Welcome April

Last couple of months I haven’t posted as much as I wanted. However I couldn’t seem to find the words. I read a few books and posted the reviews and that was fun. My stories on the other hand, I had trouble putting pen to paper. I have thought about them quite a bit, yet it never translated to words on the page. 

I know I am far from the first and far from the last to experience this. It is comforting knowing I’m right there in the middle with everybody else and fustrated that I can’t seem to move past it. I just finished reading a Conan story and it has rekindled my passion for the Cimmerian. Mr. Howard’s hero is still valid and worthy of consideration in our modern world. 

In my NaNoWriMo project, Manuscripts, Ephinanies, Illuminated, Conan plays a part first as a comissioned project and they when my heronine needs to believe in herself. The Cimmerian visits her dreams to build her confidence. Ambitious but worthwhile project, if I could just get the story out of my head and on the paper. 

Here’s to a new month and inspired writing. Cheers, james

Drained

Dear Readers,

Camp finished up and I am feeling drained. Physically, mentally and creatively empty. I will keep this short and I should be back next week to my regular weekly posting. I applaude all the ones that did camp and I applaude the ones that kept writing anyway regardless.

Cheers, james

Camp and the Real World

The first week of camp started off great. It was the first three days of the second week when the Real World came knocking. Two meetings in two days and no time to catch up on my writing. I do have one acomplishment, I broke 10,000 words on Saturday or maybe Sunday night. 🙂 However I lowered my goal from 25,000 words to 16,000 words. 😦 I just don’t think I would ever manage to get it done in time.

And in looking to the brighter side, I have come 10,224 words further than I was June 30th. So ha Real World take that. Cheering for all the ones taking on this challenge and cheering for the ones steadily writing day in and day out. I applaude you all. Cheers and let the ink flow. james

Camp Update

Week 1 is offically over and final word count is 6,200. Yay! A few words shy of where I wanted to be, but I’ll take it. So far camp has been great. Cool cabinmates with really awesome sounding stories. I did a pre-camp virtual write in. Fun but I can’t seem to figure when they are supposed to be. Oh well. Writer Plus is the bomb, wow I sound old or maybe just dated. Anyway now that we have gotten our act together it is a niffty cool little app. 

My story, hmm, what to say about my work in progress. It isn’t exactly my story, but it is the prestory to my story. Its my main chatacter’s parents’ story. Which plays a good portion in M.E.I. so yeah, it needed writing in order for me to unravel the whos, whys, and whatfors. 

I am changing my writing pattern, I write in small chunks through out the day and then at night I will finish my word count goal.This worked extremely well the first four days, but its getting harder and harder to get those few spare moments. And one night I was writing and then I felt my hubby take phone and glasses from me. I had zonked myself out. I gotta rework that passage. 🙂

Anyway this is just a quick update on camp. To everyone doing camp good luck, and to everybody else working on their regular writing, let the ink flow. Cheers, jamrs

Automous Driving Vehicles

The New York Times had an article about self driving vehicles. In a senerio of an unavoidable accident between the vehicle and its passengers and a group of pedestrians. The study, through a host of surveys, found drivers would rather the vehicle protect the driver and passengers than swerve into an obsticle thus saving the pedestrians. The main question the article raised was how do we program a sense of morality into a computer program when our morals are not clear. We want to do the right thing so long as we are not adversely affected. The more interesting question to me would have been why the driver didn’t take control of the wheel or apply the brakes. Although in the survey that may not have been an option.

One of my stories takes place three years in the future and the cars do have an auto drive function. However in my story car and driver are not seperate enities where the car has complete control. More like the driver oversees the driving and if something comes up like the unavoidable accident the driver takes control. Traffic accidents are greatly reduced but not eliminated, long distance truck drivers have a self driving function and allow the driver to sleep and the truck would alert him if something came up. However in certain places this function wouldn’t work and the human driver maintains his job.

The main driving force behind my story’s auto driving system is the road being able to communicate with the vehicles. If a mile down the road a car was in the lane broke down, the road notifies the vehicles to begin slowing down and manuever around the obsticle. Or a car is making a left turn and there is on coming traffic, the vehicle would be notified to get out of harms way. One flaw that is mentioned is older classic vehicles that aren’t equipped with the auto drive function. In the story, corrivettes have been outlawed, I am still fleshing out the hows, whys and what fors. Older vehicle can be street legal as long as the driver pays an extra fee. Traffic control is handled by drones, ticketing, vehicle inspections, and traffic violations.

So what are your thoughts on self driving vehicles? Should we or shouldn’t we? Cheers on the last Friday night before Camp NaNoWriMo. james

Article link posted heree

Writing Projects Update

I am working on several writing projects. I have Owl Story, there is a page for it under Pages. Saving Emilsa also has a page listed under Pages. Zombie Shark story/screen play I play with in moments of humor. I need to set up a page for it. Then my first NaNo project Manuscripts Ephinanies Illuminated, or MEI for short. Plus two untitled stories that are only a page or two right now.

Cheers and staying busy, james