"Felix", State and Diaspora

I took another stab at my "Felix" rewrite, but got stalled very quickly. I started to look at ways to get started again. At least I have an idea how.

"Felix", a science fiction story set on Mars, was inspired by a H. P. Lovecraft story.

What has me blocked is that there are several sections that I want to toss out and start over on. Everything I try sounds far too bland after a couple of lines. To a degree, I think I am still somewhat wedded to the earlier version.

When I did "The Barrier" I found it much easier to write when I did it directly in Xtranormal. I think that maybe that is an approach I should try. It may at least get me to think differently about the story.

I haven't heard about anyone else who used Xtranormal as a writing tool. I can't imagine I am the only person who thought of it.

Xtranormal is no longer available and I haven't found anything that I really think is a good replacement. There is a "abandon-ware" version of Xtranormal available (State Plus/Forever), so I downloaded and installed that.

I ran into a couple of problems with the install, but I have most of them fixed now. Since it isn't really supported, I can't get any outside help. I hope to have it working in the next few days.

The program is different than the Xtranormal Desktop that I used. I'll need to get familiar with the system before I can start to use it.

Diaspora

In last week's blog post, I talked about an idea I had to replace Facbook. Well, it turns out that isn't a new idea. One person on FaceBook suggested that I look at Diaspora. (diasporafoundation.org)

It isn't quite what I had in mind. For example, it has been hosted at an on-line "pod" and not on your own computer. You can set up your own pod, but it comes across to me as a very geek-friendly system. In other words, not everyone can set it up.

I suspect that over time it will become easier to use so non techies can use it. I'll keep an eye on it, and see what I can learn about it.

If you have had some experience with Diaspora, I would like to hear about it.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog