The down side of Kindle? Well, there are probably a few, but one is that you can no longer flash the cover of the intellectual book you’re reading so others at the cafe around you will be impressed.
Problem solved: get the new shouting Kindle! It repeatedly shouts the title of the book you’re reading.
I, for one, haven’t given in to buying an electronic reader. It’s not that I’m against the idea of them. I just can’t picture myself taking pleasure from curling up around an electronic device. But then, I wasn’t the first in my crowd to get a cell phone, and I also dragged my feet about getting a smart phone (and let me tell you, I love my smart phone now).
But there is something about a real book—the feel, the smell, the thickness—that I find as comforting as hot chocolate.
How about you? Do you prefer a Kindle over paper pages? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
You can also check out the thoughts of some of my colleagues on the subject: “Real” Books and Why We Love Them, by Suzanne Mantell, and Kindle: Friend or Foe, three articles by three other colleagues, Deborah A. Lott, Kristin Loberg, and Laura Golden Bellotti.
British artist Jaz Parkinson has created an image for each book based on the tally of times the author has mentioned various colors. Check out what some famous books look like in colors:
What Your Favorite Book Looks Like in Colors | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine.
The face of publishing is changing, but what is it changing to? And what does it mean for writers and their readers? My colleague Beth Lieberman takes a closer look in her new article, just up on our L.A. Editors and Writers web site: Publishing Convergence: What It Is and What It Means for Us All.
If you have a question about writing, and you think the answer might benefit others as well, please send me an email at Nomi.theWriteCoach(at)gmail.com, and I’ll set to work on a blog post that answers your question. (It’ll be kind of like you’re giving me a writing prompt and benefiting from what I come up with!) If I don’t know the answer, I’ll do my best to find you some resources where you can find the answer.
Then, keep your eyes open for my response (in the form of a blog entry)!
It gives me great joy to share what I’ve learned about the craft of writing over my 20 + years as a book editor, writer, and writing coach.
I look forward to hearing from you.
I’m all ears.
My mom, Hindi Brooks, who was an amazing, prolific writer, was the first person I knew who had a personal computer. I’m talking early in the days of home computers. This thing was as big as an old TV (how appropriate that she was writing for television). It was such a dinosaur she had to insert the brain before she could start writing. (I’m serious.) She put the computer’s brain—an eight-inch floppy—into the A drive and locked it in, and then she put whatever she was working on—another eight-inch floppy—into the B drive. When everything was securely in place, she could go get a cup of coffee while the beast took forever to boot up.
Consider yourself lucky that you have such fast, efficient machines working for you. And they’re getting faster and more efficient every day. It probably won’t be long before you can simply have a thought and the machines take care of the rest. Oh, I have to email my agent. And poof! the email is sent—thanks to our trillion GHz natural language, wireless brain port.
Technology helps a busy writer take care of business more quickly and efficiently. Maybe it even helps you write more quickly and efficiently. But does it make you a better writer? According to my mom—who got to make the jump from typewriter to electric typewriter to computer to modern-day computer, and saw other writers do the same—the answer was this: Computers make good writers better . . . and bad writers worse. Those who have a tendency to send their writing out before it’s cooked now can send it out completely raw. Those who tend to over-edit can now edit the poor text to death, changing things back and forth so many times the magic is simply edited out.
The moral here? If you want to create good writing, really good writing, you can’t skip over the stages of the process that writers have always had to do:
Also:
In essence: Don’t be so dazzled by the shiny prize of being able to publish your work online in two seconds that you skip over the necessary stages of creating good work. If you take it slow, you may even get a surprise benefit: you’ll enjoy the process.
I now have a follow-up to my “An Editor Tries to Text” post. Yes, it’s true, I’ve bought myself a Smart Phone. I no longer hate texting. And I don’t even hear that sound effect in my head of water (or rather time) being sucked down a drain when I think of texting. (I also used to “hear” that sound effect when I thought of blogging . . . but that’s long gone now. I blog as I please and not more. No time-suck effect. Just pure joy.)
So . . . it looks like I’m slowly being pulled along with the tide of technology. And to tell you the truth . . . I am tickled purple by it. Sure, technology can do evil in the hands of the evil. But it can equally do good in the hands of the good. As far as I’m concerned, we have the president we have today because the internet has finally filled shoes as large as corporate money. It was a long time comin’ but the People have found their power (on the internet). . . . . . (Well, there goes my resolve to keep my blog and my Writing Coach persona free of politics. I promise I love my Republican students with equal huge-heartedness as my Democrat students.) I just think I need to start letting my blog-hair down a little more. (Thus the stream-of-consciousness blog post!)
I’d better quit while I’m ahead and end simply with this:
Happy, fruitful, creative, and thriving New Year, everybody. Big love to you all, Nomi
Nomi Isak, Writing Coach 