Coronona - T Plus 358 - Side effects

Column.

One of the more curious side effects of this whole Corona mess is a loss of sense of time. We've been locked in our homes, stuck in an endless rut of repeating events, surrounded by the same four walls. For so long now that we're all losing our sense of time, even without catching actual Covid. Nothing seems to change, except for the weather, so perhaps it's only natural to forget about unimportant things like seasons, appointments, and clocks...

The 'why' game (4WC)

Writing.

Solve prompts for short stories, work out mini-plots for your chapters, and avoid (stupid) mistakes. All that by simply applying the 'why' game, using just five (5) simple words, that's all it takes...

Writing to a prompt part 2 - The 'why' game (4WC)

Writing.

You can turn any 'prompt' into a short story, and it's worth doing so. At least to try to, now and again.

All it needs is proper application of the 'why' game. And then that same ruleset can be used to check what has been written.

Best of all, it  works for everything, longs as well as short stories. Read on...

Shadow and Bone

Review.

Shadow and Bone is a fantasy series on Netflix, with shades of The Witcher, Game of Thrones, Shanara, and every other fantasy series ever. Which doesn't make it bad. In fact, it throws in enough interesting twists to make it worth your while.

Wallpaper - Lake Sakura

 

In May 2010 I visited Japan. I love that place. Summer started early that year, and the cherry blossom was (mostly) finished by the time we arrived. Well, there are still good images to be found on the internet 😉

It's... Complicated - Fate / Evangelion / Sword Art Online - viewing order

Some anime series can get rather complex... And some of those series made it to NetFlix (NL).

I haven't seen the following (yet) but I thought it best to start with figuring out the proper viewing order. So, as far as I can tell...

The Event (2010)

Review.

Looks promising. Regular 'government's hiding stuff we have visitors with their own agenda' show. I've only sampled a little the moment I wrote this so I might be very, very, very wrong... Well, at least my disappointment will then be genuine. That's me. Delivering genuine disappointment since 1965.

Update. Finished it! Read on...

To those wo still take Wattpad serious...

... congratulations! Indeed, Wattpad is a serious problem 😁

Yeah, I know, I'm just jealous of those very successful authors with millions of (unpaying) readers. Then again, am I that jealous?

Yes.

Steven Gould - Jumper (1992), Reflex (2004), Griffin's Story (2007), Jumper (movie, 2008)

Jumper (the 2008 movie) could have been the start of a great franchise, even if it had little to do with the books.

Young guy discovers he can jump, the goes kind of undercover, until the 'Paladins' (an anti-Jumper organisation dating back to the middle ages) catch up with him. Bad things happen.

But... how about the books? (And their relation to the movie?)

F1 - Bad Poetry in Motion (Balls of Steel)

Writing.

As I said before, if you suffer from writer's block then write some bad poetry. Coincidentally, the new F1 🏎️ season just started. Tomorrow's race two, and with some (bad) luck Mercedes will be just as boringly reliable as always...

But... it did inspire me to write some bad poetry...

Writing to a prompt part 1 - From prompt to (mini) plot

Writing.

How would you write a (short) story based on the following plot?

' A clubber who wants to damage a diabolical, holy symbol, but it will introduce a dangerous technology to the world. '

Push (2009)... and a little Calvin & Hobbes

Review.

Push and Jumper... In case I did not mention these two before (where are my old TellTales, humpf)... I think both movies deserve a little more credit than they got, especially Push was pretty much ignored, and Jumper could have been the start of a great franchise.

Inkjet printer - Paper quality, paper jams, and bleed-through

How important is the quality of the paper in your laser / inkjet?

Perhaps more important than you think. However, I'm not the expert (I'm no expert on many things 😉) so consider these my 'personal' notes...

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Review.

Is there anything better than the original (?) animated Disney movie? Perhaps not... Still, Tim Burton did a pretty good job back in 2010, in spite of it all. Yeah, 3D was 'the' thing, and that was the one thing I hated about the movie.

Wallpaper - Nighthawks

 

There is one person missing in this image. The artist. The author.

Writing is hard. It's toiling away in a corner of the night, burning that midnight oil. Imagine that poor writer, driven by a mad vision, eschewing the niceties of the world to bring you the word...

Yeah. It's a lonely profession... no time for hanging out in bars meeting fans 😉

Angel Jay's blog is up and running...

I've created another blog account to handle everything related to ParentKillers, Kind's Kiss and Angel Jay. It's located here:

https://angeljaybooks.com

Actually, it's not 😁 but that link redirects you to:

https://angeljaybooks.blogspot.com

There's also the ParentKillers landing page:

https://parentkillers.com

Streamline your novel - remove unnecessary words

Writing.

Vivien Reis suggests to remove 29-ish words from your novel (if possible, of course 😁).

Blindly stripping them out isn't the way to do it, but you might want to go through your writing, and see where you do not need them.

Kind's Kiss finally has a cover...

I finally settled on a cover and a pen name. So now both my writing related websites are up-to-date. Unfortunately I haven't released the story yet...

Well, I have to start somewhere 😇

(Read more for the images and links.)

Photon (1997)

Review.

You'd be tempted to think I watch loads of anime... but I don't. These are old reviews I wrote over the years, most for Dapper. I promised to post something every Monday, and I have been a bit busy, work wise, so here's another review of something old.

Photon then... Six episodes... Drawing style is somewhat childish, plot is somewhat illogical, purpose is somewhat undefined, it's all somewhat... vague.

Typewriters... (re)live the experience!

Writing. Column.

Do you remember good ol' typewriters? Man, the horror! 😣😂

I don't think there's anyone who has good memories about typewriters. I'm certainly not one of them.

Xara / Magix Designer Pro - Love it or hate it?

The Xara Designer Pro software package is quite nice, and capable of incredible things. It never got the traction it deserved, and has been picked up and then abandoned, more or less, again and again.

Some time ago Magix picked it up, and that rarely bodes well...

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Review.

Wanna' see something incredibly old? (No, it's not a picture of me 😄)

Here's a very old Fantasy / Supernatural / Romance movie, A matter of Life and Death from 1946!

Book and chapter sizes

Writing.

The optimal chapter size is driven by your audience and publication platform. Which means you either have to adjust your chapter size to the target, re-chapter before publication, or simply don't give a damn 😁

Ranma 1/2 (199x)

Review.

Revisiting the past... ever heard of Ranma 1/2? Boy meets girl, which appears to be just another fiancée. Credits to daddy. Girl meets boy. But boy is, sometimes, a girl.

Don't go and look for anything politically correct, or any LGBTQ+ sensitivity. This dates back to the early nineties, and is slapstick anime comedy, aimed at younger teens.

Wallpaper - Beach

We had -17º degrees a few days ago... as in one real week of winter. I wonder if we'll ever see it again with all that global warming...

Nevertheless, it was warm inside, and I couldn't help myself from thinking about warmer weather, and walking on the beach...

Skyland (2005)

Review.

Ten years ago or so Skyland was showing on Dutch television. At the time I downloaded a few episodes, and noticed that the broadcasted version was post-processed to look more 'dirty'. Which made it look a lot better, to be honest. 

Story wise both versions are the same and okay.

Galactik Football (2006)

Review.

I'm not into soccer much, but the anime series Galactic Football wasn't too bad. Though it wasn't too good either, to be honest 😅 Most interesting was perhaps the drawing style, CGI 'cell shaded' characters on more detailed backgrounds.

The writing process

Column. Writing.

Writing is hard. It's very hard. People have no clue how hard it actually is. Even writers themselves are clueless.

So, I set out to document the writing process. Read on (besides, it was about time I created another mindmap)...

Converting and formatting manuscripts

Writing.

Every writer has their own preference. For example, I prefer to write with empty lines instead of indents. (There are some disadvantages to that method, but I just find it easier that way.)

Still, you might want to go for the 'official' format when submitting.

Netflix - The Queen's Gambit (2020)

Review.

I’m in love. Not necessarily with Anna Taylor-Joy (who, frankly, is way easier on the eyes than I am 😂 even if deliberate make-up choices make her look a little weird now and again), no, I'm in love with the sixties. I’m a bit surprised that nobody is mentioning Beth Harmon’s… eh… predecessor / inspiration misses Emma Peel 😅