Here are some more posts I have written for the RPG site Stargazer’s World.
Lossless Audio
I really love music. All of my life music has played a big part in it. I remember at a very young age listening to vinyl records on my father’s Sony turntable home stereo system. I would listening to records for hours and hours. When CDs first came out I started buying them. To this day I still buy CDs and have a pretty large collection.
When MP3s started to make an appearance in the 90s they had one large advantage for the causal listener and one large disadvantage. The advantage being that file size of an MP3 file was is very small. You could store hundreds of MP3 encoded songs on one CD. This was huge and lead the way for music players like the Apple iPod.
The big disadvantage to MP3s for people like me was that since the audio was compressed to be a smaller file size you could hear the compression or the missing audio data when listening to an MP3. This drove me nuts!
I have friends that to this day swear up and down they can not tell the difference when listening to a song on a CD or when listening to the same exact song from an MP3 file. To me the differences have always stuck out like a sore thumb. Which at times I can’t even believe since I have been a rock drummer for so many years and I have to be experiencing some form of hearing loss by now.
So, because I can tell the difference between the lower quality audio as a result of an MP3 file and a CD I have just always bought CDs.
Very recently I have been educating myself on the virtues of the Free Lossless Audio Codec, or FLAC for short. Because FLAC is a lossless audio format it sounds just like my CDs sound. I can not tell the difference when I am listening to a FLAC audio file verses listening to the same song on CD. Everything I have educated myself about FLAC says that there really is no audio difference between the CD audio file and the FLAC audio file. The lossless audio codec was specifically designed for audio and the resulting file will drop down to at least 50% if not more of the original audio file from the CD.
So, why do I care about all this? Why don’t I just continue to listen to my CDs? Well, I do still listen to my CDs at home, but we now live in a world with lots of portable devices that were made for our connivance. I would like to take full advantage of my devices.
When Apple announced the iPhone 4S, I ordered one right away. At the same time I started researching FLAC audio files as a solution for my portable music listening pleasure. I found the following FLAC audio encoding guide and FLAC audio player ‘Golden Ear‘ for my iPhone. I also ordered a pair of really great headphones that I can’t say enough good things about right now. Sony Dynamic Stereo Headphones MDR-7506 Professional.
Based on the audio guide I found I started encoding my CDs right away. I received my headphones a few days later and then my iPhone 4S arrived. I purchased and loaded a copy of ‘Golden Ear’ on to my phone and transferred over a few songs to test out the application and my head phones. I was amazed! Every song sounded wonderful and crystal clear. The ‘Golden Ear’ audio player works a lot like iTunes for the iPhone. You have the quick access controls from the home screen as well as a play list of music to scroll through and choose from.
If you are really into audio quality like me, I can tell you I am so happy that I found this solution. I wish I had found it sooner. It would have saved me years of frustration.
‘Book Vacation’ Reviews ‘All That Matters’
The ‘Book Vacation‘ blog just did a very nice review of ‘All That Matters‘. Here are some of the highlights:
- Tanha certainly has a way with words, and All That Matters is a beautiful story.
- I especially enjoyed this reversal of devotion in that it is the male lead character who bends over backwards for the girl.
- I wasn’t expecting it, and it did change my feelings for some of the characters, though, in reality, it is to be completely expected, and I can actually say that this novel truly couldn’t have ended any other way, even though I may not be happy about it.
Check out the full review here at ‘Book Vacation’.
Being Compared To Nicholas Sparks
Something I am seeing in a lot of the reviews about my book ‘All That Matters‘ is that I am being compared to the author, Nicholas Sparks. That is such an honor to me. I have one book published so far and people are already comparing me to a highly successful and amazing author such as Sparks. I am flattered and humbled by this.
I am a fan of Nicholas Sparks and have read many of his books over the years. One of his first books I read was ‘A Walk To Remember‘ which had major and positive impact on my life.
Sparks’s writing style is fluid and keeps the story moving along. This is something I have found to be an influence my own writings.
Savannah recently made this comparison between myself and Sparks on her ‘Books With Bite‘ blog when she reviewed ‘All That Matters‘. Here are a few things she had to say:
- What I liked most about this book is the struggle, the fight for love that is once there, but for some reason fades away.
- I adore the characters in this book.
- I struggled towards the end with hiding my tears…
You can read Savannah’s full review on her blog, ‘Books With Bite‘.
Creating An Outline
Before I ever start writing a book, one of the first things I do is write an outline. Having an outline makes writing a book so much easier. Having the roots of your story established so that when you write everything can grow and branch out.
When I write my outlines I do my best to keep everything simple and clear. It keeps you from suffering the derided blank page that seems to haunt many writers. It also ensures that you know where your story is going. It does this by making you think out all the major events that are going to take place before you start writing it. Nothing is worse than getting halfway (or more) through writing a book, only to find yourself stuck not knowing what to do next.
Some people may argue that having a detailed outline of your book before you start writing takes away all the creative freedom one has from free from writing. My experience has found that to be a completely false statement. The way I write my outlines allows for plenty of room for one to be creative and come up with story ideas and events on a whim.
When I create an outline I date it with the date I started working on it. I will then title it ‘Outline’ with a subtitle of the book’s working title if I have one. I will than indicate the chapter followed by the month and year of when the even in the chapter is taking place. So for example:
Chapter # – (Month/Year)
- Even number one
- Event number two
- Event number three
So If I took the template above and added actual content to it, it might look something like this:
Chapter 1 – (December/1980)
- Birth of Joseph White at McCady Hospital
- Joesph’s parents notice the new baby is not like other babies
- Joesph’s parents struggle to keep their babies special abilities a secret from friends and family.
That is how I outline my books. Chapter 1 through however many till I am done.
Once my outline is done then I begin writing it all out. I do this by opening up a new blank page in my word processor application and copying my outline for chapter one and pasting it in that new blank page and use that outline as my guideline.
As you can see by my outline it leaves plenty open for the creative process to take over. My writing can take me off in many different tangents. Some are good and help the story along, while others do nothing but bloat out the story with needless details. I don’t normally worry about that during the first draft of my writings. I just let myself write and get it all out of my system. Its normally the second draft of my writing where I will go over everything line by line eliminating the needless tangents or the excess descriptions.
I found a really cool youtube video called ‘How To Write A 1000 Words‘ not to long ago. It’s was pretty neat for me to see a visual representation of how I pretty much write.
I hope you found this information useful. I am interested to read what you might do when creating an outline, or any writing tips for that matter. Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know.