My new writing gadget

I totally forgot to mention that I bought a new writing gadget which my father-in-law brought over for me when he visited us around a month ago. It's an Alphasmart Neo 2, and I love it. I saw an ad for it a little while back, and immediately I was impressed with the possibility of owning a device that did nothing but write. I was able to snag one off eBay for a fraction of its already low price, and I have to say after using it for a while, I'm pretty impressed. It has one of the best keyboards I've ever typed on, has incredible battery life (about 700 hours on 3 AAs), and is quick and easy to start up. I can also easily transfer files to my laptop via its USB cable and store eight different text files in its huge memory (huge for text files, that is).

The best thing about it is, though: no distractions. I can write and write and I literally can't check my email or see what's going on in the world via Google News or play any kind of game, etc, etc. I'm forced to simply be creative with a simple machine in front of me, and it's just amazing how my writing output has just shot through the ceiling. And before you ask, it's much faster than a pen and paper, plus it saves me the step of typing in what I write.

I'm completely hooked on this little machine, as retro as it is, and I seriously doubt I'll be using any other text composing device for a long time to come.

Bird by Bird

Once more, I've got a large project in front of me, and I'm pulling out the wonderful advice of one of my mentors and doing it "bird by bird." In Anne Lamott's book "Bird by Bird," (one of my all-time favorite writing books, by the way), she mentions her brother having to do a large science report which involved him writing paragraphs on dozens of bird species. He procrastinated on the report and ended up at a table a day or two before it was due, all of the information spread out around him, in panic and tears. And then his father came up to him, patted his shoulder, and said, "Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Bird by bird."

And that's the way I'm doing this. I've got reams of information, and thousands of words ahead of me to write. But I can't think about that, or I'll hyperventilate. I've just got to take the single paragraph in front of me, the single sentence.

And do it all bird by bird.

New Book Contract Signed

Well, I signed it and sent it off, so it's official. For the next few months, I'm going to be writing a book for Mango Street Books, a publisher located in Jordan. They're putting out the Amman edition of the book "At Home in Beirut," and it should be published around the beginning of next year, I think.

Naturally, I'll be posting a link when it appears on Amazon.

Media Fast

I'm going on a bit of a media fast. Among other things, it means that I won't be spending as much time fritzing around on Facebook or Google News or even Wikipedia as much. 

My hoped-for benefits? Without constant distraction, I'm hoping that my heart will get more sensitive, that my hunger for God's presence will increase, that I'll be able to hear his voice that much better. 

Other desired side benefits include an increased focus on the things that really matter to me, including my family, my friends, and of course, my writing. 

Look for my blog posts here to increase some, particularly as I up the level of writing output. 

Last chapter...

I'm down to the last chapter on my current book project (which I'm ghostwriting with another author). I hope to get the bulk of the remaining chapter banged out this weekend. At the moment, I'm waiting to hear from the publisher on a couple of detail-y things, so we'll see how things are going to pan out. As far as I know, though, once I get the go-ahead from the publisher, then we'll enter the editing phase and get the project published before the fall (God willing).

Another book deal in the works...

I've been asked by a local publishing contact to write another non-fiction book starting in July. I don't have the contract yet, so of course there's the slight possibility that it might not happen, but it looks like it probably will. I met with my contact last week and at least verbally (and in email exchanges) it looks like it's going to happen. I'll post more details when I've got the contract for sure. 

First Draft of "Day Off" finished

I've finished my first draft of the robots story. I'm still working out a couple of details, but I'm pretty much satisfied with how it came out. I'll be working on the "up" draft (or second draft) now, and then it'll be ready to send around to my readers. 

It's sort of an unusual story for me in that it came in under 3,000 words on the first draft. It'll end up weighing in around 3,000 words max, I think, as I don't intend to add a lot of material. It's probably the shortest story that I've done which wasn't flash fiction to start with. Yet it feels complete as it stands. Actually, the length will probably make it easier to sell, as editors like stories that enable them to squeeze just a bit more into a particular magazine issue. We'll see.