Where was I?

The hospital. I’d grabbed some supplies and some papers, and headed back out towards the tower. Sam is back on the radio. He sees me, and sees I have found something.

Guard it with your life, the Doctor says. I think that means if I see zombies not to drop the papers while i run for my life, but i’ll ask for clarification when I get there.

Maybe I am getting numb, I think, but it seems to be getting easier.

I have a way with timing, I have learned. Sure there are a thousand stories I could related about my poor timing events, but this one should demonstrate it. As soon as that thought was done two things happen. The first is that this pain starts up my left leg. It isn’t quite a cramp, but close. The second is that Sam’s voice comes back over the radio.

There are zombies coming. Great I think. They are catching up, he says. Fast zombies? Great. Fast zombies suck. Run, he says, run, and I do.

Runner 7 comes on the radio, tells me they are sending people with guns to provide cover, but whatever I do, don’t stop. She’s right behind me.

She? I hear Sam talking, through the mumbles and the “oh no”’s and my general panting and hard breaths I catch on who is behind me. The previous runner 5. You know, the one who I was told was really fast?

Apparently the pseudo-afterlife hadn’t taken that away from her yet.

My leg is on fire, and I have a simple realization: i can’t do this much longer. The gate opens and I see my fellow living emerge with guns, bringing me in.

Welcome to Abel, I hear. Let’s hope I’ve made the right choice.

I mention this game is great? Go get running shoes and go for it. iOS now, Android on the way.

So it sat on my hard drive for years. I’d show it off every once in a while, but it stayed hidden. Later I took more pictures, some from Death Valley, others just from vacation. All the while hiding them away.

Then the Art 365 project started and I began posting pictures on my Flickr more often. At this point I had been making (or attempting to make) art for a while. I had been unsuccessfully submitting stories and poems to get published, taking pictures, making drawings and hiding and hoarding my works away to prevent someone “stealing” it.

As I posted more pictures and drawings on Flickr I began to think more and more about content and copyright. Specifically I thought about me as the Internet / content user rather than the creator. I had thought a bit at this point on copyright itself, and how I thought things should be with other creators: art, music and movies.

So I asked myself, self, what are you getting out of this all rights reserved thing anyway? The answer for my Flickr was “not a whole lot”. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that worse case was someone wanted to use something they saw but did not because of that impending c in the corner.

Not that I believed that had happened yet… But still. I decided I should align my art with the way I thought that others should have theirs.

At first I picked the CC BY-NC license. Use my stuff, but not to make money. Then I thought more and changed it to just CC BY. Use my stuff, anyway you want, just credit me for it.

I am not giving up my copyright on my work. Far from it. Creative commons uses the copyright laws to allow for this license. These drawings, pictures, are still mine. But now I have given them an open license. Now if someone is making an album cover for their band, or wants to make a website with desert pictures, or just wants to use a picture of a cherry tree on a flyer they made, they can, without worrying about a lawyer.

And what would I get out of that situation? Recognition, viewership, however you want to phrase it. What I get is my pictures, my drawings, out there in the world, seen.

More importantly, my perspective on my art had changed. No longer was I content with hiding this stuff on my hard drive just on this promise, this hope, that someone would pay me for it. I made it to be seen, read, and heard. There is no promise that someone will pay for any of it. But there is a promise that hidden on my hard drive, no one will know it exists.

And my writing? I’ll talk about that in another post, but my thoughts are coming along the same way.

Also, you should get the app. It, in fact, rocks.

Since I am a writer (or at least pretend to be) I couldn’t help a bit of thinking while I was running and listening. So, a zombie runner’s diary, if you will.

Run: 1.62 miles, Time: 21:40

Call me Runner 5. That’s what the voice on the radio called me, and I think it fits.

My day isn’t going too well. I was on a helicopter ride into Abel township. It isn’t much of a settlement, but is was stable. The chopper pilot was a chatter and talked most of the way there. I was tempted to unplug the radio, but thought again.

Trouble started when we got close to Abel. As we were inbound the light arms fire started. Then someone shot an RPG, hitting us in the rear, taking out our tail. A parachute ride to a tree, and a drop to the ground and I am alone in zombie infested wilderness, with some unknowns out there with an RPG.

Then this voice called over the radio. Go to the tower he said, zombies inbound. I keyed back a reply but it didn’t go through. Transmitter was busted, but at least I could hear him. He says run, and I run.

A few minutes later my body was screaming. You know the first rule? Cardio. Guess what I had been ignoring? But then I see it off in the distance, the tower. Hope will make your legs move. So will fear, but I was saving that one.

The voice is back. Sam, I think. He told me, but i was too busy falling out of a tree at the time. He tells me there is trouble ahead and directs me on a safer path. Then this Doctor comes on the radio.

Look, she says, you need to make a detour and pick up supplies. “We earn our keep here,” she said, and I can pick up supplies or maybe they won’t let me in. I’m thinking: Lady, I was just in a helicopter crash. But I turn, and I go.

Sam comes back on the radio. He keeps talking to me, and unlike the chatty chopper pilot, I don’t mind. He calls me Runner 5 after one of their runners who they just lost. I was going to be offend until he spoke of her.

Alright, I thought, Runner 5 will come back, Sam. Even if it is me instead of her.

More zombies in the way and he lead me through the ground floor of the hospital to get around it. If I find a beer, I’ll be brining it to him. Look for some papers too, he said, and I start thinking this is a scavenger hunt. I grabbed a bag that was left on the nurses station and threw the med packs and papers inside before running again.

The town is close, and I just might make it.

Finland, even at the end of march, was still covered in snow. The part of the harbor in Helsinki visible from my hotel was still covered in ice. As you can see, there were still ice fishermen out catching.

I spent my time in two locations: Helsinki and Tampere. The pictures are labeled for which town they are from. Both were fun, and the beer was good.

Oh, and Iron Sky premiered in Tampere the Monday I was there… Which i found out about as i was flying home. I mention I didn’t have anything to do that Monday?

The next trip was out to western Virginia for a wedding. Tucked out on highway 81, Winchester is not quite in the mountains, but is close. “Quaint” is a good description for this town. There was a walking mall for a few blocks, and I brought my camera with me.

With What I Have

Email: this one is easy, open up a new message in email and write all you want. When you are done, send it to yourself and you’ll have it when you return to a computer. Simple, easy.

Notes: most of these thigns have a ‘notes’ program. Start a few with ideas or scenes. Hell, you could write a whole story in one if you really wanted. The bonus of notes over email is that they live on your phone, so you can go back and look at them later. Again, simply email the note to yourself to sent it to your computer.

Da Webz: More and more web apps are becoming mobile friendly. Things like Google Docs and wordpress have mobile editions to make access to them easy. Downside, you have to be connected while you are using them. (So not an option when on a plane)

Dropbox (http://dropbox.com)

First and formost, this is what you want. If you don’t have it, go get it, go get it now. (here, use this link which gives us both some extra space)  You get 2 gigs for free and can pay for 50.

What is Dropbox? It is a cloud syncing program. Basically it works like this: you have a folder on your computer and whatever you put in there is saved on the cloud. If you have more than one computer, everything in that folder is synced between them. And it saves versions of your files online, so you can pull up an old version if you want. You can even share folders with other dropbox users. There is a quick video on their site to explain more.

There is a mobile app, and quite a few mobile programs can directly access your Dropbox account. For the mobile writer, Dropbox is an essential tool.

(Note, i’ll be focusing on word processors for this. maybe later i’ll compare spreadsheets and presentation tools)

QuickOffice (http://quickoffice.com)

QuickOffice is a mobile office suite which includes a word processor (Word), spreadsheet program (Excel) and presentation program (Power Point).

While the word processor part of Quickoffice can open lots of files, it can only create and edit Doc/Docx files. So, if you are like me and save everything to RTF,

As for file creation, the word processor offers a very basic set up. There are options for fonts, bold, italics. Paragraph settings for alignment and lists. It will give you a word count and do a basic “find”.

Cloud access is at a premium, unfortuatly. The cloud supported version is $15 for iPhone (Android only has this option). I would suggest that this $5 is worth it, as it gives you access to your cloud account. Otherwise you will only be able to email files back to your computer.

For you phone / tablet users out there: quickoffice has two programs, one for iPhone / Android, one for iPad / Android Tablet. So if you have both, it is going to cost you more. ($15 for phone, $20 for tablet)

• Operating Systems: Android, iOS
• File Types for creation / Editing: DOC, DOCX, TXT
• File Types for Opening / Reading only: RTF
• Cloud Support: MobileMe, Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.net, Huddle and SugarSync (Quickoffice Pro only)

Documents to Go (http://dataviz.com)

Disclaimer, I haven’t used iOS Docs to Go, but have used it on Blackberry and Palm Pilots

Documents to Go has been around since the Palm Pilot days. This means it has many years of refinement built into it, and thankfully a much lower price than it did back then ($16 now, $70 back then). Still it was one of the first to let you view, edit and even create Word, Excel and Powerpoint files on your handheld.

A solid app with history behind it. The features it contains are similar to Quickoffice with the addition of find & replace, and viewing comments. It also includes a desktop app for Mac and PC which will let you sync your files to your phone. While cloud support makes this an older option, it is still a nice one.

Docs to go is a universal app on both Android and iOS. This means you buy it once, and it works on your phone and tablet (of the same OS, that is…) But as with Quickoffice, the cloud comes as a premium, $16 for the cloud infused version.

• Operating Systems: Android, iOS, Blackberry
• File Types for creation / Editing: DOC, DOCX, TXT
• File Types for Opening / Reading only: RTF
• Cloud Support: MobileMe, Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.net, and SugarSync (Premium version only)

Pages (http://www.apple.com/pages)

Pages is part of the iWork for iOS. If you want the full suite, like the previous two, it will be $30 for all three (Pages, Keynote and Numbers). It is also an iOS only application. Pages by itself is just $10.

Pages is, in my opinion, also the most capable. In Pages you have the ability to add pictures, tables, charts and shapes. It even has styles for formatting. You can edit your header and footer, even change the paper type. Pages is, more than the other two, a full fledged word processor.

Pages’s major flaw lies in its cloud execution. First there is only iCloud support, no dropbox*. Files that you have in Pages will sync to other iOS devices, but not with Pages on the Mac. This makes for awkward transition from your phone back to your computer using either email or the iCloud website, neither is optimal. And for the mobile writer, this is a major hurdle. Hopefully this is cleaned up with future releases. (and like magic, seems there is an update to OS X coming)

*you can download from Dropbox and send it to Pages, but Pages will not let you send it back.

• Operating Systems: iOS
• File Types for creation / Editing: Pages, DOC (export only), PDF (export)
• File Types for Opening / Reading only: Doc (open as .doc, saved as .pages)
• Cloud Support: iCloud

Conclusions

But wait! I didn’t tell you which one was the best! No, I didn’t. The reason for that is that we each have our own needs for these things. All of these programs are capible, yes. Hopefully I have given you enough information that you can decide which is the best for you. Are there other programs out there? Sure. Maybe Macjournal for note taking is all you really want on the go. Maybe you prefer to use voice notes on the go and write them down later. Maybe you prefer to not do anything when you are out.

I was never happy with the way I had presented the April 2011 poems on the site. I thought that it would be a good experiment to use Scribd the way I was already using Flickr. That is, embed a document into a page so you can read it right there.

Admittedly this is just an experiment for now, but a good one I think. For the works I’ve put up here on my site, I think the more ways they are accessible, the better. Not only does this make the presentation here better, it adds a new way to be discovered via the Scribd site.

So I’ve updated the April 2011 page. Apologies for the horrid format, hopefully the new PDF of the originals (and cover!) will make it easier to read. I’ve done the same with Bedtime Monsters (but I realized I need to fix some things in that PDF, update to follow).

Here is what it looks like.

Currently the title (for sale here) is $50 for the book. Some time down the road, a regular edition will come out. The comment that Keene is replying to is about the cost of the book.

But that isn’t the issue. Not really. See limited edition collector books SHOULD be expensive. They are, by nature, LIMITED and COLLECTOR versions of the novel. There is craftsmanship in the book cover, the printing. They are signed. They look great on a bookshelf.

I have several collector editions of Keene’s and others’ work. And despite paying upwards of $150 for a book, I’ve never read them. Why? Simple, why the fuck would I risk damaging a $150 book to read it? I didn’t buy it as a book, I bought it as a collector’s item.

Which goes back to the real issue. Keene says “respect those customers (the ones who want to buy these collector editions), and don’t complain about the price.” The real issue isn’t that the collector’s edition is expensive. The issue is that there is no other option. These people, some would refer to them as ‘readers’ or ‘fans’, want to read Keene’s work. They want to read the novel, and from a basic level, they want to give Keene money. They aren’t complaining about the price of the collector’s edition. They are complaining that there are no other options.

I think the idea is like this: release a collector’s edition of the book; wait a few years (yes years in this case); release a regular version of the book. Maybe the thought is that no one will buy the collector’s edition if they can buy a mass market. Maybe the thought is that the collector’s edition has no value if you can buy a mass market.

I say both thoughts are wrong.

People who buy collector’s editions, buy collector’s editions. People who don’t, don’t. We see the same thing in “normal” publishing all the time. “When does this book come out in paperback?” We were asked that all the time at the store. The publishers seem to believe that no one will buy the hardcover if the mass market is also available, and from my experience, that simply isn’t true.

The bad part is the time. Those fans who wanted that book are now moving on to read something else. When that book comes out? Hopefully they remember they want it. Because right now, they are lost sales, each and every one.

In fact, I’d argue that the collector’s edition would sell better AFTER the book has been released to the masses. Then we have read it. We’ve talked about it. We’ve decided if we like it. Then we would be more likely to drop $50, $75, maybe more on a nice signed limited edition of the book.

Again this is from my point of view, as a customer. Maybe there is an inside the biz, inside the game, point of view that makes these decisions sound more logical. But from here, I just scratch my head.

(For the record, I believe this particular anthology to be well worth the money for this edition.)

So a full year, art every day (and a late report, due to travel, sorry). How did it go? Well, it would be fair to say that there was not art every day of 2011. It would also be fair to say that more than 365 pieces of art were created, although that sounds like a technicality.

The whole idea was based off of a friend’s tweet. “Sure why not?” I thought, and started out to CREATE ART.

But art was never the point, not really. It was about making art apart of my life, even more so that it already is. It was about me. Every day, yes even the ones no art was created, I thought about art- about paintings and writing, about photography and music. That was the purpose. That was the goal. Despite this busy existence, despite the trials of daily work and life I was going to add art in.

And I did. From month long projects like April’s poems, to just one off things like a Godzilla post or a walk that resulted in pictures, I let myself play the role of the artist. I found it is a role I rather enjoy. But I suspect I knew that.

The Art365 page for 2011 will be updated for all to see. It would be tempting to pick a few favorites to showcase, but instead I’ll offer up the whole thing as one big showcase.

So now what? What happens in 2012? Another year of art everyday?

Sure, why the hell not.

Snapseed was recommended by a geek blog so I checked it out. It was expensive ($5!! for an app!) but I gave it a go anyway. And it rocks. It does normal color correction, sharpness, etc, but then has a few extras like vintage and grunge filters. It is easy to use and makes some great shots.

Here is one I made from the desert.

I posted my first video to Flickr, using the 8mm app and the creepy blinking reindeer in my mother’s yard. All it really needs is some mood music.

There was writing as well, some work on two new ideas (because why finish the old stuff when I can just start something new?). Hope that something will come out of them.

At the the end of the month I got a new camera, a Nikon 3100, and I dig it a lot. It takes great shots and I look forward to actually learning more about this camera stuff. Here is the first shot from it.

Basic overview: the five major publishers got together and decided that ebook prices were too low, so together they would raise them.

I’m pretty sure you can’t do that. Price fixing, or something. What it means though is that books will continue there upward path from $10 for a new ebook to $12, $15, $20… For a text file.

Add on Brian Keene‘s (and many, many others) recent spat with his previous publisher and I have decided it time for action, not just blog posts.

So rather than post yet another rant about ebook prices, or about how big publishing treats writers and readers, I’ve decided to do something about it. My plan is to go a full year and not buy a single book from the major publishers.

Not. One.

I will read. I will read public domain books. I will read small press. I will read blogs and I will read forums. I will read, and I will buy books. But not theirs. Will I miss things? Great novels? good biographies? Even things written by friends? Yes. Yes I will.

But it is time to put my money where my mouth is. Will Macmillan notice that I’m not buying the latest shovelware best seller? No. But I will notice where my entertainment dollars are going to.

(What I don’t know is what to do about movies and music, so that will be another post.)