I've done most of my video production on Linux for a while. Lately, I've had issues with Audacity crashing or refusing playback during editing projects. So, with my latest project, I switched to using my Mac but using the same FLOSS software for the production.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

For unrelated reasons, I connected my MBA to my keyboard, mouse, and monitor at my normal desk. Having a 27 inch screen to do video editing is going to be a huge benefit.

Sometimes I write on my Mac. Sometimes I write on my main computer (Linux). Since setting up the typewriter (which is where I'm typing this from), I do the greatest amount of word count from a several-years-old, underpowered since the day before it came off the production line, Dell laptop.

I've got no GUI running on it. Despite the fact that the “refurbisher” sent me a unit with a practically dead battery, the laptop can get from 100% charge to low 70s in 5 hours of typing.

There are a lot of solutions out there for low-distraction writing. Most of them are more expensive than a $100 (or, occasionally cheaper) educational laptop running Linux.

That's not a solution for everyone. Especially not Alpine Linux. I can't get a USB drive to map on this thing. The only way I'm getting my writing off of it and onto the rest of my network is my existing NAS and a Unison profile.

It doesn't have constant nagging from Microsoft or Apple. There are no applications begging for or demanding my attention.

With the caveat that it requires a significant amount of technical knowledge to make it work in the first place, this is the cheapest and most effective way for me to do distraction-free writing.

Using this method, I was able to write just shy of 60K in the month of February. Most of that on this computer. In the shortest month of the year, without trying to, I completed a novel's worth of writing by February 22.

That's the power of cutting out distractions.

The options we as writers have for off the shelf devices to accomplish similar goals are expensive, inflexible products. I think we deserve options that aren't expensive or inflexible and don't require my level of Linux expertise to set up and maintain.

#Technology #PersonalEssay

Recently, I've been struggling to figure out what I'm working on in terms of writing. February was a kick ass month where I released video projects and did nearly 60K words.

I ended up going through my entire list of open projects and discovered I had about 15 fiction projects on my plate. I also found I had writing folders I didn't recognize by code name. That and some other things made me realize I might have too much going on.

When I was making appointments with clients regularly as part of my IT job, I came to a truth that has helped me ever since. If you give someone the open ended question “when would you like to meet,” you're probably not going to get an answer any time. You've got SLAs, and they've got a hypothetical infinity to choose from.

If you instead suggest two specific times, they may accept one of them or they may propose their own. The effective range of possibility is still the same but now it doesn't look nearly as intimidating.

I've used random number generators for myself since I was a child. Assign each possibility its own number and run the RNG. Even if it picks one I decide I definitely don't want to do, running the RNG helped make that possibility real enough to turn it down.

On the other hand, it also helps to clear out the clutter.

So I made a list of all my active projects and moved the others to a folder I use for projects that are on hold.

The number is still fifteen (or fourteen depending on how you count) but now I can see it a little better.

And maybe I can make myself an RNG project picker in Python that will read project names from my fancy new table.

At the moment, the big thing is to get enough of my mental desk clean so that I can think and do a bit of writing.

#PersonalEssay

Image by Anat Zhukoff from Pixabay

I like to watch music theory videos from time to time. Hell, sometimes I just like to watch people who know what they're doing as they do those things even if I have no idea what they're doing. I do use the theory videos, though.

I took piano lessons when I was younger. It involved a fair amount of music theory. I might have carried it on further but I was more interested in composing than I was in playing the kinds of things music lessons tend to focus on.

The kinds of things my teacher taught me in piano lessons didn't really stick because I didn't see how they applied. It's kind of like learning programming from a book without actually sitting down with a compiler (or interpreter) and trying things.

I recently watched a video from Aimee Nolte on why the verse to Yesterday had to be 7 bars long. It's a great video. Aimee noodles around, approaching the topic from different angles and comes to a conclusion of sorts but the journey is more than where you end up. Much like with the song itself.

One thing Aimee mentions in her video is that verses are usually eight bars. Seven is extremely unusual. Perhaps a weakness of my own musical education but it never occurred to me that most verses were eight bars. I compose regularly and I have no idea how many bars my verses usually are.

The members of The Beatles weren't classically trained. A lot of times when you listen to their songs kind of knowing what you're doing but not knowing that, you can wonder, well, “why's there an extra beat in this bar?” Or “why did they do this that way?” Sometimes they did it intentionally even though they “knew better.” Maybe even every time. I'd like to imagine they would have made the same choices even if they had more theory under their belts. Even though it was “wrong.” Doing it right wouldn't have made the songs better.

I'm not here to add to the hagiography of The Beatles. I won't pretend that ignorance is a virtue either. But sometimes you're better off playing with the tools of music, language, or whatever you work with rather than trying to fit all the rules in your head and create something perfect. I tend to use my studies to explore new areas and possibilities. Like my most recent noodle in G dorian.

An attentive listener will notice 'verse' is 6 bars long. I suppose it's possible that songs in ¾ tend to have 6. Another thing I don't know, though. 🙀

#PersonalEssay #Music