Sale vs License of Digital Information

Amazon’s “Buy” now with 1-click

I’ve been thinking about this issue ever since I first heard about Amazon remotely pulling already paid for copies of 1984 e-books from user’s Kindles.  The issue resurfaced when Amazon remotely deleted another lady’s entire collection of paid for books.

The Idea of Power

I’m presently reading the 2nd book of A Song of Ice and Fire, called Clash of Kings, written by George R.R. Martin.  In all honesty it’s nowhere near as compelling and well written as the first book, but it’s not without merit either.

An idea arose in the text regarding the idea of power, who truly wields it, and what it means.  I’m intrigued by that idea as I think it’s quite relevant to the world today, and throughout history.

Structural Revision: Nanowrimo

I’ve had a lot of free time the past few days.  So, I started looking over my first Nanowrimo novel draft in a bit more detail.  After reading over lots of writing and revising advice, I decided to not be afraid of making huge top-down changes, and to just confront the fact that making this book good will take a lot of time.  And that that is okay.

Characters

When I think about what makes a story good, it’s almost always the characters and their interactions, their antics, and their disputes.

The original Star Wars had a great dynamic between brash Luke, brave Leia, wild Han, and C3PO the nay-sayer.  Star Trek had brash Kirk, wise Spock, cantankerous Bones, and “She can’t give us anymore!” Scotty.  Harry Potter had the trio of good students put in contrast with Malfoy’s trio of bad students, surrounded by mentors with weaknesses of their own.  

Audio Fiction – Podcast format

Aiming my sights at my long term goal, I’ve been thinking about ways to improve my writing.  In the next few years I’m going to be revising my Nanowrimo novels, which I think will help me gain a lot of perspective on refinement and what my future works really need.  Since my long term goal however is live-action film, with a script performed by actors, I really need to exercise my script-writing skills as well.

25 Year Goal – Film

Recently I decided to set a goal for myself to complete in about 25 years, at which point I’ll be 50.  I have no idea what I’ll be doing at that time, but that’s okay.  It’s a goal to work toward.

With my friends Zan and George we will make a film better than the original Star Wars.

The Silver River Above

In Japanese the Milky Way is described as 銀河 meaning “Silver River”.  I wanted to write a graphic novel for this year’s Script Frenzy back in April, but I didn’t think I could really make it happen this year, so I decided to not mess with it.

Revision

I’ve started revising my first Nanowrimo book.  I expect it to be a long process, but I think there’s some worthwhile stuff there that I really want to unlock.

The more I write the more I look back on what I’ve written.  I feel a bit as though it’s time to stop writing new stuff and time to spend more energy on polishing and revising.  Not because I don’t want to write new stuff, but because I think in the process of revision I’m going to learn as much about writing as I did when I wrote my first two Nanowrimo novels.  Once I have revised them I can apply the nuggets of wisdom I unearth to my other projects.

Teach Yourself Japanese

I’m thinking about writing a book to sell.

The topic would be about teaching yourself Japanese, with both language content and methodology inside.

It would guide you through the difficulties in literacy, grammatical structure, and linguistic-culture.

Free culture, yes or no?

I love free culture.  Free is an ambiguous word in English in a way that it isn’t ambiguous in many other languages.  Our word “free” encompasses the meanings of freedom, rights, and a price tag of $0.00.  Some people in the free culture movement like to distinguish these two meanings, but I see no problem in conflating them.