45 K!!!

My iPods, Homer and Maggie, have been doing well. In case you forgot, Homer is the oldddd 2005 first-color iPod EVARR, and Maggie is my iPod Touch.

Today on the subway, Maggie crashed twice until I reset her. But I didn't lose much work. I've learned that I have to reset every time I reach a high word count in a particular document. Usually between 500-1000. Homer is all right, but he runs out of battery a lot faster than Maggie. It makes sense. He's the dad. She's the energetic kid.

...OK now that I've entered into the realm of creepy...

45,000 words. Ten more to go. And now I'm at the stage where I'm thinking about promoting, marketing, pitching. And creating content for sites. And basically trying to whore myself to multiple media markets.

But but but I'm not a good whore :-(.


Megan Fox claimed to have schizophrenia. Now there's a girl who is good at whoring herself to multiple media markets. Maybe I should take a page from her book.

But I'd have to lose a billion pounds first...

Homer and Maggie are charging. Gotta get 'em ready for the morning subway ride...

Oh boy...

School starts in a week.

I will then have to work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, all while going to school Mon-Thurs. And while writing a book on my iPod. I think the only way this could be harder is if I had kids.

But...it shall be done. I will endure!

43 K words...must get to 55 K! I'm now trying to think of ways to promote. Maybe since I go to NYU, they could help me out with reviews?

I don't know. It's a long shot.

So it's been a while. How's everybody doing?! I must leech off your blogs.

Huge Books and Long Lists.

The 2010 Writer's Market

is a BEAST.

the Writer's Market comes out annually, and it's the giant bible of publishing. Just like praying, there's no guarantee that you'll get what you want. So I guess comparing the Writer's Market to the bible isn't so off. The difference is, the Writer's Market is definitely updated more often.

And the agents and publishers don't try to tell you what meat to eat or the correct way of sacrificing oxen.

But...it's scary.





TERRORRRRR!!!!

I bought this thing yesterday, and let me tell you, it's an absolute monster. Here's what I gotta do:

1. Look through the list of agents.

2. Pick which ones I got a shot with (accept new writers, accept fiction, accept MY GENRE of fiction, accept unsolicited pitches...)

3. From these, pick the agents I'm going to send letters to.

4. Begin the painful query process.

A query letter is a one-page summary of the book, basically. You're selling your book to the agent. You have to put the genre, target audience, length of book, description of book, description of self, and qualifications of self. In really short paragraphs. Lots of words.

Luckily, I have a helper.

Uh-oh, guys!!!

So I was denied for a loan for school, and I don't have any cosigners.

This is bad.

I have one semester left, and now I'm afraid that I may not be able to finish.

Nooooooo...

My iPods have been properly named: Homer and Maggie. Maggie is the iPod Touch, and Homer is the blubbering old iPod. Why? They work as a team. Maggie is always the silent partner, protecting her father from rooftops with rifles, shooting her dad's boss and making it look innocent. She even saves him again in THE SIMPSONS MOVIE. Maggie is very specialized, and yet she is a baby. She needs help even to eat. Hence the pickiness.

Homer is the breadwinner. He does the dirty work, but he's not as skilled. He's just kind of a body that does the necessary, grungy, unspecialized stuff. He's a body. He takes up room. He can lift stuff. This is Homer. Also, Homer is older, and a little beat up. Maggie is a newer model, but the kinks still have to be worked out. She's gotta grow up.

Homer and Maggie, please get me through these tough times!!!

Best of both worlds.

So, my iPod Touch crashes when I try to do too many things on it. It gets confused, particularly if I play music while writing. Understandable. It's a lot to remember.

So I'm busting out my old, 30 GB iPod from 2005. It's the first color iPod EVARRR. This is back when having pictures on the iPod was a big deal...it was my high school graduation present. This iPod will be for music, and the other shall be for novel-writing.

Two iPods, working together towards one goal.

Beautiful!!!

I'm thinking of naming both of my iPods. Suggestions? Something that says something about their personalities. I'll give a brief description of them.

The Touch - Black, sleek, sassy, but very picky. Got a lot of funk. High maintenance. Definitely the brains of the operation, but doesn't have as much memory. Specialized.

The old iPod - Durable, a little bigger and tougher. Older, but doesn't let that get in the way. Does a great job doing what it does best - playing music. Not as fancy, very down to business, very down to earth. The down and dirty worker.

That's right, they have personalities now.

Together, they are unstoppable! They are yin and yang.

Name-deciding will happen soon. Ideas appreciated.

Technology is not without its flaws...

So I have encountered a semi-serious issue, and I am begging my more tech-savvy friends to help me out here.

Microsoft Word for iPod Touch apparently gets really confused a lot. So it will randomly shut down, and usually when I've got a good flow going. It's absolutely crushing, because it doesn't always recover anything. I would hate to have this put a damper on my iX. So far, it's been nothing but roses. But I really can't be writing with the constant fear that I'm going to lose stuff!

Psychologically...just not possible.

So, at work, someone asked me a really dumb question. They asked where the Staten Island ferry goes. My response? "The Staten Island ferry goes to Staten Island."

And they actually seemed to appreciate the response.

My Precious...

I left my iPod at work. In my prop bag. For those of you who don't know, I give tours. I've started taking the iPod with me so that when it's slow, I can do some scribbling.

I left it.

In my prop bag.

And I can't get it until Wednesday.

Help...

I pay homage to thee, sweet iPod. May you survive.



I'm going to try to contact Apple about this whole thing. If I'm going to be drawing and paying homage to my iPod Touch, I might as well let them know how nuts I am.

Luck <333

Shock and awe.

I am still recovering from what I just discovered...


I am less than Internet savvy. Less than technology-savvy. I tried to change the channel on my friend's TV and fucked up the cable. So really, I dunno why I'm doing this whole thing...or maybe that's MORE reason for me to do it, who knows.

So I was bitching to my friend that I wanted a netbook, one of those mini-laptops, because I want Microsoft Word on the go...

Me: what are those really small laptops called?
Friend: They're called netbooks
Friend: And theyre pointless
Me: why are they pointless?
Friend: Because for the price you pay for one of those, you might as well buy yourself an iPhone or blackberry.
Friend: It is not worth spending 200 on a netbook...
Friend: When you have pen and pencil. And a good laptop already in your possession. And an iPod touch...where you can buy a word document program for 5 bucks
Me: what?
Me: what?
Me: what?
Me: WHAT?
Me: WHAT?!?!?!?!
Me: why didnt you tell me this before?!
Friend: You shouldve asked or looked yourself
Me: i thought apps were just fuckin...waitress and airplane games!
Friend: You're stupid
Me: you knew i was writing a book on an ipod! why wouldnt you tell me this?!?!


So apparently...yes....there is Microsoft Word for iPod touch. Wow, I'm an idiot.

I'll let you know how this works. Technology, don't cease to amaze me now!!!

Today...

Today at work, a man with two fingers (he only had a part of one hand) gave me a CD and said, "This will change your life." I'm now listening to four really bad punk rock songs, and the chorus is something like, "Help me fuck you, get a fuckin' clue."

I have to incorporate this into my iPod story somehow.

The new iPod update is amazing. I can copy. I can paste. I can sync notes instead of looking for a wireless connection to email them to myself. It's great fun.

That bein' said:

Help

me

fuck

you.

iPod update..

Today an iPod Touch/iPhone update came out that's supposed to let you sync notes. This would mean I don't have to keep emailing them to myself. It's a minor nuisance, but this new update would help out.

I bought the update.

Now I can't figure it out.

I'm so technologically challenged...

I'm up to 11 k words in this experiment...so far, so good? Helpppp...

HBOA.

Honey Bunches of Oats.












Don't Eff with my HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS

The unofficial cereal of all of existence.

OK, so I just really like it, and I'm not being given anything to advertise. I just wanna. I'm such a tool, you don't even need to pay me to take a picture of myself with Honey Bunches of Oats and put it on my blog. You don't have to pay me for it to be a recurring motto in my blogs, either.

That's right. Prepare to read a lot more about me eating HBOA at 3 a.m.

Maybe this is why only three people are following my blog...

Anyways, I recently found out that, within the month, iPod will have an application for syncing notes to your computer...which will be great, so I don't have to keep emailing myself and getting paranoid. I think I'll keep emailing myself the notes anyway, though. It's good to know I have backups. Ya know, just in case no one believes I actually wrote this book on my iPod.

Go eats you some HBOA.

Some early observations...

I LOVE MY IPOD SO MUCH THAT I COULD JUST EAT IT.

So I'm about 6k words into my iPod experiment. So far, a real plot has yet to form. But I've got a voice down, and a definite character. Her favorite sentence is, "It's not that serious." Sadly, it's turning out to be a sketchy version of my own self and life. But I guess I'm just another self-absorbed writer. Just the kind I profess hatred for. FML.

It's not that serious.

Some things I've noticed:
1. Spelling the names of places...especially two-word places...is highly annoying because autocorrect won't capitalize shit. Like "New York." Type it out on the iPod, and it types new York. Yep. It corrects the second word but doesn't understand they're a part of a set.

2. There's no grammar check. I hate hate HATE when Word underlines something in green squiggly, and then when I see what the problem is, it says, "LONG SENTENCE." I'm sorry, but when did a long sentence become forbidden in the English language? When did that become an error? The iPod doesn't give me such nonsense phrases, and it automatically corrects words instead of underlining them with red.

3. On the same token, the autocorrect is sometimes a huge pain in the ass, especially when it comes to small words. "On" and "in"..."I'd" and "is"...impossible for the iPod to tell the appropriate difference.

I'm sure more will come up. But so far, so...egh, I won't say it. I'll jynx myself.

THE RULES

So there have to be rules.

Here's the goal and whatnot:

I will write a book on my iPod touch using the NOTES application...no less than 45,000 words. I hope to have this done by the time school starts...let's say September 5 is my deadline.

1. I cannot write on the computer, just on the iPod. Editing spacing on the computer will eventually be acceptable, but I will not do so until the entire book has been completed.

2. I will save a "raw" copy on my harddrive untainted, and all the emails to myself from my iPod just in case anyone eventually wants to test the validity of the experiment.

3. Major editing must also be done on the iPod. Major editing is anything other than spacing or changing incorrect autocorrect words. The Notes app in the iPod touch will sometimes incorrectly autocorrect words ("on" instead of "in"...etc). I can see no harm in allowing myself to correct these kinds of errors on the computer.

4. I will periodically email myself the notes to keep track of the word count, keep all the words together in chronological order, and for backup in case something happens to my iPod. When I do this, I will copy and paste the unedited data into a Microsoft Word document. I will continue doing this and I will keep the emails to myself just as extra proof (just in case someone wants to question whether or not I really copied and pasted straight from the email).


The point is to have fun, type less so my wrists stop hurting, and use time on the subway and on the road more constructively. Goodbye to dragging around a laptop or a spiral notebook - all I need is my iPod touch!

Any suggestions? Any other rules I should include??? Feedback more than welcome!!!

Writing on the Subway.

Writing with pen and paper on the subway is all sorts of ridiculous. For one, it's outside of the cultural norm of the subway system. You read, you listen to your mp3 or play games with your phone, you flip through magazines. Pen and paper are just pompous things of the past. People look at you funny, and secretly think shit like, "I hope they don't slip up and get pen on me." It's a really pompous environment. Handling a pen is almost as bad as putting a wet umbrella on a seat (OK, not really. That's like a sin of the highest degree).

Let me tell you people who don't ride the subway - it can be an intimidating thing. Other subway people judge you if you look at the subway map or talk to loud or look around a lot. There's this code of quiet, and this code of how much room it's acceptable to take. An open spiral, during a crowded train ride, will violate that code.

But doodling on the iPod is alright. It's on the list of socially acceptable things. So my anxiety is quelled.

It's not just me, man, it's like...scientific fact or something.