Kindle-ing

I bought a Kindle this week. It wasn't something I was planning on doing for a while, but circumstances dictated the timing. OK, so it wasn't that critical, but I was able to rationalize it. I bought Brandon Sanderson's new book, The Way of Kings. It arrived last week and when I opened the box, my heart sank. This book is HUGE. My plan was to take it with my on my trip to Germany. Me and 12 hour plane rides don't get along well and a really good book helps ever so much. But this book, well, it was HUGE, I'm not sure it could be classified as a carry-on; it's more like check baggage.

So, what's a man to do? Well, buy a Kindle of course. So, I ordered one from Amazon. One of the good things about living in the PNW, is that Amazon shipments usually get to my house in a day or two even if I pick the free super saver shipping. I checked my order status yesterday and my Kindle was sitting wedged between my screen door and my pathetically dirty front door at my house. I was stuck at work until after 7pm. It was really frustrating.

When I finally got home, I forced myself to go change into my comfy house clothes and then tore into the box. The first thing I noticed is that they had one of those peal-off screen protectors on the front. I carefully pealed it off. But the image on the screen was still there. Eh? I felt around for another peal off screen protector that had the image on it, but there was nothing there. Then I thought the unit had been on when it was shipped. Nope. That's just the way the screen works.

The Kindle screen does not work like a computer or cell phone screen. It only takes power to change the text or image on the screen, then it's basically like paper. I like to think of it as an Etch-a-Sketch. The screen draws what it needs to draw and once it's done, that image is there forever without needing any more power to stay there. Cool! It's the reason the Kindle can claim the 30 day battery life. It only uses power when you flip pages while reading, basically. There is no backlight or anything like that so, like a real book, you have to have some form of external light to use it. The WiFi will eat up power if you leave it on, but you can easily turn it off when you don't need it.

Every time the Kindle is turned off, a new image is drawn on the screen. Right now, I have a picture of Alexandre Dumas staring at me. Earlier it was Mark Twain and after him was Agatha Christie. The "screen saver" image is chosen by the device and is mostly literary figures and often book covers. It's all in black and white, but the most impressive thing is that these images look just like a printed photo or drawing. I must have turned the unit on then off again a dozen times just to see what new image would come up. Very cool.

I've only read about 30 pages with it so far, so I'm not ready to make a full evaluation of it. So far, I like it. It is easy to use and Amazon makes it very easy to download books -- maybe too easy. When you select a book to view in the store, the BUY button is highlighted. If you mash the enter button on the keypad, you've just bought the book. There's no "are you sure" prompt, or any other confirmation. You've just bought the book. It's more dangerous because in order to navigate away from the BUY button, you have to use the tiny arrow keys that surround the enter button. Place your thumbnail a little wrong, and you've just bought a book. Amazon should really fix this. It's unfair to expect a person to buy a book with one button press with no confirmation prompt.

So, I'll update the blog later on when I've had a chance to read a few books on the Kindle. I'll have ample time on those two 12 hours flight legs on the trip to Cologne.

Getting Started -- you must start before you can get lost.

I am new to the world of writing. I've been a reader all my life, but that doesn't make one qualified to be a writer. I'm finding it a difficult world with many traps and perils. OK, not really, but writing isn't easy.

The majority of people in the world can read and most of them can write. So, writing is one of those low barriers to entry markets, right? Well, no. Sure, anybody can pound out some words that might happen to form a coherent sentence, but that doesn't make them a writer. It only makes them human. I'm not yet sure I can hack it as a writer, but that's what I'm aiming for.

I write fiction. My favorite form of fiction is Fantasy and Science Fiction so that is what I am writing. I've written a few short peices that are more literature oriented, but that's not really where my passion is. I have two ideas that I'm currently working on. One is pretty complex and requires a lot of world building, complex political machinations, cultural diversity, and of course swords and magic. So, it's a tough one to start on. I've written about 70k words on it so far but I'm afraid most of it won't be usable. That's OK, it's a learning process. The second idea is much more simple and easier to develop. I'm excited about it. Not because it is original, it's not. But I like the idea, I like the characters and I think I can actually tell the whole story.

The purpose of this blog is not to extole my virtues as a writer, nor is it to arrogantly try to promote myself. It is also not a blog about teaching you how to write. So many writers have their own blogs where they try to teach people how to write. Some of them are excellent. Most of them are pretty dull and proves that one can be a great writer, but a lousy teacher. No, what I'm aiming for here is simply to post what interests me and to possibly point out things from the writing world that are worthy of some consideration. I'll rant, I'll opine, and sometimes I'll even make sense. But I am no expert and I reserve the right to contradict myself at will.

I doubt I'll post here regularly, but we'll see. I might enjoy it.

I hope, if you are reading this, that you get something of value out of it.

Eric