I'm learning a few things about online writing over at my serial fiction blog, The Sword of Bayne. Here they are:
1.) Adsense doesn't have a clue about what kind of ads to put at the top of the Bayne blog. One day there are ads about war memorabilia, the next day is for Katrina relief, then the next day there are ads about pictures of angels. Just funny in an odd, quirky sort of way.
2.) Outlining helps. While I have a mental outline of "The Fallen God" storyline, I don't have a completely worked out outline on paper. A stronger outline would make the story stronger. Most noticably, if I had been writing a Bayne short story or novel, I probably would not have started the story until someplace like Part 8 of "The Fallen God." As is, the story starts a bit too soon, so there's some meandering around.
3.) I'm writing first draft material in the Bayne blog, and it's obvious, at least to me. No, the prose isn't the worst in the world, and there aren't a ton of mistakes all over the place, but the writing could be a lot tighter. When working on the first draft of a short story or novel, I allow myself to throw in all kinds of stuff, then I cut back on it in revision. Since there's not really any major revisions to the Bayne blog, a lot of that extra stuff is getting in permanently. For example, the Cutter character has been given more time in text than I would have if writing in a different venue.
4.) My dialogue sucks, at least for first draft.
5.) The Bayne blog has helped me to get back in the mood for writing. I haven't written much in the last few months because I've been doing revision work on ye olde trilogy, but the blog has me wanting to write again. I need to finish this darn trilogy so I can move on to other stuff.
Just observations.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Counting Crows lyrics
Okay, for those of you who don't know, Counting Crows is likely my favorite band. It's definitely my favorite band that's still together. Here are some of my fav lyrics by them:
Round Here
"Step out the front door
like a ghost into the fog
where no one notices the contrast of white on white.
And in between the moon and you
The angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
I walk in the air between the rain
Through myself and back again.
Where? I don't know.
Maria says she's dying
Through the door I hear her crying.
Why? I don't know."
Rain King
"When I think of heaven
Deliver me in a black-winged bird
I think of dying.
Lay me down in a field of flame and heather
Render up my body into the burning heart of God
In the belly of a black-winged bird"
Raining in Baltimore
"There's things I remember and things I forget,
I miss you, I guess that I should.
Three thousand five hundred miles away
But what would you change if you could?
I need a phone call.
Maybe I should buy a new car.
I can always hear a freight train,
baby if I listen real hard.
And I wish it was a small world
Because I'm lonely for the big towns.
I'd like to hear a little guitar,
I guess it's time to put the top down.
I need a phone call.
I need a raincoat.
I really, really need a raincoat."
Catapult
"I wanna be the last thing that you hear when you're falling asleep.
I wanna be the knife that cuts into my hand
And I want to be scattered
From here in this catupult.
What a big baby,
Won't somebeody save me please.
I can't find nobody home."
I'm Not Sleeping
"1-2-3-4-5-6-7 a.m.
All alone again
But I've been through all this shit before.
Spend my nights in self defense
Crying about my innocence
But I ain't all that innocent anymore, more, more."
Goodnight Elisabeth
"We couldn't all be cowboys
So some of us are clowns.
Some of us are dancers on the midway
We roam from town to town."
A Long December
"The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls.
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl.
And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood.
If you think you might come to California...
I think you should.
Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year.
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower
about the things you could not show her
And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last."
Amy Hit the Atmosphere
"If I could make it rain today
And wash away this sunny day down to the gutter,
I would.
Just to get a change of pace,
Things are getting worse, but I feel a lot better
And that's all that really matters to me."
All My Friends
"Thought I might get a rocket ride
When I was a child
But it was a lie
That I told myself when I needed something good.
At 17 had a better dream
Now I'm 33 and it isn't me
But I'd think of something better if I could."
Black and Blue
"Fading everything to black and blue
You look a lot like you
Shatter in the blink of an eye.
You keep sailing right on through
Every time you say you're learning
You just look a lot like me
Pale under the blistering sky."
Holiday in Spain
"Got no place to go
but there's a girl waiting for me down in Mexico.
She's got a bottle of tequila
a bottle of gin
And if I bring a little music I can fit right in.
We've got airplane rides
We got California drowning out the window side
We've got big black cars
And we've got stories how we slept with all the movie stars.
I may
take a holiday in Spain."
Chelsea
"Its good for everybody to hurt somebody once in a while.
The things I do to people I love shouldnt be allowed.
Something about the buildings in Chelsea just kills me."
Margery Dreams of Horses
"I took the train from California
To the far side of the continent.
Woke up in Kentucky
Where a wedding was about to end.
I looked up at Anna,
She turned back to look at me.
It's best to kill the ones that matter,
Render blind the ones who see."
Round Here
"Step out the front door
like a ghost into the fog
where no one notices the contrast of white on white.
And in between the moon and you
The angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
I walk in the air between the rain
Through myself and back again.
Where? I don't know.
Maria says she's dying
Through the door I hear her crying.
Why? I don't know."
Rain King
"When I think of heaven
Deliver me in a black-winged bird
I think of dying.
Lay me down in a field of flame and heather
Render up my body into the burning heart of God
In the belly of a black-winged bird"
Raining in Baltimore
"There's things I remember and things I forget,
I miss you, I guess that I should.
Three thousand five hundred miles away
But what would you change if you could?
I need a phone call.
Maybe I should buy a new car.
I can always hear a freight train,
baby if I listen real hard.
And I wish it was a small world
Because I'm lonely for the big towns.
I'd like to hear a little guitar,
I guess it's time to put the top down.
I need a phone call.
I need a raincoat.
I really, really need a raincoat."
Catapult
"I wanna be the last thing that you hear when you're falling asleep.
I wanna be the knife that cuts into my hand
And I want to be scattered
From here in this catupult.
What a big baby,
Won't somebeody save me please.
I can't find nobody home."
I'm Not Sleeping
"1-2-3-4-5-6-7 a.m.
All alone again
But I've been through all this shit before.
Spend my nights in self defense
Crying about my innocence
But I ain't all that innocent anymore, more, more."
Goodnight Elisabeth
"We couldn't all be cowboys
So some of us are clowns.
Some of us are dancers on the midway
We roam from town to town."
A Long December
"The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls.
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl.
And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood.
If you think you might come to California...
I think you should.
Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year.
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower
about the things you could not show her
And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last."
Amy Hit the Atmosphere
"If I could make it rain today
And wash away this sunny day down to the gutter,
I would.
Just to get a change of pace,
Things are getting worse, but I feel a lot better
And that's all that really matters to me."
All My Friends
"Thought I might get a rocket ride
When I was a child
But it was a lie
That I told myself when I needed something good.
At 17 had a better dream
Now I'm 33 and it isn't me
But I'd think of something better if I could."
Black and Blue
"Fading everything to black and blue
You look a lot like you
Shatter in the blink of an eye.
You keep sailing right on through
Every time you say you're learning
You just look a lot like me
Pale under the blistering sky."
Holiday in Spain
"Got no place to go
but there's a girl waiting for me down in Mexico.
She's got a bottle of tequila
a bottle of gin
And if I bring a little music I can fit right in.
We've got airplane rides
We got California drowning out the window side
We've got big black cars
And we've got stories how we slept with all the movie stars.
I may
take a holiday in Spain."
Chelsea
"Its good for everybody to hurt somebody once in a while.
The things I do to people I love shouldnt be allowed.
Something about the buildings in Chelsea just kills me."
Margery Dreams of Horses
"I took the train from California
To the far side of the continent.
Woke up in Kentucky
Where a wedding was about to end.
I looked up at Anna,
She turned back to look at me.
It's best to kill the ones that matter,
Render blind the ones who see."
Monday, May 28, 2007
Groucho Marx quotes
"Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
"Why was I with her? She reminds me of you."
" From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."
"Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot."
"I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book."
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
"Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first."
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted. "
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
"Why was I with her? She reminds me of you."
" From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."
"Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot."
"I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book."
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
"Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first."
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted. "
Oscar Wilde quotes
Some of my favorite quotes by the infamous Oscar Wilde:
"America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up."
"A poet can survive everything but a misprint. "
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. "
"A true friend stabs you in the front."
"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."
"By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."
"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. "
"I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead."
"If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all."
"In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust. "
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written."
"There is no sin except stupidity. "
"America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up."
"A poet can survive everything but a misprint. "
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. "
"A true friend stabs you in the front."
"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."
"By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."
"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. "
"I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead."
"If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all."
"In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust. "
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written."
"There is no sin except stupidity. "
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Metallica lyrics
They have more songs I like than those to be mentioned here, but these are my favorite snippets of lyrics from Metallica:
To Live is to Die
"When a Man Lies
He Murders Some Part of the World
These Are the Pale Deaths Which Men Miscall Their Lives
All this I Cannot Bear to Witness Any Longer
Cannot the Kingdom of Salvation Take Me Home "
Blackened
"Opposition... Contradiction... Premonition... Compromise,
Agitation... Violation... Mutilation... Planet Dies"
"Termination... Expiration... Cancellation... Human Race,
Expectation... Liberation... Population... Lay to Waste"
...And Justice For All
"The Ultimate in Vanity
Exploiting Their Supremacy
I Can't Believe the Things You Say
I Can't Believe
I Can't Believe the Price We Pay
Nothing Can Save You
Justice Is Lost
Justice Is Raped
Justice Is Gone
Pulling Your Strings
Justice Is Done
Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real"
Eye of the Beholder
"Do You Fear What I Fear?
Living Properly
Truths to You Are Lies to Me.
Do You Choose What I Choose?
More Alternives
Energy Derives from Both the plus and Negative.
Do You Need What I Need?
Boundaries Overthrown
Look Inside to Each His Own.
Do You Trust What I Trust?
Me, Myself and I
Penetrate the Smoke Screen I See Through the Selfish lie"
Harvester of Sorrow
"My Life Suffocates
Planting Seeds of Hate
I've Loved, Turned to Hate
Trapped Far Beyond My Fate
I Give
You Take
This Life That I Forsake
Been Cheated of My Youth
You Turned this Lie to Truth
Anger
Misery
You'll Suffer unto Me"
The Unforgiven
"they dedicate their lives
to running all of his
he tries to please them all
this bitter man he is
throughout his life the same
he's battled constantly
this fight he cannot win
a tired man they see no longer cares
the old man then prepares
to die regretfully
that old man here is me"
Wherever I May Roam
"...and with dust in throat I crave
only knowledge will I save
to the game you stay a slave
rover
wanderer
nomad
vagabond
call me what you will"
The Outlaw Torn
"Hear me
And if I close my mind in fear
Please pry it open.
See me
And if my face becomes sincere
Beware.
Hold me
And when I start to come undone
Stitch me together.
Save me
And when you see me strut
remind me of what left this outlaw torn"
To Live is to Die
"When a Man Lies
He Murders Some Part of the World
These Are the Pale Deaths Which Men Miscall Their Lives
All this I Cannot Bear to Witness Any Longer
Cannot the Kingdom of Salvation Take Me Home "
Blackened
"Opposition... Contradiction... Premonition... Compromise,
Agitation... Violation... Mutilation... Planet Dies"
"Termination... Expiration... Cancellation... Human Race,
Expectation... Liberation... Population... Lay to Waste"
...And Justice For All
"The Ultimate in Vanity
Exploiting Their Supremacy
I Can't Believe the Things You Say
I Can't Believe
I Can't Believe the Price We Pay
Nothing Can Save You
Justice Is Lost
Justice Is Raped
Justice Is Gone
Pulling Your Strings
Justice Is Done
Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real"
Eye of the Beholder
"Do You Fear What I Fear?
Living Properly
Truths to You Are Lies to Me.
Do You Choose What I Choose?
More Alternives
Energy Derives from Both the plus and Negative.
Do You Need What I Need?
Boundaries Overthrown
Look Inside to Each His Own.
Do You Trust What I Trust?
Me, Myself and I
Penetrate the Smoke Screen I See Through the Selfish lie"
Harvester of Sorrow
"My Life Suffocates
Planting Seeds of Hate
I've Loved, Turned to Hate
Trapped Far Beyond My Fate
I Give
You Take
This Life That I Forsake
Been Cheated of My Youth
You Turned this Lie to Truth
Anger
Misery
You'll Suffer unto Me"
The Unforgiven
"they dedicate their lives
to running all of his
he tries to please them all
this bitter man he is
throughout his life the same
he's battled constantly
this fight he cannot win
a tired man they see no longer cares
the old man then prepares
to die regretfully
that old man here is me"
Wherever I May Roam
"...and with dust in throat I crave
only knowledge will I save
to the game you stay a slave
rover
wanderer
nomad
vagabond
call me what you will"
The Outlaw Torn
"Hear me
And if I close my mind in fear
Please pry it open.
See me
And if my face becomes sincere
Beware.
Hold me
And when I start to come undone
Stitch me together.
Save me
And when you see me strut
remind me of what left this outlaw torn"
Saturday, May 26, 2007
from Moby Dick
"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!"
by Herman Melville
from "Moby Dick"
by Herman Melville
from "Moby Dick"
Foo Fighters lyrics
"Were you born to resist or be abused?"
"Has someone taken your faith?
It's real,
the pain you feel.
The life,
the love,
you'd die to heal.
The hope
that starts
the broken hearts.
You trust,
you must.
Confess.
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?"
lyrics by the Foo Fighters
song: "The Best of You"
"Has someone taken your faith?
It's real,
the pain you feel.
The life,
the love,
you'd die to heal.
The hope
that starts
the broken hearts.
You trust,
you must.
Confess.
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?"
lyrics by the Foo Fighters
song: "The Best of You"
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