Distractions and Floundering

Now back to my regular program. It's been hectic, especially with other non-writing-related activities going on, but here goes...

----

He rubbed his dust smeared lip with the back of his forearm and spat. As he stood back to observe the carnage, his eyebrows knit into part worry, part sinking, what-the-heck-did-I-get-myself-into discomfort. Never before had such a rank odor knocked him aside so handily. It reeked of mildew, sewage-- even death.

The echo of cars rang in his ears, causing him to peer back over his shoulder. He stalked over and slammed the garage door button before returning in a huff. No sense in allowing gawking neighbors to witness this mayhem.

One swift kick to the washing machine released the aching tension in his shoulders finally. "How the bleep did this sock get sucked into the washer drain pipe?"

The disgusting culprit wedged firmly in the impeller. No implement could reach it, save his bare fingers. Scrabbling at the tangled mess, the surefire sound of tearing cloth made him purse his lips. A final yank and it came free.

"That ought to do it," he said, replacing the drain valve and plate cover. A smirk creased upon his face. He knew there was no way in hell he would pay a damn plumber for this. That was his meal ticket.

----

So anyway, I spent this week somewhat productively. Unfortunately, it wasn't in writing. I fixed our water heater and our washing machine and some computer issues in my uncle's office. I can't really take full credit though. YouTube and Google are my friends. It's amazing what you can find on the internet these days to make sense of common-day troubles.

None of these are my day jobs, but it does feel good to fix things. I think it has to do with some buried manliness. Grunt. Make fire. Cook meat. That sort of thing. Seriously though, maybe it's easy to fall into small victories as a sense of accomplishment.

It's the same reason people fall into watching soaps and learning all the sordid details of wacky plotlines within, or get obsessed with points in a videogame.

I'm still committed to the craft and improving my writing.

 

Whenever I read old stuff (and when I say "old," I literally mean stuff I wrote like between five minutes ago and decades earlier), I cringe.

But hey, that's why we keep at it! Keep on keeping on! Hope this was entertaining for you. Until next time..
- TL

Other Home Security Options

In case you're interested in some other solutions, we looked into...

Foscam IP Camera

First, we tried a Foscam Camera -- it actually worked well in monitoring and checking in on the home with ease. It even had a way to have a minor alarm when someone came in and text or email me pictures.

• The problem was it wasn't easy to turn on and off motion-detection without scripting.
• I setup a script for myself, but my wife couldn't enable it on her own. I'm sure I could've whipped something more up here, but it didn't seem worth the trouble with other options available.

Ultimately, I returned it.
 
Canary

Simplicity then became the name of the game. Something that both my wife and I could use. That led me to Canary. This is one of the new IndieGogo-backed home security-- and my brother-in-law is one of those backers.

• Loved what they had in Canary, but it isn't available until July 2014. Hopefully, more to come on that one.

Given the timeframe, I opted to look elsewhere and wait-and-see how my brother-in-law's experience is with Canary to compare. Canary and Piper are most like each other, but Piper was already out and had a few other differences (at least in initial plans) that I'll share.

Vera Home Automation

This one is really, really awesome. My step-brother has been looking at this for a while. Really customizable, really neat. Strong z-wave support.

• It's much more modular and componentized in terms of adding pieces. Depending on what you like, that may not be for you.

One of my wife's other requirements was something simple and more unified. So while I liked Vera, we opted to start with the more simple controller, Piper. I would still consider Vera though for more complex home automation. I'm waiting to see more of my step-bro's setup on this to compare.

Piper Home Security

I may have mentioned that two months back, our home was burglarized. That's taken me away from doing some of the things I want to do (writing, consulting, etc.), but I have found a "working" solution now. Here's the run-down:

Traditional, Central-monitored Security
Way back, we used to use traditional security through ADT, but we canceled it when it became more of a hassle than it was worth.

• The issue I had with the traditional, centrally monitored system was that we often had false alarm triggers. They would contact the police and the police would get upset for having to deal with non-issues.
• Door and window sensors may have improved since that time, but ultimately, even when triggered, there was no way for me to know for sure whether it was a real security threat if I was not at home myself.
• We would get calls asking us whether we would like to dispatch the police and wouldn't know if it was really a problem.

Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

And, in the name of privacy, it's not exactly like we wanted ADT to monitor a camera for us. A little too big brother for us, if they even allow that sort of thing.

Thus, since our break-in, we began to look into self-monitored systems with camera capabilities, as we felt they better served our family.

(Note: I have some technical chops -- not that any of the setup of these were super tricky-- but in case you're using any of this as a basis for your own setup)

We elected to go with Piper after exploring some other options.

Piper
They released in Jan/Feb 2014. Also very new, and so, still working out some problems and what-not. I've experienced very few problems and it is working well for us. So far, we love it.

Pros:

• Simple, unified unit - with camera and a few other sensors.
• My wife and I can both enable/disable the system and monitor the house from our phones (Canary allows the same)
• We can also work with some simple z-wave enabled devices, like floor lamps and door/window sensors (Canary has this as a stretch goal for now; Vera allows for this, with a wider array of testing across z-wave products)

Nit-picks (not really true cons in my book):

• My wife was unable to connect remotely at one time. That said, I had her kill the app on her phone and restart it and it worked fine.
• Like any of the above solutions, you may still need to do some configuration. Piper works with uPnP, but I didn't have this enabled, so I opened port forwarding on my own (not that complex).
• Only supports z-wave for light/plug switches and door/window sensors. Thus, don't have support yet for z-wave locks, thermostats, etc.

While the HD camera is not the best video quality in the world, it does have a unique fish-eye view that can be separated into four quadrants and zoomed in. The main gist for me is to be able to tell if there's a real problem more so than identifying the culprit.

Conclusions
At the end of the day, smaller, all-inclusive solutions like Piper probably work best for smaller homes. You can start simple and add to the z-wave accessories, as you see fit (as we have).

I see burglary deterrence as a multi-step process:

• Dissuade the burglars from considering your home - through signs, locked doors
• If they break in, have a warning method to scare them off (minimize theft)  - dogs, alarm sirens, etc.
• Immediately alert home owner of potential threat - notification of motion, sound, sensor trips to let me decide whether to call the local police.
• Help the police in capturing them - store recorded video, photos as evidence
• Third-level support: neighborhood watch, be friends with neighbors, trusted circle

Common sense and Piper can help with all of the above potentially.

At the end of the day, unless you want to spend a fortune sealing your home off like a fortress, if someone wants to get into your home, they will. You just want to dissuade, scare, monitor, alert, and be safe. You just hope your loved ones are not there when it happens and that the police can do their part to catch criminals.

Research is the (Necessary) Pits

At SF Writer Con, many distinguished authors showed.

On that note, I have to give a quick shout-out to Penny Warner, a local to the Bay Area, who I ran into completely by accident at the SF Writer Con Gala. She was incredibly warm and compassionate in offering help to unpublished writers. This, despite her thousands of friends as a social butterfly, and her over sixty published novels in the mystery genre.

Another mystery genre expert that attended the conference was Rhys Bowen. While I didn't get a chance to speak to her personally, I found her to be charming and witty, particularly as she explained the nuances of how she went about researching facts that surround her fiction

Getting realistic information about locations, science, procedure, etc. is critical to creating an aura of genuineness and authenticity to the story itself, as you'd probably guess-- even in fiction novels. Sure, you can break some of those rules, especially in fantasy, but we as readers all know that sometimes if it's too much, we just want to put the book down (gasp!).

Anyway, she joined other luminaries/writers, Trina Robbins and Constance Hale, in a discussion about researching for books (non-fiction or fiction).

I've summed up some key points:

• Talk to experts - CALL people and leverage your network
• Go there yourself, if you can.
• If not, use Google Earth and news articles from the area for the past five years
• Libraries, museums, and more!
Do NOT use Wikipedia - too many mistakes and too little fact-checking
• Use at least two reliable sources to confirm
• Keep all your notes on file and jot down names, date of interview, dates-of-birth, etc.
• Use them to support your work, should anyone question the veracity of a section.

This inspired me in my own work to dig deeper. Much of my research for the current novel is from trust-worthy articles. However, some of it previously was from Wikipedia. For those, I've pretty much discarded them or began to ask subject matter experts in the field to confirm things in my story.

The past week I've spent with a friend who is a police officer and with three others in the pharmaceutical field (one in drug manufacturing, a pharmacist, and another in lab research). I'm beginning to see how ambitious I was in this project -- perhaps biting off more than I should chew!

That said, it's exciting to learn so much about these worlds and I am hopeful that it will lead to strong authenticity in my book. Research and edits are some of the toughest, but most rewarding, aspects to writing. They can both be fun too with the right mindset. Write on...

A Week Removed from SF Writer Con 2014..

Last weekend (Thurs-Sun), I was at the San Francisco Writer Conference. It the first Writer Con I've attended, after some encouragement from fellow writer-friend, Wendy Spinale. Note: she's an up-and-coming writer that you should be on the look-out for! Check out her blog, if you have a moment. Beyond her writing skills, she's also incredibly helpful to folks like me, working to hone our craft.

The conference made peoples' heads explode. Not that the concepts were so mind-boggling to be incomprehensible. It was simply an inundation of info about how to improve writing, dialogue, character, improve platform, the differences between self-publishing and traditional, pitching, and so much more.

I have nothing to compare SF Writer Con with. That said, from the many folks I met (and networking is probably one of the biggest things to consider... hey, this is just like my ol' business school, whodathunk?), I understand that the SF con is one of the largest. Also, it has a very collaborative feel amongst the writers, published authors, other instructors, agents, publishers and industry experts.

The Speed-Agent-Dating on Valentine's Day was interesting too. More on that one later.

The biggest take-away is so simple, it will seem like plain common sense. Even when it comes to the whole debate about traditional publishing and self-publishing, it trumps all like the one ring. I'm going to start with that seemingly easy concept and post some more later, when I get a chance.

The one thing you have to remember above anything else in writing is:

Focus on the content and make it the best writing possible!



 

Now you can laugh. Or glare. But seriously, one of the things writers miss most is too much focus on the pitching, querying, identifying the one great idea, etc. It's tough these days to break in to the market-- I think one of the published authors mentioned J.R.R. Tolkien might have had difficulty getting through today's agents, despite his obvious excellence and now-notoriety.

 

Everyone knows you need good timing in the market, and a little bit of luck, to really garner the success everyone desires in this field. But writers primarily can only control one thing: their own work. Time to get to it!

P.S. If you were like me, and trying to save a few and BART in, I got one thing to say to you: I hate walking up Mason Street to Mark Hopkins Hotel.

Coming out of the dark

Some of you may not know this, but I don't tell all my friends and acquaintances that I even like to write.

That changed earlier this week, when I went public with my Facebook Writer page.

• It's not that I am totally embarrassed about my stories or even writing in general. I just didn't feel the desire to entrap people I know into feigning interest.
• On the other hand, I wanted to get my first novel manuscript into a state where I felt comfortable sharing that I actually had written something worthy of notice.

I once went to school in Los Angeles. Down there, every soul had a screenplay or manuscript in their back-pocket.

Back then, I didn't. However, when I actually wrote something I felt worth publishing, it made me think that not everyone wants to hear about it.

I'm sure that has some partial truth to it.

But anyway, now is the time to let people know that I am proud of my new novel. I'd like to get the feelers out from agents on the strength of the query, before I share more, but I've really enjoyed the process (a lot of work, late nights and struggling) to get even this far.

The problem is, I don't know what I don't know. I'll try to rectify that with more investigation and attending some conferences (very soon!). And believe me, I've been trying to read every blog and tidbit out there on the web to catch-up...

For those who are interested, here's my real-life story so far:

• Began writing my first novel each night in November '13, for NaNoWriMo.
• Edited it all December.
• Had beta-readers read it and provide feedback and made a few initial agent queries to get my feet wet.
• In January, severe overhaul of some of the structure; incorporation of feedback I agreed with.
• Received some "other writer" feedback via Scribophile, which was fairly uplifting (and had good, constructive criticism)
• Met with friends-of-friends-who-now-I-count-among-friends (say that ten times fast) who are in the industry and have received super advice.

That is not a long time for writing, but the inside fire is there. I hope I have more validation at some point, God willing. Though I'm trying to write for my own sake at the moment.

If you've come this far: thank you for your support and encouragement (and occasional kick to the rear).

What would Karaoke be without...

Actual singing?

So, for everyone's amusement, I recorded myself singing my own lyrics to "The Agent-Writer Confrontation." (Again, the original "The Confrontation" is from Les Miserables)

Note: Original Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg and Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. New Lyrics by me.

For my "adapted" lyrics again, see my original post.

• I had to do this acapella, as I don't have just the music.
• Both vocals are me
• I did mess up the counterpoint a little bit
• (and also the key in some places.. I recorded it in bits and jacked that up).

Oh well. This is what happens when you go a little crazy.

Feel free to lambaste me. I just figured it was a good chance to mess around. You can cover your ears, but if you pressed "PLAY," it's your decision.

Without further ado, I hope you enjoy it... :) Maybe I should create a little YouTube video with my son's action figures. LOL.