On 3/27/06, Amir Michail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Some people might find this interesting. Perhaps they do something > similar. Perhaps they might give you a few tips. It's interesting to > see how people use their computers.
I certainly agree there: studying usability would definitely be one of the applications. > One area with a lot of potential is to reveal how creative people > work. How exactly does a novelist spend his time? Is most of it > productive? Or does writer's block dominate? Perhaps much time is > spent on rewriting? How does a novelist keep track of things exactly? I have had similar requests (because that's my job-- not novels, which i write in my downtime, but books, which is why I'm awake at nearly 1 AM right now). Writing doesn't make very good video, though. The majority of my screen is either me flipping between email, IM, MS Word, iMovie, and Mozilla, or hunkered down in MS Word, or doing screen shots of iMovie or QuickTime. From an outside-the-screen perspective, I haven't moved anything but my hands in the last 3 hours, except to pick up a cup of coffee, so video of me writing is largely of a bleary-eyed woman with bad posture, staring at a computer screen. Hollywood is beating down my door, really. Most of my time is productive, but that's only if you acknowledge the procrastination as being productive. For instance, today I cleaned out a fish tank and set up another tank in my office. And vacuumed. These activities have nothing to do with the book, but if I didn't do them, I'd go crazy. I'm already crazy, but even moreso. They are also not writer's block, per se-- I *can* write, I just don't want to at that moment. Rewriting is a phase I enter into AFTER the big heavy first draft work is done. For me, it's easier than the first draft, but I tend to produce fairly good initial drafts. Other writers are very different in this regard. My first draft of fiction varies widely-- one novel may be terrible, while another may be almost revisable. I keep track of non-fiction using notes on my computer, scattered around the computer, in my email inbox, and my printed outline. For the fiction notes, I have a tracking database in the software I use to write novels, which keeps a database of characters and places and outlines for me and such-- very handy stuff. Every writer is different in this, though. I participate in NaNoWriMo each year-- that at least makes good video, since we tend to get together in groups and write in cafes, where there's more human interaction. And every novel is different, too-- each novel teaches you how to write a novel. sadly, it only teaches you how to write *that* novel, so when you go to write another one, you are back to square one. Personally, I find other art media, like drawing/cartooning, crafts, sculpture, etc., to be much more visualy interesting. > I see this partly as an experiment in learning about human nature. I > want to know how other people think. I want to get into their heads. Yes, but what's the advantage to the person broadcasting? -- Stephanie Bryant [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blogs, vlogs, and audioblogs at: http://www.mortaine.com/blogs Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
