The Jake of All Trades

“What do you want to do when you grow up?”

The question was asked to all of us at one point. Where is your direction in life? Where are you going? What is it you want to spend the rest of your life doing?

The rest of my life.

That is a bit of time for one thing, one task, one GOAL. Seems too much for any one thing to take, a burden even Atlas would cringe at.

So perhaps instead of what do I want to do, it should be what do I want to do for now? Now I seem to be doing well as an engineer, part time writer. If I had a say, it would be the other way. Writing every day and consulting as an engineer. One of these days, no?

That being said, I was a web programmer once upon a time. Something I still dabble in, still mingle at parties with. I’d go back there too if it was something interesting. Database programming for corporate websites would not be my ideal.

So what do I want to be when I grow up? Well, since I don’t have plans to grow up, I suppose I have time to figure it out.

Tags: ramblings, writing by testblog
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Phillis Levin is my Muse.

Many poets have issued that title on a woman. “She is my muse.” This woman they talk of is beautiful, elegant, they are no doubt in love with her, and equate inspiration to write poetry, happy or sad, about her, to ‘Muse’.

Phillis Levin is my Muse, in the purest sense.

When I starting down this path of creativity, of writing, poetry, of using word as art (ART?) it was a journey that started in the dark (yes, I mean high school). Writings were scribblings in the corners of notebooks, they were mimics of Latin poets, and ‘experimental’ things, which later turned out to be not that ‘experimental’. But this is a part of the poet’s journey, as it is a part of any journey. This part is the beginning.

Then came college, and writing courses, and this strange, but new idea of reading other poets. This idea is a strange one to understand why it is a NEW THING.

A book, Afterimage, was handed to me, by a Ms Phillis Levin.

I read the book twice that night. Three more times in the week that followed. Some where in there I found inspiration.

It was not that I wanted to write like her, or I wanted to follow her journey. Instead what she gave me was the light in the darkness, the direction to start my own journey. I wanted to be that good, and for the first time realized that a bit of work, of tears and cramped hands, that there was more to be done with myself, than simply writing what I had been.

This was her inspiration to me, to start my journey, to take my writing seriously, to turn it into a declaration: “I write.” She is my muse in the purest sense, for I saw her as art, as poetry, as the personification of this undefinable thing I had set off to find.

Her new book is out (alas, the older ones are harder to find, but if you can get them, please do). It is called “May Day” and worth every inch of your bookshelf it will take, of every moment of your life you will read it, of every word that is on the inside leaving the page and haunting you in those moments before you sleep.

Tags: writing by testblog
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My days have been full since last weekend, tests, work, all this real life. Last weekend I took off from all of that and went to a convention.

It was a new hotel for March, and they were not ready for us. They say by August they will have enough people, support, back-up support and even moral support, but we will see.

On Friday night there was Rocky Horror Picture Show by the Satanic Mechanics, a group I am familiar with. The show was great. Afterwards found myself and a new bunch of friends and argued, talked and drank about movies, books and of course, Godzilla.

I had a reading on Saturday at 3:00. I read two stories, Island in my Head and “Untitled” which I wrote that morning. I went to most of the readings. The reading rooms were great, but they were so far from the main part (aka, the dealer room and bar) that not many people even knew they were there. We will need signs for August, and whiskey.

Sunday Scares that Care did an auction for some collectibles. It was good stuff and for a good purpose. I wandered home, tired and ready to do battle once again with the real world.

Which is much more scary than anything I found at Horrorfind.

Tags: horror, writing by testblog
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I’ve been busy lately. Really busy. Too many things that need to be done, too many things that I want to do. Just too many things and still only one of me.

So what happens when I get busy? The writing is first to go. Unfortunatly, while I consider myself a writer, since I am not a ‘professional’ writer, there are other priorities which involve a paycheck. Perhaps that will change one day, but for now writing is something I do when I am not at work.

My own personal interests do not help the situation. If I were simply fixated on writing, it would be easier to find the time. Instead I am drawn to writing and web coding and video games and camping and aikido and reading and … you get the idea. I am the jake-of-all-trades after all.

I don’t have an answer, this isn’t a post about how you can change your, or my, life and make it better or more organized or what have you. This is more of a statement. This is who I am. I am busy.

Tags: ramblings, writing by testblog
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I’ll probably write a few posts on this sort of stuff. There are so many tools out there availible for a writer (or any artist for that matter) it is hard to know what to pick. Most of my posts will be about free software. Why? Well, as a starting writer, free is a good thing.

The idea being that your creativity shouldn’t be hindered by your wallet. Perhaps you won’t have that sound studio, or that top of the line movie editing deck, but you can get tools that well get you there.

So let’s start with some basics.

You need a word processor. For a writer, this is a part of your creative process. For an artist in general there are countless reasons why you’ll need to sit in front of that blinking cursor, from resumes to reviews. There are two great choices out there that are both open source, and free.

AbiWord (http://abisource.com)

Simple. Light. Easy to use, but still powerful. AbiWord is just a word processor, but it does its job efficiently. Most of the tools you will need are here.

OpenOffice.org (http://openoffice.org)

This is a monolith. Openoffice.org is a competitor for Microsoft Office. It has a word processor, a spreadsheet app, presentation, even web and database tools. There are forums everywhere to help with the program.Templates, tutorials, all availble online. If you are thinking of buying an Office Suite, try this one first (it’s free!) and see what you think.

Both of these programs can save in either MS Word formats (.DOC) or in Open Document Format. The advantage of ODF is that it is an open standard, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to open them down the road. The disadvantage is that Word can’t open them natively, so you may have to convert to DOC or RTF before sending them out to friends or editors.

Are these the only two options? Not a chance. There are lots of open source word processors, and some closed source, but free ones, like Google Docs, for instance.

That’s a start, there will be more as we go along.

Tags: opensource, software, writing by testblog
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