Never Was

Bad News for Chasing Shadows

Add comment January 18th, 2008

After finishing my NaNo Novel I’ve been working on completing Chasing Shadows, the second part of Shadow Hunter. The goal was to get enough written that I would be able to start sending it out to readers by the end of January. Things were going well, I had written far enough into Chasing Shadows that the remainder of it was in Shalli’s POV. Since I will be reading for Shalli this meant the I could start editing the other POV characters and sending files out to readers. I had two readers confirmed and was looking for one, two or three more depending on how I did things. I was planing a podcast by the end of this week calling for readers.

That is when I decided to reorganize my writing files and back them up. I have done this in the past and have back up files from that last reorganization. To be honest my files had got quite disorganized with duplicates. I finished my reorganization and copied my writing files off to a USB key.

Yesterday I plugged the key into my computer and went looking for my work in progress, Chasing Shadows. To my shock the file was not there. I check around the key and still could not find the file. At home I searched through the files I had organized and still could not find the file. I did some searches and found some delete file restore programs. After some some work I was able to “recover” the file. I clicked on the file and watched in horror as the file opened but did not display the text of novel, instead it displayed a mass of unreadable characters.

I am currently looking at ways of fixing my file, but at this point I’m not hopeful. The only saving grace is that when I started writing this story I was writing it by hand. That means that I have only lost my work since the beginning of the year, about 1/4 of what I had. So I will continue to try and recover the file but in the mean time it looks like I’ll be typing out the story again, and re-editing the novel.

Because of this, obviously, Chasing Shadows will not be out as soon as I hoped. I do not have another novel to podcast at this point; my only two finished novels are Shadows Falls and Shadow of a Hero. Shadows Falls is part 3 of Shadow Hunter and Shadow of a Hero is book one of the series that follows Shadow Hunter. I will however look at what I do have and what I might be able to give you for content until Chasing Shadows is ready.

I will keep you updated.

Status Update and Other Thing

Add comment August 31st, 2007

I just wanted to send out a quick note about today’s episode on Never Was.  It is not up yet and in fact is not ready at this point.  I have not received my new equipment yet and I was really hoping to get the next one up using it.  That leaves me with either not producing an episode or producing a short one.  Right now I’m thinking I’ll wait until next week.  Sorry for those looking for the new episode and I hate to do this to you, especially since this has been a great month for me.  After some high profile promo plays my traffic has jumped.  I will produce something next week regardless of the equipment status if I don’t do one this week; and as always thank you for listening.

I also wanted to write about a post on Boing Boing today “Science Fiction Writers of America abuses the DMCA”.  It is worth reading and is one of the reasons why I don’t support a DMCA style law in Canada.  We need a law that protects creator and consumers in a balanced way.

Starting Write Now

2 comments May 14th, 2007

Starting Write Now is a web site put up by a group of writers that decided that writing was important to them and they were going to write and blog about there experiences. Unlike most author blogs this site does not feature one author but five. This had ensured the site had varibility in its posts and approaches to writing; it also means that each post usually has a few comments from the other writers on the site. This leads to some great discussions around each post.

Because of other commitments two of the writers had to step away from the site. I volunteered to contribute to the site and was invited to join. Tomorrow (Tuesday May 15th) my first post goes up. It is a basic introduction about me and my writing, some you may already know about me from Never Was or the White Wall but there are a lot of new things there too. I hope you will join me and the other Starting Write Now authors as we post about our experiences in writing.

Although my intention is to still Podcast and Blog here, most of my more personal writing experiences and status posts will be posted on Starting Write Now.  The post on this site will focus more on the Podcast and other items of interest.

Podcast Tariff

Add comment April 18th, 2007

I found this via Michael Geist “SOCAN Seeks $60 Annual Podcaster Fee“, if you don’t read him you really should with additional information from Sara Bannerman, “Tariff 22 Opening remarks“.

SOCAN, an organization that is suppose to support Music in Canada and compensate artises for public performance of their works (Radio, Dances, etc.); if you are putting on such an event or broadcasting music you have to pay them a fee (which they “give” to their member).  The thing with SOCAN is that you have to pay them even if the musician doesn’t belong to SOCAN.  Even to the extreme of if an independent musician plays their own music at a gathering they have to pay.

However in the exchange for this, we, in Canada, we are allowed to make copies of music for personal use.

Due to pressure from the US Government and US Music Companies, the Canadian government is making changes to our Copyright laws.  The changes would include support of DRM, anti-curivention and Tariffs on new music “Broadcast” delivery.  This includes a tariff on Podcasters.  The recommendation is that for non-commercial Podcasts that they would need to pay $60 per year.

Now $60 a year isn’t a lot of money, but it’s it might be a lot for some Podcast hobbiests. Almost every Podcaster I know users music that: they have created or have had someone create for them, get approval from the creator or use Creative Commons/Pod Safe music.  In almost all cases the creator is not a member of SOCAN and thus don’t see any of the Podcasters $60.  It instead goes to line the pockets of SOCAN and the big Music Companies (essentially the RIAA), this does not make any sense to me.  Why do I have to pay SOCAN for Music the creator has provided to me for an agreed upon amount (free is an amount) so that they can give it to someone  else?

The only advantage that I could see for this is the possibility of being able to podcast “big” artists.  I would be interesting in hearing from anyone who know if this would be allow under the new laws.

Thinking Blogger Award

3 comments April 18th, 2007

A few days ago I was nominated by the Scribe’s Writing Desk for a Thinking Blogger Award, thank Karen for the complement.

I have been blogging for since 2003 when I started back up with writing. A lot has change in that time for me, I have moved my site from the White Wall to here at Never Was in 2006 with the launch of my Podcast.

Here is my list of nominees for the Thinking Blogger Award:

1. Michael Geist – If your a writer (even if your not Canadian) his knowledge and insite into copyright is priceless.
2. Lifehacker – Because if there is an easier/better way to do something sooner of later it will turn up here.
3. Mark Blevis – For his support of the Canadian Podcast community.
4. Wil Weaton – If your a geek so is he (and no he is not Wesley Crusher he just play him on TV)
5. Start Writing Now – Why read about one writers experiences when you can ready about several.  Great insite on writing with a life.

I would have added Scott Sigler and J.C. Hutchins but they aren’t blogger per say but their impact to writing and podcasting is too large for words

Here are the rules of participation:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the “Thinking Blogger Award” with a link to the post that you wrote.