Jul 28 2023

When Wide Focus is Actually Sabotage

Author: Jamie DeBree

Video of the Week

Because it fits with this week’s theme, and also, it’s fun: Sabotage by the Beastie Boys.

One Thing at a Time, Dammit!

I read an article recently (linked below in the recommendations section) that discusses how writing is like long-distance running. I am not (and never will be) a runner of any sort. If something was chasing me, I can’t guarantee I’d take off sprinting – I’m highly likely to hold my ground instead, just because…well, because that’s who I am.

But there’s a point there where the author is pointing out that focusing on getting to the end of a run (or novel) is self-sabotaging, and often leads to overwhelm and burnout. Which is true, and something I knew anyways, but as I read that little bit and started thinking about all the ways I sabotage myself on a daily basis with writing, I realized that it’s not just the writing I do that with. It’s everything, and it’s a habit I’ve had since I was a kid. I always have my eye on the next big milestone, rather than giving proper attention to the smaller steps of the journey.

Between that article and playing Elvenar, which is a serious study in patience and not advancing too quickly (or you’ll get hopelessly stuck), I think I’m doing myself an injustice with that perspective.

As an example, I recently decided it might be fun to get a kick scooter (read: non-electric) to use while walking Apollo (and maybe Athena…but she’s a flightier and has health issues I need to take into consideration). I realized awhile back that the reason Apollo pulls when we walk is often just because his comfortable walking (trotting) speed is (naturally) faster than my walking speed. Being a problem-solver, I figured the solution is for me to speed up, but I can only walk so fast, so…I obviously need wheels, which might be better exercise for me, too.

Lots of thought and consideration/rejection has gone into the decision of what kind of wheels might work (and result in the least amount of personal damage should things go awry), but the point relevant here is that after much waffling, research and review reading/watching, I ordered a scooter. But I also ordered a bike attachment/leash, and spent way, way too much time (time I could/should have spent writing or otherwise being productive) researching all the ways I might be able to use a scooter to walk a dog, the pros and cons of one thing over the other, harnesses, helmets, and all the things needed to get the end result I’m aiming for (Apollo and I getting better exercise in a way that meets both of our needs).

The thing is, I don’t even have the scooter. I don’t know if I’ll like riding it or not, and I haven’t actually ridden a scooter since I was a kid (and even then, it wasn’t mine, it was borrowed, so it wasn’t a regular thing). So aside from a helmet (I have a bike helmet that would work already), literally none of the rest of it matters or will matter until I have a scooter, know I can ride it, become proficient at riding it, and decide I want to ride it while walking (?) my dog(s).

Prime example of me jumping way, way, way ahead of myself, ignoring the small steps that I really need to focus on doing first (and doing well), and just thinking that next week, Apollo and I will be scooter-trotting like we’ve done it forever. Which isn’t reasonable or practical, it’s just impatient.

I’ve done this with a lot of things in life, which means I have to backtrack a lot, because I skip over or otherwise rush through things I didn’t want to do because they seem boring at the outset, but the lessons learned in going through that part of the journey are important or necessary in order to reach that bigger goal.

Now if I could just figure out how to teach my brain to be patient, and gather knowledge and items at a bit more reasonable pace when we start a new “quest”. Or rather to have more faith that I’ll be able to find it when I need it along the way – there’s no need to get everything all at once and stockpile, and sometimes doing so means I get the wrong things and have to redo it anyways.

Writing News

In light of the whole “enjoy the journey” theme, I’ve always just jumped right in with writing, not planning, researching or gathering anything first, but just writing away (my favorite way to write, honestly). Unfortunately, that left me with some drafts that needed a bunch more work than I wanted to put in after the fact. So I’m trying to do more of the planning and researching and plotting ahead of time, but that’s having the effect of slowing me down to the point of nearly-no progress.

I finally had to instate that 150 words per day rule (which I have been meeting, thanks), and just write forward no matter what. I need to figure out a happy medium between plotting too much, and not plotting at all. I’ll get there…it’s a(nother) process. As is editing/revisions. But I’ll figure it out. And I need to focus on what I need to figure out *now* instead of constantly looking forward and longing for the future when I can “retire” to write full time (the ultimate goal in writing for me).

However! In years past when I tried to plot ahead, I’d lose interest in the story fairly quickly. With the Magpie stories, that’s not happening. So, progress!

Recommendation(s)

Here’s the article comparing writing and long-distance running, for those interested. This is an abbreviated version posted on The Passive Voice, but you can click through from there to the full version:

https://www.thepassivevoice.com/what-ive-learned-about-writing-from-long-distance-running/

That’s it for this week! If you have a favorite thing to share, or want to recommend a book, TV show, video or podcast, comment below, email me at jamie@jamiedebree.com, or catch up with me on Facebook or Instagram.

Jul 18 2023

When Technology Breaks

Author: Jamie DeBree

Photo of the Week

I know the photo is blurry – I was taking it on my way to work, in case something happened to them (they’re still there – yay!). These little violets (violas?) are blooming away in the deconstructed concrete walk. No care on our part – they’re just doing what they do. Sometimes nature does best when left alone.

Fallible Tech

It’s a bit ironic that after writing about AI tools for the past couple of weeks, and how much I enjoy working with technological aids, that the Dragon/Nuance servers were down shortly after when I tried to get into the program so I could transfer my dictation file for that day to my laptop. A good reminder that technology is fallible, and also good motivation to figure out how to get to my transcription files on my phone when the actual app isn’t working.

I experienced another issue with technology in the past couple of weeks when Workflowy, which is the cloud note-taking software I use for…well everything (including writing blog posts), became unusable in one of the places I use it most. After trying and failing to get it fixed, I started wondering what I could use instead, and remembered my Evernote account (est. July 1, 2011). I stopped using Evernote around 2017/2018 when they made some changes to the user interface that I not only didn’t like, but the whole thing was just sloggy and frustrating to use. But I kept paying my yearly subscription, because I was too lazy to move all my notes from Evernote to Workflowy (or any of the other myriad note applications I tried between them…I’m a bit of a junky for organizing software). I occasionally log in to get a piece of info I needed, and then logged out and forgot about it again until I needed something stored there.

Cue technical issues, and Evernote is one of those programs I can use anywhere, so, I reset my password and logged back in. It not only still works everywhere I need it to, but the UI problems have been fixed, it’s much more intuitive again, it’s not slow or sloggy, and it has a ton of new (to me) features that look like they could be really helpful (one of which I already played with).

So, I’m seriously considering moving all my stuff from Workflowy into Evernote, canceling that subscription, and consolidating once again. Evernote is far more robust, and while I don’t need even half of the features, it would now be an upgrade to move back. They even have templates for writers now – story beat outlines, character and plotting sheets, outlining templates…there’s a whole host of writerly things and task management functions I look forward to checking out.

And that’s how technology goes. Something works great for awhile, and then it doesn’t, or there’s something better, and sometimes you end up where you started, and sometimes you just move on for good. I’ve found with tech, it’s pretty imperative not to hold on too tightly to any one program, and to be ready to change if something better or more useful comes along. Though that’s from the person who’s been paying for a bit of software she didn’t really use for the last…5 years or so, so…grain of salt and all that.

Do you use online note-keeping and/or organizational software? What’s your favorite at the moment?

Writing News

I’ve decided I’ve been far too lenient on myself lately. I’ve been giving myself a lot of leeway for things like busy workdays, tired days, stressed days, etc. You name it, I use it as an excuse for not making progress. Running late, weather, fireworks, no time…I’m pretty sure I’ve used every single one of those as an excuse in the last month or so.

No more. It doesn’t matter how busy/late/tired/stressed I am, it takes less than 15 minutes to write 150 words if I’m typing, and dictating it’s less than 5 minutes. There is no excuse for me not to write at least 150 words per day. So, that’s the goal from here on out. 150 words every weekday, no matter what. I wrote my whole first novel in a year doing 250 words per day, but now, I know if I write a minimum of 150, odds are good that on most days, I’ll just keep going until I have a good 500 words or more. So it’s the start I need these days. And some days, that’s all I’ll get, with life intruding from all sides. But as long as I’m making some sort of progress and keeping that thread of connection to my WIPs, that’s all that matters.

I set that goal on Wednesday of last week, and so far, have met the minimum every weekday. Not bad, I’d say. Just gotta kick my own butt into gear, and keep up with the tiny streak I’ve started.

Recommendation(s)

One of the other organizational tools I use every single day, even weekends, is Todoist. I use it as my primary task list, and I love the fact that it’s so easy to add a task with a reminder either to the web site or the app on my phone (they sync), in plain language. For example, I’ll type “Schedule blog post every Monday at 10:30pm” or “Thaw dog food every night at 10:30pm” and it will add it to my list, and remind me either every Monday night, or every night, respectively. It has some really detailed and rich features, but I don’t use most of them. Just the task list and widget (which is on the main screen of my phone so I see it every time I unlock it and can check things off right there) are the most important features to me, and they keep me on track every day of the week.

If you’re looking for a task manager, I’d highly recommend Todoist (no, not an affiliate link).

Jul 05 2023

Getting to the Point

Author: Jamie DeBree

Photo of the Week

I’ve been working my way through my comic book TBR stack this year, and I’m up to the 2021 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man (it’s the series I’m most behind on, simply because it publishes more than the others I read). This is one of the issues I read recently, and I love this cover, because it’s both creepy and romantic. It’s an interesting issue, too, because it’s mostly inner dialogue and Spidey working things out on a mental level. Not something you see in comic books all that often.

What’s the Point?

As I recently discussed here, I’ve been using some AI tools to help me outline and do some other writerly tasks that frankly, I find boring and tedious. I’ve even been using it to clean up my dictation files for spelling, grammar and punctuation, which saved me a fair amount of time just last week.

The outlining part especially has really been making me think. Using these tools to outline requires a fair amount of back and forth – it’s a conversation of sorts, where I give it a prompt, see what it outputs, and then I refine part of that output in order to get results that are closer to what I want/need. This forces me to really look hard at the plot of my story, character motivations, and most importantly when looking at the whole picture, it requires me to think about what the point of the overall story is.

That is not something I’m used to doing – writing off the cuff, I don’t worry about the story as a whole, I just write, and see where it takes me (often it takes me to a good and/or interesting story that requires a chisel and hammer to revise afterwards). To be clear, they do always end up with a definite beginning, middle and end, and a plot with a point of some sort, but I’m not used to thinking about or refining it at the start as I’m doing now.

Looking at the story as a whole before it’s written requires me to really think about what the point of the story is – why do I even want to tell it? What do I hope people will get from it? Entertainment, certainly, but without a point of some sort, it’s just a wandering diatribe of words that goes…well, nowhere. So I spent a lot of time thinking about plots and plotting and stories and points and why we tell stories and why *I* tell stories and…well, you get the point, so to speak.

All that to say, I’ve been using the back and forth with ChatGPT as a conversation of sorts as well, to help me refine the point I want to make with certain stories and themes and plots. It’s fascinating (and often amusing) what the chatbot comes up with, and while they are often off the mark by a wide margin, they always spur my own creativity and help me solidify the points *I* want to make in my stories.

Which is what’s important, of course. It was a bit disconcerting trying to outline without having a point, and it took me a bit to decide why I wanted to actually write the stories (series) I’m currently working on, just because I’m really not used to thinking about writing and story crafting in that way. But, as with all of this, I think it will make my stories stronger, and that’s the important part in the end.

Plus, it’s never a bad thing to get a different perspective. I’ve always just said that the point of my stories is to entertain, but that’s really only the shallow answer. The theme of the current novel draft is not only overcoming adversity, but also overcoming personal fears, as well as the notion that the boundaries we think we need and the boundaries we actually need are sometimes two very different things. Thinking about it in those terms has forced me to really think about what scenes and chapters will benefit the story, and how they all tie in together.

I did this instinctively before, and while I think my previous stories are fine and entertaining, I don’t think they’re as deeply fleshed out as they could be. And I think this new perspective will allow me to do that more easily.

Writing Progress

I got some more writing done this week – some dictation, and some decisions on the timeline, so I re-dictated a scene that needed to go a different way. I also moved some scenes around, and created the first draft of a flash fiction story with AI just to see how it worked, which was interesting. Then I started re-drafting that via dictation, and I have the first little bit done.

So lots of progress this week. Yay!

Recommendation(s)

I took French classes in college, mainly because I needed a couple years of a foreign language for my core credits. One of the things we learned in class was a song, and the chorus has been rolling around in my head for the past week. I couldn’t remember the whole thing (it’s been…well, over 20 years now), so I finally looked it up this weekend so I could listen to it and get it out of my head.

So that’s what I’m sharing with you this week – Sous les ponts de Paris (Under the Bridges of Paris) on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8iJId0reLj8. Enjoy!

Jun 27 2023

Call In the Robots!

Author: Jamie DeBree

Photo of the Week

Rhubarb crisp I made this past weekend – one of the most perfect deserts ever, IMO, and equally as good hot or cold!

About This Whole Artificial Intelligence Thing

Artificial Intelligence: the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.

Articles about AI are everywhere, with the advent of ChatGPT and the rise of other large language model based programs. And of course everyone is familiar with the legal and ethical issues surrounding how they were “trained”. Much hand-wringing has ensued, which is to be expected, and in some cases I’m sure it’s warranted, but not all. The courts will figure out the legal stuff, and I really don’t expect it will change much about how the tech is used or available on the public/user side.

The cat is out of the box, so to speak, and there’s no shoving it back in now. I am a bit leery of creating/using AI generated images until those copyright issues are all worked out, but I’m not all that worried about text, especially since I have no plans to actually publish anything written solely by AI (because it really wouldn’t be good enough, and also, I just like writing).

People are always scared of new technology, especially when they don’t understand how it works. Which is fine, and not an implicitly bad thing (it’s good to be somewhat skeptical), but at the same time, I think it’s easy to overlook the exciting things that new tech, and this new tech in particular, can do to make certain tasks easier.

I am a tech person – I work with databases and scripting queries, creating reports, moving data around for logical organization, and things of that nature. I was a web developer for sixteen years before that. So while I haven’t worked with this AI in particular from the development side, I have a pretty decent understanding of how it works in the background, and while I understand the instinct we have as humans to look for the “humanity” in everything, I also understand the limitations of the algorithms used in these programs, and that in the end, it’s still just a computer program that will respond based solely on the information you give it. It’s not truly “intelligent”, hence the “artificial” preface. It can only do what we tell it to. So the results are only going to be as good as our requests, which is as it should be.

All that to explain why I’m really not all that scared of AI, and I’m actually pretty excited about what it can do to make my life easier, especially in terms of writing (and writing code, too).

Just this past weekend, I started playing with ChatGPT. I watched some YouTube videos by authors who have been using it for all sorts of things, but the most interesting to me was taking an idea, writing and refining a synopsis, and then actually having ChatGPT create an outline, which the author then refined to suit, and then creating scene and chapter outlines (also refining after those).

I have been trying to force myself to become more of an outliner/plotter, because it makes writing by dictation much, much easier if I know exactly what I need to write (dictate) on any given day. Pantsing is much more difficult with dictation, and also, I really think my writing will be better with some advanced planning (read: there will be less major revision needed). I’ve been writing a lot of unorganized story/background/plotting notes for my recent drafts, and this is where I think ChatGPT could be really useful for me. If I can put my notes into it, and have it create an outline for me that I can then tweak to fit my vision of the story perfectly (or nearly perfectly), that would save me a *considerable* amount of time and effort, and get me that much closer to my goal of writing with an outline.

Could I do all of this without AI? Of course – writers have been “just writing” for ages (and before that, sitting around telling stories verbally or in pictures). Some writers still prefer to write with pen and paper (I do that too for micro or flash fiction, sometimes). As far as I’m concerned, things like ChatGPT and Sudowrite are just more tools to add to the desk, and I’m totally going to take advantage or anything that leaves me more time and energy for the thing I like best, which is actually telling myself the story.

So…AI for outlining and organizing my thoughts (ChatGPT), dictation with AI transcription (Dragon Anywhere) for getting words down because it’s far faster than typing or writing longhand, an AI editor (ProWritingAid in Dabble) for cleaning up the dictation and making me think about what might need to be rephrased as I go, and an AI “writing partner” (Sudowrite/ChatGPT) to help me with revision ideas (description, tone, whatever else I feel I need more work on) and to stimulate my own learning as I revise. Then my human editor (Carol!) can focus on telling me where all the plot holes are, which is something AI simply can’t do…yet.

**And no, none of this post was written with AI. I don’t really know how I’d even do that with blog posts, given mine are normally thoughts and ideas that I work out as I’m typing. This post was actually about three times as long when I started, and required several revision passes to make it short enough to be “internet palatable”. And I’m pretty sure it’s still too long…but that’s sort of my “thing” (along with ellipses).

Recommendation(s)

The Nerdy Author videos on YouTube are my favorite as far as AI discussions and tutorials go. If you’re interested in writing with AI, I’d highly suggest you check out his channel, and these videos in particular:

Brainstorm an Entire Novel in 1 Hour

Is AI Writing Cheating? My Honest Opinion

Jun 22 2023

Game Therapy

Author: Jamie DeBree

Photo of the Week

My Elvenar Elven city: “Bitteroot”

On Stress and Gaming

Last week was very stressful, mostly because a lot of things happened that I didn’t like/couldn’t control. I tend to be a control freak, and not being able to change what/how things were happening was…well, I let it stress me out more than I should have. It didn’t help that it wasn’t just one thing, but several different things spanning both work and personal life, and it all just seemed chaotic and frustrating. This week has been better, but still not awesome (hence the lateness of this post).

I could have screamed, yelled, and possibly gotten my way on a few things, making everyone around me miserable in the process. And my attitude certainly wasn’t what it should be, by any means. But instead of going postal, I did what anyone who enjoys playing games tends to do, and downloaded two more titles to my phone (I prefer gaming on my phone, because I’m too lazy to boot up a console or get my laptop from the home office in the evenings).

I didn’t realize it was a coping mechanism at first. I saw a couple titles I’d been interested in for awhile, and my brain latched on and decided that it was time to finally try them. I play Pokemon Go almost daily, but I’ve been playing for awhile (has it really been 5 years?!), and you really have to get out and about to play that for any length of time. The two I downloaded (Elvenar and Merge Dragons) are “sit down and grind for task completion” sort of games, with strategy and puzzle-solving as the “grind”.

Once I realized that I was using the games as a coping mechanism, I started to wonder why. They’re two completely different games for the most part, but one thing they have in common is clearly defined long-term goals and shorter daily tasks. Completing the short tasks is what seemed to ease my stress.

A dopamine hit, obviously (due to the rewards gained for task completion), but also completing tasks “closed the loop” and made me feel like I was in control of “something”, however small or insignificant. And much of my stress was being caused by other people not closing the loop or finishing things the way I thought they ought to be completed (that’s not to say what they did was wrong, necessarily, it just wasn’t what I wanted or thought *should* be done).

In short, being in control of what happened in the games (yes, I know that’s an illusion, but my subconscious brain doesn’t) made me feel better and more able to ignore what I couldn’t control in the real world while I tried to figure out what (if anything) to do about it.

Now that I’ve calmed down a bit and figured out how I want to proceed in actually dealing with most of the various stressors, I’m already scaling way back on Merge Dragons (I find a lot of repetitive/matching games boring pretty quickly). I don’t actually have a lot of time for gaming, and my eyes really can’t handle all the screen time I’ve been putting in for this little mental “temper tantrum”, so I can’t keep up this sort of gaming “pace”.

I’ll continue playing Elvenar for awhile at least. It’s more of a “jump in, complete a few tasks, and jump out again” type long-term strategy game, with lots of different content to keep it fresh.

All in all, I think the discovery process of the last week and a half has been interesting, and I always see this sort of introspection as good “research” for future character development. So, aside from the strain of stress and irritation, win-win for me.

Writing News

I didn’t write much last week – I didn’t really have (give myself) the mental space, what with all the stressing out and gaming. But I did do something I think is equally important. I went back through all my various notes on the Magpie series, and reminded myself why I want to write it. I also started sort of building an outline, which is something I normally don’t do, but I feel like I could really benefit from changing up the way I write – at least for this series.

There’s just so much I’ve already thought out, and that means more to keep track of from the outset. I like “just writing” and seeing what happens, but I do not like getting to the end of the draft and realizing that I didn’t find the actual story until I got to the end. Rewriting an entire story is…daunting, to say the least. But, so does outlining, in a different way, so…just coming at it from a different angle.

So, I’m going to try a different process, and see how it goes. I have the Plottr software, and the writing software I currently use has a plot grid outline included as well. I think I’ll use Workflowy for most of the outline initially (I use Workflowy for pretty much everything note or planning related), and then move it into whichever formal outline “spot” seems like it’ll work best.

I also went back through some notes I have on a few short-story collections I want to work on. I’m going to spend a little time each week on those, because I can’t work on just one project all the time, or I get bored. So that will be a good compliment to/break from the Magpie world.

Now I just need to set some reasonable deadlines. I’ve been letting myself just “skate” for too long now. It’s time to get busy and actually get some books written and published again.

Recommendation(s)

I just finished reading The Portrait by Antoine Laurain. It’s a fun and kind of twisted little tale by a French author (translated – it’s been a long time since I could read reliably in French). It’s a short book big on drama. If you can find a copy, I think you’ll find it very intriguing.

Jun 13 2023

New Perspectives

Author: Jamie DeBree

Photo/Video of the Week

This used to be a very fun, very solid round bank building. Then it was our Sheriff’s Office for awhile, and it’s been empty for a few years now. They’re tearing it down to put in more employee parking. My parking spot is on the far side of the bus transfer center directly behind the construction site (by that tan building in the background).

The Long Way Around

My day job is in IT, and while what I do specifically is mainly organizing data and making sure it’s available to the people who need it in a format they can use, the requests and environment are often very chaotic. It’s difficult to set and keep any kind of schedule, which drives me nuts on a daily basis.

Chaotic environments make my head chaotic too, and it takes a bit after I leave the office for my brain to settle down enough to be productive and/or creative on a personal level. My parking spot is two blocks away from the building I work in, and the most direct route is right out the north doors, east up the sidewalk past the parking lot behind our building, across the street and up one more block – half of which I normally cut across the bus transfer station to shave off a few seconds.

But with the recent construction on that second block over, the sidewalk I’d normally take is closed, and crossing the street to the other side is sometimes a very frustrating experience, as the traffic is steady during the day, and the crosswalk is invisible (or may as well be). So while I still go that direction after work when traffic is pretty well gone, earlier in the day, I go a block south around the Federal courthouse that sits kitty-corner to our building across the alley.

The route I normally take is busy and bustling with people, cars and noise. But the sidewalk in front of the federal building is a completely different environment. Pedestrians are few and far between, the sidewalk is wide and empty, the building blocks a good deal of the noise from the other side, and I’ve found it to be far more calm and relaxing than the more direct route just on the other side of the block.

Isn’t it odd how different two sides of the same block can be? I may keep using the alternate, quieter route even when the construction is done (at least until it’s so cold I don’t want to go “the long way” around). Considering they’re just going to make another parking lot in the spot where they knocked the building down, traffic, noise and bustle will only get worse over there after everything is done.

Now I just need to figure out how to trigger the writing part of my brain to turn on as soon as I round the corner in front of the federal building on the way to my car.

Writing News

I got some editing done last week, but no writing to speak of. It was a crazy week at work, and I was often running late both leaving and coming back for lunch, which means I didn’t feel like I had the time to set up for dictation (to say nothing of bringing my brain into writing focus that quickly).

I need to figure out a good way to get my head switched faster from work to writing & vice versa. Set myself a mental trigger of sorts. If I could switch faster, it would be easier to jump into writing as soon as I get to my car. Interestingly, while I wouldn’t want to be looking at my phone and trying to navigate the busy side of the block, walking on the calmer side of the block I could get my phone out, open up Dragon, and skim through my last dictation session while walking to my car.

I do believe I’ll try that today, actually.

Recommendation(s)

We’re currently watching the second season of Joe Pickett on Paramount Plus, which is a series based on the novels by C. J. Box. I haven’t read any of the novels, but the series is definitely intriguing, and the main character somewhat of an enigma. If you’re looking for something to watch, I’d definitely give this a try. I may pick up one or two of the novels just to see how “Joe” in the books is similar or different to “Joe” on the screen.

I just started playing a couple of games (Android, because I’m usually far too lazy to play on a console or my computer). Merge Dragons is engaging and fun, and the lower spending levels aren’t out of line for gems and such. I’ve spent a grand total of $4 so far – I always like to buy a few inexpensive things here and there from free games I enjoy, to “pay” the developers a bit.

And Elvenar is a city building strategy game that I’m quite enjoying as well. It also has some lower level spending tiers, though I haven’t purchased any of them yet due to all the resources you get just for starting.

More on why I play games and what I get out of them in a later post, but if you’re looking for a couple to try, I’d recommend both of these. They can both be played on PC as well.

Jun 05 2023

Call Me Goldilocks

Author: Jamie DeBree

Administration

I’ve been re-jiggering my schedule lately, in no small part because I’m having trouble finding the time to finish and post these blog posts (I have plenty started). My mental bandwidth has been a bit lacking lately, and I’ve been working on moving things around in my weekend schedule so I can work on blogging and such then, when day job projects don’t intrude so heavily on my non-work time.

Being able to write these posts on the weekend instead of in the evenings should ensure that they don’t conflict with writing time, and also that they actually get done and posted. Like this one!

Photo(s) of the Week

I was going to just post one, but…that wouldn’t really be fair to the other one, would it? Athena was being her adorable self just begging in the kitchen last week, and Apollo insisted on a hoodie to go out and pee, because he melts in the rain (I don’t blame him – I do too).

Too Tall, Too Short, Just Right?

A few years ago, we bought a new bed. No, I can’t remember exactly how long (pre-2020), but we went in to buy a new mattress because we’d been sleeping on the one my husband’s grandparents had, and it was worn out and hurting our backs (as you might imagine).

We bought the new mattress and box spring (foundation? There are no springs…just sayin’.), and while I was paying for that, hubby wandered over in to the furniture area, and found a bed frame he loved. So, he bought that too. I remember feeling like the salesperson was going to say something about the mattress when we were checking out, and then when he realized we’d already bought a mattress set, he decided against it.

Once we finally got everything home and set up, we realized that with the frame, the standard 9 inch box spring, and the extra thick mattress, the bed was *tall*. As in, higher than my waist. Up to my ribcage. So tall I had to actually step onto the side rail of the frame before I could literally crawl into bed. I’m not tall, but I’m not exactly short either, at 5ft 4in.

The mattress was also much firmer than the “test mattress” at the store, which we learned later is a sales ploy they do, and then when you call to complain that it’s like sleeping on concrete, they tell you to sleep on it for a month and it will break in. Needless to say, it took a good six months and a 4 inch thick mattress pad before I could sleep comfortably on that mattress.

But I digress.

I thought about getting a step stool for my side of the bed, but never quite got around to it. Then after my surgery, I realized I couldn’t actually climb up into the bed with the swelling. Nor could I “roll” into bed, because it was just so high. Once I finally decided I’d slept on the couch enough, I put a stool by the bed so I could stand on that, turn around, sit down and roll into bed like you’re supposed to after abdominal surgery (who knew?).

The thing about having a stool next to the bed, and that stool being on the same side of the bed as the door is that both you and the person who has to walk around the bed to get in and out the door have to remember the stool is *there*. When you’re half-asleep, especially. There were several incidents involving the stool, toes, shins, and me just plain forgetting where it was when I tried to roll off the bed, and nearly missing it (which would have hurt in several ways).

So the last weekend in May (about a week and a half ago), we finally decided to take the box spring/foundation out from under the mattress. For the time being, we figured we’d just sit the mattress on the bedframe (which consists of three narrow slats running horizontal between the two side rails, plus a headboard and footboard). If that worked, we’d get more slats to put underneath it in the frame.

While we both appreciate not having to actually climb into bed (and hubby no longer feels like he might fall and injure himself if he rolls too far), now it’s too short. It sits far enough into the frame that it’s nearly impossible to tuck the sheet corners under (it’s extremely thick and heavy), and when hubby sits on the edge, it compresses down so his legs are on the side rail.

So, the bed has gone from being too tall, to being too short. Plus it sags between the frame slats at the moment, so the support is…somewhat odd.

I did a little research, and apparently there’s a “low profile” box spring/foundation that is only 4-5 inches tall. I took a tape measure in, measured 4 and 5 inches above where our mattress sits now, and I think that would be about the perfect height. They’re around $150 each, so affordable, but it’s been raining so much over the past week and weekend that our truck hasn’t dried out enough to actually go get one (yes, it would come wrapped in plastic, but the amount of rain we’ve gotten isn’t trivial – there’s a lot of flooding, and I wouldn’t want to risk getting water anywhere near something like that).

Hopefully things will dry out enough soon that we can go get a proper, low profile foundation for our mattress, and be done with this whole “Goldilocks” experience. Though I have to say, it did give me a few story ideas. I should probably keep the receipt for the new foundation – I might be able to write it off on our taxes as a “research” expense if I actually write something related. Silver linings!

Writing News

I got a couple of good dictation sessions in last week, but that’s about it. As I mentioned, I’ve been using up my brainpower on day job projects, and it’s a struggle to switch gears fast enough to dictate, or to focus enough to even edit late in the evenings when that happens. But, things should be leveling out a bit to not require so much intense thought now for awhile, so hopefully I’ll be able to make good progress for the next few weeks.

Recommendation(s)

We just finished watching two Netflix Original Series that were really good! If you like thrillers about government agencies and political espionage, check out The Night Agent, and The Recruit. The Night Agent especially is phenomenal – very well written with a few twists I didn’t see coming (something that doesn’t happen often). The acting is very good, too. But they’re both very engaging, and the characters are fascinating – especially Max in The Recruit.

Have you watched either of them? Let me know what you think!

Feb 21 2023

Ever Forward

Author: Jamie DeBree

We have a local bookshop here (linked below!), and I’ve been a supporter since it was just a conception. When it opened, they agreed to carry my print books, because I’m a shareholder (so basically, I bought shelf space…and then I literally bought shelf space for awhile too). I think I gave them two copies each of Tempest and Desert Heat, the first books I published. My memory is sketchy, because it’s been several years, but I think they may have sold one of those at some point, plus a copy of Indelibly Inked which they ordered directly from me when someone requested a copy, because at the time, I was only publishing paperbacks through CreateSpace (which is now part of Amazon Kindle). Independent bookstores don’t like ordering books through Amazon, which is completely understandable.

A couple years ago, I thought I should publish those books through Ingram so they’d be easier for independent bookstores (or bookstores in general) to order. So I took Tempest and Desert Heat out of expanded distribution at Amazon, in anticipation of setting up print copies at Ingram. I had to wait a bit for them to be delisted from places that weren’t Amazon, so I could register the ISBN with Ingram as well, so I waited, and then set up the title record for Tempest at Ingram.

Problem is, by then, the book had been out for nearly ten years, and I’d switched computers several times. Long story short, I lost the original print file I’d uploaded to CreateSpace all those years ago. I had also decided to update my ebook covers for those books, so I figured I’d wait until I had that done, so I could update the cover for those paperbacks too. Needless to say, designing the new covers took longer than I thought it would, and then I was still facing a complete reformat of the print file before I could put the paperback on Ingram.

I put it off for quite some time, got busy, etc, and this whole time, the paperbacks were only available on Amazon, and not even out in expanded distribution for places like the Book Depository (which apparently has no issues listing books from the Amazon catalog). Last week, I decided I really needed to finish this whole book migration project, and I spent the majority of a day reformatting Tempest, only to have it end up at a different page count that the original file. Then I started digging into ISBNs and when to use a new one, and as it turns out, doing the reformatting and clean up and new cover all together basically qualified as a “new edition” of the book…which would require a new ISBN.

I have exactly one ISBN left in my coffers at the moment, and won’t be able to buy more for a couple of months (they’re expensive here…if you live in a country where they’re free, consider yourself lucky!). And I was still facing fixing the cover, which was what I had planned for today.

The whole time I was working on this redo, I asked myself why I was spending so much time updating old books that I haven’t sold a copy of in years. Yes, the remaining copies at the bookstore were purchased, but it was a “thank you” purchase of sorts, not a purchase by someone who just thought they looked interesting and wanted to read them. Which is fine, and I appreciate it, but I also have to take into consideration the fact that…those books aren’t generating interest or sales for other books. Nor are people buying them currently, and putting new covers on the ebooks didn’t change that, so…why was I spending all this time on them, instead of working on getting books that haven’t been in paperback published in that format, and working on writing and publishing new things that might be more appealing to readers, given my growth as a writer in the twelve(?) years since those first books were published?

Then I took a shower today before I was going to sit down and finish the new paperback cover for Tempest. As I’ve said many times before, the shower is an excellent place to think.

There’s a marketing school of thought that putting new covers on your old books, rewriting the blurbs, and generally bringing them up to date can breathe new life into sales for them. And that may be true, but with the limited time I have, I think the time I’ve been spending on old books could be far better spent on writing and publishing newer stories that might appeal more to today’s audience. Not that there’s anything wrong with the older books, but they are dated, and while I did the best I could writing them (and I still like the stories, personally), I know I can do better now.

So today in the shower, I decided to stop spending time on my old paperbacks. It’s okay if indie bookstores don’t want to order them from Amazon – they can still order from me, and I’ll put up a way to order from the BSB site directly so they don’t have to really deal with where it’s coming from if they don’t want to. I doubt I’ll get many orders for those anyways, because as I said, they aren’t selling.

I’m going to put my energy and time into my newer books instead. MacKenzie Saves the World has never been out in paperback, and neither has When She Cries by my alter-ego, Alex Westhaven. I can publish those paperbacks through Ingram to start, and they’re pretty close to ready. And I want to keep moving forward with the books I’m setting in the Magpie, Montana world – I have a couple drafts written that just need revisions, and the draft in progress that I’m really excited to finish and get published.

Someday when I have time and energy, maybe I’ll go back and revise, reformat, and recover some of my older books. Heck, maybe I’ll even pick up where I left off with the Fantasy Ranch series, after revising the first of those – I have several more story ideas for that particular world.

But for now, forward, not back. Prioritizing books that might appeal to more readers, over things that are…well, largely sentimental at this point.

As for Tempest and Desert Heat, they are available again via Amazon’s expanded distribution, which means the paperbacks should be available in most online stores again soon. I’ll set up a simple way to purchase directly from my Brazen Snake Books site in the next month or so, and let everyone know when that’s available.

In the meantime…back to my little community of Magpie, where the secrets kept by people are deep, but the secrets held in the mountain are deeper.

Dec 20 2022

Year in Review Part 2: Good Workflows & Wide Margins

Author: Jamie DeBree

Early this year when I decided I really needed to kick the writing and publishing business into gear (or stop, one of the two), I started looking hard at my daily, weekly & monthly habits and routines. I’d been trying to just “fit writing in” wherever I had time, and allowing myself the flexibility of working without deadlines, which…really doesn’t work for me.

So, I decided to change it up, set some deadlines, and then force myself to figure out how to meet them in the time allotted. I knew I wouldn’t be successful for awhile, but only because I needed to go through the process and fail in order to find the process that would actually work. Often there’s no way around good old fashioned trial and error in order to set or reset habits and routines.

I struggled. I lost sleep (but tried not to), I pushed myself hard, I experimented with different times and schedules and routines and processes…and I met deadlines or just barely went past them. I published a book. I decided not to publish another one, and I moved the publication date out for yet another. I came up with an idea for a huge series that could span all three of the genres I write in, and be connected, but not in a way that would require a reader to experience all the books to enjoy their particular genre.

I switched newsletter providers three times. I tried out different blog templates, email templates, and posting/sending schedules. I missed deadlines. I started novels I never intended to start, while leaving a few I meant to revise and publish behind (temporarily, I hope).

The most important thing I discovered in all this is the writing/revision workflow that works as long as the technology it requires works. At least three days a week, I dictate a scene while I’m driving home for lunch and back to work after. Then late at night, I revise that scene (or one I dictated earlier) into something more polished and descriptive. So I’m basically writing the first draft by voice while driving, Dragon Anywhere transcribes it to text, and then late at night when I finally have time to really focus, but not necessarily the mental power to actually draft on a blank page, I polish the first draft, add description and detail, and end up with a very nice second draft of that piece of writing.

This has been amazing for my writing output. I can speak faster than I type, so dictating gets the initial story out on the page much faster than I could ever actually type it in. And while my brain is pretty much done doing any heavy lifting late at night, it can totally handle revising words and story that are already there, plus since I’m already tired, I don’t resist the revision process nearly as much as I do when I’m more rested and raring to write new things rather than edit old words.

It worked for me for a good while, and I think it will work long term, but it’s not perfect. I do have days when my lunch hour gets preempted or something, but I can normally ensure that three days out of every week are good dictation days, and I have four nights for revisions that I protect pretty heavily.

Until the technology fails, like mine did after a recent phone update that made my Bluetooth microphone stop working. I did figure out a work-around, but it took me a week, in which I lost productivity and failed to meet deadlines because I didn’t have a buffer of serial installments done.

After that, I also developed some good workflows for blogging, newsletters, and publishing tasks. And they’re all sustainable for the long term, with one major caveat: I’m working too close to the margins.

The vulnerable thing about a workflow is that because it involves more than one routine to accomplish the larger task, it’s easy to get interrupted during one or more of those routines, which throws the whole thing off deadlines. I’ve been using my new workflows with no margin for interruption or error, which…makes them less effective (and far more stressful).

Which is why I really need to focus on maintaining wide margins.

This translates to other things in my life as well – specifically finances, where I am currently annoyed with myself and paying (mentally and financially) for choices I made when my “impulse control” was…well, not controlled. I narrowed my financial margins to a rather embarrassing state, and now it’s going to take me a long time and a lot of self-control to return them to a comfortable width. I’ve been working on it for a few months now, but this is the worst time of year for such things.

Still, I’m holding the line and not making it worse, which is all I can do for the moment, and after the holidays are over, I should be able to make better progress.

My weight is another area where my “margins” are too narrow, but I’ve been making progress with that recently as well. It’s a toss up as to whether the bank account or my body will become healthier faster, but as long as they’re both headed in the right direction, that’s all that matters.

As far as the writing and publishing goes…that’s where the two weeks off in November came in, as well as the recent “break for technology”. My intent was to establish a week-wide margin for these blog posts and my serial novels. I didn’t quite manage for the serials, but that’s partially due to the holiday in the middle, which interrupted *all* my workflows for a week, and then the whole microphone failure.

It was wildly successful for the blog posts, however, and I now have a nice wide margin of time in which to write new posts while you, dear reader, are reading a post I wrote several weeks back (and updated shortly before posting it this week, but the bulk of it was done, which saved me a lot of time). Now if my blogging workflow is interrupted, I have the time and space to catch up without it affecting the actual blog posting flow, which takes a lot of stress out of the process. And it’s easy enough to put an impromptu post up if I feel like sharing something more immediately.

I wanted to be ahead on serial installments by the time this went live too, but I’m still working on that. Life is so unpredictable, even in a very habit and routine driven existence such as mine. Building wide margins into my workflows will give me the gift of more peaceful productivity, which is good for stoking the creative juices.

It’s also good for my overall mood and well-being.

Sleep, exercise, good workflows & wide margins. These are the things I think will allow me to meet my goals going forward, as long as I use them wisely and prioritize them in both life and business.

What are the tools you gained this year that you’ll be taking into 2023?

Oct 18 2022

One with the Crows

Author: Jamie DeBree

A few weeks back our ex-neighbor (she was in the process of moving out) had a guy come blow her sprinklers out. A very common thing this time of year (we’re still waiting for our company to come do that…I think we really need to learn how to do that ourselves, but I digress).

My husband went out to leave for work, and the yard guy was just staring off toward a field near our house. He stared for a long while, so of course my husband stared too, wondering what he was staring at. As it turns out, he was watching a murder of crows that hangs out in our neighborhood – they were across the street. After awhile, he nodded, and then started to get to work when he noticed my husband watching.

He told my husband that the crows know whether you’re good or bad, and as long as he had their approval to be in the neighborhood, he could get on with his work. But he needed their blessing first.

Crows are very interesting birds, as they have the intellect of a toddler and can remember faces they like or don’t like for years, passing that knowledge down through generations. I can sort of understand where that guy was coming from…crows just seem like they know things, and their overall appearance certainly makes them a bit imposing and foreboding as well.

Perhaps it was a subconscious nod to that then when I picked out a shower curtain with a raven in front of a full moon for our Halloween/Fall decor this year. He’s a rather imposing figure in our galley bathroom, and naturally, he brings to mind Poe and his study. I realize crows and ravens are different, but they are both part of the corvus family, much like magpies, which I’ve (obviously) been reading a lot on lately. We have both crows and ravens here, though I’d be hard-pressed to tell you which was which. At least magpies have those incredibly long tails and some color on their wings to make them stand out.

In any case, knowing that crows are particular and remember people’s faces, I’m always careful to tread lightly around them and make sure they know I mean them no harm. It seems like having big, black, noisy birds on your side could indeed come in handy for…something.

Or maybe just not giving them any reason to attack en masse is enough.

***

Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler

Writing Notes

When Wide Focus is Actually Sabotage

When Technology Breaks

Getting to the Point

Call In the Robots!

Game Therapy

New Perspectives

Photo/Video of the Week

Call Me Goldilocks

Administration

Photo(s) of the Week

Too Tall, Too Short, Just Right?

Writing News

Recommendation(s)

Ever Forward

Year in Review Part 2: Good Workflows & Wide Margins

One with the Crows