How McAfee is like Prison Sex

"Just do your shit and go away!"

~My Husband

So today, I spied an unwelcome logo on my husband's computer.

Now, for those of you who are unaware, McAfee is pretty well universally panned by anyone with even a modicum of technical sense, because it's little more than bloated malware with a corporate logo on the box. There's dozens of better, cheaper options. It's awful stuff, nearly impossible to uninstall, and so awful that even the guy who created it hates the damn thing.

Umm... not safe for work.

So I told my husband to move, and started figuring this stupid thing out. He says it came with an automatic update. Whether or not that's true, I dunno. He's not one of those wild downloader types. Probably came from Adobe or something.

Anyway, McAfee is an insidious thing. It's like that unexpected prison rape that happens when you drop the soap.

You didn't ask for it, you didn't want it, but you presented yourself in such an attractive fashion that they couldn't resist.

This "security scan tool" is like the anal spreader that prepares you for the unpleasant things about to happen to your backside. Or like that creepy plant in Seymour's back room, but instead of people it's asking for credit card information.

That's right. It doesn't even DO anything; it's just a "clever" marketing gimmick to convince people that their computer is at risk, and they should download something quick to prevent it.

Sound familiar?

Yeah.

McAfee has gone from a pretty decent virus scanner that had better, cheaper competitors to predatory bloatware that behaves an awful lot like malware. Half the time you can't uninstall it, it's so bad the company itself had to release a tool to remove stuff that a regular install can't.

It sneaks upon you when you don't want it, it doesn't want to leave you alone no matter how much you ask, and if you let it stick around, it's going to ask for more, and more.

I was able to finally remove that scan tool from my husband's computer. But I'll tell you one thing: My butt was clenched firmly shut the entire time...

Organizing my World

After following a fabulous blog series on creating Story Bibles by Rebecca Blain, I decided that I could stand to organize the world of mine. I have a lot of details floating around in my head, but they tend to change, and I don't have them written down anywhere, so it can be hard to keep things consistent. I have at least two books planned in this series, perhaps more.

I have a few sparing notes in Scrivener, but otherwise, this is just a very basic sketch. So today, after some abortive attempts to find office supply stores to buy the things I needed, I found what I was after. (Click images for closeup view)

I am using a 1 inch 3-ring binder, with nice tabbed folder dividers for each section. I used a sheet of my daughters' colored construction paper for a cover to make it nice, since I haven't drawn anything worth using in years. Lots of construction paper. :) I have sections tabbed out, so I can start filling them. When I feel like it, I'll add to it, and start building on it. I even sketched out a rudimentary continental map that I've had floating in my head for a while. It's rough, and half of the countries aren't named yet, but it gives me some spacial references.

So yay for productivity! My transcription challenge is going well. In spite of one day of under 1,000 words, I'm still well ahead of my target right now for words. 6,338, and I haven't written yet today.

It's a simple start, but a pleasing one. I feel accomplished! Now to get back to my transcription.

Nanotechnology (Or: what are you using to write?)

I'm a little bit disorganized, when it comes to my writing. I tend to write in multiple places, in multiple  devices, even multiple formats... it's not unusual to find multiple versions of the same stories in random folders on my computer!

I'm very fond of handwriting; I have at least one novel almost completely handwritten. But in reality, I have four major devices on which I write.

1. My main computer, my iMac.  On this computer, I usually use Scrivener.
2. My windows Laptop. I adore Liquid Story Binder on this computer. It's a lot like Scrivener, but has more features. A bit of a steep learning curve, but very powerful when you learn how to use it. I also use Scrivener on this one, synced with my iMac via Dropbox.
3. My Android Tablet.  I haven't really found The App on this one. I tend to use Evernote, since it syncs with my iMac, and it has basic formatting tools. It lacks word count, though, and I want something a bit more NaNoWriMo friendly, y'know? 
4. Good old fashioned pen and paper. I absolutely adore fancy journals. To the point if I get a too-nice one, I have a hard time finding the "right" story to go in it! I've found this is the best way to get distraction-free writing time in. It's slower, but the end result is usually better, and there's no NaNoWriMo forums to drag me away. 

This year I'm going to try writing my novel during write-ins on my tablet. In years past, I've lugged my increasingly enormous dinosaure of a laptop (it wasn't a dinosaur five years ago, but well, you know) to write ins for years, and now... I've gotten used to my tablet, and even composing blog posts on it! So I'm going to try and use it for actual competitive sprints. I may even take my mac's wireless keyboard to see if that'll work.

I have apps for outlining, storyboarding, notekeeping. I have looseleaf notebooks for random writing (And I'm always finding them lying around the house.)

Technology is a big part of our writing process... ever since the early days of whacking on a typewriter (oh, how I miss the feel, sound, and smell of my ancient, trusty typewriter), it's been part of the writer's mythos. As technology evolves, so does how we use it.

So what do you use to write? If you do NaNoWriMo (and if you don't, why not? Start with us!) does your process change? Do you do something differently than normal? Or is it business as usual? How has your technology changed as time has moved on?

Tracking spreadsheet for #WIP500

Because I'm writing offline, I'm finding it difficult to keep up with my daily totals. I'm writing them down, sorta, in my notebook, but I've been bad about it. I'm marking which day is which, but I don't want to re-count each time.

So I made a simple spreadsheet on Google Docs. See, I love spreadsheets... I'm not GOOD at them, but I love them. Eventually, I hope to have progress charts, reports, all kinds of things to show off how I did month-to-month and such, but for now, it's just the basics. I have it tracking your best day, how many days you've entered a count for, average words per day, totals, and the percentage of the total you've got so far.

I also have it flagging days you wrote under 500 with red, and over 500 with green.

Here's the clean copy so you can download it for your own use if you'd like to. Feel free to redistribute, edit, do whatever to your own copy. :)

My personal progress (which is terribly inaccurate for the first 6 days, because I kinda guessed based on G+ posts and what my totals are on Cara's site) can be found here.

I plan to continue adding to it as I figure out how to make Docs display the data in a useful way. I like charts.

Google+ has my brain.

So I've joined Google Plus. Why is that being posted here, you might ask? Well, as it turns out... it's a writing community goldmine. A LOT of the MLs from NaNoWriMo have accounts there, and thanks to the efforts of some intrepid users, finding lists of them isn't hard.

I've expanded my circle of people I communicate with, and it's been actually quite stimulating to do so. I have discussions with interesting people, who do and say interesting things. I don't treat it like a Facebook clone, it's becoming something a little different. It's sort of a social blog... there's no character limit that I've found on share updates (statuses) so the brevity I so detest on Facebook isn't there. It's also attracted people who really don't care for social websites, so things just feel differently.

Hangouts are fun too, for inspiring you to write, word wars and the like. I can REALLY see it as being useful in November. I can't wait to try it out.

And if you feel like adding me, do so. I don't have to be as protective there as I am of my Facebook. (Thank you, Circles, and thank you, Google, for being so sensitive of our privacy needs). Just let me know who you are, so I'll know which circle to put you in. :)

The strangest motivators

Okay, so I got started on Camp, and then stared. And stared. And stared. I couldn't make the words come. I just couldn't figure out where to go next. I'm breaking a cardinal NaNo rule, and starting with a work in progress, but I have too many good, salable pieces in progress to start yet another one that would languish unfinished, so I promised myself I would finish at least one before starting a new one.

So you know what the random bit of social engineering did it for me this time?

Livestream.

It turns on my webcam, if I want it (I usually leave it off) and broadcasts my computer screen in live streaming video. I've had quite a few friends stop in for a chat, and it's been really, really fun. Nothing gets me writing like knowing that someone is literally looking over your shoulder while you write! What's cool is in addition to allowing me to tweak things like mic input and camera, I can also have it set to stream what's going through my speakers, so I can share the music I'm listening to with my watchers!

Very fun.

I got the idea from Kit Fox on the NaNo forums... so you should try it out, and post your link there for the rest of us crackheads to watch! It's gotten me through my mad stuckness, for the moment, and I have forward motion. It's not GOOD motion, but it's moving. I've picked up my 2007 NaNo, Heaven's Bounty, and plan on adding it.

Man, I am a crackhead.

A milestone reached

Last night I accomplished something truly great. See, if you remember from posts past, I like to write by hand, and purchased a journal-sized notebook to write in.

Well, as of last night, I've officially filled it up.

That's right... It's DONE. Well, not the story, I'm still moving forward on the story, but the book itself is very full, and I've started on a second.

Just LOOK! Look at the beautiful, and so very full pages!

Umm... ignore the chicken scratch.

So with that done, I've got a backup book on hand, that I've already continued on. I removed the handy THIS IS MINE ribbon from the red book and moved it to the brown.

I'm even continuing the page numbering from 249. I'm at the climax of the novel, just at the beginning of the big confrontation, and I've got FORWARD MOTION. I can't wait to write tonight.

I think I'll go do that now.

crossposted to heatherdudley.com

Day 7: Even more behind, but a NEW COMPUTER

Well, I didn't catch up today like I'd planned. But I have a good excuse; I know own a new computer. NOt only a new computer, but a whole new operating system!

That's right, I've purchased a new iMac. And it is wonderful on a scale I can't quite describe. It's taking a lot of getting used to, though, so it's delayed my writing. I've installed scrivener, although I plan to run a virtual machine so I can continue with liquid story binder, scrivener's giving a free trial, so I'll see which I like better.

I've done so much running around today between setting up the new computer, church, and doing laundry that I've run out of hours in the day. But now I'm feeling motivated, so I want to write, write, write!

Only problem is, I'm not sure where to go. I've got my girls in a hotel room, where Elisande will get a little more acclimated with the human world, but after that? Just how DO you go from the Atlantic to the Capitol Building?

I'm inclined to have her fortuitously discover a congressman in the park. But that would be a bit too easy. I dunno. I need to do something.

Writing by Hand

I'm getting close to the climax of the novel, and the end of the journal I'm writing in, and I'm wanting to start entering it into Liquid Story Binder, but I'm so, so committed to finishing this in handwritten form, first.

You see, when I first started writing, I didn't have a computer, or even a typewriter. So I wrote by hand; even though my handwriting is atrocious (so utterly, utterly atrocious, as you can see in the picture) it was what I had.

When I started using a computer, my handwritten tendencies fell by the wayside, and I noticed that my prose actually sounded worse. I type SO fast that my fingers get ahead of my head, whereas with the handwritten work, it forced me to take the time to write it out, so my head stays well ahead of my fingers.

So went and bought a lovely little blank journal, and started writing by hand again. It's worked.

It's also easier to write distraction-free, since I can't surf the internet with a notebook. I lay down in bed, every night before I go to sleep, and write. Sometimes just a paragraph or two, sometimes, a few pages that keep me up until I finish the scene. Always something.

Here's my lovely little journal. Red isn't one of my favorite colors, ordinarily, but I really love the design of this one. I added the little brown ribbon as a sort of "handle", and also use it to distinguish mine from my husbands that he accidentally purchased independently in the exact same cover.

I scribble away, and feel so very writerly. The best part about it is that it fits in my purse, so I can take it with me wherever I go. I could write on the iPod touch, sure, but it would be tedious, and iPod would always be attempting to correct my spelling. Shapewriter's fun, but too difficult to use for any length of time. And I MUST have a Pilot Precise pen.I prefer V5, but ended up accidentally buying V7. Lines are thicker, but it still looks good, so I can use them.

So I need to finish out this novel, and one day, when I'm published and famous, this will be something I can show off at conferences as how I got my start. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to hock it on ebay for a few thousands bucks, eh?

Unemployment means more writing time, right?

So I got laid off from my sweet, awesome job. This sucks for the finances, but you know something? This means LOTS of writing time. I've been carrying my little red notebook around, scribbling, and I've written probably around 20k in the past couple of weeks. I'm rather happy with that. At the very least, I write for an hour or two before bed. Today, I've spent most of the day with the notebook in my lap, writing a paragraph here and there between distractions (It's very hard to write with a toddler and a preschooler around.)

I've really begun honing my writing process. I do better without the distractions of computers and the internet when I'm getting my initial ideas down; so a little leather-bound notebook is the way to go for me. It just... feels right. It's how I learned to write, it's how I've always done it. The only thing that sucks is it makes my arthritis act up. To the universe: I know it seemed like a funny idea to give arthritis to a teenager, but that was WAY uncool. If it hurts this much now that I'm in my thirties, it's gonna suck when I'm all old and stuff.

My mother showed me a book one of her customers had handed her. It made me hurt for the author; it was clearly self published, too. A no-name publishing house, based locally. What makes me sad about these things is they sell themselves short; I scanned through the book, and her writing wasn't that bad. It could have stood a little professional editing, but overall, it seemed readable. She suffered from the terminal "said" disease (you know, the inability to use the word "said" in dialogue.) and there were some rambling bits. I was impressed with the quality.

It's never a good sign, though, when the author is giving away the books in convenience stores.

What bothered me more than anything wasn't the fact that this author published her own book, it's that she created her own "publishing company" that advertises its services to other authors, and that she didn't bother to get a professional to design her website. She didn't even get a separate URL for her publishing company... it's just her own name. "authorname.com", you know.

Here's something I'll tell anyone: If you're not a professional web designer? Don't do it yourself, and don't hire a friend who doesn't do it for a living. As with any business, using a professional makes all of the difference. As a web designer myself, I can promise... no you can't do it on your own. It's not something just anyone can do, and do well. There are elements of design that will show your lack of expertise. Do yourself a favor, and pay someone else. The investment will be worth it!

That reminds me... I REALLY need to start working on mine! After all, I'm officially a degreed web designer now... as of June!

Anyway, now that I've rambled on enough, I'll wrap it up, and I'll keep you updated on my progress. Heck... I think I'll break out the camera and take some pictures of my notebook for you.

I'm jumping ship... Sorry Firefox, Chrome, here I come!

Google Chrome - Get a fast new browser. For PC, Mac, and Linux

You know, I tried Google Chrome right when it came out, primarily because I'm a HUGE Google fan, and will jump right on the bandwagon with just about any product they make, because they're Just That Awesome. I'm a major Google Borgite.

But I couldn't make the switch to Chrome, because while it was awesome, fast, and googlicious, it lacked one key feature: Adblock. I have gotten used to browsing ad-free, and I wanted to keep it that way.

So I sacrificed, and made do with Firefox's slowness because I needed to be Ad Free.

But now... NOW, Google Chrome has extensions! Extensions including AdThwart, which uses the same filters as Adblock does for Firefox!

Firefox, I love you, you were my first non-IE browser, and I will always have fond memories.

But you use over 100k of my existing memory, and that's simply unacceptable. Slowdowns, freezes, and random click and gray out the screen and load problems have reached critical mass. You take too long to load, and too long to shut down.

So I'm leaving you for Chrome. Oh, I'll probably still come see you from time to time as I moderate Freecycle groups, but I'm afraid that we'll have to just be friends. It's not you, it's me.

Okay, it's you. But I do still love you. Promise.

Liquid Story Binder: Going on sale November 1!

My favorite Novel writing software, Liquid Story Binder, is going on sale on November 1st for NaNoWriMo! If you've been around long, you know I love this software. It's unbelievably powerful, and includes so many features that it's dizzying... the best thing is, there's no one way to use it. You can use as much, or as little, as you like! I highly recommend this software. I've used it for the past two years running, and love it so much that even though I have a legitimate free copy given through giveawayoftheday a couple years ago, I'm planning on purchasing a full license this month through this sale. I love the program *that much* - this is not my recommendation as a NaNoWriMo staffer, but as a writer who has searched for a program that does what I want it.

I haven't learned to use all of it, but it's shareware, so you can use it free for 30 non-consecutive days, with ALL features intact, before you have to purchase a license to keep it working. The developer of the software really *listens* to his users, through his discussion group, and makes changes based on the feedback he receives, and is single-handedly the most responsive tech guy I've ever seen.

Excellent customer service, unique, matchless product... and a discount. What's not to love?

Technical failure

Technology failed me today. I was happily pounding away on Chapter 5, when my laptop died, abruptly.

I searched for the source, and realized I had a pillow sitting on top of my power supply, and it overheated. I'm hoping and praying that it didn't destroy the AC adapter completely, nor destroy my progress.

I'm a stickler for backups, so if I do lose work, it'll only be about a chapter's worth (I generally backup up to disk every two chapters or so.

Ah, the hazards of working on an ancient IBM thinkpad.

EDIT: Good news! It was just a simple overheat. After some fiddling, we got it back. Then the floppy drive jammed, inciting another panic attack, but that was just a random broken bit of laptop that had gotten ramming in there at an odd angle.