Because I haven't posted in forever
At least it feels that way. And yes, I really should be working on my nano outline, but I'll spend some time with it after dinner. The lack of posting hasn't been for lack of things to post about, I've just gotten bad about keeping this poor thing updated.
Nano:
I guess I'll mention this topic first since I'm procrastination on it. Pretty much I've been working double time on the 2 year novel lessons (yes, I'm using my 2yn for nano), and finished the world building lessons last week, then started on outlining. Let me put this out there before I go to much farther. 1) I'm generally not much of an outliner. 2) I'm a very liner writer, I have to write about event A, so that what happens in A can cause B, and move on from there. That being said, for this year I'm writing a science fiction mystery. This is my first SF novel, and also my first mystery. Luckily the setting is fairly contained, so I won't have to deal with the ins and outs of FTL (faster than light) travel. But there are still lots of new setting details, plus all the mystery on top of that. For the character development I've gotten a very rough set of "road map points" down in my outline - where the main character is at various points in the novel. What she decides to do in the beginning, affects the middle, which affects the end. I've got her major arc down, moving forward in time. Now comes the backwards part thanks to the mystery. I'm planning on figuring out exactly who is the culprit and what clues they leave behind. The reveal is at the end of the book, so I'm there right now, and will be working backwards to plant various clues into my outline. So I'm working forwards and backwards simultaneously. Big yikes here.
Speaking of Nano if anyone is interested in snippets let me know. I may post some, probably F-locked so I don't have rough draft stuff floating about to much.
Windows 7 (of 9 ha):
Next topic on the docket, my computer has a shiny new operating system. Hubby ordered copies for us last week, and they arrived Friday. I spent Friday and Saturday going through my files to delete out stuff I didn't need, and he installed it on Saturday. I had been using Vista for awhile, I didn't go right from XP to 7. The interface of 7 isn't as big a change as it was from XP to Vista. 7 still has the handy little "linked file path", where you can click on any part of a path in Windows Explorer, and some of the general visuals are there. What's new is the "icon" on the task bar instead of more of a longer tab. It's handy how they are grouped, and in the task bar preview, anything grouped will show up next to each other complete with a little x in it's corner to close it out. Vista did have a preview for task bar stuff as well.
Unsleeping is also faster than Vista. Well, Vista called it hibernate, but at any rate my computer comes back up faster than it used to with Vista. It does take a little longer to boot from a full shutdown, but not horribly so. Oh, and when there are updates you are no longer forced to do them to sleep like you were with Vista. In vista the button to hibernate would switch to "update and shutdown" when there were updates. Now granted it's good to upgrade your computer on a regular basis, and that was a handy reminder. But there would be times I'd want to just hibernate and have to shut down instead.
The DPI is also changed as well. For the same screen resolution in 7, things will look bigger and take up more space than the same resolution in Vista or XP. I may bump up my 1152x864 to one of the 12's at some point.
On of my favorite changes is MS Paint, the default program that comes with windows. Vista had made it default to a jpg file type, and every time I used it I had to make sure to switch to png to keep my image from being over compressed. There were a few times I forgot and my pixel art got ruined. In addition to defaulting to png, the 7 version of Paint also has some new brushes. It has an oil paint brush, marker, and a few other fun things. You can also use the shape tool and move the shape around before it's automatically part of the image. Pretty sweet.
The house:
We are still settling into our new home. It's exciting to be home owners now, even though it comes with more responsibilities. There are lots of boxes still waiting to be unpacked, but the majority of the stuff we use on a regular basis is out. This weekend I'll probably unbox more of my computer related stuff, so my writing area is neat for Nano. We've spent a lot of time in the yard, particularly the front, so that isn't as overgrown. Now with the weather turning colder, it'll be a good time to focus on the inside.
Nano:
I guess I'll mention this topic first since I'm procrastination on it. Pretty much I've been working double time on the 2 year novel lessons (yes, I'm using my 2yn for nano), and finished the world building lessons last week, then started on outlining. Let me put this out there before I go to much farther. 1) I'm generally not much of an outliner. 2) I'm a very liner writer, I have to write about event A, so that what happens in A can cause B, and move on from there. That being said, for this year I'm writing a science fiction mystery. This is my first SF novel, and also my first mystery. Luckily the setting is fairly contained, so I won't have to deal with the ins and outs of FTL (faster than light) travel. But there are still lots of new setting details, plus all the mystery on top of that. For the character development I've gotten a very rough set of "road map points" down in my outline - where the main character is at various points in the novel. What she decides to do in the beginning, affects the middle, which affects the end. I've got her major arc down, moving forward in time. Now comes the backwards part thanks to the mystery. I'm planning on figuring out exactly who is the culprit and what clues they leave behind. The reveal is at the end of the book, so I'm there right now, and will be working backwards to plant various clues into my outline. So I'm working forwards and backwards simultaneously. Big yikes here.
Speaking of Nano if anyone is interested in snippets let me know. I may post some, probably F-locked so I don't have rough draft stuff floating about to much.
Windows 7 (of 9 ha):
Next topic on the docket, my computer has a shiny new operating system. Hubby ordered copies for us last week, and they arrived Friday. I spent Friday and Saturday going through my files to delete out stuff I didn't need, and he installed it on Saturday. I had been using Vista for awhile, I didn't go right from XP to 7. The interface of 7 isn't as big a change as it was from XP to Vista. 7 still has the handy little "linked file path", where you can click on any part of a path in Windows Explorer, and some of the general visuals are there. What's new is the "icon" on the task bar instead of more of a longer tab. It's handy how they are grouped, and in the task bar preview, anything grouped will show up next to each other complete with a little x in it's corner to close it out. Vista did have a preview for task bar stuff as well.
Unsleeping is also faster than Vista. Well, Vista called it hibernate, but at any rate my computer comes back up faster than it used to with Vista. It does take a little longer to boot from a full shutdown, but not horribly so. Oh, and when there are updates you are no longer forced to do them to sleep like you were with Vista. In vista the button to hibernate would switch to "update and shutdown" when there were updates. Now granted it's good to upgrade your computer on a regular basis, and that was a handy reminder. But there would be times I'd want to just hibernate and have to shut down instead.
The DPI is also changed as well. For the same screen resolution in 7, things will look bigger and take up more space than the same resolution in Vista or XP. I may bump up my 1152x864 to one of the 12's at some point.
On of my favorite changes is MS Paint, the default program that comes with windows. Vista had made it default to a jpg file type, and every time I used it I had to make sure to switch to png to keep my image from being over compressed. There were a few times I forgot and my pixel art got ruined. In addition to defaulting to png, the 7 version of Paint also has some new brushes. It has an oil paint brush, marker, and a few other fun things. You can also use the shape tool and move the shape around before it's automatically part of the image. Pretty sweet.
The house:
We are still settling into our new home. It's exciting to be home owners now, even though it comes with more responsibilities. There are lots of boxes still waiting to be unpacked, but the majority of the stuff we use on a regular basis is out. This weekend I'll probably unbox more of my computer related stuff, so my writing area is neat for Nano. We've spent a lot of time in the yard, particularly the front, so that isn't as overgrown. Now with the weather turning colder, it'll be a good time to focus on the inside.