Book review: Welcome to the Writer’s Life

Welcome to the Writer’s Life: How to Design Your Writing Craft, Writing Business, Writing Practice, and Reading Practice by Paulette Perhach

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am continuing on my unofficial second career as not a writer, but one who reads every book about writing instead. Then writes about them.

Welcome to the Writer’s Life succeeds on a couple of fronts. First, author Paulette Perhach has an entertaining voice and regularly drops funny little zingers in with her advice without ever making it feel like she’s trying really hard to make you laugh.

Second, the book tackles a few things that a lot of new writer books don’t cover or cover minimally. There are plenty of books that will cover the classic plot structures, character development and other things you need to know in order to tell a convincing story–whether it be through fiction or non-fiction. Perhach covers the other stuff in a writer’s life, relating her and the experiences of other writers in finding ways to nurture and grow your writing habits, covering everything from what to read (and how important reading is) to meditation to clear your mental decks (she claims to never suffer writer’s block because of her daily 15-minute meditation sessions), as well as touching on the business side of writing, along with thoughts on pursuing an MFA (spoiler: she doesn’t think it’s necessary).

It took me awhile to read through the book and though I enjoyed it, I found myself wondering why, and I believe it’s two things: I found the quotes from other writers largely unnecessary (fewer would have been fine) and there are sections where even Perhach’s writing style can’t lift the subject matter from feeling just a little dull. But I have read a lot of books on writing, so it’s just as likely that I am becoming a bit weary of the topic of writing itself.

Still, I think this is a good intro to the craft of writing for a new writer and have no problem recommending it alongside other more “nuts and bolts” book on the writing process itself.

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Posting from MarsEdit

Yes, once again I have found another way to post to my blog. I am getting ever-closer to posting from a fridge or toaster.

This time I am posting from MarsEdit, which is software specifically designed to let you write blog posts and then post them…to your blog. Setting it up was dead simple and it works offline, which is nice if my connection flakes out but I SIMPLY MUST BLOG.

I can already do this in Ulysses, too, so I will have to see how MarsEdit makes things better or sexier.

And to conclude, a funny cat:

External content duckduckgo com

Bad design: Websites that adopt the OS color scheme

Windows 10 and macOS both offer dark modes for their UIs, allowing the user to exchange light colors for various elements like window borders and backgrounds for darker ones, which is nice if you are viewing a monitor in a dimly-lit room (as an example). Some also just prefer the aesthetic. For myself, I prefer a lighter theme in Windows, but like the Mac’s dark mode implementation.

Depending on how an app is written, it may adopt aspects of the OS color scheme (such as for window elements) or just ignore them entirely. Take my browser of choice, Firefox. Out of the virtual box, it does not comply with the dark mode of either OS, but it does have an included dark theme you can switch to that brings most of the UI in line with whatever you have the OS set to. The current version (88) has some gaps–context menus don’t properly reflect the dark theme, but these appear to be addressed in version 89, which is giving all of Firefox’s UI a going-over. The Firefox dark theme leaves web pages entirely alone, as is to be expected. If you want all websites to be darkity-dark, you can use an extension like Dark Reader, which tries to intelligently make bright websites dark, and works fairly well.

But then you come to the Bad Design–websites that sniff out your OS preference and then set their site to match, thinking this is what the user would naturally want. This is a bad assumption and should never be forced onto the user. At minimum, it should be a choice offered as a toggle between light and dark. Forcing it on the user means that they may end up with an inconsistent browsing experience, or have to deal with a site that may not have been as carefully designed for a particular color scheme (ie. dark mode).

My go-to example for this is https://sixcolors.com, an otherwise excellent and nerdy site focusing on Mac/Apple stuff. If you view it on a Windows PC, it will always look bright. If you view it on a Mac, it will be bright or dark, based on the mode you have chosen for the OS. I find their idea of dark mode a bit too dark, resulting in text that is too high contrast, making it harder to read. My fix is to use something like Dark Reader to fiddle with the colors and make something that looks better (this doesn’t produce great results), toggle dark mode off (inconvenient for one site) or, ironically, view the site from a Windows PC. A simple toggle would fix this.

The moon and other night objects

I was out completing my rings tonight when I turned around on Sherbrooke Street and saw a fat full moon hanging low in the sky, just as the sun was going down. I went back to the condo, grabbed my camera…and found the battery was dead. But I had a backup battery and it worked. Yay for planning.

Here are three shots, of the full moon, the upper floors of the new hospital building next door, and the mega-crane that has been installed for the pending construction of the next hospital building, along with other nearby objects.

Book review: Teddy Spenser Isn’t Looking for Love

Teddy Spenser Isn’t Looking for Love: An LGBTQ Romcom by Kim Fielding

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another romance novel bought on sale. I think what got me here is simply the title. I like the title.

As you might expect from that title, the story is cute and fluffy, with the tone kept light and the drama minimal–it’s more of a romantic comedy than drama, and plays to that well.

Although I haven’t exactly read a ton of romance novels, this one did stand out from the others I have in a few ways (spoilers ahead): one is how the romance comes together fairly quickly and then just keeps sailing along, with the couple firmly in lust/love and only external factors presenting a threat. All of the thorny stuff is before their (unintended) courtship begins. I think it works, but it does undercut any potential tension. Then again, it’s clear this is a “happily ever after” book, so I can’t complain that it delivered what it said on the tin.

The bulk of the story concerns two men working at a company looking to design, market and sell a smart vase. One is the titular Teddy Spenser, a snappy dresser and designer who vows to remain single after a bad romance, the other is Romeo Blue (yes, the name is mocked in the story itself), the programmer making the software work.

When the famous if eccentric designer Joyce Alexander offers to help fund the project, the two men–who at this point have negative and preconceived notions of each other–are forced to fly together to Seattle from Chicago to perform three seemingly arbitrary tasks to prove their company worthy of the funding. Hijinks ensure as Teddy and Romeo fumble through a mountain hike, making a dinner and more. At the end they are given an ultimatum and fear the worst. but vow to stay together no matter what.

The interplay of Teddy and Romeo is cute and they both seem so darn nice–you want to reach into the pages to pinch their cheeks. Watching them bask in their newfound romance is like sitting in front of a cozy fire on a cold winter’s night.

And it all works out in the end (spoilers). This is a very light read, but its so breezy and well-intentioned, with the occasional clever turn of phrase, that it’s hard to fault it for being somewhat slight.

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Walk 33: The Penance Walk

Before I could give myself time to change my mind I went out today for a walk/run, determined to make at least partial amends for my fatty indulgences of the last few days. As a bonus the weather looked iffy, so I figured crowds would be minimal.

Well, the weather was iffy–rain showers for all but the last 15 minutes or so, when the sun poked out, but there were still crowds, as a lot of people apparently just want to get out and don’t care if they also get wet.

There was one annoying runner ahead of me at one point who kept running right down the middle of the trail, which is bad form. Worse, she kept drifting back and forth, which is terrible form. I originally planned to catch up and pass her but I’m so soft and flabby right now that I just let her go ahead while I caught my breath. Such is my running life at the moment.

I did run a lot more than the previous outing and had no difficulties, other than just my stamina conking out significantly earlier than it normally would. But it’ll get there eventually if I stick with it. Which I plan to do. Honest!

Stats:

Walk 33
Average pace: 8:18/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.26 km
Time: 1:00:21
Weather: Rain showers
Temp: 11ºC
Humidity: 81%
Wind: light
BPM: 138
Weight: 180 pounds
Total distance to date: 252.61 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12

Pleading guilty in the court of fatty foods

This week Pop Tarts went on sale, but I remained strong when I went grocery shopping, gliding right past them in the breakfast aisle.

Actually, no, I didn’t. I bought a box of Frosted Blueberry Pop Tarts and ate all of them in two days. That’s eight of them at 185 calories each, for a total of 1,480 calories spread (ho ho) over those two days.

This morning I stepped on the scale and was:

180 pounds

At least I can still see my feet when I look down. For now.

I’d love to blame work and in fact that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Everything has been off the rails since I returned from my leave and I’m not going to hide the fact that I find work an awful ball of unfun. Now I just need to find the drive (I already have the motivation) to come up with an escape plan.

File this under physical and mental health.

With five days left in the month my new weight loss goal for April is now to get back under 180 pounds. It’s about as modest a goal there is, but if I hit it, I will be…modestly pleased.

Bluh (with bonus thoughts on organization)

I was originally only going to repeat “bluh” here, but it occured to me that I am also disorganized, so I’ll record that here as well.

Bluh.

I am disorganized.

It’s not that I don’t try to be organized, it’s that I have no consistent method for it. I will sometimes write something down using old-fashioned pen and paper, others times I might use:

  • Drafts (iOS app)
  • OneNote
  • iA Writer
  • Notepad
  • Notepad++
  • This blog
  • Something else

So when I go to find something I vaguely recall writing down, I end up searching across multiple devices and drives, hoping I’ll get lucky on a keyword. And Windows is still pretty slow doing searches. So for 2021 I vow to come up with a better way to organize my ideas and junk. Or else. Or else I won’t.

UPDATE: I found the idea that prompted my thoughts on being disorganized–it was made through iA Writer, but was saved to iCloud, which doesn’t show up automatically on the PC version. So I blame myself and the software.

Walk 32: Mostly walking

I went out today and only ran in short bursts, so it took me about nine or so minutes longer to complete vs. my typical pace. I’m okay with that, as I’m just glad that I was motivated enough to get out instead of shutting down and slumping in a chair or on the bed.

Stats:

Walk 32
Average pace: 9:12/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.55 km
Time: 1:09:35
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 19ºC
Humidity: 39%
Wind: moderate
BPM: 123
Weight: 179.3 pounds
Total distance to date245.33 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12