Websites and blogs: fewer blogs, more readers, more activity

The chaos of multiple blogs slobg gobls blogs 

Time was when every new online initiative, whether personal or professional, required its own domain name and its own website or at least blog. I think I got my first website, writing.co.nz, around 1997.

Each new website, and later blog, was to be the topical blog, the dominant blog, the best blog, the top blog. I made business blogs and plain language blogs and poetry blogs, blogs on LinkedIn, Blogger, WordPress, SquareSpace, not to mention home made blogs, and then there was Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and — you get the picture.

Old Lady Laughing turned out to be a precursor of Boot Camp for the Bonus Years which has recently slithered across into Write Into Life, a Wordpress site.

I'm 77 now, still fascinated by happiness, ageism, writing and blogging, but regretting my proliferation into multiple locations. Enough splittiness. Enough muttering into a lonely silence. Come and meet many friendly readers at my new addresses (one is never enough):
Write Into Life — How to stay alive until you die. Writing helps
Poems in the Wild—See the digital poem in its natural habitat

How to make millions as a novelist like Danielle Steele

Is that your dream? To sell 650 million books, have 2000+ 5–star reviews on Amazon, earn £64 million in British sales alone, write 90 bestsellers ...? 

I can tell you how, but there's a hitch: first you have to be Danielle Steel. Let me share a few clues from her website. Notice the talent, persistence, hard work, enterprise and altruism?

• bi-lingual, French/English, also speaks Spanish and Italian
• has worked as teacher,  translator and advertising copywriter 
• has eight children
• worked on the streets with the homeless for 11 years after her son died
• at one time held down three jobs and wrote at night
• wrote a successful novel at 19, then wrote five books that were never published
• established two foundations, one to help the mentally ill, and the other to help the homeless 
• curates a contemporary art show once a year for a gallery in San Francisco.

Naturally, you will need everything that every popular novel needs in abundance: a riveting plot, strong characters, straightforward dialogue, ruthless structure, and an easy-to-read style.

Easy? I tested the first paragraph of her latest novel, The Prodigal Son, for readability. On the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease test, the score was 82.3, which means that 82.3% of English-speaking adults can probably read and understand it easily. This is exceptionally easy to read, I assure you.

Finally, when reading The Prodigal Son I noticed one quirk that is not what I'm used to. Steel reiterated certain points of character over and over and over again. In particular, I guess she told me 15 times how everyone in town thought the good twin, Michael the beloved small town doctor, was a saint. OK, I get it. I got it the first time. But let's not dismiss this as bad writing: I dare say this technique helps to make her novels so spectacularly popular. Popular means everybody gets her meaning.

Websites and blogs: more online activity, fewer blogs

The chaos of multiple blogs slobg gobls blogs 

Time was when every new online initiative, whether personal or professional, required its own domain name and its own website or at least blog. I think I created my first website, writing.co.nz, around 1997.

Each new website, and later blog, was to be the topical blog, the dominant blog, the best blog, the top blog. I made business blogs and plain language blogs and poetry blogs, blogs on LinkedIn, Blogger, WordPress, SquareSpace, not to mention home made blogs, and then there was Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and — you get the picture.

Old Lady Laughing turned out to be a precursor of Boot Camp for the Bonus Years which has recently slithered across into Write Into Life, a Wordpress site.

I'm 77 now, still fascinated by happiness, ageism, writing and blogging, but regretting my proliferation into multiple locations. Enough splittiness. Enough muttering into a lonely silence. Come and meet many friendly readers at my new addresses (one is never enough):
Write Into Life — How to stay alive until you die. Writing helps
Poems in the Wild—See the digital poem in its natural habitat

Anne Karpf on aging: you're doing it now, and it's fine

I read "How to age" by Anne Karpf on my Kindle, and reviewed it for Amazon. I totally agree with Karpf's attitude towards aging — embrace aging, start young, it's continuous, it's interesting, it's growth, it's part of life. But alas, this is not easy in a culture that hates and fears old people and all they symbolise.

Some people may be disappointed in the book because of the title, which is misleading — and that's a shame. (And oh the agony of choosing a title...) Also, what a strange, depressing book cover! Title and cover don't do this important book justice.

My review

Anne Karpf reveals the extent of gerontophobia in the west — with all its cruelty, daftness and implicit self-sabotage — and the high price we pay for it.

Don’t be misled by the title: this is not a how-to book, but a long, eloquent essay reflecting on a big topic. It’s not easy to overhaul your attitude towards aging from a dreaded disability to an essential, valuable, lifelong process. However, at the end, we see how “Gina” incorporates the author’s attitudes towards aging into her own life. She started her personal how-to programme after her grandmother’s funeral by resolving:

“1. Never again to say of someone ‘she must have been beautiful’, as though age were some necrotizing organism that eats away at beauty.
“2. Whenever she felt anxious about her own encroaching wrinkles, to imagine herself fifteen years older so that, in comparison, she looked positively peachy. She thought of this as a reverse facelift.
“3. To remember that Betty, until the very end, thought that life was an adventure: she was always seizing new opportunities, conversing with strangers and reading new books.”

I recommend this book. 

How to talk about travel (morning thought)

Going places! Marrakech train station.

After a trip to an exotic place, you are obliged to talk about it. Friends ask you about Your Trip (especially in New Zealand, where every country except Australia and home is considered exotic). Or you have an urge to talk about it anyway.

But how? Travel talk can be such a pleasure, but it can also go seriously wrong. Half your audience has already been to the same destination, and the other half has been there in spirit thanks to TripAdvisor and Facebook.

Is there a taxonomy of travel talk? I have been watching how others do it, and I hope to learn from their triumphs and mistakes.

A. Travel talk that I enjoy hearing

1. Personal experiences combined with insights into broader topics.
2. The person who respects your knowledge and adds to it.
3. A story steeped in joy or excitement or delight or drama or fear: strong frank personal feelings.
4. People who travel with a specific purpose: how did things pan out?
5. A story about people.
6. An amazing fact that I have never heard before.
7. Stories that grow and grow in response to the listener's questions.

B. Travel talkers who drive me nuts 
I wish you all the best, but I do not want to be you.

1. The bore who tells you 1,000 (dubious, random, context-less) "facts" about a place.
2. The know-it-all who believes spending 5 minutes in a place gives their every opinion the ring of authority.
3. The full-time cruise traveller who compares tours, not places. 
4. The relentless super-generaliser.
5. Mr and Mrs Cost-a-Lot, Mr and Mrs They-Can't-Make-Chips, and their friends.

I'd better get an executive summary ready so that I don't lapse into category B.

**
And by the way: jotting down morning thoughts is more demanding than I expected. On a train and planes, I did not jot. Now I'm home, there's a little problem of time. Well, that's just for the record: it's all good.

Mindfulness and meditation for beginners

Meditate for health and strength and relaxation and creativity. Meditate because it feels nice. Whatever. But if you meditate with the explicit goal of spiritual transformation, you lay yourself open to certain risks. Failure. Disappointment. Self deception.

Of course you may experience spiritual transformation while meditating. Sometimes you may drift into a delicious, quasi-mystical state. You certainly may find emotions welling up unexpectedly.

But if that's not your cup of tea, be aware that Just Doing It always works.

Be kind to yourself: your meditation is fine fine fine, just the way it is. Simply sitting still in one place for 10–15 minutes brings about a certain calmness and other physiological changes. If your mind keeps straying, so what? Noticing your thoughts and letting them go is a big part of meditation. There's no such thing as bad meditation!

6 misconceptions about meditation and mindfulness

1. Meditation is hard to learn: no way. I learned in a half-hour session with a visiting guru, after which I just did it. Later refresher courses were interesting and pleasant but not necessary.
2. It takes a lifetime to learn. Rubbish. You can learn how to meditate by doing a short course, which might take a weekend or six 1-hour sessions.
3. You have to meditate for 45 minutes twice a day. Says who? 
4. It's a deep and meaningful experience. Well, it may be, sometimes, yes. But usually it's just a practical habit with short- and long-term benefits, like brushing your teeth.
5. You can't go it alone. You need to commit to a guru, whether Buddhist, Hindu or California New Age. Ah yes, they would say that, wouldn't they?
6. Some types of meditation are better or stronger or richer or deeper or morally higher than others. Sure, there are many ways to meditate — breathing, focus, body scanning, mantras...  so experiment. Find a method or methods that you like: they're the best ones for you. 

Look around for courses and books that teach rather than evangelise. You may find them within the medical profession or online or locally.

The Five Minute Meditator: the best beginner's book I know. I give it away in handfuls and recommend it left right and centre. Even the title is calming and encouraging. Eric Harrison's other books give depth and perspective to the history and practice of mindfulness and meditation — but no dogma. His latest book, Mindfulness 101, welcomes the arrival of mindfulness as a new world-wide mainstream craze, because it strips the conventional monk's robe off this practical, useful tool.

The Perth Meditation Centre sells Eric Harrison's books online
Mindfulness Works: secular meditation and mindfulness courses in New Zealand
Guided Mindfulness Meditation Practices with Jon Kabat-Zinn 

Two poems read on video with awesome photos

How to do a poetry reading online?

I decided to maximise the visual attractions with expressive (but not explanatory) photos. And squash myself into a corner.

The decision went that way mainly because I was done. Some day I'll get more daring with the video technology but I'll always favour the simplest delivery.

I hope you enjoy the first two poems that I felt deserved to live beyond the book.

Before the Fall (about fathers and faith)

Square yard garden in the city (about, well, small patches of garden in the city, of course)

Writers read: the discipline and glory of comic books

Not a comic reader? Then open your mind and heart to a whole new-to-you genre with endless variety and strange potential. Adrian Kinnaird has done us a great service in creating this heavily illustrated overview of New Zealand comic books —an industry that was repressed in 1954 only to resurrect in 1977 and grow stronger than ever.

Drawing styles vary from bam-bam-black to pastel cute and back again. Stories range from sinister to same-old to save-the-world. But what these 30-odd cartoonists have in common is a fabulous oddness, a unique vision plastered on paper for all to see.

As an old-fashioned wordsmith, I find much to learn here. 

This is what I love best about the book: a sense of wildness and freedom, as if anything is possible — and likely — in this genre. Every cartoonist has an unmistakable personal style. 

And yet cartoonists work within far tighter constraints than novelists.  Structure is a physical attribute: the cartoonist must completely fill a specific number of pages. There's no wriggle room for redundancy or diversions: beneath an often frivolous appearance, every story must be excessively focused and concise, and structured as precisely as a bespoke suit.

Reading From Earth's End makes me appreciate the simplicity of the novelist's task ... and wish I could draw better. Hm, I think I'll go to a drawing class next year.

Published by Godwit

Writers read: the plus and minus of writing in the present tense

The Score is a delightful novel about a smashed grand piano and its people. 

As a reader I was happy to be whisked along by the story of Stefan the desperate piano restorer and his unlikely helpers. Attractions include a vivid bunch of characters in various predicaments; an interesting setting in the community housing in Newtown, Wellington, only a short bus ride from my place; and a friendly, confident style.

As a writer, I started pondering the problems of writing an entire novel in the present tense.

• You can only dive into the past by making a character speak or think about it. You can't take us there.
• The emphasis is likely be on constant activity. It's difficult to step back for a breather, to reflect on events.
• If you are telling events as they happen, it's hard to keep the timeline realistic.
• Your voice must be very engaging to maintain the reader's commitment. A "Hey, look at this!" tone can be tiring.

Adrienne Jansen handles the challenge expertly. The present tense suits the helter-skelter plot and conveys the minute-by-minute confusion of her characters' lives, which are certainly messy. Altogether this is a charming novel, warm and human.

Many a  brilliant novel has been written in the present tense, but it's a heck of a lot harder than it looks. So before deciding to use the present tense in fiction, take a deep breath. 

The Score is published by Escalator Press

Writers read: for non-fiction, be your reader

When writing fiction, I've been told very firmly by publishers and agents to picture precisely where my novel would be shelved in a bookstore. In other words, to know my audience.

Fortunately, I write novels for fun and only fun, so I ignore this advice. I don't care who reads them. That's extreme, but many a fabulous novel has broken the mould and found its own surprising audience.

Here comes the ominous "However."

However, for non-fiction, this would be foolish: you certainly need to know who you want to read your book. Otherwise you might patronise them or bore your readers.

Lauren Earl has no problem knowing her audience. She is her audience, or was a year or two ago.

Her audience: young people leaving the family home for the first time to share a flat. But what flat? Where? When? How? Who with? These huge questions can lead to chaos, drama, fear and malnutrition — but that won't stop flatting from being a great adventure.

Lauren Earl's marvellous Flatter's Survival Guide hits exactly the right note for her target audience, because she's been there, done that. It's funny and silly and the advice is spot on.

"Look for any notes posted around, as they can be a sign of passive-aggressive flatmates."
"Everyone seems normal until you get to know them."
"There will be squabbles, you wait and see."

Give this book to — you know who. They'll love it. They'll still make lots of bad decisions, but hey, that's OK.

Writers read: single serve of food or words

What an excellent book for people who live and eat alone.

Penny Oliver, a seasoned food writer, has rustled up an inspiring cookbook featuring meals for one.

Many people feel dispirited when they eat alone. At least half the fun of good food is sharing with friends or family or ... anyone.

That's not me. I cook twice a day for myself, three times if you count porridge. And usually I say 'Yum that's good!' at least once per meal.

All the more reason to relish these healthy, hearty, colourful little meals-on-a-page. I envy Penny's lovely casserole dishes for one person, too.

This book sends a strong message: you may be alone, but you are worth cooking for.

That's a good message for a writer, too — to think of your reader as a real person, someone to respect, someone reading your book all alone.

And of course you can write in single serves. Think of all the novels written on cell phones (keitai shousetsu) or even as a series of tweets. Some novels are written in tiny chapters, a page and a half long. That's enough to move the plot forward and keep your lonesome readers reading.

Writers read: inspired by a baby book

Very happy chap reading a new Little Fronds board book by Matthew Williamson and Fraser Williamson

What can you learn from this new board book, as a writer? It could not be any more simple. Surely you, a sophisticated adult writer, can learn nothing from this?

Farm by Matthew Williamson and Fraser Williamson has got exactly the right number of words, and not one more. That's plenty. That's perfect.

Who says it's perfect? This small person says so with his body language, and he is the expert.

• He can turn over the pages all by himself.
• He can say pussy cat cat cat cat cat cat when he sees the picture of the cat.
• He is a very happy reader.

Watching a very happy reader is inspiring for a writer. That's one of the greatest rewards of writing, isn't it?

Oh, and there's another new Little Fronds book too: Beach.

Little Fronds books from Penguin NZ.

What to do with your first novel: write your own rejection slip

I've just read a friend's first novel on Kindle. I wish I hadn't.

Or rather, I wish I had read it in manuscript form, not as a published ebook.

And I wish she had asked me for a few tips.

But I imagine it's particularly painful asking for feedback when you are a senior communications consultant who has been writing reports and critiquing and correcting other people's work for the last 15 years. Or perhaps my friend wanted to keep fiction writing as a private treasure, not to be tinkered with by others.

The thing is, most people who actually finish a first novel quite rightly experience a burst of euphoria. Yes! To finish writing a novel is a mighty, marvelous, massive achievement. You are amazing! Your home town should declare a public holiday in honour of You and celebrate your achievement with fireworks and brass bands.

Even so, this was a first novel, written all alone in a creative cocoon. Is yours like the one I have just read — all description and no action? Endless cups of tea (or swigs of gin) and flashbacks? Characters that we can never like?

There are so many skills to learn as a novelist that it's impossible to master them all in one go: plot, character, dialogue, momentum, description, pace and structure are just the start. You learn little by little by writing more and more and more, again and again.

And then there's spelling. All first novels need a severe copy-edit, if nothing else, because we literally do not see our own errors of grammar, phrasing, spelling and formatting.

Kindle will not reject your unready manuscript: now you must write your own rejection slip — or at least a Needs more work letter. That's an impossible task for a new writer. With a first novel you are inexperienced by definition, so inevitably you misjudge the quality. It cannot be otherwise. Sometimes you think your book is much better than it really is.

So enjoy the euphoria. Celebrate. But please, for your own sake, don't publish your adored creation at this stage. You're a good writer and an expert business communicator, but you're not a novelist—yet. When you move on to the next stage and write something that's as much fun to read as it was to write, you'll be so relieved you didn't publish prematurely.

Years later, you'll look back on this manuscript in wonder. You'll toy with the idea of revising it, but it cannot be salvaged because you have moved on. Instead you may recycle one character or a snippet of conversation or perhaps the setting. And your next book will bring much more pleasure to you and your readers.


Image of Hypatia: in the public domain. I think she is rejecting her suitor. But he'll live.

Elsie's Scale of Terribleness: defusing a happy child's grief and despair

I thought I'd share with you Elsie's Scale of Terribleness.

You know how kids come home from school and say, "Today was the worst day in my entire life!" And they think life could hold nothing worse, because, thank heavens, nothing worse has happened to them so far.

But if they are inclined to dramatise and sob and collapse at the general Terribleness of Their Day, you might try using Elsie's Scale of Terribleness. That might bring a sense of proportion. Or not.

Here is the code to the glorious chart above.

Left Axis: the Scale of Terribleness, where 1 is only slightly terrible, and 10 is as terrible as it gets.
Bottom Axis: Terrible Events, as placed by Elsie, aged almost 10.

A = 1 (on the scale of terribleness)
I made a mistake at netball but it didn't change the score. (No harm done.)

B = 2  Someone was mean to me at school. (I suffered, I need sympathy. Moving on.)

C = 3 All day people kept putting the wrong size marble in our marble run, so one part kept breaking and I had to keep fixing it and the sellotape didn't stick properly and they didn't even say they were sorry. (Just let me vent, OK?)

D, E, F: no scenario for these so far. Any suggestions?

G = 7 When my Granny dies. (I can see this can't be fixed but only one person dies and it is inevitable.)

H = 8 When my dog Ivy had to be put down. (That really was terrible and it still makes me cry.)

I = 9 I might do an experiment that results in everybody getting frozen. I know how to undo the damage, but it would cause something worse to happen. (Purely hypothetical. I admit I have never had a 9 experience.)

J = 10 (I contributed this scenario.) War in Wellington. All the houses are burned to the ground and everybody in Wellington dies. (Affects many people, changes my life, and it can't be fixed.)

How to use Elsie's Scale of Terribleness
Your child or grandchild: "Today was the worst day in my entire life." Sigh, sob.
You (after hugging): "So how was it on the Scale of Terribleness?"
Your child, thoughtfully: "About a 2 or a 3."

Sunset and a good book

Two book reviews in a row?

Just a coincidence.

Sometimes you just do read a run of excellent books and want to spout on about them.

Two other excellent books I have read lately:

A Delicate Truth by John le Carre. Penguin, Australia (2013)
The Antidote: Happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking, by Oliver Burkeman. Text, Melbourne 2012

The woman who wasn’t afraid

(For Cecilia Vincent)

She wasn’t afraid of angina.
She wasn’t afraid of the buzz-saw
carving through her ribs:
just fix it, she said.

She wasn’t afraid of lazy brain:
give me a jigsaw, she said.
She wasn’t afraid of loneliness:
just love me, she said.

While everyone else
was fixing and giving and loving
she dragged her life from under the bed
and made it dance again.

— Rachel McAlpine, 29 July 2006


Image: poster of Rosie the Riveter, Wikimedia, Creative Commons licence.

Of poetry, blogging and death

On 4 April 2013, my friend Diana Neutze died, after defying multiple sclerosis for well over 40 years.

Diana Neutze (center) with friends on her 70th birthday, 9 March 2009

She had survived for decades by micro-managing every minute of her life, training and instructing a team of dedicated, hand-picked angels (known as carers). 

Inevitably Diana also planned every detail of her death, funeral and burial. The funeral was just right and left me feeling downright happy. 

I was one of those she asked to give a short talk. Others gave a full picture of her life and personality—both of which were vivid and triumphant. I decided to talk about just two things, her poetry and her blog. These reflected my role in her life, which was highly specific: I published her last two poetry books (Furthermore and Reflect); set up a web site for her when requested; set up a blog for her, against her will; and communicated with 53 of her friends and relatives each time her carers posted another blog entry—which, as it turned out, was quite often!

To me these were light burdens because my daily work is all about online communication, accessible web content and the social web. My purpose was to keep the creative part of Diana alive and active and goal-orientated. 

We are lucky if we find a way to be useful that returns more than we invest. My reward came from the "Blog Alert" group—they were hugely appreciative of this simple way of keeping in touch with Diana, and I felt plenty of love coming my way.

The text of my talk follows. I was trying to convey in very few words how writing and social media combined to enrich Diana's life, both inwardly and socially. And I wanted to share snippets from some of her 53 blog-alert supporters.

Farewell to Diana

She did warn us:

… as I have lived, so I will die: fiercely and with full intent.

I want to talk about two features of Diana’s life: her poetry (an individual activity) and her blog (a group activity).

Writing is not just recording a feeling or thought or other experience. Writing is a dynamic process that sculpts and illuminates and transforms experience. As Diana wrote:

my poetry is a good listener, 

and even a teacher,  

skewing my words sideways 

to create a different pattern, 

a wake-up call. 

Writing a poem can make sense of the incomprehensible, and it can help to make the intolerable tolerable. It is a spiritual exercise. Diana wrote:

there is no escape. All journeying must be inward.

But writing became more and more difficult, until everything had to be “written” in her mind and then transcribed by her carers.

Unlike most of you, I am one of the few people who managed to make Diana do certain things against her will—mainly remove the odd semi-colon, and above all, to start a blog. She was vehemently opposed to the blog. She despised the very word blogging. But miraculously, she obeyed me. After that, she could share her poems instantaneously with a large audience.

Diana’s blog gave us all an extraordinary opportunity.  She looked death in the face and invited us to look over her shoulder. This was terrifying, but it was also a privilege.

Strangers also read her blog. For example, she has never met any of the Otaki Ukulele Group.  But last Thursday, when they heard about her death, they played two songs in her honour.

The end of poetry coincided with the end of life.

Dead End

The particularity of pain   

takes over the mind  

right to the very edges, 

an amorphous sludge  

which leaves no space for poetry.

Some of the Blog Alert community wrote valedictions in advance, and I'd like to read some of their words.

Vivienne Stone: All the way through her life’s journey, Diana has actively chosen how she wants to live.

Miriam Frances: Meditation has enriched Diana’s life, and poetry has illuminated it.

Abie Horrocks: She has such an amazing capacity to listen and be cheeky and wise and honest and realistic and prophetic and a little scandalous—sometimes all at once!

Diony Young: Her words and poems always open doors to new places.

Jacquie Pryor: In her poetry, she doesn't avoid the difficult issues, especially the one that is hardest of all: death.

Maureen Eppstein: The clarity of her vision shines through her poems like the light through her walnut tree.

And finally John Chambers speaks for us all about Diana's legacy.

John Chambers: Every time I'm at a difficult juncture, I spontaneously think of her, I hear her words in my heart, I feel the courage and the caring and the power—and I will always think of her, and I will always hear her words.

9 April 2013

These web sites and Diana's publications will be managed by her literary executor, Gabrielle Faith, in future:

Diana Neutze's blog, with many poems

Diana's web site, with more poems

Do you really love those old books you have kept?

Shelves of dusty yellow books of some significance.

Lurking in the hallway are a bunch of old books that have been important to me for one reason or another. And this morning Kim Hill interviewed poet Mary Fuefle, poet, who lavishes white-out on old books to reveal a morsel of poetry on each page. The concept of erasure art appealed to me. I immediately invested in a bottle of liquid paper: not something one would normally use in this digital age.

Surely among those Harlequin romances, Proust, Japanese novels, books on sumo and and other miscellany were plenty of candidates for erasure art?

I picked up one at random—Time on our Side: Growing in wisdom, not growing old by the distinguished psychologist Dorothy Rowe. And inevitably began reading it.

I remember loving this book in 1994 and nodding over insights that lived up to the title. Yet today I could barely be bothered skimming a few chapters.

One interesting chapter is "Fearing to grow old", describing how our concepts of young, middle-aged and old vary wildly according to our own age. Even this chapter I could barely read, because the benchmark has shifted so radically since the date of publication. Reading about people in their 60s being treated as geriatrics (and regarding themselves that way) was more than I could stomach.

Life expectancy rose dramatically last century. That is truly wondrous, a miracle. But it makes this book, doubtless profound in its time, irrelevant to my impatient mind today.

The irony doesn't escape me: I am applying ageist prejudices to a book published 20 years ago.

Will I use this book for erasure art? Couldn't bear to. 

From scanned PDF to OCR to Word to ebook: not so fast, mate

I have been trying to explain to a friend why she can't just take a scanned PDF of a book, get it converted into a Word document with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and send it straight to Smashwords.

Now, Smashwords is fantastic, and every author should check it out. Starting with your Word document, the Smashwords software (which bears the splendid name of Meatgrinder) converts a single source manuscript into every popular form of ebook, including epub, iBook, Kindle and of course the familiar PDF.

And OCR is fantastic. Who would have imagined  that software could virtually read photographs of the pages of a novel and translate the squiggles into pages of words.

However, OCR has its limitations.

Every few months when I have a spare minute, I puddle away at preparing my backlist for distribution as e-books. My plan is to put the old novels up for free—no hurry, though.

Yesterday The Limits of Green had my attention. That was my first novel, published by Penguin in 1985. Below is a sample of how it emerged from the OCR treatment. Characters were indeed recognised, but not always correctly. OCR is more like willing puppy than an expert.

I see at least 13 errors in 16 lines, not counting the formatting. Yes, a human hand is needed—and I am happy about that. I'm thoroughly enjoying my copyediting chore because this involves re-reading a novel I wrote in my youth. Such exuberance! Such reckless confidence! Such mobile-phone-less ingenuity! I look forward to releasing this baby into the wild.