tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80615552024-03-06T22:58:05.670-06:00Idle ThoughtsVarious thoughts about travel, writing, and publishing -- plus anything else that is worth a comment by award winning science fiction author Henry MeltonHenry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.comBlogger712125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-24242844741821358352017-01-11T09:38:00.001-06:002017-01-11T09:38:41.289-06:00Backing up My iCloud PhotosI'm a regular user of Photos in my Mac and iPhone. It's nice having years of photos all available whenever I need them. The biggest problem is backing up this iCloud-based collection. In my case, with about 50,000 photos, neither my Mac nor my iPhone can store all the photos locally. Thus, I can't easily copy the HenryActive.photoslibrary file to backup and expect to preserve all the photos, something is always going to be missing; paged out to the cloud with just a thumbnail left to preserve the illusion that everything is there.<br />
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I could move my .photoslibrary file to an external hard drive and choose the "Download Originals to Mac" option to insure that all photos are stored locally. However, this would defeat the ability to pick up my laptop and use my photos on the road.<br />
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My best option to date is to export the photos by year. I create Smart Albums, one for each year.<br />
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Every January, I then export that smart album to my external hard drive. I also keep a tally of how many photos are in each year's backup album. This helps me keep track if I add or delete old photos. The system is not automatic, and I wish it were, but at least I have some confidence that if my photos library crashed either from an Apple error or my own stupidity, I can re-create it later.</div>
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The Export function gives me the option to export originals, or my modified versions, and for many of those old years, there's no difference, but it is an issue that I haven't resolved. Starting an Export will force the Photos App to load any of the photos that were staged in the cloud, so there is a wait time involved with that, but it does the job. Again, I wish there were an automatic backup function that would monitor any changes and allow incremental updates.</div>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-8176656989882002612016-12-04T15:29:00.005-06:002016-12-04T15:32:43.669-06:00It Didn't Work for Me: Automatic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I hate to give a bad review, but when a gadget has consistently failed, support calls didn't improve anything, and it finally broke, I realized it was time.<br />
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A couple of years ago, an advertisement for the Automatic car monitoring gadget crossed my path. I have a 1997 Jeep Wrangler, so all the fancy fuel monitoring status boards on all the other cars left me a little jealous. The gadget plugs into the diagnostic port on nearly all cars and works with the cell phone GPS to give you more details like fuel consumption, and at the same time give you a tracking map of everywhere you've gone. I bit. It was relatively cheap and plugged in fine.<br />
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Only, when I went to the website and started looking at my results, the flags starting waving.<br />
Sixty miles per gallon on my 97 Jeep? Not likely. I started noting down my fillups and did my own spread sheet. At best, I was getting sixteen miles per gallon.<br />
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I left a complaint on the website and received a note that they were working on it. As far as I can tell, my Jeep never actually monitors fuel consumption, so the software takes what data it has and makes a guesstimate. However, I never saw any updates and the results stayed the same.<br />
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At the same time, I was getting dropouts. Many times the gadget never made contact with my cell phone. It happened so frequently that I stopped looking at the website map, because it was frustrating to find out that after a two thousand mile road trip, only fifty miles were logged.<br />
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The web site looks nice, but with bad data, it's useless to me. I forgot about it. Sometimes it was still connecting, but most times, it wasn't.<br />
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And then getting in and out of the Jeep's driver's seat I kicked the thing once too often and the gadget came apart in several pieces. I have no desire to try to fix it.<br />
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Here's my final report:<br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-34723093627706705112016-09-22T09:04:00.000-05:002016-09-22T09:04:38.162-05:00Shared Desktop and Documents on macOS Sierra<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the featured items of macOS Sierra is the ability to share your desktop and Documents folders via iCloud. It's great for me, because I have two macs and several iOS devices, old and new iPhones and an iPad. So everything that's contained in those two places are available anywhere.<br />
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But not immediately. At least not at first.<br />
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You see, I have about 20GB in my Documents folder, including saved documents since back to 1990. ALL of that has to shipped up the iCloud servers before all of my devices can get access to it. My DSL wires must be running warm lately. <br />
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Now, I could move some of this stuff out of Documents first, and I did for a couple of very dynamic items that didn't need to be shared across machines. But I sort of like the idea of being able, on a whim, on the road, to dig down into my 2002 archives to find a shell-script that I wrote long ago and has some features I might want to look at again.<br />
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So, I'm spending a few days with my DSL upload maxed out until it's all there. <br />
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After that, I might just want to move a few more things to my Documents folder—like every story I've ever written.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-85969950083936873672016-09-16T14:50:00.000-05:002016-09-16T14:50:35.403-05:00Memories — The Best New feature of IOS 10<div>
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Many features of the new iOS 10 from Apple are nice. Some are "Well, okay. I can live with that." But the one that has blown me away is the improved Photos. In particular, there's a Memories feature that you have to try out.
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If Apple advertised this feature, I was thinking about something else at the time, because I just stumbled over the changes while picking a photo for a Facebook post. Down at the bottom of the Photos screen is a tab labeled Memories. I tapped it and discovered that Photos has been doing some work behind the scenes for me. It has taken the location information, the timestamps and some serious photo analysis to look at my phones. Then with that information, it has composed several videos automatically. It did a Best of the Year for 2015, a family photos collection, and several trip videos.<br />
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Now each was composed and titled. But these were just 'to-do' videos-database entries , because once I actually clicked on one, it took a couple of seconds to download the photos and generate the video on the fly and then start playing it. Only when I decided to save the video did it store the multi-megabyte file back into the library.<br />
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There are also pickers and sliders that let you customize the length and mood of the video. In addition, I went in and changed the auto-generated titles in some cases when I knew some more specific information. <br />
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I settled into my easy chair, used Airplay to put the video up on the TV and enjoyed. But that's not the best part. When you click on a video and then stop it, you can see a list of the photos that composed it, and a map showing their locations, and then below that, a list of related videos. I spent quite a while deep-diving into the nooks and crannies of my 49,000 photo library and may of these were definitely worth saving and sharing with friends and relatives. For me, they were definitely Memories, bringing back the highlights of a trip I had taken, or smiling at family no longer with us. Do the same. I recommend it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-72111838478918490692016-05-06T10:12:00.000-05:002016-05-06T10:12:35.852-05:00Where are the Electric Cars for Travelers?Today on my news feed, I read some article about how the new Tesla was going to charge extra for an additional 19 miles range over their standard of 250-ish miles on a charge. Considering how much hype there is over the newest Tesla, it just makes me sad. It doesn't look like I'll ever buy an electric car.<br />
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I've always been in love with the idea of an electric drive train. Even forty years ago, I wrote science fiction that talked about electric cars, although mine were a bit different from what you see today. My best-selling novel <b>Star Time</b> has an electric vehicle as part of the battle against the aliens. It's not that I don't like EV's. I just could never use one.<br />
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There's certainly a market for commuter cars. Plug it in overnight and you have enough range for the day's activities. Many people fit that category. Not me. I'm a traveler.<br />
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I'm a science fiction author. My job consists of two parts; stay at home writing and doing my social media outreach, and traveling to events where I spread my books out on a table and talk to people. If I bought an EV, I'd need a second car to do my traveling because EV's are a joke when it comes to range.<br />
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As I do every year, I'll need to pack my books and go to St. Louis. On the range a Tesla gives, I'd never even get across the state line before it ran dry. How many times will I have to recharge it, to travel the 825 miles to get there? How far out of my way will I have to go to search for a charging station, and how long does it take to charge a Tesla (I've never seen that number). <br />
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This is just one example. Most of my events are in Texas, but half of them are also out of range. One trip I made to Chicago was extended with an exploration of the western states and I logged several days straight with over 900 miles traveled per day. This is just impossible in an EV. A few years back, one trip logged just under 14,000 miles, including many Canadian provinces. I worried about getting gas in some of those places (like Labrador), and expecting to find EV charging stations is out of the question.<br />
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I suppose I could tow a trailer, carrying a generator that was always running—but that's just a hybrid in different clothes. <br />
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As I said, I'll never get to use an EV. They don't make them for travelers.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-87184500277165049742016-03-24T18:29:00.000-05:002016-04-07T22:46:04.370-05:00My Fictional Net, and Encryption<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3JMtQj7-aEXjHev4ZsKmXfutWfnbtP4wAxSD0ko0FwG6O7pLrV_Wgd9PRSiEkPhzsBYkzXzeHcGYfn6Jx5vc68-Ktfc7hz_ChkKdJso9oTI3lPKzN6fkfxWkoCTlPb2MNDr6/s1600/Earth+Branch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Book Covers" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3JMtQj7-aEXjHev4ZsKmXfutWfnbtP4wAxSD0ko0FwG6O7pLrV_Wgd9PRSiEkPhzsBYkzXzeHcGYfn6Jx5vc68-Ktfc7hz_ChkKdJso9oTI3lPKzN6fkfxWkoCTlPb2MNDr6/s400/Earth+Branch.jpg" title="Earth Branch of the Project Saga" width="400" /></a></div>
When I began the multi-book storyline, <b>The Project Saga</b>, I had the opportunity to re-invent the Internet from scratch. Or rather my self-aware AI character Hodgepodge did. In the first book, <b>Star Time</b>, the existing internet was fried by EMP caused by the Betelgeuse supernova. After Hodgepodge was put back together from the components wrapped in metal and shielded from the flare, one of the tasks the robot took on was to rebuild long distance communication, and he did it with several changes.<br />
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Starting with a variation of Ham Radio and packet-radio, he sent out instructions allowing remote survivors to cobble together salvaged computers and crude modems to build a store-and-forward system. This crude early version had a few wrinkles that allowed for a new type of Net.<br />
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For one, there was a micropayment system, using Net Credits, that was handled invisibly by Hodgepodge. It allowed elementary commerce to be built, even with this limited infrastructure. There was an information economy from the beginning, where survival information and news from far away could be had, cheaply.<br />
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Another difference was encryption down to the bottom layers of the communication system. No one could intercept messages other than the person addressed. In today's Internet, your messages might be encrypted, but at lower levels, anyone could tell that you were on-line, and that you sent something. In the version Hodgepodge created, every trace was encrypted—the transport-level information, the micropayment information, and the content itself.<br />
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The final piece of the puzzle was rapid and automatic updates. Some survivor's original Net connection that had been possibly entered by hand was in a constant state of flux, and getting better and better. While it was possible for humans to decode the original software, by the time it had evolved and become much more valuable, the users of this new Net were at a disadvantage compared to the machine intelligence running the system. When the world reached the point where Hodgepodge-designed hardware took over the job, it was impossible for any human to understand. <br />
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The new Net had several goals, most notably to bring humanity out of the blackout caused by the Star. But Hodgepodge had his own goals as well. Being well-read from before the supernova, Hodgepodge was aware that his own survival depended on his invisibility. By taking charge of the communication infrastructure of the planet, and keeping it deeply encrypted, he was able to work on the larger stage. By providing constantly increasing speed and bandwidth to recovering humanity, he provided a service that made it's continued operation necessary. It was a win-win situation for everyone.<br />
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But just as in today's headlines, encryption allows bad actors to bring their plans to fruition, and this is spelled out in the novels <b>In the Time of Green Blimps</b> and <b>Humanicide</b>. Unfortunately, in a world where the economy moves at Net or Internet speeds and where interception by third parties is disastrous, encryption is a necessity we have to learn to live with. Nobody has solved that dilemma yet.<br />
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One other point made in the novels is that humanity is gradually losing the ability to program. Yes, the languages are widespread, and many people use them, but other than some specialists with the necessary training, nobody today really cares about what happens on the chip. As programming languages get more sophisticated, fewer people need to know about what happens to bits when OR'ed together. Even people who have programmed computers for decades (like me) would be struggling when faced with a few kilobytes of executable code. If somewhere there were a Hodgepodge analog out there in the real world, how many compiler optimizers and code verifiers would he have to subvert before every user program contained his additional functionality.<br />
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The books were fun to write, and the Earth Branch of the Project Saga has been completed. Take a look, if you have the time.<br />
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<a href="https://squareup.com/market/henry-melton" target="_blank">Star Time</a><br />
<a href="https://squareup.com/market/henry-melton" target="_blank">Kingdom of the Hill Country</a><br />
<a href="https://squareup.com/market/henry-melton" target="_blank">In the Time of Green Blimps</a><br />
<a href="https://squareup.com/market/henry-melton" target="_blank">Captain's Memories</a><br />
<a href="https://squareup.com/market/henry-melton" target="_blank">Humanicide</a><br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-80726930862220322002016-02-16T17:02:00.000-06:002016-02-16T17:02:30.544-06:00My Pocket Backup for MacI have many backups. I'm a little obsessive about it. I have Time Machine running on my laptop to an external drive. I have Carbon Copy Cloner running to make a bootable backup of the whole machine every night to a different external drive. I have Backblaze running for an off-site copy of all my files. And that's just for the laptop.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS-x9fGMMLANw_SRYCaKlnAt2PP_KMZU-w2uefnvqySsATRIy-5dUJJY0DkmUTU_mGrmNwsDBv95aBb28mE39_adbLGDghFld58AigFoULI6lfLKXcnUorASOMIPbgHX4ysKeT/s1600/IMG_2175.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS-x9fGMMLANw_SRYCaKlnAt2PP_KMZU-w2uefnvqySsATRIy-5dUJJY0DkmUTU_mGrmNwsDBv95aBb28mE39_adbLGDghFld58AigFoULI6lfLKXcnUorASOMIPbgHX4ysKeT/s320/IMG_2175.JPG" width="320" /></a>But lately, I've been feeling the need for something a little different. They make USB<br />
'thumb' drives so small these days that I picked up a fast USB 3 128GB drive <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YFI1EBC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00YFI1EBC&linkCode=as2&tag=henrymeltonsc-20&linkId=SQDR4MVJ46S7XQPX" rel="nofollow">SanDisk Ultra Fit 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive (SDCZ43-128G-G46) [Older Version]</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=henrymeltonsc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00YFI1EBC" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />for about $30 on Amazon. Since I already had Carbon Copy Cloner running multiple backups, it wasn't hard to add another.<br />
<br />
The idea for this backup was to have nearly all my personal files on me at all times. If I'm on the road, lose my laptop, and don't even have internet, I could borrow someone else's mac, and get access to whatever I needed in case of emergency.<br />
<br />
Now 128GB isn't enough for my music, photos, or videos, so that'll have to wait for another generation of pocket drives, but with some careful exclusions (no cache files, downloads, etc.), I was able to select my whole user account on my Mac. To insure that my Pages and Numbers files are also included, since some are on iCloud, I made two little sparsebundle backups of them as well that would in turn be backed up to PocketBackup drive. I used sparse bundle drive format since it's most efficient in doing incremental backups, since only the changed bands would be copied.<br />
<br />
The other restriction I had in mind was to make the whole copy encrypted. This way, I can carry the thing in my jeans pocket every day with no worries about losing it. I'd just have to buy another drive and look at this blog post to remember how I did it the first time.<br />
<br />
Here's the setup: I formatted the drive and created an encrypted sparsebundle disk image on it. In addition, I have an unencrypted README file with my contact information in case it's lost and a nice person finds it.<br />
<br />
Carbon Copy Cloner waits for it to be inserted. Then it mounts the encrypted disk image, makes the daily changes, and then dismounts everything. The initial backup took a little while, but typically, it all takes one minute, or maybe two or three if I've loaded some large files. I've got a daily reminder at 4 pm to plug it in. The menubar icon for CCC turns black while the backup runs and when it turns white, I can unplug it and stick it back in my pocket. All the mounting and dismounting is handled by the program. It's so easy, I haven't missed a day since I started it.<br />
<br />
Here's the CCC settings for the main backup:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-SJOIQSOSnLHtifX2WfK0tcrA0rkYi7HSYZ423W3nmNqfemW2gjj5zYAZDu1Myi2Bna_utGJEMMHelSNiJS6znFnavQ2x8T7lmuLhpk6gjhTlm0GGIfT9aHdITj0L1rC2Q0r/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-02-16+at+4.30.46+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-SJOIQSOSnLHtifX2WfK0tcrA0rkYi7HSYZ423W3nmNqfemW2gjj5zYAZDu1Myi2Bna_utGJEMMHelSNiJS6znFnavQ2x8T7lmuLhpk6gjhTlm0GGIfT9aHdITj0L1rC2Q0r/s640/Screen+Shot+2016-02-16+at+4.30.46+PM.png" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
And here is the setup for the Pages backup. Numbers is similar.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBJA80cbMRC6i7wtnF7PZW-tXldB_OXycjNcJiiuUdIVDD799XY7i5GkMZLGLB1RPpRPQxpiUc6FPL3x-p5aCaP3pvPPs85OW2mn0f1VxsP1KCJkngl3orRbTWsJOLui_wTFT/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-02-16+at+4.33.58+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBJA80cbMRC6i7wtnF7PZW-tXldB_OXycjNcJiiuUdIVDD799XY7i5GkMZLGLB1RPpRPQxpiUc6FPL3x-p5aCaP3pvPPs85OW2mn0f1VxsP1KCJkngl3orRbTWsJOLui_wTFT/s640/Screen+Shot+2016-02-16+at+4.33.58+PM.png" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
For the tiny space and minimal cost, it's a nice peace of mind to have all my important files hiding down there in my pocket.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-4759596817866638282015-04-14T12:10:00.000-05:002015-04-14T12:10:43.453-05:00Apple's Photos App is DisappointingI had high hopes for the new Photos app on OS X that was intended to replace both iPhoto and Aperture. I spent quite a few weeks processing my large Aperture libraries, with the intent to convert them all to Photos. I have about 100,000 photos split over two large libraries, plus a couple of smaller ones.<br />
<br />
With libraries this large, I have always had speed issues. To get around it, I have kept an 'Active' library that only contained my most frequently used images plus the current year. When Photos was released just in the past week or so, I converted 'Active' to Photos and allowed it to migrate to the iCloud library. It seems quick enough, with only a thousand photos. <br />
<br />
It finally came time to see if I could process my 'Recent' library, which was about 40,000 pictures, spread over several years. Starting Photos up, pointing to the Aperture library, it spend overnight converting the library, and then crashing. I tried it again, on the converted library, and with a long, long startup, it also crashed before being usable for anything. <br />
<br />
At least I could still use the original Aperture library, after some of the program's automated cleanup. It seems like I'll be keeping Aperture around for a while, if my libraries are unusable under Photos. I may export photos and import them into Photos that way, but that will be huge, time-consuming process, but given that Aperture is not being updated and will die before too long, I'll need to do some kind of migration.<br />
<br />
But if the problem is Photos' inability to handle large libraries, I'll have to find some other technique for handling my historical archives. I'll keep an eye out for other people with large libraries and see how they handle it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-72846931744845493192015-03-25T17:02:00.000-05:002015-03-25T17:02:13.757-05:00Internet FrustrationsI have several websites, some of them blogs like this one. Yes, I know, I should have only one and concentrate on that. But things change. I've been blogging since before the name was invented, and much of it is still on this site, even though I've been pouring more of my writing-focused content into <a href="http://henrymelton.com/">henrymelton.com</a> and my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HenryMeltonFan">Facebook fan page</a> lately. Still, I'm not going to abandon Idle Thoughts anytime soon, since it's my primary repository for non-writing content.<br />
<br />
And so, when google alerts flagged me that for a couple of days running, I had a spike in readership here, I rushed to see what had happened. After all, the most recent posting was a couple of months old. If I had a new flux of readers, I wanted to know where they came from and why. At best, I could then find some way to reward them by providing more of what they came to see. At the least, I could become more aware of the site that referred them, visit there and see if we had common ground.<br />
<br />
But it was a frustration. As you probably know, websites get a little snip of information that tells where a new arrival came from. I looked, and what I found was this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV2VQvKVKYyWtl17v-6S-5cqJiTKlO0OdxL2jilkkja88skAvisrZenpqqgtMRWRv4Xj_twHE3g1PTMDo6WYJM3FCuXfktKKnysQ9QDimvvmhB3_iAIQXk-zHak8jpvyhHe6u_/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-03-25+at+4.53.05+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV2VQvKVKYyWtl17v-6S-5cqJiTKlO0OdxL2jilkkja88skAvisrZenpqqgtMRWRv4Xj_twHE3g1PTMDo6WYJM3FCuXfktKKnysQ9QDimvvmhB3_iAIQXk-zHak8jpvyhHe6u_/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-03-25+at+4.53.05+PM.png" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
From this, I can see that the number one source of referrals lately was from social-buttons. This is frustrating. It tells me nothing about where the site was, or the topic of conversation. It's just the site that manages the link button. It's like asking "where did the click come from?" and getting the answer "From the mouse button." No useful information at all.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You see, they might not even have wanted to come here. Maybe the link was in error, or they were looking for the football player with my same name. I can't tell. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If YOU came here looking for something, I would be overjoyed if you left me a comment or an email. Seriously, sometimes even the spam is entertaining. And if you were looking for something that you didn't find, let me know and maybe I can help.</div>
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See you next time.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-43919537015516177782014-12-18T12:01:00.000-06:002014-12-18T12:02:28.546-06:00My Favorite Book<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfV6adFsKipTV88V62vwtNohHbbH6BXkkjK3zAPMITCxOmFyy-wG1Lu8Ie3nC6nnstjrPBzaMYykd8CY7inLYl9YjyCmbvMnuIigp11uDVGuYtRn7o8LggGrqPToQ8_rf7Tyj/s1600/10Books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfV6adFsKipTV88V62vwtNohHbbH6BXkkjK3zAPMITCxOmFyy-wG1Lu8Ie3nC6nnstjrPBzaMYykd8CY7inLYl9YjyCmbvMnuIigp11uDVGuYtRn7o8LggGrqPToQ8_rf7Tyj/s1600/10Books.jpg" height="200" width="183" /></a></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36px;">
As a writer sitting at my table, showing off all the books I’ve written, I frequently get asked, “What’s your favorite book?” That’s a very hard question to answer, because I have very strong feelings about all my books. I wouldn’t have written them otherwise. None of these are commissioned works designed to meet somebody else’s order.</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36px;">
So, instead of answering the question, I usually try to read the person talking to me and try to figure out what they would like best. That usually works.</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36px;">
However, I’ve decided to write a little introduction to each book, telling you what I feel about it. In essence, I’ll describe why every book is my favorite.</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 36px;">
I’ll be posting these little descriptions every few days on my henrymelton.com site, and then collect them all on the wordpress archive for future reference. </div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 288px; text-indent: 36px;">
If you read them all, you’ll probably be able to make your own judgement about which book is my favorite -- at least from your perspective. http://henrymelton.net/2/blog/</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-16563038263629913062014-12-04T13:32:00.001-06:002014-12-04T13:32:33.502-06:00It's Getting Crowded in the BatcaveI'm not going to talk about Batman, it was just too good a title. But how about the Flash? I've been watching the numerous superhero TV shows that have come out lately. Arrow and Flash are on my mind in particular. My how things have changed.<br />
<br />
When I was introduced to the Flash, I bought comic books off the spinner rack in Brooks Drug in Amarillo. The price was ten cents, for a while, until it went up to twelve. The Flash was probably my favorite super hero. His name was Barry Allen (there have been numerous people with that title) and he was a police scientist in real life, before he was struck by lightning and got his super-speed.<br />
<br />
Does that sound familiar? Unfortunately, that's about the only thing that's the same. Now, I've come to a peaceful co-existence with the idea that superheroes get their life story re-written every few years. I may not like it, but I can live with it.<br />
<br />
But I've noticed a massive shift in storytelling with all of these video versions. Ten Cent Flash was a lone scientist that worked out his powers alone, keeping his secret identity for a long time. He solved all his problems alone. His thoughts were shared with the reader as he whizzed along at super-speed, logically discovering who and what and how to stop the disaster.<br />
<br />
All the superheroes were the same. Occasionally there were side-kicks to talk to, and there was often dialog with the villain, but in the heat of battle, it was the man with his own thoughts.<br />
<br />
Switch the media to video. Now, super-heroes are just the athletes in a complex team of actors. There's the hacker and the scientist and the strategist -- all communicating with the guy in the suit via those invisible in the ear radios that easily have the best range of any radio I've ever seen for the size.<br />
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I can't say the super-teams are all that inspiring, where the lone individual was, to me. And the secret identity is the first casualty. Everyone knows. Why do they even bother? Do they think they can keep it a secret, when dozens of people know, including half the villains?<br />
<br />
Every storyline is horribly complex, keeping all the personal lives of all the team in turmoil. I can say I miss getting to know the title character. They all seem a little flat.<br />
<br />
Now all of this may be necessary. Perhaps video demands a cast of characters to be a sounding board. But contrast this with the new show Forever. The immortal character has a lot of personal thoughts and flashbacks taking up time in the show, and I think it has made him a more interesting hero. I wonder what it would have been if Flash had taken that path? I suppose it's not my call. I'm just the viewer, and a graybearded one at that. <br />
<br />
The real people making the choice are the video production team. Could the fact that their media is collaborative have influenced their storytelling? Is it hard for a video crew to imagine a lone action hero? I wonder.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-74968199256610932612014-06-17T18:34:00.000-05:002014-06-17T18:35:15.498-05:00Time to Mow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUXKYDx88GukZSU3DldZCJx6rDNNlfziUDK94tQgFsyeN1Y3OBcZgxHdWWyHZcgOnVMONRtO4FFmp-61nkUT2zX4TQZA6aSByizSawdMmsgnMhry4_pJ9A6sG4fzeXkJd1Pi9X/s1600/IMG_0409.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUXKYDx88GukZSU3DldZCJx6rDNNlfziUDK94tQgFsyeN1Y3OBcZgxHdWWyHZcgOnVMONRtO4FFmp-61nkUT2zX4TQZA6aSByizSawdMmsgnMhry4_pJ9A6sG4fzeXkJd1Pi9X/s1600/IMG_0409.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
My schedule is... complex. Yard work does not have as high a priority as watching my grandson, or getting the next book ready to publish. As a result of heavy book promotion and other priorities, mowing the yard has taken a back seat -- until today. The next book has had the beta-reader versions printed and mailed out to the select few. Now, for the first time in quite a few weeks, it's time to mow. Unfortunately, that means that some of the vegetation (it's not all grass by any stretch) is taller than my head, even when I'm seated in on the tractor.<br />
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By this time of the year, most of the wildflowers have gone to seed, so I don't feel all that bad about mowing down the stalks. One thing that does bring the sighs is the wildlife. If you've seen the movie "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh", there's the dramatic scene where the farmer fires up the tractor and it's 'Moving Day'. In real life, it's exactly like that. Rabbits and rodents who have made their homes in that tall stand of wildflowers huddle in fear until the tractor gets too close and they make their frantic dash to the nearest line of trees. I didn't see any cute furry babies this time, but I have in the past.<br />
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I'm lucky that I can choose not to mow until I'm ready, but unfortunately, I can't put it off forever. I really don't want tall stands of dried vegetation next to the house when it wild fire season comes around.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-80715537112385892832014-05-17T10:24:00.000-05:002014-05-17T10:25:21.461-05:00Testing a Chromebook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWB7v8WsTPz1rf9iPvM4jbvJUdGEX3rk8yYztBzyjHFlkpI5eSiyD4IWnyL3BibPxwfu8o0Y6ZSA0RKoY48M7hPW4DAcaeabPo8yzz_C-j7tMWyxdPdQ9ZjMKI-9p9ujjpZDwj/s1600/chromebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWB7v8WsTPz1rf9iPvM4jbvJUdGEX3rk8yYztBzyjHFlkpI5eSiyD4IWnyL3BibPxwfu8o0Y6ZSA0RKoY48M7hPW4DAcaeabPo8yzz_C-j7tMWyxdPdQ9ZjMKI-9p9ujjpZDwj/s1600/chromebook.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
Stopping off at Office Depot to pick up some ink cartridges, I notice a Samsung chromebook on display for two hundred and some dollars. While I'm firmly an Apple user for decades, I am aware that there are several of my most used applications, like Pages and Numbers, with a web portal. I had a few minutes, so I thought I'd give it a try. I mean, if this little laptop substitute, available for nearly throwaway prices could handle my most common applications, I could use it on trips.<br />
<br />
So, I fumbled around and keyed in the iCloud.com address and brought up the Pages application. Right off the bat, there was a warning that the chrome browser wasn't fully supported, and that was a bad sign. However, I was allowed to continue. I created a new document and typed a few lines.<br />
<br />
I was barely thirty seconds into my test when I knew that this laptop gadget was much too sluggish to get anything done. It took a couple of tries before it would even capture my keystrokes. I suppose this was due to delays loading the application software from the web, but there was no cue as to what was happening -- other than I was tapping the keys and staring at the blank page. Eventually, it started to capture my text, and after that, I could type a line okay. Accessing the menus, such as changing the text style, was still slow. I couldn't use it for productive work.<br />
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I suppose the chrome book is probably tuned to use Google's document apps, not any random substitute, but for me, it wasn't working.<br />
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At least I was able to find the settings page to clear all my cookies and passwords and usage history. That is, if Google is telling the truth about what's running under the hood. <br />
<br />
In summary, the idea of a web-only laptop is intriguing but that test machine didn't do the job well. I'll be sticking with an iPad for minimal travel use.<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-48293661681608486172014-03-27T21:20:00.000-05:002014-03-27T21:23:57.265-05:00Switching WebsitesFor longer than I can remember, I've had a website. Before websites, I had a Gopher site, if you have any idea what that was. But as technologies changed, and the tools for updating a site changed, I have had to reengineer my little home on the Internet. For some years now, I've used iWeb to update and maintain my <a href="http://henrymelton.com/">HenryMelton.com</a> site. Before that, it was hand-crafted pages, sometimes using Dreamweaver to handle the link-checking and automated tasks.<br />
<br />
Now, it's come to pass that iWeb has been abandoned so long that I can no longer safely use it to update my pages without risking horrible formatting errors. So, I did what so many other people have done, I took a look at WordPress. My hosting service has many software tools already installed, so it was effortless to set up a new branch on my site. <a href="http://henrymelton.com/0/Home.html">Henrymelton.com/0</a> was my iWeb site. <a href="http://henrymelton.com/2">Henrymelton.com/2</a> became the WordPress version. The learning curve wasn't too bad. I replaced the functionality of my landing page easily enough and set up the links needed to make everything available.<br />
<br />
From long experience, I know that changing any links is hazardous. People find interesting pages and share them to their friends. Those links are out of my control, and often, totally unknown to me. As a result, I intend to keep the zero branch active and unchanged for as long as I can -- years certainly. But everything new will now be done on the WP branch. <br />
<br />
I invite you to go visit. If you want, you can compare the old with the new. In any case, if you have HenryMelton.com bookmarked, that's fine, it will be redirected to the new site. But if you have a link that says "henrymelton.com/0/something_else" then know that you might be wise to search out the new alternative and change it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-16326390578754299692013-12-14T11:41:00.000-06:002013-12-14T11:41:55.394-06:00How Walgreens Lost my BusinessThis is uncomfortable. I'm not a person who gripes a lot. But I've tried to accommodate Walgreens customer card, and it's not working for me.<br />
<br />
In the past, perhaps two years ago, I was a happy Walgreens customer. I liked some of their products, like the cans of nuts, and the stores were very close and handy. There are three close enough to me to be considered convenient stopping places. One is very handy. I particularly liked the fact that they would often have instant discounts -- buy two cans of nuts and the second would be cheaper. <br />
<br />
And then they instituted their Balance Rewards card system. I first ran up against it when the discount on the counter top was rejected at the checkout. The fine print supposedly said I only got the discount when I had their card. So... no discount for me any more. I didn't like it. And I didn't feel like signing up for Yet Another Card. <br />
<br />
So, I continued to shop at Walgreens, but each and every special I saw under the products left a sour taste in my mouth. Specials for other people, not for me. And then at checkout. "Do you have the card?" "No." "Would you like to sign up?" "No". Over and over and over again. Some clerks were particularly insistent and kept giving me the hard sell, even after I said "No."<br />
<br />
That lasted a year. I stopped buying several of the products that I had previously enjoyed. It was just too distasteful. And then I discovered that my wife had signed up. It was a let-down. My principled resistance meant nothing. Walgreens still had their hooks into our customer data. <br />
<br />
So, I signed up, and added Walgreens to my iPhones passbook so I wouldn't have to deal with a physical card or recite my phone number like everyone else does. <br />
<br />
It's not working out. Checking out is smoother. I just set my phone down on the counter next to the products and they scan it as well as the goods. But last week, they printed out a ten dollar discount strip -- I guess the results of my bonus points. However a closer look showed that there was a time limit -- one week from issue. This wasn't money back to me, it was just another enticement to spend some money at their store.<br />
<br />
So, today, on the last day of the ten dollar discount, I decided I needed a couple of items. I could go to HEB or a convenience store, but since I had a ten dollar discount, why not Walgreens?<br />
<br />
I picked up my three items and went to the checkout. I set them down with my coupon and my cell phone. They were scanned, and then the clerk said I wouldn't be able to use the discount, because it required a $30 dollar minimum. My purchases only came up to $17. <br />
<br />
After a moment's hesitation, I said "It's not worth it," and walked off, leaving my products and my absolutely worthless bonus coupon for the clerk to deal with. I heard her calling for a manager to handle the cancellation as I walked out, but I couldn't deal with it. Once again, Walgreens had used the 'fine print' to turn a potential pleasurable shopping experience into a resolve to stop doing business with them.<br />
<br />
I know that I can't fight it. The fine print was there, and I have to face up to the decision that I must closely check every potential bonus or sale that Walgreens offers me, or just not deal with them anymore. In spite of nice people at the store, the company isn't friendly anymore. I suppose I'll still go there for some drugs and emergency bandages and the like, but it's not on my list as a convenient place to pick up cokes or paper towels. I guess I need to see what the CVS stores are like.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-64002849662267582992013-11-12T20:41:00.000-06:002014-06-18T13:27:00.950-05:00A Genre WriterOccasionally, when I meet people outside of conventions, AKA, in real life, and they find out I'm a writer, they ask what kind of stuff I write. I always say, "I write science fiction." That either interests them or I get a wave off, since they don't read that kind of stuff. That's normally okay by me. I'm not generally talking to them in order to sell books. I'll ask about what they do -- what interests them. That's the best way to meet people in my opinion.<br />
<br />
However, my latest book -- the one I'm currently writing, is just <i>barely</i> science fiction. Am I still a science fiction author if I write a mystery/detective story? Let me tell you a secret. I've got a whole stash of stories that I write that will never see print. It's not because they are bad, but because I write more than I'll ever have the chance to publish and market. I have to pick and choose which of the stories will be able to find readers. And a lot of these hidden stories are not science fiction. They are mysteries and adventures and romances. They are all lengths. There are a few that are novel length, but most are novella and short story length. The story dictates the length.<br />
<br />
Now, while I could slap some of these into a kindle book and sell them as 99-cent shorts, it's not something I've chosen to do. For one thing, I'm trying to provide a known quality for people that have taken the gamble and read one of my books. I want them to know what to expect from a Henry Melton book, at least in a general way. That's the whole purpose of my book categories.<br />
<br />
If someone reads one of my <b>Small Town, Big Ideas</b> stories, then if they see another with that marketing label, then they'll know what they're getting. It's the same with <b>The Project Saga</b>. Different styles for different people. Now, I like both. Many people do, but setting expectations is part of the process of making people happy.<br />
<br />
So, about this new book... Amarillo Texas is a small city, not a small Main-street town like some I've written about, but it's a adventure tale with a high school aged main character who has been dropped into extraordinary circumstances. It's a <b>Small Town, Big Ideas</b> natural. It doesn't hurt that I've pushed the boundaries of certain medical theories, so I can easily claim it as science fiction. That's what comes naturally to me. I see what's real now, and then keep on writing even if reality hasn't quite caught up to what I have in the story.<br />
<br />
But, if you look at the action and the plot, this story lives in the Mystery genre. I wrote it that way deliberately, even if I'm not "Henry Melton, Mystery Writer". I'm sure this kind of cross-genre business would get me in trouble if I were writing for a New York publisher. Luckily, I'm writing for me.<br />
<br />
I have a great fondness for this one, and a lot of it comes from my memories. I grew up in Amarillo. The main character lives on my old street, in my old house. I've had to change a few things, because the world has changed. My old high school burned down, for one. A new one was built with the same name, but the school districts changed. You see the problems. <br />
<br />
It will be 2014 before it comes out. I still have to fix all those persistent typos and grammar glitches and get my helpers to look over my shoulder to find the plot gaffes. But you'll like it. I'm sure. <br />
<br />
Now, if I could just find a good title.<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-5639806502593426032013-07-03T19:21:00.000-05:002013-07-03T19:21:11.757-05:00Things That Work: My Jeep Wrangler at 300,000 Miles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjibTUeqMpwga1qIlXdYI8x0BfciV40SAXrM59dh8HdmVg8peJ_3yKqrjwuGT52au1ocKqspe2vfOkWziymTIN6rGihsRE70ODSUDKOmx9yhCvg_KFgrdaECNJ63IIhhJZyGdGf/s1600/IMG_1580.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjibTUeqMpwga1qIlXdYI8x0BfciV40SAXrM59dh8HdmVg8peJ_3yKqrjwuGT52au1ocKqspe2vfOkWziymTIN6rGihsRE70ODSUDKOmx9yhCvg_KFgrdaECNJ63IIhhJZyGdGf/s200/IMG_1580.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
I was at work, so my boy Thomas and my wife Mary Ann picked out my new car, a 97 dark green Jeep Wrangler. All I had to do was drive it off the lot. For some reason this, more than any other vehicle, felt like my car -- not a hand-me-down, nor a family vehicle.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Tcgk2EDV1bYc9CGtGTcfnP0GASCZVOn0P7Ie5O3MfWrTdL20QSu1wiFP0YYi9U7bhqgeGWo2zv66GdkviwpB717R5AhdB7wZ-Vh2oPct5nd2csXad99ESGeDpWWEDy86R8b5/s1600/IMG_1582.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Tcgk2EDV1bYc9CGtGTcfnP0GASCZVOn0P7Ie5O3MfWrTdL20QSu1wiFP0YYi9U7bhqgeGWo2zv66GdkviwpB717R5AhdB7wZ-Vh2oPct5nd2csXad99ESGeDpWWEDy86R8b5/s200/IMG_1582.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Today, after 300,000 miles and many years, I pulled off the side of the road and took a picture of it. That's the original paint job as you can guess, and the forth rag top, but it's still going strong and it's my dependable day to day vehicle.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GmRSwT_OmMd7CdSmMu9plCn7v5vU3JeYGJSazV1vEB23lwFPN7AXMOYMtgC5LTp_QQuJNjjAKs38rmW-XHsUVvRJxCFCilSYtnCZdo01dWA14F15pm_16gBO2AJKiNNX3LH2/s1150/P8250092.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GmRSwT_OmMd7CdSmMu9plCn7v5vU3JeYGJSazV1vEB23lwFPN7AXMOYMtgC5LTp_QQuJNjjAKs38rmW-XHsUVvRJxCFCilSYtnCZdo01dWA14F15pm_16gBO2AJKiNNX3LH2/s200/P8250092.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Now that 300K miles doesn't include more than 50K+ miles being towed behind our RV touring the country. The Jeep was our expedition vehicle while the RV stayed at the campground. We went everywhere, from San Diego to Bar Harbor, including places in Canada.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGHjZAVg6f_84GSP5iKqDH8Vz7Hjic-ouiLGQFf5JUtfXc-kTMJ8qbLNN_J6XYf5171u971VL1FelyKCAXkFRSzCzJvJyCLeOAf1Fyl7O4mPbtxvT_FZwG2phzpm5_HB4IX0hI/s1600/IMG_1572.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGHjZAVg6f_84GSP5iKqDH8Vz7Hjic-ouiLGQFf5JUtfXc-kTMJ8qbLNN_J6XYf5171u971VL1FelyKCAXkFRSzCzJvJyCLeOAf1Fyl7O4mPbtxvT_FZwG2phzpm5_HB4IX0hI/s200/IMG_1572.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
This Jeep is my main utility vehicle. I removed the rear bench seat and use the space to load up my books when I go to a book signing or convention. There's plenty of space for all my books, signage, luggage, and even the trolly to carry it all. <br />
<br />
From time to time, the question of a new car has come up, but I've always said I didn't want to give up on my Jeep until it reached 300,000 miles, but considering how well it's holding up, I may move that goalpost. <br />
<br />
I want to acknowledge the help of <a href="http://www.pitprosofroundrock.com/" target="_blank">Pit Pros of Round Rock</a> for my regular 3000 mile oil changes and their help keeping me on track with all the other regular maintenance a good car needs. For all the mechanic help, <a href="http://www.roundrockmuffler.com/" target="_blank">Round Rock Muffler and Automotive</a> has been the place where I've gotten tires and belts and the occasional transmission tweaks, water pumps, door locks and whatever else goes wrong. They always do the job and put my Jeep back into service quickly. <div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-9204550858385799292012-12-18T18:40:00.001-06:002012-12-18T18:40:09.482-06:00Revisiting TVFor a number of years now, I've been collecting videos. This is hardly unusual, most people do. Over time, however, I had collected nearly three terabytes of movies, tv shows, and home movies, nicely converted and organized as an iTunes library. As the library grew, my media database grew out of a single hard drive, on to a raid, and then to a Drobo array. In the back of my mind, I worried about backing this all up. That's part of the reason it was hosted on the Drobo, so that a single hard drive failure wouldn't wipe it all out. It was much too large for a duplicate drive, and although some of it was backed up to DVDs, my iTunes library was continually growing and changing, and enough DVD's had failed on me that I didn't have confidence in them anymore. Certainly I wasn't about to go back to tape.<br />
<br />
Now, I have extensive backups on everything else. My photos are duplicated on different drives, my writing files are duplicated so many different ways it'd make your head spin. I have a large TimeMachine backup of my laptop, and some things (like the writing files) are being daily copied off to the cloud backup services. But I never quite took the extra step to backup the video library. Too expensive, too time consuming, too lazy.<br />
<br />
So, of course, (you saw it coming), an obscure glitch trashed the data on my Drobo. The directory structure was damaged some how, probably by the common power failures that happen out here in the country. I didn't notice it immediately, but I was running out of space on the Drobo, so I swapped in a bigger drive and waited the week or so for it to reorganize the data. Superficially, it looked good, so I swapped in a second bigger drive. <br />
<br />
Then it was time to head off for a six week vacation/book-tour. I would occasionally log back in to my home system to see how things were going. Half-way through the trip, something looked very wrong, but I had to just shut it down until I returned home. A week or so of debugging, once I had hands-on time to work with it gave me the bad news. Drobo wasn't going to recover itself. Even bringing it up in raw mode so that Disk Utility and Diskwarror could work on it wouldn't work. Within a minute of booting it up, the unit was caught in a loop and slowed to nothing. <br />
<br />
I had a choice, turn it over to one of those pricy disk recovery firms and cross my fingers, or format the drives and start all over with an empty library. It was a painful decision. My video library was mostly items purchased from iTunes, so with the new rules, I could re-download all of that for free. The rest consisted of Beta and VHS tapes digitized, a number of things pulled from DVDs, and a few TV shows captured from my Directv via Eyetv. I still have the home movie tapes, and I can recapture those, but there would be quite a few things I would have to do without.<br />
<br />
I formatted the drives. There was never any hardware problem with the Drobo, so it came back up. I wrote a custom Perl program to scan through my TimeMachine archive and pull all the videos. I loaded those and started the process of running iTunes re-downloads. I figure it will take about a year to get everything back -- I have slow DSL. What with my backups and a month or so of downloading, I have 1.1TB recovered. I also have a 3TB drive connected with nightly CCC backups running. Backup drives have gotten cheap. Or at least it feels like it now.<br />
<br />
One interesting benefit of this process is that I'm re-visiting a lot of shows I saw once and then forgot. Of course there was Firefly, Angel and Buffy, but I'm also enjoying some of the one-season wonders that came and vanished, like Haven, Cupid, Fallen, Raines, MiddleMan, etc. I'm sure I'll need to purchase some of the things that I had captured before, but with today's better quality, and with the built-in cloud backup, it's a nice upgrade. <br />
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But... I'm going to keep that backup drive spinning!<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-50806851772540061722012-12-11T12:09:00.000-06:002012-12-11T12:09:11.495-06:00Apple Map UpdatesI was amused by the recent Australian map problem, where a city was marked in the wrong location. A one or two day flash of bad PR and the issue was fixed. I'm jealous. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJ9XjNnsBgbcGwbmB0YMw5Ebdma3nQeSo1gN-ITY6wuvDLKS1S2_JK-8VvLfAA7X-EIaewND0F_SYv_MiAB9spatjZfEHv7GHzVtEs01MRU4-r0DUjZAs12PH8CS6K-Jv7KZv/s1600/IMG_0030.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJ9XjNnsBgbcGwbmB0YMw5Ebdma3nQeSo1gN-ITY6wuvDLKS1S2_JK-8VvLfAA7X-EIaewND0F_SYv_MiAB9spatjZfEHv7GHzVtEs01MRU4-r0DUjZAs12PH8CS6K-Jv7KZv/s320/IMG_0030.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
You see, I've been trying to get a nearly identical issue fixed for the last couple of months. One of my towns, the locale of <a href="http://www.henrymelton.com/0/Webstore.html" target="_blank">The Copper Room</a>, is Canton Missouri. When you search for that town, up pops a red pin at a rural location, while the real town, which I've marked with a blue pin in this image is way over there on the river.<br />
<br />
Now, I'm a big fan of the new Apple Maps, and I still like it better than anything else out there, but I just wish it was easier to correct errors that I encounter. There are a number of buttons built into the app that where one can "Report a problem". I systematically tried them all. There's the one under the turned up corner, where one can report general problems. There's the one where you highlight the pin and report the error there. I even went to www.apple.com/feedback and tried to report it there. Still, the days tick by and the false Canton pin hasn't moved. <br />
<br />
I was willing to give Apple some slack because they get their data from third parties and I suspected that maybe the delay had to do with the long lead time of feeding the error data back to TomTom or whoever and waiting for it to ripple through the system. Obviously, there's a quicker way, as evidenced by the Australian issue.<br />
<br />
It's the PR, obviously. Now I know my little blog is minor. Goggle won't even let me put adverts on it because it's so inconsequential. But I've had some visibility on other issues in the past. Maybe someone will notice. I can alway hope.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-7944165468206470442012-11-23T18:47:00.000-06:002014-06-18T13:27:54.255-05:00The Enchantment of Sail<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmldFRMCPnR-G_44cwB9lOt4XPpsjFJwf2o9YuOEOgSjimQ9B5Y572Zg_D5LSKJGBFOhKo6w6hYMg77BYEiZpv7UaOaFCH-2YI3mLH6pR7D4jaosCT2nRLJfQc-OzhX9_BSqZm/s1600/BreakingAnchor-3inch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmldFRMCPnR-G_44cwB9lOt4XPpsjFJwf2o9YuOEOgSjimQ9B5Y572Zg_D5LSKJGBFOhKo6w6hYMg77BYEiZpv7UaOaFCH-2YI3mLH6pR7D4jaosCT2nRLJfQc-OzhX9_BSqZm/s320/BreakingAnchor-3inch.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
This week my sailing novel is out, <b>Breaking Anchor</b>. Yes, it is science fiction. That's how my brain is wired, but sailing has found a place in my imagination. I grew up with an outboard powered fishing boat my father saved up to buy. I like the water, but by the time I did a little sailing on Town Lake, the lure of sail had crept into my soul. Unfortunately, I've never bought a sailboat, nor been able to indulge my fantasy of renting and sailing the Caribbean islands.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjlwbWyPRm5pymHIIIp04CdyqvjAovLEsrJfG-HfkKZghba7zHOL61STZiyJwMpnK8O-p3ePGvezumHwLMlQA6lIZOxqLqY116JK9mMR8Ht_lOHMp_Jz4FEC8J9bj_DmZz5Sk/s1600/Roll+32+-+43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjlwbWyPRm5pymHIIIp04CdyqvjAovLEsrJfG-HfkKZghba7zHOL61STZiyJwMpnK8O-p3ePGvezumHwLMlQA6lIZOxqLqY116JK9mMR8Ht_lOHMp_Jz4FEC8J9bj_DmZz5Sk/s1600/Roll+32+-+43.jpg" /></a></div>
Some years ago, my wife and I took a cruise from Barbados and visited a number of islands on a large sailing vessel. It was a 100 passenger cruise ship, and I have many fond memories of that trip, but this was really too large for my ideal vessel. I wanted something large enough to live in, for months at a time, but something I could handle. I wanted to handle the sails, and to set the course, and feel the wind and adjust the wheel in response.<br />
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When I was writing the novel, or shorting before then, I was listening to all of the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/furledsails.com-worlds-first/id79684594" target="_blank">Furled Sails podcasts</a>. There were many inspiring tales of sailors, from the weekend sailors to the ones who had sold everything and lived their lives on the seas.<br />
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On one of my California trips, my wife, daughter and I took a little sail around the Santa Barbara area in a 40-foot sailboat. It was perfect. If anyone wants to know what I want for Christmas, look no farther. Properly outfitted, one person can sail a boat this sized, and yet there's no limit on where you could go. *Sigh*<br />
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Maybe someday.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-37004450596899655582012-09-29T07:52:00.000-05:002012-09-29T07:52:47.730-05:00The New Apple MapsI loved the old Maps program, based on the Google database, but I love the new one so much more. At the time I'm writing this, I'm on the road, visiting book stores and doing book signings half-way across the country from home. I downloaded the IOS 6 update with motel wifi and updated my phone and iPad when it came out. Almost before the update completed, there were a flood of articles bad-mouthing the new Maps. I even made the bookmark to the Google maps web-app, like people suggested.<br />
<br />
However, once I started using the Apple Maps, I never was even tempted to use the Google link, or the Navigon full featured app that I spent good money for a long time ago. The Apple Maps is just too easy to use.<br />
<br />
I've used Navigon once -- just to try it out. It works fine, but choosing a destination was difficult. I never bothered. On the Maps app, I can say "Route me to Chamberlain, South Dakota" and I can have spoken turn by turn directions with no other input. Or I can scroll through the maps and type "Books" in the search field to have pins pop up for all the bookstores. I select one of the pins and tap the crooked arrow icon to get my directions. This is how I hop-scotched up the coast from California to Seattle, stopping at any bookstores I could find.<br />
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Most of the gripes about the app are with the database of locations driving it. Yes, I saw a couple of errors. Usually one location and a duplicate from the Yelp database for the same store. If I'd have been on top of things I should have tapped the "Report a Problem" button to flag the bad ones to improve the database, but I didn't notice that option. <br />
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But the thing is, ALL maps have errors. Even the glorified Google Maps. Up until a few weeks ago, Google insisted that My House was a retail bookstore. I received any number of phone calls by people calling me, looking for books. I had to go report the issue and get the bad listing scrubbed. That has to happen with all databases.<br />
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So, aware there might be errors, I happily continue my trip, using Apple Maps, because no other app works as well.<br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-23366591842075442632012-09-14T09:45:00.001-05:002012-09-14T09:47:12.083-05:00Backing up BeartoothI almost wrote "Backing up Bluetooth" which would have been an entirely different article. <br />
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In preparation for this cross country trip, iOS 6 compatibility and the opportunity to give my son-in-law my workhorse original iPad, I upgraded to the new iPad. The question at the moment of purchase was whether to go with AT&T or Verizon. <br />
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I wanted the Personal Hotspot feature that wasn't available on my unlimited AT&T data plans, and I finally chose Verizon. This gave me an iPhone 4S on AT&T and the new device on Verizon. I'd be traveling in areas with limited coverage, so if one service failed, hopefully the other one would be available. <br />
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Today, I'm one week into the trip and I have been disappointed in the Verizon coverage. Traveling up to Yellowstone, and spending the night in Santa Clara NM and Pinedale WY, not to mention various gas stations on the way, the iPad showed no coverage. Certainly AT&T is light as well, but if there is any signal to be had it'll be on my 4S. <br />
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Here in Yellowstone, cell coverage is limited to about four towers in the whole park. As I type this in Canyon Village, I have 4 bars of 4G on the iPhone and one bar intermittently of Verizon 3G on the iPad. It was fairly solid at Mammoth Hot Springs, but in general AT&T wins here. <br />
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This morning, realizing we needed to make a phone call in Silver Gate Montana, we drove up the Beartooth Highway, searching for a remembered signal from previous years. Outside of Cook City, there was a flicker of signal and as I watched a deer grazing beside the road, Mary Ann had me turn around, and then back up on the Beartooth Highway, hoping to pick up something usable, but it wasn't to be had on any device. This is the area none of the cell companies bother with. <br />
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I expressed my disappointment on twitter and quite soon got this response from Verizon: @HenryMelton We want to make sure that you have reliable service. Where did you travel? Are you still there? I can check on coverage. ^LA<br />
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I replied giving details. I was in Yellowstone. <br />
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They replied: @HenryMelton Ahh I see! There are certain areas that do not have coverage. Go to http://t.co/nWW2n6v3 to view coverage. ^LA<br />
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Thanks Verizon. Yes, I know there is limited coverage here, my post was comparing the two services, where AT&T was a clear winner. <br />
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I have often thought that the tech journalist coverage of AT&T vs Verizon was based purely on the San Francisco cell service area where those reporters all live and gave AT&T a bad rep that it can't seem to shake. <br />
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Who knows? The trip has just begun and the situation may well reverse when I'm on the west coast. We'll see. <br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-90341770665007012862012-09-13T11:41:00.001-05:002012-09-13T11:43:32.248-05:00Dreams, Lucid and OtherwiseOne of my most useful writing tools is the lucid dream. It's a halfway state between wakefulness and random dreaming, where I can set the stage, place the characters in motion, and even stop and rewind the action. It's great for working through scenes and seeing how the characters will act, all before touching the keyboard.<br />
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This happens for me before finally drifting off into snore mode at night, in the dawn light of the morning, and occasionally in those in between times between deep sleep and wakefulness.<br />
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I'm having trouble using lucid dreaming at all this week. We're in Yellowstone National Park for a week of touring the great loop and watching animals. Mary Ann is a nature photographer, and so our typical day is up at five to be at the wolf observation sites before dawn, then tour the park, stopping for buffalo, elk, coyotes, and bear. Come sunset, we will be in a photogenic location for her sunset shots. Of course, at that time, we are halfway across the huge park from out room in Cook City on the far eastern edge of the park. So, I drive (I do all the driving) back that direction, until we stop for another photo shoot of star trails or the milky way. <br />
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Eventually, we drag in near midnight and collapse, with the clock set for five again just a few short hours away.<br />
Now, I do dream under these conditions, but it's hardly the leisurely set up and monitoring useful for my writing. It's the random mis-mash of people and events I can barely remember when waking, and forget soon after. It's the processing type of dream scientists think is necessary maintenance to memory development.<br />
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I can't gripe too much about the lack of dream-writing time, not when it's just part of being in Yellowstone. But the same dynamic probably happens with other dawn to midnight days when I'm trying to get a lot of activity done in too few hours. Lucid dreaming, for me, takes time. Time to drift off to sleep, not just crash. (Oops. I had to go run take a picture of a wolf watching us. Now where was I?) Time to wake up gently, rather than jumping up to silence the alarm. <br />
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It all takes time, doesn't it? Time to plot, time to compose, time to edit, and lots not even speak of the time it takes to market. It's all a trade off. And sometimes we just have to take some extra time to live.<br />
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<br />
<div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3MKRI4yAuaHCJxIcmn8HpfERp8gQ9hFNt1cUTypcyU_anxNHG_QntizeCt6iaA0jfKSvtiFOIlo5XtEY3bIBtN3qsmZCRUlN8yUVabMLGauqeKAJ82XSCRzVlwl2IyUDoxKci/s640/blogger-image--1261006728.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3MKRI4yAuaHCJxIcmn8HpfERp8gQ9hFNt1cUTypcyU_anxNHG_QntizeCt6iaA0jfKSvtiFOIlo5XtEY3bIBtN3qsmZCRUlN8yUVabMLGauqeKAJ82XSCRzVlwl2IyUDoxKci/s640/blogger-image--1261006728.jpg" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0Yellowstone National Park Gardiner44.66681 -110.467374tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-28888828025394397402012-07-24T14:50:00.000-05:002012-07-24T14:50:23.283-05:00The Memories Come FirstWriting fiction, like I do, is process of revelation. We’ve all heard it asked, either as writers ourselves, or listening to the fans approach the Famous Author, “Where do you get your ideas?” <br /><br />There’s rarely a good answer to that, because ideas are everywhere, there for writers and non-writers to pluck out of the air and play with. What I want to talk about here is instead the evolution of <i>story</i>. At this instant, I’m taking a short break in a story that I’ve been working on for a few days. From the beginning, I knew a few ideas. I knew who the main two characters were, and what had to be resolved. That was about it. I could write it out in one sentence, if you allow a few commas. <br /><br />But that isn’t a story. <br /><br />There are times I write an outline, often it approaches first draft status by its own word-count. A really good outline, with the characters developed and the side plots spelled out, can make the writing very straightforward: Take sub-point 2.a.5 and flesh it out in a sensory-engaging set of paragraphs. Repeat with next sub-point. <br /><br />Today’s story isn’t like that either. I don’t have an outline for this one. I began with an introductory scene, to get a taste for the main character. Not for the reader to get that taste, but for me, the writer, to turn a name into a person. <br /><br />In stories like this, the real plotting happens in bed, lights out, before I go to sleep, or when I’m swimming laps, with my goggles and snorkel, staring at the featureless white of the pool bottom, oblivious to the outside world. A scene has just been written, what needs to come next? <br /><br />The character and her recent actions are fresh in my mind. Vague ideas about where the story should go begin to appear like memories. Sometimes it’s the very next thing that must happen, often not. Events appear in whatever order they please, just as if I’m remembering the scenes from times past. I am simultaneously experiencing the story, and judging it. Minor characters appear, with their backstories. They’ll spill their life stories, sometimes, and I shake my authorial head and simplify the scene, saving all that detail for later, or maybe just leaving remnants in the look in a character’s eyes or the hesitation in her voice. <br /><br />I’m up in the morning or dried off from the pool and sit down at the keyboard. The next chronological scene, visualized maybe a dozen times before, gets set down in words and paragraphs, and then when it’s time, I’m off to swim or go to bed the next day. <br /><br />Again, memories from future events appear, changed and colored by what has been marked down in black and white. Events get re-arranged. More important memories come to the fore. I experience the next events again, and judge what to keep -- what is real -- and what is not. Like closing a zipper, all those potential visions are stabilized into one. <br /><br />The cycle repeats over and over. The memories of what will happen come first, and then fingers fix them into firm reality. <br /><br />As an experience, it’s wonderful -- much more fulfilling than watching a scene on the TV. In the end, I have a first draft. Editing is rewarding too, seeing sloppy prose become crisp, but that’s a different process entirely. <br /><br />I’ve been told that my writing is visual, that “they ought to make it into a movie” and I suspect that comes from experiencing, visually, these memories of the future projected on my eyelids, or on the bottom of the pool, before the words ever line up on the page. <br /><br />Take this for what it is, one writer’s experience in helping a story come to life. It’s not true for all, and it’s not even true for all my writing, but when it works, it’s wonderful.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8061555.post-57851120400978744322012-07-17T19:36:00.000-05:002012-07-17T19:36:04.205-05:00Why I Wrote “Emperor Dad”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinY6NmIsZHci342595esravTD0DVmfdFLDcPqKzIq1aBqz2G5pJ2r2yL5uepCJjSgl9y33F_Q7XhZJVNwQO5YQrnOr5N4LdhPWgOoaa0orRtFfBLgBACJArOu87LLP9L09lCVzwQ/s1600/ED-2inch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinY6NmIsZHci342595esravTD0DVmfdFLDcPqKzIq1aBqz2G5pJ2r2yL5uepCJjSgl9y33F_Q7XhZJVNwQO5YQrnOr5N4LdhPWgOoaa0orRtFfBLgBACJArOu87LLP9L09lCVzwQ/s200/ED-2inch.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>My life changed. Taking a risk, I had accepted an early retirement offer from the company where I had worked for twenty-some years. The company had changed, and my children were grown. The numbers seemed reasonable. I could quit writing database code that seemed increasingly irrelevant to me, and I feared, to the company.<br />
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So one day I brought home a cardboard box of awards plaques and file folders of my training, personnel records, etc. and set it in the corner of my home office. My intent was to spend more time writing.<br />
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But what to write? I had written and had published a number of science fiction short stories. I had also written some novels, but none of them had attracted the attention of publishers or agents.<br />
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With the newfound freedom of working at my own pace, rather than fitting it in between testing SQL statements and writing Perl modules, I let my mind drift a little. How about pick a topic and write -- short fiction or longer, let the story set the length?<br />
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With no idea more than teleportation as overlapping three-dimensional spheres, I started writing, vaguely autobiographically. The setting was my house. The character was a younger, smarter version of myself. I developed the idea of the teleportation. I worked out some details about how it might be discovered.<br />
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But the narrative dragged. It was far too easy to lecture. I set the story aside for awhile.<br />
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I had been attending a number of science fiction conventions and writing conferences. A lot of the advice didn’t seem to fit me, but one panel about Young Adult fiction had a question for the authors that resonated with me. What is your internal age? How old are you inside?<br />
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A lot of my writing had been with characters a lot younger than my calendar age. Some of them had been about right for the YA label. I’d even been told that before by people who had read my work, but it hadn’t stuck.<br />
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Maybe I was a YA author, and didn’t know it.<br />
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I went back to my stalled out manuscript and took a good hard look at a secondary character, the teenage son of the inventor. What if I took his viewpoint? <br />
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I trashed most of what I’d written and tried again, only with the son James (my middle name) as the main character. Part of it had to be written from the father’s perspective, but most of it flowed well as the story of James, who hacked into his dad’s computer to run computer games and discovered the controls to his father’s teleportation system. James had to figure out how everything worked, and just why his father had taken such elaborate measures to hide everything -- not just from him, but from his mother as well, and the world.<br />
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I plucked a number of episodes from the life of my son Thomas, as he grew up in Hutto, Texas. James wasn’t Thomas, but there were a number of places where they overlapped. <br />
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Writing was easy and experimental. I chose to write very short numbered chapters, over a hundred of them, and it was only in the final stages that I divided the story into nine named sections. <br />
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By the time I was done, I had a novel that was slightly shorter than the novels I had written before. But this was what I had decided -- let the story pick the length, and this was what came out.<br />
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From 2003 through 2005, I circulated the novel to agents and publishers, but it was gradually seeping into my skull that the nature of publishing had changed. This story didn’t match the checklist demanded by New York publishers. <br />
<br />
Rather than shelve the story, as I had several other novels, I put my toe into the self-publishing arena by making a PDF and selling it directly from my website. A few people bought it -- friends and relatives, but it never took off. Still, the idea had caught root. By 2007, I had done some homework and published a trade paperback copy through Lulu. It was a learning experience. Lulu’s costs plus the discount necessary to sell to a bookstore meant it was priced much too high. I had also gotten some painful assessments of its layout and formatting. As it was, the book would never sell.<br />
<br />
But that was just the bad news. People liked the story. Someone had gotten a copy of the book and submitted it to the Mid-South-Con’s Darrell Award contest. While I wasn’t sure it was eligible, it won, and Emperor Dad was now an award-winning novel. It was just the right push at the right moment.<br />
<br />
I established a publisher’s account through Lightningsource to make books at a lower price-point and promptly produced the second edition, with some typo corrections, a better layout, and a starburst on the cover proclaiming its award.<br />
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While there’s still a stash of first-edition copies in a corner of my office for people who <a href="http://www.henrymelton.com/0/Webstore.html" target="_blank">request them</a>, the second-edition is out on my table, selling well (for me) and continually gaining new fans.<br />
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This is still my experimental novel. It’s the only one with a 99¢ price tag on the ebook stores (for now) and the first novel I serialized for my <a href="http://henrysstories.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Henry’s Stories</a> online magazine. I don’t think I’ll ever let it go out of print.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><div style="font-size:small; color:#999 ; text-decoration:none " ><a href="http://mkt.com/henry-melton">-my books-</a></div></div>Henry Meltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11481916847684321643noreply@blogger.com0