This is now my new favorite animated short. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore has been nominated for an Oscar for best animated short film. It’s got my vote. Must watch!

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

In our last episode, I linked to a very interesting comparison of ebooks vs print on theVerge.com. Today I’d like to direct your attention to another article, this one calling for peace and harmony between the rabid packs of ebook or print book fans.

No More E-Books Vs. Print Books Arguments, OK?

This article comes courtesy of Jonathan Segura at NPR. (more…)

There is an excellent article over on theVerge.com comparing the technology of eBooks against print. I highly recommend you check it out.  The article author Dieter Bohn makes some really good points.

One of my favorite points was on the longevity of books versus disintegrating computer disks and short-lived formats of the computer age (anyone open a .wpd document lately?).  The very ephemeral nature of ebooks is a serious shortcoming.  They are virtual.  By definition, they do not really exist.  Not in and of themselves.  They depend for their very being on the computers that they’re stored on, and the formats the computers use to do so.  If something happens to those computers, the books are lost.

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Here are a couple of cool videos worth sharing:
 

Books video courtesy of the Twitter.

Typewriter video is from Poets and Writers.

Let’s say the worst has happened.  Your computer operating system has broken (probably why they called it ‘windows’…get it?), whether from a virus or corrupt system file, power surge or some other in a long list of reasons.  You’ve had to restore it to factory settings.

You didn’t have a backup.  Or your backup got destroyed also by clever hackers or Tom Cruise.  Now all your photos, documents, and–most importantly–that novel you’ve been working on for two and a half years, are all…gone.  Leaving you pounding the ground and cursing the heavens while the skeletal remains of the Statue of Liberty stare down at you from above. (more…)

Well, speaking of a bad time to blog, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks.

Last time I mentioned there was another reason why I’ve been letting the blog slip.  A few days later my wife went into labor.

Yep, in addition to moving to Colorado we’ve also been getting ready for the arrival of our baby boy.  And by December 7, our new little boy decided that he had waited long enough to greet the World.

So we got our Christmas present early this year, and the past couple weeks have been spent in a time-deprivation haze–like something from an episode of Star Trek–as we’ve been in a continuous cycle of napping and feeding. Everything sort of blends together after a while.

I get parental leave at my company for about a week, and I’ve stacked some vacation behind that so that I’m able to stay home and enjoy this fresh time with the family.

I’ve even managed to get a little bit of writing done at night during the baby’s feeding times.

I’ll try and keep the blog a little more updated from now on.  Although as I say that we’ve got family coming over the next few weeks to visit with the new addition.

Well, it’s been a busy couple of months.  Heck of a time to start a blog.  I figure it’s time to catch up.  So, I’ll start with the Rocky Mountains and our new closer relationship to them.

We had been living in Phoenix for the last couple of years, having moved down there for my job.  The biggest problem I have with Phoenix is the weather.  There is none.

For those who haven’t been there, I should say that it’s not 100+ degrees all year round.  There is only about two months or so in the middle of Summer when it’s that hot.  The rest of the year, the temperature is basically hovering in the middle of nowhere.  It’s not hot.  It’s not cold.  And the air doesn’t move.  No wind, no breeze.  So it just ends up feeling…meh. (more…)

It all started with Hemmingway.

A few years ago my Mother-in-law gave me a typewriter for Christmas.  She knew I had studied scriptwriting in college and had wanted to be a writer years ago.  And a few months before I had made some admiring remarks upon finding an typewriter stashed away somewhere, although it was electric.

She did her research.  She Googled and Yahoo’d typewriters and found the ones that were known for being good writing machines.  She wanted to find one that was not only a good ‘writer’s machine’, but looked classy.

She settled on the Royal Quiet Deluxe because not only was it a good looking machine, but Hemmingway famously  swore by Royal portables.  She found a beautiful black and chrome Royal Quiet Deluxe from 1947 in an antique store. (more…)

Well you’ve heard by now.  Of course you have.  The Muggle world is being invaded over the interwebs by Pottermore.

It’s been a long time coming, and J. K. Rowling has certainly built up a lot of suspense from some people wondering when she would ever publish her wildly successful Harry Potter novels.  Well, the answer is now.  Or rather, soon.

The bigger news though among the people concerned with the publishing industry though, causing wailing and gnashing of teeth in some cases, is that she is releasing the e-books on her own, without a publisher.  It’s all being integrated into an interactive web experience that’ll be released upon the masses this fall.

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To be clear, I have wanted to be a writer for a long time.  Back even to when I was in grade school.  I ended up majoring in scriptwriting in college, and even was a finalist in a one-act play competition.

Since then, I’ve done a lot of various things: photography, driving a truck, marketing, eventually my current job as a computer programmer.  The one thing I have not managed to do in all these careers is write.

In the last year, though, I have started picking up the pencil again, and getting the kinks out of the literary muscles.  I have come to find again how much I love to write, and have decided that I need to just go for it, and finally dedicate myself to the career I want to have.

Having done my warm-up laps, I took a look around at the writing world today, and I realized that I probably couldn’t have picked a more confusing time to try and jump in. (more…)