Tales of The Lobster Boy

Thursday

iCha-Ching™ -- How Gambling and Games Are Changing Your Life

Today I'm beginning to prepare my afternoon keynote for the iPad Entertainment Summit hosted by C21 at BAFTA, 28 November in London.

Sweet!

Word of the day: sorrell-esque

If you follow that link, you'll find a description for the keynote I gave nearly three years ago at the first iPad Entertainment Summit (working on updating that). I'm reminded how far we've come with tablets in very little time.

That talk was about indies. This talk will be about Free!!!™.

As I said at The Children's Media Conference, 15 years ago we worried interactions would disrupt narrative flow. Now we worry the same over entering credit card details.

What a long way we've come.

I'm writing a new book, iCha-Ching -- How Gambling and Games Are Changing Everything (yes, just letting you know it's trademarked and URL'd). The iPad Entertainment Summit will be the first time I air any of the material.

Come along if you dare.

Wednesday

Best digital tools for writers #writetip

If you follow my blog, you know I’m no stranger to digital. At the risk of confessing age, I’ve been making work with computers since 1984. Jeepers.

Despite that my writing process has been fairly analogue. Make notes in a notebook, write and review the text in Word -- digital yes, but a glorified typewriter at the end of the day.

The last couple of years, this has changed. I now blog, write fiction, children’s, scripts and books. And the tools have changed.

Here are a few of my favorite digital tools:

Scrivener

Scrivener is the best tool a writer can acquire. Any system based on a corkboard / index card system should make it possible to write your work in chunks, then rearrange text on the fly. Scrivener adds more.

Each index card can contain text, photos, videos, web links and a number of other research references. Cards can be organized into folders. Saving is automatic and instantaneous. And when you’re done, press “compile”, detail the format of your output, and spit out a book. No Word required.

And it outputs ePub.

Self Control

Self control does one thing -- shuts off all your favorite websites for a given amount of time. Once started, it can’t be stopped. You can reboot your computer, and it won’t make any difference. As a writer, you know how important this is.

Visual Thesaurus 3

I’m old school. I love Roget’s -- the process, the index numbers, the wafer-thin pages. Visual Thesaurus’ spider’s web-like navigation made that all go away.

Dramatica Pro

I hate this software. It’s clunky, complicated, looks like it was developed in 1995, and won’t run on OSX Lion. The developers seem to have gone AWOL (and seem to have some conflict going on, although it's hard to tell through the nets). Yet it’s the only software that will walk you through the Dramatica methodology for plot development. And that is invaluable. I use it to begin the plotting of every story I write. But please, developers, if you’re reading -- code a new version.

Google Earth

Finally, when I write fiction, Google Earth is usually running in the background. A derelict building in Selma, Alabama. The main road in Gibsonton, Florida. The route from St. Louis to Atlanta, and what the scenery looks like from the highway. They’re all in Google Earth. (And, try to ignore the horrible music in this video.)

Sunday

Best writer's nook ever

Saturday

Meet Nelson, Coupland and Alice

There are likely more hit-the-nail-on-the-head ideas about the future of the book in this five minute video than you'll find at any book or ebook conference over the next wee while. I particularly like Alice, but only because it mirrors my story-telling practice of the last few years.

Tales of The Lobster Boy on Facebook

My first novel, Tales of The Lobster Boy, is now a serialized novel on Facebook.

I'd like to say it's the first one, but it's very hard to know. Years ago, Penguin said they were serializing a novel, but to my knowledge, no blogger has been able to find it. What I can say is this: many novels have been part serialized there (there? Where are you when you're on the internet?).

This is one of (and maybe the) first to be completely serialized amongst the blue-shaded friends and followers.

As it has just launched, there's no URL, but search "Tales of The Lobster Boy", and you'll land in the right place. I'm 12 "likes" short of a unique URL, so give it a like.

And, I'll post later on how Facebook pages are so hard to navigate, and why it is in Facebook's best interest to make it difficult to become a Friend of a page.