Writings

Welcome!

I am a writer.  I dream of stories in fiction, and daylight often gives non-fiction ideas.

In fiction my current work, Salvage, is in the science fiction genre, while other works planned are in mainstream and children’s fiction.

In nonfiction, I have authored articles on a variety of subjects and blog posts related to the craft and business of writing.

Falling In Love with Scrivener and… The Letdown

by Cindy Rae

I fell in love with Scrivener for Windows earlier this year. It’s a great app in that it collates everything to do with your novel into one place. It’s highly customizable. It allows you to move scenes around with ease. It tracks meta-data for each scene in a number of different views.

What’s more, the Scrivener development team promised a major release and update for Windows users, to bring them up to the same level of functionality Mac users have enjoyed for some time.

What wasn’t to love?

Continue reading →

FAQ on Podcasts, Alexa, and More

by Cindy Rae

Over the years in conversation with other moms in-person or online, the subject of how we use Alexa at home has come up. Here are some of the common questions people have.

Feel free to send me more questions on this — I’m glad to help.

Our Alexa is in our kitchen, so I post a hardcopy list on our cabinet door. You can download the Word doc or pdf of my old list, but know it has not been updated lately. You can also make your own document, of course.
BrainsOn is the best for children. All others you really need to screen, as you are the best judge of what topics you want your children to hear.

Having said that, our favorites have included
— 365 Days of Astronomy (on Alexa, “Alexa, play 365 Days of Astronomy on TuneIn”)
— Planetary Radio
— Science Friday

Entire articles are out there. Check out this child-oriented list or this one, a more general list, or this one for space-related podcasts.
Enable the Anypod skill, and ask Alexa to play podcasts through it:

“Alexa, ask Anypod to play BrainsOn… Alexa, fast forward five minutes.”

Last time I checked, Alexa’s native podcast player did not include rewind or forward.
For Alexa, I enable the Anypod skill. Then, I can ask Anypod to play episode 300, the earliest episode, etc. Anypod will keep going for the podcast, playing the next (or previous episode) for you. You can Google Anypod commands.

For other ways to play podcasts, I use podcast players on my phone (FM Player) and PC (Grover). Those usually allow for more control, including adding episodes from different podcasts to one playlist.
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Writing Advice: 5 Best Writing Resources of 2019

by Cindy Rae

Currently, my five top writing resources:

  1. Writing Excuses.  This podcast rocks.  Professional authors, relevant information, no fluff, just the meat of what good writing is.
  2. The Business of Being a Writer.  Jane Friedman’s Facebook group is invaluable to prepare me for professional publication, electronically or otherwise.
  3. Scrivener.  There’s no doubt this writing tool has organized my writing and increased my productivity.
  4. Absolute Write.  This website forum is massive with very active members.  It’s helped answer wide-ranging questions, given me a way to hone my critiquing skills, provided a mechanism for others’ input to my work, and much more.
  5. Google.  Yes, okay, it’s ubiquitous.  But, it’s still so very useful.  How do I use it?
    • Google Search: writer’s workshops, the difference between alpha and beta readers, whether or not making water from hydrogen and oxygen in space is better than collecting ice and melting it… and so much more.
    • Google Drive, principally to share writing excerpts for critique, or to critique others’ work
    • Google mail.  I have an account just for my writing, including newsletters that I subscribe to.

Writing a Novel and Writing Code Share…

by Cindy Rae

…an astounding ambiguity with terminology.  You’d think, as long as writing has been around, those in the publishing industry would have agreed to standard definitions, a standard vocabulary.  Not so.

And, surprisingly, neither has the software industry.  Software being considered more of a science, one would expect practitioners to have agreed on common terms.  Yet, even what title you call one who codes, develops, and engineers software varies: software engineer, programmer, software developer, systems engineer, systems analyst, and many more.

So, with those who read a book in draft form one can have critiquers, alpha-readers, beta-readers, writing partners, mentors, development editors, line-by-line editors, and more.

One might argue that each of these titles connotes a different flavor of responsibility, but the lines are definitely blurred.

Brio’s Hope

by Cindy Rae

Here’s a little backstory on the ship in Salvage, Episode 1.

Brio’s Hope is a solid workhouse of a space transport.  It’s old but serviceable, and the crew are used to working in a pinch and using what’s at hand to fix problems.

The small crew consists of the captain, first mate, cargomaster, engineer, doctor, and a new hire.  Possibly few other unnamed crew.  Most of the crew have been together a long time.  While the captain owns the Brio outright, money is tight.

They’ve ferried colonists in the past but not recently, so this trip required some re-tooling.

The ship consists of a cylindrical dome on the front, followed by a ring of crew quarters, then the massive drive and engine, then the cargo holds.  At the very end lie the crucial water tanks.

Water onboard is used for drinking and, in limited fashion, for hygiene and cleaning the ship.  Water is also used to preserve valuable seedlings and embryonic tanks for the colonists.  It’s also used to generate oxygen and in CO2 removal systems.  Solid waste is not reclaimed/reprocessed but stored for to be sold for composting later.  The colonists worked out a deal for the compost to be used on-planet when they get there.

The Brio uses a water reclamation system that’s usually about 90% effective, but slow.  Inefficiency in the system comes from the planned non-use by the crew of solid waste recycling, in oxygen generation, and from losses within the CO2 scrubbers.    The colonists brought onboard a system that processes the solid waste into fertilizer, but the process doesn’t reclaim that much water.

So, the Brio has planned water stops along the long route, as well as secondary stops favored by the crew and noted in an open-source database used by most spacecraft

A milestone of a finished draft… of part 1

by Cindy Rae

I’ve completed a draft of the first part of the first episode of the Salvage project. May not seem much, but it took a great deal of honing my writing craft to get here.

If you’re interested in being a beta reader, let me know. I will — hopefully — cruise to the novel’s midpoint by early next year. The time I’ve taken to hone the plot and supporting scenes should really help.

by Cindy Rae

From Jeff Goins’ article, “Trying to Be a Good Writer is a Complete Waste of Time“:

Don’t be good, be effective
Here’s the solution: Don’t be good. Be effective. Stop trying to be a good writer, and start trying to be effective.

Why? Because “good” is subjective. It’s meaningless. “Good” is an artifact from long ago when writers needed gatekeepers to determine the value of their work. In today’s creative landscape, the goal of writing is connection. Not lukewarm approval. “Effective,” on the other hand, defines a clear relationship between you and the reader. The goal is to be heard, to communicate a clear message to a particular audience.