In this day and age we are a lot more fortunate than in times past, because we can store manuscripts on a computer, print them out, and make multiple backups. But what if, despite everything, you accidentally delete your prized magnum opus?
Here are my reflections on some of the reasons that I think writers should maintain a blog. They are by no means mutually exclusive.
In no particular order…
Let’s face it, a lot of videos don’t have a lot going on in terms of visual stimuli. True, there are those dreadful videos which consist purely of people holding up handwritten notices, accompanied by some awful dirge, and unfortunately you have to watch them if you want to learn what they have to say.
Babylon is an insidious program which, once installed, is a devil of a job to get rid of. An online translator, its website boasts “100 million downloads and counting”. I wonder how many of those were intended.
Because the problem is, as you may have had the misfortune to discover from personal experience, is that if you’re not careful you can install Babylon by accident. And once you’ve done so, it can be extremely irritating because one of the effects of having it on your system is that it makes itself the default search engine in the address bar of your browser.
Phone cameras have been getting better and better, and I believe they are both useful and usable now, from a writer’s point of view.
OK, it’s official: I am completely insane. The last time I posted anything on this website was back in July (sound of wrist being slapped), but I’d like to get going again. So what better way than to register for Digital Writing Month?
A really good blog editor is hard to find. But if you create your day-to-day documents in Word, why not use that as a blog editor too?
What’s the right search engine to use? The answer is: there isn’t one. Different search engines typically give different results from each other, so your best bet is to carry out the same search in several search engines, not just one.
Amanda Katz asks: Will Your Children Inherit Your E-Books?
It’s a fascinating article. Is rummaging through the contents of a Kindle that belonged to your grandmother the same as rummaging through boxes of books that belonged to her, assuming that you can even access them?
They say that time is money, and this is certainly true for the professional writer. If you’re billing a client according to the amount of time spent on the project, you’ll need to keep an accurate record of that. You could use a spreadsheet, which certainly has its advantages, but the beauty of Taskcoach is that it will actually record the precise amount of time you clock up – as long as you remember to set it going when you start work!
The term “automatic writing” is usually associated with a particular psychic phenomenon. However, software now exists that can take data, such as sports results, and generate reports from it.
I attended a really useful seminar – well, two seminars – run by the Society of Authors. The morning session was on tweeting and blogging, and the afternoon one on ebook self-publishing.