Why I picked Storyist
Over the past few weeks, my writing output has been slowed as I've made to transition from Windows to Mac. When I was on Windows, I would fight my way through MS Word. Word is probably the best word processor on the market, but I found that it got in the way of the writing experience when working on fiction. Far too often I would have to worry about formatting rather than what was happening next in my story. I wrote all of Evermore: Call of the Nocturne on Word and it was a long laborious process.So when my PC died and I made the switch to Mac, I wanted to choose my writing software carefully. Checking the Internet, it seemed that there was only two programs to consider: StoryMill and Scrivener. Far and away the most popular writing programs, StoryMill and Scrivener deserved to be taken head-to-head. So I downloaded their generous demos and got to work.StoryMillThis was my early favourite. Easy to set up, easy to use, StoryMill did a great job of getting out of my way and letting me write. It didn't look the best, especially on Mac, but it got the job done.However, it did have a few annoyances. It's full screen writing mode was an ugly, eye-sore that stretched across my widescreen monitor, making it look like my paragraphs were lonely sentences. Its character section was nice but didn't let me add groups. As my wiki file for the Evermore Trilogy contains characters, groups, things, and locations, this wasn't enough for my purposes. Finally, StoryMill was good but it didn't feel incredible. It didn't make me excited to write. Instead, it felt like a chore.ScrivenerWhile I took StoryMill through its paces, I didn't spend too much time with Scrivener. It looked nice but I could never really get into it. It simply took too long to set up and coordinate in order to facilitate the writing process. It made the whole thing harder rather than easier.Thus, I was all set to buy StoryMill. I was ok with it but I wasn't overjoyed by the product. I felt that it would simply get the job down.Then I heard about Storyist. Storyist caught my attention when I heard that it was the first writing program tha would allow you to directly export to the .epub file format. Curious, I read some reviews. They were enthusiastic about the new version, even more so then StoryMill or Scrivener. So I downloaded the 15-day demo and put it through it's paces.StoryistFirst I tried out the character documentation feature. To my surprise, it allowed me to create groups. Secondly, it put them into an attractive and concise format. After playing with it fo a couple days, I was convinced that it's Story creation features were better than StoryMill and more focused than Scrivener.Next, I transferred over a Novella that I was working on in StoryMill to see how it handled the actual writing. It took some getting used to but soon enough I was writing with far more efficiency than I was used to. Chapters are organized on the left hand side but it also allows you to subdivide the chapters down into sections. I really like this feature as you can create your story as a group of sections and simply move these sections from chapter to chapter as you edit.The full-screen option is another feature that I love. Rather than the ugly wide blue screen of StoryMill or slight translucency of Scrivener, Storyist uses a straight-up manuscript look with black letter boxes. The look is appealing in that when you write the pages go by quickly because of its low word-count per page. This is great because it makes you feel like you're really flying and getting a lot of work done. It's a subtle form of positive reinforcement that really makes the writing experience fun.The only thing that I don't like about the writing with Storyist is the Progress Goal. StoryMill has this great progress meter that allows you to set a daily session goal (say 1000 words) and updates a progress bar as you write. Storyist on the other hand uses an Inspector that you must click to pop up. The Inspector contains other features but its session goal feature leaves a lot to be desired. Unlike StoryMill, the session goal does not reset on every writing session. That means that if you set a goal of 1000 words and finish that goal, when you come back the next day the session goal will not reset automatically. In other words, you have to reset the session goal automatically each and every time you write. This is highly annoying especially when you're used to the ease of StoryMill's progress bar. Hopefully in an update they'll fix this issue.The feature that I love most however is Storyist's ability to export your story to an .epub file. As everyone knows by now, .epub is the format used by Apple's iPad and it also works with the popular Stanza app for iPhone. Storyist allows you to organize your pages and include a cover page from the images section of the navigator pane on the left. The end result looks great in Stanza (I haven't tried it in iPad yet). It's nice and clean and it makes sure there are page breaks for each new chapter. This is something that Smashwords' Meat-Grinder process does not do all, leaving chapter breaks in the middle of the page. The result is a far more attractive file. After you've exported the story to .epub you can still edit it, allowing you to optimize the file for the platform. All in all, it works exactly as it should. It's easy and simple and allows you to do what you need. It makes it a breeze to publish books on the iPhone and iPad.For all the reasons above, I found that Storyist was the best program for my needs on the Mac. I purchased it a couple weeks ago and have made a lot of progress finishing the first draft of my next novella. I would recommend it to anyone. It just makes writing fun.
Yes Mr. Ebert, Games Are Art - SPOILERS -
Recently, there's been a lot of hullabaloo about the assertion of Roger Ebert, perhaps the greatest living film critic in the United States, that video games could never be art. I won't go into details here but you can read it on Ebert's website at http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html.I wanted to avoid commenting on this because I want this blog to be focused digitial publishing and writing. Besides, far better writers have written far more persuasive arguments then I could ever hope to muster. 1up.com has an animated video rebuttal at http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/29092. However my favourite post is by Mike Thomsen at IGN.com whose column "Dad is Dead: Rebutting Roger Ebert" combines wit, humour, and a great deal of reason into the discussion. His post is highly recommended and can be found online at http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/108/1084651p1.html.Now this controversy is tough for me as Roger Ebert is by far my favourite movie critic. I have been watching or reading his reviews for over twenty years. His analysis of film has been one of the most influential voices on my own storytelling style. Whenever I start writing a story, I am always aware of the lessons in story that he has taught me and I endeavour to make sure that my story avoids the pitfalls and cliches of so many bad movies that Roger Ebert has reviewed.There is no question that he is wrong. Anyone who has played video games as a hobby intuitively understands that. But the more interesting question is how is wrong? What is it about video games that makes a select few of them art. More generally, what is art? Roger Ebert himself does not offer a definition of art. He finds it too difficult to define. The same problem exists for all of the rebuttals. Art, it seems, is remarkably difficult to pin down.
For me, I would define art as a form of expression that transcends explanation. Art cannot explained away rationally as it is not a result of rational thought. Rather it is an attempt to capture something magical, something that cannot be recreated. For example, Vincent Van Gogh's "A Starry Night" is something that I would consider art. I couldn't say exactly why it is, any reason that I could give would be arbitrary, but there is no doubt in my mind that there is something there that transcends the painting itself. That it defies our explanation to me is what makes it timeless and thus what makes it art.
In the case in film, I would consider 2001: A Space Odyssey to be a work of art. Despite its awe-inspiring special effects. There is something odd and out of reach about the film. Intentionally or perhaps unintentionally, Stanley Kubrick managed to create a film that seemed to humble before the great mystery of the universe. To make such a film nowadays would be next to impossible. It defies explanation and confused audiences are not conducive to big opening-week grosses. Likewise, while I would consider Raiders of the Lost Ark to be one of the greatest films ever made, it is not a work of art. It is the greatest combination of fun and entertainment on film but it does not mystify us like a great work of art should.
Does something can be an effective form of entertainment at the top of its medium and still fall short of becoming art. So where does that leave video games. Video games, even more so than film or painting, is designed primarily to entertain. A game such as Modern Warfare 2 succeeds because it is constantly feeding you an adrenaline rush, not because it makes you ponder the wonders of the universe. Uncharted 2, while containing an exhilarating single-player campaign and degree of characterization unseen in the medium, still depends on its action sections to carry the day. When you play Uncharted 2, you don't sit around and discuss what it means, you sit there and go "Holy $%^&, that was $%^&%$^@ amazing; I can't believe that building/train car/helicopter almost came down on top of us! While it was an incredible blast to play, and replay, it is not something that I would consider art (well, except for maybe the train stage).So what video games would I consider works of art? What games would I stack up alongside the works of Van Gogh, Shakespeare, and Kurosawa?
For me, the argument over whether or not video games can be art begins and ends with the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the summer of 1999, I had a week to kill and so I stole my brothers N64 and his gold cartridge copy of Ocarina of Time. Five deals and 50 hours later, I sat in front of the Television in a stunned stupor. What had I just experienced? I had only meant to play the first part but once I started to play, I simply could not put the controller down. I was hooked for ten hours a day for five straight days. Never before and never again have I been locked into a game like I was with Ocarina of Time.At the time, I simply could not explain it. What was it about the game that drew me in? Was it the immersive 3D world, the likes of which we had never seen? Was the large quest with plenty of things to do and items to find? Or was the large than life boss battles? The truth is that it was not one of those things. It wasn't the graphics or the music or the story that drew me in. It was the design. You see, the element the makes games art isn't their aesthetic quality as it is in music, art, and literature. Rather it is how these elements are combined into a seamless experience that can give video games an emotional experience unlike any other medium. In this case, as I played through the job I felt a sense of unbridled joy that I have never experienced in any other art form. When I solved the water temple I felt "Oh my, aren't I clever." When I figured out a grand puzzle or a tricky boss, I received such a sense of satisfaction that I had to keep pressing forward. And when I defeated Ganon and saved both time and space, I sat there in front of the television and realized that I played something very special, something that I couldn't explain. I had played art. I played Ocarina of Time again decade later after finishing the disappointing Twilight Princess and again that same sense of joy that I had felt back in 1999. Twilight Princess, with a decade of advancement in technology, simply could not match that experience. I fully believe that I come back in twenty and thirty years and play Ocarina of Time again with the same wonder and joy that I felt when I was twenty years old.
For a more recent and similar example, I would have to nominate Super Mario Galaxy for consideration as art. Much like Ocarina of Time, its primary appeal isn't in the last-generation but colourful graphics or the outstanding orchestral score, but the tight in fluid level design that gives me nothing but joy as I traverse its pitfalls. I played Super Mario Galaxy for a year, going through each level twice and collecting every one of Mario's and Luigi's Stars. I await Super Mario Galaxy 2 with anticipation but also with a little dread. I don't see how a sequel could match up to the pitch-perfect design of the original. But once again, it is the design of the game not the graphics or the music by itself that create an emotional response that is timeless.
Many commenters have mentioned Shadow of the Colossus as a possibility but I think that it falls a little short. The controls were simply far too frustrating to lead to a smooth experience but the world itself is just awe-inspiring. For those that have never played it, the overworld in Shadow of the Colossus is a stunning achievement. Even five years later, I feel a sense of wonder when I jump on my horse Archer and simply ride from one corner of the land to the other. The land is vast, empty, and haunting, giving you the sense of loss over the long-gone civilization that once lived. Traveling from plains, to cliffs, to deserts, and to forest is seamless and natural. While the game itself falls a little short, the land itself defies easy explanation and evokes emotions such as loss, sorrow, and mystery that are all too rare in the medium.
Braid is another game that came up again and again but for good reason. Braid is one of the most bizarre platformers that I have ever encountered. But it's gameplay, while brilliant, is not why I would consider Braid to be art. Rather it is in story and how it is presented to you that makes it art. When you begin the story, you are searching for a princess that has been kidnapped. As you move from level to level, you capture puzzle pieces by manipulating time backwards and forwards in different ways. In the final set of levels for example, time is moving backwards, you have to manipulate it forwards to find the solutions. When you reach the last level, you see the princess running away from the evil night. You can't help her because they are both on the level above. So instead you run to the right as the flames chase you from the left, the princess throws switches to open doors, move pillars, and unlock traps. Finally, you reach the end of stage - her house. You climb up to the window and greet her through the glass. At this point, time reverses again. The princess runs to the left and you must drop back down to the lower level and chase after her over the same terrain you just crossed. However, this time instead of unlocking the traps, the princess is activating traps in an effort to stop you. When you reach the end, she leaps into the arms of the knight and is pulled up and away from you. You have lost your princess.I have to admit that I didn't fully understand it at first. I was confused. Why did time reverse itself? Why was she running away from me? So I looked it up on the Internet. I was stunned to learn that I had it backwards. When you move from left to right, time wasn't going forwards, it was going backwards just like the rest of the final set of stages. When you reach the end, time reverts back to normal. As time moves forward, the princess runs away from you. You see, the princess has always been running away from you. The princess doesn't love you.When I learned the truth, I felt a wave of sorrow and loss that I had never experienced in video games before. I had rarely experienced such a sensation in film or literature. The difference in video game form was the emotions I felt where not directed towards another character. Instead, I experienced these emotions as if I were the lead character itself. The immersion factor in video games is something that we are only now beginning to understand and Braid demonstrates how powerful it can be. Thus, I would agree that based on my experiences with it, Braid deserves to be considered a work of art.From my experiences, it is clear that video games are an artform completely unique and relatively new. For the most part, video games as art have been defined by how their design can invoke joy and sorrow. Braid and Shadow of the Colossus represent a new wave of video games that can invoke a far greater and complex range of emotions. Thus in short, 2000 words short, Roger Ebert is wrong. Video games have been, are, and will be works of art comparable to Van Gogh and Shakespeare. My own pity is that some people, due to their limited horizons, will never take the chance to experience them.
Cormac McCarthy, Run-On Sentences, and Quotation Marks
With the introduction of the Kindle for iPhone, I've finally taken the opportunity to read Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. I have loved the movie, even though I missed it an theatres and wanted to how close the movie stuck to the novel. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. No Country for Old Men is a terrific read, the most fun I've had since the Harry Potter series finished up.One of the more interesting things with reading a Cormac McCarthy novel for the first time is his unique prose style identifiable by two consistent habits: run-on sentences and no quotation marks. Now for the most part English teachers will balk at both habits as bad grammar but I'm always interested when a writer does something different. I always want to understand why an author makes that choices that he or she does and how does it affect the manuscript.Run-on SentencesMcCarthy has been compared to William Faulkner for his consistent use of the run-on sentence. An example from No Country for Old Men:
The deputy left Chigurh standing in the corner of the office with his hands cuffed behind while he sat in the swivelchair and took off his hat and put his feet up and called Lamar on the mobile.
For the most part, this is a mild example of McCarthy's run-on sentences but does illustrate the reasons why he uses them. For the most part, McCarthy uses the run-on sentence to string together a bunch of action statements that by themselves are not that interesting. It almost seems if McCarthy is following Elmore Leonard's old axiom to eliminate the parts that the reader skips over. However in McCarthy's case, instead of deleting the boring description of action, he shortens them and puts them all together in the same sentence. In a sense, he is skipping over the text alongside the reader. Now, if I was writing it, it probably would have gone like this:
As the deputy walked in to the station, the door creaked in protest. I would have to oil that, thought the deputy. But he couldn't do it right now because he was not alone. Upon his right hand rested the manacled hands of one Anton Chigurh. His arms behind him, Chigurh was led to the corner by the deputy. The deputy left him in the corner and walked over to his desk. Papers lay strewn everywhere and a pen could not be found. The deputy sat back into his swivel chair with a relaxing oomph. He dropped his hat upon the desk and put his feet up, taking the opportunity to scratch an itch that had been bothering him for the last ten miles. Leaning back, he picked up the mobile and dialed the number for Lamar.
As you can see, my version spends a lot of time describing things that aren't really that important. McCarthy's text zooms past this unnecessary description and cuts right to the chase.While run-on sentences are generally seen as the result of poor grammar, I believe that in the manner that McCarthy uses them it works well. It skips over the boring text without completely removing it. It also makes the story appear to be going by faster. For this reason, I would recommend it but don't overuse less someone accusing you of simply copying McCarthy. They'd be right but there is nothing wrong with copying good technique.Quotation MarksThe other unusual grammatical quirk that is a trademark of McCarthy's writing's is his use of the quotation mark or more accurately, the fact that he never uses a quotation mark. For an example, here is the second paragraph from No Country for Old Men:
Just walked in the door. Sheriff he had some sort of thing on him like one of them oxygen tanks for emphysema or whatever. Then he had a hose that run down the inside of his sleeve and went to one of them stun guns like they use at the slaughterhouse. Yessir. Well that's what it looks like. You can see it when you get in. Yessir. I got it covered. Yessir.
Not one quotation mark. McCarthy states that it's because the quotation mark halts the reader. That it is an intrusive obstruction into the reading experience or to paraphrase him, he hates seeing all of this marks all over his page. At first it is a little jarring but you soon become used to it. On this McCarthy has a point, the reading experience is far more fluid when you don't have to deal with quotation marks. The punctuation disappears and the dialogue and not the punctuation becomes the focus. However, there are problems with this strategy when you mix dialogue and description. For example:
Wendell leaned and spat. Yessir, he said. I'm ready. He looked at Torbert. You get stopped with that old boy in the turtle just tell em you dont know nothin about it. Tell em somebody must of put him in there while you was havin coffee.
In this case, the reader must switch back and forth between description and dialogue several times. Each time the reader has to shift focus, there is an opportunity for the reader to lose his place and become confused over whether or not he is reading dialogue. I found that this happened several times while I was reading to book. Confusion resulted, forcing me to go back and read it again. Every time that I did so, it broke the momentum of the story, thus nullifying the advantage that Cormac McCarthy was trying to gain. Thus, I would recommend that you stick with quotation marks. They may mark up your page something awful, but they will ensure that your text is clear and easily understand, thus helping to maintain the flow of the story. Now if you decide to forego quotation marks, just be aware of how the reader can become confused and try to avoid mixing description and dialogue in the same paragraph.Cormac McCarthy is one of the best writers in the English language. There is a lot that you can learn from reading his books. But keep in mind that every writer has their own style and this style must have a purpose. Take from your favourite writers what works for you and leave the rest. Only you can write like you.
iBooks Announced for iPhone
And the good news keeps getting better.As reported by Macworld.com, the iPhone OS 4.0 presentation today announced that the iBooks app, available on the iPad since its launch, will now be available along with the iBooks Store on the iPhone. As quoted by Macworld, this means that
In another borrowed feature from the iPad, Apple will make its iBooks e-reader available to the iPhone in iPhone OS 4.0. The iPhone offering will be a smaller version of the iPad app, but it allows for the same features, including purchasing from Apple’s iBookstore. And you’ll also be able to sync your place and bookmarks between multiple devices—leave off reading a book on your iPad, and you can start reading it in the same place on your iPhone.
It seems that self-publishers in Canada have had nothing but good news over the past three months. First the Amazon Digital Text Platform and Kindle app for iPhone came to Canada in January - allowing any writer to publish to the world's most popular media device at no upfront cost. Then, we found out that Apple was launching iBooks and that Smashwords and Lulu would be supporting it - allowing any reader to buy your work with the same account that they buy music, movies, and games with. But now we find out that iBooks will be available on the iPhone. It doesn't get any better than this. Now only if we could figure out how to get people to buy the millions of self-published novels that will appear on the platform.
Kindle for iPhone Review
As I mentioned in my previous post, the introduction of Amazon's Digital Text Platform and Kindle for iPhone app to Canada dramatically changes my game. Rather than loading it through Smashwords' Meat-Grinder and selling it through an obscure website, I can now sell directly to the iPhone (and apparently the iPad) by simply uploading my story to my Amazon account and choosing my list price. Easy and simple. But if I'm going to publish my stories for the Kindle app, then I better take a moment see how well the Kindle app works. Thus, today I will be reviewing the Kindle for iPhone app.After downloading the Kindle App to my iPhone, I downloaded two books from Amazon's massive Kindle Store: A sample chapter from David Plouffe's The Audacity to Win and Elmore Leonard's Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories. Unlike in iTunes, the Kindle store is not integrated into the App. Instead, when you click on the "Get Books" button, it shuts down the app, opens up Safari and takes you directly to the Kindle Store. Once there you can search for the title of your choice.Let's look up No Country for Old Men .
Within a couple of seconds, the search results return. The Kindle edition of No Country for Old Men is right at the top.Clicking on the link takes us to the book's summary page. It gives us a rating, the Kindle price and options to buy and to "Try a Sample".
Below, you will find a short blurb followed by customer reviews. It pretty much contains everything that you would want on the screen. Out of Sight and at the very bottom is the useful "Customers Who Bought This Also Bought:" section. If you're publishing to the Kindle Store, it's nice to know that if a reader likes your work that he will have little difficulty in finding your other books. Since I'm not made of money, I'm just going to "Try a Sample". A drop-down menu allows me to send it directly to my iPhone.Once the transaction has gone through, I brought to this screen and given two choices: "Continue Shopping" or "Go to Kindle for iPhone". Let's choose to return to Kindle for iPhone by clicking on the link.
This choice reopens the Kindle app and automatically updates my library with my new sample book. I can also sort by Recent, Title, and Author if I had lots of books.
Tapping on the book No Country for Old Men takes me directly into the book. When I first loaded up a text in the Kindle app, there was an option to lock the reading screen into Landscape. Once landscape is locked, I have not found a way inside the app to switch it back to the default option. However, I don't really see this as too much of a problem as I always read in Landscape anyway. One of my pet peeves in E-Readers has been that if I lean to one side, then the screen would flip back to Portrait when I don't want it to. Amazon thankfully has added a pop-up lock option that allows you to lock the screen in either portrait or landscape.
Now reading is very similar to other E-readers, you either swipe or tap on the left or right to move forwards or backwards through the text. The menu gives you options to change the font, view the table of contents, or to synchronize with another device through Whispernet. This allows you to keep your place even if you continually swap back and forth between multiple Kindle-enabled devices. There is also a bar at the bottom of the menu screen that allows you to move back and forth through the manuscript by dragging the bar. With the synchronization of your place through Whispernet, you probably won't need to use this feature but it's a nice feature none the less. One odd quirk is that it doesn't count your place in "pages". Instead, it refers to your "location". The nomenclature is a little unusual but it works fine. Ideally, I would prefer that they be called pages but that's probably just a holdover from my pre-ebook days.As an E-Reader, I would still give the nod to Stanza due to its stronger User Interface but the Kindle app is more than enough to enable to sit back in your bed and read without problems. For most parts, E-Readers don't really need all these bells and whistles. All that matters is the reading experience itself and the Kindle app certainly holds its own. What gives Kindle an advantage over Stanza is that buying books is far more streamlined with the Kindle Store. 3 and 4 clicks and you're the proud owner of a new book. With Stanza, you may have to go through 3 different bookstores to get the book you need. Furthermore, Amazon makes it as easy as possible to buy a book without integrating the Store itself directly into the app. Personally, I would have liked the store integrated directly into the app like iTunes and the upcoming iBook Store but all in all, the Kindle Store works well.
Amazon's Digital Text Platform Comes to Canada and Changes Everything ... again
Wow, I can't believe that I missed this one. Back in January, Amazon announced that it was extending its groundbreaking Digital Text Platform to non-US authors. The complete story is here.
This is big news indeed for the cut-the-publisher-out-of-the-picture movement. Today, Amazon announced that it has opened its Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP)--which is the Web-platform that allows writers to upload and sell their own Kindle books, meaning to self publish via the Kindle Store--to writers all over the world writing in English, German and French. Previously, only US-based writers could take advantage of the DTP.Here's more from Amazon, which also promises to add more languages to the DTP in the next few months: "'We are excited to make the self-service Kindle Digital Text Platform available to authors and publishers around the world,' said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. 'Now any content owner can offer English, German or French-language books to the fast-growing audience of Kindle owners around the globe.'"Whatever one's grievances with Amazon may be, it has done a pretty good job of creating an international bookstore. And now that authors living all over can upload books, we have the potential to get heretofore unimagined texts, though most of them will likely be very bad, and all of them will be hard to find.
For authors like myself, this is huge. My earlier game plan was to get my stories onto iPhones by going through Smashwords. Smashwords would have allowed me to sell my stories directly through the excellent Stanza app. However, there were a number of problems that bothered me. As I said at the time:
To format it properly for all of the different digital formats that are in use these days, Smashwords feeds the manuscript through a software program called the “Meat Grinder”. This gives the author almost no control over the final end product. In a perfect world, I would prefer to use Amazon’s Digital Text Platform. Amazon’s DTP would give more control over the final product and make my manuscript available to buy on both the Amazon Kindle and the Kindle app for iPhone. Rather than buying it through an obscure websitem, Amazon’s DTP would allow me to sell my novel on the popular Amazon store. Unfortunately, neither the DTP or the Kindle are available yet in Canada so I will have to stick to Smashwords for the time being.
Well Hallelujah. Christmas has come early. Not only do I avoid the atrocious formatting of the "Meat Grinder", not only do I get access to the world's biggest online e-book store, but my stories will now be available to everyone with a Kindle or the Kindle App for iPhone. Yes, I can now publish to the iPhone. All without paying a dime. Incredible. God Bless Amazon.For those of you who are not familiar with Amazon's Digital Text Platform, it is a service that allows you to log in with your Amazon account and upload your manuscript directly to the Amazon Store. There is no middlemen. There is no publisher. Just you, your audience, and Amazon taking 70% of every sale. The most significant barrier to publication has now been removed. The only problem is that now everyone can publish, so getting your manuscript noticed becomes a Herculean task.But that's a challenge I live for. I'm just happy that my wish has come true. I can now publish to Amazon, the iPhone, and to the Kindle. Now I have to just figure out how to publish to the iPad.
The Solution to Any Computer Problem
I've been waylaid from writing for the past couple of weeks by computer problems. First, my old PC, a Compaq Presario SR2020NX that I purchased in 2006, started to stop showing its video to the screen. The problem was intermittent so I muddled through the problem by turning the system on and off continuously until the video finally appeared. Now obviously this could not continue forever so soon enough the computer finally died.To fix it, I took it into Computer Computers and found that the problem was with the motherboard. In short, it was toast. $115 later, I was the proud owner of a refurbished. However, since Windows ties its software products onto a computer's motherboard, replacing the motherboard creates a little bit of a problem. Numerous problems followed and resisted my attempts to fix them.So I tried the include PC Restore. No go. OK, I thought. It was time to pull out the big guns - FULL WINDOWS REINSTALL. Black Screen of Death. It didn't even have the courtesy of giving me that nice Blue Colour.Now that was it. I couldn't risk playing around any more or risk losing my hard drive data. So I bit the bullet and went to the Mac Store to buy a Mac Mini. I had planning on buying a Mac Mini for a while but I was waiting for them to update it with HDMI. But with a broken computer, my taxes due, and an estimated update two or three months away, I had no real choice. It was time to make the leap.I bought a 2.35 GHz Mac Mini with 4 GB of Ram and 320 GB of Hard Drive Space. I also picked up a wireless keyboard, magic mouse, a copy of iWork, and most importantly the three-year extended warranty. All in all, it cost me about $1500. It had better be the best computer I've ever had.Despite a false alarm when I thought that my Mac had bricked, the transition has worked out pretty good. Everything works smoothly, the sound quality for my music is vastly superior, and everything works the way the should. I can't complain. Another reason that I made the shift was the Mac has lots of great software for writers. Currently, I'm trying out StoryMill and have been greatly impressed. I still want to try out Scrivener before I pony up $50 to buy the software but so far it is much better writing environment for Prose Fiction than Movie Magic Screenwriter. Once I get more familiar with it, I'll write a column about it.With my computer programs behind me, I should be able to write and blog more often. Stay tuned to this site for more updates. But if I've learned one thing, it's that the solution to any computer problem is to buy a Mac.