwining ideas. Also, Journey to God has been heavily revised over the last month. The goal is to finish these revisions and submit a query to an agent I would love to work with because of her personality. Sorry for the lack of updates!
Read MoreSmall Questions: Making Sausage
It is time for another exciting installment of small questions. Specifically, let’s discuss the packaging of sausages. Now I’ve seen sausage being made, and when it comes out of the machine, it differs from how it looks when you purchase it. For example, when you look at the sausage that you buy from a major distributor, all the sausages in the package are curved. So, why are the sausages curved? Is this the natural state of the pig intestines (casings) and the sausage eventually bends to this basic structure or is something else at play?
In this case, I think I have the answer – marketing. If the sausages were straight, the package would be smaller. If one of the competitors had a package with the same amount of meat in it, but the sausages were curved, the package would have to be bigger to accommodate the different form. Thus, an illusion is created. Your eye sees something larger and you assume you get more for the same price, but you could read the packages and know that they contain the same amount of food. Who knows, I could be wrong.
As always, Theodore asking the tough questions.
Read MoreHow I Manipulate Myself
My arms are killing me, so, I haven’t written new fiction in two weeks. A little bit ago, I talked about how I wrote three short stories in a week. I’ve been editing and revising my work since I can’t write for extended periods of time. However, I found it fascinating how I manipulate myself in order to write certain feelings. I had to do this heavily for one of the pieces I wrote and there are two things I will do in order to achieve the feelings necessary to write a character.
The first one is simple, I think about the situation that I’ve put a character in and then I become that character. I flood myself with the emotions. So, if a character loses a loved one, I think of someone I love, close my eyes, and imagine they are dead. I run through the interactions I would make with others and how I would behave. I drive myself to actually crying, and then, I write. My mind is back to what it was before the exercise, that way I can write, but I have created a pool of emotions to drag into my piece.
The second way is more of a high level overview. If I am going to write a sad piece, I don’t need the emotions to be there, but I need the text to be representative of sadness. This is done through vocabulary choices and other techniques, but I begin the process before I even start writing. During the initial phases, I pull an acoustic album and play it. I will find albums that have the “vibe” needed to imbue me with the necessary tone. Then, I will start writing. After about twenty minutes, the needle will retract and I will be left in silence. I won’t notice the lack of music, but I will carry those tracks through me as I keep writing. Then, after I take a break, I turn it back on so I can get back into the right mindset. It allows me to take breaks but never lose the tone of my pieces.
I’m sure I manipulate myself in other ways, but those are two ways I consciously modify my mind’s state.
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