Thord D. Hedengren

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Tag: projects

  • Daily Crowdfunder is back at it

    In case you missed it, Daily Crowdfunder is back after the holiday break. Some of the most recent featured campaigns include a Conan board game that looks great, an inspiring documentary, monthly coding packages for kids, and more. Lots of goodies to come too, so check it out, and spread the word if you like what you see.

  • The Shrtnws Experiment Is Over

    The Shrtnws logo
    The Shrtnws logo

    Over the holidays I decided to pause the Shrtnws experiment. It’s been great fun and the response has been positive, but the next step is too big at the moment. For those of you who’ve missed it, Shrtnws sent interesting and breaking news in short form, with a link for additional reading and/or source, through Twitter, Facebook, App.net and Tumblr. Additional plans, such as a daily (and later weekly wrap-up) newsletter were on the plate, and technically ready to launch, but I decided not to.

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  • #MobNov October Update

    There’s just no easy way to say this. My iPhone novel writing project is struggling. The story’s almost done and there’s just the endgame left, which adds up to a couple of thousand words or so, but the manuscript is way too short. As I’ve said before, writing in such short spurts completely changed the pace of my writing, and I’ve already re-outlined the novel twice, to no avail.

    The past few days I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time each day to mull over what I’m going to do about this. True to the project, I’ve tried not to spend too much time. It has to be reasonable.

    This is the new plan:

    • Insert the new scenes and character earlier in the story. This is usually not a good idea when writing, but I need these elements to proceed.
    • Add a parallell storyline, the one I scrapped because I thought it’d push the novel over 100,000 words. Yeah, that was quite a miscalculation.
    • Update the outline properly. I’ll most likely do this on paper, that’s how definite this thing’ll be.
    • Get back into the 300 words daily mindset, because these issues have left me scattered and unfocused.

    That’s about it. I might change writing app as well, because Byword, which I’ve used thus far, have had quite a few issues with iOS 7. We’ll see, more on that in a later article series for this site.

  • Shrtnws Redux

    Shrtnws was a small project that I built along with my Odd Alice friends at an event called 24 Hour Business Camp. It was great fun to build, and the end result was pretty cool. Basically, it was short news delivered to you through the site, or on Twitter and/or Facebook. There were several (five or six) topics that you could follow, and you got the very most important news in each of these.

    We ran Shrtnws for a month or so, with paying sponsors I might add, but then decided to call it quits. There just wasn’t time enough, and due to changes with APIs, along with a publishing method that took a little bit too much tinkering when you were mobile, we shelved the project.

    I was never comfortable with dropping the project, but reality is what it is. Much like I had to shelve the Appricorn project due to the ongoing changes within the App Store, we had to do the same with Shrtnws at the time. (more…)

  • Two Weeks Of iPhone Novel Writing

    Previously:

    I decided not to publish an update on my iPhone novel writing project last weekend. Not much had changed since the first update, linked above, and I did say that I’d do these updates somewhat irregularly.

    I won’t bore you with statistics at this time. Hitting 300 words per day on my iPhone is still no problem. I write between 300 and 400 words in 10–15 minutes. Most sessions end at around 330 words in 13 minutes, but it depends on how clear my vision is for the writing session.

    It’s too early to talk about when and where I write, but something of a pattern is starting to emerge. I’ll get back to that when we’re further into the experiment.

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  • Four Days Of #MobNov

    I’ve written 300+ words daily for four days straight, on my iPhone, and thus far the iPhone novel writing project that will be part of my everyday life for the coming six months is coming along nicely. Four days out of (up to) 184 is almost nothing, but I’ve made some initial observations:

    • 300 words daily is an easy target, which was the whole point.
    • Starting a new writing project is awarding, and thus I’ve written more than 300 words on the first days (594, 578, 747, and finally, 316 words today). I expect the word counts to normalize at between 300 and 400 words.
    • I’ll have to be careful not falling into the “lots of short chapters” trap, where each writing session turns out to be a chapter. This has been the case up until now, and might mean that the structure of the draft will need more work than usual when I’m done.
    • The outline is, as expected, crucial since every writing session is so short.

    I’ll report back on the project in regular intervals, weekly to begin with (on Sundays, as you might’ve gathered). If you want daily updates, follow me on Twitter and/or App.net. The updates pertaining this projects are marked with the #MobNov hashtag.

  • I'm Writing A Novel On My iPhone

    That I love writing on my iPad, with the appropriate apps and accessories, is no secret. After all, I did write an ebook about it, called The Writer’s iPad, so it goes without saying.

    I’m also an avid iPhone writer. Before this wonderful device came along, I managed to crank out the occasional draft on my dumbphones, something that was a lot less pleasant than today’s alternatives.

    Writing on mobile devices, smartphones in this case, is nothing new. There’s been novels written using SMS and Twitter only, and there used to be things like this in Japan back in the day. There’s nothing groundbreaking about writing long form on a smartphone, a lot of friends and acquaintances rely on their iPhones and Androids for these things, much like I do. I’ve written a lot of shorter stuff on my iPhone myself, and thousands of emails, as well as parts of longer articles. Thanks to the wonderful world of cloud computing, I’ve been able to jump into documents as needed, getting work done using only my iPhone.  (more…)

  • Appricorn Shelved

    I have decided to put the Appricorn project on hold, despite having both content, concept, and the technical solution ready to go. What’s left is the actual design, launch procedure, marketing, and possibly signing up some additional writers outside the small crew I have.

    And yet, the project’s shelved for now.

    The Behind Appricorn blog logo
    The Behind Appricorn blog logo

    I’m not blaming time for once, but rather a growing flaw in the basic premise. Appricorn was to be monetized by affiliate links, and since the only apps covered would be good-to-great apps, there would be no issue of trust. The idea was that every app covered would be a great deal.

    The problem is, the App Store is changing, and that change is affecting the Appricorn concept. More apps are using freemium business models, or in some fashion relying on in-app purchases. I think this is good for a lot of apps, but it puts a serious dent in the Appricorn model.

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  • Summer Projects Spitballing

    As you probably know by now, I like to launch things, keep my plate full so to speak. This entry is all about what I’ll do with the free time I’ll have this summer, and how I’ll avoid doing too much. Or rather, it’s about throwing out some ideas I have, and see what sets my inbox on fire.

    It’s also about spitballing with myself. I think better when I type.

    Projects I’ll definitely work on

    These projects will happen, although they might not be finished, of course. Not a final list, I need something more that this to fiddle with while sipping a drink by the lake in the woods.

    Projects that want in

    In no particular order.

    • Two more Orn tales. I’ve got two more Orn tales, consisting of 3-5 short stories each, that I want to tell.
    • Technical Ebook Series. Just like The Writer’s iPad, this is an old idea that I’ve been putting off. With the experience of publishing an ebook, I’m thinking it might be time to get this one into production.
    • Technical Ebook. This is a book aimed at beginners that probably does’t fit in the series mentioned above. I don’t think I’ll be writing it this summer, but it’s on my slate. Might end up in the hands of a traditional publisher.
    • The Writer’s iPhone. People are requesting this, but I’m thinking of making it an online series instead.
    • Arpeg. I haven’t talked much about this, but I’ve got a simple and fast universal RPG (!) rules system that I’ve always wanted to give away for free.
    • Novel #1. This one’s ready for its first rewrite, probably an extensive one since it changed so much during the first draft. I’m pretty sure I’ll do this one which probably kills all other novel ideas for the summer. Or not, I’m a productive bastard sometimes. This is one of the two novels mentioned previously.
    • Novel #2. I wrote the first draft for an Orn novel last summer. It would be fitting to rewrite it, and align it with the Orn tales, this summer, wouldn’t it?
    • Novel #3. Recently outlined, will be written, but probably not during the summer. Like the story though, should be entertaining, possibly also wacky. This is the second of the two novels mentioned previously.
    • Novel #4/new short story series. A science fiction story that I’ve been sitting on for such a long time. Might become a short story series much like the Orn tales instead.
    • Newsletters. Not only do I intend to launch a TDH newsletter, I’m very tempted to try some ideas for the format too. I love newsletters.
    • Forums. For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about forums lately. Not sure what will come of that though.
    • Short story anthology. I’ve recently gone through all the flash fiction I’ve written, and looked at the short stories I’ve drafted or want to write. I’ve got about one third of this potential anthology done, and with every crazy short story I write it gets closer to an editor pass. If I happen to write a lot of short stories this summer, I might end up compiling the cream of the crop too. Will feature flying penises.
    • Launch TDH themes. I talked about this previously, nothing new to report.

    There’s obviously no shortage of things to do this summer. Oh, and then there’s Odd Alice work stuff and projects too, as well as some freelancing. Good thing I like to keep busy.

  • Questions Answered, May 2013 Edition

    I was going to talk about Ghost, the crowdfunded blogging platform, today but as I read my draft I realized that my point was muddled and didn’t get across the way I wanted. The piece went in the bin and I’ll give it another go in a day or so.

    Let me instead answer some questions from the modern mailbag, which would mean anything from my email inbox to Twitter, App.net or Facebook. There might be questions directed at me over at Google+ as well, but those will continue to go unanswered.

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  • Talk is cheap

    Sometimes it is easy to say too much. If you’re a productive fellow you probably have a ton of ideas, some hopes, and a dream or two. The projects are piling up and as you work your way through them you can’t help but start looking towards the horizon for the Next Big Thing that you’ll dazzle the world with.

    Do yourself a favor and shut up.

    I know all too well how easy it is to start talking about a project way too early. It’s gonna be great, I just know it, and then I’ll convince anyone who’ll listen that this is the case. Most of the time they’ll believe me, I’m persuasive like that. You might be too.

    The problem is when you don’t deliver. Real artists ship, you know. So keep your projects, ideas and plans to yourself and don’t start talking about them until the very last moment, ideally a bit later than that. You’ll get a nice reputation of being the one who always delivers, which will make your impact all the better.

     

  • Changes midstream

    I need to come to a decision and I figured it would be easier to do that by writing a few words about my reasoning. Here’s the thing: I’m writing a novel, it’s been outlined (more or less) for the past three years or so. The story interconnects with other stories, which I intend to write as well (have already started, actually), and the sole reason I started writing the novel in the first place was to get off my ass.

    You might say I started in the middle, in medias res, of the larger picture. It seemed a good idea at the time. (more…)