Taking a test drive

[Rick Hall]

Hi! I'm Rick, and I discovered this site yesterday when I began looking into crowd sourced writing resources. When I finished the draft of my novel manuscript last October, I thought I was in the home stretch of the process. It turns out, I'd only completed the first lap of what seems like a 500 mile race. Luckily, I'm a voracious learner and explorer, so it's still fun.

About me, I currently live in Florida and teach at a university. I've take several left turns in life, having worked as an electrical engineer, a computer programmer, a video game designer, and a general manager of a software development studio. My list of personal anecdotes is extensive, and I enjoy an array of interests and obsessions including chess, history, economics, web design, programming, and a stupidly large collection of video games.

I haven't a clue what to expect of this site, but at first glance, it appears rather fascinating.

 

[Barbara]

Welcome, Rick. Nice of you to join us. I hope you enjoy your time here.

 

[Marc Joan]

Welcome!

 

[Carol Rose]

Welcome!

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Welcome to the Colony, Rick!

 

[Nikky Lee]

Welcome! I'm a relative newcomer too and I've found the advice and discussions on here fantastic. It is an excellent resource (and great for keeping motivated).

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Hello

 

[Rich.]

Hi Rick, a life of left turns, I'm with you there. As for this site, you can expect lively conversation and a supportive community. We're all here because we write. Once you've been here a week and posted 20 times, you'll get access to the Writing Groups, where you'll find opportunities to give and receive critiques, and polish your craft. Welcome aboard!

 

[Lex Black]

Welcome to the Colony!

 

[Rick Hall]

I hung out on Scribophile for a couple of years. There were some useful things there, but it definitely didn't have that "tight knit" community feel. LOL. In less than 12 hours, Litopia has already surpassed them in that respect

 

[Rick Hall]

Oh, and by the way, if you like playing with tools that help create characters, I wrote this a couple of years ago. It uses MBTI types to generate affect and personality descriptions for both the good and bad versions of each of the 16 types. There are quite a few traits, so you can even generate the same type multiple times in a row, and get different results. MBTI Character Generator : Rick Hall - Javascript based traits generator

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Welcome, Rick! Litopia is definitely the place to hang out and get writerly support. What's genre is your novel?

 

[KateESal]

Ahoy there, Rick — welcome aboard!

 

[Nikky Lee]

Oh, and by the way, if you like playing with tools that help create characters, I wrote this a couple of years ago. It uses MBTI types to generate affect and personality descriptions for both the good and bad versions of each of the 16 types. There are quite a few traits, so you can even generate the same type multiple times in a row, and get different results. MBTI Character Generator : Rick Hall - Javascript based traits generator

What a neat tool! I'll definitely be using this, especially for my villains.

 

[Rick Hall]

Glad you like it. I used it for a lot of my minor characters, too. It lets you make a quick, low investment thumbnail, with a result that is colorful and internally consistent.

 

[Rick Hall]

Welcome, Rick! Litopia is definitely the place to hang out and get writerly support. What's genre is your novel?

It's YA Urban Fantasy

 

[Emily]

Welcome @Rick Hall, I'm relatively new here too! So much to learn and read, a lovely space on the web

 

[Magicman]

Hi Rick, a little late with the greetings - sorry - been busy writing - hope you like the site.
Bob

 

[Andrew Okey]

Hi Rick, welcome aboard

 

[David Weller]

Welcome to the Colony, Rick.

 

[Richard Wilkes]

Welcome Rick! I've been here about 6/7 months now and it's a really useful resource to have. Hope it works for you. I would like to make more use of it but life makes demands ...

 

[AgentPete]

Hello Rick! Very pleased indeed you’re here. I’m just back from a couple of weeks break and checking on the site, I was freaked to see the avatar assigned to you… the board will give you a tasteful single letter avatar if you don’t upload your own… but wtf? Then I realized this is an ironic avatar of your own making... ha! Anyway, hope you have a great time here, get stuck in.

 

[Rick Hall]

I've never been a fan of orthodoxy. Thirty years ago, I worked for the US Navy. One day the security people came around and told us they were running a drill. Starting the following week, they would drop by our desks after hours and attempt to break onto our computers. Our job was to secure our computer in such a way as to prevent intrusion and data theft. Everybody went crazy installing hardware encryption, 64 bit cyphers, and all manner of high tech junk, which the security people easily defeated. I went low-tech. I wrote a little batch file that interrupted the boot-up. It displayed an error message to the screen, reporting a systemic hard drive failure. Then it quietly waited for in a password, at which point it would boot up as normal. All the security people turned my computer on, thought the hard drive was broken, and moved on without even trying.

In the end, they didn't give me the promised award, even though mine was the only system they never got data from. They said I cheated.

Well, duh. I still won.

Life is more fun when you buck convention.

 

[AgentPete]

Nice And shame on the Navy. You delivered.