I have found that editing on a netbook is less than ideal, especially when the MS Word document is over 300 pages... single-spaced... size 11 font. A lot of the time, I find myself wanting to reference a different portion of the book to keep with consistency and then I have to juggle with keeping two spots in one mega electronic document.
Thankfully, I have a terrific husband who was willing to print off all 315 pages for me so that I could better edit my book. I has been extremely helpful to be able to write in the margin, make notes, underline certain words, cross out others, and flip back to see the content side by side. However, I've found that it's a lot more difficult to quickly set aside a stack of loose papers than it is to lift a netbook out of the reach of an interested 15 month old girl. Granted the paper doesn't interest her nearly as much as the glowing screen, but she still wants to climb up onto the bed and play around where she can fall off. Who am I to deny her the simple pleasure of playing with mama? Therefore, when she is on the bed, there's no editing taking place.
I have decided to rearrange my schedule for the rest of the month in order to put serious effort into getting through my editing before Christmas. This should give me 1 1/2 hours to work baby and husband free four days out of the week. Seeing that I'm only on Chapter 5, I'm not certain of the validity of my aspirations, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Wish me luck!
Friday, December 9, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Taking a moment to breathe
Life has been busy and I thought it'd be best to take a moment to breathe. So here I sit wrapped up in a fleece blanket in my husband's chair, eating fried rice and drinking a Red Bull.
These past few weeks have been filled with projects, work, outings, and frustration. We have a coat closet now that just need a kick plate to cover the hole in the door and some flooring. Chris has done a fantastic job with it. Just getting to the closet is a bit tricky at times since there's always something in the way at the moment, in order to block the hole. But it'll be good soon.
I've done another project at work that I'm pleased to say that my coworker is happy with. I have proven myself effect that he can tell me what he wants done with a particular project, and I can get it done in a clean fashion, though it may take me a few attempts to get everything in order. Work is nonstop. Sometimes I think I should get up and walk away from my desk more often, but I suppose I'll do that when the work lets up.
My brother has announced that the Mona Lisa will be closing so the gang went out for some fondue. It was fun, but I had to bail on my best friend and leave her to babysit, which I felt bad for. But Kimi loves playing with Beverlie, and Beverlie is a trooper when it comes to kids. I'll be taking her out to the new Twilight movie this coming Friday as part of the thank-you package. Even though I haven't read the books, I figured I'll probably enjoy the movie anyways. No, I haven't seen the other movies in the series either. I'm not about to hate it just because over-fanatic fans have made it "uncool" or a joke in today's society. I'll watch it with an open mind and judge the quality for myself.
As far as frustrations go, I have found the freezing habit of my netbook to be thoroughly annoying when I'm trying to edit a book that's 194K words long. That translates into a 311 page Word document at size 11 Calibri font, single spaced without the extra spacing between paragraphs. As you might be able to tell, I don't appreciate my computer seizing up when I'm trying to scroll to a different point of the document as a reference. Chris ordered me a cooling stand which I hope will alleviate most of the problem, but my little Acer Aspire One has a bad rep for the whole freezing issue. I don't want a full-sized laptop, and all I'm doing is word processing. Chris has offered to get me a new netbook, but I keep putting it off, hoping that the issue will just go away if I ignore it. We'll see.
These past few weeks have been filled with projects, work, outings, and frustration. We have a coat closet now that just need a kick plate to cover the hole in the door and some flooring. Chris has done a fantastic job with it. Just getting to the closet is a bit tricky at times since there's always something in the way at the moment, in order to block the hole. But it'll be good soon.
I've done another project at work that I'm pleased to say that my coworker is happy with. I have proven myself effect that he can tell me what he wants done with a particular project, and I can get it done in a clean fashion, though it may take me a few attempts to get everything in order. Work is nonstop. Sometimes I think I should get up and walk away from my desk more often, but I suppose I'll do that when the work lets up.
My brother has announced that the Mona Lisa will be closing so the gang went out for some fondue. It was fun, but I had to bail on my best friend and leave her to babysit, which I felt bad for. But Kimi loves playing with Beverlie, and Beverlie is a trooper when it comes to kids. I'll be taking her out to the new Twilight movie this coming Friday as part of the thank-you package. Even though I haven't read the books, I figured I'll probably enjoy the movie anyways. No, I haven't seen the other movies in the series either. I'm not about to hate it just because over-fanatic fans have made it "uncool" or a joke in today's society. I'll watch it with an open mind and judge the quality for myself.
As far as frustrations go, I have found the freezing habit of my netbook to be thoroughly annoying when I'm trying to edit a book that's 194K words long. That translates into a 311 page Word document at size 11 Calibri font, single spaced without the extra spacing between paragraphs. As you might be able to tell, I don't appreciate my computer seizing up when I'm trying to scroll to a different point of the document as a reference. Chris ordered me a cooling stand which I hope will alleviate most of the problem, but my little Acer Aspire One has a bad rep for the whole freezing issue. I don't want a full-sized laptop, and all I'm doing is word processing. Chris has offered to get me a new netbook, but I keep putting it off, hoping that the issue will just go away if I ignore it. We'll see.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Compiled!
I've finally got a compiled piece of work. Through my three points of views, I am telling the story of love and war. And after rereading the first half, I realize with great dismay that it's somewhat boring. Now that I've begun my editing stage and lay out the story along a congruent timeline, I see the parts that need tweaked. A bit more creative description here. A little removal of unnecessary detail there. I haven't been able to sit down and get through it all consecutively which has been a detriment to the whole editing process, but I think I'm still on schedule for my Christmas deadline.
Now if only I could stop changing the story. Alright, so it's not exactly the story that I'm changing. However I've decided to work in someone that I could kill senselessly. So, I've created a valet. Peter Collins, the Commander's valet, will meet an unfortunate end. I haven't exactly figured out how yet. And I hope that I make the character loved enough that my readers will be outraged by it. But all in all, I think he'll add value and personality.
Now if only I could stop changing the story. Alright, so it's not exactly the story that I'm changing. However I've decided to work in someone that I could kill senselessly. So, I've created a valet. Peter Collins, the Commander's valet, will meet an unfortunate end. I haven't exactly figured out how yet. And I hope that I make the character loved enough that my readers will be outraged by it. But all in all, I think he'll add value and personality.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
The Diet Science
Weight loss is math and science, combined with some will power and self discipline. Here is the technical stuff.
To lose one pound of fat, you need to burn 3500 more calories than you consume.
One gram of fat is 9 calories.
One gram of carbohydrates is 4 calories.
One gram of protein is 4 calories.
Our bodies will burn calories, even if we aren't doing anything. To figure out where to start, you should discover your Resting Metabolic Rate. This is the number of calories your body burns without any consideration towards exercise or even getting out of bed. There are a number of RMR calculators on the web, but I used http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php, even though it's a bit more difficult to navigate. Once you go to the page, click on the link for BMR & RMR Calculator, fill out the fields, and click calculate. After doing so, you'll notice a list of numbers referencing factors and categories. We'll get to those in a second.
First off, we want to look at your RMR. This number is important because this is how many calories you can eat while staying absolutely still and neither gain or lose weight. Seeing that most of us get out of bed to at least use the bathroom once or twice, this number isn't our guide, but it is our foundation. Next comes the list of numbers.
Everyone's life is different. I work a desk job and I hardly get up from my computer while at work. Therefore, my life classifies as sedentary. But the fact that I do get out of bed in the morning means that I'm burning more calories than my RMR, so I get to times my calorie limit by 1.2, meaning that I get my RMR count plus an additional amount to supplement my movement.
This new number is the number of calories we can eat in a day without losing or gaining weight.
Losing 1 pound a day isn't reasonable or healthy. It's better to think of things on a weekly basis.
Now here's the math to losing weight.
Say my RMR is in the 1300 range and with my sedentary lifestyle, I can eat in the 1575 range. That would be 1575 calories a day, over 7 days. 1575 x 7 = 11025 calories a week. Now we want to subtract a pound a week. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, a pound is 3500 calories. So 11025 - 3500 = 7525. With a goal of losing 1 pound in 1 week, I need to limit myself to 7525 calories a week or (divide by 7) 1075 calories a day. That is assuming I don't exercise. The more you exercise, the more calories you can eat since you'll be burning them off.
This math is good, and it's the same math used by any calorie tracking tool you find out there. However, you'll eventually end up with a snag if you keep following this. This snag is that after about a week of depriving your body of calories, your hormones (one called Leptin in particular) starts to panic because it thinks that your body is starving. It then decides to start storing fat, making your weight loss cease. That is why I endorse a weekly over eating day. You can ask my sister-in-law, it works. Eat whatever you want, pizza, burgers, whatever, over the span of one day, and then drop back into your reduced calorie diet the rest of the week. I'd still recommend tracking it, since you should have close to 1000 calories above your average just for that one day.
This next part really isn't important, but since I'm a programmer, I like to understand how to calculate everything.
Since we now know how much we can eat, we can look at what to eat. A calorie will land in one of three sections: Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein. I listed the values of each at the beginning of this post to explain how calories are calculated. If you take the time to examine food labels, you'll see these three values listed and with a bit of math, you can see how they add up. Pay attention to the grams (g) and not so much the percentage. If you see 1g of fat, then that means that 9 of the listed calories are from fat. If you see protein and carbohydrates listed at 1g a piece, then you get 4 calories each. My Red Bull is 110 calories and with 28g of carbohydrates (28 x 4 = 112), you can see how that adds up. A typical recommended diet will be 55% carbs, 25% protein, and 20% fat. I wouldn't worry about this so much since different goals have different percentages. An athlete will consume more carbs. A body builder will consume more protein. Me, I typically average 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. It works for me.
With the 40/30/30 percentages in mind, we break that down into how many calories in each category we can eat. Back to my limit of 1075 a day, that means that 430 of those will be carbs, and 323 (rounding) will be protein and another 323 will be fat.
Does your head hurt yet? Let's break it down even further.
Since 430 calories are carbs, and there are 4 calories in 1 gram of carbohydrate, then that means I can have 108 (rounding) grams of carbs.
Math goes on to say I need 81 grams of protein and 36 grams of fat.
As a side note, I'd like to mention that it's best to eat several times a day. I aim for six. To break that down in a diet sense, that's 1075 / 6 meals a day, or about 179 calories a meal. That's not a definite rule, but it's a good guideline. It's the same concept of snacking throughout the day and it keeps that hormone I mentioned earlier happy and out of starvation mode. A small snack a couple hours apart will help with the weight loss battle.
TL;DR
That is how effective dieting works.
1. Calculate how many calories you need in a day
2. Take that number and times it by 7 to get a weekly value
3. Subtract the calorie deficit needed to lose weight (3500 x #ofpounds)
4. Divide by 7 to get a new daily value and don't eat more than that
5. Splurge one day a week
I hopes this helps explain how dieting works.
Sincerely,
Loni
To lose one pound of fat, you need to burn 3500 more calories than you consume.
One gram of fat is 9 calories.
One gram of carbohydrates is 4 calories.
One gram of protein is 4 calories.
Our bodies will burn calories, even if we aren't doing anything. To figure out where to start, you should discover your Resting Metabolic Rate. This is the number of calories your body burns without any consideration towards exercise or even getting out of bed. There are a number of RMR calculators on the web, but I used http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php, even though it's a bit more difficult to navigate. Once you go to the page, click on the link for BMR & RMR Calculator, fill out the fields, and click calculate. After doing so, you'll notice a list of numbers referencing factors and categories. We'll get to those in a second.
First off, we want to look at your RMR. This number is important because this is how many calories you can eat while staying absolutely still and neither gain or lose weight. Seeing that most of us get out of bed to at least use the bathroom once or twice, this number isn't our guide, but it is our foundation. Next comes the list of numbers.
Everyone's life is different. I work a desk job and I hardly get up from my computer while at work. Therefore, my life classifies as sedentary. But the fact that I do get out of bed in the morning means that I'm burning more calories than my RMR, so I get to times my calorie limit by 1.2, meaning that I get my RMR count plus an additional amount to supplement my movement.
This new number is the number of calories we can eat in a day without losing or gaining weight.
Losing 1 pound a day isn't reasonable or healthy. It's better to think of things on a weekly basis.
Now here's the math to losing weight.
Say my RMR is in the 1300 range and with my sedentary lifestyle, I can eat in the 1575 range. That would be 1575 calories a day, over 7 days. 1575 x 7 = 11025 calories a week. Now we want to subtract a pound a week. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, a pound is 3500 calories. So 11025 - 3500 = 7525. With a goal of losing 1 pound in 1 week, I need to limit myself to 7525 calories a week or (divide by 7) 1075 calories a day. That is assuming I don't exercise. The more you exercise, the more calories you can eat since you'll be burning them off.
This math is good, and it's the same math used by any calorie tracking tool you find out there. However, you'll eventually end up with a snag if you keep following this. This snag is that after about a week of depriving your body of calories, your hormones (one called Leptin in particular) starts to panic because it thinks that your body is starving. It then decides to start storing fat, making your weight loss cease. That is why I endorse a weekly over eating day. You can ask my sister-in-law, it works. Eat whatever you want, pizza, burgers, whatever, over the span of one day, and then drop back into your reduced calorie diet the rest of the week. I'd still recommend tracking it, since you should have close to 1000 calories above your average just for that one day.
This next part really isn't important, but since I'm a programmer, I like to understand how to calculate everything.
Since we now know how much we can eat, we can look at what to eat. A calorie will land in one of three sections: Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein. I listed the values of each at the beginning of this post to explain how calories are calculated. If you take the time to examine food labels, you'll see these three values listed and with a bit of math, you can see how they add up. Pay attention to the grams (g) and not so much the percentage. If you see 1g of fat, then that means that 9 of the listed calories are from fat. If you see protein and carbohydrates listed at 1g a piece, then you get 4 calories each. My Red Bull is 110 calories and with 28g of carbohydrates (28 x 4 = 112), you can see how that adds up. A typical recommended diet will be 55% carbs, 25% protein, and 20% fat. I wouldn't worry about this so much since different goals have different percentages. An athlete will consume more carbs. A body builder will consume more protein. Me, I typically average 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. It works for me.
With the 40/30/30 percentages in mind, we break that down into how many calories in each category we can eat. Back to my limit of 1075 a day, that means that 430 of those will be carbs, and 323 (rounding) will be protein and another 323 will be fat.
Does your head hurt yet? Let's break it down even further.
Since 430 calories are carbs, and there are 4 calories in 1 gram of carbohydrate, then that means I can have 108 (rounding) grams of carbs.
Math goes on to say I need 81 grams of protein and 36 grams of fat.
As a side note, I'd like to mention that it's best to eat several times a day. I aim for six. To break that down in a diet sense, that's 1075 / 6 meals a day, or about 179 calories a meal. That's not a definite rule, but it's a good guideline. It's the same concept of snacking throughout the day and it keeps that hormone I mentioned earlier happy and out of starvation mode. A small snack a couple hours apart will help with the weight loss battle.
TL;DR
That is how effective dieting works.
1. Calculate how many calories you need in a day
2. Take that number and times it by 7 to get a weekly value
3. Subtract the calorie deficit needed to lose weight (3500 x #ofpounds)
4. Divide by 7 to get a new daily value and don't eat more than that
5. Splurge one day a week
I hopes this helps explain how dieting works.
Sincerely,
Loni
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
The plot thickens!
I should really pay my sister-in-law a consulting fee for the great ideas she passes on. I've struggled with writer's block when it comes to the twin. Political intrigue would be fantastic, if only I knew how to get it. Well, Abi has a few thoughts up her sleeve and another mention in one part of the story takes off with a whole new venue of possibilities. The Commander shares a few of his thoughts regarding the zealous Miasho upholders that are a bit too dedicated to the old ways for his tastes and the Twin gets to deal with the extremist groups head on. She pointed out that someone will always be trying to wrestle to gain power. Considering that the Thanmir stick to their own provinces, it's going to be the Miasho loyalists who think that the elementals are demeaning and need to go. They have valid points. A majority of the elementals (though the reader doesn't see them) do have a superiority attitude. It shows in the rules laid down, setting conditions for the human habitation on Chikara. The Miasho upholders take the view that their gods are powerful and the humans outnumber the elementals when it comes to the mortal/beast plane. They think they can survive without elemental rule and use the fire province as an example.
The political intrigue comes in the form of playing the characters off of each other. Ira wants power. Landau (who is the leader of the extremist group) wants the elementals stripped from sovereignty. Harim wants Ira dead. Aito wants MaTisha. Kaio, the twin, is pulling the strings with his merry band of retrieval experts (kidnappers), business mediators (assassins), and information specialists (spies), all of which either work for or belong to the Hobbs family (Alistair is one of eleven sons).
Hopefully it turns out as well as I'm planning.
The political intrigue comes in the form of playing the characters off of each other. Ira wants power. Landau (who is the leader of the extremist group) wants the elementals stripped from sovereignty. Harim wants Ira dead. Aito wants MaTisha. Kaio, the twin, is pulling the strings with his merry band of retrieval experts (kidnappers), business mediators (assassins), and information specialists (spies), all of which either work for or belong to the Hobbs family (Alistair is one of eleven sons).
Hopefully it turns out as well as I'm planning.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Sleep Disorders, Names, Book Reviews, and Costumes
A couple friends brought up that I might have a sleep disorder. When I lay down to sleep, no matter how tired I am, it takes no less than a half hour for me to finally drift off. It's due to the fact that I'm usually thinking, which was what spawned this whole blog thing to begin with. They are probably right, but I doubt I'll look into treatment for it.
Just a quick blurb about my writing. I've been working my way through the twin's point of view and have found that my sister-in-law thinks like an evil political genius, which is what the twin is. I might have to hire her to write a speech or two for me. I've also decided that some things need to change. For one, I need to name my provinces. For another, I think I'm going to rename the Commander. His name is Kieser. First off, that's not a very human name. It's also pretty close to the Twin, Kaio. I don't want the readers getting confused between the two, so I think Kieser is going to become Cameron. Finally, I'm going to rework the main character/female lead story a bit to take out some of the dreams that preordain them to be together and add in more desperation to return home, which will then make the decision to stay that much harder for the hero to make. It's got to be believable.
I recently completed four of the proposed seven book series by Lisa Shearin about Raine Benares, an elf seeker stuck with a soul-sucking rock. It's been entertaining so far, but it brings to light things that I want to avoid. Such as repetitive descriptions, tons of exposition, and an unbelievable character or two. Over the top is fun. Unbelievable makes it hard to accept.
Since my sister-in-law only had the first four on audiobook, I've decided to move to a different series that I've been meaning to get to for a while. The Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. I'm about halfway through the first book and though it's not as lighthearted as the Shearin series, it is captivating. I read the negative reviews on goodreads.com and I'm pretty sure I won't have the same issues that many of those readers suffered with. A: I haven't read the Dresden Files yet. B: Violence in a book where a war is breaking out doesn't bother me. C: I know it's fantasy, not sci-fi.
I read one book review for George R.R. Martin that I had to appreciate. The writer said something to the effect of "just because the book isn't the style that you like to read doesn't mean that it's a bad book and deserves a low rating. Judge it by the writing which is fantastic." The writer was commenting on a book that I finished, but I couldn't continue with the rest of the series since it was so darn depressing. Some may disagree with the reviewer, but I don't. The writing is good. It's just too much for me.
Last item on my list of updates is costumes. Halloween is coming up and I've decided that I'm going to make Kimi a ghost costume. She loves pulling fuzzy blankets over her head and walking around like that. I figure, just get some white fleece material, cut a couple of little holes, and viola! Hopefully she likes it. If work allows me, I'm going to dress up like a pirate. My sister-in-law has many articles of clothing that will work for the task so it'll require minimal effort to throw together. This year, I hope to take Kimi trick-or-treating through the HP facility. I'm looking forward to it.
Just a quick blurb about my writing. I've been working my way through the twin's point of view and have found that my sister-in-law thinks like an evil political genius, which is what the twin is. I might have to hire her to write a speech or two for me. I've also decided that some things need to change. For one, I need to name my provinces. For another, I think I'm going to rename the Commander. His name is Kieser. First off, that's not a very human name. It's also pretty close to the Twin, Kaio. I don't want the readers getting confused between the two, so I think Kieser is going to become Cameron. Finally, I'm going to rework the main character/female lead story a bit to take out some of the dreams that preordain them to be together and add in more desperation to return home, which will then make the decision to stay that much harder for the hero to make. It's got to be believable.
I recently completed four of the proposed seven book series by Lisa Shearin about Raine Benares, an elf seeker stuck with a soul-sucking rock. It's been entertaining so far, but it brings to light things that I want to avoid. Such as repetitive descriptions, tons of exposition, and an unbelievable character or two. Over the top is fun. Unbelievable makes it hard to accept.
Since my sister-in-law only had the first four on audiobook, I've decided to move to a different series that I've been meaning to get to for a while. The Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. I'm about halfway through the first book and though it's not as lighthearted as the Shearin series, it is captivating. I read the negative reviews on goodreads.com and I'm pretty sure I won't have the same issues that many of those readers suffered with. A: I haven't read the Dresden Files yet. B: Violence in a book where a war is breaking out doesn't bother me. C: I know it's fantasy, not sci-fi.
I read one book review for George R.R. Martin that I had to appreciate. The writer said something to the effect of "just because the book isn't the style that you like to read doesn't mean that it's a bad book and deserves a low rating. Judge it by the writing which is fantastic." The writer was commenting on a book that I finished, but I couldn't continue with the rest of the series since it was so darn depressing. Some may disagree with the reviewer, but I don't. The writing is good. It's just too much for me.
Last item on my list of updates is costumes. Halloween is coming up and I've decided that I'm going to make Kimi a ghost costume. She loves pulling fuzzy blankets over her head and walking around like that. I figure, just get some white fleece material, cut a couple of little holes, and viola! Hopefully she likes it. If work allows me, I'm going to dress up like a pirate. My sister-in-law has many articles of clothing that will work for the task so it'll require minimal effort to throw together. This year, I hope to take Kimi trick-or-treating through the HP facility. I'm looking forward to it.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Music and Characters
I'm often inspired by music when it comes to visualizing my characters. For instance, two songs that often make me think of my hero are "Whenever, Wherever" by Shakira and "I've got a feeling" by Black Eyed Peas. It represents how Derek is passionate and carefree. Granted, he doesn't always appear that way in the book, but the songs still apply to his personality.
I've finished writing the primary part of the first book which is from Derek and MaTisha's point of views and now I'm focusing on the twin, Kaio Geotellus. Much like I struggled with the Commander, I'm stuck thinking about what kind of situations this character will get into. He's a very powerful man, ambitious, and completely devoted to his brother. His song is "You're gonna go far, kid" by The Offspring. Kaio is willing to start a war for the sake of his brother's happiness and eventually declares himself Sovereign after his brother is killed.
The next few weeks will be focused on feeling out the Twin's story, finding out what he's truly capable of, and making him a lot more gray than black or white. He's got an arsenal at his command. Assassins, spies, powerful Miasho upholders, and an army of men ready to do his bidding. With what I have written now, he seems like a man resigned to having to fight if he must. It's my goal to turn him into a very dark, yet seemingly reasonable master of war. He's not the bad guy, at least, not in this book. I want the reader to understand why he's doing what he is, feel his loyalty, and not blame him for taking the actions that he does. If I can do that, then I will consider it successful.
I've finished writing the primary part of the first book which is from Derek and MaTisha's point of views and now I'm focusing on the twin, Kaio Geotellus. Much like I struggled with the Commander, I'm stuck thinking about what kind of situations this character will get into. He's a very powerful man, ambitious, and completely devoted to his brother. His song is "You're gonna go far, kid" by The Offspring. Kaio is willing to start a war for the sake of his brother's happiness and eventually declares himself Sovereign after his brother is killed.
The next few weeks will be focused on feeling out the Twin's story, finding out what he's truly capable of, and making him a lot more gray than black or white. He's got an arsenal at his command. Assassins, spies, powerful Miasho upholders, and an army of men ready to do his bidding. With what I have written now, he seems like a man resigned to having to fight if he must. It's my goal to turn him into a very dark, yet seemingly reasonable master of war. He's not the bad guy, at least, not in this book. I want the reader to understand why he's doing what he is, feel his loyalty, and not blame him for taking the actions that he does. If I can do that, then I will consider it successful.
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