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15 years ago
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Greetings.
After languishing in my backpack for quite some time, the (now very dog-eared) manuscript for "Journeying Within" that I've marked up and bloodied is finally getting transcribed onto the PC. I've already re-done the primary file format in HTML (both for simplicity and to avoid software incompatibility issues). So far I've got the first chapter finished, and am working on the next. This was the first major story I wrote (for the internet), and while there are some parts I like, a lot of the rest is total crap. Trying to clean it up and improve it to my current standard, without losing the "flavor" of the original material, is difficult. Once I get to adding NEW parts it'll be a lot easier (and faster) for me.
Since FA (with understandable reasons) does not support HTML as a story file format, I'll convert it to PDF for posting here. After much research, testing, and head-desk-banging, I've solved the export issue I had with Adobe Acrobat...by using a shareware alternative PDF converter. Thanks, Adobe, for creating the flagship commercial PDF product, but NOT properly following basic CSS style rules. Can I have my morning back?
Once I get Journeying done, I'll try to hack out the long-delayed commission for StrawKitty I have in the archives, and then do the same format-conversion to Marian's Road and get to work on that. I've got a whole file of notes and ideas for that one, and I may pull it together with "What do Vampire Cows Eat," and it's yet unwritten sequel, and make it one larger (and properly formatted) work. There will, again, be a good deal of adjustment necessary to WDVCE, both because parts of it are crap, and because Marian's character has evolved a great deal since she was created in that work, and I'll need to make adjustments THERE to reflect how she is now.
I've got a music meme kicking around the back of my head, but don't feel like writing it up ATM. BUT, I do have a question for both of the folks who'll actually read this. What's your pick for the single greatest Rock anthem evar? I need a song to use in Marian's Road for a future scene, and would like to hear some suggestions other than my own. Some early contenders are "Babe" by STYX and "Two out of Three Ain't Bad" by Meatloaf. YouTube linkage for specific versions/covers is appreciated; my music library is far from encyclopedic.
Rochndil, who has survived until Friday once more...
After languishing in my backpack for quite some time, the (now very dog-eared) manuscript for "Journeying Within" that I've marked up and bloodied is finally getting transcribed onto the PC. I've already re-done the primary file format in HTML (both for simplicity and to avoid software incompatibility issues). So far I've got the first chapter finished, and am working on the next. This was the first major story I wrote (for the internet), and while there are some parts I like, a lot of the rest is total crap. Trying to clean it up and improve it to my current standard, without losing the "flavor" of the original material, is difficult. Once I get to adding NEW parts it'll be a lot easier (and faster) for me.
Since FA (with understandable reasons) does not support HTML as a story file format, I'll convert it to PDF for posting here. After much research, testing, and head-desk-banging, I've solved the export issue I had with Adobe Acrobat...by using a shareware alternative PDF converter. Thanks, Adobe, for creating the flagship commercial PDF product, but NOT properly following basic CSS style rules. Can I have my morning back?
Once I get Journeying done, I'll try to hack out the long-delayed commission for StrawKitty I have in the archives, and then do the same format-conversion to Marian's Road and get to work on that. I've got a whole file of notes and ideas for that one, and I may pull it together with "What do Vampire Cows Eat," and it's yet unwritten sequel, and make it one larger (and properly formatted) work. There will, again, be a good deal of adjustment necessary to WDVCE, both because parts of it are crap, and because Marian's character has evolved a great deal since she was created in that work, and I'll need to make adjustments THERE to reflect how she is now.
I've got a music meme kicking around the back of my head, but don't feel like writing it up ATM. BUT, I do have a question for both of the folks who'll actually read this. What's your pick for the single greatest Rock anthem evar? I need a song to use in Marian's Road for a future scene, and would like to hear some suggestions other than my own. Some early contenders are "Babe" by STYX and "Two out of Three Ain't Bad" by Meatloaf. YouTube linkage for specific versions/covers is appreciated; my music library is far from encyclopedic.
Rochndil, who has survived until Friday once more...
Along the way it's gone through a number of file-format changes. The oldest version was written in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, and I've since written it in HTML, various text editors, WordPerfect version 9-11, and finally back to HTML (with a little CSS). I never use Word unless I have no choice in the matter, and the most recent version of WP I have isn't very stable on Win7-64, so I've gone back to native HTML for ease-of-use and long-term compatibility (I doubt ASCII-text files will be unreadable any time soon). This, of course, works fine for direct web uploading (like VCL), but not here on FA, so I spent a frustrating morning trying to get Adobe to create a PDF version that didn't suck. That was finally accomplished by NOT using Adobe at all. Technical issues resolved, I can now concentrate on the actual story.
In this edit I'm trying to incorporate a lot of intelligent criticism of the original story, some of it going back a decade or so. The language was a problem for some, and (gasp!) there were a number of scenes that I just could have handled better. On my end, there were some times when important details were left out, and others where I took too long to do some things and buggered up the plot. Truth be told, though I don't have a lot of TIME these days, I'm just a much better writer now than I was then, and more than a little of the existing story makes me CRINGE on review.
Initially I tried to "raise the bar" with this story, making it a cut above the average "stroke fiction," and I think I accomplished that goal. Now, though, I'm trying to finish fleshing out the concept and do the characters justice as individuals and not just chessmen to be shoved around the board. We'll see how it goes, but I hope that when I get to the end this time, it'll be a more fitting contribution, and more representative of all the gestational time involved. -:)
Rochndil, who has another huge project to do after this one is in the can...