New Year's Resolutions

Here we are at the end of January, the month of New Year’s resolutions.  Did you make any resolutions about writing for 2012?  Plan to start a new project? Market something you’ve already written? Begin a blog? Update your website?

I use a free daily reminder tool called iDoneThisToday. I may have written about this tool before. I am a big fan.

Every day at 3:30, the site sends me an email asking me what I got done today.  I reply to the email (well, let’s say I reply if I have something to report) and the site records it on a monthly calendar.  In November, I pledged to write something five days a week.  I took December off. This month I resolved to take at least 5000 steps per day (I use a pedometer for this)—writers need to stay healthy to produce their best work, right? At the end of the month, I can look at the calendar to see how much or how little I accomplished toward my resolution.  I think I will pledge to write 1000 words a day in February.  What about you?

Send personal documents to your Kindle Library

I have completed a first draft of a historical manuscript and have let it sit long enough so that I can look it over with a fresh eye.  I could print it out of course, but I am a big fan of the Kindle as a reading device.  I also have a Kindle app on my iPad and iPhone, so I can read my Kindle collection anywhere, anytime. So how to get my Word manuscript to my Kindle device?

Send to Kindle is a free Windows program from Amazon that lets you send a document from your computer to your Kindle Library.  First, you install Send to Kindle on your computer.  Then when you click on a saved document, you have an option to “send to kindle” so that you can read it on your mobile device.  That is what I did with my story draft, and I was able to read through the ms without having to sit at my desk to read it on the computer screen.

Beware Anachronisms

A writer friend of mine recently told me that one of her readers called to tell her she had mistakenly used a word in her historical novel that was not in usage in the particular place and time about which she wrote.  Of course, she was embarrassed.  We all would be.  Her anecdote put me in mind of a warning I included in my book, Writing Historical Fiction: Digital Age Advice.  It appears in chapter 3:


 Be wary of anachronisms.  Anachronisms place people, events and things in the wrong time. Would your character have a wrist watch in 1800?  Was Maine a state in 1820? How many prisoners did General Robert E. Lee take during the incident at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia in 1859? (None. Lee was not yet a General in 1859; he was a Col.  Also, Harper’s Ferry was in Virginia in 1859.  West Virginia broke off and became a state in 1863, taking Harper’s Ferry with it. See how easy it is to make mistakes when doing historical research?)

Make your own word cloud poster

Want to make a promotional poster or logo for your book?  Try the free tool at http://www.wordle.net/

Type in a list of words or cut and paste a piece of text from your book into the tool and click “go.”  According to the website, “You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

Here is a word cloud I created using this toy:

Procrastination

This winter I am trying to finish a book about Marie Peary, the daughter of the Arctic explorer. Fact is, I’m not making very much progress. Too many distractions. First, there is the holiday rush to contend with—present wrapping, cookie baking, and so on. The biggest distraction of all, though, is the technology I am using to finish researching and writing the damn book. Yesterday went like this:

I woke up and decided to devote the entire morning to writing chapter 4 (I told you I hadn’t got very far). I sat down at the computer, opened up a new file, and titled it Chapter 4. Hmmmm. How to begin? I reread the draft of Chapter 3 and fiddled with a few sentences there. This all took about 20 minutes and I still couldn’t think of how to begin Chapter 4.

So, I decided to check in on my email. Three messages---all from students wondering about their final grades. It only took five minutes to read the messages, but one student gave a link to website she wanted me to review as a follow up for her final project. That took another 10 minutes. Oh yes, and while I was on the internet, I decided to check my Face book posts. Oops, someone posted something controversial on my wall—I then needed to post and upload a video and link in order to make a rebuttal. First, I had to find the link. Another fifteen minutes.

I decided to knock off for lunch at 11 a.m. and after that I had to watch the news and after that, I was a little sleepy so I took a walk to wake myself up. The walk made me tired, so I decided to take a little nap, and when I woke up, I didn’t feel like writing anymore. Therefore, I decided to devote today to working on Chapter 4, and here I am writing this blog post. Now that it’s done, I think I’ll have lunch because it is 11 a.m. After that, I’ll work on Chapter 4.

Technology tools you can use

One of my favorite email subscriptions is called “Free Technology for Teachers.” This daily message outlines three or four web tools that teachers K-12 can use for teaching and learning.  Although I teach college, I can usually find an application for higher ed in using these tools. I write about some of them in this blog, giving applications for using the tools for researching and writing historical fiction.

Last week, one of the tools in the mailing was a video showing how to sit at the computer if you are doing serious work—not just browsing the internet.  Here is the link directly from the Free Technology for Teachers, so you can check out both the video and the blog.

Researching historicaL fiction details

Looking for a fast way to find out what happened in a particular year in history?  Want to add more authentic time-specific detail to your historical novel?

For example, what novel would your protagonist have been reading in 1888? What was the latest technology in 1666? To what play would your London villain have taken his mistress in 1750?

The Timesearch website allows you to search the web through timelines.  Although it is a bit awkward to use at first, the tool does allow you to search by date, area and theme.  Themes include arts, literature, performing arts, politics, religion, science, technology and war.  Clicking on a theme for a particular year and area doesn’t give a whole lot of information, but is useful for finding tidbits of info that can help flesh out the historical time period about which you write.

Icons on the web tool allow a user to find text as well as images, linking to Google and History World. Interesting tool for researchers and writers of historical fiction.