All in all, it doesn’t seem to be too bad. It’s kind of neat. I’m sure I’ll have to do some correcting, but I hope to do some writing with this. It keeps trying to make words out of my breathing. I suspect that’s related to the microphone or my positioning of it. I’ll figure it out. Or maybe I should stop breathing altogether.

If you have experience with Dragon voice recognition software and you have some tips, post them here. I really like how I can undo things. Oh look, it types the word quote undo. HMM… I’ll have to figure out how to do”. Scratch that, I guess I’ve got it now. Looks like the learning curve on this one is going to be a lot of fun.

I just bought the latest Palm version of Dragon naturally speaking. I’m going to try to compose this blog post with just the software. I am not correcting any errors. For instance, the word Palm should have been the word home so it’s not perfect. Eventually, I hope for it to type my punctuation, at least in part, all on its own. Right now I have to say the words to get punctuation. I wonder if I can get it to type the word.. I guess not.

All in all, it doesn’t seem to be too bad. It’s kind of neat. I’m sure I’ll have to do some correcting, but I hope to do some writing with this. It keeps trying to make words out of my breathing. I suspect that’s related to the microphone or my positioning of it. I’ll figure it out. Or maybe I should stop breathing altogether.

If you have experience with Dragon voice recognition software and you have some tips, post them here. I really like how I can undo things. Oh look, it types the word quote undo. HMM… I’ll have to figure out how to do”. Scratch that, I guess I’ve got it now. Looks like the learning curve on this one is going to be a lot of fun.

Full disclosure, I dictated this in Word first and copied it into this blog post. This is really the first thing I’ve done with it. I suspect some corrections will be easier to do by hand, while speaking others will be just fine. Before I go, let me try something just for fun:

& plus + — – –-?\Parentheses ()**pound #act@!! Exclamation free the re-three (ah, there’s the three) number three 3 that did it = words = $% ^’ Sam; oh suite, that worked. Okay enough of that. Watch for the Dragon tag on my posts to see how this goes.

Toy!

Full disclosure, I dictated this in Word first and copied it into this blog post. This is really the first thing I’ve done with it. I suspect some corrections will be easier to do by hand, while speaking others will be just fine. Before I go, let me try something just for fun: & plus + — – –-?\Parentheses ()**pound #act@!! Exclamation free the re-three (ah, there’s the three) number three 3 that did it = words = $% ^’ Sam; oh suite, that worked. Okay enough of that. Watch for the Dragon tag on my posts to see how this goes.

Toy!

I have a mountain of work to do for school and here I am typing a blog entry.  The thought of real work is so painful, though.  Why can’t my work be hobnobbing and talking on panels and browsing dealer rooms?  Well for one, that’s not work.  None of those things pay the bills.  Writing might one day pay some bills, but being at a con isn’t particularly conducive to writing, either.  Reality comes for us all.  Here are some tips for how to survive the painful transition between the con and the real world.

1. Catch up with work before the con starts.  Coming back to a pile of tests that need grading or files that need updating or invoices that need invoicing just makes it that much harder to dive back into work.  Moving forward is easier.  I bet you took the time to get your costume ready or compile a stack of books that need autographing or to fine tune your Halo strategy; apply the same kid of effort to catching up the job-type-job and you’ll be a happy worker Monday morning.  Well, happier.  (No, I did not do this.)
2. Go to bed early Sunday night.  As long as the commute isn’t standing in the way, get thee to a bed.  You’re probably sleep deprived and an extra hour or so will do you wonders.  Getting out of bed may still feel like pushing a rope, but it’ll be easier to get back up to speed.  (No, I didn’t do this, either.)
3. Wake up earlier than usual Monday morning.  That sounds counter-intuitive, but the extra prep time will be useful as you stare at the showerhead and remember the cools pipes and nozzles on those steampunk costumes or you eat your oatmeal and wish you had one of those stale con-suite donuts to go with it.  (I’m 0 for 3.  This may just be a list of things I wish I had done.)
4. Buy a souvenir.  A tee shirt, a book, a costume component, a bauble…something to remind you of the con experience.  It makes the experience concrete and shows that you got something you wanted out.  Otherwise you’re likely to sit and pine over how you wasted the moment and want to go back and try again, like that time you didn’t kiss what’s-her-name.  Seriously, this can help.  Just don’t catch yourself staring into your dragon snow globe like some mesmerizing crystal ball trying to relive the con.  (Ooh, I did this one!  A Fireflly Venn diagram shirt.  Very nerdy.)
5. Suck it up and get back to work.  That is a tip but also a directive to myself, right now.  Cons are great, but like any recreational drug, they should be used with caution.  (This was a metaphor.  Drugs are bad, m’kay.)

Now on to lesson plans.  :(  Wish me luck.

I write science fiction and fantasy under the name Scott W. Baker, but no one ever seems to include my W.  Not sure why that is.  There are other Scott Bakers (and of course Scott Bakker) out there writing and I don’t want to be them.  But don’t call me W; I don’t want to be George Bush either.

My claim to not-quite-fame is my story “Poison Inside the Walls” which placed in the 26th annual, international Writers of the Future contest and was published in the related anthology.  Since then, my fiction has appeared in Escape Pod, Daily Science Fiction, and other fun places.

What do I write about?  I’m all over the place, really.  Civilizations in space, space pirates, zombies (not in space…yet), time travel, aliens, paranormal events, military sci-fi, distopias, near future, farcical comedy, serious moral dilemmas…  Yeah, I cover the spectrum.  You can get a better taste by looking at my bibliography.

No, I have no published novels at present.  No, there are no novels immediately forthcoming.  Yes, I do have novels in the works, but who doesn’t?  When I get a novel finished, blog readers will be the first to know.

When not writing, I teach high school math.  I have a beautiful wife and a brilliant daughter (adjectives interchangeable).  I have a dachshund, a mutt, and the same cat in two different sizes.  I wear Hawaiian shirts — especially at cons.

So that’s me.  If you need to know more, don’t be afraid to ask.  And I’ll see you at the cons!

I’m slated for just one panel: surviving the zombie apocalypse.  That will be fun.  Has it been done?  Sure, but that won’t stop us.  I’ll probably try to sneak onto another panel or two or at least be that obnoxious guy in the audience that thinks he’s on the panel.  There’s one on newbie writers where my Writers of the Future experiences might be appreciated.  Then there’s always the hang-at-the-bar panel, always a crowd pleaser.  I’m quite certain I’ll be on that panel at some point.

If you’re anywhere near the Chattanooga area this weekend (that’s the south-east corner of Tennessee), consider hopping by the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel for ChattaCon.  The consuite is killer and has two of my favorite double-e words: free beer.  What more needs to be said?

I’m not sure what MY favorite EP stories were last year.  I didn’t listen to them all, but I listened to a fair number.  That is, excluding my own story (which is obviously the finest work of literature ever composed by a mortal).  I’ll likely do a little re-listening and toss my thoughts out there…if I ever get the time.

Tis also the season for Codex‘s Weekend Warrior contest.  It’s really just an excuse to use my competitive spirit to reload my inventory with flash fiction stories, those being my best sellers.  Prompts appear on Friday evening and I have until Sunday evening to submit my story.  This was the first weekend and the story I produced is…I’m predicting top third of the pack, though it’ll be hard to tell since the pack is allegedly numbering in the forties this time around.  But it’s not really about the voting results; it’s about the feedback and having stories to send out.  I have my reading cut out for me this week if I have 40+ stories to read and rate and comment on.  Thank goodness none will be over 750 words!

My new school schedule is giving me a reality kick in the cajones.  Three different classes that are just similar enough to confuse me.  More prep time this semester than last, that’s for sure.  That means less writing time.  Oh please, weather, be good in 11 days so I can get to ChattaCon.  After that, snow school out all you want.

What’s worse, they all seem like good resolutions for this year, too.  So we’ll take it from the top.

1) Lose a pond a week.

2) Write 100 words a day.

3) Read more often. This s actually a deviation from last year, which targeted one novel and two shorts a month.  Instead I’m making this a quadrupleresolution:

• Finish reading all my partially-read novels.  That’s Steven Savile’s Silver, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, and…a couple others I can’t currently recall.  These are not books I’ve abandoned, just ones I set aside to finish later.
• Read 4 new novels this year.  Not a lot, but a realistic target.  I think I finished 4 last year.
• Read short stories weekly.  Maybe each Monday I’ll target some short fiction to read.  It can even be flash, but I need to read in the field.
• Read the Bible every day.  I have an Every Day Bible to help me accomplish this.  I want to read the whole thing in a year.  I’m a Catholic with some pretty stout beliefs (not all of them 100% Catholic-y), but I’ve never made any concerted effort to read the Bible cover to cover.  This year, it’s on.

4) Exercise twice a week.

5) Get organized.

Five good ones.  Let’s see if I can keep at least one this time around.

I have plenty of irons in the fire and I need to find a different fire to toss FS back into.  There’s a good chance I can see my third SFWA-qualifying sale on the horizon already, but crossing fingers and refreshing Duotrope aren’t going to make it happen any sooner.  I just need to keep the writing flowing.

Reason #1: The Learning Curve  When I do something sub-standard in a story, I have to send it out to different zines and collect rejections and maybe a few comments before I recognize what horrible sin was committed on the page.  Those sins tend to be invisible to me in my own work.  But in other people’s work, the flaws are more obvious because my appreciation of their story is limited to what is on the page and is not amplified by pre-existing visions in my own head.  Seeing these shortcomings repeatedly will help me recognize them in my own work.  This particularly holds true for the attention-grabbing needs of a story.  I know a lot of writers/slushers who insist it was reading countless bad openings that taught them to avoid those mistakes in their own work.  That would probably be a good thing for me.

Reason #2: Community Immersion  I am a SF writer, a small time blogger, and a member of the Codex writing group.  I have attended a few local cons and participated (briefly) with the local NaNoWriMo group. That is how the SF community knows me, those few that do know me.  Slushing would add a dimension to my involvement in the community and give me another hat to be recognized in.  I love the SF community (okay, I love a lot of it…there are back alleys I avoid) and would like to be a more recognized player.

Reason 3: Making SF a Jobby-type Job  Every writer will tell you that writing is a job.  Saying it doesn’t make it so, though.  It’s still a hobby for me.  I do it when I want for as long as I can squeeze in the time, but it stays on the bottom shelf in order of priority.  It is likely that slushing would actually subtract from the time I get to write.  However, it would be something I needed to keep up with, something people needed from me and thus something I couldn’t put off indefinitely (unlike my novel, the poor fella).  Sure, most slushers dare I say all?) are unpaid volunteers, but I’m not looking for the paycheck part of a job.

Reason #4: To Feel Valued  If I’m making life and death decisions about stories, that means someone trusts my opinion to some degree.  That has meaning to me.  It feels good.  I want that warm, fuzzy feeling coming from SF.

Reason #5: Editorial Empathy  I am a fairly empathic person.  Not psychic empathic, just I like to consider how other people feel.  Editorial staffs can be tough to empathize with since I’ve never done what they do.  Slushing isn’t editing a magazine, but it’s a toe into their world.  Then at least my toe could be more empathetic.

So I won’t likely pound on any doors for slushing gigs at the moment, but I’ve thought it through and I’ll eventually be on the lookout for something.  I think Apex was looking for slushers recently, but I don’t know that my tastes are quite in line with theirs.  I write dark stuff, but only certain shades of dark.  Maybe I’m just waiting for the right opportunity to present itself.  Or maybe I’m just after the best of both worlds: feeling good about myself because I want to slush without having to actually do any work.

Maybe that will be a new year’s resolution: find a slushing gig.  Hmmm…something to think about.

And don’t forget to follow links to my stories in free online archives.  “ZFL“, “The Drake’s Eye“, and “How Quickly We Forget” are all available through Every Day Fiction.  “Leech Run” can be read or listened to at Escape Pod.  All these links are in my bibliography, but I recreated them here, too.  Links to places to buy books/magazines containing my stories can also be found on my bibliography.  A couple of those are available as ebooks, too.

Read, enjoy.