Kindle 2 Review -- as a reader and as a writer

If you shop Amazon, you have probably been assaulted by an unrelenting barrage of advertizing for the Kindle. If you love books, you have probably heard of it. If you live in a cave, read on because this is something you need to know about.

I received a Kindle-2 for my birthday. I love it--though the price is still a bit high for what you get (I will explain that in moment). This is a wonderful device for an avid reader, and it is also a very useful tool for writers.

Why I love it:

• The Kindle (and probably any other electronic book) offers a very compact way to store books, and a pleasant way to read them. It is small, light and has long battery life.
  
• The screen is small, about 2/3 the size of a paperback book, but it offers high contrast and is very readable under almost any lighting condition.
  
• The font size is easy to change. I usually use a small font during the day, and switch to a larger font at night (tired eyes, lower light). A friend who is visually impaired loves it because he can easily read content using the larger fonts.
  
• It can hold a ridiculous number of books. I currently have about fifty books and about over a hundred samples loaded, and the capacity is barely dented. [you get less mileage for .mp3 and .pdf files]
  
• You can load your own documents to it.
  
• Unlike a book, you never lose your place, you can set bookmarks wherever you want, you can clip text and download it to your computer, you can make notes as you read.
  
• Unlike a book, it has a built in dictionary and free web access (direct line to Wikipedia).
  
• My favorite feature: you can download samples for free. I love this as I can try a book or new author for free. The samples are generous, 20-30 pages, and give a feel for the book. If you don’t like it...delete it. If you like it, you can buy the whole thing right from the Kindle.
  

Why I love it as a writer:

• You can easily put your own work on it.
  
• For me, this offers three benefits:
  
• First, it helps me to read as a reader when I am revising. When I read my stuff on the Kindle, it looks like the ‘real’ books I read on it. I can see exactly how the work looks on the page relative to other books. This helps me see what is working and what isn’t and it distances me from the work so I can evaluate it more objectively.
  
• Second, it allows me to carry my work with me wherever I go. This lets me do read-throughs (and take notes) anywhere, anytime.
  
• Third, it allows me to show people my work.
  
• The only down-side to this is that the formatting is dicey--it took me about 8 iterations to find formatting that came across readable on the Kindle and it was a trial and error thing...I don’t know why it finally worked, and I don’t know why earlier formats failed. In addition, features such as tables of contents and headings seem twitchy and you do not appear to be able to choose your own font.

Why it is not a good value:

• The Kindle is VERY expensive. Other devices in this price range offer a ton of features (email, games, color screens, large amounts of memory, music, voice recording, configurable content and displays).
  
• Kindle books are VERY expensive. They cost more than paperbacks. As they are ‘free’ to print and distribute, this seems odd. Is Amazon insane? Or are they trying to rip us off?
  
• Kindle books have none of the benefits of a traditional book -- they cannot be shared, traded or borrowed. They have no residual value after purchase.
  
• The Kindle is a beta product, still a prototype (even the Kindle2 and DX). About half the features are “experimental”. So why does it cost as much as an iPhone?
  
• The keyboard is hard to type on (much harder than smaller devices like Blackberries and cell phones). Keys are unresponsive, and the keyboard takes up 1/3 the total length of the unit. A flip out keyboard or touch screen would work much better. Expect disappointment if you want to type longer notes or try to ‘write’ on it.
  
• It is a heavily marketed profit making machine for Amazon. Amazon makes substantially more profit per book on the Kindle than it does for a conventional book. As you might imagine, this incentivizes them to try and push everything toward the Kindle.
  
• It marries you to Amazon as they are the only source of Kindle content distribution.
  

Conclusions:

• I genuinely think this is the future of books. There are a lot of kinks to work out, and Amazon needs to normalize the price points and marketing strategy, but in ten years I think this kind of device will have supplanted traditional print.
  
• I enjoy, use it every day and will probably continue to do so.
  
• It is also a valuable writing tool.
  
• When it falls below ~$150, it will be a good value. At $259, it is still luxury priced
  
• When Kindle books fall to the $3-5 range, they will be a good value.
  
• I predict 3rd party books will become available, and I predict more free content will become available, both of which will make the Kindle a better value.
  
• For now, it's a buy for writers, a buy for book fanatics (the 2+ books/week readers), a pass or gift for everyone else.
  

Rant: Strunk and White -- a blight on the English language

A writing topic I often find myself in arguments about is the merit and validity of the oft-cited reference The Elements of Style. Mandated by high school English teachers everywhere, this is apparently the only grammar reference many writers own.

I hate it. I have always hated it, ever since it first left a foul taste in my mouth my freshman year. Oddly, most writers--well, greater than 51% of the writers I have had this conversation with--adore it. They worship it. They cite it as an authority on grammar. Which it is not, and which it was never intended to be (really--just read White’s introduction).

Like most religious schisms, these discussions ultimately go nowhere. The Strunkians go forth grasping to their chests a dog-eared copy of the worst book ever written on the English language, while the rest of us go on to learn grammar and adopt our own styles.

Anyway, people with grammar expertise far superior to my own have now thoroughly and irrefutably debunked this horrible book. They explain its many grotesqueries and weaknesses eloquently and in great detail so I will refer you to the primary sources rather than trying to paraphrase:

• Grammar Girl, the noted grammar podcaster, has this to say: Episode 166: April 17, 2009
  
• Grammarian and linguist Geoffrey Pullman shreds S&W in "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice"
  

Nuff said.

The Hump

The hump is a terrible problem I face every day. In order to be productive, in order to write well or to make real forward progress, I have to work long enough to get over the hump. This usually takes me about an hour. After that, I’m into it. My mind is churning away and some wonderful stuff comes out...but that first hour is pretty much wasted.

This kills me when the only available time is less than an hour. It very hard for me to generate anything worth keeping in these short sessions. Sometimes I can do it. Sometimes I can crank out 500 beautiful, clean, in character, in voice words in 15 minutes. But not usually. More often the first fifteen minutes is figuring out where I was. The next half an hour is the mental and emotional struggle to get over the hump. In the last fifteen minutes I usually see the first copy worth keeping start to flow.

My solution is to shoot for 2-hour blocks (or longer), or to psyche myself up and focus on one thing before sitting down. With the right focus, the sprints usually work, however I am most productive when I can work without interruption for 5-6 hours. Past about 6 hours I run out of steam. If I am interrupted for more than a couple minutes, my mind will slip out of gear and find myself back at the bottom of that hill, having to climb up over the hump again.

Writing resources: Podcasts

A wonderful resource for writers has emerged in the last few years: the audio podcast.

A podcast (for those of you living in caves to escape the zombie apocalypse) is a downloadable radio show you can listen to on an ipod or other mp3 player. Writing podcasts have interviews with authors, advice on technique and other topics that are talked about by the host or cast. They’re a good way to hear how other people do things and to learn about careers, ongoing projects and tricks used by your favorite authors.

The nice thing about a podcast (vs. a book, video or web-site) is that you can take it with you anywhere, and you can listen to it while doing other things. I listen to podcasts when I workout, when I drive, while shopping and when I’m doing busywork at the day job. This squeezes dead-space out of my day, allowing me to think about writing and learn during times that are otherwise wasted.

As far as content goes, you can find just about anything, from fiction markets (Escape Pod, Drabblecast), to author interviews (AISFP), to grammar (Grammar Girl), to insane rants by total egomainiacs(unlisted to protect the innocent).

My two favorites, are Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing and I Should be Writing. Both are well produced, interesting, informative and motivating.

Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing focuses on author and editor interviews with some commentary from the hosts. Shaun Farrell puts it together and it is cohosted by Sam Wynns. They have a good mix of big names and on-the-rise authors and some interesting interviews with editors.

I Should be Writing is a bit more personal, with the host, Mur Lafferty, focusing on her writing. She spices it up with author interviews and seems to be doing more interviews. She also spends a lot of time on listener feedback and questions, which is nice if have a question about something. It is also inspiring to listen to her progress as she started the show as a beginner and just last year had her first book come out.

There are dozens of writing podcasts to check out, but these two are the best I have found.

Character vs. Plot

I was listening to a writing podcast today and heard these guys arguing about what is more important to a story...character or plot. Not going to say which podcast since I am about to rip on them, but this is a debate that seems to come up a lot among very inexperienced writers and frankly, it is a stupid question.

Let me ask another question that has the same syntactic value in order to illustrate why it is a stupid question: which is more important to a coin, heads or tails?

Think about it.

Can you have a coin with just one side? Even if the sides look the same, there are still two of them. There is no dichotomy here, there is only a coin: a single, discrete object.

Stories are the same: a singular, discrete thing whose parts can be labeled, but whose parts have no meaning when separated from the whole.

If a story has a lame character, no one will believe or care what happens to that person. If Joe Papolitsky, my neighborhood State Farm rep were to captain the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars, the story would fail. Joe is nice enough, but he’s a terribly boring man and doesn’t get on well with wookies (the believability part).

If a story has an amazing character, but nothing happens, no one will be interested enough to read on. Miss Marple sitting on the beach in Cozumel, eating some nachos, sipping a margarita then flying home with no conflict, crisis or drama is not a story; it’s just the diary of another crotchety retiree and no one cares, not even her four children who read her blog just to be polite.

So, rather than debating stupid questions, create interesting people and place them in interesting situations. If either one is boring or incoherent, go back to the drawing board before you waste time writing a whole story about it.

As for which starts the creative process (plot or character), it does not appear to matter. Of the writers I admire, almost all have stated that they will use either one depending on the story (though some have a preference for one or the other).

It's just a stupid question.

Secret to Writing Success

Two things:
1) Write every day
2) Exercise every day

I suggest a minimum of 1 hour each. If you are not creative enough to carve two hours out of your busy day, then I am sorry to say you are not creative enough to be a writer. If you can manage more than this...go for it.

Another suggestion is to plan one or two longer writing sessions each week, where you can sit down and work for 3-5 hours without interruption. I find these longer sessions are when complex ideas become clear, characters start talking and the big picture of a novel or story will gel. These big-picture things are hard for me to get my head around in a frantic 1-hour session.

Blogging as procrastination

I have seen other writers touch on this briefly, but most seem to avoid the subject. The simple fact is that I should be working on the book right now, instead, I am writing this. It takes the same amount of time to bang out the words, the same amount of concentration and brain juice. Yet by doing this, I can put off some unpleasant bit of business I need to attend to in the book.

So, dear reader, know that by keeping the blog I am ultimately burning away many hours that could have gone toward finishing the book. At the end, I’ll try to remember to post a total so we can see how much time this cost the book. To date, I have spent ~6 hours on the blog, most if it over a 4 day weekend. That's about how long it takes me to write the rough draft of a chapter. So, blogging has procrastinated away an entire chapter. Ouch.

Decision of the Day:
A decision I am grappling with: keep story in Perth or move it to Seattle. For me, Perth is more interesting but I don’t know the city well enough to portray it accurately. Seattle I know well, but if I set it there, I will feel compelled to actually walk through all the locales I depict, checking facts, looking for little secrets most people don’t know. This would be fun, but it would burn days, maybe weeks and like this blog, would amount to little more than a form of procrastination.

Right now I’m thinking accuracy doesn’t matter because the story is about growing up in a zombie wasteland, not the trivia and culture of real place. But I ask myself: will the fine citizens of Perth hate me if I get their city wrong?

-McToad