Posts by: Penrefe
I’m not talking about the concept of freedom, just by the by. I’m talking about time management software called ‘Freedom’. Glad we’ve cleared that up. Don’t want to be starting a revolution over here.
Freedom is a very small but very handy piece of software available for both Windows and OSX. The software has a single purpose, and that is to turn off your Internet for a specified period of time, thus freeing you up to do more important things. It’s FREEDOM, get it?!
To give you an indication of why I personally needed this software, here’s how my time management goes at present:
09:00 - So let’s turn on the computer. I’m going to do SO FREAKING MUCH writing today.
09:02 - I’ll just check Twitter really quick, see if anyone @replied to any of my witty banter from last night. No replies. But a retweet. And a favourite! Must thank them. Ohh, look, a new post from my favourite writer friend! I’ll just go read that. Ohh, look! Google Reader has new posts from more writer types. I’ll just check those out. Won’t take a minute. Oh hey, a new video from my favourite TGWTG contributor is up! Ohh, what’s that post about the state of publishing in the advent of eReaders? I’d better read that. Could be important. Oh, what a charming picture of a dog wearing a party hat on Facebook. Must share that! Wait, is that a new trailer for that film I really want to see?! I must watch this right now. It can’t wait. Hey, look, new videos from my favourite YouTubers. Go on then, I’ll just watch a couple. Oh look, something that I’ve already seen a million times is now available on NetFlix! I’m really in the mood for a specific brand of comedic adventures right now. Mustn’t forget to check my e-mails: might have some beta reader responses. No responses, but look! New listed items on eBay! Oh hey, Tumblr! Look at that animated gif! That’s the most clever and witty animated gif I’ve ever seen in my entire online life. I must reblog it.
15:00 – Shit.
You could turn around and say:
Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you just unplug your Ethernet cable for an hour instead?
To which I’d say:
Hey, here’s a retort. You try crawling around under a desk that’s got a weeks’ worth of post under it, plus a pair of fingerless gloves you bought yourself on impulse before realising how ridiculous they are.
I could always unplug it from the top, cut it off at the source, you may be thinking. Well…
That's it, behind the AMALGAMATION OF SHIT.
Besides, if you’re living in a household where the Internet is shared, unplugging anything could plunge the whole house into darkness, and that, well that would just be chaos, and nobody wants that.
Enough of your life story. Nobody cares. What does Freedom actually DO?
In a nutshell, you tell Freedom how long you would like to work distraction-free, put in your minutes (up to 8 hours), click OK, and you’re done.
Your PC/Mac loses all its networking facilities for the amount of time you specified.
There is no way to undo this decision, short of restarting your machine.
The intention is that you will take the opportunity of “freedom” from the big, bad, alluring Internet to work.
Why not just do it manually?
Granted, it is a relatively simple task to manually turn off your Internet (particularly on the Mac – you click, Turn AirPort Off, and BOOM, gone), turning it back on when you’re done with your creative genius. The problem with this is that you are still the one in control of your Internet access. There’s no point turning off your Internet with the very best of intentions, only to turn around 3 minutes later and turn it back on “just to check for one e-mail”, thus starting the cycle all over again.
Freedom takes away the chance to relapse.
You tell it what you want to. It stops you from deviating from it.
Any downsides?
This isn’t so much a downside, more of a warning: The software is only useful if you are aware of its purpose.
An example of what I mean by that:
I have a PC, a Mac, an iPhone and an iPad. I have purchased a Freedom licence for both PC and Mac, meaning that – should I feel it necessary – I could run it on both computers simultaneously, thus taking out any chance of turning to the Internet on those. However, it wouldn’t take that much effort to lean over and pick up my phone, and then I’ll be off on the Information Superhighway faster than you can blink.
You need to remind yourself that there’s a reason you can’t get onto the Internet right now. The software is only as strong as your self control.
Also, I have a personal issue with this program, considering I can’t even think about the word “Freedom” without getting this is my head:
...or something to that effect.
Yeah. But that aside, Freedom is a great, simple little app that does exactly what it says on the tin.
There really isn’t much else to say other than it works.
I mean, it’s nothing spectacular, but then it doesn’t have to be. It has a purpose to serve, and it serves it perfectly.
Rating: 
You can buy Freedom from the developer’s web site, including free trial versions for both PC and Mac versions, enable 5 free uses before deciding whether to hand over your heard earned dolla.
(I’ve written this post as a means of procrastination so as not to have to work on my current WIP. The irony is not lost on me. Freedom is going on as soon as I’ve posted. Promise!)
Greetings! Pull up a chair. Oh, you’re already sitting down. Never mind, then.
Right, so I was going to go into this huge spiel about how pathetic and depressing 2011 was for me, and to share with anyone who cares to read it about how awful things were and how badly I handled everything and how I dropped myself into whole oceans worth of shit.
But you know what? No one will want to hear about it, and I don’t particularly want to write about it or even remember it, so fuck it, I won’t.
Instead, I’m going to talk about the good things I have to look forward to in 2012.
So I finished the novel I was working on for NaNoWriMo 2011. Woo. It is out with more beta readers as we speak, and I am sitting on my hands while I wait to hear back from them, chewing the skin around my nails like a rabid rodent.
I fully, fully intend to have this book released for public consumption by the middle/back-end of this year. The thing and/or problem with this particular book is that it’s been around in some form or another for a looooooong time now, and yet I feel I can’t move onto bigger, better things until I’m happy that the foundation I’ve created is solid. So the first book is winging its way back through beta readers and hopefully a variety of opinions will be winging their way to me very soon!
That said, I’ve started editing the second book, still (currently) titled “The Vampire’s Son”, my 2009 NaNoWriMo, which basically looks like a kneaded turd right now.
No, that’s not fair. The parts that are done are pretty decent, in all fairness. But then there are g a p i n g chasms where whole chapters should be, frayed and unfinished scenes, entire plot threads have unravelled and dangle loose, with the threat of the slightest breeze blowing them away. So it looks more like a moth-eaten blanket found buried in the basement, covered in dust and dead spiders.
But it’s definitely workable, and what’s there is good, if I do say so myself.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at with writing right now.
I’ve stopped playing World of Warcraft for an indefinite period, simply because when I do play, it takes over my entire life, and I actually have other things I’m supposed to be doing.
I love the game, and by playing it I’ve managed to meet people who I can say with some degree of confidence I would never have met otherwise. But I just don’t have the time for it. I only hope that soon I will get the time to be able to return to GlenCoco, my Worgen warrior, and get back to those heady nights of drunk tanking and getting everyone killed.
Even without WoW, I’m still managing to get in a fair amount of procrastination, though – if I do say so myself – it’s not as much as this time last year. I’d like to think it might be in part because of the wake up call that 2011 actually was.
I’m blaming NetFlix for the new bout of mind wandering, since that’s just been released in the UK, and of course I had to sign up for the free month.
Anyway, that’s where I am with everything else right now.
I have some plans/announcements that I’m going to be bursting out in the next few days/weeks for the VS series, so keep your lids peeled for that.
I plan to get back into the swing of updating this site as well, since it seems a little forlorn and filled with melancholy right now. I have a number of “Music to Write Novels By” posts still waiting in the wings, so I should be able to ease myself back in with a few of those.
Onwards and upwards, people!
2012 is the year!
Yeah.
So the end of NaNoWriMo 2011 looms.
Am I on target? No.
Shitteth has hitteth the fan…eth. Oh it’s all going on like party central over here right now.
I am still managing to sit down and force some stuff out, hence the not-entirely-pitiful word count so far.
Do I think I’ll be able to get to 50,000 words by the 30th? I should hope so.
I don’t have any other major events happening between now and then, so if I stick to it (and, according to the NaNo estimator thingy, churn out 2,087 words instead of the 1,667 starting estimate), I should be OK.
Out of curiosity, I also entered the current word dump into Wordle. Here’s the outlook so far:
So it’s pretty much the same as last year’s, all full of people “thinking” “back” to their “eyes”. I also like…the word ‘like’…a lot, apparently. I like ‘like’ a lot.
In other news, I have a Kindle now. T’was a very early Christmas/birthday gift.
I’ll be honest, I’m surprised I got this far without buying one myself.
I have already bought more books than I can likely ever get through (or even afford right now, but that’s a whole other, far less light-hearted story), and I have high hopes for it.
P.S. No, that’s not a crack. It’s a cat hair. Damn things get EVERYWHERE.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Back to it!
After what feels like a lifetime of wating, the immensely popular writing software Scrivener has finally been released on Windows systems.
There isn’t much else I can say except if you like Scrivener for Mac, and you have a PC, you will want this software.
And if you only have a PC, or for whatever inexplicable reason, you’ve never used Scrivener on your Mac before, you will still want to get this software. With a 30 day non-consecutive trial, what do you have to lose?
As the title explains, I’m holding up posting new MTWNB blogs until I’ve slogged and sweated and cried my way through the 30 days of NaNoWriMo.
You can still read all the previous MTWNBs here.
As for NaNoWriMo 2011 progress…it’s probably better you don’t ask me that just now. It’s been one hell of a week.
Next week, hopefully, everything will calm down and I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things. I currently need to write 2492 words a day (assuming I’m not working weekends) in order to finish on time. More than do-able, provided I don’t have a repeat of last week again.
Caio!
Alright, so NaNoWriMo kind of crept up on me this year. With everything else that’s been going on in my life, it’s like “who the fuck cares about a little writing competition?! You have real life shit to worry about, woman”. But then I realise that I’ve been in this limbo since September, and while I’ve gone nowhere, be it personally or creatively, the world has continued to turn. Like a recent fortune cookie said to me: “Time waits for no man”.
OK, just to forewarn you, this is going to be a big one (that’s what she said, hur hur), because I’ve been waiting a long time to get the opportunity to talk about Final Fantasy VII, and – on the off-chance that you have never played Final Fantasy VII – be aware that story spoilers are more than likely. If you want to skip the story and move straight to the tunes: I don’t care about your life story, woman, just tell me about the music…
To give you an idea of how much I love the music from Final Fantasy VII, I walked down the aisle to one of the songs. So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say I’m a big fan.
Shadow of the Colossus is a PlayStation 2 game released in 2005 (and re-released in HD for the PS3 in 2011). It tells the story of a young man who ventures into a forbidden land in the hope of reviving his dead girlfriend, and who is instructed by forces unknown to kill the creatures (the colossi) that inhabit this vast landscape in order to restore life to his beloved.
Kill all 16 of these majestic, building-sized beasts,
and you might get what you want…but at a price!
(Watch a video of this particular fight here)
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