A Musing Monday with Productivity Tips for Writer Aspirants

The weekend is behind us. The day of Mon is already in its death throes and I am pleased with the progress made. All is well in Casa de Blur. Words? Written. Plots? Plotted. Words given form. Files uploaded. A lot was done today. The big reason? I thought I was seriously behind on something. As in, I should’ve had something already in but I didn’t and I was doing a mad scramble to make sure it got done. Well, I found out after I had gotten it done, so bully for me. I’m farther along than I have every right to be. I don’t like misleading myself–and this was entirely unintentional–but the upshot is it put me in a pretty good space. The words are flowing this afternoon after they had been forced to fly from my fingertips. Writing at breakneck speed is all well and good, but it takes practice, diligence, and a firm refusal to let the English language (and it’s pesky grammar rules) stand in your way. Are you a writer or a grammarian? Editors are essential, but we gotta give ’em something to chew on.

Things I did over the weekend which probably helped today?

I played L.A. Noire with my daughter. Good times. Well, it was mainly her playing while I yelled at her to do stuff. It reminded me of Law & Order quite a bit (as a police procedural, it naturally would, right) and made me wonder how the hell anybody can figure out who’s telling the truth. This was a big step forward in gaming evolution and we thought of it a bit as GTA meets Heavy Rain. I think that’s a fairly accurate assessment. I wouldn’t have given points off for the linear nature of the game if Rockstar didn’t get us so used to a sandbox style of gaming. As it stands, I feel a bit gypped, even though I shouldn’t. It’s an amazing game on so many games, but I want more. So…bravo?

I finished reading Rendezvous with Rama, a brilliant novel by Arthur C. Clarke. Fine science fiction and if you want to see some solid prose without a bunch of embellishments (and you should) then go snag this book. It was my first experience with the word perhelion [1. The point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid or comet where it is nearest to the sun. source: Wikipedia] and it may be yours, I dunno. I’m not an astronomer or a heavy sci-fi reader, but it’s a cool word. Thanks to the wonders of technology, I was able to simply click on the word, and my Nook Color rushed out to the internet and brought the definition back to me on a silver platter. [2. Now, for some reason, I’m craving sun-chips. I’ve no idea why.] This book made me smarter. I reviewed a few other books and have settled down with Fight Club. Yes, the book that movies based on.  I probably shouldn’t have mentioned I’m reading it. [3. The first rule of reading Fight Club and all that…] It’s immediately engrossing and I’m seeing the movie replay in my head. Good job all around. Up after that may well be The Name of the Wind.

So, I did some reading, some relaxing, and yesterday, I did some reasoning as I sorted out the direction on upgrading my NookColor yet again. Now, I’m running the Gingerbread version of Android, and I’ve largely dispensed with the accouterments of the original platform. It’s now very much an Android tablet and I’m going to give it a spin this week to see if I want to keep it this way. I can go back any time I want. I’ve been keeping incremental image files as I progressed. The only heart stopping moment I had was when I fiddled with overclocking it without checking any online resources. It was supremely foolish of me to do that. I treated it like I’ve done with tricking out engines in racing games, without rhyme or reason. The best part of doing that was I made certain it did it on rebooting which caused the thing to not clear out the cache and it froze up until I reimaged it. I didn’t erase the most recent data when I did the reimage, but my logic stood. It worked like a champ. Just be careful what you do without reading anything unless you know your overclocking which, admittedly, is a far cry from my wheelhouse.

That’s the report for today. I came to the table with my A-game ready for action and my analyses at the end of the day is simple: hit your brain with things beyond your usual scope. Stretch yourself. Forcing your brain to adapt to new situations is an important way to exercise this most important of muscles.

Until next time, I bid you, dear reader, adieu!