Memoirs of an English Major

    As a writer, I’m always on the look for a good way to keep track of my thoughts and when I get them. My brain is contently day dreaming and coming up with strange ideas that I know if I don’t write them at that moment, I will lose it. So, how I do it? It all depends on where I am.

    On the computer side or when I’m out and about, I’ve been using Evernote theses days. It’s a great program to write notes on and keep track of stray thoughts. Plus, since it saves to the web, I can access it from anywhere, even my iPhone. It’s been an valuable little app and I’m so glad I signed up for it. Well worth a try if you’re in need of an application just to jot down thoughts.

   If I’m at home and not near a comp, I turn to my trusty notebook. Though it sits by my bedside, it helps at those stray moment of the night to quickly write down an idea, thought, or simply a quote for a character in a story. As I tend to have ideas at the strangest moments, I’ve learned to be prepared.

   I know this post was short, so as a bonus, I’m making my short story ideas public. Check out what strange thoughts go through my head at http://www.evernote.com/pub/vincent404/story-ideas. Check it out.

   Tonight’s posts are simply going to be a couple of plugs. First off, I have a new blog I am part of. For me, I’m looking at it as a tech blog where I think most of my tech article will be. If you’re interested in reading what my friends and I have to say on Tech, check out the Moon-cast blog. If you are familiar with my old podcast, some of the writers will seem familiar. I should have an Entrecard for the blog up as soon as the rest of the other writers are on board.

   As for the second plug, one of my short stories was sent to a contest a while back. It is almost over, but the winners have yet to be announced. In any case, my short work is up at Bebo Author. Feel free to comment, read, and state whatever you wish. Any comment will be read and accepted as such, so please try to be constructive.

  That is all for now. I should have a better post this week.

     One of my professors always said the thing he gained from college was how to study. What I gained from my college years was my work ethic. Most of my friends are aware of this, but if it’s not apparent, I procrastinate. I’m what some may classify as a slacker. I can’t name the numerous times that because of this, I not only had numerous papers stack up, but was probably late on more things that I would like to admit. I can’t name the amount of times that I was up at two in the morning finishing three papers, fooling myself that if I cycled through each of the papers that I could keep any energy I had at a level that I could at least get the papers in a state that I would be proud of before collapsing for the measly four hours before waking up only to skip the class to finish the paper for that class. Some would call it simple procrastination, but it would become more for me.

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“Hell, if I had concentrated my efforts, I could’ve written a book,”

   I didn’t even notice, but this blog is now about a year old! Wow. It’s amazing what has happened. And with a word count like that, I’m quite impressed. So, in a celebratory fashion, I’m going to link the top 5 posts with the most words that are NOT fiction, each with a small description. 

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I know I have been slightly lazy in my posting habits. It’s not that I haven’t been working on things, just pondering my next move. In any case, I would like to at least reveal where it will be placed. Recently, I have been working on a novel length work. Well, more like attempting. In fact, after the last re-scrap, I think I’m only about 2000 or so words in. And I can’t post the first section quite yet, not because it isn’t in a state for publication, but because it was a story used in a contest that is supposed to be anonymous until the winner is announced. As the contest is still going on, It’ll be simply stubbed out until the time is right. Until then, check out the section on my site at rvillegas.org/wiki.  I feel that by putting into a Wiki format, I’ll have better control at viewing the progression of the work through all the revisions. It will also allow me to view each version and compile a better understanding of me as a writer. Plus, it should make for an interesting way of looking at my writing process.

Lately, I’ve been in a strange writing mode, primarily due to the work that I writing. I’ll make sure to post all my notes one of these, though I’ll have to sort them out. In any case, I’ll give a little bit on insight into the work. It is told from the first person view of two characters. Lately, I’ve concentrated on creating the two characters voices and making sure they are distinct. It’s slightly trickier considering one is female. The tricky part mainly figuring out a way to pass the story along between the two characters, each having their own say in the matter. It’s actually quite challenging and I’m glad that I scrapped my original idea in favor of this form. It will make for a better story. For now, feel free to explore what is on the wiki now. Should be interesting as to what comes of it. Till then, enjoy.

   This will be a short post for now. I know I haven’t written much over the course of this week, but lately I’ve been in a lackluster mood. Not quite sure why, but I’ve been apathetic to the world around me and I really wasn’t sure why. As it turns out, all I needed was the proper kick to get back to work. Right now, I just got out of Pixar’s latest film Wall-E and it was exactly what I needed to spark me up and get me back into the exact mental state to create everything I have set out to create. Sometimes, it takes a small, computer animated robot to put everything to perspective. Thank you Pixar for reminding me what it is I strive to achieve and for making it all clear. Sometimes, all I need to do is pop in a John Lasseter produced film to just remind me why I do what I do and why it matters.

Ever since Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote earlier this week, I’ve been extremely excited. Even though I still have yet to purchase my first Apple computer, I am a huge supporter of the company and its principles. I know some out there really don’t see why I support the company, considering that I’m well aware I could not only build a faster computer at a cheaper cost. Well, to be honest, it’s not the hardware that’s attractive, but simply a lot of the programs that are made for the mac side, such as Scrivener and Textmate. Sometimes though, I do wish those Objective-C coders would migrate their cocoa applications over to the Windows side, just so I could try them out.

     But tonight’s post is not about WWDC. The event itself is covered in numerous places, so if you want more information on that, please refer to those articles. Nope, tonight is one other thought that entered my head during my travels, captured in my new orange book. It is another stray thought, though it is once again that of a character. It is a fairly fleshed out character and is already part of a story. As to where this will be worked into, I am not quite sure. Probably somewhere important. Anyway, enjoy.

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It’s amazing what strange thoughts run through one’s mind while traveling. Take my brain for instance. Throughout the course of any one of my journeys, I tend to write more while I’m in movement that when I am sitting here in front of my keyboard. It just seems that the my mind fires off on all cylinders when I am traveling. I’m still not quite sure why or how, but it is a fact that I have come to understand and harness.

Take this little blurb here. This was a little thing that popped into my head while waiting for a flight back to DFW. I wrote it after I caught an older guy trying to catch a glimpse at what appeared to be a young mother. She looked like she was single, though I have no idea. This has nothing to do with the thought at hand. This is actually written from the perspective of some other girl. I may work this into a larger piece of fiction or spin off this sort of thought into a full blown character. As of now, I’m not quite sure how to handle this and I am willing to take any suggestions. Anyway, keep in mind that this is a stray thought I did not want to lose. Enjoy

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It’s a brand new week, filled with sights, sound, and writing. This week is looking like it will be a pretty full week of writing, with a post a day. It should be interesting as to what will emerge during the week. It’s all leading to become the new format for posting and it should definitely help me get right back into a regular writing schedule.

Today, I’m going to open up with a little bit of free form poetry. This little thought was written during my flight from DFW to ORD. As the flight was at night, I had the unique opportunity to look at the landscape at night in a way that I had not done. It is also interesting to note that when we arrived in Chicago, we flew through a lightening storm and was the first time I was ever surrounded by pure bolts of electricity, Enjoy.

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    Well, now that all is said and done with the interview, it’s time to get back into the full swing of things and get back to writing. I won’t go into details as to who I interviewed with, but I will say it did not go as successful as I thought it would, but it is alright. In the end, it was a great experience and possible one that made me realize what it is I need to do and what I want to do are in fact the same thing. And with this in mind, I am going to commit more time to both writing and programming not only this month, but the following months to come. I’ve decided to go into full production mode on my novel concept and an open source project that I will put online once started. But as a first action, by this weekend, I will post the first version of the theme code that powers this site. The design itself is under a separate license, however any code I have written will be fully under the latest version the the Gnu Public License. I’ll do a check before I do this to see if it violates the license, though I don’t think this will be a problem. Also, I am rolling around the idea of placing something on the Entrecard shop, though I’m not sure what. In any case, if this post does not make it apparent, my mind’s been a swirling mass of thoughts and ideas. Ever since the interview was completely botched, the electrons in the chunk of gray matter in my cranium has going into overdrive and I haven’t felt better. So, stayed tune this month as I think this will one that will be one of creative rebirth on all fronts.

   As a product review, I think I found my top notebook now. As my interview was in Chicago and since my second day was empty, I decided to go to some of the museums of the city. One of them happened to be the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. In there, not only did I see great works of art, but also possibly the coolest notebook ever : The Orange Notebook. Part of the bigger Write On & On series, the notebook is pretty simple in appearance, but I simply love it. Maybe it because it looks like an tech manual, or that it has that Valve Orange look to it, but whatever the case, I simply love the thing. I will probably buy the other colors, minus pink and use these as my main notebooks, though I don’t know if I’ll warm up to them as quickly as I did to the orange color. It just invokes everything I think I want in a notebook and feel like it is my notebook. Unlike my previous attempts with Moleskine notebooks everything simply clicked with this little guy. At at $5 a pop, I’m not complaining. Anyways, if you’re in the market for a new notebook, I’d recommend this one. So far its pretty sturdy, though as I just bought the notebook and its only seen so much abuse. If it tears within the week, you’ll hear me complain.