Master & Student MG04

Post PC Worldview & The Tech Savvy Writer

I keep seeing a lot of blood shed by tech writers on this issue. People think that because tablets are popular, they will somehow un-invent the desktop or laptop personal computer. I know lots of people who own both a regular car to commute with and a motorcycle. Myself, I've got a handgun, but I've also found that a good shotgun can be useful as well.

Do I think the vast majority of the world could get by with a tablet form factor like the iPad? Sure.

Most people purchase electronic devices for the purpose of consuming media, checking email, communicating on social platforms and other tasks. A tablet device can often perform better than a traditional PC for your average consumer. I'm beating a dead horse here.

For people who create the content other people consume, the tablet represents both a potential tool and a marketplace for their products. I've written quite a bit about the MacBook Air and the iPad and how one measures up agains the other. At lunch today, my Aunt Julie asked me if my MacBook Air had replaced my iPad because it was what I happened to have with me.

For me, the answer is somewhat complex but I boiled it down to this:

The iPad is what I reach for when working a project from the front end. For me, the front end is thumbing out the first few visuals, creating a few thousand words of plain text or mapping the relationships between characters in a book. Things that you have to do before you get serious about composition or finishing a product.

When I'm working on closing a project, or the back end, I need something that has a full desktop OS. Because I'm not just handing my work off to a traditional publisher I have to arrange and edit those works myself. The iPad simply can't do those things yet and I don't know that it ever will. There are some things that require the precision that only a cursor can give.

The folks at Notion Ink might actually bridge the gap if they can conquer their supply issues.

Anyone serious about independent writing and self-publishing have to get the most they possibly can out of their time. Sometimes you can't or don't want to sit at a desk for that purpose and need a mobile device to fit the occasion. I use an iPod Touch, an iPad and a MacBook Air to that end. I lucked out being able to afford the devices that best fit my writing style.

Touch screen devices that are both a laptop/netbook and a tablet are beginning to head toward the market, possibly filling both roles. The one's I've seen are running mobile operating systems and a keyboard doesn't mean they could be used to work a project from the read end. Would you buy a MacBook Air that became an iPad when the screen was detached?

Asus has something called a Transformer that possesses that form factor, sort of. It's running Android though, a deal breaker for me. Something running WebOS or Linux would be better in my opinion. I think the only way manufacturers are going to find out is if they build it and put these devices in the market and see what people buy.

Writing For A Living

1. Get up every day like you would for any other job. Get dressed, brush your teeth, put shoes on, and mentally prepare to go somewhere. Treat it like a job, because it is.

2. Take your union approved breaks and make enough text during the day that you sweat through your shirt.

3. Write during the day like you have no where else to go.

If you have a good job, you'll have flexibility, but your employer will still want you to put in your forty and then some. Make sure you are that employer and the employee that works hard to keep their job and the flexibility they've earned.

Epictitus and Death

"What wouldst thou be found doing when overtaken by Death? If I might choose, I would be found doing some deed of true humanity, of wide import, beneficent and noble. But if I may not be found engaged in aught so lofty, let me hope at least for this—what none may hinder, what is surely in my power—that I may be found raising up in myself that which had fallen; learning to deal more wisely with the things of sense; working out my own tranquillity, and thus rendering that which is its due to every relation of life…."

I think about this often relative to the people I've lost and the people I will inevitably lose in this life. I rarely contemplate my own death. It could be tomorrow or in fifty years. All things are finite regardless.

All we can do is live every one of those moments as well as we can.

AT&T and my Samsung Focus

That the developer community and Microsoft themselves have had to conspire in order to give users an end-run around the carriers is pretty sad. Getting a simple firmware update for a device you've paid good money for shouldn't be so difficult or carry these risks. I've always gotten pretty good service from AT&T, but this shakes my confidence and turns it into pure nerd rage. Last year AT&T doubled the penalty for breaking contract with them from $175 to over $300. That's about what I pay for four months of service.

It's tempting to just do it, put my phone on eBay and try a different carrier in August.

I keep wanting there to be some grand reason behind the update delays. AT&T is delaying the updates because they have the best interests of their customers at heart. Given their previous behavior and public (sometimes accidental) disdain for their own customers, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that.

Non-Fiction/Technical Writing

Whenever I'm writing something that isn't a novel, with a linear story and accompanying outline, the process becomes more difficult and lengthy. I've been pretty hard on myself for taking as long as I have with my Storytelling Sciences books, but I've come to realize recently that such things are written over time. It's why reference books have editions and are revised often.

Things change.

In sitting down to finally write the more arcane portion of the SS System I realized that it was something I've been writing for a long time, little by little. I have files written in MS Publisher format that contain text I'm pulling for my current work, that's how far back this thing goes. Think nothing of recounting the play test hours spent and all the people who sat around a table with me at one time or another. Some I don't talk to any more, while others have moved beyond this life.

It feels good to draw near what seems to be the completion of this particular work. Like anything written in this way, it will require revision over time as I find things to add or change. It'll be nice to sit on the other side of that project and be able to focus on the Setting Books and the novels based on them.

Even better, I might get to play the game that I built. We'll see.

Amazon Cloud Player vs. Music Industry

This issue caused significant disruption to my workflow today. I posted a link to an article I found on the subject to Facebook and began asking questions. The three people I really wanted to collect opinions from ended up offering them up during the course of the thread. I really didn't know what to think but I assumed everyone with an internet connection familiar and with cloud computing would be quickly forming their own opinion.

As yet, I haven't formed mine.

Ian D. Mosley, a Graduate Student at Idaho State University Department of Sociology, Social Work & Criminal Justice said this about what he thought Amazon was doing:

"Expanding public access to information, ideas and perspectives. Removing the barriers between ideas and people. The digital world is growing, whether /they/ like it or not."

I think that with regard to cloud computing he's absolutely correct. People tend to go toward outcomes that give them more choices. I have a hard time thinking of a single person I couldn't talk into getting a DropBox account. Having more options relative to the access of your own data is a good thing. I think Ian's wise to see it that way.

Chris DeMarcus, a skilled musician and producer, who used to teach music business courses weighed in as well. He was concerned that people would use the service for nefarious purposes and that the laws governing the protection of copyrights were antiquated. I wondered if the changing of the law could help the situation because I'm a creative independent as well. He said this:

"I think the problem can't be solved. It's like when recorded music came out and you didn't have to hire a band anymore, or when PAs became so big, you just needed a DJ. Getting an album is a boutique thing. There is also so many other forms of alternative entertainment; Film, Cable TV, Video Games, and random other stupid amusements that keep human happy, unless you permeate into these markets, you're not going to live on your music. It will be a hobby. The only way to move into these markets is from the top down, with the aid of a label. That's how you're going to be the next NIN, Metallica, Coldplay, or U2."

Somewhat bleak, but apt.

I know you can self-publish through Amazon. I'm wondering if they will eventually include a social networking aspect like Apple's "Ping" that could be exploited by independent folks to promote their music or gain traction in the marketplace. I'd really like to see a situation where a regular Joe or Art could compete for attention in the global marketplace. I don't see why Amazon wouldn't push something like that, for them... sales are sales, right? While I'm dreaming, I'd like a flock of unicorns and a firmware update for my Samsung Focus.

Matthew Klundt, a Videographer & iOS Developer said that removing the middle man would make services like Amazon's Cloud Player better for creators and consumers. I wondered who he thought the middlemen were exactly. He said this:

"I see the labels being the problem middlemen between an artist and their customers. It is history repeating, VHS, CD's, internet, cloud. Industries who miss the technology forefront go down kicking and screaming (down, but not out)."

I agree that the Record Labels are part of the problem in that they themselves have become reliant on Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and others to peddle their digital goods to consumers. If there is going to be a middleman, there might only be room for one in what is already a pretty competitive market. I have the same questions and concerns about my novels. Do I want to go through a traditional publisher who in turn goes through yet another middleman to sell my book to an audience seeking digital reading material? Or, do I decide to approach Amazon and try to promote myself?

I don't honestly know the answer at this time.

Creative folks everywhere, I'm sure, are watching stuff like this. I'm wondering if it will help the little guy or more firmly assert the dominance of the traditional checkpoints between creator and consumer.

WP7Dev Mac

Head Down

Thinking out loud. Disregard unless you like visiting the frantic portion of my brain.

The next six weeks will be much the way January was. Busy.

I'm writing two novels, three game books, and one novella as of this moment and still trying to find the time to poke pixels for my WP7 endeavor. I've had to clear my schedule and just decide that the text was going to get generated. My latest game book has 19,000 words so far and my two novels have outlines and the first few hundred words of their first chapters. The Novella would be just mist in my mind if not for a previous 16,000 word document I generated to establish the premise for a separate but related project.

It's only Wednesday. I still have five weeks or so to pull this all together. Just gotta keep my head down and my fingers moving. The novella should be easy. I just need to keep telling myself that.

The two novels are not going to be easy. Completely separate worlds, narratives and character structures. I literally have to shift gears and work completely different mental muscles to write them. Thankfully, one of the two needs a lot more research done. It's an excuse to stretch my legs and visit the libraries within walking distance of my home.

The game books won't be hard. I've been generating the text for fifteen months, and it's all sitting in plain text format waiting to be moved over into a shiny final form. Some of the text goes back to 2006, but was never intended to be consumed by anyone but me and my play test folks. That stuff will have to be rewritten for my purposes. Yeah, never thought I would decide to try and market SS.

How fluidly our values can change.

Hopefully, before my birthday, I can look back at this blog post, then turn and nod approvingly at the finished works sitting beside me at my desk.

Hopefully.

What if.

What if everyone you knew was there to show you something about yourself? Could you be that selfish, to assume that they are simply fixtures in a reality designed to make you into something more than you were? What if you were the one who was there to show someone else something about themselves, slipping inside their reality, just for a moment?

What if being blind isn’t the disability people thought it was?

What if you could see where all these metaphysical spheres of identity and personality overlapped and you could see the parasites inside the system as a whole? What if you can’t save all those people who are drowning in only a foot of water? What if by saving them you are delaying necessary Justice?

What if you could let it all be very simple?

What if you imposed a cold methogology to your life, an absolute order that allowed you to pursue the work you’ve chosen? What if that’s the only way you will ever feel human, even for a moment. What if you allowed your humanity to flow from you hands to the people that can truly appreciate and make use of it?

What if that was easier than you thought? You just might be a writer.