The Future is Now

I know I was going to wait. But I couldn't. Script Frenzy was starting soon. Also had other projects I'm working on. So I took the plunge. I ordered a Mac this past Wednesday morning. The machine arrived on Friday morning. Free shipping, even. A class act.

Took me about fifteen minutes to get the Mac up and running. Configuring my Internet connection took about five minutes (!!). Yikes! That had never happened in all my 25 years in PC hell.

Short story even shorter: got pretty much up to speed the first day. Like rolling off a log. In fact, it's taking me longer to learn Scrivener, Celtx and NeoOffice than it did to get the basics of the Mac into my head. Getting easier every day.

Am I satisfied? No. Ecstatic, flabbergasted, amazed, amused, relieved and redeemed, YES. Do I miss my old PC habits? Was I more comfortable with Windows?

What's Windows?

A Mac is in my future

I've wanted a Mac computer ever since the first one came out in 1984. What style! What panache! What an inflated price tag! Imagine clicking on icons, instead of typing in command lines on a Windows DOS black screen. And no OS to load with floppy disks. It was already burned into the hardware. A science fiction utopia!

The first MacIntosh only had a tiny black and white screen and rather prmitive by 21st century standards. But primitve as it was, it was nonetheless light years ahead of the fledgling Windows environment. And outrageously expensive. Not that the Mac is dirt cheap nowadays. It was never meant to be.

It was meant to be a super user-friendly machine that just works. And that's exactly what it does. No PC viruses, no blue screen, no crashes, no BS. It is more expensive than a PC but the difference is worth it. But when you consider what you'd have to pay for a PC to get the equivalent power, software and security (maybe), there's hardly any price difference at all.

But price wasn't the only consideration for me. It was the OS itself, the apps and the sheer beauty of design. I've been studying the software offerings for the Mac and I'm more than impressed. Especially software for writers. Scrivener stands head and shoulders above any Windows writing app I've ever seen. The NeoOffice productivity suite looks great, too. In addition, it's open source and free.

My reasons for making the switch from PC Hell to Mac Haven are legion. So it's goodbye Billy, hello Stevie before the end of this year, either for a birthday present or a Christmas present to myself. Either way, the Mac will be mine.

Script Frenzy 2010 : Avatar 2, The Renegade

April is right around the corner and  Script Frenzy is about to begin, which means writing a hundred page movie script in 30 days. I'm up for it. In the few years I've signed up for SF, I've have yet to finish a script. This year will be different, I hope.

Been in fanboy mode since seeing Avatar 3 times. Bought an 'Ivong Na'vi ** t-shirt from Learn Na'vi and am even learning the Na'vi language. Call me a geek if you will, I can live with it.

Without further doo-doo, here's the bare bones synopsis of this year's opus.

Title: Avatar 2: The Renegade
Tagline: Old soldiers never die...
Logline: Col. Quaritch launches a one-man war to destroy the Tree of Souls and the Na'vi.

Plot:
It's 6 years later and Col. Quaritch is back...in an avatar body! He wants to finish the job of neutralizing the Na'vi, plus taking revenge on Neytiri for those 2 arrows in the chest. He also wants to Jake dead on general principles. This may prove to be difficult, since Jake has since become jakesully, leader of the Omaticaya clan and has his own royal guard.

Jake naturally opposes Quaritch, but also has other problems. Several disgruntled followers of Tsu'tey blame Jake for his death, plus the fact that he is "uniltìranyu" (avatar) and has no right to be "eyktan" (tribe leader). Jake and Neytiri now have 2 kids, a boy and a girl : Fromìk, 4 and Tawyane, 5 (anthropological trivia: Fromìk has 4 fingers and Tawyane, 5 ). Because Neytiri is the wife of  a "five-finger", she also encounters problems with racism/jealousy from some  within the tribe which will ultimately endanger her life. Both kids also get into trouble, like all 6-foot tall children . Grace will be reunited with her avatar body. Jake couldn't bear her loss and has kept her avatar in stasis, just in case. And it just so happens the time is ripe to wake Grace up.

There will be plenty of action, drama, love, pathos, bathos and the inevitable Final Confrontation, as well as the inevitable Predictable Ending. Unfortunately (or fortunately) once I finish the script, I can't do anything with it or I risk my skin with a legion of studio lawyers. So I'll print out and bind a nice copy before lovingly sticking the thing in a closet for my future biographers to find in 50 years or so. 

** Let Na'vi Bloom!

On Writing for Oneself

Ran out of gas for this year's Nano. The fact is, it wasn't much fun this time around. I think it stemmed from being too organized and too prepared for the event. Like it or not, I do my best writing with very few notes. A detailed outline seems to drain every drop of excitement from a project.

Nano's supposed to be a fun challenge: write the most words possible and quality be damned. In the beginning it was thus, but then the spectre of publication reared its ugly head. Intellectually, I knew that my Nano work was not destined for anything but self-publication. I knew it and wanted it that way. But then 'what-ifs' started popping up: "Nah, I don't care about paid publication, but what if it happens? Others have been discovered. . .even through Nano.", etc. etc.

The rationalizations got more pathetic, desperate and insistent as November progressed. I was dutifully following my prescribed outline and my 'what-if' voices were having a field day. All the while my conscious mind was rebelling against all of this. What happened to all the fun Nano used to be?

In the end, I had to give up this year's effort to shut the voices up. Once again I've learned what I already knew: I really only want to write for myself and I don't like detailed outlines. But after reading some nifty books about how much easier writing is by outlining everything in advance, I got carried away and started practically projecting a whole writing career, for kripes sake. That way lay madness.

So once again I've run smack into my contradictions and limitations concerning writing. And once again, the verdict is: write for yourself and have fun.

And I'll be doing Nano again next year. Hopefully without  all those lousy voices.

The Pope Drowns!

After a suitable period of reflection, I've decided to drop out of this year's festivities. I've won Nano in the past, but I no longer see the point of producing crap just to attain some arbitrary word count. I suppose Nano is great for those people having trouble getting words on the page. I don't have that difficulty. Getting interesting words on paper, now, that's my whole problem. Nano can't help me there.

I've enjoyed Nano immensely and totally support the concept, but it's time for me to move on. I'm still writing and will use the blog to talk about that when the Nano dust settles.

Week One : Fire and Ice

First couple of days I blazed a way up to 6,000 words or so. That was the fire. Then I missed a day. My word count looked to be in mortal danger, with the game barely started. Now I'm back on course punching words out with cool confidence. Ice.

I'm still behind. . .just for today. The Ice Man Cometh.

The Pope's in the Pool!

November, at last! Started writing at 12:01 a.m. For about 15 minutes. Just to get my feets wet. My quota's still not done for the day, but that's normal for me. I'm almost always behind. That's why I gotta get off this computer--and get ahead.

. . .to be continued.