29 February, 2008
28 February, 2008
400
So after I don't know how long this is the 400th entry in my Blog wow, I know some folks do far more some do far less but this is what I do
27 February, 2008
What I am reading
Current books that I am reading all at the same time are,
Weaver Stephen Baxter, this is part 4 of the time tapestry series and is very and as I have said and written else where would make a great radio show, only 40 grand a series of six programmes and I would have Dirk Maggs to adapt and produce and direct them, value for money or what?
Book two then is 6th Target by James Patterson, this is part of the Woman's murder club but for some reason its not right, I am not sure what I mean by that statement but its as if it was ruched in some way, maybe the problem is that James is producing too many books going for quantity and not quality I just don't know. I will hold judgement till when I complete the book.
The last book that I am reading is the very first book in the new cop series by Peter James called Dead Simple, now I found this series and read the latest book first and have worked my way back to this the very first book in the series, and so far its great.
As I have said above in the Stephen Baxter bit this is also a series of books that I think Dirk Maggs would be great on , as he has never done hard crime novels some it would give him a chance to stretch his creative mussels and just see what he can do. I think with Dirk's great timing and choice of good actors each book would be a great 6 part series, not that the BBC does this sort of stuff any more, they seem to have gone down the route of cheap low cost productions with nothing to stretch both the listener and the production crew.
If I had the money I would pay for these shows to be produced even if they never got an airing on national radio at least they would have been produced by one of the best radio directors/producers in the last 20 years.
Weaver Stephen Baxter, this is part 4 of the time tapestry series and is very and as I have said and written else where would make a great radio show, only 40 grand a series of six programmes and I would have Dirk Maggs to adapt and produce and direct them, value for money or what?
Book two then is 6th Target by James Patterson, this is part of the Woman's murder club but for some reason its not right, I am not sure what I mean by that statement but its as if it was ruched in some way, maybe the problem is that James is producing too many books going for quantity and not quality I just don't know. I will hold judgement till when I complete the book.
The last book that I am reading is the very first book in the new cop series by Peter James called Dead Simple, now I found this series and read the latest book first and have worked my way back to this the very first book in the series, and so far its great.
As I have said above in the Stephen Baxter bit this is also a series of books that I think Dirk Maggs would be great on , as he has never done hard crime novels some it would give him a chance to stretch his creative mussels and just see what he can do. I think with Dirk's great timing and choice of good actors each book would be a great 6 part series, not that the BBC does this sort of stuff any more, they seem to have gone down the route of cheap low cost productions with nothing to stretch both the listener and the production crew.
If I had the money I would pay for these shows to be produced even if they never got an airing on national radio at least they would have been produced by one of the best radio directors/producers in the last 20 years.
Earthquake UK
So wakes up to the news that the UK had an earthquake at 1am this morning, 5.3 on some scale or other, not sure what to think other than I am glad that no one was killed. Did I feel the trumors? no but folks in London and Dover did.
26 February, 2008
Cloudy Lemonade
Had some cloudy lemonade today, for some reason looked at what went into it, one of the ingredants? Orange juice 10%
why?
why?
25 February, 2008
CVD or Dust
I found out that dust and DVD players are mortal foes. And all I wanted to do was watch Die hard 4.0
24 February, 2008
Index
Yes I know, I have now done so may blogs on this subject, but I am having trouble finding a good info source which could guide me on which way to go with how many indexes I need. I just supose I will have to keep on looking.
The good news is that I will not need it for a while.
The good news is that I will not need it for a while.
23 February, 2008
21 February, 2008
Indexes
Just wondered if you had a book about indexes, would it have an index, would it be an index index?
20 February, 2008
19 February, 2008
Open Office
As a follow up to yesterday and the troubles with converting a file on LULU so that it was in a print format Pdf, good idea no1 was to use another ep programme.
The idea was to load the file in Open office wp and the resave the file, good idea? well that did not happen all the versions I have of Open Office(version 2.0) opened the file no problem and then stopped working when i asked it to resave the file. No in Open Office's defence I have to admit i was using it as a portable app so maybe some thing with that set up is what is causing the problem.
So other news is that I have not done any more drafts work on the Dirk Maggs book it is still stalled.
On the index fron (eg who many and what type) no progress.
Perhaps progress next time I report in this blog.
The idea was to load the file in Open office wp and the resave the file, good idea? well that did not happen all the versions I have of Open Office(version 2.0) opened the file no problem and then stopped working when i asked it to resave the file. No in Open Office's defence I have to admit i was using it as a portable app so maybe some thing with that set up is what is causing the problem.
So other news is that I have not done any more drafts work on the Dirk Maggs book it is still stalled.
On the index fron (eg who many and what type) no progress.
Perhaps progress next time I report in this blog.
18 February, 2008
Plans that go wrong
So I had this great plan, I would convert an exsisting manuscript to 8.5*11 so that it the right size to be printed in hardback.
Step one, the converting was in the end okay as it only took a few hours and it looked good at the end of it all.
Step two, now thats when things started to go off the rails in a real big way. The upload to LULU was okay and that worked. The next step converting the document into a printable PDF did not go right, in fact it failed. Now the big problem is that I don't know why the conversion failed as LULU don't say why the document failed, they just say that it failed, yeh I know so useful.
So I am at a loss what to do...
I think I shall have another look at the Dirk Maggs book the drafts that I have done so far....
I last thjought I did have was to try a differant wp programme to se if that is the problem. I normally use word 2003 nice and old and it mostly works and so should be without any major problems.
Step one, the converting was in the end okay as it only took a few hours and it looked good at the end of it all.
Step two, now thats when things started to go off the rails in a real big way. The upload to LULU was okay and that worked. The next step converting the document into a printable PDF did not go right, in fact it failed. Now the big problem is that I don't know why the conversion failed as LULU don't say why the document failed, they just say that it failed, yeh I know so useful.
So I am at a loss what to do...
I think I shall have another look at the Dirk Maggs book the drafts that I have done so far....
I last thjought I did have was to try a differant wp programme to se if that is the problem. I normally use word 2003 nice and old and it mostly works and so should be without any major problems.
17 February, 2008
Hardback Books and all of that
Do you know that the actual writing of a book at this moment in time to me looks easier than working out correct paper sizes and what template to use when you want to have your book published as a hardback book?
Why?
I hope that with a little bit more work I will have the answers that I have been looking for. So far the answers are not there yet.
As an expirment I updated and resized the manuscripts for one of my eriler books, what I thought would only take at most an hour soon got out of control and before I knew it I had spent some 3 hours on it, but I think the time has been well spent as I now have edtion 5 of the book in a hardback format at a size of 8.5*11 which is the size I want of so I think at this moment in time.
I am going to upload it to LULU and see what I get. I think that it will be a good test as I think the Dirk Maggs book will be of the same sort of size, that is about 500 odd pages, one thing with this test book that did surprise me was that the table of content runs to 30 pages! I know what? when you see the book it's easy to understand, I don't think the Dirk book will have that size of contents page, but you never know.
Now the index or indexes are another matter, and no I have not got any furthur on what to do or how many indexes I might need.
Why?
I hope that with a little bit more work I will have the answers that I have been looking for. So far the answers are not there yet.
As an expirment I updated and resized the manuscripts for one of my eriler books, what I thought would only take at most an hour soon got out of control and before I knew it I had spent some 3 hours on it, but I think the time has been well spent as I now have edtion 5 of the book in a hardback format at a size of 8.5*11 which is the size I want of so I think at this moment in time.
I am going to upload it to LULU and see what I get. I think that it will be a good test as I think the Dirk Maggs book will be of the same sort of size, that is about 500 odd pages, one thing with this test book that did surprise me was that the table of content runs to 30 pages! I know what? when you see the book it's easy to understand, I don't think the Dirk book will have that size of contents page, but you never know.
Now the index or indexes are another matter, and no I have not got any furthur on what to do or how many indexes I might need.
16 February, 2008
Photos
Just looked back at some of the early posts on this blog, only to see that some of the photos that I had made comments on have gone. It just brings it home to me just how frgile ( is that the word to use?) all these electrons really are, things on the web are or only appear to be here for minutes and then lost forever.
I think it is sad, very sad that like footprints in the snow thing do not stay around for ever.
I think it is sad, very sad that like footprints in the snow thing do not stay around for ever.
Dirk Maggs Book Part 10
Things have gone a bit slow on the draft front, mainly as I have been looking at hardback or paperback and also the problem of indexes, the index problem is one that I have yet to fully work out which way to go. If I go for more than one index then the work in doing such a thing is a lot, the rewards of having a good index can not be under estimated that much I am sure of. The only question is how many and what type of indexes do I want or does the book need?
On the hardback front I have decided that hardback is the way to go, the only problem now is what size of hardback?
At this time I do not have an answer to that question yet, if I have too small a book in page size the number of pages will go up and the other problem, which I have not yet looked at is how the content on each page will be effected. With the first problem as far as I can see as the page count goes up so does the cost of the final book.
A wild thought that I did have was, well why not have each years work as a volume in it's own right? but a quick look at this idea has already told me that if I stay in A4 size pages then some of the volumes will be very thin on the otherhand if the page size is smaller than A4 then the page count goes up, so all in all at this time I do not know what to to muli volume or one large volume.
I suppose the answer will only become clear once I have done all the drafts and put the book together in its first draft layout.
On the hardback front I have decided that hardback is the way to go, the only problem now is what size of hardback?
At this time I do not have an answer to that question yet, if I have too small a book in page size the number of pages will go up and the other problem, which I have not yet looked at is how the content on each page will be effected. With the first problem as far as I can see as the page count goes up so does the cost of the final book.
A wild thought that I did have was, well why not have each years work as a volume in it's own right? but a quick look at this idea has already told me that if I stay in A4 size pages then some of the volumes will be very thin on the otherhand if the page size is smaller than A4 then the page count goes up, so all in all at this time I do not know what to to muli volume or one large volume.
I suppose the answer will only become clear once I have done all the drafts and put the book together in its first draft layout.
15 February, 2008
Dirk Maggs Book Part 9
Today I had the great idea that my Dirk Maggs book would look good as a hardback book, on the grounds that it might last longer, I know that it will cost more to have printed but I think the extra cost will pay for it's self in that it will be around longer.
The only thing is that I have yet to find any word templates that will allow me to size my work correctly so that it will go from A4 size to what ever size a standard harddback book is.
Ho hum I think is what I said...
The only thing is that I have yet to find any word templates that will allow me to size my work correctly so that it will go from A4 size to what ever size a standard harddback book is.
Ho hum I think is what I said...
14 February, 2008
Dirk Maggs Book Part 8
As you can see with the last few posts to this blog I have some how found the time to do a bit more of the Dirk Maggs book.
One thing that I have been looking at is how to produce an index in word 2003. From what I have seen so far and read the index does not always work.
The searches that I have done so far say that there are 2 ways of creating the index, one where you mark each word and the other you use something called a cordex?
See I can't even spell it let a lone know how to use it.
More reading is needed me thinks.
I think for my Dirk Maggs book that a very full index will be the way to go.
I have read that you can have more than 1 index, and I am thinking at this time that a names index and a productions index might be good ideas, the only thing is at this time I don't yet know how you do multi indexes in the same document, or even if such a thing is possable in word 2003.
One thing that I have been looking at is how to produce an index in word 2003. From what I have seen so far and read the index does not always work.
The searches that I have done so far say that there are 2 ways of creating the index, one where you mark each word and the other you use something called a cordex?
See I can't even spell it let a lone know how to use it.
More reading is needed me thinks.
I think for my Dirk Maggs book that a very full index will be the way to go.
I have read that you can have more than 1 index, and I am thinking at this time that a names index and a productions index might be good ideas, the only thing is at this time I don't yet know how you do multi indexes in the same document, or even if such a thing is possable in word 2003.
13 February, 2008
Dirk Maggs Book Part 7
Some progress of sorts in that I have done one of the chapters that is not work done in a year and is not an appendix.
Yes I have done the draft chapter for all other Audio work that Dirk has done, it was a bit of a surprise just how much in the early 2000's he did, he does not appear to have done much since the late 2006's.
So when I get the chance, I will list here each chapter and just how many pages in draft form in A4 pages the chapters take up.
Yes I know that it will all change as each chapter gets edited, but I want to keep a record, just to see if it is true that each rewrite is edit edit edit and that the number of words goes down.
Yes I have done the draft chapter for all other Audio work that Dirk has done, it was a bit of a surprise just how much in the early 2000's he did, he does not appear to have done much since the late 2006's.
So when I get the chance, I will list here each chapter and just how many pages in draft form in A4 pages the chapters take up.
Yes I know that it will all change as each chapter gets edited, but I want to keep a record, just to see if it is true that each rewrite is edit edit edit and that the number of words goes down.
12 February, 2008
Dirk Maggs Book Part 6
This is how the book looks in draft form at this time, each year will be a chapter in the completed book.
These are the Drafted chapters so far;
1988
1989
1990
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
As you can still see there is a long way to go, I am not sure if I will get it done by my deadline of xmas 2008.
These are the Drafted chapters so far;
1988
1989
1990
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
As you can still see there is a long way to go, I am not sure if I will get it done by my deadline of xmas 2008.
11 February, 2008
Dirk Maggs Book Part 5
Update time.
The bad news
Nothing has been done since the last post.
Have been too busy being educated in the delights of safe systems of work for things that go very bang.
There is hope that I shall have some free time soon, and then hopefully there will then be some progrss.
The bad news
Nothing has been done since the last post.
Have been too busy being educated in the delights of safe systems of work for things that go very bang.
There is hope that I shall have some free time soon, and then hopefully there will then be some progrss.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)