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Meeting Other Writers · 9 November 2024

Meeting other writers is a fun thing, especially in real life.

It is always fun to meet another writer. You can chat about things that those who think writing is crazy would never think about.

How much do you write?
When do you write?
Do you write every day?
How many books have you written?
Who is your publisher?

Questions like these can turn into long conversations. Or at least significant conversations. When I think about it, I know that there are times when I talk to people and give just one word answers to many of these questions. But when I meet another writer, I usually answer, then ask, “What about you?” It is the natural question and the conversation can continue.

I am glad that I have a colleague who is also a writer. We chat about work and we chat about writing when we get a chance. We talk about projects we are working on. We talk about writing techniques. We talk about writing tools. And of course, we talk about not being able to write as much as we want. That seems to be the case with every author who does not write as a full-time gig.

I recently met another author at a school workshop about Professional Learning Communities. Specifically, about being a teacher who is the only teacher of that particular subject. The workshop was called Singletons in a PLC: Navigating On-Ramps to Meaningful Collaboration (which is also the name of his book). Quite the mouthful, but it was a great workshop. Worth the price of admission in the first couple hours.

Photo courtesy of Brig Leane

The presenter, Brig Leane, was the co-author of the book we used, which we got to keep (also worth the price of admission). Brig regaled us with stories from his own teaching career. He told us stories of other people having success too. Not necessarily just because of his work with them, but it could be inferred that his assistance certainly helped them. After all, he was an expert practitioner of what he was teaching us. And his presentation and teaching style gave us all hope. But more than that, Brig gave us concrete things to do when we were done with the workshop.

(By the way, you cannot just teach a lesson and hope the kids will learn. Brig even said that hope is not a teaching technique.)

Our group of educators invited Brig to dinner after the first night and he accepted. We had a great time chatting about the food and life and work. Then, Brig and I started talking about writing. We talked about publishing and self-publishing mostly. And he even asked me to point out my Amazon page. It was a great conversation.

I am thankful that I had even a short conversation about writing with Brig Leane. We are both passionate about teaching and writing, so we had much to talk about. We also talked about weightier issues like the condition of the heart and soul. I am so glad that he took us up on our offer to share a meal. And I am glad I had such a great opportunity to meet another author in real life. It is always such fun.

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Sometimes Writing Is a Chore · 2 November 2024

I do not often feel so, but sometimes writing is a chore.

I love to write.
I love to rhyme.
But writing is a chore.
At least some of the time.

Like any job or career or lifestyle, writing is full of joy and pain. It is a job and it is a joy. And like any job, there are good and bad things about it. Even if you love it.

One of the things I hate about writing is preparing to publish. Getting things ready for the world is not always an easy task. Sure, blogging is easy. Just throw stuff out there and see what sticks. Anybody can do that. At least that is what I think sometimes. Then, there are other times when I know I am throwing poop out there, but do not have anything better. Ah, the joy of a publishing deadline. (Even self-imposed.)

As much as I sometimes dread the deadline of publishing my blog, publishing a book is even worse. At least if you want anybody to know about it.

I published my first works of fiction on Amazon as digital books only. I might have sold ten books in the several years since I first published. The worst part about that is that I have more than ten different titles out there for sale. And being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided that I ought to publish the books in print. I got the first of my books ready.

(When I first started writing this blog post a bunch of years ago, I did not have as many tools as I do now. Some of them were not even in existence yet. And I did not know about some of the nuances of publishing with Amazon. So in reality, I am glad that I did not post the original form of this post way back when.)

At any rate.

Nowadays, Amazon has made it simple to publish print-on-demand books. You just choose what size of book you want, choose the paper you want, upload the cover, upload a pdf of your book, and voilà! You have a book ready for people to order and have in their hot little hands.

That is all well and good, but what about getting those books ready for Amazon?

I already posted a piece about my preferred software called Atticus. Atticus is actually really a service on a website where you format your books. At least that is what I do. I write my book in Word, edit it, then format it in Atticus. When I am satisfied, I save a PDF and upload it to Amazon. As long as I have the cover done, I have a book ready to go. Woo hoo! Another piece of drivel is out there on Amazon ready to be read by… Well. I have another book ready to sit on my digital shelf on Amazon. Still, even if nobody reads those books, they are out there ready to go.

My process is pretty streamlined now. I write my book. I edit my book. I format my book for both print and digital. I create a cover. I upload all the material. I use the Amazon ISBN. I set my price and do all the other stuff that Amazon requires. Then I wait. Usually, just for a day or two. Then, my book is ready. Ready to fly off the digital shelf into people’s e-readers or into people’s hands. Maybe publishing is not much of a chore after all.

I know I started out saying that sometimes writing is a chore, and sometimes it is, but mostly it is not.

I love to write.
I love to rhyme.
Writing is not a chore.
At least most of the time.

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Formerly Known as… · 26 October 2024

There are reasons for being formerly known as, but I cannot think of one for X.com.

Back in the day, women who got married would have a designation “née” and then their former last name. Like Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis (née Bouvier). It was a nice custom used so that people would know what a married person’s name used to be. It kept the ties to the past.

Nowadays people do not necessarily change their names when they get married. Which works for some people and not for others. There are also those who change their names for any number of reasons. Maybe several times. Which got me thinking…

I was never really a Prince fan, but it was interesting when he changed his name from Prince to the The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Prince was always catchy and you knew who people were talking about. Purple Rain. Little Red Corvette. That Prince. So it was a bit comical to me when he changed his name. The Artist Formerly Known As Prince was still all about Purple Rain. And purple in general. He just had a new name. I am not sure that I ever called him The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, but I knew who people were talking about when they used, “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince” in a sentence.

I never really knew why The Artist Formerly Known As Prince changed his name (or whether he changed his name back) nor did I ever really wonder that much. But I do think it curious that X.com, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, changed its name.

I cannot get used to the new name for Twitter. I even still type Twitter into my browser when going there each morning. Of course, my browser changes my T into Twitter right away so that all I do is type the T and away I go to X.com. Just one letter gets me to my destination. And maybe that is why X changed its name. After all, I doubt there are many websites starting with X. Still, even though I type in a T to get to X, it is a tough change to take. In more ways than one.

Think about it. If you post on X, are you Xing? And if you are Xing, does that mean you are crossing. I mean think about all those Ped Xing signs. Or Duck Xing or Deer Xing or Moose Xing signs out there. Does that mean that all those pedestrians and ducks and deer and moose are actually posting on social media? Or are they just crossing the road and you as a driver ought to watch out. So maybe people are not Xing when they post on X.

Or people might be confused about Xing because Xing is also when you delete something. You X something out. Or people might think you are verbing a noun and breaking up with somebody. You are Xing somebody out of your life. Or maybe…

I suppose that if you are not Xing when you post on X, you must still be tweeting? But that does not make much sense either. Why would you tweet on X? X and tweet do not have any letters in common. Xs do not tweet. They might have conflicts with Os, but what does sports have to do with X?

Okay. This is getting more nonsensical by the letter. When will the insanity stop?

I do not know why Twitter changed to X. I do not know if you still tweet on X. I do not know when the insanity of name changing websites will stop. What I do know is that I cannot think of Twitter as X. So maybe I will just refer to X.com as The Social Media Platform Formerly Known As Twitter. That might even make a good domain name. TheSocialMediaPlatformFormerlyKnownAsTwitter.com. In fact, it would be wonderful because I would still be able to just type in a T and get there. At least after a few times.

I suppose there are good reasons for any name change, but I cannot think of one for X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.