Farewell, Blogger

It occurs to me that I never let anyone know that I have another vehicle for blogging which replaces this one.  I've had some complaints about its usability, and really, I've been using this more for lots of different things rather than just Turning Springs news, so I wanted to incorporate more than just that. 

(Okay, I'll admit it, this hasn't exactly been a banner year for Turning Springs news so far, anyway.  It's like someone handed whichever god of mischief you prefer to name a list of my goals.  I can hear him/her now:  "Oooh, let's make his teeth rot!  Let's make his grass grow during a drought!  Summer colds!  Let's turn his dog pink!  That tree in the back yard looks rickety!  I know, let's put the loss of his day job on the horizon.  That should be an interesting six months.  Stick that in your goals and smoke it, you shmuck!"  For Pete's sake, I don't mind if John Lennon was right about life and other plans, I mind that he was so absolutely right.  Showoff.)

So, rather than tinkering with a system that people don't like to use, I decided to move the whole shootin' match to WordPress.  In addition, since it's more about what's in my head than just Turning Springs (quotes and comments and other writings), I sprang for the custom web address, too.  The new address is http://johnchristianhager.com/ Right now, the blog is a little clunky and awkward, because I'm still new to it, but I'll get my head around that, too.  I'm not sure I like the theme.  Comments on the new blog, please?

One of the things I'd like to do is put a Random Page on the new blog with something recent I've written.  Just a couple of hundred words changed every couple of weeks.  Could even be a poem.  Anybody interested?  I've also been besieged by a steampunk serial and a zombie serial, of all things.  That's along with my novel in progress, marketing materials in progress for Turning Springs (still available here) and a new short project I'm going to shop around.

Sheesh, that's a lot to do.  Better get busy.  Thanks, and don't forget to bookmark the new blog!

Hiya, folks.  Haven't dropped off the earth, just getting ready to change some things around.  Will let you know when I pull the trigger.  Thanks for reading!

Update for Thursday, March 1, 2012

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. " -- Gustave Flaubert

Regular and orderly is fine, but this ruthless dispatching of long-held goals (some much too long) is fun, too.  Check out The Update for the story on that and...AND...something special.  And sometimes less is more, and The Helper describes how that might be applied to the share buttons in your blog.  And in honor of some courtroom work being done tomorrow, a little legal lunacy in The Wind-Up.

The Update

A very productive week here overall.  I managed to block Chapter 8 of MGC and it turned out very well.  On to Chapter 9 on Sunday.  The really cool thing about the week is that I finished a long-awaited re-release of my e-book Turning Springs on Smashwords dot com.  No editorial changes, but just some format things that I wished I'd done to begin with.  They changed a few things in their publishing process which made some nice new features available (like a Table of Contents).  I'm so pleased about this that I'm offering a coupon for $1 off the price of the book through March 9th.  The non-case-sensitive code for that coupon is:  BL67B.  If you haven't read it, now's a good time to jump in.  Or at least download the first half of the book for free.  Go get it here, and enjoy the read!

The Helper

We've all seen it.  A nicely done, intriguing blog post that makes you want to maintain contact with the writer.  And you get to the share button line and it's a regular conga line of possibilities.  Pinterest?  Facebook? Google+? Twitter?  How do you choose?  Don't let your social networking riches embarrass you.  Check out this post from Pushing Social about being choosy about your buttons.

The Wind-Up

From Fark comes this story about an unfortunate fellow who wasn't there.  Memories of the TV show "Soap".  Don't miss:  his previous record.

Thanks for reading.  Back next week. 

Update for Thursday, February 23, 2012

 
“A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.” – W.E.B. DuBois

But writing again is what we so often do in this business, whether it is a classic or not.  And there must be an end to it, which I cover in The Update.  For those of you who find a certain amount of trepidation is helpful in your writing process, The Helper is for you.  Finally, if you did it wrong, well, there is no one to apologize to but yourself.  And, as covered in The Wind-up, whoever is making political hay by demanding your apology.

The Update

I finished up the revisions to the short work and have sent them off to my best friend and editor, someone I’ll call for now El Editoreador (he pokes my bull with sharp comments until it gives up and goes away).  Very pleased with what he found and with the changes I made in response to his remarks.  And after this set, I'm done, and it's off to the Library of Congress.  I'm sure it won't be perfect, but I'll have gotten as close as I can, which is fine by me. 

Nothing done on MGC this week (or anything else), but that will change next week.  I'm coming to the conclusion that my goals for that project are well short of reality.  I was hoping to have the first 25 chapters (relax, they're short) blocked by March 31, and I might get there yet, but it's looking less and less likely.  I'm on Chapter 8 now.  I haven't given up on the goals yet, though.  I'll keep working the schedule I've got, not rushing through anything (proper prior planning prevents...well, you know the rest), and see where I am at the end of March.  I've got a task set for the third week of March to input the second quarter intermediate goals, which will be a great time to assess my progress.  And my reality.  Yay.  I think.

The Helper

Impressed by my calm in the face of impending deadlines and below-goal performance?  You should be. I may be alone in my security.  Check out some of the comments from this panel of Writers' Guild of America Awards nominees, talking about their work.  Hint:  there seems to be a lot more terror involved than I'm used to.  Hmm.  Maybe I should be more worried.


The Wind-Up

Ever feel like half of the news is one big unrealistic, advantage-seeking demand for an apology from the other half of the news?  You don't?  Well, I'm sorry.  No, I'm not.  And neither is Dana Milbank from last Sunday's Washington Post.  Caution:  read the fifth paragraph with food.  If you say I didn't warn you, I'll just demand an apology for your demand for an apology.  Sorry, but that's the way it is.  Or isn't.

Thanks for checking in and for reading.  Until next week.

Update for Thursday, February 16, 2012

 
“…Writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger." – Pico Iyer

Which I thought was apt for a post-Valentine's Day edition of The Update, which deals with both love and loss, appropriately enough.  Because I'm fond of my readers, I included two (count 'em, two) items for The Helper.  And in The Wind-Up, a case of "malicious recycling" from the art world.

The Update

It took me much longer to complete the blocking on Chapter Seven of MGC than I first suspected it would.  I was so caught up with the idea of what it would become that I almost completely ignored the nuts and bolts of how to get it there.  I call that What Happens Between Syndrome.  It's all good now, but there were a few tense moments. 

I also received some comments on OSV, which I am busy revising.  Never fails...when I think that a passage is iffy, that's the one everyone wants to change.

And I put Knews Not News out of its misery.  Great fun, but really, not enough time to do it justice.  The Wind-Up is coming out of that, and I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out.  Comments on that or anything else are always welcome.

The Helper

I'm a sucker for Best Of lists, like this one from Time magazine, which lists the magazine's best web site choices for last year.  Like all such lists, some I use already, some I'm not interested in, but some I just said "Oooo."  Used immediately?  DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn't link your identity with your searches.  Slapped that sucker into Firefox as soon as I saw it and I am using it already.  Also, I'm putting together a track list for 8tracks on behalf of Turning Springs.  Lots of springpunk-y music.  Looking forward to that.

One thing that wasn't on Time's list and should have been?  The blog Brain Pickings.  Go there.  Again, "Oooo."

The Wind-Up

Remember the last time you wanted to clean something that you thought really needed it, and it ended up as something completely different than what you thought it was?  Click here for the Grand Bull Moose of mixed blessings.  Kind of like the plot of the first "Mr. Bean" movie (oh yes, I saw that and liked it), but with more competence and a much different disaster. 

Thanks for reading.  Talk to you next week.

Update for Thursday, February 9, 2012

 
"I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it." –- Jonathan Winters

As does anyone who makes it up as they go along.  But success can be defined in many ways, and in The Update, it's reaching a landmark.  In The Helper, a post from Jane Friedman about what your blog should be and what your book shouldn't be and vice versa.  And after a couple of announcements, The Wind-Up reminds us that, as far as death and taxes are concerned, being afflicted by the former might not prevent prosecution for the latter.

The Update

Let's see...oh, yeah...OSV (the short project) is at the end of its revision cycle!  Okay, it's only just over 9000 words and should really have been done this time last year, but, hey, a landmark is a landmark.  I'm pleased with it and it's going through some readings now (if you'd like to participate by reading and commenting, please contact me through my profile.  No pay except gratitude, but there'll be lots of that, and, of course, readings in kind...).  I hope to have it out soon, but I'm tying this in with some other things that will require a little steeper learning curve than I'm comfortable with, but I'm expecting it to go out sometime in the third quarter as part of some other changes. 

On the longer front, MGC is still fighting its way through the new Chapter Seven, but it's a good fight.  My schedule will be a little messed up next week because of personal committments, but the work will still get done.

The Helper

Check out the short post from Jane Friedman at her blog.  She gives some very good advice and conditions under which it's okay to turn your blog into a book.  It all boils down to knowing what you have written and whether it can jump to paper or has to stay as little piles of electrons. 

No danger here.  I can barely get the electrons in the right piles much less on paper.

Announcement #1

The SteamPunk Magazine is back and it looks like they've been saving up material.  Find it, download it, and read it here.

Announcement #2

This blog's sister blog, Knews Not News, is about to be given the Last Rites because of time support and popularity issues.  Head over to the blog to check out some of the previous posts and give your thumbs up or down by February 15th. 

The Wind-Up

My first reaction when I read the sad and peculiar tale of Sergei Magnitsky was "Wait, what?"  A man dies in police custody, but is tried post-mortem for income tax evasion, to cover up and possibly exonerate not just the officials responsible for his death but also the officials responsible for the real tax evasion, whose involvement the dead man originally reported to the police who killed him.  I know, right?

Thanks for reading.  Talk to you next week!

Update for Thursday, February 2, 2012

 
"I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws." -- S.J. Perelman

I actually do care who runs things.  I'm just so pleased that I get to do an update post on the day for which it's actually planned that I feel a touch giddy.  And mad-scientist like.  Along with The Update on matters in the springpunk world of Turning Springs, in The Helper, I have a link to a little steampunk blog advice (well, not advice for a steampunk blog, but...you'll see) and in The Wind-Up, Why the NY Public Library believes less books is more...something.

The Update

I actually had a little time yesterday to work on the new Chapter Seven in the long project MGC.  It involves developing several minor characters both for Seven and later chapters.  I'm looking forward to the challenge for Sunday.  I get the feeling from this, as I've felt in other works, that I'm building tools that will be useful for other purposes later on.  Very positive.  Very encouraging.  If I can finish up Seven, I get to move on to Eight and the two characters I'm most familiar with.  I also finished the 1st Revision on the short project OSV, and on schedule, no less.  I'm pleased with the work so far, and very pleased that I'm keeping to the schedule.  The 2nd Revision starts Wednesday.  Looking forward to it all.

The Helper

A successful blog inevitably ends up being not just this, but this with that and a little of that whatsis over there and some of that other doohickey.  There's no better example for opening your mind to new and different combinations of factors, themes and subjects than steampunk.  Throw on your goggles and your scarf and get aboard the airship here.


The Wind-Up

You know the saddest thing about this op-ed story from the New York Post?  It's not a joke.  The New York Public Library wants to believe (and they want us to believe it too) that fewer books make a better library.  3 million fewer to be exact.  Read it and weep here.

It's only 13 days until I make the decision about putting Knews Not News to the sword or not.  The sidebar has a link.  Let me know what you think!

That's all for this week.  Drop me a line...I'm happy to help if I can, with writing or whatever.