Short Stuff: Business 2.0, OneNote, New Projects and Mom
October 17, 2007 by John Hewitt
- I just received my final issue of Business 2.0 magazine this week. Business 2.0 was a pretty good magazine that concentrated on new business ideas, startup companies and internet-based companies. It was part of the TimeWarner publishing juggernaut, which was probably both a blessing and a curse. While TW has a lot of money and clout, they are very focused on the bottom line, and that means a magazine either has to succeed wildly or it is viewed as a failure. Those are difficult standards to live up to. The truly disappointing outcome of this is that Business 2.0 isn’t even going to continue on the web. TW is folding all of the remaining writers into Fortune magazine instead. I hope they can make that magazine a little less lousy.
- I wanted to give my official blessing to Microsoft’s OneNote application. Over the past ten years or so, the highest compliment I have given to a Microsoft product has been “adequate”, but OneNote really is a small wonder and especially handy for writers. It works like an electronic notebook. You have a series of tabs under which you can store articles, graphics, audio files, video files, notes and just about anything else that strikes your fancy. It allows you to move and shuffle these things around in ways that makes sense to you,. Its is like a powerful scrapbook. I have been using it to work on my poetry project and my web articles. After a month of pleading I finally got it at work so I can use it for research on my technical writing projects. Check it out if you get the chance.
- The recently finished 30 Poems in 30 Days project was a such a great success that I would love to do another project in November, but I’m not sure what that project would be. I am open to suggestions so feel free to leave your ideas. Is there any other writing topic the community would like to focus on?
Finally, I wanted to post a picture of my mother. A year ago she went in for aortic bypass surgery. There were complications that left her on death’s door for months. Her heart stopped more than once. Her kidneys stopped functioning and she gained over 100 pounds of water weight. She was in a coma for over a month and hospitalized for six months. She’s home now, and after a great deal of physical therapy is able to walk with the help of a cane. It’s been a long hard year for our family, but this weekend my mother was able to attend my wife’s birthday party at Agua Caliente park. I just wanted to say how proud I am of her hard work and how happy I am to have her home.
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Fiction Character Development Workshop would be nice…
-I am toying with starting a work of fiction (loose ideas floating around the head) there might be something there worthwhile.
30 characters in 30 days may be too ambitious, but 30 character descriptions, or 30 traits may be more attainable.
Just a hairbrain idea… which is where must of my good stuff starts!
Interesting Jamesa, I have been having the same thoughts. A cast of characters and character development. I would be curious to see what they might do together, these characters I have had in my imagination all of my life. Even looked for in Real Life or even somtimes, acted out in my life.
30 Days of Character Development? Thats an interesting idea. I have been considering a fiction-related project but I wasn’t sure what to focus on. I’ll give this some consideration. Does anyone else have ideas?
First of all, three cheers for your Mum being home, and congratulations to her on coming through all that! She looks like a lovely lady.
Ha, the character development suggestion would dovetail very nicely with what Pam (co-facilitator) and I are doing with WordsFlow, the local writers’ group, just lately. I could direct all those participants with internet access to come and join in whatever you devise here! In fact I’ll do that anyway, of course.
I decided not to do NaNoWriMo this year, though it’s SOOOOO tempting. (Still reeling from the marathon of my first NaNo last year, and the truly awful novel I produced.) This might keep me happy instead.
I am also thinking that next year, if we could move things up a bit and create our characters in October, we’d be all set for NaNo next November – those of us who wanted to do it. So we’d have to have the poetry September, maybe… Did you realise you were creating an annual program? (With a little help from your cheekier friends.)
For those who may be mystified, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, only it’s international by now with thousands of participants. Everyone goes like crazy to produce 50,000 words of a (new) novel in the month of November. There’s a whole website set up to support participants. It all started with a few pals in California who had this mad idea….
Oh yes, and speaking of thousands of participants, did you know that Blog Action Day ended up with 20,603 registered participants and over 23,000 posts on the subject of the environment? I haven’t read them all yet, but I did see some excellent ideas promulgated, and some good discussions started, and I had my own brain cells shaken about and rattled, air let into dusty corners and so on.
Character development would be interesting. In the fiction vein, voice would also be good. 1st/2nd/3rd person. Or the architecture of a novel. At the moment I’m struggling with an unreliable narrator and the technical and tone issues of moving back and forth between time frames while still having the “character arc” drive my book towards it conclusion.
If people want to get ready for NaNoWriMo, I could do a ten day project running from the 20th to the 30th (I have a wedding on Halloween). That will give everyone a chance to get ready for that project, and ten days is probably a good number for that topic.
Yes, who wants 30 characters? 10’s plenty.
I’m gratified that my suggestion sounds good to so many people. I will be taking a vacation at Thanksgiving (US) time frame, which will caus me to miss through the 25th, but after then I am game!
James Garner,
I hope that your trip is wonderful and I hope that you get there and back safely, have fun
John,
The site doesn’t show that i’ve logged in, but if I click on login it sayd that i’m logged on, Do you know why?
NEVERMIND I just figured it out.
John,
OK, Thank you.
One question, Maestro – are we going to have the weekly poetry exercise too, or shall we skip that for the 10 days?
I’ve just joined and am excited to start.
John, your mom sounds like one strong woman…. I wish her the best!
Josh, Welcome! I like the feeling of there being “regulars” here. It seems cozier. : )
All, there is an excellent website called http://www.magazinedeathpool.com. Very little is known about the creator who won’t even reveal their sex. Nonetheless, they are very creative and their website drips with dry humor and cynicism (my favorite type). You guys should check it out.
Sandra Cano,
They should put it in a regular magazine if they don’t already have it. I don’t really like the internet, I would rather subscribe to it and get it in the mail. It sounds great though.
John,
I tip my hat to your mom, she beautiful and strong. May she be filled with happiness and wonder.
Everyone,
(5 Day Beauty)
(For a week, write a poem about masking self beauty, unrelated human, Camera’s inside, mirrors depart and dissapearing shadows.)
James,
Thank you soooooooo much!!
Hi Josh!
Josh,
I’m really glad your here!!!!
Thank you Sandra
Thank you Rosemary
Thank you Rianon
Rianon told me about this site.
John,
My mom is amazing as well, I can understand how you feel. When your that closs to your mom it really puts a stinger on you when she is hurt.
A few more face…
Happy
Sad
Very Sad :-C
Winking (joking)
Laughter
Tongue in cheek
Confused :-S
Doubtful :-/
Blank
Cool, thanks. I think I’ve been using the wink one not as a joke but as a Cool or There you go. Would that be ok?
Also how do you do the tongue in cheek and Laughter, what do you press? There neet.
Just trying something: :0
James Garner,
Nope didn’t work like I thought it would. I think it’s more of a shock look don’t you think? I like to express myself in faces, it’s fun!!!
Peace!!!!