My First Interview For the Book

***

Kindle Author

***

*actually, my first interview for any reason  :>) 

Learning to Swim Goes Live for $2.99 US

 

Here's the description I used for Kindle and Nook:

* * *

Hannah Sullivan is not looking to have her beliefs challenged. She is not looking to fall in love, either. Her only ambition, when she and her daughter, Lily, take their first summer trip to New Hampshire’s Squam Lake, is a restful, scenic vacation. But she will soon learn that the world has another offering. Within minutes of their arrival that first summer, they meet a man named Aidan Heron. His is a gift that will teach them both, with an easy humor and a nearly fearless penchant for adventure, that life has more to offer than they'd ever understood. Shaped by tragedy in her youth, Hannah has learned to live a timid, closed life. And without realizing it, she has taught her daughter to do the same. But Aidan, a man who has experienced his own tragedy and responded very differently, will show them both a new way. Through ten years of shared summer vacations, Hannah will experience enthrallment, love and heartache. She will be challenged and will learn to challenge herself. And in the course of meeting these challenges, she will learn how to truly live.

 

* * *

After what seemed like it would prove a never-ending battle to whip my novel into shape, I'm finally happy with the manuscript. As challenging as the editing process turned out to be, and as anxious as I was to get to publication, it was truly satisfying to see the story come together a little more with each iteration.

Formatting for Kindle proved more challenging than I would like, but in the end I think it turned out well. I'm hoping the experience will teach me better for next time.

Formatting for The Nook proved much simpler, thanks to its easy willingness to accept a Word Doc as input (while I had to export to html and do meaningful cleanup of that source for the Kindle).

In the next few days, I'll post about the process of editing, packaging and formatting for the two e-book systems.

* * *

What the scenery looks like

 

New Hampshire Fall, looking up from a hammock

By this time next week, I'll have pushed my novel set in New Hampshire up to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. This picture gives a small taste of what the place feels like at its most scenic. 

iPad for Writers: Second First Impressions

So, I've had the iPad long enough to develop a more meaningful impression of how useful it is to me as a writer.

What do I use the iPad for?

• reading fiction
• writing fiction
• writing my journal
• casual gaming
• occasional listening to a computer-read recording of whatever fiction I happen to be working on

The Kindle reader on the iPad is nice, and I used it frequently until I got the actual Kindle hardware. As a physical reader, the iPad comes in second to the Kindle for me. This is true because it isn't as easily hand-holdable as the Kindle. It is both wider and much heavier (though not heavy).

I'll have more to say about the Kindle soon.

Editing on the iPad is clumsy. Even with the keyboard, there are many times you need to stop and touch the screen. Cut and paste is clumsy enough that I avoid it whenever possible, instead waiting 'til I've gotten any writing onto my Macbook.


Like I said in my first iPad impressions post, I bought Apple's word processor, called Pages but don't use it much. Instead, I mostly use Evernote for simple text entry. Even when I'm working on the book, I simply use the iPad for data entry, then transfer the work to Scrivener on the Mac or Word on the PC.

Evernote is incredibly handy for its ability to automatically sync among multiple machines, including Android phones and iPhones. It's also free.

I was, however, wrong about Pages' inability to easily scroll through a long document. There's an oddly implemented feature that allows you, as you get near the right gutter, to drag your way quickly around a book-length document.

For heavy text entry, I bought a wireless keyboard and a neoprene case to contain both it and the iPad. The case is a generic zippered thing and very useful.

When I've got no heavy typing in mind, I don't bother to take the keyboard out. But for serious writing, I have to resort to the keyboard.

At approximately $80 US, the keyboard was a good purchase. It's tiny and surprisingly pleasant to use.

One very annoying bug is the fact that it has no 'off' switch and has many times brought my iPad to life in the case when one of its keys gets accidentally pressed. There are three ways to avoid this possibility, all of which stink. You can turn the Blu Tooth off on the iPad, rendering it deaf to the keyboard. You can turn the iPad, itself, entirely off, ruining one of the great benefits of having an iPad . . . its instant-on capability.  Third, and worst, you can remove the batteries from the keyboard.

In the end, the iPad is a very flawed but still useful device for me. It's multi-purpose abilities and terrific battery life make it handy in ways no other computer can claim yet.

Now, if they'll just port a decent version of Scrivener to the thing.

My First New England Fall

The novel I've so long neglected talking about hasn't died, I promise. It's simply in limbo as I decide how to handle the feedback I've gotten from different readers.

In the next couple weeks, I'll be attacking whatever re-writing I ultimately decide to do. And soon after that, I'll start posting again.

For now, I'll post a few photos.

(nearly) Time to Shift Gears

I've got a draft of the novel out to a small group of readers. This is the first full print-out of the book. Nice to have it in hand as a touchable thing that takes up space and weighs down the table a little bit.

I also have a version of my query ready to go and several agents selected for a first approach.

The early feedback on the story has been good. But still I have to be patient.

I need to hear from everyone and make any more changes their impressions demand.

As soon as that's done, I shift into sales/marketing mode. It's a part of the process I haven't done well with, historically. Like most writers, I think, my instinct is to sit in a corner and write while someone else handles all that messy stuff. But I've finally figured out that there is no one else.

iPad for Writers, First Impressions

I just last week bought an iPad with the intention of developing software for it.

I wouldn't, as a consumer alone, have made the purchase. But it's important as a developer to really get to know the eco-system, to become a real user in order to understand how such applications would be expected to behave, to lean what's already possible, and to find out what users might need.

Almost immediately, I really like the device, like it far more than I expected to.

Here are a few early impressions for potential iPad buyers. This will look nothing like a formal review. I've never done one and don't figure to star now.

I bought the cheapest version of the iPad I could get (the 16 gig WiFi version), because I don't intend to pay for 3G every month (I have a WiFi connection available enough of the time), and I won't be loading the thing up with media. Applications and data alone won't come close to burning 16 gig.

Another aspect to consider is that Apple will certainly be updating this thing in a year, leaving whatever you buy today sadly in the dust.

I bought the EcoVue for iPad case and like it so far. It's a leather notebook-style folio that protects the iPad well when not in use and allows standing it at a low angle for onscreen typing. It also has an elastic strap for one-handed holding when you're simply reading a book or browsing.

Whether you buy the EcoVue or not, you will want some kind of protection for you iPad. The glass screen presents a large target, and the naked device is slippery. The first time I held it in a store, it wasn't three seconds in my fingers before I nearly dropped it.

The iPad feels heavy (a little heavier than I would wish but not truly burdensome). It's screen is lovely and bright, though too reflective in direct daylight for reasonable reading.

Default brightness settings were too bright for me (and likely will be for the average user) unless I'm using it outside. This setting is easily adjusted.

Don't expect to fire up the iPad as you're walking it from the store. You need a machine with an iTunes account to bring the thing truly to life. After the first connection and a software update, it's possible to do software downloads, browse the web, and check e-mail without a connection to another machine.

Battery life, on first blush, seems pretty decent, though I haven't stressed it enough to see if, during my everyday use, I'll get the promised 10 hours. Some users are claiming to do even better than that.

There are a ton of free applications of all stripes. Do a search for something like 'Must-have iPad applications' and you'll get a bunch of useful lists.

I bought Pages, Apple's word processor, for $10. I also purchased a mind-mapping app,  a relatively sophisticated drawing app (neither of which I've used enough to comment on), and a dictionary/thesaurus combo that looks promising. 

It's too early to tell how well Pages handles short story and novel writing, though I can say that it isn't really tuned for long documents. There is no useable scrollbar that I can find, so the only way to navigate is to scroll by swiping (painful) or to do a Find on words that you know are in a scene you care about.

The process of purchasing and downloading applications to the device is simple and quick.

I have big hands and won't be able to type seriously on the iPad's onscreen virtual keyboard. E-mails and short notes will work fine. For more than that, however, I'll want to have a wireless keyboard (Apple makes a small version that looks pretty decent).

Several of the free and inexpensive games I bought for my iPod Touch work well with no updates on the bigger screen of the iPad. In fact, this device is a huge improvement in terms of usability.

I've just started syncing iCal with Google Calendar. This feature seems to work well and is incredibly handy, though I haven't yet found out how to use Google's tasks (a sort of ToDo list feature and an offshoot of the calendar proper) in iCal.

The application I've used most so far is the Kindle app. It is free, easy to use, and presents a nice reading experience. Within a couple seconds of having bought a book through Amazon's Kindle store, assuming you have a connection on the iPad, your book will be downloaded and ready to go.

If you have multiple devices with the Kindle app installed, you can jump among them and your bookmarks will remain in sync.

The application allows enough customizability of screen brightness, font size, and screen colors to tune things to please any reader I can imagine.


It's my impression that writers will come to love iPad. It's always-on nature (no waiting for boot-ups) and its un-computer-like impression is bound to please. The array of applications a writer might find useful is already impressive and is bound to grow quickly.

Next time I'll talk a bit about this device versus the Kindle hardware, about my continuing experience with software, and about any other new impressions I have.

Not Dead. Just Moving Slowly

The final stretch of coming up with a draft of the novel that makes me really happy has been painfully slow.

But I'm very close now to the query letter stage and will post about that process as I go through it.

Shaken Confidence, Muddy Vision

Novel writing is a humbling experience.

In my final stretch of working on my current book (I hope), I'm struggling to make the kind of improvements I really want to see.

I have more than enough words, and the basic dramatic structure seems to work okay, but the scenes I feel need to be exceptional don't yet move me the way I want them to.

I'm sure, as I plod along now, that part of my problem is snow-blindness. I've been looking at these scenes too many times in quick succession to be able to truly see them any more.

As I've been doing some diversionary work on a Smashwords book (a collection of short stories and photos), I've read many of my early short stories and found some stretches of writing that strike me the way I hope to have the novel strike me.

I'm considering taking a break from this particular book to work on a short story to submit to Ellery Queen magazine. The size, genre, and tone of this story are different enough that it may, with the simple help of time, clear my vision.

I hate to move away from the story when I've already blown past my self-imposed deadline, but a good outcome is more important than my deadline, and this feels like the sensible thing to do.

Subtle Sunrise, Catalina View