I highly recommend you finding your own Matt (or preferably Matts) and really trying to work together on something I know you'll end up even more proud of than if you did it yourself.
Heck, I've been looking for "Matt" for 20 years!
Bill, you seem to be on an emotional high in your last few posts, including your "Man-Bag" video, which made me chuckle a few times (remind me not to call you on your cell phone!).
Anyhow, I'll try to make my writing history brief. I recall trying to write a story in the fourth grade, and then a more serious attempt in the sixth grade, which got me bumped up to the highest-level English class when one of my friends showed my chapters to his English teacher. I wrote several things in high school too. All this was before the days of widespread word processors (they still had MECHANICAL typewriters in my school back then!), so all this was written in notebooks, only a few of which I still have.
I really didn't discover word processors until "Speedscript" came out for the Atari (via type-in listings in "Compute!" magazine), then I never looked back. My use of "fancy" computer printing techniques backfired on me in a college English class; the instructor held up my paper in front of the class (with a fancy title page with big bold fonts!) and said "what's this? A VIDEO paper?" He saw it as an attempt to mask the deficiencies of my document, which it in fact was. :-(
I used to alternate between two writing techniques (I only occasionally write anymore). The first technique is just plain-old stream-of-consciousness writing, going back and editing it afterward. When you're "on fire," you just have to let it flow!
The second technique is probably the more workable: the "outline method." First, you write all the story points you want to cover, with a grab-bag of ideas, in no particular order. Then, you try to organize all the concepts into a broad OUTLINE, laying out the basic flow of your story or document. After that, you break down your outline into further sub-heads, going as far as the paragraph level. From there, you basically write each paragraph from each section of the outline. This method is sort of like "programming" a document! Hey, that's what I'll call it: the "programming method" of writing!
This outline method has the advantage of letting you see your story flow from a broad perspective, even rearranging parts as you see fit ("object oriented!"). You can then go to the "Jack shoots alien" heading and write the paragraph around it.
Another advantage of the "outline" method is that you can go back to an unfinished document after a long layoff and jump right back into writing it with much less back-reading and trying to "re-connect." It's sort of like "nibbling away" at a document or story idea; you can slowly fill in your outline until the document is complete.
That's all I'll say for now (it's bedtime). A quick thing: keep the fire! I'll quote Rocky's trainer Mick from "Rocky III:"
"Now, three years ago, you was supernatural. You was... You was hard, and you was nasty and you had this cast-iron jaw. But then, the worst thing happened to you that could happen to any fighter. You got civilized."
I highly recommend you finding your own Matt (or preferably Matts) and really trying to work together on something I know you'll end up even more proud of than if you did it yourself.
Heck, I've been looking for "Matt" for 20 years!
Bill, you seem to be on an emotional high in your last few posts, including your "Man-Bag" video, which made me chuckle a few times (remind me not to call you on your cell phone!).
Anyhow, I'll try to make my writing history brief. I recall trying to write a story in the fourth grade, and then a more serious attempt in the sixth grade, which got me bumped up to the highest-level English class when one of my friends showed my chapters to his English teacher. I wrote several things in high school too. All this was before the days of widespread word processors (they still had MECHANICAL typewriters in my school back then!), so all this was written in notebooks, only a few of which I still have.
I really didn't discover word processors until "Speedscript" came out for the Atari (via type-in listings in "Compute!" magazine), then I never looked back. My use of "fancy" computer printing techniques backfired on me in a college English class; the instructor held up my paper in front of the class (with a fancy title page with big bold fonts!) and said "what's this? A VIDEO paper?" He saw it as an attempt to mask the deficiencies of my document, which it in fact was. :-(
I used to alternate between two writing techniques (I only occasionally write anymore). The first technique is just plain-old stream-of-consciousness writing, going back and editing it afterward. When you're "on fire," you just have to let it flow!
The second technique is probably the more workable: the "outline method." First, you write all the story points you want to cover, with a grab-bag of ideas, in no particular order. Then, you try to organize all the concepts into a broad OUTLINE, laying out the basic flow of your story or document. After that, you break down your outline into further sub-heads, going as far as the paragraph level. From there, you basically write each paragraph from each section of the outline. This method is sort of like "programming" a document! Hey, that's what I'll call it: the "programming method" of writing!
This outline method has the advantage of letting you see your story flow from a broad perspective, even rearranging parts as you see fit ("object oriented!"). You can then go to the "Jack shoots alien" heading and write the paragraph around it.
Another advantage of the "outline" method is that you can go back to an unfinished document after a long layoff and jump right back into writing it with much less back-reading and trying to "re-connect." It's sort of like "nibbling away" at a document or story idea; you can slowly fill in your outline until the document is complete.
That's all I'll say for now (it's bedtime). A quick thing: keep the fire! I'll quote Rocky's trainer Mick from "Rocky III:"
"Now, three years ago, you was supernatural. You was... You was hard, and you was nasty and you had this cast-iron jaw. But then, the worst thing happened to you that could happen to any fighter. You got civilized."
qoj hpmoj o+ 6uo73q 3Jv 3svq jnoh 77V