Author Archives: harlowclark

About harlowclark

I write. I hope I can get better. That's about it.
May 23, 2012

Write or Die: IT’S AMAZING.

By harlowclark

I know two posts in a day is severely annoying, but you guys have to know this.

I had a chapter to write. Here it is, by the way. I had almost no time to write it in. I was just going to be like, “Lol, sorry guys, but the chapter isn’t gonna come out this week” and surf Reddit.

But then I got on Write or Die. It’s a web app developed to make you keep writing once you start. Believe me. It will. I started typing with absolutely no idea where the chapter was going to go, and in twenty minutes I had it finished. I know that writers say, “Just write and don’t think about it until you’re done and it’s time to edit,” all the time, but be honest. How often do you actually follow that advice?

If you’re like me, you sit there slaving over every last God forsaken sentence when you know that it’s hindering your efforts. I did not do that with Write or Die. I started, and may the Flying Spaghetti Monster have had mercy on my soul if I stopped. In fifteen minutes I had a little over a thousand words. I can not WAIT to use this tool when NaNoWriMo comes around.

I’m so in love with it that I’ve bought the desktop edition. It’s only ten dollars, so if you love it as much as I do I would suggest you get it too. The developer seems super nice, and it feels great to help him out.

He also has an online tool called Editminion that I ran the chapter through a few times before sticking it up on the website, in case you want to check it or , too.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Tools of the Trade

May 23, 2012

I’m Not Busy.

By harlowclark

Holy crap. The new chapter of Divided Lands is supposed to go up today, and I haven’t even started writing it.

I haven’t even started OUTLINING it. I’m not too dreadfully busy. I’ve been publishing articles over at HubPages in my spare time and sticking up photos on RedGage in order to make some extra scratch, but none of that has taken up too much of my time. No. There’s something else that’s been eating away at my Web Fiction writing time. Something much more despicable and hard to push away.

My novel.

I’ll admit that I haven’t given it as much attention since I started the Web Fiction because I thought I’d leave it to NaNoWriMo. Well, I guess I’m going to have to look for a different story to write during the month of November, because that novel was calling me and I just had to answer. I’m going to start writing the actual first draft next week. I’ll try and keep it at 500 words a day so that I can devote the other 500 to making progress on the next chapter of Divided Lands…which, by the way, is completely outlined and ready to go. If anything, I should be working on that since it’s the most likely to get finished at the moment. Creativity has some messed up logic, doesn’t it?

I’m also considering dropping the pen name because, well, it feels really weird. I mean, I’m not PRETENDING to be this other person, and I’ll gladly stick my real name up all over the place. There’s really no point in it, unless I find out that my crappy name really does impact how much money I make in the writing business.

As usual, you can have any photos you see on my RedGage account. Take them and do what you want with them. I’m always in favor of sharing and using. Always.

Leave a comment | posted in Uncategorized

May 15, 2012

Open Ears, Open Mind

By harlowclark
Image representing Audible as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

For years I’ve avoided Audiobooks for fear that I would lose some reading comprehension skills if I didn’t actually read the words on the page, but rather listened to the story  being told. I had been seeing the ads for Audible for a while, and the other day I finally decided to give them a try. I got one month and one book free, so what did I have to lose if I found out I didn’t like the concept of the “talking book”?

Much to my surprise, I did. Listening to Carolyn McCormick reading The Hunger Games was not only relaxing, but hard. I’d been afraid that I would lose my reading comprehension skills if I listened to too many audiobooks, but I actually found myself trying harder to think—to picture the story in my mind and not forget what I had just heard.

My immediate thought was that listening to audiobooks would actually increase my reading comprehension, not hurt it. I did some research on the topic (i.e., a quick Google search) and found out that I was right.

Audiobooks stimulate the imagination by forcing you to try harder to really imagine what’s going on. If you don’t, you  may have to rewind…the horror!

Hearing the story also has positive effects on grammar and helps readers to understand the tone of the story (and other stories he/she might read in the future).

My guess is that listening to an audiobook alongside reading the print version would be even better—especially for children and those who have problems reading.

I wouldn’t by any means replace good old text with audiobooks, though. I also wouldn’t just read books in print and never experience the imagination stimulating effects of hearing an audiobook, either. In my opinion, experiencing both, and regularly, is worthwhile.

When imagination (and adventure) calls, answer.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Unrelated Yet Fun

May 11, 2012

My Summer Reading List

By harlowclark
Books

Books (Photo credit: henry…)

I managed to come up with a nice, handsome reading list to keep me entertained (and in the writing mood as well) throughout this lonely, empty summer. Most of it’s books that are just collecting dust on my kindle, but a few of them are volumes that I’ve started reading but never quite finished.

  1. The God Part of the Brain, by Matthew Alper. Yeah, I know I’m a bit late on this one. It was published quite some time ago, and from what I can tell so far the Scientific information is a bit dated. All in all, though, it’s a pretty insightful read for those of us looking to ponder the grand scheme of things knowing fairly well that we probably won’t get an answer.
  2. Thinking Write, by Kelly L. Stone. I’m about halfway through this one. I don’t know how much of the whole Subconscious mind/Conscious mind stuff is actually true, but the advice on relaxing to help your ideas flow more smoothly has been beyond valuable.
  3. Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo. This one’s a classic. So far it seems amazing, even though I only flipped through a few pages when I first bought it and then put it away to “finish later”.
  4. The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman. I’ve really been meaning to get into the His Dark Materials series for quite some time, and I figured that this summer is as good a time as any.

I know it’s only four books right now, but I plan on adding to it as I go along. I usually try to read a book a month, anyway, and always end up having to find more books to fill the extra time. There’s just something magical about owning a Kindle. It makes it absolutely impossible to not read everywhere you go when you have all of your books with you in your purse at once.

Remember, folks: reading often is the key to better writing!

New chapter of Divided Lands is out, too. 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Personal Posts

May 3, 2012

By harlowclark
Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Just a few quick  updates: I’ve changed my Twitter account because I learned the hard way that if you follow back everyone who follows you, your timeline will be filled with nothing but misspelled idiocy and you won’t reap the full benefits of a service such as Twitter.

I’ve started using Scrivener because there’s an unofficial Linux version in beta right now that’s free to use until, of course, it’s out of beta. Yay for the unseen benefits to using Linux! So far I’m absolutely in love with the program because it helps me keep all the random scraps of notes and ramblings on my story that normally just litter my desktops and folders into a searchable organized hierarchy. I loves me a search function. I can never find something manually. I can see anything I’m working on anytime I want without having to click through folder after folder. Plus I can mark and tag things, and of course there’s the ever useful Compile feature or people like me who have absolutely no clue how to get unformatted text into a format that I can easily upload to Createspace of KDP or something of that sort.

If you’re a Linux-o-phile like me and are having some trouble installing it, try what I did—just download both of the files in the forum on the BETA release post and don’t touch them. Just keep them in the downloads folder where they are and click through the Scrivener folder until you get to the directory that has the Scrivener program in it. For some reason, mine would only work if I did it that way. I’m not good with computers, you see.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Uncategorized

April 25, 2012

I Come Bearing Links

By harlowclark

I’ve recently spoken out against CISPA, which thankfully didn’t go to vote Monday when I had heard it would.

It’s actually going to vote Friday. I’ve dove into the Internet to learn the possible dangers of this bill, and I have returned bearing links and a new, completely unrelated disdain for homeopathy.

Well, more like A link.

This link. The mother of all links which only really contains more links. Hey, at least I didn’t make a post out of this guy’s links and say I came up with it all on my own. Plus, you know, I’m not entirely sure how I could put a download link to that PDF in my blog post. I’m technologically retarded, and get this, I actually DON’T use a Mac!

I think this might work though. If it does, here’s the PDF. Spread it around. Print it out. Show it to your momma.

Thank you, Reddit, for keeping me in the loop. I would still be a shut-in when it comes to matters both online and offline due to my writing addiction if it wasn’t for you, even if you do keep me from getting a damn thing done.

Also, the newest chapter of Divided Lands is up, exactly one week after I put up the last one. Maybe I’m finally back on schedule?

Leave a comment | posted in Uncategorized

April 23, 2012

Get Your Hands off Our Internet. Seriously. There are Horrible Things Here Not Meant for Mortal Eyes.

By harlowclark
CISPA - The solution is the problem

CISPA - The solution is the problem (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

So today CISPA, which is basically SOPA if it was Anakin revived as Darth Vader, is going to be voted on. Unlike with SOPA, however, the internet didn’t seem to care as much. Hell, I didn’t even know the damn thing existed until last week, and in the time it took me to figure out enough about it to do a blog post the bill was already scheduled to be voted on. So, you know, bear with me if I don’t know too much about CISPA. Not even reddit shoved this one too far into my face.

Basically, from what I can gather, CISPA is exactly like SOPA with the exception that it allows the government to snoop through your e-mails and other personal information with absolutely no warrant or notice.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about it, because right about now you know just as much as I do.

Unless, of course, you were a good little activist unlike me and did your homework.

I’m not going to pretend that I thought SOPA was gone forever. I thought we had a short break from the major corporations continuing to try and strange innovation and stop the world from moving forward just so that they can make $32,000,000,000 this month instead of just the $25,000,000,000 that they’ve been making. It just turns out that the aforementioned break was a hell of a lot shorter than I expected. The damn thing snuck up on us while we were still weary from fighting SOPA.

I don’t think they’re going to stop. In fact, I know they won’t stop. Their world revolves around the glorious almighty dollar. They might as well build a shrine to it, bow down to it, and worship it.

Now, I don’t talk politics or economics on my writing blog very often, so a lot of you probably don’t know that Ayn Rand and I would more than likely not see eye to eye. Atlas Shrugged is supposed to be a story about a man who “wanted to stop the motor of the world.”

I couldn’t agree more that such is what our society has come to. In the name of big business, our “leaders” are willing to stop the damn world from turning and freeze time right where it stands.  What they don’t know, however, is that this isn’t just their world.

We live in it, too, and if we’re smart we aren’t going to take it.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in News

April 18, 2012

I’m Back, Baby.

By harlowclark
Tux, the Linux penguin

I love this adorable smart-assed penguin.

As soon as I got this adorable little Netbook I purged it of the giant virus that was Windows and set up Ubuntu. Then I got started on Chapter 5 to my story, which I just finished and put up here.

With all respect to Windows, it really is a great operating system. It just has absolutely nothing on anything Linux, and it’s not like I’m going to be able to play all of those fancy Windows games I used to play on a cheap little Netbook anyway…especially one that I got just for the purpose of taking notes in class and typing away at my equivalent of crack—my stories. I love first drafting in pen and paper, but let’s face it: it’s all gotta get typed up eventually.

To make a long story short, I’m back from my  hiatus because my old computer that became broken beyond repair (it came back from the every so trustworthy computer repair shop with the keyboard bent into a “U” shape) was finally replaced, and I’m planning on treating this one as if it was the Messiah.

Aapparently carrying computers clutched to your chest like a stack of books, like I carried my old computer, isn’t treating them like a religious figure.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in News

April 12, 2012

Armed with a ne…

By harlowclark

Armed with a netbook and a fuzzy brain that hasn’t written a decent thing in weeks, I am once again setting out on a quest to maintain a blog and a decent story on the web. This little computer is absolutely perfect for writing and I couldn’t be happier with it. I just hope the next chapter doesn’t go downhill and leave my jacking off in San Diego.

Oh, how sincerely I hope.

Leave a comment | posted in Uncategorized

March 25, 2012

The Short Story of How I Almost Lost Everything

By harlowclark

Let me tell you, there is nothing more fun than stealing a relative’s computer to update your lonely little blog in the middle of the day while stuffing your face full of Nature’s Own bars.

Oh God…the crumbs.

I thought my computer (and half of my novel) would be gone forever when the people at the computer shop said my hard drive was smashed and it would take thousands upon thousands (the smug little bastard continued saying “upon thousands” until we asked him to stop) of dollars to recover what little data they could. Of course, I suspected they were trying to scam us a little bit—that’s what those people do, after all, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. They assume people who wouldn’t fall for their scams would be able to fix their own computers. That’s partly true, but my boyfriend really is quite good at fixing computers. He just hasn’t had any experience with a laptop at all whatsoever because he’s more of a desktop person. I am too, but when life gives you laptops you set yourself up a shiny little home office and pretend it’s a desktop. Or make laptop-ade by knocking it into the floor like I unfortunately did.

I decided to get a second opinion from this guy who IS good with laptops, however, and he told me the hard drive is in perfect condition and only needs to be popped back in. Also, they broke my keyboard. All in all it should cost about twelve bucks for my mother’s wonderful human being of a friend to fix, and I won’t lose anything at all. Yay! That means I’ll be back soon.

I want to thank all of those computer hardware guys who fix their friend’s genuinely broken computers out of the kindness of their hearts. The world needs more nice people like you.

And, you know, another big thanks to all of those people who roll their eyes and run a virus scanner to “fix” the computers of people who can barely get theirs to run because of all of the “freescreensaver.exe”s that they’ve downloaded over the months. You guys have to put up with the elderly, and for that I commend you.

Leave a comment | posted in News

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