Cropping:

The cropping features in WLW improves the productivity for a writer with limited time by providing an easy to use interface for adding custom crops to images used in the post. Access to the cropping features is located under the “advanced” tab available when a new image is inserted into the post. From there, you can select from a list of image manipulation actions – in this case “crop…”. What makes this single feature truly useful is the list of available defaults such as a “square” crop that automatically constrains the cropping selection. The devil is in the details with this one, as the author is able to see what the crop looks like in the editor window as the crop selection is being dragged.

Tabbed View Switching:

Like many bloggers, I like to see how my posting will appear on the live blog before I commit to a posting. In earlier versions of the software you had to use the menu bar or shortcut keys to jump back and forth, but the the new tabs at the bottom of the main editing window work much better.

Auto Linking:

It’s about time. Seriously, though – this is a feature that I’ve been hoping someone would develop. I’m not sure if it’s unique or not, but it certainly saves me a lot of time creating links to sites. If you’re not familiar with the feature, what it does is provide a secondary library of terms and names that the editor uses to create automatic links for. For example, if you typed the name WordPress into the editor, a link would be created from that name. There are some limitations to the feature of course (and this can be solved by creating a couple common permutations of the term), for example: “WordPress” vs. WordPress (without the quotes). What’s more, you can set some basic conditions around how many times the link appears in a single post (avoiding link clutter).

Video Embedding:

Windows Live Writer has some nifty built in feature that allow authors to embed video in their postings from popular services as well as giving the author an opportunity to preview the video before committing it to the posting.

I personally don’t add a lot of extra media to my posts (maybe I should), but in all honesty I can see this feature being quite popular for power-bloggers.

Full Feature List (available official blog)

• New border treatments (including Instant Photo)
• Crop and tilt photos
• Insert multiple photos
• Toolbar alignment commands enabled for images
• Insert and upload Windows Live photo albums
• Insert and publish video to YouTube
• Additional spell checking languages: Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, English (Australia),
• Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak,
• Slovenian, Turkish, and Ukrainian
• Server-side tagging (for supported blogs)
• Type-down filtering in the Open dialog
• Twitter, Digg and Flickr Plug-ins
• Improved blog account setup
• Lightbox and Windows Live Spaces inline preview support
• Improved category control: adding categories, type-down filtering
• Tabbed view switching
• AutoLink glossary
• Smart quotes/typographic characters
• Word count
• Support for bidirectional languages (like Hebrew and Arabic)
• Tabs for view switching
• Updated look and feel

Conclusion:

All in all, if Windows Live Writer keeps on this development track, I can see it quickly becoming a standard blogging tool for PC based users (If you’re on Mac, I’m sure there are a handful of great apps you can leverage).

For more information about Windows Live Writer, visit the website here.

Too Much of a Good Thing

“Copy Overkill” is essentially the tendency to overload a single page with too much copy — too much information, and in some cases too much of the wrong type of information. In the landing page project I described, one of the elements required as part of the A|B testing was a series of marketing messages and follow-up content that were to be finely tuned for specific verticals.

The writer was given a set of wireframes with a series of “blocks” in which copy was to appear. What the web-designer received was a content deck overflowing with copy and precious little screen real estate to contain it all (including all other design elements).

Now, the typical first reaction of a writer who is unfamiliar with how copy works online is to say, “Well that’s your job as a designer — you go make it work”. The second is to vehemently argue the validity and importance of keeping every word that was written in the content deck.

You can likely imagine the reaction and the ensuing conflict between teams. This can quickly turn into a project manager’s headache.

How Much is Too Much?

It seems that nearly every project I have been involved with suffers from this tendency. I’m hoping that one day I’ll luck out and not have to deal with this again (one can dream); in the mean time, it is difficult for a designer to argue with a writer about how much is too much or the validity of their words on screen. To make things easier for both sides, here are some ABCs that can help to determine the copy density for a given page:

Audience

Who is the target audience?

This is a fundamental question that needs to be answered before a single line of copy is committed — a good communication brief (sometimes known as the “strategic brief”) should answer this, as it is likely one of the key bits of information that was gathered at the outset of the project.

Without getting into too much detail about demographics and psychographics, etc. there is a significant difference between how much information one group prefers in contrast to the other. Understanding the target audience is key in determining the amount and type of information they prefer when reading a page.

Remember, we’re writing for the web, not a novel — and since we’re on the topic writing for the web, remember to that each word is worth pennies.

I know of one writer who would throttle me for seemingly diminishing the value of his fine words; however, the fact is that every word that appears in strategic areas of a page is worth something, especially if the site is part of a campaign leveraging SEM (search engine marketing) as a traffic driver. Consider too that the right verb can spur a user to action and direct them into the process of converting from a prospect to a customer (aka “conversion”).

Balance

What is the best balance between Design and Copy?

Typography is a discipline in design that copywriters tend not to observe — for most, it’s not a part of their job function; however, it is something that writers who are developing copy for a web-audience should attempt to appreciate, since good typography can help form a strong visual path to the desired action.

Web Typography is not necessarily the same as Print Typography — the principles are similar, but the application is where there are glaring differences. Writers should also consider the other elements and features that make up a given page (branding, navigation, visuals, etc). These elements when combined, dramatically reduce the amount of space in which to work.

The issue of real estate is compounded by the fact that unlike print, the visible real estate on screen can vary wildly, and so a web-designer has to look at a page in terms of segments:

1. 33% for initial messaging and brand exposure.
2. 33% for context and call to action.
3. 33% for the granular details.

The closest comparison would be that of daily news publications — there is only so much only so much space to identify the publication itself; only so much of the font page that can be devoted to the headline and visual; and only so much column space to deliver the story. On a newsstand this defines which paper a reader will choose.

I tend to invoke one rule that I carry over from my days in designing for editorial: “Write to fit”.

This rule shouldn’t be invoked frivolously. Editors invoke this as a measure of last resort when there is quite simply not enough room for all the words to work effectively. When it comes to the web, screen real estate is at a premium.

Be prepared: This will sound cliché, but as a designer you need to show the writer why his copy is not working rather than tell him it is not working. The proof is almost always on screen, and no — 7px type is not an acceptable solution.

Be sensitive: As with design, coming up with compelling copy is not an easy task — appreciate that a writer spends as much time agonizing over verbs as a designer spends over grids.

Context

Why is the user viewing your page, and how did they get there?

I’d like to think that every website is unique in some small way but the reality is often the opposite. The sheer volume of websites online today is staggering. Within a particular industry you might find thousands of similar sites, and within those sites a myriad of identical pages with each one saying the same thing as their competitor.

However your visitor (aka “prospect”) finds you, you need to understand the context around their visit.

If the particular page is part of a targeted campaign with an SEM strategy, you can expect that they’ve found your page through results or other traffic drivers purchased for that reason. This is a pre-defined path with an expected purpose and resulting set of actions (abandon or convert).

If a visitor comes to your site cold (e.g. no identifiable referral or metric), you can assume they are searching for “something”. You need to help the visitor determine what that “something” is — and quickly.

This is where copywriting comes into play. The behaviour for most users (especially if they’ve only stumbled onto your page), is to start scanning for key words and phrases that might help them orient themselves. I’m treading pretty close to talking about SEO here, but it’s unavoidable given the current topic.

Some key considerations:

1. Your positioning statement or value proposition should answer their need — they came searching for something, so your content needs to address their query with an appropriate response.
2. Lighten up — dense blocks of copy are intimidating and visitors shy away from these in favour of bite-sized phrases and sentences. In web as with print, readers tend to “see” blocks of grey rather than areas with “lots of copy”.
3. Draw clear relationships between copy on page — clear communication builds trust, and showing strong relationships between blocks of information tells a user that your content is well thought out and authoritative. You’re not attempting to over-sell the subject of the page.

There are at least half a dozen other factors that will help to determine if you resonate with the unknown visitor or not, but having the right amount of copy will help to make that task easier.

Conclusion

Finding the right balance between copy and design for a website is never going to be easy, and there will be  struggles between both, but it doesn’t have to always have to be this way. Consider how you can work with your writing to team to create an effective balance, and when push comes to shove, remember who it is you are writing for.

Here are some additional articles that I’ve found useful:

The Elements of Style for Designers by Christina Wodtke

Writing Content that Works for a Living by Erin Kissane

Reviving Anorexic Web Writing

I fully intend to release it as open source.

The problem isn’t so much that I don’t have the skill to do it my self, it is that this application requires a level of artistry with code that I have not yet accomplished with one language (C++). And so, finding a developer with the level of skill has proven to be quite a task.

Sure, I’ve considered using online services like RentACoder, or GoFreelance and their like — but the problem with services such as those, is that you inevitably find a whole world full of ambitious developers eager to bid on your work, get the job done, and move on. That does not mean the work is top-notch, or that they are remotely interested in why I want to have the application developed.

Who can blame them? They are, after all, trying to eck out a living. And in the grand scheme of things, my application is just another grain of sand on the beach. But not to me.

So I am left with two choices: the first is to develop it myself, and through much trial and error, create something that modestly resembles what I had in mind; the second is to keep waiting, be patient, and hope that I stumble across a developer willing to work with me.

I can do it. I can be patient. But I don’t want to be, so I am asking for some help.

If you are a developer who, like me, sees the beauty in code. If you have no reservations about releasing the product of our collaboration to the world (the world in this case being creative writers), with no intentions of profit — contact me. I want to work with you

This is not a good thing considering I the external drive was both my external storage and "backup" device. I use the term "backup" loosely as I don’t actually have a consistent backup policy. You would think I would have a policy considering I’m quite diligent about backups and redundancy for my professional work. But I don’t.

So now I am left with the dilemma of choosing between a very expensive data recovery service of which there is only a marginal chance of retrieving any of my data intact, or walking away from this small catastrophe and chalking it all up to a lesson learned. This is not enjoyable at all.

While I have yet to come to a resolution on that particular dilemma, I thought I might take a little time to expound (a little) on the benefits of developing a backup and redundancy policy. This is just a fancy way of me trying to encourage other writers to take the time to backup their work and ensure it is somewhere relatively safe.

So first off let’s consider offsite storage:

Don’t take your work for granted. If you’re a writer, a creative professional, or just have work that you do in your spare time which you value — don’t take it for granted that where you store your files locally is ever safe. As experience has recently taught me, anything can happen. In my case it was a simple mistake of plugging in the wrong power adapter to my external hard drive. I can only imagine other scenarios where data might be lost through carelessness, neglect, or by accident/design.

Second, if you value your work or value the time you invest into your work, consider investing a little bit of cash into offsite (typically online) data storage. Here is a brief list of services which others have recommended and which I am currently investigating (descriptions lifted from their sites):

1. SyncToy by MicroSoft – a free PowerToy that provides an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without added complexity.
2. Mozy – a simple and safe way to back up all the important stuff on your computer. A copy of your data is stored in a secure, remote location for safekeeping, so that in the event of disaster your data is still retrievable.
3. XDrive – the best alternative to other storage devices. Get easy backup and more secure storage with protection for your precious files. And all of this without the worry of losing or damaging a piece of hardware.

Caveat emptor: As always, be sure to read the EULA (end user licence agreement) or the terms of service and privacy policy before agreeing to use any online service. This is important as you need to ensure the rights of your work remain yours while sitting on some remote server. Understand what you or the service provider are responsible for and work accordingly.

Let’s also consider a version control system:

For those who do not get that warm and fuzzy feeling about offline storage services, you may want to consider developing your own backup service. This isn’t particularly easy — as most things to do with backup — but it is not impossible and in the long run, this will go a long way to developing a better sense of security when it comes to your work.

Here’s what you may want to consider when developing a personalized backup system:

A hosting package: The monthly cost of hosting is minimal these days and you can get away with setting up a decent hosting package for the price of a Starbucks Latté and cookie (not including initial setup fees). Here are a couple hosting providers that I have dealt with in the past:

• BlueHost.com
• DreamHost.com

A version control system: Okay, I know I’m on shaky ground here and many of you might be thinking this is overkill or way too technical for you — to be honest, you may be right. But this might also be exactly what you might need.

A version control system like "Subversion" is used by developers (and creative professionals), to create incremental versions of files they are currently working on. The most typical use is for code files (HTML, CSS, PHP, etc,). But this does not preclude you from using the system for other files (images, text, word docs, etc,). The beauty of a version control system is that is is both offsite and automatically creates versions for you. Not only that, but with most version control systems you can roll-back to earlier versions of a file (or group of files).

Developer services: setting up a version control system is not as easy as installing software on your computer, but in most cases you can hire the services of a local developer or alternately ask your service provider to help you set it up. Connecting with the system may require you to install a client, but once you get those components set up (and with some basic training), you should have little problem with backing up your files.

Things to consider

Though I’ve discussed — in general — a couple methods for backing up your files and handling version control, it is nothing without diligence. The lack of diligence is what landed me in this pickle in the first place, and I should know better consider the work I do professionally. It is not an easy thing to develop new habits, but if you are serious about protecting the integrity of your work, it is time well spent. I won’t go into detail about how you should accomplish this — that is up to you — but I can tell you that even if you haven’t lost work recently, you should consider it a dangerous probability. In the end, there are no true guarantees with ephemeral things such as digital files, but you can work to ensure that you minimize the risk of loss or damage.

Further reading

Matt Jadud discusses the topic of backups at length on his blog, which covers some of the more complex issues surrounding backups than I am disposed to exploring at this moment. Most of this was written a few years ago, but the principles there are still valuable.

For the most part, niche applications  like PowerWriter attempted to capitalize on the "more is better" syndrome that affect applications at the time. For the experienced writer, this wasn’t an issue. Most professional writers had their own tools and process for writing and needed little in the way of gadgets and gimmicks to be productive. What gimmicky applications did however, was to instill aspiring writers with the perception that they needed expensive, complex tools to be a successful writer.

It’s nearing the end of 2007 and while I still see many of those applications kicking around, there are also a handful of applications that forsake complexity in favour of minimalism — "less is more…".

Not surprisingly, most of these applications tend to be developed for the Mac OS. Perhaps this is simply and example of inspiration (Apple is well known for their minimalist approach to hardware and software), but whatever the case, the trend seems to have caught on, and there seems to be more applications out there that shirk complexity.

Mac OS Applications for the Creative Writer:

Here are some examples of Mac applications that follow a "less is more" philosophy (in comparison to MS Word and other word processors):

Avenir

What they say: Avenir is a new kind of software for writers. Part word processor, part database, completely focused on the creative process. Whether you are brainstorming for your first short story or putting the finishing touches on your latest best-seller Avenir provides the tools you need to manage the creative process from inception to publication.

Scrivener

What they say: Scrivener is a word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts such as novels and research papers. It won’t try to tell you how to write – it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application.

Ulysses

What they say: Ulysses was developed mainly for writers who work creatively with text and want or need to realize large amounts of text. With traditional word processors and text editors, the user is either being promoted to the job of a type setter or needs to bother himself with other inadequacies those applications have.

Writeroom

What they say: WriteRoom is not Microsoft Word. It won’t generate a table of contents, it won’t place borders around your documents, and it doesn’t have an animated paper-clip looking over your shoulder. Instead WriteRoom just provides the essential features required to get words on the page. Stay focused with WriteRoom’s distraction free environment. Stay on track with word count. Stay safe with autosave. You just type, and WriteRoom will do its best to stay out of your way.

Z-Write

What they say: Z-Write is a unique word processor designed for creative writers. In the process of writing a story, writers tend to create dozens or even hundreds of pages of notes, character bios, rewrites, reminders, and bits of research info. Organizing all that material within the linear structure of a traditional word processor is awkward at best… Z-Write changes all that. It allows you to create an unlimited number of Sections and each Section can have as much or as little text as you’d like.

Windows Applications for the Creative Writer:

Here are some examples of Windows applications that follow a "less is more" philosophy (in comparison to MS Word and other word processors):

PageFour

What they say: PageFour is a tabbed word processor and outliner for writers. It has a simple structure based around Notebooks. Each Notebook contains as many Folders and Pages as you wish, and is structured in whichever manner best suits YOU. Every writer works differently, and PageFour recognizes this.

JDarkRoom

What they say: JDarkRoom is a popular, simple full-screen text file editor with none of the usual bells and whistles that might distract you from the job in hand. If you are writing a novel, essay, thesis or just need to be able to concentrate on your writing, then JDarkRoom may help you.

DarkRoom

What they say: Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text.

…

That’s it in my opinion. Sad isn’t it?

Windows continues to foster bloated applications, and when it comes to software for Creative Writers, it becomes increasingly frustrating to find anything that’s remotely productive. Recent versions of windows haven’t overcome that hurdle. Keep in mind however that this does not really take into account text editors.

I love text editors simply for the fact that most of them claim to do only one simple thing, and that is to edit text.

Software developers seem to overlook the fundamental task of a writer: to write. And really, if you think about it, what more does a writer need than something to capture their ideas and thoughts. In the publishing world, they have typesetters who specialize in formatting. It’s what they are paid to do, and it is what they excel at doing. Writers need not deal with formatting to the extent of becoming typesetters. About the only time that writers can legitimately (and successfully) attempt typesetting, is when they’re ready to submit and so, must follow some basic (very basic) formatting guidelines for their finished pieces.

While it’s true, some text editors overstep their bounds — most of these text editors are aimed at developers (see: Text Editors on 43Folders) — there are a handful that do what they’re intended to (I’m not going to promote MS NotePad — it’s just a P.O.S in my opinion).

Examples of Windows-based text editors:

Here are some examples of text editors that I use for various purposes, but have at one point or another been my tool of choice when writing.

MetaPad

What the developer says: Once upon a time, one of the most useful programs for everyday use was known as Microsoft Notepad. I realized that Notepad was quite powerful and did a lot of what I wanted in a simple text editor. Yet I found the user interface to be unlike most 32-bit Windows applications and actually quite poor…

MetaPad is a small, fast (and completely free) text editor for Windows 9x/NT/XP with similar features to Microsoft Notepad but with many extra (and rather useful) features. It was designed to completely replace Notepad since it includes all of Notepad’s features and much, much more.

Phrasis

What the developers say: Phrasis is a is a stripped down text editor. We want to remove any feature that might hinder the productivity of a professional (or serious amateur) writer and add any feature that would increase the efficiency (of must our users). Therefore, we’ve created an interface with only the bare essentials, no menus, no formatting features and no nonsense.

The right tool for the job

I leave it up the individual writer to select their tool of choice; I’ve worked with almost all of these packages at one point or another, and many of them have great features and strengths. I continually find myself coming back to text editors. If you’re sick of both word processors and text editors, you can always fall back onto older methods — hello, DOS applications!

If you have come across applications that you feel meet the task of a writer, please feel free to comment. I would love to compile a more comprehensive list of applications that other users have experienced and are satisfied with, rather than trolling Google and reading dubious reviews.

At the recommendation of a friend, I decided to give Windows Live Writer a whirl. After getting past my initial frustrations with installing the software (I’ll detail that shortly), I’m actually quite pleased with the product. I know it’s only beta, but it runs and feels like a solid Release Candidate. The UI is pretty typical of Windows Software in terms of look and feel, but they’ve opted for a less is more mantra in this particular case. The toolbars are absent of the dozen or so controls and icons you might expect of a Microsoft product, instead there are only the typical options for formatting that you might see in a TinyMCE editor (found in most blogging platforms). On top of that, Windows Live Writer can interface with some of the most popular logging platforms currently available.

What I like about Windows Live Writer:

Note: my comments and opinions are largely coloured by the fact that I prefer WordPress over most other blogging platforms, and so if it seems the review is particular skewed towards WordPress features — it is.

• Multi-platform support: Easy setup with popular blogging platforms such as WordPress – I would never have bothered to evaluate this software if it didn’t at least include WordPress as a supported blogging platform.
• The Editor: WYSWYG Editing – say what you want about this feature in other software, I personally like to see what my blog postings look like with my style sheet applied to it. One of my minor frustrations is seeing my titles and headlines wrap onto multiple lines leaving widows (single words on a new line). With Windows Live Writer, I can adjust my titles and headlines in real-time to my satisfaction. WLW has built-in support for toggling between rendering modes (Normal, Web Layout, Web Preview, HTML Code).
• Keyboard Support: Inserting objects and links are easy with accelerator key support – Ctrl + K (insert link), Ctrl + L (insert image). There is also additional support for embedded media, tables, etc. Most of this you can get online already, but it’s nice that the software took this into consideration and provided it in a single place in the UI.
• Formatting: Windows Live Writer uses the style sheets you are currently hosting online. While I’ve mentioned it’s WYSWYG features, this again shows how something as simple as seeing your custom block quotes in the editor, exemplifies attention to detail. The same applies to links. I have an inline style for my links in my posts and they show up in the editor exactly as they would appear in my browser.
• Blog Post Meta: WLW supports many of WordPress’ "post meta" features such as: the ability to enable/disable comments; allow/deny pings; set the post slug; set the post excerpt; specify Trackback URL’s.
• Reminders: If you take the time to set your application’s preferences before you start using it — you probably won’t, but it’s something you can do later — you’ll notice that in the preferences window, you have the option to set reminders for simple things such as: reminders for setting categories; reminders for setting tags. I always forget this stuff and end up going back later on to update the post. I hate reminders in most cases, but this I can live with if it saves me the hassle of dealing with it later.
• Saving: WLW allows you to save drafts of your postings locally or to your blog host. This means if my wireless craps out I can continue editing offline and publish once I get back into a wifi zone. Not such a big deal, but its a benefit of the software that you don’t always have to rely upon a network connection to write a blog post.
• Linking: A nice little productivity feature of WLW is its ability to let you insert links to your previous postings by letting you browse your postings inside the insert dialog (insert>Hyperlink Dialog>Link to). What this means from an editing standpoint is I no longer have to open another window or tab to browse my archives and copy the link, then jump back to my post and insert the link through the dialog.
• Spell Checking: Yes, I know, it’s not the holy grail of all features, but it certainly helps that the spell checker works as a spell checker aught — at least what we’ve been conditioned to expect with Windows. Still, it’s an expected feature that’s built into the software and another nice consideration feature for those blog authors who think faster than they type.

What I don’t like about Windows Live Writer:

• Installation: I had to run the installation twice because the first time I ran it, I was asked to install additional software (for Live Spaces), which I did not want or would use. Since I refused to install the additional software, the installation refused to proceed instead of defaulting to just installing Windows Live Writer.
• Dependencies: Windows Live Writer is built on the .NET framework (as are more recent windows applications). I work on a Vista-based system and the .NET framework was pre-installed. While this isn’t a major point of contention for me (I’ve installed other frameworks to evaluate software in the past), I would have preferred the application be as standalone (read: portable) as possible. Users on systems without the .NET framework will need to install the software before they run the installation. WLW will download it for you…
• Screen Jumping: There are times when the editor will simply jump to the beginning of a post or to some seemingly random place on screen and I’m left wondering what the hell happened. This typically occurs when I apply formatting to a piece of text.
• Cross Platform: okay, this is a pretty typical gripe and coming from someone who is completely Mac-tarded, it may mean very little. But to my point: I’m really loving the user experience with WLW and I think this is something that other user may very well appreciate. It’s unfortunate that Microsoft has to conquer the world before people can share this experience without issue.

Final Thoughts

While I have my particular gripes about working in a browser for everything, I understand there are folks out there who don’t mind it at all. With the gulf between desktop and web-based applications decreasing, it’s not implausible to think that this software may very well appear in other incarnations like a version of Flock.

Windows Live Writer is a comfortable application that I can confidently integrate into to support my blogging habits. It doesn’t ask more than what your current experience has conditioned you for. It’s intuitive enough that new authors who prefer desktop applications of their web-based counter parts, aren’t intimidated and may even encourage blogging as a regular activity.

Give Windows Live Writer a whirl. It will not cost you more than a single test post, and if you’re disappointed by it, you can chalk it up to another Microsoft product and toss it in the recycle bin.

Though I don’t have enough experience to really say whether a good ending or an appropriate ending are the same thing — god knows there are enough debates raging about that — I do have enough experience to know that you’ll feel what is the right ending. For the most part, I feel it isn’t about getting the first draft done only to move on to the second, but rather to get the first draft done and in some form that you can feel enthusiastic about a second draft.

I will attempt to pace myself with the second draft as not to feel so burnt out by the end of it. I now have an ending that I use to help resolve some of the threads in the plot, and validate certain concepts I’ve alluded to in the story. In any case, I don’t really see too many people being altogether interested in this particular post, but I wanted to capture my experience so at least I will remember the reason I decided to pursue a writing project.

The C4C system is a great method by which to receive feedback and reciprocate in kind. I understand that I my sentiments on the matter may be over-blown, but you would think that this would be a common practice like an honor system. That might not be the best example of a self regulated system, however, my point stands: people should reciprocate in kind. A kindness for a kindness. Someone took time out of their day to read your material and offer insights that could possibly better your writing. I am not absurd enough to expect it the hour I after I post a review (how great would that be?), or the next day – but not posting a reciprocal review at all? Come on.

I am told that there are quite a few aspiring authors with the same pet peeve and I have to wonder how much of it is due to people simply not being interested in the genre. Most poetry makes me want to yak, and the vast majority of the material out there is unbelievably inane, but I still read it, and I still offer criticism even if it is only on punctuation or grammar (to the extent that I am capable or *ahem* knowledgeable).

I hesitate to pay for a subscription site on principle. It is not because I cannot afford the annual fee or any such rubbish, but I feel that if I am willing to give my time, it is not unreasonable to hope someone else feels the same way.

Am I being a naive, idealistic nut?

Other links:

1. Visit Absolutewite.com, here;
2. Visit PluggedOut/Writers, here;
3. Visit Booksie.com, here;
4. Visit WriterBeware.org, here;
5. Visit Victoria Strauss, here;

As for agents, I have recently come across a blog: Miss Snark, the literary agent. Funny. Intimidating. Actually, very intimidating, but a seriously funny read over all. To read some of the posts on her blog is quite enlightening. I am sure there are a number of blogs out there written by literary agents and publishing types, but I would be hard pressed to compare. Miss Snark is genuine and outright brutal in some of her responses to letters she receives. It is actually quite amusing since much of what she writes in response is common sense. Her delivery is witty and though the issues are quite serious in terms of the writing industry, Miss Snark manages to shine a wicked (wicked-witch-green) light on the issues.

Back to writing. I love it. It is a fun way to give voice to the ideas rattling away in my head. My only regret is that I cannot type fast enough to capture them. But at least I have a near completed manuscript to show for it. Speaking of which, I did learn one thing in this on-going process. Focus.

For me, I can only truly focus on creative pursuits if I shelve my other interests. I know it must sound pretty common sense, but the application of it is something quite different. I used to love gaming as much as I loved design as much as I loved writing and so on. It is impossible to give certain creative endeavors equal attention. What did I give up? I gave up gaming – at least for the time being. I will get back around to it eventually when I have accomplished my goal. Or maybe not. In the long run as I have plenty of creative vents. I am just glad that I managed to come to terms with the need for sacrificing certain things in order to realize others.

Of interest:

1. Miss Snark, the literary agent;
2. Neil Gaiman – Official Site

Technorati : Blogging, General, Writing

I digress.

Terry Brooks is currently in the middle of completing the latest installment of the Shannara saga with the sequel to “Armageddon’s Children“. This was quite a departure from the world of Shannara that most of his readers are familiar with as it blends the world he created in the Word/Void series and the earliest histories of the Shannara saga. It is not a complete surprise that he has finally broached this topic of the Shannara world, and I have been expecting it ever since he completed work on the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara where he laid some of the groundwork.

Without giving too much away for those who have an interest in reading his latest series, I will simply say that it is a clever melding of worlds that touches briefly on some controversial modern subjects. That being said, it is still an endearing work. Terry has such a talent for character development where one finds themselves establishing a rapport with his characters that makes you feel as familiar with them as if you had imagined each one yourself.

I try not to compare authors as each writer is talented and unique in their individual way. For me, Terry Brooks is akin to a painter whose work is best imagined as broad strokes on a canvas where some of the finest details emerge when you step back and look at the finished painting as a whole.

Other Links:

1. Visit Terry Brooks on Amazon.com, here.
2. Visit Terry’s Brooks official website, here.

Technorati : Books, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Writing

After about an hour of testing out various apps like w.bloggar, BlogJet, WbEditor, I came across an article on Dan Master’s blog (idano): WordPress Desktop Client Search – Zoundry Review. I’m in the process of testing it out right now and in fact this post is written and formatted in Zoundry. So far it seems to work as advertised and I found a couple little pleasant surprises like the preview using your own custom template; saving/storing of unpublished drafts locally (as opposed to WP’s drafts); Post Tagging; and a slew of other nice formatting features. I think the biggest thing for me at this point is the accelerator keys for the different formatting options like creating links or turning existing text into a hyperlink. Even some of the more familiar accelerator keys for bold or italics are available. Little things like that make it much more pleasant to write.

Here are a couple of screenshots if you want to take a look:

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I still think I might find myself jumping back into MS Word on occasion for some of my lengthier postings. As I understand it Zoundry is in beta right now; from a UI standpoint it still needs a bit of spit and polish to really make it shine, but the overall ease of use and access to typical functions make it a worthwhile download in my opinion. Give it a whirl!

Technorati : Blooging Tools, Desktop Editor