The Invisible Library

P.S. Demian Reading 3 Comments

I love collecting digital bits.

And I am considered an early adopter by friends.

As disorganized as I may be with files littering my virtual and actual desktops, I have an excellent track record of not losing digital data. Misplacing, yes, but my backup processes are fairly secure.

I hit the save key reflexively every few seconds or whenever I stop typing. I email copies of documents to myself to ensure they’re backed up in the cloud. I have onsite and offsite physical backups of all my files.

Ever since the advent of the Kindle and the iPad, I’ve been delighted. There are so many ways to access the rich library of documents I’ve been squirreling away for all these years. And with tools like Dropbox and various PDF viewers on the iPad, I’ve been able to have useful subsets of my digital library with me wherever I go.

Recently I’ve even begun backing up bits of my library. I’ve taken a number of big tomes and sent them to Blue Leaf Bookscanning to get turned into PDFs and word documents and even robot-read audiobooks.

But there’s a cost for me to digitization.

Serendipity.

In my home I have bookshelves. Many of them. And I have an area where I keep all my language books. And sometimes, when I walk over to that part of the shelf, I feel compelled to learn some more Portuguese verbs. Or another Latin phrase. It’s not planned.

I have another shelf full of mid 1800s American “Cyclopediae”. Had I planned to look up something in that? Not really. Was I enriched by it? Yes.

I have a shelf next to my bed, supposed to be a nightstand. It’s actually a two foot wide, 5 foot tall shelf. It has possibly 50 books I’m in the middle of browsing or reading. My “nightstand” gives me that same feeling I get when I stand in front of the magazine stand at a good bookstore. “Oooh – what am I going to choose?” There are too many good choices.

To be fair, I have experienced some form of this on my iPad. I’ve loaded up a ton of PDFs into the Apple iBooks app. Sadly (for Apple), I have to say that iBooks is only used store PDFs; Amazon has my eBook business and will keep it until I can read iBooks on my computer. (But that’s a separate rant.)

And so occasionally, I have said “why look there, there’s a book on programming Ruby on Rails, I should browse through that.”

“Oh theres that manual I downloaded on Intellectual Property and patent drafting, I’ll read it. ”

But the point is, I think it will be a while before I have the scant 64Gb of my iPad chock full of ALL my digital documents. Years in fact. I just don’t see it. First theres the scanning, or re-acquiring the book in digital form. Then there’s the filling the space, or hoping that “cloud books” comes out when “cloud music” is just getting started.

There’s no question that eBooks are rising fast. So much so that they will be the most significant part of the Western reading market soon. Ebook sales will be the driver, not just a growing segment, of book sales.

Books will go down fighting. It will probably take generations to fully marginalize books, even though digital formats are eclipsed within two decades. VHS. Tape. CDs. DVDs. Blu-Ray. These are all formats-come-lately. They have not persisted. Photographs and phonograph records are a bit longer lasting. But printed word has millennia of success.

So what of the browse? What of the bookstore? What of the random luck that comes from browsing not just a corner bookstore but of rediscovering one’s own library? Or of putting a reminder to one’s self to read a book, by leaving it in your bag?

When all books are equally accessible in a huge digital bookstore on your iPad, and when new books are constantly marketed to you, invading the privacy of your own tablet, what will this do to undirected reading? How will one continue to enjoy these essential and random encounters with books?

I don’t know. What I do know is that my family is shopping for a house right now. And after digging through probably a hundred houses on the multiple listing service, I remember just two have really stood out to me. I may make an offer on one next week. And only when I was finishing writing this article did I realize something.

Both of those homes have a library.

 

Charles Euchner’s “The Writing Code”

Character Clancy Metzger Craft & Skills Writing Tools 6 Comments
The Writing Code

Recently I attended a half-day workshop by Charles Euchner on using his Writing Code system.  Charlie is charming, funny, über-intelligent and his list of achievements will knock your socks off.  I know I was intimidated, but only a little because he is so easy to talk to.  Anyway, I really liked his approach.

 He utilizes the latest research on the brain and how we learn to make writing more intuitive.  His book, which I am currently reading, explains everything fully.  The Writing Code covers Storytelling, Construction and Analysis and is applicable to every kind of writing – from an email to a blog to an article to a novel.   And though I will do my best here to give you a brief idea of what his system is about, he says it far better than me on his website (listed at bottom).

 One of his techniques is to write everything in landscape mode versus portrait, to put only one sentence per line and to do it single space with a double space between paragraphs.  Okay – I wanted to show you how I wrote this post this way but it doesn’t display correctly, so you’ll have to take my word for it…I wrote it landscape, one sentence per line.  I do not, however, attest to my ability to write great sentences.  

You should start every piece (sentences, paragraphs, sections or chapters, and novels) strong and end every piece strong.  The technique gives you an opportunity to easily see if you are starting and ending strong.  It has other editing advantages as well.  It takes some getting used to, but I’m getting better.

 Another thing Euchner has you do is a Character Dossier.  And, this is not just the standard name, physical description and surface background.  It asks you to go in depth and answer questions with some real thought.  One might be who is that character’s foe in their youth.  You don’t just say, “Bob.”  You’d answer, “Bob used to torment Hero when they were in 5th grade because Hero had a slight lisp.”  Or something like it. 

In this way, you really begin to see the motivations that drive our characters.  Not just in the ways immediately apparent to the current plot, but in ways that could subtly effect the way they react to minor things you hadn’t planned for in the story.

 As I said, I’m reading the book now and trying the techniques he advocates.   I’ve already learned things about my characters I didn’t know.  That was cool.

I found a lot of merit in his methods which is why I’m not only trying his approach, but also blogging about it.  Check it out if you need some fresh ideas or a new method to bolster your writing.

Here’s Charles Euchner’s website:  http://www.thewritingcodesystem.com

Let me know what you think.

NaNoWriMo: Writing for the goal.

Matt Jones The Writing Life 3 Comments

Following in the line of writers who are giving encouragement to the millions who are taking part in National Novel Writing Month, I would like to throw my encouragement at you.  I understand the rigors of life are time consuming, even on the best days, but the greater the challenge the sweeter the reward, right?  Take a moment to envision this:  You’ve given up time to play the new epic video games that were released this month.  You’ve ignored the new Brandon Sanderson novel that everyone is raving about.  You woke up early on thanksgiving to write before succumbing to the food induced coma.  You apologized profusely to friends and family for ignoring or flat out hiding from them.  But the end is near.  On that last day, you find a secluded place and write.  You’re focused on the scene, not even looking at the word count.  All the hints and threads you wove throughout the book are coming together to form an awesome conclusion.  The battle rages and the protagonist, against all odds, succeeds!  You look at your word count and, like a second victory, it’s over 50,000 words!  Success is yours!

It may seem far away, but it’s within your grasp.  The friends and family you abandoned will welcome you back and will be proud of you.  Most will probably be jealous at your ability to do something so amazing as writing your own novel.  It doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t even have to be coherent, it just has to be 50,000 words.  Simple as that.  Once you reach that goal, the rest will be easy.  It’s the proof that you have it within you to write.  Afterwards you can edit or even start on your next project.  You’ll be able to take your time and make a masterpiece.

For those of you who are finding they’re behind, look at this as an opportunity.  I’ve talked to people who went on mad rushes to finish before the deadline.  They start writing down anything that comes into their mind.  Random scenes.  Conversations that they’re half hearing around them.  Anything at all.  In these moments, they seem to tap into their inner muse and pure magic flows out of them.  I’ve heard a few say that during the last mad rush, some of the scenes they wrote became their favorite pieces they’ve ever written.  A couple say that the scenes written during that last week were what made their novel great.

Just remember that you have it within you to be great!  Just being one of our readers guarantees that. 🙂

Best of luck and I’ll see you at the finish line!

Life, Inspiration, and . . . a Red Sheep?

Jason Michelsen Reading The Fictorians The Writing Life 3 Comments

What a week to have to write a post for this wonderful blog (authored by some of the greatest human beings I know!).  Somehow, I’ve got to write a post that follows David Farland–arguably one of the most successful writers of just about anything and everything speculative fiction–a book give away, and an insightful and scary look into the functioning of the brain?

What if I just put a cool picture of a red sheep out there and call it a day?  No?

To be honest, the picture has nothing at all to do with this post.  I just liked it and wanted to use it in a blog post.  I probably should have saved it, using it when I had an idea for a post that would actually work with a picture of a red sheep.

And if I’m honest once again, this is about the most I’ve written in the last three weeks.  And in November of all months!  I competed in NaNoWriMo last year and won, finishing before Thanksgiving, but this year, nothing.  So, what happened?  Life happened.

And just so I don’t give the wrong impression, nobody died.   But neither do I want to talk about what it was here on a public blog.  What it was isn’t the issue.  The issue is the lack of writing.  Nay, the lack of desire to write.

For three weeks, I’ve tried on occasion to sit at the computer–butt in chair, hands on keyboard and all that–but nothing has happened.  It seemed there was little I could do to will the words from my brain out onto the screen.  It was a little like trying to wring water from a dry sponge.

I was empty.

Being an aspiring author, the prospect that there were no more words inside was a little frightening.  A literary suffocation.

It didn’t take me long, however, to realize the only way to fill something up with whatever it is it needs–words in the case of this writer’s mind–is to feed it what it needs.  For over two years, I’ve been so focused on my own writing that I’ve neglected my reading.  Oh, I read a book here or there, usually new releases by certain authors I simply can’t wait to read.  But my pace of a book every 3-4 weeks (I’m a slow reader with a day job, what can I say?) had slowed dramatically.  I’d been on the same book for over four months.

So I read.

In three weeks, I finished the last 300+ pages of the book I was stuck in, read another hefty fantasy book–The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie–and started A Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss.  Yeah, I’m a little behind.  My list of books that I’ve bought and need to read is over 25 books long.

Some people might gasp to know I haven’t even cracked A Dance With Dragons.  I know, I’m ashamed.  I deserve to be punished.

But in reading Abercrombie, Rothfuss, and the unnamed author in whose awesome book I’d been stalled for months, I remembered why I’ve wanted to be a writer since elementary school, and why I came to the conclusion that I had to write fantasy after reading Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World for the first time.

The sheer joy of the story.  The careful selection and placement of words, and the emotions they invoke.  The characters who seem more like good friends than ink on paper.  The anticipation of what waits on the other side of the page.  These are the reasons I’ve always wanted to be a writer, all the things that made me love being a reader.

Some successful authors will tell you they don’t read in the genre they themselves write.  Others will say they read a wide range of literature.  Personally, I read a fairly wide range of books, though admittedly, the vast majority is speculative fiction.  Namely fantasy.  It’s just what I’ve always loved reading; deciding to write it hasn’t changed that fact.

So, um, yeah.  Read.  That’s my advice.  To anyone, but especially aspiring writers.  Not every reader is a writer, but every writer was a reader first.

And you have to admit, the sheep picture is sweet.