In my last post, I whined in a rather pathetic manner about all the things that had been keeping me from meeting my NaNoWriMo word count goals. Well, I’ve definitely gone off the rails by now. I’d need to write almost double the original daily word counts every day for the rest of the month in order to catch up. And that just isn’t going to happen.

What seemed like an exciting and achievable goal on November first has turned into something that’s a bit embarrassing and disappointing.

So I’m trying to see the positive. NaNoWriMo got me to pull together a story that, while I wasn’t completely comfortable with, at least was in enough shape for me to begin writing. And I started writing. And I now have five chapters of a novel I didn’t have before.

And best of all, I am going to keep writing. I’m going to get as many words done as I can every night until November is over—and beyond.

That’s all for now. I’ve got to get back to work.

In this post I engage in a lot of complaining and whining. It’s probably not that interesting, but I feel a pathetic need to justify my failure to achieve my daily word count goals for NaNoWriMo. Read at your own risk.

So I cruised through my first few days of NaNo without too much trouble other than staying up late to get my words in. . . then the weekend hit, and I had to work some overtime. On Sunday I had a major crash from sleep deprivation and ended up with a killer headache that kept me away from the computer screen all day. The same work project that kept me working overtime on Saturday bled into Monday and Tuesday night, and I didn’t meet my word count goals either night. So as of yesterday I was a total of about four days behind, which meant that my daily word count needed to be bumped up from 1,667 to 1,883 per day if I was to finish on time.

Then today happened. It was a crazy work day, trying to put the final touches on this big project I’m trying to get done before headed out of town while dealing with a leaky furnace (yeah, furnace—apparently ours has a condensation pump that failed). We had a repair company come give an estimate on the damage, and unfortunately there’s mold. So we have a big nasty repair bill headed our way unless we can get the furnace company to pay up. Their furnace repair guys showed up at 9pm and didn’t leave until 10:30pm. In between all this we tried to have a birthday party for my little girl Jane. It was a pretty simply affair this time, with Missy being sick and all the crazy work and house stuff going on.

So here it is midnight, and I’m blogging about how hard it is to get lots of words written with so much crap going on, when I should be writing. This post is about 350 words, so I could have increased my NaNo word count by that much. So before I look like too much of a hypocrite, I’d better sign off and get to bed. I have a five hour drive ahead of me tomorrow and a wedding to attend the next day.

As I mentioned in my post a few days ago, I have been planning to participate in NaNoWriMo this year by trying to write an entire 50,000 word novel in one month starting November 1st, or at least 50,000 words of the beginning of a novel. That requires 1,667 words per day, on average. My original plan was to complete an entire outline using the principles of story structure as explained by the estimable Larry Brooks of Storyfix.com. I had been following a series of posts he was doing on his blog specifically to help NaNo participants get their novels planned out and ready for November.

Unfortunately, a big work deadline had me working overtime the past two weeks, and I only finished about one third of my outline. And with a brother’s wedding and Thanksgiving coming up this month, I just wasn’t sure I could handle it. Without an outline, I felt powerless and directionless. I suck at improvisation and always have. I need a plan to work inside of.

So November 1st arrived and I wasn’t ready. I finally finished my big work project that afternoon, then ate dinner and put the kids to bed. Nine o’clock PM arrived. It was do-or-die time. I had to decide. To NaNo or not to NaNo?

I decided to NaNo. Despite how unprepared I felt. I would just have to write and continue to fill out my outline as I went.

Even after deciding to take the plunge, it took a bit of time to get started. I opened my outline and fiddled with it a bit before realizing that I was running out of time. If I was going to meet the necessary word count for the day, I needed to get going. I opened a blank document. I thought about how to start the scene I was going to write. I couldn’t think of anything that I liked. Then I checked Facebook. I thought about the scene a bit more. Then I opened up Google and started researching a question that came up while I was thinking. When I realized what I was doing, I closed Firefox and got back to my still-blank document. Nothing came to me. Then I got up and wandered into the family room where my wife was watching TV. Luckily, my guilt soon overcame me and I returned to the computer.

Finally after an hour of this hemming and hawing, I harkened back to the advice of Larry Brooks. I remembered the beat sheet, the outline of scenes, each with a mission to forward the plot, each with a context to guide its shape and purpose. I realized I needed to return to the basics. What’s the mission of this first scene? I glanced at my incomplete outline again, then wrote down a few goals for the scene. Plot goals, needed characterization, a few possible settings. No longer facing a blank page, I tentatively typed out a first sentence using one of the possible settings. Halfway into the second sentence, I realized it wasn’t going to work if I was going to achieve the plot goals. I erased it and started again.

This time it worked a little better. Pretty soon I had a good head of steam built up. I could see where this scene was headed, how it was going to accomplish the goals I had written down. Whenever I came to a point where I wasn’t sure what to write next, I glanced up at my scene goals. Almost every time, something immediately popped into my head. What could this character say next? Well, the scene goals say she has to demonstrate her loneliness. Oh, I know . . .

And so it went until I was chugging along like a freight train that couldn’t stop. Midnight came and went. I checked my word count. 1,500 words. I kept going. 1,667 words. My daily word count had been met, but I wasn’t finished yet. This scene wasn’t done. I kept typing. 2,235 words. One o’clock AM arrived. Finally I typed the last sentence. All my scene goals had been accomplished.

What a rush! I actually did it. For the first time in over three years since I first decided I was going to write a novel, I actually finished an entire chapter. It sounds pathetic but awesome at the same time. No more procrastination for me. I’m in it to win, this time. I might crash and burn, I might embarrass myself, but I’m not thinking that far ahead. I’m taking it day by day. Fill in the outline. Churn out the words. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

NaNoWriMo, for those who may not know, stands for National Novel Writing Month. Beginning on November 1, you try to write an entire novel, or at least 50,000 words, before the month ends.

I’ve been meaning to try it out for several years now, but it seemed like there was always some major obstacle—a new baby, a new house, whatever. Finally, this year, I thought I could finally do it. We do have a fairly new baby, but he’ll be almost three months old when NaNo starts, and we’ve got a decent routine down. We do have three kids in diapers (OK, one of them only at night), and all of life’s various distractions. But I really thought I could do it this year. Maybe I’m finally used to the fatherhood thing (took me long enough).

I even have a great idea for my novel that’s making me very excited. If you’re not interested in the genesis of the idea, you can skip to the next paragraph. It started, like most of the story ideas I had as a kid, with a roleplaying game. After years of suggestions and pleas, someone other than me finally agreed to be run a new game. It had been a long time since I was a regular player, so I was stoked to play, even if it did happen to be Pathfinder, part of the d20 system that I loathe. The campaign he chose to run has an interesting fantasy-horror theme, and the character I settled on turned out very compelling. Almost immediately, I began to envision my own stories using the character. I haven’t been this excited about writing something for years.

NaNo is supposed to be a fun, seat-of-your pants experience where you let go of all your writing inhibitions, cram your internal editor into solitary confinement, and just write like mad. However, being the detail-oriented, organization-obsessed individual that I am, I couldn’t help but be sucked into the series of NaNo preparation posts over on Storyfix.com by the brilliant Larry Brooks. Brooks is a huge proponent of story planning, and his series covers a wide array of topics taken partly from his book Story Engineering and partly from Brooks’ own vast intellectual storehouse of advice on how to get a novel done. I have been excitedly building up my story plan brick by brick.

Then reality came crashing down. First a huge project deadline at work. We’re planning to launch a whole new program at the beginning of November. I thought I could get it all done early, but I should have known better. I’m writing and editing and researching like mad to get it all done, and it looks like things will bleed significantly into November. Overtime may not be optional. My story plan has ground to a dead halt, and I know from experience that I suck at seat-of-your-pants writing.

Then, as if that weren’t enough, my brother suddenly decided to get married to his longtime girlfriend—on November 11th. I’m really happy for them, and it’s an awesome event, but it does throw a damper on NaNo. When you have to write an average of nearly 1,700 words a day, taking a whole weekend off to travel down to southern Utah for a big family event kind of throws a wrench into the works.

I’m still going to give it a shot, but I’m not going to stress myself out over it. In the end, if I get even halfway done, it’ll be further than I’ve ever gotten before. Wish me luck.

A while back I had my first serious run in with streaming music services. I had heard about them before, but never seriously considered them. After all, I have a pretty large music library full of music that I love, and I like owning my music. The problem is that for a number of years I haven’t had the extra cash to buy all the music I wanted. At the same time, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to more music than ever before, thanks to working from home and never needing to spend significant amounts of time on the phone.

So when Spotify, a streaming music service that has been very popular in Europe, made a rather large splash on this side of the pond, I was intrigued enough to give it a try. After all, it was free to try. What was there to lose?

It turned out that I loved it! The free version had ads that were repellent to me, but it was awesome to listen to all my favorite music, plus newer music I have been unable to buy, while discovering many new artists at the same time. I quickly paid the measly $5 monthly fee for the ad-free version.

Then I started to hear about other music services, like MOG, Rhapsody, and Grooveshark. I tried a few of them out, and quickly discovered that MOG and Spotify were the top two for me. Honestly, I didn’t give Rhapsody much of a chance. Grooveshark is cool because it has the biggest music library of them all—but it’s all user uploaded, so quality isn’t always the best, plus it’s a web app only. And I just can’t reconcile myself to that. I demand a dedicated desktop application for my music.

So here follows a fairly detailed review of MOG and Spotify, divided into categories, with a winner for each category.

  User Interface: Spotify

I am a sucker for software that is both functional AND beautiful, so this category is a big one for me. When I first tried MOG, I found their web app so awful that I could only stand to use it for about five minutes before giving up. Luckily, they released a completely redesigned web app along with a brand new desktop application soon after I signed up. Otherwise they would have been lost to me forever. As it is, with their new application, MOG has a slight edge in the category of beauty. Spotify’s user interface is nice and clean but nothing spectacular; it’s very reminiscent of iTunes and has very few fancy graphical elements. On the other hand, it’s clear that MOG took a little extra time to make their app a little more attractive, with an interesting layout and good use of icons, tabs, and other graphical elements (even though they copied Spotify’s gray color scheme). But in the end, the difference isn’t enough to really sway me one way or the other.

Before getting much further, I should mention that I seem to be a minority on this. A number of reviews I read online vastly preferred MOG’s user interface. As with everything, it’s a matter of opinion. For me, in the category of functionality, Spotify wins hands down. Their interface is perfectly intuitive to me and easy to use, and there really isn’t much more to say. On the other hand, I have a number of complaints about MOG.

On MOG’s desktop application, you can’t resize window or side bar, so I can’t see all of the artist information when viewing an album in the main window, and my playlist titles are truncated at about 15 characters. Even though the application stretches the whole height of my screen, there is always a vertical scroll bar showing (which scrolls down to reveal . . . why, nothing!), and the playlist area is compressed into a tiny box about one inch high, leaving about eight inches of blank, unused space below. I can only see five of my playlists at a time and have to scroll to see the rest. When viewing an artist, the view is limited to their top three albums unless I click on the link to show all albums, and then they are displayed in no apparent order (Spotify automatically displays all albums in chronological order). The back, forward, and home buttons are hidden down in the bottom left corner, instead of being in the top left corner where you would normally expect them to be.

To be fair, Spotify has had several years to refine their desktop application over in Europe, while this is only MOG’s first iteration. Maybe it will improve.

Another feature is the music queue. Both applications let you create playlists. I found the process a little easier on Spotify. When you select a song to play on Spotify, it starts playing immediately straight from where you are, allowing you to continue browsing or just leave the page as is. In the background, it adds the song to the play queue, along with all subsequent songs on whatever playlist, album, or list of results you’re currently looking at. If you select a new song to play from a different playlist, album, or search list, it starts playing THAT song, and adds the subsequent songs to the queue, while removing whatever was in the queue before.

Essentially, Spotify’s music queue is based on playlists. It fills up with music from whatever list you’re on, and forgets what was there before. This method worked for me with no trouble. In fact, I never even bothered to look at the actual music queue, since it was obvious that Spotify was simply starting where I told it to, and continuing along with whatever was next on my screen. I’ve read reviews by people who were perplexed by this behavior, but it seems obvious to me. I wonder if the difference is that those people had tried MOG first and gotten used to it.

On MOG, when you select a song to play, it automatically switches your view to the music queue, so you can see the song being added to the bottom of the list. You can also send entire albums or playlists to your queue, and when you do you’re again taken to the queue screen where it shows the selected songs being added to the bottom of the list. In this way, you can create a giant music queue that will play until it gets to the bottom.

When it does get to the bottom, MOG goes automatically into radio mode. The default radio station is set to play only songs by the current artist, but there’s a simple slider where you can gradually introduce similar music, until at the far end you’re listening only to similar artists with no music by the original artist that you started with. This feature is actually pretty cool for those who like getting random music. Personally, I don’t like it. I have never liked the radio, and the only reason I have ever listened to it was when there was no other choice. My preference is for my music player to play exactly what I tell it to and no more. Fortunately, MOG has an option to turn the radio feature off, so that once you reach the end of your music queue, it goes silent. This is how I keep it, but I’m still not totally comfortable with MOG’s music queue. To me, Spotify’s simple playlist mode is more natural.

  Music Selection: Spotify

MOG and Spotify both boast music libraries in the millions. The big problem with assigning a “winner” here is that it all depends on what music you need to find. I saw one review that assigned a winner to one application simply because the other didn’t have the Beatles. Well, I couldn’t care less whether the Beatles is available. All I care about is whether the music I like is available. It turns out that MOG seems to have more music that I like. Everything that I had in my Spotify playlists, I was able to find on MOG, plus a few extra albums from some of the more obscure symphonic metal bands I like. But both music services lacked at least something—for example, neither has any music by Tool (which is the fault of Tool, not MOG or Spotify). The point is that music selection will vary for everybody depending on what they’re looking for. There are no easy generalizations here.

However, one advantage of Spotify is that it can play any MP3 files or other music that you already have on your computer, so you can access that music straight from your hard drive instead of streaming it. So it doesn’t matter that I can’t find any Tool songs in Spotify’s database, because I can listen to the ripped MP3s I already have on my computer. Plus those songs don’t have to be streamed, which saves my internet connection a little extra bandwidth. MOG reports that they are working on this functionality, but it isn’t there yet.

Another thing worth mentioning is the quality of the search function—it’s one thing to have music in the library, but it’s another thing entirely if you can’t find said music when you want it. In my experience, the search on Spotify gives me what I want right at the top of the search results almost every time, and their search is almost instantaneous. With MOG, the search sometimes takes a few seconds (which can seem like an eternity sometimes), and I occasionally have to sort through long lists of other music before finding what I was looking for, or else refine my search a few times.

  Music Quality: MOG

MOG’s song stream by default at 320 Kbps and may drop to 160 Kbps for slower connections, whereas Spotify streams at 160 Kpbs by default unless you’re subscribed to the costlier Premium service. Obviously, MOG has better sound quality. I’m not a huge audiophile, so I really don’t notice a big difference between the two unless I listen to them right next to each other. If I play a quick clip from MOG, then the same clip from Spotify immediately after, I can tell the difference. It’s not really huge, but it’s there.

About 95% of the time, I would be fine with Spotify’s quality. But there are a few cases where it does matter. I have a few albums that contain a lot of atmospheric sounds, and when those are lost the album just isn’t worth it anymore (example: A Pleasant Shade of Grey by Fates Warning). So the win clearly goes to MOG in this case, but in reality I would be fine with Spotify’s quality most of the time.

  Stealing My Bandwidth: Spotify

It’s always nice when an application steals a portion of your bandwidth for clandestine activities without notifying you. Luckily, Spotify does exactly that. Spotify includes a lovely, hidden peer-to-peer transfer ability that lets you and others share music without even knowing it. Apparently Spotify does this in order to speed up music transfer times, so your music gets delivered to you without interruption. I’m just glad they didn’t let me know that, so I could learn it second hand from an internet article.

OK, I’ve been a little tongue-in-cheek here. But I have experienced a noticeable slowing in my internet speeds ever since I installed Spotify on my computer. When my wife and I both have Spotify running on each of our computers, web pages load noticeably slower than they would otherwise. When Spotify isn’t running, there’s no problem. Just something to be aware of.

I haven’t noticed any slowing while using MOG so far, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t happening.

Version Comparison: Not Enough Data

MOG and Spotify both have different versions and levels of subscription—a free version, a standard version, and a premium version. Although the features are slightly different between the two services, both services charge the same fees. The free version is free and supported with ads, the standard version costs $5 per month, and the premium version costs $10 per month.

I have used the free versions of both, but not for very long. I was unable to tolerate the ads and was more than happy to pay $5 a month to have unlimited music streaming with no ads. So I can’t really give you a decent comparison of the free versions.

I also haven’t bothered to try the premium versions of either service. The primary features are the ability to stream songs to your mobile device and to download music for offline playing. I don’t have any use for these features, since I don’t even own a cell phone, let alone a smart phone, and I don’t have any need to play music in an offline setting.

The Verdict

After using both music services for lengthy periods of time, I find that I am much more comfortable using Spotify. Something about it makes me feel at home. It’s easy to use, and from the get-go I never felt confused or frustrated. But with MOG, it took me a while to figure out, and I run across some annoyance or another on a daily basis. That might say more about me than it does about either service, but there you go. Despite MOG’s higher song quality and Spotify’s bandwidth thievery, I’m happier with Spotify overall.

What about you? Have you ever tried a music streaming service? What’s your music application of choice, and why?

Are you in the mood for some speculative fiction, but not sure what to read? Look no further than SF Signal’s guide to NPR’s top 100 fantasy and science fiction books. There’s something for everyone. Click on the picture to find the original in all its massive glory, and let me know which book the chart led you to. I was led to The Codex Alera by Jim Butcher. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Mr. Butcher. I guess I’ll trust the chart and check it out.

Although I’ve been a huge fan of Dream Theater ever since Images and Words came out back in 1992, I have been a little disappointed with their past couple of albums. It seemed to me that they were just treading water, or retreading the same ground they’ve covered multiple times before. There was very little that felt original or interesting to me, with one or two exceptions (The Dark Eternal Night). Their last album, Black Clouds and Silver Linings, was completely forgettable. I started to worry that my tastes had shifted to leave the new Dream Theater behind. It seemed pretty clear to me that Dream Theater had stopped innovating.

Then founding member and drummer Mike Portnoy shocked everyone and abruptly left the band. The remaining members hired the amazing Mike Mangini, and my hopes for something fresh from Dream Theater were renewed. Around the same time, it was announced that they were writing a new album, and I was filled with both hope and trepidation. The band had said that without Portnoy, they were undergoing “a musical change, re-evaluating and restructuring ‘who we are and what we do’.” (Quote from Wikipedia.)

Their first single from the new album was, pardon the pun, singularly underwhelming. On The Backs of Angels was yet another slow-tempo rock song with nothing new to offer. One-minute samples of several other songs were released and didn’t convince me anything else interesting was in the works.

The new album was released in full this past Tuesday, and thanks to the glory of Spotify and MOG (which has higher quality music) I was able to listen to the entire album on release day without having to travel to a store or wait for shipping.

I’m sure you’re breathlessly awaiting my evaluation of the album. I suppose if you’ve made it this far into this post, I might as well indulge you.

I have been pleasantly surprised. Although there’s nothing dramatically different here from what Dream Theater is known for, there is a subtle but persistent shift in the mood and atmosphere of this album from previous efforts. The overall tone is definitely a little more reflective and hopeful than their past four or so albums, while still containing a liberal dose of crunchy, heavy metal goodness and blazing instrumentation. If I had to compare it to another Dream Theater album, it would be Images and Words, which is still among my favorites even nearly 20 years later. Yet this album is definitely its own beast. Keyboardist Jordan Rudess has branched out and done some much more interesting things than in past albums, adding some electronica, latin, and symphonic elements to some of the songs. It seems that he spends a little more time at the piano rather than his synthesizer, as well, which is a refreshing change for me.

I know I have several friends who, like me, have felt a little let down by Dream Theater in recent years. You might want to give this new album a try. Hop onto Grooveshark.com or get yourself a free Spotify account and give it a few listens, all the way through if possible, and let the album speak to you on its own terms. Don’t expect a dramatic departure from Dream Theater’s signature sound, but give it a chance. It just might bring you back into the fold.

Or if you’re still skeptical, listen to this new one, Bridges in the Sky. It has a rather odd intro, but it’s one of the most interesting songs on the album, with the strange deep-voice dude, cool symphonic overlays, brutal riffs, and even your standard crazy Dream Theater blazing instrumental breakout session near the two thirds mark. Check it out.

Here’s a short list of geek stuff that’s admired and loved by loads of geeks worldwide—but I’d rather spend eternity in the belly of the Sarlacc than ever have to deal with in any form.

• Dr. Who—It looks like it was filmed in the 80s. See also Star Trek below.
• The Chronicles of Narnia—The movies are mediocre, and the books are cloyingly didactic.
• Star Trek (the entire franchise, with the exception of the latest movie)—A few interesting conflicts and logical puzzles, but overall boring and full of the cheesiest tripe ever.
• Dungeons and Dragons, and the entire d20 system—Don’t even get me started. I could complain about the idiocy of this game all day.
• Magic: The Gathering—So many cards, it’s easy to break, impossible to strategize effectively, and pure luck if you ever win.
• World of Warcraft, and every other MMORPG—Do the same thing over, and over, and over again ad nauseam, and keep paying every month for the privilege.
• Zombies, vampires, and werewolves, in any form. Simply overdone and predictable.
• Anime, manga, and all of the other related art forms that fans insist are different, but are really just the same thing with little variations. Despite the occasional diamond, most of it is pure garbage.

Which one of my hates did you find yourself feeling defensive about? What are your least favorite popular geek properties? One of the great things about geekdom is that there is room for us all, despite our differences.

These days I really enjoy me some gothic-symphonic metal. It’s hugely popular in Europe, with the iconic bands being Nightwish from Finland and Within Temptation from The Netherlands. Lacuna Coil is sometimes called a gothic metal band, but I think that’s just because their primary vocalist is female. For some reason, all gothic metal bands seem to have female singers. That’s fine by me, but it’s kind of interesting that the defining characteristic of an entire subgenre of metal is the gender of the lead vocalist.

I totally dig the combination of grand, soaring orchestral backgrounds, and grinding, punch-to-the-face metal guitar riffs, and powerful, beautiful female vocals. So I figured I’d share a few of my favorite tracks here for your enjoyment.

The song below is called Fata Morgana by the band Imperia, which hails from The Netherlands, Belgium, or Finland depending on who you ask or which band member you’re talking about. This song is one of my current favorites. I’m listening to it multiple times a day on Spotify right now. I love the operatic vocals and drum work on this song. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a decent YouTube video of this song that actually had, you know, video. So you’ll have to content yourself by gazing upon the ethereal beauty of vocalist Helena Michaelson with her creepy, dark bandmates in the background.

This next piece is called Ghost Love Score by the band Nightwish, a band from Finland. This epic song sounds like a movie soundtrack. I chose this particular video because it shows the lyrics, which can be difficult to understand in part due to the vocalist’s accent. The lyrics are well done and tell an interesting story.

The next one is Hand of Sorrow by Within Temptation from The Netherlands, chosen for two reasons. First, it demonstrates the incredible artistry and drama of their live shows, with a live orchestra, elaborate costumes, and amazing live performances. Second, the lyrics of this song were inspired by one of my favorite epic fantasy stories of all time, the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. Some of the shots in the video are a little odd, but overall it’s a pretty well done video.

Now we have Unleashed by the band Epica, also from The Netherlands (are you seeing a trend here?). I have no particular reason for choosing this song; I’m not familiar enough with Epica’s work yet to have a favorite, but this song is pretty sweet.

Finally comes a band with a male singer: Kamelot, performing Ghost Opera. It follows in a very similar vein to the songs above and is a stellar example of the mixture of the symphonic and the metallic. I love this song!