In the meantime, for the now yearly event for me, I took a different concept, barely have a plot to work with (though it is formulating well) and am going to end up writing by the seat of my pants.  On the plus side, it is exciting and like the first NaNo novel I finished, it is interesting to me.

So, going to rest up this Halloween, think a lot about twists and turns for this book (I’d like a love interest, but it isn’t forming yet) and after trick or treating with the kids and watching some Ghost Hunters Live shows, I’ll be roaring out of the starting gate ant 12:00 and one second am November 1st!

I took a crappy outline from a couple years ago and am working hard to get the rest of the details and shore up the seriously weak sections.

I’d like to thank for my latest lack of sleep:

• Nanowrimo for the craziness I’ve absolutely loved the past few years.
• yWriter for a really cool word processor designed for writing novels.  For me, when I go into it, it just makes sense.  The first time I used it, it was a little weird, to realize that I had to make a chapter, then make a scene before I could actually write something, and that’s about as far as I got with it last year.  Now that I’m familiar with that concept, I’ve been exporing the other elements, like the character notes, the item and location notes, the general notes, etc.  Also, since I love the Writing the Perfect Scene article, it is very cool to see that incorporated into the program.  Then there’s the editing feature, so you can say whether a scene is an outline, draft version of draft, etc.  You can rate the scenes and since the designer (and author in his own right) is a Nano-er, it has Nanowrimo functionality, like obfuscated text export so you can upload your wordcount to the nanowrimo site without worrying about your masterpiece (yeah right) being out on the net. Daily word counts and start and stop dates so you can gauge your performance.
• The Writing the Perfect Scene article for a really good structure on how a scene should play out.  This has been very useful in helping me realize where I just have the characters sitting around instead of DOING something and it has spurred me into changing them.

Honorable Mentions:

• Superhero Nation. This site has a ton of really good writing article topics that I haven’t seen elsewhere. While I haven’t directly used information from them yet, I have no doubt that they will be a great tool as the days get closer. Love all the info about titles and what is good and bad.  Spent a good hour reading through just that simple topic.
• VUE (Visual Understanding Environment).  I really want to get to know this program.  I thinkit will do what I want, but I’m on a roll with design and don’t want to get bogged down with learning the program.  What I like about this one over, say Freemind, is that when I’ve tried Freemind, I must use the “brainstorm” layout.  This means a central idea (like the name of the book) then have all the branches off of it.  I don’t think that way anywhere except in my head.  I want something where I can put in the chapters and look visually at the timeline and if the scene is a rising or falling action, where I can have bubbles for character notes that are separate from the timeline flow, etc.  VUE seems to do all of this, and pretty simply, but I wanted to export all my notes, etc into some kind of outline to import into yWriter, so RTF or something, and the output features were giving me fits.  Again, I think it will do what I want, but I’d have to monkey around with it for awhile and I know if I spend the time to do that, I’ll lose the creative story spark which is flaring up right now.
• Liquid Story Binderfor an app that looks like it would do a couple of the things I want that yWriter doesn’t do, but the difference here is that I go into yWriter and the initial screen, I can see what is what.  Chapters, scenes, characters, yWriter all makes sense.  Liquid Story Binder starts out with windows that don’t make any sense to me.  And dang when I went into “typewriter” mode while exporing, I couldn’t get OUT of it for a few minutes, which was frustrating.  Liquid Story Binder looks sexy, looks like it will do a lot and is very similar to yWriter, but needs some kind of demo tutorials, like through YouTube or Flash with something like Captivate.  Like VUE, I would get totally bogged down in learning the program, and lose the time creating and exploring. So, pass for now.

So what is the feature I’m looking for?  With work, I’m finally starting to learn to work on large projects from an outline, but for a novel I want something more visual.   I want so see the scenes and where they are in energy and approaching during or after a climax.  I want to see them in the timeline and want to adjust their position and insert scenes where something is missing.  VUE comes seriously close, and after Nano2009, I might look at it closer.  So I’m going really old fashioned, and using my head for the initial notes, and when they get too much in there, I’ll dump them into the chapters in yWriter.  To see the visual element, I’m using 4×6 index cards for the chapters with smallhand written notes in them.  Then using 3×5 index cards paper clipped or stapled to the 4×6 to show the scenes in the chapter.  Then they are all going on my cork board and I can rate them and see how my story energy flows, insert a scene/chapter in a weak part, use yarn to circle a set of chapters that will fit together, etc.  As I get a chapter nicely laid out, I’ll put it in yWriter and take more notes and when Nano comes around, I should just be able to write as fast as I can while remembering all my characters and where the heck the story should be going!

And of course, Twitter is kind of fun and damn easy to do.

It has pretty much changed my mindset. With technology, it is always a challenge to keep on the cutting edge and skills and knowledge I used ten years ago don’t apply today. It gets tiring. But with training, I can keep on the cutting edge and just continue to build and learn and expand.

With the course I’ve taken I also have finally felt a sense of belonging: I am not an island unto myself in my company. If I get laid off from here, I’d have to really brush up on my technology knowledge to make a decent resume, while as a trainer, that knowledge has just built. I’m learning the community, which is actually a lot smaller than I expected, but oh so good!

It really feels like a career. Only took me half my life to figure it out. I hope I can stay with it!

(And this does not mean I’m giving up the writing, I still want to get that book published. Work has been so insane the past couple months that I haven’t had a moment to rest, let alone to work on editing.)

I held out on the whole e-book craze for a long time, and several times came very close to buying the Sony Reader. Then the Amazon Kindle came out and I spent about a week obsessing on it, finding every scrap of text written about it to look for real negatives. My favorite of the stupid negatives was that it looked like a set of buck teeth.

So I bought it and was hooked on day one (December 27th!).  Since then, I’ve read several books on it, and am at the point where I look for Kindle or Mobi editions of books before even thinking of print. Yes, for my reading style, it is that good.  I don’t care about the “smell” or “feel” of the paper.  I do care about the headaches I get from staring at a computer screen all day every day (for work and fun).  The e-ink technology makes it totally eye friendly.

So here we are, and everyone is speculating that Amazon’s announcement on Monday will be about the Kindle 2. Heck, for all we know, it could be the announcement that Jeff is a giant chicken!  But the safe bet is the next generation of Kindle.

If the leaked pictures of the new model are accurate, I’m not impressed.  The one thing most people seem to gripe about is my favorite feature: the button on the edge. I love it! I can hook my hand around the back of the Kindle and tap just the top corner with my index finger. I can walk and hit it in the center with my thumb.  I can be doing other stuff and hit it anywhere on the edge and turn the page of the book I’m reading.  Yeah, folks, this is a library in a can.  It should act as much like a book as possible, and it does a damn fine job of that.

So I don’t mind the color, I don’t mind the buttons. I barely use the keypad, so who cares?  Look up any article on Kindle and you will find a ton of people who don’t get computer headaches, or are occasional readers and can use the smaller iPhone screen or whatever.  I like the look and the size of the Kindle.

I like the concept of the new Sony Reader with it’s well designed touch screen.  But I won’t buy a Sony because I think Kindle is the only one who got it right: Don’t use WiFi, use cellular for the connection.  If I’m at work, I look at the computer.  I order from Amazon.  Then when I go to my car or home, I turn on the wireless on the Kindle and get the book, when I can read it.  I don’t have to play around withhooking it to the computer to copy it over (which I have done a lot with the ton of mobiedition books!). I don’t have to monkey around with setting up a WiFi connection and hoping it is a clear connection that I can connect to!  The Whispernet did it right.

Now, what I would love to see on this announcement on Monday, is not necessarily a new device (of if there is one, not the one that’s leaked). I’d want Amazon to unveil the added functionality of the website so Kindle books can be gifted, Kindle to Kindle beaming and library functionality.

Gifting Kindle Books

The big slam dunk I think for Amazon would be the ability to gift books to a Kindle.  All it would take is having the purchaser choose a date and time to have the Kindle book available and pushed to the device.  So for Christmas, we open gifts about 2pm on the 24th.  I could totally see that when I buy a Kindle book for someone off their wish list (or just because) I could have a button that says “Immediate Send” and another to “Choose Date”.  Then I could choose December 24th at 1:50pm, and then Amazon could take me to a page to make a quick card: “Check your Kindle, you have a book!” I mean, florist sites let you choose dates, why not this?

Kindle to Kindle

Kindle to Kindle transfer.  Okay, maybe not directly, but wouldn’t it be cool if you could take that intro chapter that you can read for free and from your Kindle send just that to your friend?  I figure that way, you wouldn’t be stepping on people’s toes about rights and all that.  As an aspiring author myself, I do feel kind of guilty about browsing the second hand book stores, knowing authors get squat from them.  If I think a book is the best thing ever though and want to share, I could send you that first chapter, just like you could yourself from Amazon.

Library edition

The library functionality would be tricky, but doable, I think.  A Kindle library edition of a book would have a time delete on it.  You have two weeks to read it and it will then delete itself from the list. If you want to check it out again, back to the library.  Write the flag into the DRM code of the book and the Kindle OS can do the rest. Now the library can “rent” you the book.  Add a mechanism where only the # of books the library buys of the book are available to check out and I think you’ve basically covered the rights issues.  This would probably take the most work.

Dreaming big

So the Kindle, for me, is the ultimate electronic BOOK (or Library of books really). For reading it is just so cool. The only real feature I’m looking for from a new edition is color. When color e-ink technology becomes affordable, I will be in heaven. You could probably have the true black on white, or even the off-while of a normal novel (that would be a cool thing). Pictures would pop and I would seriously consider the magazined on the Kindle then.

The one-two punch would be the Kindle for reading, and the Plastic Logic e-ink tablet for everything else: Comic books (again, when they get the color thing down), word docs, PDFs, etc.

I have a few PDF books that were printed or scanned funky, so they are full page images, not text sent to PDF. I would think, because of this lack of standards in the PDF standard is is why the Kindle doesn’t support PDF directly (though you can still do the ones with text prettywell with an email or a little work on your part and the Mobisoftware). But the Plastic Logic device is a full size page. Where the Kindle is perfect for novels, the Plastic Logic would be my business paper replacement. I wouldn’t want to read a book holding the bigger device, and I really don’t like trying to read a comic book or a formatted Word document in the Kindle. With these two devices, who needs paper.

So, I’m sure Monday will have some interesting news out of Amazon. I doubt anything on my wish list will be there.  And who knows, if they fooled all of us with fake shots of the Kindle 2 and unveil a totally different unit, I may have to fork over more for the next gen!

In writing, it took me an insane number of years and books and classes to find that, really, there is no secret ingredient to crack the code of writing a novel.

Okay, already I’ll take that back. The secret is that the first novel you write will inevitably be total crap. Big stinking piles of it. Get over writing the perfect chapter. Get over writing the perfect opening paragraph. Get over writing the perfect first sentence. Get over looking for the perfect first word. Just write.

If you were like me, those two words are a major thorn in your side: “Just write.” The sad part is, it is absolutely true. Writing every day is good too, but the trick really is to just write. I’ll let you in on the secret. Give yourself a goal. A real goal, not the pie in the sky goal. Meaning, don’t say “I will be published with a million dollar contract by the end of the year,” if you haven’t ever finished a novel. First goal? Get to “The End.” Second Goal? Evaluate whether it is total crap, or if there are any real redeeming qualities that you can salvage into a working novel.

Why are these the first goals? First, you HAVE to burst your bubble that you are the next best thing, and that everything you touch is gold. Sure, you read about authors like that, but take that article about how they never rewrite and go to the bookstore. Find their name on the shelf. Now look around you and all the other authors with books on the shelves around that prodige. Most of them have had to do all kinds of rewrites and polishing and more. If you’re struggling with that first novel, who should you be relating to? That guy with 6 inches of shelf space, or the 100 other authors taking up the rest of the section’s wall?

To tackle the “just write” thorn, for me, the trick was to have both a starting date and an ending date. The kind of fun example is NaNoWriMoor National Novel Writing Month. In there, if you haven’t heard, you have 30 days to write the rough draft of your novel. It must be at least 50,000 words and to really do it right, you should have the last two words be “The” and “End”. Nanowrimo occurs in November, but if you want to try the idea, there’s nothing stopping you from doing it some other month, and in fact, there are several sites out there doing it.

For me, though, the initial burst which makes the challenge so much fun is not the end date, but the start date. Part of the challenge is to start “real” writing on the given day, and not a second before. So, what do you do the week or more before the challenge? You plot. You build characters. You build scenes. You think through the whole process. But you don’t write a single word that will be in your novel! By doing this, by revving your creative writing engine, when that gate opens and you CAN start the real writing, you are so jazzed that you can slap down a few thousand words before you know it.

You have a really short deadline, so you can’t edit much if at all. You tend to forget all those carefully laid structures and designs that all the writing books tell you is the way to write and you just write! You can put in pointers like “I need to add a scene here,” or “wow this will need rewritten” etc. but when word counts per day is your goal, you tend not to use that delete key. That’s for NEXT month. This month, you just need to get the story out of you and on paper (or in its file, etc.)

Now, for those of us with “real jobs” who can only spare a few minutes here and there, 50K is kind of a daunting number. After you do it a few times (yes that means multiple years and multiple books!), you can see that you get into a workable structure on your own that is probably some kind of amalgam of all the writing books and courses you’ve read and probably quite a bit of things you never read but have come up with all on your own. Congratulations, you are now a writer and hitting 50K in 30 days will be a cakewalk for you. (I’m not quite there yet.)

This last year, the book I wrote didn’t flow well, but I pushed through and made my 50K. It was exiting and I really liked the plot and most of the characters and the interaction. Over December I started thinking about what I wanted the book to “do” and realized I totally missed the mark. So, I know I have to totally rewrite it to get the structure I want right, but I now have the general idea and know where to go from here.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this book will not be my first edit job though. It is actually a sequel and I’m editing the first one now. The first one was a Nanowrimo novel from two years ago with, actually, a hell of a lot going for it. Now, I just need to follow my own advise and give myself a start AND end time.

Next installment: the thorn of “write what you know.”

When we unpack the car, I usually grab the baby in the carseat and she runs around to grab all our stuff: work bags, groceries, baby stuff, etc. Which can get damn heavy! Then I’ll try to grab something off of her, so she isn’t quite so pack mule-ish and it is a laughing race into the house.

This weekend, though, it went too far. I was ripping out old plaster from the bathroom I gutted and I filled a large wheeled trashcan with the stuff. I wheeled the full can out to the gate and left it there, to go sweep up. The thing was HEAVY. Wow, heavy. My wife thought she’d help and unlock the gate and take the trash can out so it would be ready for pickup. Did this without my knowledge.

So I hear this faint voice calling me from outside a short time later. I walk out to see my wife under the trashcan. She tipped it to wheel it out and then realized just how heavy it was. Lots of emotions ran through me as I was carefully lifting the can off of her legs. Anger at the whole competition, fear if she was okay or not, amusement at the whole situation. The three and more emotions kept cycling through me as I make sure she was okay and then lugged the can out to the edge of the driveway.

As of today, her thighs and butt still hurt a little, but she’s okay. The competition, though, apparently, is still going strong.

I’m so happy we’re getting back to our remodeling job.  Starting this afternoon, I plan to tear down the old plaster walls of the bathroom so we can put up drywall and get it fixed up.  I still don’t know what we’re doing for the bedroom, but man o man I have visions of this toilet closet (yeah, a sink and a toilet and you’ll have to go outside to change your mind, but still).  We have the tile flooring (bamboo motif), we’re getting the sink and faucet this weekend, and Mom’s getting the counter for us.  I have the paint color picked out, so after the demo of the existing walls, I can go get the drywall and the paint, and get this sucker done!

The room’s small enough, that the real grunt work should only take a day or two, plus all the drying time for the different layers (drywall compound, primer, paint, floor, grout).  Extreme Home Makeover speeds we are not.  “4″ rooms: living room, bedroom, two bathrooms, and we’re only a little over half way done in coming up on two freaking years!

Course having a baby in the middle of all that slowed production considerably, but still.  Feels good to be working on it again.