Marie Dees

I have held, touched and even played with an iPad. All without buying one. It’s the newest toy the CEO bought for the office, and I’ll even get a day to take it home and play with it. I’m looking forward to it, but I can tell you the end result is — as cool as it is, right now I’m not going to buy one.
Why?
I’m a writer. It’s what I do. Hand me a new tech toy and my first thought is “how do I write a novel on this.” We’re talking technology here. I can even make notes for my novel on my phone (and it isn’t even an iphone) using Google apps. The problem is, the iPad doesn’t seem much more useful than my phone for noveling, despite the somewhat larger screen.
The big problem isn’t the apps. Although it doesn’t come with Word Processing software, the “Pages” application on runs $10 and seems to be designed for writing and or noveling (I haven’t convinced Charles to buy it yet). But still, compared to MS Office, that’s a killer price. Though you’ll need to get the novel out of it and into MS Office if you plan to submit to a publisher. But that isn’t the problem — yet.
No, the problem is the keyboard. Or what works as a keyboard which is the touch screen. The screen is sensitive to, well, touch. Any touch. Move a finger from C to E and you’re likely to hit D on the way. Let any finger rest on the keys for the briefest second and you’ve hit another letter. I keep hitting the “A” key because my left pinky dips down if I don’t focus on holding it off the screen.
So, typing is a painful effort of holding every finger up and moving to exactly the right spot before touching anything. And still doing a lot of backspacing. I did become better with practice, but for a day of typing I’d need to buy the separate keyboard. And a stand. And then I’d essentially have a netbook. I already have a netbook. It even multitasks and runs Flash applications. Or and I can read ebooks on it.
The iPad is cool. But it seems everyone in the office who picked it up had the same reaction — Cool. But what would I really need it for?

For the last couple of years, I’ve been learning about ghost hunting and going on ghost hunts to work that aspect into the Cassadaga mysteries. Since I can’t work everything that I experience, read or research into the novels, I figured I could use the blog to chat about some of my real paranormal experiences, both spooky and funny.

Now one thing I’ve noticed is that many ghost hunters take themselves very seriously, perhaps because they’re worried that no one else does. Of course the people who don’t believe in ghosts, still don’t believe them even no matter how professional the ghost hunters. Believers usually believe based not on their experiences with ghost hunters, but their experiences with ghosts.

Which always brings up the question — do I believe in ghosts?

Well, I have bumped into things that aren’t there and felt mysterious cold spots (outside on a muggy Florida night). So, yes I believe in ghosts or at least in the possibility of ghosts. That doesn’t mean that I believe everything that goes bump in the night is a ghost, but if I can rule out the obvious non-paranormal causes, I might be willing to at least consider a ghostly one.

I’ve been invited to join a group blog for paranormal romance authors and will be group blogging with http://paranormalists.blogspot.com/

Group blogging is becoming popular with authors because it allows us to network with each other while creating and supporting a blog that can be updated regularly without any one person having to write daily posts. Each group blog seems to work a bit differently with different rules and ideas for content.

The Pagan and the Pen blog I’m on focuses on topics of interest to the Pagan community rather than promoting books. Paranormalists is just getting started, so I’m waiting to see where that blog takes me. Maybe I can blog about ghosts. I’ve been on a few ghost hunts.

“To Have a Warrior” has finished the editing rounds and I now have the completed manuscript for promotional and other purposes. Which means it’s time to start focusing on marketing it. Oh, and writing other books.

It should be out in the next couple of weeks from Cobblestone Press. This one is a short at just over 5,000 words. I haven’t written a short story since the graduate writing program, so this is a rare event. Though “To Have a Warrior” might have heated up those grad writing workshops. Though oddly, I was the one who never wrote sex scenes back then.

A young writer out on the web was asking about technology in the 1980s. Did we have blogs and such. By pure chance, one of the IT team in the office brought in his “state of the art” machine from the early 80s. This was an early version of a breakthrough in portable computers. I don’t think the term laptop had even been thought of yet because that’s not going to fit on the average lap. But it did actually allow an IT professional to do work away from the office, at home or “on the road.”

Sitting on top of the portable machine is my 21st century netbook (yes,it is pink). I have both it and a 17 inch notebook, but the netbook is what I do most of my writing on. The full size notebook seldom even leaves the house these days. Sometimes I wish I’d kept my early word processing machines to show off. As a writer who remembers trying to correct errors made on a typewriter, I appreciate technology.

I dropped in on the #amwriting thread on Twitter today. It started as a place for writers to post their writing goals and give encouragement to one another. It’s fast being taken over by people trying to market their services and books to writers. It’s another case of advice overload.

I will now pass along the one most invaluable piece of advice I ever received about writing…stop buying writing books and just write. These days that goes for blogs, websites and social media sites too.

Here’s the thing. Most writer quickly compile a large selection of writing books, sites, advice, etc. And you probably spend too much time agonizing over the advice rather than actually writing. Pick a couple of favorite writing resources, keep those, put the rest aside and focus on the actual writing. Reading more and more writing books is not as good as writing. If you want to be a writer, go write.

Perhaps it’s a testament to how sparse a story can be on explanation and still catch a reader. I’m editing “To Have a Warrior” and going through the second round, we’re tweaking it to have a bit more world building.

My early drafts of stories can be very sparse because I’m focused on the essential elements of plot and action and well, making sure stuff happens. When I go back and tuck details in around that bare-essentials draft, I have to fight the feeling that I’m slowing the story down. Which means sometimes an editor has to reassure me that yes, I can slow down and explain a few things.

I’m working with Cobblestone Press on a new release and I now have cover art to share. I love the guys. They are absolutely perfect as Aki and Raiden. A friend asked what the book was about and my answer is:

It is a literary work that explores our preconceptions about sexuality in other cultures.

That or it’s a hot gay erotica story about an ethnologist who finds love on another planet.

I’ll leave it up to readers to choose which explanation they want to give when someone asks “whatya readin.”

I am waiting for letters to appear as I type!

Okay, first for those unfamiliar with Google Docs, it is an online word processor that allows you to create, write and share documents which can be accessed from any computer with a web connection and by anyone you share with. I’ve been using Google docs at work lately. It’s one of those ideas that sounds promising and sometimes works. I can take notes on my netbook in a meeting, turn them into a requested article on my desktop computer, then share them with team members. Easy. Right.

I am waiting for letters to appear as I type!

See, this is the drawback for Google docs. You aren’t writing and saving on your computer. You’re writing and saving on some machine out there somewhere that has to communicate with your computer through an internet connection. If that connection is slow, you may wait to see your words appear. If the internet crashes, your work may still be safe to the last point it was saved. But you won’t be able to get to it.

Google docs may be fine for the occasional memo or article, but I just can’t see myself tackling a novel in it. I’ve written this blog post using Google docs and it’s taken me twice as long as usual. But if you need a place to take notes that you can access elsewhere from another computer, Google docs might work.

After a final editing push late into the night, “Fallen One” is ready to send out into the world. This is a stage I always hit with mixed feelings. There’s the elation of finishing a piece and the nervousness of going through the submission process. Yes, that still makes me nervous, even though I usually find a home for my work.

So, today, I’ll pull together a submission letter and send it off. Oh, just one for right now. Since I’m already working with a publisher who might be interested in “Fallen One,” I’ll start with them. Then back to work on “Lair of the Jaguar God.”