Piracy isn't all bad

I read this article today about piracy and digital books and agree with the speaker about book piracy.

It seems like the best way to fight piracy is to make it dead simple for people to pay for your content. If it’s good content that people find valuable, they’re totally willing to pay you to produce more of it. And it’s a good thing to let them share it with other people because it gets the word out to more people who may not have seen it otherwise. It expands your readership. Locking your book up with DRM and hunting down people who didn't pay for your book are counterproductive pursuits to the connection you get to make with your readers.

This is one of the reasons the internet has been nice for Radiohead and so rough on Metallica. Radiohead made it easy for people to share their music on the internet and then pay what they felt was fair, while Metallica sent the legal system after their fans who shared the music they loved.

Embrace new directions and take the opportunities that arise to relate and have a dialog (back and forth) with your readers.

I'm a failure.

I'm a failure, and that's a good thing.

I had a good start in National Novel Writing Month, staying consistently ahead of the goal for the first week. Ideas came fairly easily, kept flowing day after day with a good part at the end of each session to keep the story moving. The second week, I was going well, which is fairly unusual. The second week is typically difficult for people because they realize that the ideas aren't as smooth and that writing is hard work.

My problem was totally different. I got a job where they wanted me to start right away, work from 8 am to 9 pm every day, and take notes the whole time. By the time I got home, I didn't want to write any more. I ended up exhausted, I couldn't get back into the rhythm after that, and then I had a huge paper due for one of my school classes that took priority over the novel because there's a grade attached to the one for school.

This was a good exercise in priorities for me, deciding what's really important and what I can let go of for a little bit. Sadly, the event I'd been looking forward to for a year is what got cut this time. I also wrote more words for my novel in November than I had the entire previous year. I've still got plenty of the story to tell, so I can work on that in the next bit. I've also decided that I'm taking a totally different tack with next November. I think I'm not going to plan my novel at all next year. I may come up with a title and that's it.

Maybe. We'll see.

Holy busy November!

Happy NaNoWriMo! I'm right in the middle of writing my novel and things are going well. Next week, I'm going to feel stuck, I can just feel it coming. But as it is, I'm keeping ahead of the game, despite my life being completely crazy with school presentations, job hunting and being an attentive parent.

I've already done a couple of things with my story that surprised me, the biggest one being that the point of view is not the third person omniscient that's so common. It's not even the normal kind of first person narrative. It's so far inside the character's head like Catcher in the Rye. There's stream of consciousness narrating to some unknown party. Totally hadn't expected that. I was actually fully planning on writing the story in third person. But that's what the month is all about, right?

Here's my favorite little bit I wrote today:

Envelope safely tucked into John Tesh, I headed out of the store. Did I just say “envelope tucked into John Tesh?” There’s a phrase I hadn’t expected to say ever in my life.

Fun, right? If you're taking on writing a novel this month, good luck. And if you need some encouragement or maybe a suggestion to make your story better or keep it moving, please let me know. I like to help. Back to my adventure.

Here we go again

It's NaNoWriMo again and for me, it has been for almost 2 hours. I've almost hit the goal for the day and my eyes are starting to get kind of tired. I was feeling a little nervous about reaching the goal with the other things I've got to do each day, but my progress so far today has made me optimistic again. If you're participating this year, you can do it too. I'm certain.

By the way, I'll probably be tweeting more about it than blogging, so if you want to keep up with how I'm doing, my twitter feed is a good way to do it.

Remember, remember...

Yes, we're all getting excited for Halloween, right? But I'm also looking forward to the next holiday. You're thinking Thanksgiving, aren't you? Not me.

This next Friday is Guy Fawkes Day! I haven't decided what I want to do for it yet, but I love celebrating Guy Fawkes Day. Last year, we went to a cupcake party with some friends and made little bomb-shaped cupcakes in honor of the holiday (no one else did, which is fine) and one of the guys thought the sparklers we had for wicks was licorice. So he ate a sparkler and thought it was the worst licorice he ever tasted.

I enjoy celebrating obscure holidays, especially the ones that involve huge amounts of fireworks, like Chinese New Year. At least Guy Fawkes Day is on a Friday this year. It's hard to get friends to come over to celebrate Mardi Gras because it's always on a Tuesday and they always use the school night excuse.

"Remember, remember the fifth of November."

Duffy Moon

Image via Wikipedia

When I was in elementary school, I remember it was raining one day, so we couldn't go out and play on the playground for recess. (I grew up in West Texas. Rain's kind of a rare thing there. The picture here overestimates the amount of water in the city.) Instead, we all had to sit on the floor of the cafeteria/gymnasium and watch a movie that I honestly don't remember the title of. I remember thinking the movie was completely cheesy and I remember a single line from the movie, which I've repeated throughout the years and people have looked at me like I was completely crazy.

That's not an unusual feeling for me, but the other day, I decided to use our amazing finding stuff technology called Google and look up the statement "You can do it, Duffy Moon!"

A few years ago, all I could find was a couple of blog posts about the same thing: people who watched the movie as kids and remembered the line "You can do it, Duffy Moon!" and the same reaction from their friends. But today? Today was different.

I did a search for Duffy Moon and found the video, thanks to the wonders of YouTube. Here's the first video, and if you want to see the rest, I'll let you follow them through to the end.

You owe it to yourself to watch at least this clip so that you can be empowered to do anything, just like Duffy Moon.

You can do it, Duffy Moon!

Gearing up for next month

When it comes to working, writers are very particular about the way they choose to do it. Some are strictly pen-and-paper with a particular brand of each, some meticulously outline their novels before they write them (Vonnegut worked on the outline for Slaughterhouse Five for ages), some have encyclopedic backgrounds for all of their characters.

When November rolls around, probably my favorite tool is a writing program called Scrivener. I've been using it for a few years now and I love how it helps me stay organized, especially because organization isn't my strongest point. I can write sections, label them with themes and then move whole sections around as I need to. Really, I'm not doing it justice here. You should just try it yourself. Scrivener is one of the sponsors of NaNoWriMo this year and they're getting version 2.0 ready in time for November. It's been a Mac-only program for the last few years, but there's a Windows version in the works that should be released early next year. I know, not quite in time for NaNoWriMo, but if you're a PC, it's a good choice for you.

You can download a free trial for November here, or you can learn more about Scrivener here. Whatever you choose to use while writing this November, make sure you keep up. I'd hate for you to get left behind.