Going on 16……………..

… as in 16,000 words. By the time the keyboard started swimming in front of my eyes last night, I was just about to hit the 16K mark. Oh boy, its’ exhilarating. It is very fulfilling to see your creation coming to reality. I am still waiting for bare feet broadband on my balcony (I am trying to say I have a nice wide balcony). Any ISPs reading this from Nairobi, please know we need these services.

Having said all that, may be I have to do more research and key in more words before the weekend. We have the long Easter weekend coming up, and I want to spend it doing other things, not writing.

So see you at KM 18.

Google Books (http://books.google.com)

Been trawling through the above site as part of my research. It is a very worthy initiative by the Google gang, and I cannot thank them enough. Research is very key to any writing endeavour. Your thoughts alone may not suffice in a full length book. To add value and perspective, one needs to quote and bring in perspectives from other writers.

This adds a lot of value for your book and also makes it a reference point to other written works. I was particularly impressed by the classics, since these tomes contain invaluable wisdom that has consistently stood the test of time. It is still relevant today as it was in those ages. Am currently reading Thinking and Deciding (Third Edition) by Jonathan Baron. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is next.

This got me thinking about the more reason we need high-speed Internet access for all, since the we can travel to many places in the world and experience a richer life. I am still waiting patiently for the day I shall do high-speed surfing from my balcony, barefoot (which has a nice view of a forested area in my new neighbourhood).

Why do we blog?

Why do we blog? 

Is it because we can? Is it because we can’t not blog?
Is it so that we can brag? Is it becase blogging is big?
Do we even know what a blog is? And a vlog? And a hog?
And a frog? And a flog? And a glog? And a phlog?
As in photos blog?

Do pigs fly? Why not? Why am I deviating from blogging
To hogging? As in writing about hogs? Or is it eating?
Or taking up everything? As in hogging the headlines?

May be I should be a road hog, and blog about it. Hog as
In Harley Owners Group, not as in pig hog. What is hog?
I should also hog the Fortune List of Richest People, but
Is it necessary? To be on the list that is? Who will read
And marvel at the wealth, if we are all on the list?

Is this about blogging, hogging, Fortune lists, or what …
Does it matter? I am just writing as it flows from my grey
Matter, but does it matter if the matter is really grey? Is
It even grey? Or is it just another hoax, or just hogwash?
Why does hog keep appearing? May be I should title this piece
Hog, or HOG, or og, as in hog without the h

Why do we blog and write such things as these? I do not know
But you must blog, blog and hog. Hog and blog. Blog hog.
Whatever, this is is really …………. writer’s block.

14,000 and going ……..

Inspired by some Persian music, yes that is music from Persia, I hit the 14,000 plus words road mark last night. It was pure joy. I had slowed down over the weekend to recharge the batteries abit. After unplugging myeslf from the charger, am rearing to go. The most interesting thing when writing is that whole chapters can come from the most unlikely source. I watched a news item, the light bulb went on in my head and I went running to my laptop. Sore fingers later, I managed to get a whole chapter done.

Internet research is also very crucial. You want to have relevant and interesting analogies. In my neck of the woods, bandwidth costs a tonne of cash. To get decent speeds, one has to lay out some serious cash. We are waiting for the market to open up and have serious players pushing seriuous bandwidth homewards, so I can research from my balcony, barefoot. Once the mystical, one-cures-all sub-marine fibre optic cable hits Mombasa, Kenya we are home and dry. Hopefully.

See you at KM 16000.

Past 12,000

Last night I chalked up an impressive 2,000 words. My book is really getting more “meat”. Thing is I even lost track of time and ended up past my regulated lights out time. I was so excited and am now seeing 20,000 words are within reach, in less that 4 days. I will work very hard to achieve this soonest. These milestones are huge morale boosters. Soon it will be 30,000 and the going gets better.

I am ecstatic!

Sub Routines

When programmers write code, they interleave
Many complex messages in them, using nested
Loops, and-ifs, end-ifs, if-else but they are always
Careful not to have an endless loop, or a
Continuous loop that never exits to go to the
Next sub-routine, as this could loop forever
Unless that is necessary for the application
Functionality and sustainability

If sub-routine A states that certain
Global variables must be declared, then
This rule must be adhered to since
A variable cannot be used if it has not
Been declared as this would cause the
Sub-routine A to either return an error
Lock or exit prematurely, else loop endlessly

Once all the global variables in sub-routine A
Have been declared, they can then be used in
That sub-routine and this will subsequently
Lead to the end of the sub-routine and the
Exit into sub-routine B

Within sub-routine B, there shall be more
Global variables declared up front and
Then these variables are used within that
Sub-routine B until it comes to a logical
End, but the sub-routine does not need to
Exit as it could be designed to loop endlessly
All this is by design, naturally

…… come back

So it’ s been a while. I have been busy researching and writing my book. Yesterday I hit the 10,000 word mark. I was jumping all over the house carrying my laptop, and showing anyone who cared the mile stone. I have another couple of thousand words to go, and we shall be home and dry.

It is very gratifying to see the work of your hands come to fruition, and actually do it one step at a time.

More on the road to publishing soon.