Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library – The Beginning Of The End For Public Libraries?

Posted by george on November 9, 2011
Posted in: Other Stuff. Tagged: , , . 2 comments

Last week, Amazon (relatively) quietly announced what may actually be one of the biggest game changing programs readers may ever see in their lifetime. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library further blurs the line between books, e-books and how a reading public consumes them. It’s very early, and this is an initial step. The program will change as it grows, and I have no doubt it will grow. The implications here are staggering. Ultimately, the program Amazon launched could bring an end to libraries as we know them.

How It Works

First, the lending program is only available to Kindle owners. In other words, no Kindle, no dice. Second, you have to sign up with Amazon’s premium service, Amazon Prime. That’s going to cost you $79 a year but Amazon Prime is about a lot more than the lending of books. Streaming shows, 2 day shipping and other features might just make the yearly fee worth it for a lot of people.

You can borrow one book at a time and not all titles are available for lending right now. I’m certain more titles will be available as the program progresses – especially if it catches on. There are no due dates and currently you can only borrow one book a month. For us voracious readers, one book a month is probably not enough to make us burn our library card. Also, there is no “rollover” feature. If you don’t borrow a book during any given calendar month, you don’t get to borrow two the next.

What I Think

I know this section is likely to piss some people off, so let me preface it with a few statements:

  • I love books. I mean the physical, hold in your hands, great smelling paper things.
  • I don’t believe that physical books will ever go away completely.
  • I love my Kindle, and I love reading on my Kindle, but I will always buy and read physical books.
  • I love libraries. I’ve worked in a public library and understand their advantages.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at how Amazon’s kindle Lending Library changes the game.

I think that our generation may be the last generation of paper book readers. When we were growing up, we had books. If we wanted to play video games, we went to the arcade at the mall or we commandeered the TV and hooked up the Atari or Nintendo. The next generation does things differently. They have smart phones. They have portable gaming devices. They understand and use electronics – a lot more than we ever did. A lot of schools around the country don’t hand out text books anymore. Each student is given a tablet device and assignments and reading material is downloaded to it. We are closer to having paperless classrooms than we ever have been. In short, the next generation is used to electronics and while they have a passing knowledge of paper books, the first choice will most often be the format they are used to.

Here’s my take on the public library aspect of this:

Public libraries struggle. Often, they are the first to be lined up on the budgetary chopping block. Right or wrong, that’s just how it is. Libraries are working to change their role from book lenders to information centers. While book lending remains at the core of what a public library does, public computer terminals and other electronic goodies such as DVD movies are the things bringing a lot of folks to the library these days. Ask any librarian and they will tell you that patronage is up in this failing economy. Is it up because of book lending? Not necessarily.

If something like Amazon’s program catches on, it’s easy to see that eventually this could affect the core program of public libraries. And if book lending goes away from the libraries, they could be left behind as not much more than “Book Museums.” I don’t think this is just around the corner. I don’t even think it will happen in my lifetime. But I can see it happening one day, and I think last week Amazon took the first step.

Writing Tips From A Pro – A Guest Post

Posted by george on November 7, 2011
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: . 1 comment

I’m happy to have this guest article to offer to you today. Reed Farrel Coleman wrote this little piece. I think it’s safe to say he is an authority on the subject. His current work is Hurt Machine and I’m looking forward to getting a copy.

Reed is the former executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America. He is a fantastic crime fiction writer, a three-time winner of the Shamus Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year, and has been twice nominated for the Edgar Award.
Currently, Reed is an adjunct professor at Hofstra University, teaching writing classes in mystery fiction and novel writing.

So, let’s do it!

Writing Tips From A Pro
By Reed Farrel Coleman,
Author of Hurt Machine

For the past five years, I’ve taught a summer class in writing—How To Write Genre Fiction or How To Write A Novel—at Hofstra University on Long Island. It’s a three credit class open to regular students, graduate students, and continuing education students as well. Furthermore, it’s an accelerated class in that I must teach a full term’s worth of material in two consecutive weeks—four hours a day, ten days in a row. In order to accomplish this I had to learn how to reduce lessons down to their most impactful, economical forms. Then, two years ago, Larry Light, the current Executive Vice President of Mystery Writers of America—a position I once held—came to me and asked me to lead an effort to develop an idea called MWA University. This was to be a program where Mystery Writers of America would offer six hours of college level writing instruction on a single day as a member benefit. Six hours sounds like a lot of time, but in reality it is very little to teach the basics of fiction writing. Again, I was forced to concentrate my lesson plans even further. Here are just some of the bits of writing advice I give to my students that I have developed along the way.

Narrative: New writers are often flummoxed by this concept. Here’s an exercise: Download the late Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” or “Taxi” or “W-O-L-D”. In these songs, all about five minutes in length, Chapin perfectly exemplifies a complete narrative. There is a beginning, middle, and end with deep characterization, and emotional story arcs. If he can tell stories this complete in five minutes, imagine what you can do in three hundred pages.

First or Third Person: First person allows for an intimacy between the narrator(usually the protagonist) of the story and the reader that is unachievable through third person. However, first person can be very limiting because all the information to the reader must be delivered through the narrator/protagonist’s experiences. The reader can never know what is going on in another character’s life when that character is not with the protagonist. It also means the protagonist must be constantly “on screen”. Third person allows for broader experience in that the reader can have a greater sense of the complete picture. It may even allow the reader to know what is going on in the lives and minds of several characters even within a single scene. The price a writer pays for writing in third is lack of intimacy and potential confusion.

To Outline or Not To Outline: Fiction writing is an odd combination of comfort and discomfort. I, for one, never outline because it robs the spontaneity of the writing experience. I feel once I’ve done an outline, I’ve already written the book and I have no desire to write it twice with no surprises. On the other hand, many successful authors do rigorous outlining. They feel they cannot enjoy the writing process if they haven’t gotten the heavy lifting of plot out of the way. Just as with routine, experiment. Find out what works best for you and stick with it.

Rule of Three: A difficult issue for new writers to make sense of is how to handle critiques and criticism. One the one hand, you can’t change a manuscript to suit every individual bit of criticism you receive. On the other, as I mentioned earlier, you can’t remain stubbornly wedded to your manuscript as if it was biblical scripture. When seeking feedback or when you begin the search for an agent or publisher, follow the rule of three. If three people mention one specific weakness in your manuscript – The protagonist wasn’t likeable. The plot was confusing. Your antagonist was one dimensional. — you might want to pay attention.

Dialogue: In real life, no two people speak alike, yet in books characters often speak very much like each other. Characters should never sound as if one person is writing all their lines. Give each character with dialogue some unique characteristic in their speech. For instance, have one character drop the letter g at the end of words ending in ing. Have one character end his or her lines with questions. Have a character repeat words. Think of Yoda from Star Wars. His speech is unmistakably his. The possibilities are endless. Also, avoid using adverbs in attributions. Don’t write things, “she said conspiratorially.” And don’t strain yourself to find synonyms for said, asked, or answered. Just use those words.

Voice: Voice is not dialogue. When I speak of voice I am speaking of the author’s voice. Too often new writers wed themselves to imitation of another writer’s voice. For instance, when I began writing crime fiction, I wrote too closely to Raymond Chandler. Voice is the most unique thing about you, so don’t be afraid to use it. It’s how you say it, not what you say. Why be a second rate version of someone else when you can be a first rate version of yourself?

© 2011 Reed Farrel Coleman, author of Hurt Machine

Author Bio
Reed Farrel Coleman, author of Hurt Machine, is the former executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America. He has published twelve novels — two under his pen name Tony Spinsosa — in three series, and one stand-alone with award-winning Irish author Ken Bruen. His books have been translated into seven languages.

Reed is a three-time winner of the Shamus Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year. He has also received the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards, and has been twice nominated for the Edgar® Award. He was the editor of the anthology Hard Boiled Brooklyn, and his short fiction and essays have appeared in Wall Street Noir, The Darker Mask, These Guns For Hire, Brooklyn Noir 3, Damn Near Dead, and other publications.

Reed is an adjunct professor at Hofstra University, teaching writing classes in mystery fiction and the novel. He lives with his family on Long Island.

For more information please visit http://www.reedcoleman.com/, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter

The War of Art – A Must-Read For Writers

Posted by george on October 22, 2011
Posted in: Other Stuff, Writing. Tagged: , . 8 comments

I’m seeing a Chinese Medicine doctor/acupuncturist. Not a big fan of western medicine but I’ve got some issues and so far, I like the results. One of the things that happens in each session is that we chat about how things are going in my life. In my last session I went on about how I’m stuck with  my writing. I feel I’m on the verge of something big happening, yet I feel slothy and unmotivated. My doc grinned widely and said, “I know just the thing for you. You need to read “The War of Art.” You will be impressed.

Well, that night I downloaded

and in less than a minute, I was engrossed.

The book is a relatively short read and the format has the pages flying by at a pretty good clip.

It made perfect sense from the very beginning. Seems as if the danged thing was written specifically for me!

There are three “books” here. In the first, Steven Pressfield describes the enemy. That enemy is Resistance and she is a foul temptress with unbelievable power. The second book describes methods for giving her the ol’ steel toed boot. The third book, (and the most helpful to me) concerns itself with the Muse, and how to invoke her into your writing life. For this chapter, it’s important to read the entire book before making judgement.

I’m not going to give much away because I think that as a writer and a human, you need to read it for yourself and see if it speaks to you. If you don’t want to spend the seven bucks at Amazon, go to your library and check it out.

Have any of my writing buddies read this? If so, what did you think?

NaNoWriMo Is Right Around The Corner

Posted by george on October 1, 2011
Posted in: Fiction, Writing. Tagged: . 15 comments

One month from today, thousands and thousands of writers will take part in what is arguably the triathlon of novel writing. These wingnuts are going to attempt to write an entire novel in 30 days. What’s that you say? Impossible? Any sane and rational person would think so. Nano participants do not.

Last year I gathered up with the rest of the lemmings and flung myself off the cliff. Let me tell you something: By far, hands-down, it was the coolest writing experience I have ever had. The discipline required to write 2000 words a day, every day is tremendous. The experience forever altered my view of fiction and how to write a novel. The format requires a writer to cast aside previous notions about structure, detail scrutinization, and plot outlining. NaNoWriMo is all about the words, baby. Word counts specifically. Your job is to let the words flow. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. No editing allowed. You are on a mission to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. You can revise and edit when you’re dead. Although this seems counter-intuitive it is amazingly liberating and refreshing.

For me, the writing took place every morning before my normal day started. 5am to 7am. Bam! Gitrdone. On day one, all I had were two things: A title and a list of potential characters. That’s it. No detailed outline, no plot-point graphs, no nothin’. This equated to a whole lot of freedom and at first there was too much canvas. On about the third day of writing, Story came in and took over. I was merely a channel through which the words flowed. It was incredible. My characters said and did things I had no idea they were capable of saying or doing. The story chose a path and marched right the hell down it.

I finished NaNoWriMo. Four days ahead of schedule as a matter of fact. What did I gain? Well, first and most importantly I gained a completed manuscript. Albeit one that needs a heavy dose of editing and revising but a manuscript nonetheless. There are “writers” who dilly-dally and struggle with every nuance of their book for years and don’t have a manuscript. More importantly I learned that I can write a long story, I can develop rich characters and when I devote myself to the cause, I can write like a sumbitch.

So, writers. Do yourself a big ol’ favor and sign up for NaNoWriMo this year. I guarantee you will have a blast.

Let Your Story Be

Posted by george on September 12, 2011
Posted in: Writing. 6 comments

Anyone who has written a novel length story can testify to the angst of story. We start with an idea. Maybe the idea is steeped in character. Perhaps the ending comes first and we have to back our way to the beginning. No matter how story is born, we need to face the fact that we are the parent, it is the child. And just like the parent/child relationship, there is love, guidance and hope for all things wonderful.

Often, story writers forget the finer points of having this most important relationship with their story. Like the father who relentlessly pushes their son into playing football just because they played football in their younger years, pushing the story to where it doesn’t want to go is a recipe for disaster. Trials, tribulations, disappointment all eagerly await their turn at center stage when this happens.

Like a parent, our job as a story writer is to guide the story and help it along to where it wants to go. When ownership and ego get in the way, the creative process is stifled.

When I wrote Talkeetna Trouble during last year’s NaNoWriMo event, I had an idea about the story and where I would like to see it go, but ultimately it took a different path. Not a path I would have chosen at the outset, either. In fact, with each daily progression, I became more and more surprised about where the characters were heading, what they were saying and some of the actions they took. Early on, it felt like an unseen driver poked me in the side and said, “I’ll take it from here.” I had no idea that would happen. No idea it could happen.

Actually, when I let go and let the story go the way it wanted, it was like a huge burden was lifted from my shoulders. I didn’t have to stress about what would happen next. I opened a channel and let story come roaring right on through. Now granted, sometimes story roared and sometimes it merely sauntered, but it always came through. In the end, I love where the story went.

It’s important to note something here: Story is not perfect. Much like the child in the child/parent relationship, there can be a significant amount of clean up (editing) that is required after the kid’s been left in a room full of finger paints and butcher paper. The cool thing though is that the foundation is there. The tough work has been accomplished.

Letting your story be may be one of the most difficult things you ever do as a writer. We want control. It’s our story, dammit. We need to sweat over every character nuance. We need to be on ever vigilant alert for plot holes. Our name is going on the thing and it has to be perfect!

Well, let me just end with a quote from Star Wars. (As near as I can remember it.) Princess Leia: “The tighter you squeeze your fist, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”