The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B. (Page 4 of 57)

Uh oh. Sorting the copied text is causing cells to be deleted.

Hmm. Even if I can figure out the sorting problems, I'm not sure Excel or Word tables are going to work. I have section headings and up to three levels of bullets deep. If I try to sort the whole spreadsheet (e.g., to see all book one, then book two, etc.), I either have to put entire sections in one cell (which prevents sorting on the individual bulleted items below the headings), or I have to put each bulleted item in its own cell (which results in one big sort across all bulleted items). I need to be able to sort sections along with their bullets, and I then need to be able to sort level one bullets while keeping them together with their headings, etc.

What's needed is a very intricate database linked to the story text, all woven into a version control system, with an editing interface that can be replaced to let writers shake off the WYSIAYG shackles.  Neither the WüRD format nor HTML is a suitable representation.

If someone wants to seriously brainstorm requirements, I'm available.  But be warned, there will be serious language dependencies, so extensibility/flexibility must be designed into the software/database architecture.  And serious database design--not necessarily relational.  Text will need a versioned threaded tree.

Oh, and it must be possible to make the thing reliable,  efficient, and usable atop multiple operating systems, each with its own strengths and (especially) weaknesses in file system performance, process interaction, user interface, networking, and behavior under load..

You don't use a sledgehammer.  You use a scorsese spanner.

I'm a highly chaotic writer and my writing IS my notes. The rest is in my head. Which is unfortunate since chemo is eating my brain.

New chapter is up in Dictates. Have at me, New Jersey. Argh. I can take it.

Edit: I lied. I make tons of charts - those should count as notes. And when I'm done, I map my plot to make sure my highs & lows balance. And I make character sheets for the mains

Imagine how much story data Lucasfilm is tracking for both canon and non-canon stories. They have a team dedicated to this.

Woohoo! Done with Revelation study guides. Sick to death of them. The last one really needs an editor. 800 pages of repetition and rambling and endless chapters, although the author made a cool case that cell phones are the mark of the beast. It turns out that when you convert www to Hebrew letters, you get the sequence 666 (w in Hebrew is the sixth letter of their alphabet). The mark of the beast will be required to buy and sell goods in the Antichrist's era, and any web-enabled smartphone gives you access to e-commerce on the global 666 network, which is filled with all kinds of immoral and anti-Catholic content. He argues that the mark of the beast was mistranslated from the original Greek and actually refers to phylacteries, the religious objects frequently worn by many ancient Jews, including John, on their hands or heads. So the cell phone is the mark on the hand, and Google Glass was the first instance of a mark on the head. The book is painful to wade through, so I'll save it for when I'm bored.

This next trilogy is getting expensive. I bought four books in the last two days looking to trace Jesus's ministry throughout the Holy Land. I couldn't tell from the book descriptions and reviews which would be best, so I said screw it and bought them all. :-) Thank goodness (for buyers) that Kindle books are inexpensive. As a potential seller, I doubt I'll ever make my money back. If only I could read them all concurrently; I'm bouncing around between them. I love Kindle highlighting. You don't have to slow down to take notes. I'll convert those to Word later. It will probably take until late-April to read and convert it all since I also plan to keep editing Galaxy Tales. Hopefully I'll have another chapter cleaned up this weekend.

I've been studying Middle East holy sites on Google Maps and, for a while, I wondered why I couldn't find New Bethlehem. Wrong star system. :-)

My trilogy needs a better name. Rise of the Unholy Trinity suggests the trilogy is only about their rise to power, which is incorrect.

Alternate names I've come up with so far are:
Reign of the Unholy Trinity (meh)
Attack of the Unholy Trinity (too much like Attack of the Clones)
The Unholy Trinity's Battle for Earth (too long)
The Unholy Trinity - Lords of the Earth (too long)
The Unholy Lords of the Earth
The Unholy Trinity's Conspiracy
The Apocalypse Conspiracy

The last one (my favorite so far) has been used as a book title for something that is out of print. It's never been used as a series title. I'd still like to keep Unholy Trinity in the title, if possible.

Any others?

Another is Treachery of the Unholy Trinity.