Please Don’t Feed the Writer

If you are planning to travel this holiday season to visit family or friends out of town, you’re probably going to want Hotel Reservations. You can always stay with family, but I personally need to be able to go unwind in my own room so that I have time to spend with just my wife and son. Otherwise the trip feels overcrowded, and I need a vacation from my vacation when I get back.

I’ve tried a lot of online sites to get the best deal on rooms, cars and other travel related necessities, and for my money, HotelReservations.com comes in above most of the big guys, especially if you’re going someplace off the beaten path like I do. (more…)

Just Three days to the NaNo kickoff. do you have your widgets?

Widgets can help keep you, and your friends, motivated throughout the process. They’re usually simple to add to your blog, especially if you’re using WordPress. NaNo widgets come in a variety of forms, from exceedingly simple to insanely complex programming masterpieces.

Here’s a quick list of the plugins and widgets I’ve been able to find today.

• NaNoWrimo pac-man tracker (WordPress Plugin)
• Writertopia’s Progerss meters (All Platforms) very simple progress meter with good instructions
• NaNo Progress meter plugin for Firefox (Firefox Web Browser) Displays aword count meter in the status bar ofthe Mozilla Firefox browser.
• NaNoWriMo Word Meter (All Platforms) Simple graphical meter you can add to your blog
• NaNoWrimo Widget For Windows Vista (Ummm, Winders Vista)  I don’t know about this one, as I refuse to give Mr’s. Gates and Balmer any more of my hard-earned-money for yet another new OS.

There are probably many more available.  I even found a KDE desktop widget (Nice if you’re running Linux like I am), but I couldn’t manage to get it to work and no instructions for doing so were provided.

There used to be many more widgets available, but unfortunately they are usually terminated due to bandwidth costs very early in their lifespan.  Who knows, I may write one for next year’s NaNo just to see how hard my server gets slammed.

Until next time, dear readers…

You know the one. That sinking feeling you get when the power goes out and you realize your laptop battery hasn’t been charging as it should be. It’s a feeling that usually accompanies a loss of hours of work, a thousand ideas, and unrecoverable plotline.

Laptop Batteries get old and go bad. It’s just a fact of life, and there is always the chance that the manufacturer is out of a particular battery or accessory. I’ll be looking to allbats.com if I can’t grab a battery for my wife’s Presario V2000 laptop from Compaq. They take payments through Google Checkout, so you know it’s secure, and you’re sure to find the battery you need in their online store.

National Novel Writing month is only eight days away. Are you ready? Do you have your brain food stocks up to the necessary level? Cheese nips, Doritos, pretzels, chips or whatever it is that you snack on while writing, there should be a stack of ‘em next to your desk by now.

How about beverages?  For me it’s easy.  I just move the coffee maker to a small table beside my desk and I’m good to go.  If you’re the soda or Mountain Dew type, you might want to go out and buy a small cooler and a few bags of ice.  Anything that makes you get up from your writing can kill your daily word count.

30 fevered days of writing with a goal of 50,000 words, that’s what we’re shooting for here.  Will I see your name on the list?

Staying positive can be a challenge for anyone, and for a writer it can mean a make or break day for your career. For an author in the middle of a plot emergency, or staring at a tight deadline it can mean the difference between finishing a project or going over, neither of which is a good thing.

There are many ways to keep your attitude from dipping into the negative arena. For me the answer is usually some upbeat music, a good cup of coffee and a 10 minute diversion. If you’re not the musical type, perhaps it’s some really good chocolate or a crisp chardonnay. Whatever the method, if it works for you, work it!

I just read a post by “The Optimist” over at http://ProBlogs.com that covers a different approach to keeping a positive attitude. The writer here is a fan of motivational reading to keep upbeat, specifically works by Napoleon Hill, author of “the Law of Success” and “Think and Grow Rich”. I’ve heard of the second book, but haven’t gone through the first. If it sounds like it could work for you, I recommend giving it a read, or stopping by and checking out all the posts by the Optomist at problogs.com.

The venerable Sci-Fi author Ursula K. LeGuin has posted an Open Letter against piracy and copyright infringement. The original letter can be viewed here, but as Miss le Guin has kindly specified that her text may be reprinted, I’ll post it here, then comment on it.

SFWA, Piracy, and Serious Literature — An Open Letter

I’d like to correct some misapprehensions about Cory Doctorow’s unauthorized posting of my short comic piece “On Serious Literature” on his boingboing.net site.

I originally sent the piece to David Langford for Ansible, because that’s where I first saw the quote from Ruth Franklin that the piece riffs on. I also put it on my web site. (It’s still there.) Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle then reprinted it entire in the Chronicle, without asking permission. My agent Vaughne Hansen and I immediately demanded an apology from Carroll, and immediately got one. Harper’s asked to publish it, offering me $200.00, which I accepted (I love gravy.)

I then discovered that Doctorow had put it on his web site, without asking permission and without observing copyright, misrepresenting its purpose, and falsely claiming that it was under license by “Creative Commons” so that anyone could copy it.

My agent and I had just decided to ask the e-piracy committe of SFWA, which I had come to count on in similar situations, to intervene on my behalf — when we found that the committee had suddenly been dissolved, following complaints about unauthorized interference, issuing from Cory Doctorow.

The irony of this situation is fairly visible. While Doctorow was making a huge fuss over an honest mistake, which when discovered was immediately redressed, he was publishing another writer’s work without asking permission and in clear violation of copyright.

With my consent, Andrew Burt exposed Doctorow’s piracy in a letter printed on Jerry Pournelle’s web site. Doctorow scoffed, blustered, made no apology to me for misidentifying my work and using it without permission, and behaved as if his action was legitimate, although the Fair Use exception explicitly does not cover reprinting an entire article or poem no matter how short. But he took part of the piece off his site.

At the request of Michael Capobianco, President of SFWA, acting on my behalf, Doctorow has now finally removed the entire piece.

He has not apologised either to me for using my piece without permission, or to the people he misled with his pretense of a “Creative Commons License” into thinking they could reprint a copyrighted piece without violating the law. Nor has he offered to help them remove these many additional copies.

But, thanks to SFWA, he has taken the piece down. My agent is writing to request him to redress some of the other matters. I hope then to be done for good with Mr Doctorow. What I remain upset about is the confusion and destruction he seems to have effected within SFWA.

An overworked committee mistakenly identified a few works, among many, as infringing copyright; the mistakes were promptly admitted and redressed, with apologies; and President Capobianco invited any other parties who thought themselves wronged to contact him. Where is the cause in all this for dissolving a committee which has worked with extraordinary effectiveness to redress real wrongs?

In my view, the best thing that could come out of my brush with the Doctorow Doctrine would be this: the honorable reinstatement of the SFWA e-piracy committee, with an expression of appreciation from SFWA officers and members of the honest and effective work they have done for us for so long.

This letter is not copyrighted and may be excerpted or copied entire.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

October 12 2007

First, let me say I would like to applaud Ursula for her response and for her actions. I would also like to thank her for making this piece a publicly available work, so that all writers can have access to it, and so that bloggers like myself can help spread the word about copyright infringement.

It is not ever a good idea to reprint someone else’s work without permission! At worst, it’s a violation of copyright. No matter what the result, it’s just plain rude.

If you visit Ursula’s site, you will see the posted update. Apparently Mr. Doctorow did finally apologize publicly to Miss Le Guin. All I have to say is…

What took you so long?

Many writers decide to incorporate after they have reached a certain level of income. The decision to incorporate is usually made because it can lead to a rather significant tax break, especially for a writer that earns over 100,000 per year. It also allows for the writer to draw a steady paycheck from their own income, because once incorporated, you earn a monthly salary, which is paid out by the corporation (you), to the employees of that corporation (you). Your taxes are also handled by the corporation, and depending on the benefits and other perks that the corporation (you) pays you and other factors, you may end up paying considerably less in taxes at the end of the year.

What many people don’t know is that when your corporation is first set up, you must hold a meeting of the board of directors and shareholders, even if all of these people are just you, yourself and you. You need to adopt bylaws, or if starting a L.L.C, an operating agreement. You must hold regular meetings of the board of directors with written minutes for each meeting, even if you are the only person in attendance. The I.R.S. may request these documents if you are ever audited and failure to produce them can have disastrous results.

There is a lot you need to know when starting a corporation. Luckily, there is an online resource that offers both free forms and a service that will provide prepared documents for a very reasonable $25.00 fee. You’ll also need to get a tax id number. If all of this is confusing to you, you may want to check out the differences between a corporation and a L.L.C., or simply order a corporate starter kit, which includes all the documentation and help you’ll need.

The company I’ve linked to is a Nevada corporation, but they offer services to help you become incorporated in all 50 states. If you’ve thought about it, check them out, but remember, incorporating is a huge step, and you may wish to consult a financial consultant or tax attorney before making any decision of this magnitude.

For those who have been visiting for a while, you’ll notice that things have changed a bit around here.  The theme I’ve used since this site’s inception was feeling a bit dated andit was time for a change.  I hope you apreciate the difference.

I’ll be working to get the theme updated a bit moreover the next few weeks, but for now, it’s a breath of fresh air for me.  I designed the original theme in what I called my “Green period”.  It seems everything I made at the time was in a pale green.  It was a phase I suppose, but that time has passed, and we’re on to bigger and better things.

Have a great day!

Let’s say you’ve managed to make a living writing. Let’s say it’s a good living. Now that you have a steady and higher than necessary income, what do you do with the overflow? You can go buy that Ferrari you’ve always wanted. maybe the beach house in <fill in the blank here>, or perhaps you should consider actually turning your talents into a business and earning an income that will take you into the future.If you’re a successful writer in the New York area, you might be interested in The Wealth Expo Exhibition and Seminars, a three day conference featuring keynote speakers from all sectors of the financial market. This seminar is the premier event investors need to attend to grow their wealth. And that, my dear friends, is the key to growing old comfortably.

The event includes a seminar titled “Making Money in the Markets Is Not That Difficult-We Will Show You How” that I would not mind attending. To be honest, the market baffles me, and anyone who can clear that up is someone I’d enjoy listening to for a bit. My father never was able to give me enough information to get a grip on it, though he’s done pretty well himself.

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I’ve seen it on more than one discussion forum and heard it mentioned in coffee shops I frequent. People, especially freelance writers or journalists are quick to condemn bloggers. the battle cry is that “bloggers are not writers!”

Please, people, get real.

I am a blogger. Today I wrote, spell checked, grammar checked and published over 3,000 words. Those words are not rushing off to an editor, they are not sitting in a slush pile somewhere. Those words have already been seen, and comments have been made on them.

Perhaps there are writing purists that believe that bloggers are less talented, or that we, for some reason, do not live up to their standards. but I wholeheartedly and with great vigor refute the claim that we are not writers. many of us are quite prolific. some write consistently more in one day than the greatest of novelists.

We write. It’s our identity. Please step off of your soapbox now, an I shall step off mine.