A Little Diatribe from Uncle Theodore
Open source software projects bring an amazing feeling of community to anyone who works on the project. You see these projects everywhere, tons of people spending tons of their time for no profit. How wonderful! They all just work for a common good, to make a tool they all use better. Do these programmers want money? Of course, but not on this project. This project is special to them, and that makes them produce without any care. They do it in their off hours, and many do it because of their passion for the project. But, what if your open source product doesn’t have a zealous following?
Read MoreProduce, Produce, no not Vegetables
Produce, and produce some more. That has been my motto for the last two months. In this time, I have been heavily focused on cranking out short stories regularly. Some stories are easy to write and some of the ideas take multiple days to produce because of complexity. All I know is that I am seeing massive growth in terms of different skills and a heavy coffee/tea consumption. At this time, I am working on a short story called Like Laika and hoping to push some of the work from July to the website.
As soon as I hear from the places I have submitted, I will post up the new Flash Fiction and Short Story section. Bare with me, I haven’t disappeared or stopped working… I just can’t publish anything until I know someone else won’t.
Read MoreTrends
I haven’t posted in awhile because of life. At the time, I am running through research (about to finish tomorrow and begin outlining the fourth book). Sadly, I am behind schedule for the new book. In the mean time, I have done a lot of reading (short stories and novels) while submitting some of my shorter work. In my reading, I have noticed an odd trend. Perhaps it is what I am reading, but I feel that most of the work I read is drab. I understand the tones and the importance of what the author is discussing, but I just find their method exhausting. But, I tend to be more interested in work like Vonnegut. His short stories are hugely compelling, but he does set them in an odd “world” because it isn’t present time (I like odd). I don’t know, but I think I pegged why I am perturbed by many contemporary pieces in magazines. My best analysis pins this odd phenomenon to the fact that a lot of the fiction seems like nonfiction. Each of the these stories could be from a nonfiction standpoint, yes the themes are important, but Vonnegut talks about the same themes but in a truly “fiction” way (once again my opinion, I don’t have a degree in literature). I guess, I don’t enjoy reading piece after piece that seems like a memoir or an autobiography. Either way, I should begin hearing from my July submissions – soon. Once I do, I will release a whole new chunk to the website and modify the pages. Look forward to it!
Read MoreProgress Report for August 19th, 2014
Recently, a dear friend’s mother passed away. I am a strong believer that family and friends are the most important aspect of life. As I watch over his home, I have slowed my writing and switched to reading . Today, I have finished Galapagos by Vonnegut and suggest it to anyone who enjoys Vonnegut. While reading it, I spent a lot of time analyzing how he outlined the piece. I also analyzed what was in the original structure and what was impromptu. Either way, it is an impressive piece of literature that I thoroughly enjoyed. In other news, I have written a new piece Milgram and began work on a new piece: 3 in One (I can’t remember if I mentioned this piece, its original name was Three in 1).
3 in One began percolating during a discussion with my old philosophy professor while at lunch. It will be an experimental piece that I will enter in a competition. It has so many moving parts, which makes it one of the only short stories I have written with an in depth outline. Normally, I write down events and other important details of a short story on scrap paper. In this case, I outlined the piece on my 18×24 paper (reserved only for novels) because it is so complex.
Read MoreProgress Report for August 11th, 2014
I took a minor vacation this last two weeks from writing progress reports because there hasn’t been much activity (due to my birthday) these last two weeks. I submitted a lot of pieces to different competitions (these will be available as soon as I hear from the magazines) and entered a few this month. One piece – that is completed – is Relationships and another piece – that is being outlined – is called Three in 1. One of my old professors came back into town and gave me more tools to hone my craft. The idea that sprung up from an exercise is Three in 1 and it will be my most daunting foray into experimental writing. For reference, the exercise he suggest had nothing to do with writing a piece in this format, but – by practicing the exercise – I decided to tell the story in this format. I am excited; I am finally going to attempt a style of writing that has been on my list for a year (it is a surprise). In other news, I am sending out the third treatment for Journey to God and it will be accompanied by a treatment of Tesla’s Travels. So, I keep pushing forward and reading fiction (finished The Siren’s of Titan on Saturday) and nonfiction (research). The fourth book is still in the research phase, and I am hoping to begin the first chapter at the end of August. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful morning!
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