I find the prospect of e-books interesting. I have a Sony PRS-600 e-reader, but I haven’t used it for books yet. Right now I’m using it for my own manuscript, and for making notes. It’s a lot more convenient than printing out everything, though writing on it with a stylus leaves a lot to be desired compared to writing on paper with a pen. Still, it’ll probably mostly pay for itself between the cost of paper and toner. But I will say I find reading on it pretty nice, not as good as paper, but plenty good enough and it can be handy to switch pages with a touch of a button.
I’ve also had a short chance to play with an iPad and while it’s a bit heavy, it seems nice enough for reading as well. I haven’t had a chance to try some of the others, but since I wanted that ability to make notes with a stylus there wasn’t a lot of competition for me. I would think the Kindle, Nook, Kobo Readers, and other E-ink readers would give a similar experience. Also, I don’t think the iPod Touch and iPhone can be ignored, they are pretty handy devices for reading on the go.
I can’t see the e-reader replacing the paper book anytime real soon, from a psychological aspect I really feel like I own something when I have a book to put on the shelf as opposed to a file on my device. It’s easy to lend that book to someone else, I can donate to a library, or I could sell it for a pittance at a used book store. But there are millions of E-readers out there so it seems like it has to have an effect. I think that’s another blog post in the making.
I’m still working hard to remove words. So far I don’t think I’ve done much damage to the story, though it might read a better with some more description and details. At some point, I’ll have to delete some scenes that I think will hurt the story, those will be some painful cuts. Now I’ve …
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I just cut out a mighty chunk of 3,000 words. I think it takes away from the story some, but sacrifices will have to be made to get my word count down. The reason I’m going through the effort is twofold. First, it’s good to go through and remove whatever seems unneeded. Maybe it’s a …
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I’ve been slowly losing words. Right now I’m about 10,000 down from what I call version 1.5. In the process I’ve removed five chapters completely. I still need to lose 23,000 words from what’s left to hit my goal of 120,000 words. Getting down to 115,000 would be ideal, but getting rid of 33,000 words …
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June 22, 2010 – 4:51 pm
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By Erik
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Posted in Writing
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It’s been a long time. When I sit down in front of the computer and have a few moments I tend to want to work on the book instead of working on the blog, so the blog doesn’t get enough attention. I’m going to try to get better about doing more updates. The other factor …
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June 21, 2010 – 10:05 am
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By Erik
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Posted in Blog
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Adverbs are bad. That’s a common message in writing advice and there’s nothing like actually doing some writing to see the logic behind that message. You can’t eliminate adverbs entirely, they do serve a purpose, but I think of them as hints that maybe this a place where the writing can be strengthened. There are …
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May 27, 2010 – 10:13 am
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By Erik
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Posted in Writing
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I have a new section on my blog! Well, maybe it’s not that exciting. I have a list of books or series that I’ve read or started reading and I recommend, don’t recommend , or something in between. As I have time, I’ll add the reasons for my rankings, and more books as I either …
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May 14, 2010 – 3:20 pm
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By Erik
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Posted in Blog
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147k words and counting . . . backwards. Right now I’m trying to squeeze as many words as I can out of “The Dead Mountain”. Partly, that’s because the longer a book is, the harder it’ll be to get published. However, it also makes for a better book period. I can see the flow improving …
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This is a kind of cut that I’m finding, and one I’m glad to get rid of. Aimee twisted around, surveying the field for the little boy. She didn’t see him anywhere. “Where’d he go?” The problem here is that the I’m stating the obvious. The action and the dialogue indicate that Aimee can’t see …
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Moving on with the paragraph, the next two sentences got combined into one. Gnarled branches looked like broken fingers reaching for the sky. The sight gave Aimee the uneasy feeling that the trees were writhing in pain. First, I got rid of “looked like” because it’s weak, I removed “reaching for the sky” because I …
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