Forget the Jasons. What about Steve?

Listening to: We Would Fall Against the Tide, The Radio Dept.

Enough about other people. Progress on Coma City hasn't exactly been going at full steam (as you have no doubt deduced).

I still haven't been able to put into words the scene (or scenes) I call the "Writer's Chasm". There's ideas, characters, a probable outcome and a fair amount of frustration. I really need to workshop/brain storm the thing, or maybe just do a bit more free writing and see what comes out - so far I haven't been pleased with the outcome of previous free writing sessions for this particular scene.

At least there's been some work on other parts of the story. Mostly freshening up and some character establishing, which I'm happy to report has helped build a picture of the main characters life prior to the event the story revolves around.

Word count is now at 22,727.

Cyber beggar or clever

Listening to: Immature, Bjork

What's with these Jason's? I just commented on Jason Heglund the minimalist blogger and now I'm reading about Jason Bartholme who is asking readers of his blog to donate money so he can buy an Apple MacBook because he has to pay his other expenses ("bills, diapers, baby food, etc.") but would like a new laptop that will "serve me well as an SEO and web developer". Donors in return will have their name listed on his web page http://www.jasonbartholme.com/donations-laptop-fund/

This seems to me to be a ludicrous request. Jason has his own web site, dedicated to web development and by his own admission is working in this line of work (Under the About tab is Jason's description of himself, "I am a ColdFusion application developer by day and an aspiring search engine optimizer (SEO) by night.") so he could save up and buy his own laptop or if he needs it ASAP (which he doesn't as he admits it is not a priority) he could always rent one and claim the payments on his tax return since the laptop would be used for work purposes. The point is he's not without the means of paying for his own trinkets - there's not even a sob story about being out of work or how his last laptop was stolen or his baby has a rare illness that requires an unusual amount of diapers.

Surely there's other ways to make some extra cash than begging. He has one Google ad on his
site, maybe he should look into increasing his advertising.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web in 1989, must be mortified by the many and varied means people (and corporations) use the web to pilfer from its users.

I also would love a new MacBook to serve me well as an author but until I can afford one I will make do with what I have. Thank you.

I thought I had troubles

Listening to: Only This Moment, Röyksopp

On Thursday 28th September 2006 a fellow named Jason Heglund created a blog entitled, Hard Part of Writing (http://writtening.blogspot.com/). It contains one solitary post which reads:

"the hardest part of writting for me is getting started.
revision technique best for me is rereading alot."

I'm not sure if Jason is just kidding around or what but he sure has nailed the difficulties of writing.

Actually, looking at Jason's profile he has 7 blogs, all created between 1st and 28th September '06 and all containing only one post. This might suggest that Jason doesn't have a grasp of how blogs work or it could be that the individual single entry blogs mean something to him. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and presume the latter.

One blog/post simply called "hook" (http://jasonshook.blogspot.com/) could give a clue to Jason's modus operandi.

"My hook is a long and interesting introduction to draw in the reader.
A writer must have a good interesting introduction to hook me."

Well, I guess 19 months (to date) is a long introduction, although I wouldn't say it's terribly interesting.


Strange what one finds whilst on an Internetional journey.