Writing group 20150531

Patrick Ball. Cursed be his name and his children. No, that’s wrong. He’s fine. Cursed be Christina and all of her name. No, that’s wrong. I’m inept. Like so many other times, I missed all the red flags. Well, I didn’t miss them so much as purposefully ignore them. Well, I didn’t so much ignore …

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Memorial Day 2015 and rolling a natural 1

I’ve cried so much lately, and I don’t know why. At least, that's what I tell my wife while I'm crying, that I don't know why. I might know why. We might know why. Our most recent move and everything that has accompanied it has entirely overwhelmed me. ** There was a point at very early in my …

Christina, a terror deep in my heart

The way that I met Christina was a total fluke, like most of the best things in life are. Sometime in the fall first semester of my sophomore year at Baylor Jennie and I had just broken up, but she was committed to remaining friends (she was still a freshman, and I was her best …

Snapshot: Ashley and I looking something like adults, circa 2014

We're looking at Rego Park/Forest Hills/Kew Gardens in Queens, which is one extended neighborhood with Forest Hills definitely being the Queen Bee of the bunch, and at Prospect Park South/Flatbush - Ditmas Park in Brooklyn. For context, because I felt inspired to write it, and inspiration comes slim these tired days: Recently, Ashley and I …

How to edit Word attachments from Gmail in Google Drive

I'm a Google advocate. I love Android and Gapps. I love Samsung devices, and ripping off their OEM Android and sideloading custom ROMs. (Here's looking at you, Carbon!) But there's one thing I really need Google to get right where they've been letting me down, and that's content drafting. I've briefly written about it before, …

Why anyone can succeed at publishing, or why publishing is failing

Just an abstract scenario, because I don't want to get anyone (or myself) in trouble: Publisher owns print rights to backlist title. Publisher does not promote said title, resting on the title either selling well on its own or rotting. Publisher has first dibs at electronic rights, fumbles them with a bad offer. Other publisher …

Amazon.com: Tags Customers Associate with This Product

The “tags” that appear on Amazon product pages are user-generated tags and can be as helpful or spiteful as any user comment. Publishers and individual authors have no control over what tags customers associate with any given product. The best practice one can do, if one is so inclined, is to navigate to the “Tags …

The fate of indices in an ebook world

Indices are a problem across ebooks. Page numbers are no longer relevant in a digital space, which in itself makes 90% of an index immediately useless. To address this problem in books with simple indices (one page reference per item), publishers sometimes delete the page number and attempt to link the item to its corresponding …

Thoughts on the 99%: A little narrative about overthrow

Occupy Wall Street is happening in my back yard. I've been down to offer a warm body and moral support a few times, but I'm not what I'd call involved in the movement. I post news stories and pictures to Facebook and sometimes Twitter, trying to help get the word out, but I'm pretty sure …

YM&S: Professional ambitions, part 1 part 2 – Publishers Lunch

When I first got on to Twitter about 3 years ago, I made a comment about some business and how their product was disappointing me. That business responded to me personally and publicly, asking me what they could do to improve. There are a number of ways any given person could respond to this—what I …