The Easiest Way to Back Up Your Files, Right Now

The Easiest Way to Back Up Your Files, Right Now

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Quick, let’s go back and save fourteen year-old me! When I was a middle-school teenager, back in the era of one computer per household, my dad got mad at me for something- I don’t recall what.  Shortly thereafter, I logged into the family computer, and discovered my personal folder on the hard drive- the repository for everything I did- missing.  Not in the trash, not in a different folder, just gone like it never existed. “You must’ve downloaded a virus,”…

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It Sucks- So Don’t Give Up!

It Sucks- So Don’t Give Up!

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(Image credit: Imagebase.net) At a writer’s group meeting, a fellow member was discussing his work from several years back, lamenting how it all sucked. I told him, “GOOD!” He was confused.  How is that possibly good? Two reasons: he’d improved his writing over time, and he’d recognized as much. Do you ever cringe, looking at stuff you worked on years earlier?  Some of my writing from high school and college, ugh- the prose is so purple, it craps violets.  In…

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My Transition From Fanfic to Original Fiction

My Transition From Fanfic to Original Fiction

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(Image credit: texturezoom.com) To me, writing fanfiction (i.e. stories set in pre-established fictional universes, like Star Trek for instance) is akin to filling holes in a mostly assembled jigsaw puzzle.  You can have a lot of fun, and make something beautiful that lots of people will appreciate, without much effort. In contrast, original fiction requires chopping down a tree, running planks through the wood chipper, creating pulp, turning the pulp into cardboard, drawing a beautiful illustration on the cardboard, scoring…

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Talk Through The Block, And Other Tips For Getting Your Brain Unstuck

Talk Through The Block, And Other Tips For Getting Your Brain Unstuck

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A giant rubber duck swam through my hometown in 2013.  Photo by Remy Porter. My past jobs involved a lot of tech support- not just the stereotypical “Is your machine plugged in?” fare, but also talking with developers about their code, how they could fine-tune performance and make the best use of the APIs I supported. One of my all-time favorite users (for real- no sarcasm) called me up frequently concerning an especially painful application that fell under my purview. …

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The First Things You Learn After Quitting Your Full-Time Job

The First Things You Learn After Quitting Your Full-Time Job

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(Image credit: Imagebase.net) Wow!  I don’t have to go to work again- ever!  This day can be anything I want! An amazing feeling- but also a worrying one. I don’t want to waste it.  What should I do?  I’d better decide fast- I’m wasting time RIGHT NOW.  The question gnaws at me.  Before I know it, I’ve wasted hours with unnecessary guilt and frustration. I should go write, right?  Duh!  That novel won’t finish itself.  But there are a hundred other…

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In Perpetuity: Free Download

In Perpetuity: Free Download

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Astronaut drawing by Mark Bowytz – Cover design by Ellis Morning My short story In Perpetuity– originally published in the May 2014 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact– is now available for free!  Choose your format below: MOBI EPUB PDF In Perpetuity represents several thrilling firsts: my first attempt at hard science-fiction, my first published short story, and my first serious effort at compiling ebooks.  (And I thought website/browser compatibility was tricky!) The story began as one of many…

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Spatial Reasoning- How A Deficient Writer Copes

Spatial Reasoning- How A Deficient Writer Copes

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I struggle to visualize characters interacting inside of a space.  There, I said it! My spatial reasoning is poor.  Given a description of a set of objects, and a change to apply to one or more of those objects, I usually can’t tell you the end result off the top of my head.  I must draw or act things out to arrive at the answer. In my college programming courses, I filled notebooks with sketches of arrays and registers, and…

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Bob Ross on Editing: “Don’t Fiddle It To Death”

Bob Ross on Editing: “Don’t Fiddle It To Death”

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I love watching The Joy of Painting at the end of a long day.  Bob Ross is relaxing, entertaining, and has much wisdom to offer artists of all stripes.  Near completion of a painting, one of his favorite bits of advice is, “Now, don’t fiddle this to death.”  You risk ruining your happy little trees by endlessly tweaking and fussing over them. The same thing applies when we writers put on our editing caps.  We second-guess word choice and sentence…

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The Last Dreadful Sunday

The Last Dreadful Sunday

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(Image credit: Imagebase.net) For most of my life- a few years excepted- Sundays have been plagued with a gnawing sense of dread. Monday’s coming.  Back to school or work.  Assignments I don’t want to do, meetings to slog through, people I don’t want to deal with. No matter how sunny the weather or what fun activities are planned for the day, I never fully relax with Monday sitting right there, ready to swallow me up in another week.  I feel…

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4 Tricks To Enhance Your Brainstorming

4 Tricks To Enhance Your Brainstorming

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(Image credit: imagebase.net) A writer logs a huge portion of his or her life at desk, computer, and notebook.  Everyone dreams about stories, but only by spending months grinding through sentence after sentence, thinking and rethinking, obsessing, anguishing, tearing down and throwing up, does a story or a book actually come into existence. We’re all too aware of those who dream, but never put in the effort.  We’re all too aware of the games procrastination plays with us.  When we…

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