Author: ZmunkZ

I am an outliner. I need a plan, I need to know I can hit my beats, I need to know where my characters are going. Therefore, I plan in advance. Yet, the further I get in this journey, the more I realize what a useless label that really...

I’ve spent a great deal of time wondering about the difference between “a story” and, “a sequence of events that happen to a character.” Those might appear to be synonyms, but they are not. A story — a good one, anyway — is more than just a slice of...

Before the August 1st, 2017 hard fork, I moved all of my Bitcoins (BTC) to cold storage on various paper wallets, each protected by BIP0038. The fork itself was relatively uneventful, which is a testament to the technology underlying Bitcoin. The currency has survived, not because it has never yet...

Time for a(nother) quick writer’s block rant. There is a fair amount of wisdom in Finding Nemo, believe it or not. As a new father confronting the world of hyper-protective parenting and we-don’t-keep-score-at-games-so-nobody-ever-has-to-lose mentality, etc, I’ve given a little thought to Dory: Marlin: I promised I’d never let anything...

On the Mac, text-to-speech is built into the operating system. This means you can highlight just about anything in most programs, right click, and go to Speech->Start Speaking and at once a flat Skynet robot will begin reading to you. As mechanical as the voices tend to be, I’ve found...

A recent post on The Guardian has been making some rounds in the writing community, and a few of the forums I frequent (including Chrons and Fantasy Faction). The short depressing tail from “anonymous” is stirring up frustration from some, and sympathy from others. It got me thinking about this...

I had my first foray into the world of virtual reality with an Oculus Rift, and I thought it warranted a few words of review. I’ve been unusually tight on both time and energy to work on writing, but VR turns out to be another easy way to slip...

So this is a new challenge for me. My wife works nights, I work days (I work nights too, often, and we both work weekends), but there was always a reliable half-dozen hours a week where I was home alone on a given evening, and bored out of my...

I’ve been absent for a couple weeks, thanks to the adventure unfolding beyond the page with my new son Evan. He is doing great and fatherhood is proving a most unexpected delight. What little writing I have managed in the last few weeks (and I actually have strapped on...

I’ve just started working on a brand new story of a rather different sort: fatherhood. I’d prefer to outline this particular story, of course, but I’m told it doesn’t work quite like that…. so pantsing it is! This has been quite a remarkable experience, all told. From seeing my wife...