Tag: productivity

Sacrificing the Procrastination Goat for Favour from the Productivity Gods

I’ve been strongly considering finding a writing nook where the internet does not exist. Something similar to a cave, or dungeon. Ever considered committing a crime and requesting to be placed into solitary confinement? No. Me either.

My eternal struggle is summed up in the cleverly written duo of blog posts entitled Why Procrastinators Procrastinate. That guy nails it, and the line I always laugh to myself about is the monkey’s thoughts, “Why would we ever use a computer for work when the internet is sitting right there waiting to be played with? He thinks humans are insane.” I chuckle… then sigh, and check my email for the four million, seven hundred and fifty four thousand, two hundred and eleventh time. Guess what? No new emails.

For people who say music helps them to work… I say, poppycock. The moment a song rips into my conscious thought, my train of thought derails from the productivity rails it was on and plummets into an incredible explosion of searching for the next song that will get me back on track. Maybe it does work for some, but not me. Some songs inspire me, which helps… but as much as I love Bad Religion, it just doesn’t fit in with writing about Magicians. Not sure why, maybe that’s a good short story concept. Punk wizards in a post-apocalyptic world using their musical magic to conquer the silence cult of doomsday. Writes itself really.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah! Procrastination. Whoops, isn’t that ironic. Don’t ya think?

Anyway before I bust out into Alanis Morissette (for those of you who are old enough to remember her) I’m going to challenge myself and return to a process I did a long time ago that was fully integrated into time management. I used to set a time block for writing and within that block I had to write more than a thousand words (easily achievable). However I also had given chores times as well and essentially had busted down my top goals and how I was going to work towards them. This requires a ton of planning (something every procrastinator loves to do) and then the commitment from myself and those around me. Also, it helped to make no excuses about being too tired to do a task. You just do it. I’m going to spend the rest of this week, planning my next week. I demand satisfaction and that will not be achieved until I am finished my story.

Let’s do this. Wish me luck!

Productive Day? Don't Mind If I Do!

Have you ever had one of those days, you accomplish nothing yet planned to do everything? Yeah? Not me, sucker! No, today I wrecked what I set out to do and put the beat down on some tasks for the week. On the writing front, I finally was passed back the story I’ve been cowriting with a friend, I bought some satin for the “book cover” attempt and managed to rewrite The Journey’s second piece, Shattered Memories! On the home front I cleaned dishes, laundry and tidied the living room! On the outside the home front, I traded in some games to acquire the much sought after Zelda 3DS XL, swung by work so they could make a delivery, coached the staff in the Telco department and picked up a few new Pop! Vinyl figures! Only things I didn’t get to work on were some edits for my novel and weeding the garden! But I do have tomorrow off, so I will rock it then!

On the flip side, I’ve been watching the NaNoWriMo posts this week as the triumphant begin validating their novels and the ones who miss target are left in a crumpled shamed mess. It’s heartbreaking as some of the concepts and writing skill are definitely there, but those writers may give up because they feel as though they failed. I can only hope those people are reborn from the ashes of their 2013 NaNoWriMo attempt, only to smash 2014, or simply write for another month! Never give up, don’t let it win! Your story needs to be told, there’s an audience out there just waiting for it!

*GASP*

Okay! After all that, I am posting late to hopefully catch up on my blog posts. I hate being behind and I will get ahead. I must. Interestingly enough, The Journey hasn’t been getting anywhere near the amount of comments as other posts! Which as much as I don’t mind the break… I miss the flood of questions and comments! I’m curious to know if the writing is sound or if my style is way off base! I’m also curious if people would want to keep reading! Either way, I’ll keep writing it, as I enjoy the story thus far and the characters. Hopefully that will keep up! If you ladies and gents out there lose interest, perhaps I will too!

Today I’d also like to talk about the posts that seem like professional blog posts on “How To Write”, or “How To Get Published”. I’d like to give you all a disclaimer about this site and what I mean when I toss out suggestions. Nothing works for every single person. What works for me, may not work for others. What I suggest on here are simply more tools you can add to the old writing tool belt to hopefully keep it shiny and challenging. At no point did I ever say these are the definitives. They may work, they may not. Nothing works like your own commitment. I only say this because I watched as one of the many blogs I followed had a minor meltdown because the information that they gave was wrong. People will believe anything if it’s on the internet… and that frightens me!

So, I suppose I’ll just ask… are you ladies and gents out there quiet because it is NaNoWriMo make it or break it week? Or did everyone pick up an Xbox One or Playstation 4 and have thrown productivity to the wind? If you’d like, I am available for some guest blog posts (Because Idle Hands are the Devil’s Tools) or you can just comment on here with word counts! I’d love to know how many of you have hit that fifty thousand word mark, if you happen to have read this post, please post a comment! I promise I’ll reply!

Tomorrow I think I will try and smash out the final fifteen thousand word edit of my novel. The problem with that for me, is that concludes my novel and then it goes on to seek out publication. I won’t officially start that until January, but in the meantime I may get a professional editor to go over the story (after my partner of course) as well as look into some options for publication. As this is my first time trying to do the whole professional publication and seeking out a publisher, I am prepared for that gauntlet of rejection that awaits me. The good news is though, once it’s out there and hitting up the publishers, I can move on and work on a new story. With fourteen more ideas waiting in the shadows, I just need to choose one and I think I already have.

Also, if you’ve made it and want to gloat, toss me an email or comment and I’ll give you a callout so people can check out your blog or novel or whatever you’d like me to point them in the direction of! See you tomorrow and good luck to those squeezing in those last few words!

Writing Across Platforms: iOS to OS X and Back Again

Alright ladies and gentlemen, I am writing this at an ungodly hour and I am hoping to the gods that my brain holds up just thirty minutes longer. Of course, that will make it four in the morning, but nevertheless. Tonight I come to the masses like a prophet, yielding undying knowledge upon the lesser men and women. Well at this point in time, I’m most likely the crazy one. However! In my never ending search for the “Ultimate Writing Dream” I have finally crafted it. Not the app I tried desperately to make, however a completely (for now) free solution to which I pass on to you.

Do you own a Windows PC? Or Phone? Or Tablet? Or all of the above?!

May you also own an iMac? Or iPhone? Or iPad?! Perhaps you also own all of those?!

As for me, I am living in a household which I am sure makes the local power grid flicker when we turn on our setup. My girlfriend and I both own iPhones (3G and my 3GS), we have an iPad 3 and I am writing this on an iMac. Before this I was a Windows man and my laptop now sits in the shadows, the ever so dull hum of its hard drive methodically pleading for attention…

This brings me to my point… I am a writer! And I wanted to be able to work on the same story from every device I own! I am also a nerd! Thus, I will make it so!

My original idea was a USB stick, which failed at iPad and iPhone. The Wiki, however, is still on there.

Idea number two was the App Store! After getting my iPhone I became a free app well… promiscuous gentleman. I would download anything and everything… no matter how dirty or ridiculous it was. Especially if it was free! After searching across both the OS X and the iOS stores, I found a few which used iCloud and Dropbox. Most of these solutions costed money, which Apple has ruined me… I mean made me thrifty. Anyway, I didn’t want to risk even a dollar if the app wasn’t what I wanted and didn’t work across all of my platforms. Enter XCode.

XCode is Apple’s development system and after tinkering around for a bit had an app that would allow you to simply write in it. Three years of a Computer Science degree and I couldn’t come up with more, I suppose if I had actually taken the time to learn Objective C, I may have gotten further. I have other ideas for apps, so I’ll save the frustration of coding for another day.

Now, for you patient people out there, I came to a solution I used awhile ago and simply never checked up on.

Google.

The team over there have been busy innovating the world and I haven’t been paying much attention. I mean, I use Chrome and sync all of my bookmarks and open tabs across my five devices, why pay attention?! Now Google was working on some kind of drive thing… Whatever. Also this is not a fancy method, you will get a free editor with a selection of choices, but the smartphone site is minimalist.

Now, pay close attention to the wonderful process here. If you want to write some stories or anything across all of your devices, I hope this helps!

Step One:
First off, sign up for a Gmail account. This is your passport between all of your devices.

Step Two:
Download Google Drive for your main computer, at this point you can also download it to your tablets or smartphones (for me, they have a Google Drive App in the iOS app store).

Step Three:
Once they’ve all downloaded and installed head to your main computer, ensure all documents you create are also editable offline. That’s grand for your desktop. For the mobile ones, only select the file you want to take on the go for editing offline. This just keeps everything from checking for updates all the time and focus on the one you’re working on.

Step Four:
Realize that Google Drives only allows you to edit things offline on your smartphone. What I mean by this is you should always have a Google Docs window open for use. I have Chrome on all of my devices, so I leave one Chrome tab open on each device for this. Otherwise on iOS you can make use of the Google Drive app’s “Open in Safari” button, but you still need to be able to load the document editor before losing your wireless connection.

Step Five:
Watch on your desktop as what you write on your mobile transfers over to the Google Drive version! It updates in real time (with lag) But you can edit your documents wonderfully like this! Enjoy! Also to note that if you want to be able to edit completely without preloading the Google Docs page, they do have a Docs App on the iOS app store but I won’t link it because it appears to be getting some bad reviews.

Some notes on this method:
Number One – Offline means you can edit this without an internet connection.
Number Two – Offline on anything mobile will require an internet connection to load the Google Docs Editor, Unless you have preloaded it.
Number Three – It organizes by time edited. If you edit on your iPhone while in airplane mode, then make edits after that on your iPad, they will be arranged properly once everything is synced.
Number Four – On your iPhone, DO NOT use the desktop site for Google Docs. You might be tempted to for word count, but just don’t.
Number Five – You can use the iPad for the desktop version of Google Docs. If you are using the on screen keypad the words will go straight under it. Use a bluetooth one if you like the desktop site.
Number Six – Buy a cheap roll up capable bluetooth keyboard, they are rechargeable and portable. Also if you spill coffee on it, it will survive.
Number Seven – You’ll notice on your mobiles the font changes from each person editing. Don’t fret, on the desktop it all looks the same.
Number Eight – Use Chrome + Google Drive Web App to be able to use their document editor offline. (That should be higher, just going in the order of my notes).
Number Nine – Chrome for iOS will report it cannot handle some of the features for the desktop site of Google Docs, it is right on for iPhone but the iPad only has the keyboard issue.
Number Ten – When you get published because this worked for you, be sure to toss me out a thanks as well as Google!

Okay, so now it is unconscious o’ clock and I have a full day of writing to do tomorrow! If you have any questions, please feel free to email me or comment here. If you’d be so kind, please pass this along if you read it! I’m hoping to help as many writers as I possibly can and the more feedback I get the better I can fine tune this article as well as my own writing! Thanks for reading and now…

Zzz…

The Art of Not Writing

A dark room lights up as the screen of a laptop wakens from its slumber. A pair of hands dangle loosely above the keyboard and in the silence, a deep breath of despair falls on phantom ears. The silence is then shattered by the methodical clicking of the keys, until the blue screen changes to an image of a man and woman. They appear happy, yet this is the sole joy brought from this infernal machine.

It is time to write.

In the dim light a man slides the chair from under the desk, and it makes not a sound. He sits, slightly hunched, and hangs his head in shame.

He’s been here before.

It’s two in the morning and the screen beckons to him. He stares hopelessly into the white abyss of the text editor. Like a sculptor with a large slab of marble, he ponders where to strike next. His hands dangle back to the keyboard.

Facebook.

After a few moments of shameless friend stalking, the man leans back and scratches his head. He wonders how that happened, but dismisses it for it is already done. He closes the window and returns to his blank slate, his giant slab of marble, his…

Email.

The man shifts uncomfortably in his chair. He can check his email on his phone. He can check it anywhere. Why here? He runs his fingers through the remnants of what was once a full head of hair. The desolate wasteland upon his highest peak is near barren, but beneath the roots grows something. An image. An idea. The window closes and the man returns to his blank slate, his giant slab of marble, his ball of clay, his…

Wikipedia.

Time has indeed flown, but hardly any fun has been had. The man glances at the clock, keeper of his productivity, or lack thereof. A window closes. A slate rises, marble beckons, clay rolls, a drop of water pierces the tranquillity of a sink of dishes…

Focus.

Dishes beckon, marble shines, clay moulds, fingers crack, a blank slate awaits like a guard standing at attention…

Shiny.

Distractions abound. The man twists in his chair as if he were in agonizing pain. The chair groans under his movement, the cheap wood and metal grating together creating a symphony of silence piercing shrieks. He pauses, only for a moment, to listen for the rustling of his girlfriend. She continues sleeping, undisturbed by the banshee like shriek of his four legged torture device. His hands extend the foot and a half and lets his fingers dangle above the keyboard.

Life.

The first taps echo slowly in the darkness. Then more. Followed by a rhythmic tapping. The space bar no longer taps, nor clicks, but thumps. A heart beat. The lifeblood of creation, the godlike power of making something from nothing, consumes the man. His heart beats in unison. Is this the one?

Complication.

The tapping slows, as does the heartbeat. The rhythm fades and the man stares into the screen. The screen meets his gaze tauntingly, staring into the dry-yet-oily face of creation. As the staring match continues, the man realizes there can only be one victor. There are some marks upon the slate, some chips from the marble, some dents in the clay, some fingers upon the…

iPhone.

The chair groans as the man leans back in frustration to stare through the ceiling and into the sky. His arms dangle slightly to the sides of the chair and he stares longingly into nothingness. His fingertips dance along the carpet’s surface and he closes his eyes.

He’s been here before.

In the dim light the man hangs his head in shame. He stands and stretches, then slowly slides the chair back beneath the desk without a sound.

It’s time to sleep.

The windows close until only the image of a man and woman remains. They appear happy, yet this is the sole joy from yet another failed attempt at productivity. A finger descends across the image and plunges into the heart of the infernal machine. The light flickers dimly and and in the silence, a breath of despair falls on phantom ears. A dimly lit room plunges suddenly into darkness.