Tag Archives: Writing

Things That Work, Things That Don’t

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As usual I like to experiment on various hacks to improve myself and enrich my life. Actually recently I have been actively trying to distract my mind from other issues. Along the way I like to record what worked and what didn’t.

Blogging on a touchscreen cellphone works as a compromise of convenience. Writing on a physical keyboard works better. I don’t end up pressing wrong letters and rewriting words. But carrying an IT strains my pocket more. And carrying a phone is far more useful. Besides the IT is still in an unusable state at the moment. Hmm… Another call looks like in order.

Microblogging works less well. It acts more like a distraction, than a useful form of communication such as an instant messenger or social network site. Besides just like Marika I prefer to blog in the long format.
Ok… I’m drawing a blank on what to write next. Oh right, keeping todos on my site works better than on the builtin PIM on the  5800. TaskFreak works really well. All I need is a syncing client for the todo list on my cell. Maybe I should write one as my first Qt project. Hmm…

Additionally, I am striving to incorporate regular exercise into my life. It helps to clear my mind and to keep me fit. In the winter, I used to play indoor volleyball. Nowadays I’ve switched over to taekwondo and soon, soccer. Exercise really does work, so long as it is packaged in the fun form of a sport.

A Case of Insomnia

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I can’t sleep.  After some initial attempts to fall back asleep, including pushups… I just gave up and started surfing the web.  Updated my Facebook account and read all of my RSS feeds.  Still can not sleep, too much on my mind.  Why is trying to do the right thing so difficult?  Why is trying to live a full, happy and prosperous life so tiring and trying?  I don’t know.  If life is a garden, why are there days I feel more like a man with firebrand and a machete than a gardener?  Again, I don’t know.

I just can’t sleep.  So I am updating my blog.  Then a bit more passive surfing, and maybe some novel writing.  Once 6:25 comes around, I’ll stop pretending to sleep and I’ll get ready for work.  I should have enough time to change my look from Ugh the caveman to Dorian the professional software consultant.  Still not sure what novel I want to actually write.  But I think that instead of brooding over it, I’ll just write it and deal with this child of my mind somehow.  Or rather I know what to write, I just lost a character and the book is not perfect in my mind.  I plan to slay this worm called Perfection and just get on with the job of writing.

I finished reading Mary Beth Bonacci’s Real Love.  A fantastic read and quite an eyeopener at least for myself.  I finally know what my issues are, and what I really need.  One thing is for sure, all those other dating books (a.k.a. seduction manuals) are useless.  Attraction is subjective, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and true love comes from God.  Real love comes from respecting others and living God’s teachings in relationships.  It will be a hard and long road ahead.  But at least I have no more doubts about is the right thing to do.  I know what to do, now I just have to do it.  Self-improvement is a lifestyle, just not an easy one at that.

I’m off now to deal with a few online issues.  Then a bit of furious writing shall follow.  After that I’ll get up and pretend to live a normal life.  As I look around me, I think that everyone else seems to do.

Shifting Sands and Schedules

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I’m blogging this entry fairly late in the day today.  I will enjoy sleeping longer and missing being in the office before the sunrises.  At least I will enjoy these guilty pleasures for the next couple of weeks.  Hence my blogging schedule will be thrown out of whack.  But I don’t mind the extra sleep.  I am definitely less cranky and more productive.

I should pick a better time to write this.  But I need a creative outlet.  Fighting with Perl and web applications, and reading reams of documentation can wear a person out.  I look forward to taking a change from Java.  But Perl is not a pretty language.  You can easily write code that you can’t maintain.  At least not easily.  The same could be said about Python, C or C++.  Still Perl can easily win a code obfuscation contest.  And my Perl skills need work.  Still I welcome to the shift from Java and JSP to mixture of Perl and my firm’s in-house RAD tools.  Even if it means wading through tons and tons of documentation.

Another shift is writing I guess.  I’m doing more of it, and enjoying it.  The effort of writing novel still drags on.  I blame my compulsive reading of RSS feeds, and magazines.  Still I like to stay in touch with the parts of the tech world that I enjoy and see future promise.  Also other tasks hang over my head, so it can be difficult to concentrate at times.  Writing and coding projects seem to move at a glacial pace nowadays.  Still they move forward.  I need to shift in Qt, C++ and Python coding again.

Lastly I have a trip to plan and random life tasks to do.  I’m excited about the results obviously.  But such tasks often involve decisions that take time and some can be life-altering.  I’d prefer that the tasks would do themselves.  But unfortunately my not doing them, is just procrastination.  That is what I’m doing right now, procrastination by writing.  I should get back to work now.

The Morning Came Again

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Another fine morning and another beautiful sunrise rising over Toronto.  This may seems like a common theme, but I love the mornings.  I love the mornings cause it matches my personality.  I am a forward thinker.  I enjoy peering into the future.  Little wonder why I enjoy trying out beta software.  Or why I follow future trends.  And I feel happy when I see I bright future coming.

The sky just turned a flamelike orange.  And the Sun is a brilliant orange ball of light.  Amazing how far away the Sun is, and yet how bright and warming it is.  Beautiful.

I figured out my plot and my setting for the science fiction novel I plan on writing.  Interestingly the setting turned out a composite of reality and my own past imaginings.  And plot, influenced heavily by games and novels that I played and read through, should be rather original.  While the novel recycles many of my old ideas, I think it will be original as a composition.

I also found two main characters.  Should prove to be an interesting duo.  An interesting contrast of personalities, hopefully that will drive the story forward.  Part of me is proud of my achieving believable characters in such a simple manner.  Part of me is telling me to not reveal too much and to mix it up more. As Marika notes: getting good characters is something a writer has shape, model and chisel away at.

I think I will start the story off in the morning, with the sunrise.  I run off to write the first chapter.

Grey Clouds, Sunny Outlook

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I get into the office really early in the morning. These past fews I normally got greeted with a dark sky and street lights. Each day the sunrise earlier. But each day the sun would rise, brilliant lines of yellow, orange, red and pink would form across the skyline. In the distance the CN tower, banking towers and skyscraper condominiums would cut dark silhouettes into the brilliant sunrise.

Today I see the dark grey dramatic underbelly of clouds stretching across the sky. The morning greyness feels even greyier under this ceiling of cloud.

Today I am in a cheerful mood. Two more days until my work project changes. A few more tasks and I’ll be able to write my novel without interruption. I also finished reading the book I wanted to finish before the end of Lent. Kubuntu Linux has infested my work laptop. The new upcoming release of Jaunty (9.04) feels and looks amazing. Everything works out of the box, even the webcam and the Bluetooth mouse. Finally I’ll be able to catch up on correspondences. And start working on learning Qt and maybe a natural language (French or Italian?).

Dinner at Prince

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Tonight I met up with one of my friends from my professional writing course, Andrei.  Since I could meet him in the early evening, that meant I could get some extra sleep and start work later.  Extra sleep is always a welcome change in my schedule.  Commuting to work by bus not so much.  Work turned out busy as usual with training and work on particularly sticky issue (read issue as a bug, enhancement, change request or combination of the former).

Meeting up with Andrei is always a pleasure.  We ate dinner at Prince, the Japanese eatry near work.  I highly recommend that place if you are up for some Japanese food.  We talked a lot about writing, university, the economy (everyone and his pet dog’s obsessively favourite topic it seems nowadays) and philosophy in general.  I even got into a rant about why technologies such as Linux, KDE 4 and Maemo excite me.  Hehehe… I had a lot of fun.

Interestingly it seems that nowadays my weeks are jam packed with meeting interesting people and having fun in general.  I don’t know if it just a bit coincidental luck.  Or is it because I’ve tried to take a more positive and active approach to life.  Or is it a combination of both?  I wonder…

A New Voice on the Blogosphere

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One of my friends from my professional writing class, Marika took up blogging.  Yay!  It is nice to see another familiar face on the blogosphere.  Anyways, check out her blog.  I have always found her writing style as fun, thoughts provoking and aesthetically pleasing  And yes, her philosophical posts beat out mine in the cohesive, interesting and well-thought out sections.  Also her audience responds in her comment section more often than mine does. *nudge* *nudge*

Marika’s It’s On My Desk blog can be found at: http://itsonmydesk.blogspot.com/.

A Change of Pace and Style

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In the past I wrote almost exclusively about technology and gaming. The occasional happy accident in time management and organization popped up. In the past few weeks, I decided that such a scope of articles is limiting.

There is only so much one can write on such subjects, before one feels tempted to use other people’s ideas as one’s own. Also one feels tempted to speak on subjects that can get one in a lot of trouble. I’ve resisted such temptations. However I realized that I could not both resist these temptations and blog on a regular basis. At least not without expanding the scope of articles.

So nowadays, I plan on blogging all things that interest me. I’ll avoid the political, the personal and the confidential for all the obvious reasons. Everything else is fair game. This means some of my more technical readers will see a larger span between articles on computing. I apologize for that. But my life does not revolve around technology alone. Everyone else, please enjoy my inane commentaries, crazy thoughts and more artistic stories. 🙂

Writing on a Train

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I neglected to post a blog entry today in the morning.  I felt too tired and uninspired to write anything of substance.  Also I could not relax until I knew I had left Toronto.

Now it is evening.  And I’m on a train, again going the farthest east on land I’ve been in Canada.  I’m going to Montreal again.  Slowly the English Breakfast tea is starting to kick in.  The air feels heavy and tired.  And I can write in peace.

It is amazing how quiet the train is.  Most of  the time I only hear the clatter of metal wheels on metal rail.  The swaying of the car is both comforting and awakening.  In Europe the trains don’t sway as much.  I guess the sway is one of the beauties of the Canadian track.  Everyone else used concrete ties and high-tech rails.  Not us Canadians, good old turn of the century-the 19th century that age of steam, iron and men driving nails with sledgehammers-wooden ties with metal piles.  But this doesn’t bother train, as I hurtle towards my destination.

Now the inspiration comes, slowly.  I will begin on my craft now.  So will be born my book, on board a Canadian VIA train bound for Montreal.

A Weekend of Inaction

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This weekend turned out not as productive as I planned it to be.  Instead of working on any writing or replying to any e-mails or doing any real computer-related work.  I did enjoy the guilty pleasure of semi-disconnecting from the Web.  This disconnect actually helped with the dose of soul-searching and self-pity that comes with the hyper-worldly message of Valentines being spouted at you.  I also took it easy since I needed unwind from my recently hectic schedule.  I did some work done around the house.  So I apologize to everyone who expected a response from me earlier.  I’ll respond to your e-mails today.

However one thing I managed to work was the conceptual ideas behind my novel.  I want to achieve a high-level of realism in this book.  After some thought, I decided to try and go the “strange reality” route that Strugatsky’s The Roadside Picnic espouses.  So while some of the technology will be futuristic, it will mostly consist of “upgrading” today’s technology.  No flying between planets, and I took the hazardous route of making the entire story on the Earth.  I’ll have to tread lightly to avoid making any direct statements about current politics and the such.  But other than that, the book will feel more realistic and better researched.  My imagination only goes so far, before things start sounding fake.  Not having to imagine things, and places will help speed writing the book I think.  Now lets see if the theory matches practice though.