NaNoWriMo 2023 Check In

I’m behind my 30,000 word goal, which is why I’m writing this post as a fallback instead of something longer and unrelated to NaNoWriMo. It’s still possible for me to maintain a pace that gets me done on time, but I haven’t been making as much progress in my free time as I’d like.

My biggest issue this year is that I’m still not allowing myself to write freely. I’m thinking a little too much in the moment, trying to self-edit, and not just getting a story out there that can be refined at a later date.

Yet I’m happy with the work I’ve done so far. I think I have the bones of compelling stories, and I look forward to coming back to them after this month is over when I’m ready to do some editing in earnest.

Going Back to iA Writer

I’ve finally decided to go back to using iA Writer on my iPad. This has several knock-on effects, with the most notable being that my drafts will all be synced via iCloud.

I say “drafts” because my plan is still to use Dropbox as long-term storage. I now have a monthly reminder to copy completed blog posts over to the proper spot in Dropbox1I’m sure there’s some automation to do this, but I don’t really care enough for the scale at which I work. and will only use iCloud for in-progress work.

I’ll continue checking iA Writer’s stability with Dropbox. However, I’m content to use an app I thoroughly enjoy for a small bugaboo of a process change. Plus, the WordPress integration is a true integration, rather than a Javascript-based set of actions that amounts to a copy-paste.

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    I’m sure there’s some automation to do this, but I don’t really care enough for the scale at which I work.

Five Years of Comical Start

Last week I released Episode 257 of Comical Start, Pockets of Conversation. Its publish date is just a few days after the 5th year anniversary of our first episode, Multiverse. Grant was unable to record with me, so here is a lightly-edited transcript1I used the slick program MacWhisper to get this done. of the 25 minute monologue that I did off the dome.

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    I used the slick program MacWhisper to get this done.

MuseScore and the Democratization of Document Creation

I find music scores to be absolutely beautiful documents. In middle school I was engrossed by creating my own music and, more importantly, writing it down. There’s video evidence of me being jazzed about receiving a “Lyricist’s Notebook” for Christmas around that time. I also recall purchasing a journal of staff paper for ambitious ideas I had. Yet turning musical ideas into something that can be shared, let alone something that would look good, felt out of reach. When the itch to create music struck me again last week I remembered a new-to-me program, MuseScore, that changed everything.

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