Ebook Rant and Tweetmas....

I thought I would be doing a post on dragging DH to a twitter meet but events have overtaken us. Ebooks...

For DH's birthday we gave him a Sony ereader. He had been sniffing around them for a while as several colleagues have them and love them. We purchased the ereader from Waterstones in the UK and it came with Dan Brown's latest offering. He also bought Paul Torday's Girl on the Landing. DH then went off on an investment road trip and the ereader was as huge success. It fit in his suit pocket and was perfect for travel (only drawback is having to shut off for take off and landing). He breezed through the Torday book enjoying the book and the ereader experience.

Now we are in December and he has finally finished the Dan Brown and we are about to escape for a few days avec les enfants to Maldives for a few days of pre Christmas bonding. Last night we spent the most frustrating time trying to buy ebooks. Early in the day we had been a Magrudys (the local bookshop and one sponsor of the Emirates Airlines International Festial of Literature) and he decided he liked the look of Robert Harris's latest Lustrum and Sue Townends Adrian Mole, The Prostate Years. So he sat with 'puter and tried the Waterstones site. They had neither book. After much searching he found the Adrian Mole book on Penquin's own site. Robert Harris's book was not to be had in eformat. The next step was a scrabble around to find out what he hadn't yet read and would like. Here is the failing of ebooks and why nothing beats a book shop and where I think there could be massive link up. The only thing you have to go on at this point is reader reviews and at the moment I think book buying is still done on the touch, see, and read selection process.

Digital books are still fairly new and the general populous in the UK and many other places has yet to truly embrace them. There is good reason for this - it doesn't feel or smell like a book to begin with but there are many reasons to embrace this technology (see the RNA Blog's latest post). The uptake will continue to be so slow if the ease of use, download and selection isn't improved in a major way.

In the end DH downloaded from direct from Penquin, from Waterstones and from Smiths. He had to register with each site and learn their particular download procedure (he said he found Waterstones easiest). He bought four books in total - the Adrian Mole, Peter James' Dead Tomorrow,The Neighbor by L Gardener and Malice in Cornwall (by an author he knew nothing of but it was set in Cornwall and carried a reasonable price tag).

Now to the suggestion which DH mentioned himself when he was first looking at ereaders. What he wants to do, especially when traveling, is to walk into a book shop and browse (pick the actual physical book up, read the blurb etc) and then go to check out, put his ereader in a docking station and download his selected books. Then his choices are not made in the dark quite as much as last night's. Mind you all of last night's selections weren't random as he loves Peter James' books.

Two positive things hit me from this misadventure aside from the fact it would be brilliant to be able to download in a book store (which would I think help to bridge the two markets). Ebooks are perfect for travel - size weight etc and the only hitch is take off and landing, and if you finish your books before the end of the break there is no problem as long as you have Internet connection. Less books in suitcase would mean more room for shopping.... Also here is the market for new writers - less financial risk to the consumer and to the publisher. If DH was willing to spend three pounds on an unknown....

DH wants to convert me to ebooks as he wants to de-clutter the house of so many books (yes, my To Be Read pile is stashed all over the house so that he doesn't know how big it actually is) and he feels it's more environmentally friendly. I would concede to both those points and add he wouldn't know the size of the TBR pile at all if it was in a tiny little ereader. So I might be tempted, but I think for me publishers will have to wither reduce the cost of ebooks or give them to me at a small additional cost when I buy the paper book so that I can have both. That way I could read it in any format that suited me at the time....or based on my shopping plans!

Now briefly about my first Twitter meet when I was in London and believe it or not this does sort of tie in with the rant above as many of the people who attend Tweetmas had been at digi conference earlier in the day. I will confess to be being a bit nervous about attending an event with people I, in most cases, had only met on Twitter. However I didn't let DH know as I was dragging him along and he may not have come...The event took place at Bar Choc in Soho and was the brainchild of Ben Johncock and what a blast it turned out to be. In the end I lost count of how many publishing type people were there but I had a ball. A whole evening drinking wine and talking books and publishing was bliss plus I meant so many new people...How did DH fair? Well, he had a great time and was dubbed Twidow by one of the publisher there....

Oh What a Night and Links

You know when you are in light sleep and the noises of the night invade your head...well in an old house like this one the sounds are many. In fact I can usually pick out the ones made by the general creaking of the building to the ones made by living things. So at roughly two am I hear a fluttering sound and begin to wonder if birds have managed to nest in the chimney again (some time ask me about the nesting rooks that I had to evacuate). So with eyes closed I tried to imagine which ones could have broken through the defenses at the top. They must be small I thought. Yet the noise seemed closer than the chimney (the cob walls provide tremendous insulation and a small bird shouldn't be heard fluttering).

As DD and I are here on our own she was snuggled up beside me in the bed sleeping so soundly as children do. I rolled away from her and opened my eyes. They adjusted to the dim blue light coming from the alarm clock and there hovering above the bed was a small bat flying in circles.

First reaction was to slide totally under the duvet or run from the room but I couldn't do either because of DD. I looked to the window which I had left open about two inches. This had to be where the bat had come from so with small pillow on my head I dashed and opened it as wide as I could then flung myself back under the duvet leaving the pillow in place. I lay there trying not to listening to the beating of winds going round and round. I prayed that my guardian angel would help this creature back out into the night where it belonged. I pressed the pillow closer to my ears so that I wouldn't hear the noise. I worried about bat droppings - do they have droppings? Do they carry disease? Then my mind went to vampire bats as the mind at night is a funny thing and DD had been reading the directors notebook for TWILIGHT before falling asleep.

Finally the beating of wings stopped and I removed the pillow from my head. I didn't know the time since I had hidden the light from the alarm clock as the eerie blue light didn't help my wandering thoughts....

Despite this I was still up at five! I don't think DD want to know what hovered over her in the night or she will be truly spooked.

I haven't written in ages which is bad, but I am hoping that the typing time off will have given the old brain a chance to build. I am about 20k from the end of the story. As it stands it is Victoria's story (remember she was my villain) which is okay with me. Her journey has been fascinating thus far and this is a very dirty first draft.

This leads to a few links and I won't introduce them as they are too numerous as I haven't posted any in ages.

Via BubbleCow the link here on editing your manuscript (I know it says for children's books but it applies for all work)

The Ten Commandments of Becoming a Published Author from Julie Cohen

From Nina Harrington a fantastic site with so much I won't link to just one part but the whole (however the first posts are great on first drafts....Billy Mernit

Finally I am totally in love with my garden right now. For the past few years I haven't been here to see the roses in their full glory and it is such a treat.

Complete - Crap????

So the big rewrite of August Rock is done and well at the mo -I'm feeling that it's crap. There are gaping holes in the story as I added new twists and turns. Having done the rework I foolishly thought it would be a doddle to clean it up and polish - hah. I need to leave it a week or two then begin to clean and build and tighten. Hopefully with distance it will look better.

Now on the reading front......this was hijacked by dd's reading the Twilight series. DD is nine so I had been warned by another friend that I needed to jump ahead in the story (to discuss things)as DD plowed through Twilight with amazing speed - so I did. I enjoyed both books for what they are - good YA fiction. So on the reading front - Eclipse and Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer and I have just finished The Art of Love by Elizabeth Edmondson. I began this book at the end of the summer and only rediscovered it this week wedged in a suitcase. Great read. But I am seriously behind on my goal of a book a week - life and writing intervene too much sometimes!

Now for finishing the AR a real treat - Jan Jones's Fair Deception. Nothing quite like a good Regency for a well earned break!

Soundtracks or Music and Creativity

Back over a month ago I was having a chat with DS1's art teacher. He was suggesting that DS1 listen less to his ipod while working to allow the creativity to flow unhindered just for a bit. That led to an interesting discussion and one that was at the forefront of my thoughts.

I know several writers have clear sound tracks for their novels (click on the names for the link) - Julia Williams and Elizabeth Chadwick and I know Julie Cohen may not have a soundtrack as such but music plays a key part in writing for her.

Now I can't listen to music during the first draft unless it is classical music I am so familiar with that it soothes and in truth goes through me. It does not take an active part of my brain to interact with it. However I have discovered during this rewrite of August Rock that music has really hit me. I will hear a song and think -YES!! Whether it is the lyrics or the tone or the voice its self something has jumped out and said August Rock. So I know have a sound track for it which is growing. I find that listening to it helps me carve more definition in the story.

Now going back to the discussion with the art teacher and DS1, I mentioned this aspect - the carving-fine tuning and the teacher said that he could see that working and possibly being helpful at that stage. DS1 looked a bit sceptical but he was willing to give it a go - although I think it meant surgical removal of the ear buds!

Also playing into this is the comment that I made to DH after seeing the Watchmen the other night. I thought it was a brilliant soundtrack. The music truly enhanced the film for me. I can say the same of the soundtrack to Twilight which thanks to dd's fascination I have seen four or five times (The baseball scene with the Muse's Supermassive Black Hole is stunning). Are there any films that you feel the soundtrack has either killed the film or set it on fire?

For the curious the sound track for August Rock is:

Broken String - James Morrison and Nelly Furtado
Breakeven - The Script
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
Gotta be Somebody - Nickelback
I'm With You - Avril Lavinge
Greatest Day - Take That

Do you have soundtracks for your work? Do you listen when you write?