Category: The Ramble (page 432 of 449)

Yammerings and Babblings

April 20, 2011 / 58 Comments

Another Round Of YAIA: You Ask, I Answer

Sometimes, I go to write a blog post and all I find in my skull is a hollowed-out cavern bereft of even the meagerest crystal or the squirmiest eyeless centipede. It’s all just echoes and dripping water; nothing to see here, quite literally nothing at all. It doesn’t help that today — the day before you’ll actually read this post, as I tend to prep my posts one or several days in advance now — my bowels feel like they’re filled with chewing rats. Rats with ebola. Microwaved ebola. And the rats all have sharp fingers and mining helmets and by god, they’re building a warren.

What I’m saying is, got a small gutty-bug working it in my meat-plumbing. It’s not as bad as the last time I had a gut-bug, because then I was horking up valuable tracts of intestinal real estate and actually pulling neck muscles I was puking so hard.

This is probably very exciting reading for you, isn’t it? Me describing violent regurgitations?

Some might say that’s all this blog is. Violent regurgitations.

Anywho.

What I’m saying is, I got nothing for a new blog post today, but I’m going to be that some of you have something. Thus I introduce the old standby, YAIA: You Ask, I Answer.

Spelunk into the comments. Deposit a question into the dark chasm.

And I’ll answer it. If it’s too long for me to answer in a comment, I’ll take it and turn it into a blog post. Sound reasonable? You can ask me anything. Obviously, writing is a hot topic roundabout these parts, but don’t feel constrained by the chains of that subject, either. Ask me about anything. Favorite Easter candy. Porn. Portal 2. Movies. Twitter. Food politics. My dogs. Whatever.

I don’t know that I’m all that interesting, but I’m happy to have people pick my brain.

My dark, dripping cavern of a brain.

Ready? Let’s do it. Fire when ready.

YAIA!

April 19, 2011 / 42 Comments

What’s The Frequency, Wendig?

I haven’t done a status update in a while. I have no idea if any of you actually care about this, but I’m just going to float here in my ego bubble and pretend you do. If you’d do me the kindness of golf-clapping or some shit so I know you’re out there? Sweet. Thanks, all. You’re good people.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s what’s up in The Life Of Wendig.

Irregular Creatures

Flying cats. Demon vaginas. Family problems. Mermaid love.

Been out for three months now, and my short story collection continues to sell, though no longer as consistently. It’ll go a couple days with no sales, then suddenly earn a weird sharp spike. That’s okay, though. Any sales are good sales, and it still evens out pretty much.

I am now fortunate enough to have 27 reviews, all four- and five-star. If you want to add a review (presuming you read the book), I would be mighty appreciative of that action.

I’ve now sold just shy of 600 copies, which means I’ve earned about $1000 off the collection. Though I earn about two bucks a copy, remember that I had two periods where I dropped the price to a buck, which cut that two bucks down to about thirty cents. Worth noting: my last $0.99 sale lasted a week and saw a much less significant jump in sales than the first time I did it. I’ve seen other authors report similarly: that initial drop in price brings a flush of activity that offers diminishing returns. I’m doing better at $2.99 than at $0.99, ultimately. I have to sell six copies at $0.99 for every one copy at $2.99 to earn out the same. To make the money I’ve already made, I would need to have sold 3000 – 3500 copies rather than 600.

Also continuing to hold up: the PDF/ePub sales directly through this website. Those sales account for about 22% of my total sales. Not insignificant. If you’re a self-pubbed writer and are not offering a product directly to the reader, I’d politely suggest you get on that shit like flies on roadkill. Not only does it allow them to bypass channels they may not like or utilize, but it also puts you in more direct contact with the readership. That, to me, is a clear win.

So, here’s the deal.

I’ve sold ~600, and I want to sell another 400. That’s my goal at this point. Will you help me do that? I’ll keep a periodic tally here to see how far we have to go — but I’d love to nail that number.

Anybody wants an interview, I’ll grant it. Want a review copy, I can do that, too. Want to pimp the collection, you’ve got my gratitude.

Let me know what will get you to either buy the collection or spread the love.

You can buy on Amazon (US).

You can buy on Amazon (UK).

You can buy right through the website here.

You can check out my many-headed sales pitch.

At this point, I can only reach the goal if you folks love it enough to convince others to jump in and nab a copy for themselves. My thanks, glorious readers. You’re the wind beneath my wings.

Double Dead

Double Dead is double done. Er, for now. I wrote it, I gave it a quick editing pass, and now it’s out of my hands. But really, that’s not the important piece of information. What I want to share is:

PRE-ORDER BUTTON, MOTHERFUCKERS.

That’s right. You can pre-order at Amazon with but a clicky-clicky of your mouse. Like vampires? Like zombies? Want to know what happens when a vampire awakens in a zombie apocalypse? Two great tastes that taste great together, friends. If you dig the idea, feel free to pre-order.

[EDIT: You can pre-order at Amazon UK, too.]

Why pre-order, you might be asking? Pre-ordering is good for the publisher and great for the writer. The publisher gets an idea of preliminary demand and can produce accordingly. The writer also gets a boost — your pre-orders send a signal to the publisher that, hey, this writer is worth holding on to. So, we author-types appreciate your commitment.

Everything Else

Blackbirds is… well, I’ll just say, hey, keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?

HiM is out the door. We reached a draft of the script that feels like we nailed it, and so it is once more out in the world, ideally impressing folks. I think the script is rock-hard, so here’s hoping.

Have another film property bubbling up. Very excited about it.

The TV pilot is… well, it’s still out there.

Just finished up two small pieces for White Wolf.

Will also have two pieces coming up in The Escapist.

Am prepping my next e-book release, a book of writing advice: Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey. Got the cover slowly coming together thanks to Amy Houser (she of Irregular Creatures‘ cover). I’ve put the book together, and it tops out over 100,000 words. It features revised iterations of writing advice found here, as well as a kind of “director’s commentary” on each piece. Look for that in the next month or so?

I turn 35 very, very soon. Like, in a handful of days.

My son turns zero also soon — in a handful of weeks. If you didn’t see, we finished the nursery. If you want to know about that tree and owl on the wall, it’s this decal right here, from Etsy. Also: got a new camera, the T3i. Reason being, I wanted something that takes video, something better than a Flip. This will allow me to snap baby photos and flip a switch and move right into baby videos without grabbing new gear.

For those seeking updates on the old dog, he’s… well, not every day is a winner, but by and large he seems happy and still has a handful of good days in him, I think. I hope. You know, except the ones where he has diarrhea in the mornings? Yeah, that’s fun. Can I just say, my new best friend in the world is the Bissel SpotBot? That little robot fucker is a dream. If this is the future of robots, I’m in. Even if a SpotBot comes back in time to “clean” Sarah Connor. COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT CLEAN CARPETS.

And I think that’s all she wrote.

How About You?

How are you doing?

I like to hear what other writers are up to, so, hey, drop a comment.

Give us a status update. Whatchoo got going on?

Anything I or anybody else can help with?

April 18, 2011 / 99 Comments

Six Signs You’re Not Ready To Be A Professional Writer

“I want to be a writer when I grow up.”

Sure you do, kid. Sure you do. I wanted to be an astronaut once upon a time, but then I realized, I’m afraid of outer space. Well, not so much “outer space” as the “space dragons that live in outer space.” Oh, I know. You’re saying, “Chuck, dragons do not live in outer space,” and to that, I scoff. Just because CNN isn’t talking about it doesn’t mean our astrophysicists don’t know the truth. Dragons hide behind moons. And they wait there for unsuspecting astronauts so they can plant their spiky dragon ovum into the moist orifices of our space-walking heroes. This is all true, don’t look at me like that.

Okay, one part of that isn’t true: I never wanted to be an astronaut. I pretty much wanted to be writer from like, eighth grade on. The point I’m illustrating here is that, were I to desire membership in the great fraternity of astronauts, I would be deemed UNFIT by a big red stamp on my Astronaut Application Papers. Reason: “Unready due to unreasonable fear of space dragons.”

Unreasonable. Uh-huh, NASA. Sure. *wink wink*

We both know what’s up.

Anyway, point is, you’re maybe sitting over there thinking it’s time to hike on the ol’ hip-waders and go slogging through the mire that is the life of the professional writer.

And I’m here to tell you that you might not be ready. You might earn a big red stamp — *fwomp* UNFIT — on your Authorial Acceptance Exam. Not sure if you’ve got what it takes to carry the pens? To churn and burn through barrels of ink? To march forth across the bleached and cracked earth with only your word count on your back?

Let’s check you out, then.

You See Yourself As King Of This Castle

It’s easy to feel like King Shit of Turd Castle when you’re a writer. You sit there in your impenetrable bubble of creativity, banging out masterpiece after masterpiece that nobody ever sees, a Muse in your own right, one of Hell’s own glorious maestros. (Or Heaven’s, but let’s be clear: we probably see ourselves more as diabolical geniuses than as the artificers of God’s own glory.) Time to lance that blister, Sugar-Boobs. Being a writer means lurking far lower on the totem pole than you’d prefer. I don’t mean that to be a good thing or a bad thing: it’s just a thing. A thing you can’t change except by getting better at what you do and earning respect. But even still, you are ever at the feet of clients, publishers, and editors. Check your ego — which has swollen in isolation, like e. coli on an agar plate — at the door.

I Still See That Glint Of Magic And Hope In Your Eye

At a distance, writing is a magical thing: it’s candy-floss made of God-stuff. It’s the weaving of tales, the singing of bard-songs, the creating of characters that will gain life like Frankenstein’s monster with a bolt of lightning shot from your own magnificent mind. A lot of things look nice at a distance. Hell, I flew over Detroit once, and I was like — “Aw, what a nice-looking city.” Once you get up close and personal with the writing life, though, the magic dies on the vine. You rip down the facade and find there a kind of abattoir, the floors thick with the chunky blood you’ve spilled in order to make a deadline. Somewhere you hear the sound of a saw chewing through bones punctuated by the hoarse wails of the broken and deranged.

You cannot maintain the illusion of writing being this precious act when you’re working to make a living wage. I mean, I guess you can if you’re Stephen King. But me? And you? This illusion is dismembered by the reaper’s scythe. Writing is a job. A wake-up-at-the-perineum-of-dawn-and-churn-out-a-fast-two-thousand-words job. The kind of job where, if you don’t write, you don’t get paid, and if you don’t get paid, you will die in a gutter wearing only that one pair of pants you own. (Who am I kidding? We do not wear pants.) If I can tell you a little secret, though, this, to me, is a kind of magic all its own. Er, not the dying pantsless thing, but the “writing as a job” thing. But it’s a real magic — or, rather, a science. And science is hella tits. (Do the kids say that? “Hella tits?” Spread that lingo for me, will you?)

You Still Suffer From Writer’s Block

Living the life of a professional writer will either a) remove your illusion that writer’s block is a real thing (it isn’t) or b) remove your ass from living the life of the professional writer. Writer’s block is not real. It’s just some fake-ass mental shit that writers made up (during the Grandiloquent Penmonkey Council of Dusseldorf in 1456) so they can excuse a day of not-writing. You get writer’s block, you don’t write, and you don’t write, you don’t get paid, and, well — see earlier comment, re: gutters, pants, death. You don’t hear about other professions suffering this kind of nonsense, do you? “I’ve got Spreadsheet Malaise.” “I suffer under the callous yoke of Engineer’s Ennui.” Writer’s block? Pfft. When your actual income depends on the words you produce, you get shut of that shit reaaaal quick, hoss. The only writer’s block that matters is the kind where a horse steps on both hands and breaks all your fingers. That’s all you get.

You Are A Uni-Tasker

Ever hear the term “biodiversity?” An ecosystem thrives when it has greater biodiversity, meaning, a greater variety of life forms. Diversity is also the king of investment: if you don’t have a diverse portfolio, then when that one stock you own goes down the poop-tubes, so does your fortune. Once the public learns that Bobo’s Hot Dog Hut uses cat meat to make its sausages, your stock in that company is done for, son. Life thrives with diversity. Financial portfolios depend on diversity.

The writer survives on diversity, too. If you do one thing really well — “I write snarky articles about Doctor Who!” — then good for you. Your blog appreciates it. But that way is not the way of the pro-writer’s life. You best be ready to write all kinds of shit you didn’t expect to write. Thou shalt not earn a steady living as a single-serving uni-tasker. I’ve written: pen-and-paper roleplaying games, video games, articles about video games, essays, transmedia projects, short stories, novels, films, ad and marketing copy, brochures, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, crime, and so on, and so forth. You need diversity in projects as well as diversity in clients. You will learn that, starting out, the word “YES” is more your friend than “NO.” That changes over time as you become more established, but early on, the word “no” might as well be, “no, I don’t want to eat this week, starvation is awesome.”

Linking Writing And Commerce Makes Your Butthole Itch

Writing is the act of putting words on paper. Professional writing is the act of ~~beating oneself about the head and neck with a tire iron~~ putting words on paper for money. That last part is key: “for money.” Some writers, you bring up money and business in terms of being a writer, they twitch and spasm and make faces like you just jizzed in their milkshake. Pssh. Amateurs. These folks are the not-yet-ready-for-prime-time writers. You wanna go “pro,” you have to embrace what “pro” means — which is to say, this is your livelihood. Going pro means doing all kinds of things that go against that idea that writing is this lordly, artsy profession. It means attending to deadlines. It means reading and understanding contracts. It means pushing past the pain and learning how to create a spreadsheet that shows income, expenses, writing schedules, liters of Bourbon consumed, tears shed. It means knowing how to create and send invoices. There’s a whole seedy sub-layer to being a pro-writer that, for some reason, writers don’t want to deal with. Fuck that. That’s like owning a toilet and not knowing how to unclog it. Elves don’t come and handle it, for Chrissakes. This is your job. Keyword: job. Oh, and for the record, if you’re one of those fuck-hats who sneers whenever anyone puts “art” and “money” in the same sentence, do me a favor: take off your shoe, and smack yourself in the crotch again and again like you’re trying to kill a centipede.

You Love Stability, Loathe Disorder

You know how some people make, like, $50,000 a year? And then next year, they make that again? And the year after, they make, I dunno, $52,000 a year? And that’s their life? And you know how these people get things like health care, vacations, 40-hour-work-weeks, and the respect of their families? Wad all those things up in a ball and feed them to a goat. Those are gone. Done. Kaput. Stability and certainty is not the life of the writer. Even a writer who writes full-time and gets all those benefits is more likely on the chopping block because writers are seen as expendable. (Never mind the fact that we write the world into existence. It’s like nobody appreciates gods anymore.) Still, for the most part, pro-writers are freelance, or hop from job to job. As such, your yearly income? Not steady. Health care? Pay for it yourself or be lucky enough to have a spouse who brings that home. Vacations? I just laughed so hard I threw up. Hell, you don’t even get paid immediately for a job. Sure, you wrote “NET 30” on your invoice. You might as well have written on there, “And please deliver my check duct-taped to a pink pony.” That money’s still going to take six months to wind its way through the proper channels to get to you. If there was an ad in the paper advertising a freelance writer’s job, it would read, “WRITING WORK AVAILABLE. MUST LOVE CHAOS AND BUDGETS. ALSO: LIQUOR AND SHAME.”

Check Yourself ‘Fore You Wreck Yourself

Pro-writing is not a gig for those with weak constitutions, frail bladders, or creative integrity. Think very seriously before stepping into that arena, because you walk into that battle largely unarmed and unarmored. You’ve got to measure up. You’ve got to ask yourself the hard questions. I’m not saying it’s not satisfying; it is. But you may not be ready for that kind of life. Not yet, at least.

After all, Here There Be Space Dragons.

April 15, 2011 / 57 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: Five Random Words

Last week’s challenge is still live, and I’ll be tallying them throughout the day, but for now, hit the comments for flash fiction *and* drink recipes at “THE COCKTAIL.”

And now, this week’s challenge.

The Internet is home to many-a-random-word-generator, and there’s nothing quite like letting an insane computer determine the course of events! After all, we are ceding much of our lives to technology, why not let technology determine the nature of this week’s flash fiction bonanza? So, I hit up one such random word generator (this one, if you so care), and let it pick five words.

Those five words are:

“Figure.”

“Dusk.”

“Flirt.”

“Mobile Phone.”

“Wig.”

Your flash fiction story — back up to 1000 words for the limit — must feature each of these five words. You don’t necessarily need to use the words so much as you need to incorporate what they are into the story. (“Mobile phone” is an antiquated way of saying cell, mobile, smartphone, whatever — so, you don’t need to use the term so much as you need to make sure a cell phone is a part of the plot. So too with flirting, a figure, dusk, and a wig.)

You have one week. Challenge closes end of next Friday.

Post stories at your own blogs. Link back to here, then post a comment to make sure we can all see it and read your tale of wiggy, flirty figures using mobile phones at dusk. Or something.

Go forth and be penmonkeys.

The Lurid Tales

McDroll, “It Takes Years Of Training”

Lindsay Mawson, “Wolfe In Sheep’s Tailored Suit”

Anthony Laffan, “Down And Out”

Kate Haggard, “Birthday”

Darlene Underdahl, “Luella Sara”

Tribid, “Dugan Calling”

Ethan Rose, “Flashed Fiction”

Dan O’Shea, “Sinking My Teeth In”

Stephanie Belser, “This Ain’t No Disco”

Lora H., “Of All Of The Gin Joints”

Angie Arcangioli, “First Delusion”

Keith Karabin, “She”

TaraMonster, “Curiosity Killed The Cat”

Boys Behaving Badly, “Pantheon”

Julia Madeline, “I Guess You Were Wrong”

Liam Sweeny, “4G”

Billie Jo Woods, “Maybe Next Month Will Be Worse”

Lisa Paul, “The Missing Figure”

Michael, “I Bet She Does”

Marlan, “The Hookup”

Allyson Whipple, “Untitled”

Bob Bois, “Hermosa Beach Heartache”

Neliza Drew, “The Beach Sting”

AB, “Untitled”

Joseph McGee, “A Jarring Declaration”

Ben Kirby, “The Last Day Of The Life Of Dudley O’Reilly”

Ron Earl Phillips, “The Greenhorn”

DeAnne, “Strangers In The Gloam”

CM Stewart, “Time For The Last”

Robyn, “Ian’s Dad’s Ashes“

April 14, 2011 / 41 Comments

I’m All Up In Your Grill

The other night, I was cooking something on the stove. I don’t remember what, honestly. And suddenly, beneath the pan, I heard a loud snap. Like a .22 round going off. I investigated, saw nothing, kept on cooking. Night after that, my wife — who is actually aware of things, unlike me, who stumbles blindly through life staring through Vaseline-smeared goggles — noted that, hey, look, there’s a crack in the ceramic glass top of the range. The crack, in fact, had spread wildly, like a vein of aggressive chlamydia.

Advice found online was very clear: “Uhh, stop cooking on that, moron. It could shatter further. It could explode. Might electrocute you. Or maybe it’ll break open and gremlins will spill out.”

I, of course, kept on cooking. Hey, fuck it, dinner wasn’t done yet.

The option exists to replace the glass-top, but it’s an older, cheaper range that came with the house and it doesn’t match the fridge (this apparently matters), and so it is time to replace the hot-box.

You may think I’m soliciting advice on ranges. I am not. I mean, if you care to share, fine, but it’s possible I will have ordered something by now. Further, while I appreciate the calls for “What you need is a gas range,” I have to buy an electric so, y’know, sorry? I apologize if my choice in range disturbs or disappoints. Anyway, what I need are:

GRILL RECIPES.

Now, to be clear, I can grill the expected grill-based products with the best of them. Steak, burgers, chops, what-have-you. I mean, shit, it’s not hard. “Put meat on hot thing until no longer raw.” Done!

No, what I’m saying is, I know that you can make all kinds of stuff on a grill that you wouldn’t normally think. Pizza. Desserts. Dishes fancier than, “CHAR FLESH UNTIL SATISFIED.”

So: what do you make on your grill that goes beyond the norm?

Share, if you please. Because I’m going to be cooking on the grill for the next week(s) to come. Any grill recipes, grill tricks, grill stunts, whatever you got, send it my way. For all to see.

And in advance: my thanks.

(If you need to know the grill I’ve got: Weber propane.)

April 13, 2011 / 46 Comments

The iPad For Writers

Multitasking is for assholes.

No, no, I know, multitasking is the aegis of the modern man. “I’m walking. I’m talking. I’m chewing bubble gum with my mouth and… well, a couple other orifices. I’ve got a laptop strapped to my chest so I can: hammer out a spreadsheet, listen to Merle Haggard, watch the fuckthousandth version of Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday,’ read about the mating habits of the Vancouver Island stoat, play a little Bejeweled, and masturbate to animatronic animals like those found in Disney’s ‘Country Bear Jamboree.’ Ooh! And I’m on my way to kill a man in Reno just to watch him die. I’m a multitasker, motherfuckers.”

To repeat: multitasking is for assholes.

This is doubly triply quadruply true for we crazy creatures known as “writers.” Writing is a thing of focus. Imagine, if you will, that the train of thought is a very real vehicle, and once you’re on board, it’s best to stay on board. You go hopping on and off that damn thing like some kind of itinerant hobo, you’re going to, well, as the saying goes, lose your train of thought. You watch your mental caboose disappearing down the track. And then what happens? You get eaten by coyotes, that’s what happens.

This is of course why we have a new series of programmatic efforts to shut out distractions and keep you, the writer who has been trained that multitasking is the best thing since Jesus invented the jet-ski, focused. Write Or Die. Freedom. OmmWriter. And so on, and so forth.

Thus I give you: the iPad.

Apple’s iPad is a marvelous device for writers. I didn’t honestly know if it would be when I got mine. Writing is so often driven by a tactile feel: the clack-chack-zing of a typewriter translates to the PC keyboard, and here comes the iPad, which is really just a rectangle of glass. Do you really want to write a novel on a window pane?

Could be, rabbit, could be.

Here, then, are my thoughts on the iPad as a writer’s device. This is not meant to be the end-all be-all: this is just my set-up and why I diggit. If you’re a writer and have an iPad? Please do chime in.

It Is About Separation And Precision

The iPad allows you to easily take your little writer’s window (the device itself) and wander away from your desk. It takes you away from distraction, then gives you the precise tools you need to get the work done.

You might be saying, “But, dumbass, one’s iPad likely hosts an unholy array of distractions,” to which I would agree. I’ve got endless amusements: email, Twitter, World of Goo, Infinity Blade, Words With Friends, Netflix, recipe programs, Flipboard, blah blah blah. Here’s the difference, for me. Right now, my PC has 18 browser tabs open, and 12 programs open on the taskbar. Sometimes, I find myself flitting from tab to tab with no certainty why I’m doing so. It’s like, I have to click them just because they’re there. This is bad when writing, of course — “Did I just end a paragraph in the middle so I could go check a weather report I’ve already checked seven times this morning?” It’s like I have a disease.

The iPad, while still technically a “multitasking device,” does so, but in a reduced and less efficient way. And that lack of efficiency is a good thing, because really, the lack of efficient multitasking creates more efficient uni-tasking. Each app feels like an island, which is just what the doctor ordered.

The Setup

Here, then, how the iPad sits on my desk:

The iPad sits to the right of my computer. “Just another distraction,” you think, and yes, that can be true — but it’s very easy to grab it and walk out of my office. This is key. It also helps me shut down peripheral programs on my own PC and segue them to the iPad: while writing, I shut down everything on my PC but the work, then use the iPad to check Twitter periodically. It’s a trick, I know — but writers are loons, our brains like undisciplined terriers. Sometimes, you need Stupid Writer Tricks.

It rests on a 12 South Compass stand, which in a pinch will also serve as a baton to fight off ninjas or highjackers. Actually, no joke: possession of this device in your carry-on luggage will get you stopped every time, and they will ask you to take it out, and guards will show up to watch your movements as you reveal… ta-da, it’s just an iPad stand, not a Jihadist Infidel Cudgel.

The iPad sits in an Otterbox Commuter case, which is ruggedized to deal with a fall. I do this because I am easily as clumsy as a drunken baboon with a degenerative hip. Easily.

The most important part of my writerly iPad digs is the USB adapter… oh, I’m sorry, I mean, “camera adapter.” This device says it’s only good for connecting cameras to your iPad to download photos and videos. *poop noise* Not true! Not true at all. This little fucker is a straight-up cold-gangsta USB adapter. (“Cold-gangsta?” Shut up.) What this means is: that’s right, you can plug a ~~sexual simulation device~~ USB keyboard into the tablet. It’s funny, because even when you plug in the keyboard, the iPad tells you: “Oh, uhh, yeah, that device is totally unsupported. Just unplug it now. Don’t even try to type on it. You’ll fail. You’re doomed. Seriously, wait –” And then you try it and, oops, yeah, it works fine.

Typing on the capacitive screen isn’t terrible, but to get heavy-duty writing done, you’re gonna want a keyboard. And this lets you have that.

(Oh, and I have the Wi-Fi only iPad. This lends itself further toward the “minimal distraction” thing, because the inability to find a 3G signal is great: again, minimum multitasking leads to maximum output.)

The Apps

Of course, it’s all about the apps, baby.

Here, then, are the apps that inform my writer’s existence. In no particular order…

Dropbox: If you do not know and love the Dropbox, then I must wonder exactly when you suffered traumatic head injury. Dropbox lets you backup your wordmonkeying. Not iPad-specific, which means you can access it on whatever device you choose. Free.

PlainText: This is my word processor of choice on Ye Jolly Olde iPadde. It’s minimalist. It syncs to Dropbox. It counts your words. Great place to take notes or even write whole chapters. Doesn’t hurt that it’s totally free.

Kindle: Duh. Kindle. Books. iBooks is good, but has few books available. Free.

Netflix: You’re saying, “Another distraction, Wendig. I’m on to you, you sonofabitch. Trying to justify your bad behavior.” No, seriously, Netflix instant streaming is intensely useful as a writer. Great documentary work on there plus shows from History Channel and National Geographic. Good research material. See also: TED talks, which has an app. Free.

GoodReader: Read and annotate PDFs? Yes, please. I think it’s only a buck.

NoteTaker HD: Cool program that lets you use your finger (or a stylus, I guess) to take notes. But here’s where it really shines for me: writers get a lot of contracts, especially when freelance, and this lets you take a PDF and scrawl on it with your finger-pen. Which means you can sign PDF contracts, save ’em, and send those suckers right back to the client. No need to fuck around with printers and the post office. Five bucks.

Index Card: Great visual outlining tool that simulates the look of index cards on a corkboard. Great for hitting the beats or tentpoles in a planned fiction project. Can also turn into a line-item outline without the visuals, too, which is handy. Index Card is a writer’s best buddy. Oh! Syncs with Dropbox. Five bucks.

SketchBook Pro: I got this on sale for a couple bucks, but normally I think it runs about eight. I wouldn’t call this an essential in terms of writing-related apps since its straight-up visual, still, it’s nice to have some doodle space that is a little prettier than what you get with Note Taker.

Popplet: On the iPhone, I use SimpleMind, but only recently did SimpleMind get a native iPad app which will then cost me an additional seven bucks to buy — unfortunately, even though it appears universal, it’s not universal. Doesn’t much matter because in the meantime I got hooked into Popplet, which actually has greater functionality in some ways: drag-and-drop mind-maps can also include little doodles and images. This is, by the way, what the corkboard simulator Corkulous is missing — the ability to connect pieces together to create a kind of narrative flow. Five bucks.

2Do: Confession: I actually hate all of the iPhone/iPad “to-do” lists. I want items that I can schedule but also snooze, and so far, that just doesn’t seem to exist. This is the best I could find, but to be honest, most of my to-do stuff has segued to a whiteboard in my office.

What’s Missing?

I tried Scrivener for the PC and I just didn’t get my head around it. That said, I was busy on deadlines (when am I not?) and didn’t have time to dick around with new software. Even still, I could sense the potential, and think that on the iPad something like Scrivener would really rock. But I don’t know that an iPad version is planned? I remember reading it was, but now I can’t find the info. Hrm.

As yet, Final Draft is not on the device, though it is coming.

I wish for a greater web-clipping service, something that allows me to easily clip webby bits and incorporate them immediately and easily into my workflow (Index Card, Popplet, etc).

Speaking Of Workflow

Generally speaking, I do not write large swathes of story on the iPad. I use the PC for that, but I can believe that the days of the desktop write-machine will draw to a close over the next couple years. At present, the iPad is a super-capable organizational device. I keep the iPad handy to take notes, to arrange materials, to do some “on-screen thinking out-loud,” and, yes, to play some motherfucking Words With Friends. It is an elegant supplement to the writer’s life, and actually does a lot of what I want to do, except mysteriously it does it better than the PC, which often can barely do the things I want it to do in the first damn place. Good mind-map? Not on the PC. Index card outlining? Not on the PC. Sign contracts with the magic of my middle finger? Not on the PC. The iPad is this weird little happy box, this wonderful magic window.

In the end, the iPad is like a little helper monkey.

A penmonkey for the penmonkey, perhaps.

Should you rush out and buy one if you’re a writer? Well. That’s on you. It’ll help, but it’s also not a necessary device. Still, note that it is tax deductible if you’re a working writer and, further, is a suitable notebook/laptop replacement (in my opinion), and manages to be a helluva lot cheaper, to boot. So, YMMV and all that, but the iPad will supplement your writing life in a meaningful way.

Plus: PORTABLE ANIMATRONIC BEAR PORN.

I mean, uhhh.

*smoke bomb*