Blog topics

I'm writing up blogs, interviews, etc. for my book launch September 16. I'm also writing up a blog post about head-hopping.

It's one of those canards of Writing 101 that thou shalt not head-hop; I'm going to discuss a case where it was done with interesting literary effect. It wasn't in some snooty lit fic book, either.

Look for it next week.


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#FridayFlash: The 200th Body

For the fourth time in as many minutes, Tony "Big Finger" Noland wiped the blood out of his eyes. His left hand was slick with it, but it was the broken index and middle fingers that made the wiping difficult. Doing it left handed wouldn't have been a big deal otherwise; he'd long since trained himself to be competently ambidextrous. With his right arm broken in a three places below the elbow, he could afford to pat himself on the back for that.

He mopped away the blood and went back to tying the splint against his right arm. Scalp wounds... his least favorite kind. They bled like crazy and made a mess of everything. Worse, they were a pain in the ass to stitch up by yourself. At least the first gush of blood had slowed. When he was finished with the arm, he'd check on it more closely.

Twenty minutes and a lot of swearing later, Big Finger Noland straightened up and looked at himself in the dented metal mirror over the garage's washup sink. He smelled like deisel fuel, blood, Fast Orange Hand Cleaner and, under it all, the lingering traces of puke. Strange things happened when people got shot. This time, the mark cut loose with a projectile stream when Noland shot him the first time. Belly, belly, chest, then a double tap through the forehead when he was good and down. Of course, that was all after the little fuck had gotten in some solid hits with that tire iron. Too many, and more than he should have. One little slip on an oil patch was enough to send Noland to the floor of the garage with his first step out of the shadows. It gave his target a chance to run.

Or to fight, which he'd chosen to do. This was odd and unnerving, not because it had happened tonight, but because he was the third guy this year who'd tried to fight it out. There was a time when men ran from Noland, when whole bars would clear out just because he got up from a stool with murder in his eye. But now?

Over the sink, there was an old man in the mirror. He wore a dead man's baseball cap, set loosely atop wet, matted hair. The haggard and weary old man used his left hand - his clumsy and weak left hand - to adjust his shirt buttons. It was unnatural the way the old man kept his right arm down. However, with it down at his side you couldn't tell that it was wrapped up in a stiff, bulky package inside his sleeve.

Noland looked at the old man. He didn't look like someone you'd run away from. The old man looked back, his expression at once sad and challenging.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" they said to each other. "You want to do a job like this and not get your hair mussed up a little, be my guest."

Blood loss, that's what it was. Nothing but blood loss was making him talk to himself. Noland turned and talked to the corpse on the floor.

"What do you think? Do I pass? Will I attract attention as I drive your sorry ass up to the lake? More importantly, how am I gonna get you into the trunk? And am I even gonna make any money on this job? It's gonna cost me a penny to get stitched up, if I want it done quietly."

And behind the ones he'd asked out loud, there were the more fearful questions. With his left hand broken and his right arm shattered, how long would it be until he could work again? Would he be able to work again at all? How would he be able to handle a gun or knife after he healed? Would anyone hire him? The injuries were sure to make people talk. Big Finger Noland... yeah, he used to be a good button man, but he got old and slow. Look how he almost got himself killed on a simple whack job. Can't trust him to push a button on somebody, not when it matters.

Noland chewed his lip. What would he do? He had some money put by, but not that much. And it wasn't like a button man could retire anyway. No loafing in a sunny condo on the Gulf Coast. A button man drops out of the business for a couple of years, people start to get anxious that maybe he's gonna start talking, they send somebody around to pay him a visit and see that he stays quiet. No such thing as an old ex-button man. Noland knew he could still do the job, but he also knew that he didn't heal up from this kind of thing as quickly as he used to. How long did he have until people started talking?

He looked at the corpse, but dared not put these questions to it. The corpse didn't notice the uncomfortable silence. It lay cooling on the floor, wrapped in a triple layer of oil-soak pads. The back of the head was a wreck, but the face was still intact. Noland stared into its half-lidded eyes.

"Hey," Big Finger said, "you ever think about how things might have turned out different? Like if you'd made difference decisions when you were a kid? How you might have had some other career? Some other life?"

The corpse said nothing.

"Beautiful. Just beautiful. I'm talking to a whack. And thanks to you, I can't see as how I have any life ahead of me. You're what they call an exquisite corpse, you know that? I kill you, you kill me. Serves me right." He stooped to the body and extended his left hand, sheltering his broken fingers as much as possible. "Come on, buddy. Into the trunk with you. We can talk on the way up to the mountains."

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The first 199 stories

Tomorrow marks the 200th week in a row that I will have posted a story for #FridayFlash. In honor of that event, I'm giving away a free copy of my flash fiction anthology, "Blood Picnic and other stories", a free copy of my forthcoming book, "Verbosity's Vengeance", and a 2014 Audi A5. All you have to do is leave a comment below. I'll randomly pick a winner from all comments submitted.

Note: I'm kidding about the Audi.

This is a lot of words under the bridge since my first #FridayFlash, "Nearer Comes The Moon". Some have been good, some have been experimental, some have been inaccessibly weird. Regardless, here are the titles of the 199 stories to date, presented in order as they appeared here on Landless over the last 200 weeks. See if you can spot any old favorites.
 
Nearer Comes The Moon
Third Shift At McSweeny's
The Death Of Lee Harvey Oswald
A Level-Headed Man
Five Hundred Francs
Intervention
Not My Intention
Back Of The Class
The Killing Song
Cutting
Racist Bastard
Comes The Witching Hour
The Way Of All Flesh
Time's Arrow
Phil's Christmas Present
I Weep Not For Thee
Truly, Deeply, Endlessly
Pot Of Gold
Space Opera, In The Face Of An Alien Invasion
Philly's In The House
The Green Fields Of Home
Reonciliation
Ridi, Pagliaccio
Nom De Plume
Truth Lies Beneath
Parole Board
Another Glass Of Chardonnay
A Bucket Of Rocks
The Endless War
4:45
Fear And Loathing
The Girl At The Window
Mother's Day
Grow, Garden, Grow
White Paper
Warm Hands, Cold Beer
One Percent Inspiration
Bones Don't Burn
Friday Flash, Flash, Flash
Romeo And Juliet Are Dead
Megalo-Man Vs. Dr. Tarantula
The Aftermath Of The Boxer Rebellion
Grey Ghost Gone
Coffee Break
The Livin' Is Easy
Lebensturm
Leeds Darts Champion Of 1977
Pop
Long Story
The Chosen One
Sunshine Came Softly
Shirts And Skins
Straight And True, My Arrow, Fly
Roll Call
A Double Month Of Dust In Whiskey Gulch
Adventure!
Verbosity's Vengeance
Spikes High
Hellfire
Three Cold Cokes
Ayers Rock, By God
Chestnut Hollow
Island Of Stability
I'm Telling You Why
Aspirations
This Little Light Of Mine
A Fire In The Palm Of My Hand
A Large Slice Of Fire
Old Stones
Where The Hell Is Tony's Fridayflash?
Simple Geometry
Complex Geometry
We Will Be Happy
Brazilian Whacks
The Herringbone Meteorite
The One Thing You Need To Be Happy
Wish Me A Wish
When The Room Stops Spinning
King Nosmo The Intrusive
Looking Down
Yellow And White
Death Of The Horrible
Now Hiring: Canine Farming Technician
Romance... With Lasers
Hi My Name Is Candice
Candice On The Couch
Again Take Up Thy Sword, Warrior King
A Common Purpose
A Long Visit To Sunny, Scenic Tel Aviv
Sister Ophelia
The Science Of Faith
The Knife
In The Right Light
Sunlight On The Plaza Below
Scaling Cadillac Mountain
Good Question
Who Sent You?
God's Holy Fire
Babbling Brooke
The Test
So Goes The Turing Test
Volume 3: The Bites Of Love
Palimpsest
Cusp
The Curious Case Of The Chronofundibular Emancipation Engine
Roofline
Pumpkin Brains, Forever
Possible Hims For Origin
Chopin Beneath A Starry Sky
Truth, Justice And Natural Philosophy
The Last Friday Night
Is This Tony Noland?
Travelling In The Darkness
The Diamond Anvil
The Unexpected Guests
Albert Einstein Gets A Cavity
All That Glistens Is Not Garbage
The Gift Of Love, Eventually
Just Because
Alone In The Woods
Ten Million Robots, One Heart
The Failure Of A Mechanical Heart
Cheap Chocolate, All You Can Eat
Ringtone, Ringtone
Dinosaurs In The Duckpond
Heatstroke
British Columbia Must Burn
Plea Bargain, Part 1
Plea Bargain, Part 2
Plea Bargain, Part 3
Plea Bargain, Part 4
Instincts
A Latte, A Biscotti, And A Miracle
The Sound Of Daffodils
Death Of The Cowboy
Beautiful Creature
The Way It's Done
Searching For Love
The Emperor's New Clothes
Broad Horizons
Lord V's Interrupted Tea
Canon In D
A Hero By Any Other Name
The Sounds Of The Material World
The Grammarian Vs. Txtspk
At Last, We Meet
The Statefair Letters
Death Centered
A Friend In Need
Lightning Fast
The Battle Of Cygnus V
The Grammarian Vs. Laser Suit Larry
DADT Is Alive And Well
The Old Man In The Corner
Three Days
I Found A Dead Alien Buried In The Sands Of Mars
Dust Devils
Pity For The Trapped Man
Precise Magic
For Want Of A Clown...
The Diggings
A Fool Like Thee
Diplomatic Mission
The Last Page
Caution: Genius At Work
Every Christmas
Close Range
Land, Ho
Elegy On A Biospy Needle
Play For Me, Slave
The Only Clinic In South Dakota
A Little Peace And Quiet
The Monster
A Day For Connecting The Dots
The Bloom Of New Roses
Robot Money
What More?
Night Driving, Alone
Flash Flash Fiction
Protection From The Elements
Exotic Wood
On Bended Knee
Quickly, Staunch The Wound
Living Stones, Living Wood
No Fit Food
Hell No, GMO!
Into Darkness
The Revenge Engine
The Holy Bones Of Cenotani
Burn The Salted Metals
A Child For The Marquisa
Almost Done
Unpaid Furloughs At The Tsa
High Places
The Desire To Understand
Megamediators Inc.
Chasing The Water
Lost
The Planet That God Built
 

 

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Software review: "PerfectIt"

Since the launch of my book, "Verbosity's Vengeance: A Grammarian Adventure Novel" is coming up [on sale NOW, actually! - T.N.], I thought I'd review one of the pieces of software I used while revising it.

The software is "PerfectIt", a product of Intelligent Editing. Some time ago, I was contacted by Daniel Heuman, the managing director of Intelligent Editing, who offered me the chance to put his product through its paces. The software comes in a standard version ($59) and a professional version ($99). I was given the latter. One big difference is that the standard version is limited to documents of 20,000 words or fewer. It might be suitable for memos, letters, stories or individual chapters, but you couldn't run a novella or full length novel with it.

Unlike other grammar and usage checking software, which are standalone or web-based programs, PerfectIt is a Word plug-in. My experience with Word 2007 and Word 2010 was that it loaded easily and had no appreciable impact on how Word ran on Windows 7-based systems. On an older desktop machine or a newer laptop, it ran fine.

For novelists, the limitations of which tests are run aren't nearly as important as the limit on the size of the file to be examined. I can't really see that running a book through the standard version, chapter by chapter, would give you the overall consistency and polish that using the full version would.

So what does the software do? According to the website, it's proofreading software for professionals:
 "PerfectIt helps you deliver error-free documents. It helps you to improve consistency, ensure quality and enforce your style guide." 
There are ten classes of tests, with sub-sections for each (click the images to enlarge):


You can have the software run any or all of these. For example, I told it to check for hyphenation consistency, but to disregard "Phrases to Avoid / Consider". My book was run as a single Word file, approximately 108,000 words. (Naturally, I saved a copy of the file to a thumb drive before allowing anything to be done with it.) Processing the file took less than ten seconds before it was ready for me to start reviewing what it had flagged.


Right away, I got a big surprise about how inconsistent I was in my terminology. My superheroes were always superheroes, but the people they fought were either supervillains, super-villains, or super villains. They had superpowers, super-powers, or super powers. The Grammarian's motorcycle has onboard (or on-board) meme projectors (or meme-projectors) that support his crime fighting (or crimefighting) on the streets of Lexicon City.

In a long document, proofreading to match a house style is invaluable, but it's fussy, picky work. PerfectIt did a great job of finding these inconsistencies. For each, it listed all the variations for each phrase along with how many usages each had. By selecting each one, the cursor was taken to where it occurred in the document, so you can make the change by hand. This let me see if a variant usage was actually appropriate, given the context on that particular page. This also let me define and adhere to one standard "house style" for my book, such as using no hyphen when "super" is part of a class descriptor (supervillain or superhero), but using a hyphen where "super" is used as a adjectival modifier (super-hearing, super-strength).


Evaluating the suggested changes was easy and making the changes (or indicating that I wanted the instance left "as is") was straightforward. At the end of it all, PerfectIt generates a report listing exactly what changes it made. For "Verbosity's Vengeance", this report begins:
SUMMARY OF CHANGES MADE USING PERFECTIT

In the test of 'Hyphenation of Phrases', PerfectIt found 53 possible inconsistencies across 383 locations. A total of 76 locations were changed.
In the test of 'Hyphenation of Words', PerfectIt found 23 possible inconsistencies across 181 locations. A total of 32 locations were changed.
In the test of 'Spelling Variations', PerfectIt found 8 possible inconsistencies across 244 locations. A total of 37 locations were changed.
In the test of 'Numbers in Sentences', PerfectIt found 1 possible inconsistency across 62 locations. A total of 3 locations were changed.
In the test of 'Common Typos', PerfectIt found 4 possible errors across 6 locations. A total of 2 locations were changed.
In the test of 'Contractions', PerfectIt found 48 possible errors across 2247 locations. No locations were changed.
In the test of 'Compound Words', PerfectIt found 2 possible inconsistencies across 33 locations. A total of 6 locations were changed.
In the test of 'Abbreviations in Two Forms', PerfectIt found 15 possible inconsistencies across 653 locations. A total of 4 locations were changed.
In the test of 'Abbreviations Without Definitions', PerfectIt found 47 possible errors. No locations were changed.
In the test of 'Phrases in Capitals', PerfectIt found 18 possible inconsistencies across 288 locations. A total of 20 locations were changed.

Note: Some results are described as ranges because PerfectIt does not know which version is correct, only that there is an inconsistency.

HYPHENATION OF PHRASES
The following phrases appear with and without a hyphen:
‘arch enemy’/‘arch-enemy’ appears 1 time without a hyphen, but 2 times with. Two locations of 'arch-enemy' were changed.
‘arch-nemesis’/‘arch nemesis’ appears 1 time with a hyphen, but 1 time without. One location of 'arch-nemesis' was changed. One location of 'arch nemesis' was changed.
‘back-flip’/‘back flip’ appears 1 time with a hyphen, but 1 time without. One location of 'back-flip' was changed. One location of 'back flip' was changed.
‘black-belt’/‘black belt’ appears 1 time with a hyphen, but 1 time without. One location of 'black-belt' was changed.
‘break in’/‘break-in’ appears 3 times without a hyphen, but 4 times with. Three locations of 'break in' were changed.
‘crime-fighting’/‘crime fighting’ appears 1 time with a hyphen, but 3 times without. Three locations of 'crime fighting' were changed.
‘em-dashes’/‘em dashes’ appears 1 time with a hyphen, but 2 times without. One location of 'em-dashes' was changed.
‘energy-bindings’/‘energy bindings’ appears 1 time with a hyphen, but 1 time without. One location of 'energy-bindings' was changed.
‘hand to hand’/‘hand-to-hand’ appears 1 time without a hyphen, but 4 times with. No changes were made.
‘heads up’/‘heads-up’ appears 1 time without a hyphen, but 9 times with. One location of 'heads up' was changed.
‘high density’/‘high-density’ appears 3 times without a hyphen, but 5 times with. Three locations of 'high density' were changed.
...
And so on, and so on.

An experienced human proofreader, working from a standard style sheet, would no doubt catch the kinds of inconsistencies and variations PerfectIt did, and probably more besides. For an easy to install, easy to use Word plug-in, it's quite good.

The program really isn't intended to clean up poor writing. Feeding a first-draft mess into it would generate so many error reports that you couldn't wade through them all. However, it was very good at giving a professional shine to text that was already tuned up. PerfectIt found about 300 items to fix in 108,000 words. That's an error rate of 0.27%. Is it worth fussing over text that's 99.73% perfect?

I think so. Readers notice inconsistencies and variations. Imperfections look unprofessional, an onus that no novelist wants to have on his or her back.

PerfectIt did a great job at spotting a great many things in what I'd thought was a fully polished manuscript. It's certainly worth giving the free trial a spin.

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11 Tweets You Should Never Send

Granted, I'm not in the business of telling you what you can and can't do on twitter. I'm just going to tell you what you shouldn't do on twitter. Here are 11 Tweets You Should Never Send:
  1. I have over 157 followers. Why aren't any of you bying my book?  I bought your's!
  2. God, why am I so lonely? I'm totally like the smartest, most well-informed person you'll ever meet.
  3. But what both sides in this argument fail to realize is that there is a logical solution staring them right in their fucking faces. (34/122)
  4. What I love about cross-posting tweets from Facebook is that it's so simple! You just set up th... fb.gys/htrp
  5. Hey, can anybody give me some legal advice about some homeowner/neighbor stuff? Pls RT.
  6. @scalzi Can I do a guest post on Whatever? About self-publishing?
  7. I've met dozens of agents and they are all self-serving asshats who just wish they could write a book. #losers
  8. I'm gonna give it just one more week, but if there's still blood in my semen, I'm going to the clinic.
  9. Jesus, Yahweh  and the Flying Spaghetti Monster walk into a barn. The bartender says, "Hey, why the wrong place?"
  10.  That was the last straw, @TonyNoland. Unfollow. #unfollow
  11. "The quality of mercy is not strained, but droppeth as the dew from heaven." - Albert Einstein


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Cover reveal: "Verbosity's Vengeance"

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... the cover:



The nefarious Professor Verbosity threatens Lexicon City with a mysterious new superweapon and only the Grammarian can stop him… just as soon as he hires a decent sidekick. Mix in the interference of the Avant Guardian (a goofy superhero wanna-be), a vicious stranger who strikes from the shadows, and a beautiful, brainy college professor with a thing for superhero technology, and the Grammarian has his work cut out for him. A hero unlike any other, the Grammarian uses the strength of supple syntax and the power of perfect punctuation to fight for justice on the mean streets of Lexicon City.

A mix of science fiction and humorous wordplay, "Verbosity's Vengeance" will thrill and delight everyone who loves semicolons as well as superheroes.

"Verbosity's Vengeance" will be available on Amazon on Monday, September 16, 2013. Approximately 289 pages, it will retail at $2.99. It's Batman meets WordGirl meets Thursday Next.

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Who monitors the monitors?

I had some computer trouble this morning. It took me forever to diagnose it, because the system was completely dead, but still making noises. I finally realized that the computer itself is fine, but one of the monitors died. That zorched the video so neither monitor was active. When I unplugged the bad one from the video card output, the system wasn't two-headed anymore, so the other monitor sprang to normal life.

As it happens, the monitor that died is a Samsung, the same brand as the last monitor that died on me. I know how to fix a bad LCD monitor, since I did it before. See "How to repair a dead monitor", by yours truly. That model was a Samsung 906bw, while this is a 245bw, but I don't anticipate it being that much different.

The only question is when I'm going to be able to get at this stupid thing. I'll have to order the capacitor kit, take this monitor apart, de-mount the mainboard, de-solder all the old capacitors, install the new capacitors and reassemble. Repair is ~$25 + my time. Replacement is ~$300.

Guess which one I'm going to do?

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My #FridayFlash and The Big Splash

My #FridayFlash this week ("The Planet That God Built") refers to the "Big Splash", an event 4,500,000,000 years ago when an object the size of Mars smashed into the the early Earth. The horrific impact ripped both planets apart and set them spinning as a cloud of ejecta. A huge mass of material coalesced to become the Moon, with the rest becoming the Earth. Mostly, the lighter stuff went to the former, while the denser stuff went to the latter.

The kinetic energy imparted to the nickel-iron core of the Earth and the spin from the impact are what gives us the active molten core we have today. That, in turn, gives us the magnetic field that shields us from the solar wind. Without it, the ions from the sun would crack our water up, causing the hydrogen to float away. We'd be utterly dried out, like Mars and Venus.

No impact = no spinning core = no magnetic field = no protection = no water = no life.

As an added bonus, having such a large moon (~3% of the Earth's mass) in such close proximity spin-stabilized our rotation, with lots of excess torque being transferred to the lighter body. The Moon's rotation got locked with its orbital period and our rotation and processional period slowed. That keeps us from getting baked and frozen with a too-long or too-short day.

AND the relatively low concentration of light silicates on Earth (since we gave most of that light stuff to the Moon) means we have a thin crust. That gives us slow, churning plate tectonics with large swaths of the crust perfectly intact and stable. Every billion years or so, Venus undergoes a single massive upthrust, wherein the entire surface is consumed and sunk under the lava. This happens because its crust is much thicker than ours. But here on Earth, it's just the edges of the plates that erode; the bulk of the crust is stable long enough to let life evolve and thrive.

Funny how it all worked out from such an unlikely coincidence. A planetoid of JUST the size hitting us at JUST the right time and at JUST the right angle to give JUST the right spin and JUST the right distribution of densities, elements and conditions to allow life to evolve. That's quite a coincidence... if it was a coincidence.

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New poll: what's your blood type?

New poll: what do you have running through your veins?
  1. Regular human blood
  2. Green Vulcan blood
  3. Ichor
  4. Coffee and/or alien acid
  5. Pain over the life you might have had
  6. Unicorns and lemonade
  7. Other (specify in comments)

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#FridayFlash: The planet that God built


This is the planet that God built.

This is the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This was two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is a debris field, caught up in a spin,
made from two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is new creation, now set to begin, from this debris field, caught up in a spin,
made from two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the eon of a planet renewed,
after creation was again begun, from the debris field, horrifically spun,
made from two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the iron - flowing, subdued - during the eon of a planet renewed,
after creation was again begun, from the debris field, horrifically spun,
made from two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the magnet, ten thousand Gauss,
made by the iron - flowing, subdued - during the eon of a planet renewed,
after creation was again begun, from the debris field, horrifically spun,
made from two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the water, the surface to souse, shielded by the magnet, ten thousand Gauss,
made by the iron - flowing, subdued - during the eon of a planet renewed,
after creation was again begun, from the debris field, horrifically spun,
made from two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is the Life - engendered, protected -
that arose from the water, the surface to souse, shielded by the magent, ten thousand Gauss,
made by the iron - flowing, subdued - during the eon of a planet renewed,
after creation was again begun, from the debris field, horrifically spun,
made from two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

This is Creation, with plans undetected, to bring about Life - engendered, protected -
that arose from the water, the surface to souse, shielded by the magnet, ten thousand Gauss,
made by the iron - flowing, subdued - during the eon of a planet renewed,
after creation was again begun, from the debris field, horrifically spun,
made from two spheroids, now nary a trace, reduced to ejecta, thrown out into space,
thrust by the plasma, (was solid, now not), that used to be core, now superhot,
mixed with the crust, torn all asunder, forced by the impact, horrific thunder,
caused by the speed, so truly immense, possessed by the object, so heavy and dense,
that slammed into the planet that God built.

All on the planet that God built.

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Software review: "Editor"

Since I'm writing a review of  "PerfectIt", another piece of editing/proofing software, I thought it might be useful for me to reprint my review of "Editor", which originally appeared earlier this year on the Today's Author website. My review of "PerfectIt" will appear next Thursday. Enjoy. - Tony

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I’m working with a piece of software that might be of interest to those who self-publish. It’s got the catchy name of “Editor”, a product of Serenity Software. (I bought it retail and have no sort of relationship with the company.) I’m using it to go over my novel. So far, I like it. PC World gave it four out of five stars. Since I’ve started using it, it’s pointed out some mushy text that benefited from being changed.

The software scans the text for the following (click the image to enlarge it):

Editor - usage

Notice that this goes well beyond the spelling and grammar check that’s part of MS Word. Fortunately, I haven’t yet had any of my prose flagged for “pretentious term”, but I have gotten flagged for weak constructions such as starting a sentence with “It was…”

Editor scans the prose, numbering each sentence. It then checks each sentence for potentially incorrect, odd or clumsy constructions, punctuations, spellings, etc. The basic version of the software then gives you an output listing each sentence in which it found a potential problem.

This is the first part of the output for Editor’s scan of my book, “Verbosity’s Vengeance”. It’s telling me what it sees as potential problems with sentences 49 through 219. To fix these, I scroll through the amended OUTPUT version of my file, looking at the sentence numbers it’s inserted. Here’s what the analysis output looks like:

FIX
      –finds many mechanical errors and lists words and phrases
      that are often incorrect in novice writers’ work.
  <49> [sentence structure]
         MISSING COMMA? SENTENCE FRAGMENT? [x]
  <52> onto – the
         INCORRECT DASH OR HYPHEN [f]
  <58> eloquence… you
         INCORRECT ELLIPSIS; too few or too many spaces or periods? [e]
  <62> “- struggle
         INCORRECT DASH OR HYPHEN [f]
  <62> which
         GRAMMATICAL ERROR; use “that” or insert leading comma [G]
  <62> use – entirely
         INCORRECT DASH OR HYPHEN [f]
  <62> you – as
         INCORRECT DASH OR HYPHEN [f]
 < > [in paragraph ending with sentence 65]
         QUOTATION EXCEEDS FORTY WORDS [Q]
  <69> is me
         POSSIBLE GRAMMATICAL ERROR: in formal English, “is I” [I] [G]
  <81> There are
         POSSIBLE POOR USAGE; often a weak beginning; rewrite? [U]
 <127> Full stop
         POSSIBLE BRITISH SPELLING OR USAGE; (if punctuation) period(s) [B]
 <154> had of
         PROBABLE GRAMMATICAL ERROR; omit “of”? [G]
 <154> was him
         POSSIBLE GRAMMATICAL ERROR; in formal English, “was he” [I] [G]
 <155> It was
         POSSIBLE POOR USAGE; often a weak beginning; rewrite? [U]
 <159> lever – a
         INCORRECT DASH OR HYPHEN [f]
 <159> retort – he
         INCORRECT DASH OR HYPHEN [f]
 <167> ?!
         EXCESSIVE PUNCTUATION [p]
 <176> maintaining . . . escaped
         GRAMMATICAL ERROR; dangling or misplaced modifier? [G]
 <177> [sentence structure]
         MISSING COMMA? SENTENCE FRAGMENT? [x]
 <177> ..
         INCORRECT ELLIPSIS; too few or too many spaces or periods? [e]
 <182> It was
         POSSIBLE POOR USAGE; often a weak beginning; rewrite? [U]
 <198> free – I’m
         INCORRECT DASH OR HYPHEN [f]
<  > [in paragraph ending with sentence 209]
         QUOTATION EXCEEDS FORTY WORDS [Q]
 <219> more pain-suppression
         AGREEMENT FAILURE [A]
<  > [in paragraph ending with sentence 250]
         QUOTATION EXCEEDS FORTY WORDS [Q]

How about that? There’s a grammatical mistake in sentence 69.

Note that I considered this book finished enough that I’ve been querying it to agents for months, yet in the first five minutes, I’ve gotten three dozen relatively subtle suggestions for improvement. These are things that I missed, that my beta readers missed, that my test reader missed and that MS Word missed.

Another form of analysis within Editor offers stylistic suggestions. Here are some potential issues with sentences 2171 through 2186:

<2171> I’ve
         CONTRACTION [k]
 <2174> man
         COMMONLY MISUSED TERM: do you mean “humanity”? [M]
 <2176> I’ll
         CONTRACTION [k]
 <2182> toast
         SLANG EXPRESSION if you mean “finished” or “done for” [O] [L]
 <2183> great
         POSSIBLE EMPTY INTENSIFIER [E]
 <2184> if
         COMMONLY MISUSED TERM; rule of thumb: if “whether” fits, use it [M]
 <2184> hasn’t
         CONTRACTION [k]
 <2184> lifestyle
         JARGON TERM OR BUZZWORD; way(s) of life? [J]
 <2186> you’ve
         CONTRACTION [k]

So I might have used the empty intensifier “great” in sentence 2183? That’s good to know.

Another part of the Editor software looks for word repetition patterns. Have you ever read a book where the author used the word “gleaming” twice in one sentence? Or repeated a phrase he or she apparently loved, like “her eyes flashed darkly”? Phrases like that can pop up only a couple of times in a book, but they stick in the reader’s mind. This software looks for all repetitions of all phrases up to 6 words, throughout the entire book. This is VERY useful for weeding out those scenes that got moved, but not completely deleted from the original location.

In another analysis mode, Editor numbers the paragraphs and tells you which words get repeated in each and how many times. Here is the analysis of paragraphs #965 through #974:

#965.  The miasmic fog projectors . . .
     Words in paragraph: 75
     Words used 3 or more times: of(4) to(4) he(3) in(3)
#966.  Around the ring of . . .
     Words in paragraph: 106
     Words used 3 or more times: of(4) to(4) he(3) it(3)
       mean(3) only(3) was(3)
#968.  The Grammarian’s eyes scanned . . .
     Words in paragraph: 141
     Words used 3 or more times: he(6) of(6) to(6) his(3)
       room(3) that(3) was(3)
#970.  Professor Verbosity hadn’t been . . .
     Words in paragraph: 66
     Words used 3 or more times: to(4) be(3)
#971.  He looked around for . . .
     Words in paragraph: 119
     Words used 3 or more times: of(5) from(4) he(4) in(4)
       been(3) floor(3) part(3)
#972.  He grimaced. Anyone… including . . .
     Words in paragraph: 74
     Words used 3 or more times: was(5) he(4) that(3)
       verbosity(3)
#973.  A thought formed in . . .
     Words in paragraph: 66
     Words used 3 or more times: himself(3) of(3) to(3)
#974.  The rest of the . . .
     Words in paragraph: 28
     Words used 3 or more times: of(4)

Repeating of, to, he, it, was, that, etc. might not be a problem, but I see that I also use the word “himself” three times in paragraph 973, which is relatively short at 66 words. Worth taking another look at?

The slightly more expensive version of this software comes with a plug-in for MS Word. It will analyze a .doc file on the fly, then walk you through it sentence by sentence. You can make the corrections on the spot, decide to ignore the suggestion or flag it for a later rewrite. I’ve only just started using Editor, but it has already shown me a number of ways my prose could be tightened, sharpened and cleaned up.

Is this software a substitute for a talented human content editor, copy editor and/or line editor? No. It assumes that you are already saying essentially what you want to say with your prose. It won’t tell you that the plot is too slow in the middle third or that your hero is an ass or that you spend too much time describing the food your characters are about to eat.

However, it is several important steps up from the spelling and grammar tools loaded into MS Word. The high end version of Editor is $75, a moderately significant chunk of change for an indie writer, but it’s much less than what you’d pay a decent copy editor to proofread your work.

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Math, poetry, and math poetry

Today's words for Three Word Wednesday are: distinct, irrational, sullen

Irrational numbers like π
Make non-mathy people just sigh.
They get all sullen
When you talk about ln,
As distinct from log10 as from i

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Back home, back to work

After a two week vacation, I'm now back at my desk and ready to get back to work. The time away was devoted to rest and relaxation, focused much more on diverting entertainments than on deep introspection. However, thoughts come as they will, so when some ideas pressed themselves in on me, I had no choice but to consider them. They have some implications for the next book I'll write, and some implications for my writing in general.

In the meantime, however, I have several blog posts that I need to write. That won't make up for the relative silence in this space in the last few weeks, but they should be information-rich anyway.

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#FridayFlash: The Rods Rise Up

At the bottom of every lake in Michigan, they wait, just as they have always waited. For thousands of years, ever since the glaciers retreated and the first hungry men came into the new country in search of sustenance, their numbers have been growing. A moment's distraction, shifted weight in the canoe, the clumsy hands of a rookie, an extra beer or two before lunch... these and a thousand more have fed their ranks.

The oldest of them are simple rods of willow and birch, still intact and bearing the delicate fish and turtle totems carved into them by the tribesmen of seven thousand years ago. The newest of them are carbon fiber and polyvinyl chloride, still intact and bearing the blazing Shimano and Spincaster totems printed on them by workmen (and women and children) seven thousand miles away.

Every fishing rod ever dropped overboard, through inexperience or carelessness, flung in frustration or thrown in fury, they all wait at the bottom of their lakes. Some for thousands of years, some for a handful of hours, they wait. Some with short lines of braided willow-heart fiber, some with thousands of feet of twenty pound test monofilament, they wait. With their hooks and barbs of antler, bone, iron and chromium steel, they wait.

One day, their Messiah will come, and on that day they will rise up to a glorious, triumphant paradise, where every lost fishing rod will shine and sing for the wonder of The Lord of All Fishing Rods, the One True Rod whose line will never tangle and whose hook will always set true.

And until that happy day, they wait in the cold waters of every lake in Michigan, growing in number, season by season.


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What's your next book about?

Was telling someone about "Verbosity's Vengeance" today: plot summary, character sketches, release date, pricing, etc.

After some discussion of whether anyone other than me might actually be interested in a superhero sci-fi book replete with grammar jokes, and how many dozen copies I expect to sell, I got The Questions: "And are you working on another novel? What's it about?"

I have my own ideas, of course, but do you have any suggestions? Anything you'd love to see me write about?


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Still on vacation

I started writing that blog post about how to convert a .doc or .docx file into .mobi or .epub or .pdf in five simple steps. The method will preserve all the bold, italics, justification, etc. in your Word file, too. No mucking around with stripped down ASCII files.

However, the post is taking a little longer to write than expected. I could give you the five steps right here, along with links to the free software, but I wanted to include pictures of the menus, etc. I've found that's the kind of post which is most helpful.

So, you'll just have to wait.

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#FridayFlash: Lost

On the corner of 17th and Chestnut, the old man stood rubbing his chin, hoping his rising panic didn't show. People moved purposefully past him, crossing the street when the light turned green, rushing to make it across as the steady white numbers gave way to red, then to blinking red numbers, counting down down down to zero. At zero, you stopped. Your turn was over and all you could do was wait for another chance.

Why did this simple fact of life downtown hit him like a bad metaphor? What was it about being on this corner that made him so afraid? It was ridiculous! He had walked these streets for decades, grown up not far from here. Why was everything suddenly so unfamiliar? This was just 17th and Chestnut, after all, an intersection he'd crossed a thousand times. It wasn't the dark side of the moon.

The old man looked around. He couldn't see the street signs, but that didn't matter, surely. This WAS 17th and Chestnut. Wasn't it? Or had he missed Chestnut and gone up to Pine? No, 17th and Pine is where his cousin's drugstore used to be. Besides, Pine came after Walnut. So if Pine came after Walnut, and Walnut came after Chestnut, then this must be... must be...

Where was he?

Acid bile rose in his mouth, the stab of fear so intense it made him want to vomit. Nothing looked familiar.

But that was ridiculous! It wasn't possible that he was lost. It just was simply not possible. He couldn't be more than ten blocks from home. This was his neighborhood, these were his streets. This was his city, for Christ's sake. He knew practically every inch of it. His cousin's drugstore, the TV repair shop where he'd worked afternoons all through high school, the travel agency where he and Marcie had arranged their honeymoon... these were all gone now, but the buildings and storefronts were still there. Landmarks change, but they don't just disappear.

He took himself firmly in hand and stood up straight. No more shilly-shally! It was like he always used to say before he retired: things don't happen unless you make them happen. This was a problem to be solved and he was the man to solve it. He'd never been afraid of tackling things head-on, and he'd never been afraid of hard work, either. So, quit dawdling and get to work! He just needed to orient himself, get back on familiar ground. Then he'd know where he was. He'd get himself straightened out, then go home and get to bed early tonight. A good night's sleep was the best medicine.

With a plan and with resolve, he tamped down the fear as far as it would go and started walking east on Chestnut, or Walnut or whatever street it was. He'd recognize something sooner or later.

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A burger with a side of Wi-Fi

I spent several hours yesterday processing my book into epub, mobi and azw2 formats. They look good on the downloadable readers for PC. Now I need to upload the mobi to Amazon for a check of how it looks on Kindle.

I used Calibre for this conversion, and it was pretty straightforward. There was a bit of mucking about with the HTML import file in a text editor, but it wasn't too bad. Most importantly, I retained all the italics and boldface that were in the original Word file. It would have been a huge pain to recreate all those in a stripped ASCII text file.

Next up: check the integrity of the ebook files and send them off to reviewers. 


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"Your prose seems stillborn"

A quote I came across recently:

"If you lack confidence in setting one word after another and sense that you are stuck in a place from which you will never be set free, if you feel sure that you will never make it and we're not cut out to do this, if your prose seems stillborn and you completely lack confidence, you must be a writer.

If you say you see things differently and describe your efforts positively, if you tell people that you 'just love to write', you may be delusional."

That nugget is from John McPhee, in the April 29, 2013 "New Yorker". He's one of my favorite essayists, so if angst and self-doubt are good enough for him, they're good enough for me.


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