Progress on the new novel

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Well, made a bit of a push this week and finished the first section of my new novel.  Since it also happens to lay most of the groundwork for the tale it means I have also passed the halfway point in the story.  Yay!

I have sent it to several persons for review and I hope to get responses, good and bad, in the future, but I need to keep writing.  Interestingly, I find starting the next section in many ways as difficult in getting started on the book in the first place.

A few of the characters have strayed a bit from how I initially envisioned them acting.  Characters do that sometimes.  The overall plot is still moving in the right direction, but I can see that some sections will have to change – a lot.

Still, it is a lot of fun doing a story where you let the characters wander through their own lives in a world where major events are happening and they are actually influencing them.

As I get closer to the end and have a chance to polish the opening I think I’ll see about posting up the first couple of chapters here so people can see if it is something they might want to read or pass on to a friend.

Writing Progress

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Well I have not progressed as much as I had planned to, but in spite of the entanglements of Deb’s passing I have still completed two more chapters of my novel.  Things have settled a bit and I hope to be able to do more, but there are a number of other tasks still vying for my attention.

At this moment I should be coming back from the Arisia convention in Boston, but my car had other ideas.  I’ve been given a warning about the water pump needing replacement – a task I need to take care of in the coming weeks, especially since I will also be resuming teaching college at Bristol in just a few days.

I like the way the story itself is going.  The characters seem to be doing what they think is best, and the arc of the story seems to be staying on the general outline I had envisioned.  With luck I should be past the first major section in about four more chapters.

Life continues.

Deborah Nash 1950 – 2012

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Deborah Nash, beloved wife

Nash, Deborah A., 62, of Exeter, passed away November 16th , 2012 at her home with her husband and members of her immediate family at her side.  She was the beloved wife of David Dougher.

Born in Crystal Lake, Ohio, her family moved to Columbus, Ohio and Orono, Maine before finally settling in Kingston, Rhode Island.  She was the eldest daughter of Charles and Frances (Agar) Nash.

She was a graduate of South Kingstown High School and the University of Rhode Island.  In her early career she championed women’s rights and was asked by the authors, G. Kass-Simon and Patricia Farnes  to be the Associate Editor of “Women of Science – Righting the Record.”  Considered a seminal work in the women’s movement, it has remained in print since its initial publication in 1990, and continues to be used as a textbook by colleges and universities.

An avid reader and writer, herself, she continued to assist others with their work.  Her final editing project was for the just released young adult novel, “The Marble Game”, by Sarah Sloane.  The book was dedicated to her by the author.  Her interest in writing led her to publish her own poetry and the hobby of creating miniature books.  She created several books, with each double sided page being smaller than a postage stamp.  Many included carefully reduced illustrations.

Deborah was an ardent believer in animal rights and a strict vegetarian.  She was an accomplished equestrian and engaged in many outdoor sports including ice skating, swimming, hiking, biking, and kayaking.

She worked for a period of time in the corporate travel industry, specializing in complicated travel itineraries for business professionals, and travelled widely herself.

In 1990 she left corporate work and turned her interest to dance.  It was a transformative experience. She trained as a ballroom dance instructor at Paris Academy in Massachusetts and went on to create riDance.com, one of the largest dance websites in the country.  She focused on older adult students, believing that too much attention was being directed to young and competitive dancers.  She worked constantly to improve her teaching technique and taught hundreds of couples and individuals in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.  She never stopped her own education, and loved all kinds of dance.  She took dozens of classes from experts in jazz, tap, hip hop, ballet, lindy, and blues dance, as well as regular training to improve her understanding of ballroom technique.

Recognized by her peers for her work on riDance.com and the dance field in general, she was elected to be President of Dance Alliance, the Rhode Island organization representing the interests of the professional dance community from 2004 to 2009.  She was a frequent attendee of dance events:  high school recitals, college performances, ballroom events such as K&S and Dancing Feeling, modern performances by Fusionworks, and classical performances by the Providence Ballet.  She would promote these events and often personally review them on the website to give them additional exposure.

Besides her husband and parents, she leaves two brothers, Jonathan Nash and Eric Nash; and a sister, Susan Nash, and many, many friends from all walks of life.

A Graveside Service will be held Saturday, 11:00 am December 1st 2012 at New Fernwood Cemetery, Kingstown Road, Kingston. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions to Dance Alliance Scholarship Fund,P.O. Box 372, East Greenwich, RI 02818 or Farm Sanctuary at http://www.farmsanctuary.org/ would be appreciated. For information and condolences visit: www.FaganQuinnFuneralHome.com.  Fagan-Quinn Funeral Home  401-295-5603

There will be a reception at the Busy Bodies Dance Studio, in Wakefield, RI after the graveside service for those who are interested.

Can I have your vote for a bunch of empty promises?

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As a registered independent I’m getting a lot of phone calls right now – as you can imagine.  Even though I am not in anything remotely resembling a battleground state.  The phone rings with both Democrats and Republicans seeking my vote.  Usually I’m pretty quiet about who I vote for and why, but this year I think I would like to say a few things.

I have pointed out my feeling on the Republican theme of “helping the wealth creators” in a different post.  But after carefully looking at the rest of the Republican platform and promises I can say one thing.

Bullshit.

I have worked in the computer industry for a long, long time, and one thing you learn to recognize when dealing with new product offerings is how to spot vaporware. And, plain and simple the Republican platform is vaporware.  It will not work, and it is filled with vague promises that cannot be kept. It shows no fiscal responsibility, nor any understanding of the depth of our economic problems.  It is a advertising campaign focused on saying that things are tough and the guy who is fixing them isn’t doing it fast enough.

The policies that put us in this mess are primarily the result of the previous Republican administration spending money it didn’t have, removing regulations on companies that then gouged our country for billions of dollars, and then going to those same companies and saying, put a trillion dollars into our Super Pack and we will keep the gravy train rolling.

With all the money that has been poured into the Republican Super Pack you could probably fund all the social saftey net programs that the Republicans say they want to cut for the next decade. Bit it doesn’t end there…

Mr. Romney says he wants to strengthen our military, and his Republican colleagues actually tried to appropriate MORE money for the military than they asked for!  And what does he plan on doing with all that extra military spending?  The previous Republican administration went into a foreign country based on bad intelligence and mired us in a war that cost us thousands of lives, and billions of dollars before we got out.  And the guy they were after was in a completely different country!

Mr Romney says he has a plan to create 12 million new jobs for Americans.  He will not reveal the details of his incredible job creation plan. I would like to suggest that his plan is really, really simple.

He is going to reintroduce compulsory military service, for both men and women.  In simple words – he’s going to bring back the draft folks.  He’s going to dump billions into military spending, he’s going to stimulate the economy by making guns, uniforms, tanks, warships, and jet planes.  And when he is finished creating his new bright shiny army,  He’s going to threaten to use it on Syria and Iran.

Now maybe you think it would be great to send your sons and daughters over to Iran, and Syria.  Maybe you think it would be good to sacrifice all our progress in rebuilding the infrastructure of this country to support a 21st century economy and let us become a third world nation.  Maybe you would like to see the poor and the lower income classes drift into true poverty, and watch as the crime rates across the country soar when people go into the streets to loot for food, clothing and basic necessities for their families. Not me.

Yes I am aware that the unemployment rate is high.  I am also aware that major corporations are keeping it high by not hiring to see if they can tip the election in favor of the man who will give them carte blanche to ride roughshod over our democracy.

I would rather see four more years of a dead stalemate in Congress than see what this country will become if the Republicans give it to the major corporations to run (or should I say loot?).

But I don’t think that is what will happen.  All the economic indicators say that the country is improving in spite of corporate efforts to slow progress.  And the Republicans would like to prey on that turnaround and claim it for there own, even as they sabotage it for the future with more fiscal irresponsibility.

So, for this year.  It is no to EVERY Republican.  When they get back to a fiscally responsible moderate platform I will consider giving them back my vote.  But the nonsense they are spewing now is just like watching Big Time Wrestling – it’s an entertaining spectacle… but it isn’t real.

 

 

More Writing Progress

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Well I’m about 7 chapters into my first novel with about 25 to go.  It’s all in rough draft form.  I’ve learned a few things about writing longer stories already which I will happily share.

First, don’t bother to edit.  Get the whole story written then go back and take out your red marker.  I spun my wheels for a while polishing lines that I later cut completely when the story got further along and I realized they couldn’t go there.

Second, an outline can be your friend, but don’t let it become your master.  A loose outline that marks out roughly where you want the story to go, what scenes you want to portray, is a great way to get your story moving and can even help keep your story moving.  But, if you feel you must follow the outline slavishly, your story will become strained and wooden.  So, think of an outline as a trail in the woods.  You can follow the path you laid down, but feel free to do a bit of exploring when the mood hits.

Third, when you work on a scene let your characters tell you what to write.  If your characters have their own personalities, then they will say and do the things that need to happen.  Don’t ignore them when you get that little voice saying, “I wouldn’t say that.  I wouldn’t do it that way.”  Let them say it and do it their way. The story will be better for it.

Fourth, if you have a scene in your head, write that scene.  Don’t think you will remember it later – you won’t.  Get it down on paper.  There is no requirement that you have to write a story from beginning to end.  You can jump around as you realize how certain things fit.

Fifth, don’t struggle looking for a title before you get started.  A better title will invariably suggest itself before you get to the end anyway.

Sixth, while a program like Microsoft Word is good for writing, a program like Scrivener is great.  Why?  Because it supports the idea of shuffling and moving your story pieces around.  And that extra element of creativity can make a huge difference in keeping you going on your story.  I’m not quitting on Word, spell check, grammar check, and the ability to embed pictures is too important.  But, for getting the real work done, a dedicated writing tool beats a generalized one.

Seventh, do some blog posts.  Let your friends know you haven’t given up and that you are still moving forward.

So, all my observations shared, and my obligations to my friends fulfilled for the moment, I’m going back to work.

Writing progress

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I have spent the past week improving my knowledge of the modern writing process.  There are many new tools out there (besides the latest copy of Microsoft Word) to help the prospective young writer.

My new favorite is a program called Scrivener by the folks at Literature and Latte.  Scrivener is a multipurpose tool for helping writers organize and reorganize their manuscripts.  It can present the writer’s ideas in a variety of ways – from a virtual cork board to an indented outline.  It provides specialized areas for holding your research work, your character biographies, and information on key scenes (How was the room laid out?  Put in a sketch!)  It formats the documents in a number of different ways from PDF to Kindle mobi files.  Very useful.

Scrivener was originally created for the Mac, but recently made the jump to Windows.  It is a fun package for the beginning writer and I recommend it heartily.

Of course, a major part of the entire writing gig is getting it published.  A trip to the library and bookstore turned up several recent popular books in the areas I am interested in writing, as well as copies of the most recent market guides.

Like most readers I have my personal favorites, authors whose work I wish I could emulate.  That said, what I like to read is not usually what reaches the bestseller lists.  So, being a bit pragmatic on the subject, I looked at what those authors offer their readers, that the books I remember fondly do not..

<sigh> Now I have several new favorite authors.  Styles change, and the public’s taste alters with the passage of the years, but a good story is a good story.  So, I have some hope that the stories I would like to tell will find a favorable audience, although I will have to alter my current writing style a bit to accommodate modern tastes.

Technology has stepped up to help out on the storage front.  Being able to place your work in progress in the cloud means that you can work on it from a variety of locations.  As one who likes to meander a bit when I think, this is useful.

Finally we have the possibility of publishing electronically.  The ability to skip the whole paper publishing route has some appeal, especially to the green side of me.  However, I must honestly admit I still like the feel of a book in my hand over a Kindle or a Nook.  I have become increasingly fond of reading on my iTouch though, and I expect the next generation of readers may think our obsession with the printed word as criminally damaging to the environment.  Perhaps we will learn to use bamboo to make paper.  I personally have never seen a more sustainable crop candidate, but that’s a topic for another post.

So that’s it for this piece.  I have transferred a number of my older stories and outlines to the cloud.  I have selected my tools for writing and set them up.  I have studied the current publishing process.

It is, in a word, progress.

The Myth of the “Wealth Creators”

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I have been listening a lot to the Republican ads going on about how we need to reduce spending and direct more of our tax dollars to the “Wealth Creators” who will then act to stimulate our economy.

The fact is, we tried that under President George Bush at the start of the financial meltdown.  President Bush gave a great deal of our tax money to some of the wealthiest business owners, in an effort to stimulate the economy, to preserve jobs and get our stalled economy going.

His strategy failed – miserably.

Why? Because, in an uncertain economy, those wealthy individuals did exactly what any smart business person should do – they kept the money to invest later.  In an interview with Robert Reich on NPR, he explained that of the billions that President Bush gave to the wealthy to stimulate the economy they kept 80% of it.  Of the 20% they did spend most went to bonuses to top employees – most likely to keep them from jumping ship if they got a better offer, or to fulfill contractual bonuses that were earned before the economy tanked and had to be paid in the following quarter.

Why did they keep the money and not invest it?  Simple. There was no market for their goods.  Giving money to a wealthy business person means he can make more products, but if there is no one to buy those products all he is doing is lowering the value of the ones he has already made and is currently trying to sell.  By creating a surplus in the market he is damaging his already fragile business.  No reasonable business person would do that. Instead they hoard the money, planning to use it when the economy has turned around and there is increased demand for their products.

On the other hand, when President Obama tried to stimulate the economy he targeted Americans with low and middle income for the money.  He tried to put even more money into the bottom of the economy but was blocked by a House of Representatives whose mandate was to prevent him from doing anything, at any cost.

So what happened with the billions that President Obama put into the economy?  Well the stock market is now close to 13,000.  Higher than before the economic collapse.  The unemployment rate started to go up but has slowed as a great deal of what the President wanted to accomplish was blocked by Congress.

President Obama correctly judged that the way to stimulate an economy is to put the money into the lower and middle classes.  Why?  Because they have to spend it.  They do not have the resources to set the money aside.  Again, according to the same NPR report, over 80% of the money given to the lower and middle income families was reinvested in the economy.  As a result there was more demand for goods, and businesses increased production to fill that new demand.

And what happened to George Bush’s solution?  When President Bush tried to stop the downward plunge of the stock market from 11,000 it plummeted to about 9000.

So, what is the lesson we can take from these examples?  While the national economy might seem a huge and massively complex system, it still operates according to some pretty fundamental rules which are easy to follow.

The first thing is that the Republican idea of “Wealth Creators” and “Job Creators” is hogwash.  The only thing that will make businesses increase production and higher more workers is increased demand for their products.  Giving them money and tax breaks will not help the economy, and there is a lot of evidence that it actually hurts it.

So, if you want to stimulate the economy, if you want to make the country more competitive, if you want to get people back to work, you must direct your resources to the lower and middle income areas.  You must put money into the hands of the people who will spend it.  You must put money into basic services, like food stamps, medical assistance, child care.  You must invest in infrastructure that creates jobs but more importantly makes it easier for lower and middle income people to get to and from work.  This frees dollars for the poor and middle classes which they will spend on items to make themselves and their children more upwardly mobile.  You need to increase the size of the middle class in order to fix the economy because the middle class buys the goods which drive innovation and increase demand.

Bottom line: President Bush and the Republican Tea Party Activists got their economics wrong.  President Obama got it right, but has not been allowed to go far enough by a stonewalling House..

Food for thought in the upcoming elections.