RLLauthor@outlook.com and @RLL_author GO TO AMAZON KINDLE STORE AND TYPE RLL. YOU WILL FIND MY BOOKS.

Thursday 31 October 2013

HALLOWE'EN COMES AROUND AGAIN AND I'M STILL BLOGGING.

How many times did I decide to kill off this blog? I've lost track. Something comes along, and I add the topic to my list of things to waffle about.
   The blog abides.
   Properly, nay, improperly, the blog's official start came on Hallowe'en. I sat in a public place frequented by junkies, jaikies, flakies, druggies, sex-offenders, dog-beaters, people recently-released from jail, and people who had a tenth of a clue about somehow avoiding a return to prison real local characters.
   Most of those people are not judged, except on the matter of noise-level. Some of those people are judged harshly. In and out of court.
   On that night, I merely contended with the infrequent distraction of children playing an interminable computer game. Oh, and I also wrestled with this blogging platform - which eventually decided to play ball.
   Rain fell. Gremlins died. Words were published. The blog began. REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE ran, semi-structured, in themed pulses of six weeks. I blogged ahead of the game and automated publication.
   Now, I publish these posts from home. (I recollect a brief phase in which I blogged from my portable telephone. Not a pleasant experience.)
   Begone, telephone blog. Farewell, public library.
   Many a time, I felt like shouting THIS IS A FUCKING LIBRARY FOR FUCK’S SAKE, AND I DON’T FUCKING CARE THAT I’M FORCED TO UNDERMINE MY FUCKING ARGUMENT BY FUCKING SHOUTING, YOU FUCKING FUCKERS…
   Pardon my nostalgia. I have the internet now.

*

The ability to blog at any time didn't destroy my capacity to blog ahead and automate. That method of blogging has fallen by the wayside, though I may pick it up again.
   I have adopted the notion of storing blogs for use as and when, without automating delivery. What's in the blog larder right now? Oh, this and that.
   So far, under the new regime, I've been caught short once. The network went down, and I didn't have an automated blog post to hand. Delaying an item by a few hours...that's no delay.

*

I'm blogging and Hallowe'en still comes around again. What to talk about? Writing. I cast my net wide across the digital sea. What do I see?
   Writers who feel they must produce so many books in a given timespan to consider themselves successful, as though an arithmetical formula will wipe away unsuccess.
   Authors who are obsessed with the nature of reviews.
   Scribblers who care far too much about hurting the feelings of an unknowable audience by turning in stories that may just run contrary to unfathomable audience expectations.
   Wordsmiths who think it normal to rewrite books after publication.
   Storytellers who permit the non-concept of Great Literatureto shackle their ability to write a good tale.
   There's a lot of doubt out there - and that's only right and proper. But you can take things too far. Don't let the idea of writing a story stand in the way of writing a story.
   First. That point about manufacturing umpty books inside a given period. There are only so many tales to write within a lifespan, but, other than that, don't tie yourself to a number. Just write. Don't just write. Read.
   I made a point of getting more reading done this year, at the so-called expense of writing. But all that reading fuelled my writing. The expense was really a trade.
   In the first year of self-publishing, I managed to put out a million words of material. Somewhat a little over that, if I misremember rightly.
   And in this second year of self-publishing I did much more reading. A lot of thinking went into reorganisation. Learning was done. Some of that was even fun.
   Sad to say, so far I've only put out around a quarter of a million words this year. I've written far more than that. Projects are stacking up.
   I steered well-clear of burnout. Yes, I could write and write and write and write. But I need to read, too. And I really must think as I write, otherwise writing becomes mere typing.
   Don't grow fixated over putting out this many books or totting up that many words, or works. It's easy to grind out oceans of shit, if you are caught up in a game of numbers. Play the game of words, instead. Stop counting them. Enjoy writing them.
   Second. Authors and reviews. You mustn't care what people think of your work. As long as you are thinking of your work, that's what matters. SEE THIS BLOG POST.
   Third. On a related point, don't skew your story around to cater to an audience. Just write the piece. Tell the tale. True, you may aim your rocket-ship arrow at a rocket-ship audience.
   That werewolf tale is for the lycanthropists in the crowd. But don't guess, second-guess, double-bluff, or go mad considering what the audience might be thinking. Just write.
   Fourth. Write your story. Edit your story. Cut loose of that story by publishing. And then, in the great thereafter, only fix typos or appalling plot screw-ups.
   Don't alter a tale's essential fabric after publication. If you aren't satisfied with the way things went, shrug and write a new tale.
   Fifth. Great Literature™. I find much difficulty in saying what that is. More importantly, ponder the delusion involved in telling yourself you are writing Great Literature™ as you are writing. If you set out to write Great Literature™, you'll only succeed if you type G-r-e-a...
   Sometimes there's everything and nothing wrong with obvious humour.
   Overview? The more books you write, the easier it is to write another and another and another. With failure comes experience and with experience - especially the experience of failure - comes confidence. Confidence aided by persistence.
   I shredded the first novel I completed, thus sparing the world - on the off-chance that some damn-fool publisher damn-well published that atrocity.
  The more you write, the more you write. You'd like to think that the more you write, the better you write. Who is to judge? Everyone and no one. Perils of the writerly life.
   On pleasing the audience. Well. You shouldn't allow yourself to be caught in that particular tangle. Really, you shouldn't. You really shouldn't. Really, you really shouldn't. How to find a way to emphasise that...hmm...repetition?
   Okay, clarity. It's a good thing to please your readers. Doesn't mean you are doing something right, though. Proof is often less than concrete. It isn't necessarily a good thing to want to please your readers. That's different. Ask yourself. Why do you want to write stories?
   I love writing stories. They are puzzles that I have to solve, as no one else is there writing them with me or for me.
   Eventually, the story is done. And I cut loose of it. I'm aware of the need to make my story readable, but I never set out to please some unknowable audience. The audience is thoroughly unknowable and unfathomable.
   So yes, cliché, it's just me and the blank page - and I am left to get on with it. As for success. Is it about producing X number of tales in Y amount of time?
   Not for me. Success in writing is about feeling I've created a story that works. It's intensely personal. And I'm not saying this to slyly state that an alternative view comes across as impersonal.
   Some writers live by the notion of writing mechanically. If that works for them, I can't wholly condemn...
   That approach is not for me. It feels better, nicer, to hear what reading and writing means to all you scribblers out there in the dark. What fires you up about writing? Something that runs deeper than sales or reviews, I'd hope.
   There are many tangled paths leading through the writer's life. Follow a few. Get lost in the woods, and see how you feel when you are unlost once again.
   Worrying over churning out books? Unworry. Disappointed in the tale you wrote? Pen another. Obsessed when it comes to reviews? What happened to being obsessed when it comes to writing?
   Fail. Spectacularly. Shred that tome. Begin again. Earlier I was looking over another writer's words, with a view to quoting her and providing some sort of authorly inspiration on this here blog.
   The sentiment I spotted wasn't an original one. It is all over the internet, like flies all over a cheap suit all over the waterfront like sailors all over.
   To some of you, writing becomes a mire filled with landmines and diseases. It's easy to slip into the morass, blow up, and come away with the plague. There's a 35% chance of catching cold, too.
   The points I mentioned are all points you should not be caught up on. There are many other points on which you may falter. Keep writing. Get stuck. Learn. Become unstuck.
   In finishing, I'll quote the late, great, Missy Biozarre.

I understand what you mean by stuck. The only advice I can offer you is: writing begets writing.

   She wasn't wrong. I'll go further. Bad writing eventually begets better writing. Better get writing.

*

Of course, I really have to finish on the point that gremlins once again attacked the construction of this blog post. Must be a Hallowe'en thing.
   Update. Yes, rain is absolutely pelting down. As though you had to ask.
 


Sunday 27 October 2013

COURTNEY LOVE, VAMPIRIC SPAM, AND INFLATED BLOG-TRAFFIC.

Gadgets. Widgets. I have those things on my blog. Hell, why not? Recently I added a listing widget, showing labels affixed to blog posts. You can run down the list, looking for items of interest - or of no interest, if your mind works that way.
   The list is configured to give size-based prominence to much-mentioned labels. Missy Biozarre, being Kacey Vanderkarr's writing buddy, is often mentioned in the same breath as Kacey - their blog labels are of similar size in the listing.
   K. Woodward, having propelled me into blogging, is mentioned far more frequently than Alistair Cooke - who inspired the scattershot methodology behind my blogging.
   Doug Chambers, a character from serialised blog fiction, makes his presence felt well-beyond his influence - in the story, his colleague Roy Falafel is the real star.
   Staring at those labels, I wondered how organised they were. They weren't. I didn't take to labels immediately, when blogging. If I misremember rightly, they were called tags before the great Blogger interface revamp.
   I added labels to blog posts on whim rather than by decree, and, with the listing gadget up, that non-policy showed. Well, here they are anyway. I write a post, adding labels for convenience, searchability, and as a sign-off to the blogging process.
   Affixing labels tells me I'm done with a post. If I can find any labels to add. This is all by the wayside. Once I nailed up the gadget that listed labels, I looked short and soft, then long and hard, at what I'd created.
   A few labelling errors and glitches crept in. I'd accidentally listed a load of poets as one entry. For some arcane reason, I'd allowed Courtney Love to lie atop Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson's grave in a combined label.
   I struggled with the peeling of a digital sticker, sorely tempted to let Courtney be. Yes, I had a task separating those two. Peeling the joint label from Queen Courtney's side, I wasn't surprised to find celebrity skin underneath.
   The author of The Body-Snatcher would laugh at today's world, I'm sure. Meanwhile, what I should have done...
   Yes, there's a label on the blog for Craig Ferguson. I should have created a Courtney-Craig combination label. Accidentally-on-purpose.
   In memory of that time Courtney fucked Craig at Carrie Fisher's house. This doesn't feature in Courtney's memoirs. Could you imagine that marriage? Courtney Ferguson. Or would that be Craig Love? (Craig Ferguson's porno label.)
   For legal reasons, I should point out that Craig Ferguson didn't actually fuck Courtney Love - she turned him ten per cent gayer instead. I'm having trouble spelling greyer. Bing Hitler's lawyers, take note.

*

Okay. Time to hit the point of this fucking blog post. (Too late.)
   I organised blog labels. Fixed glitches. Attended to duplication of effort. No big deal. Later, I was back inside my blog looking at stuff and, in the statistics, I noted an absurd rise in traffic.
   Loads of people in America suddenly jumped to my blog. At 7.00 in the morning, going by the East Coast time-zone. Eh? So what were they reading?
   Nothing. Hundreds of hits on the blog. No one accessing articles or dedicated pages. Well, okay, a few people were in - reading items on formatting. Where were the hundreds of visitors?
   Evanished.
   Check the source. Two offenders. One called vampirestat and another called adsensewatchdog. Googling these, I found they were spammer scammers.
   You find the traffic in your statistics, and, wondering what the score is, you might be tempted to visit those sites. All sorts of malice may then occur, according to many sources on the internet.
   How to ditch these ethereal visitors? Google Analytics has an admin page with filters allowing blocking of phantom statistics. Just follow the instructions. That's as far as Blogger is concerned. If you are using another blogging method, your platform will likely have a similar remedy. Root around.
   Why did I start off discussing labels? The phantom-bots keep a lookout for alterations to blog posts. Because I went through my posts like a dose of salts, tidying labels, the posts were published afresh. That gave something for the vampiric spammers to latch onto.
   I'm not obsessed by blogging statistics. Now and again, I'll check the traffic. I was annoyed when I saw this phantom surge. So wild a spray of visitors looked like a scam to me.
   If you are new to blogging, don't become obsessed by statistics. Never click on links to referring sites when you snuffle around in the stats. Type the name of the site into Google, and search to see if scam warnings come up.
   Checking my stats, I see one lone reader is in RIGHT NOW. He, she, or it, is reading up on the adventures of Doug Chambers. Episode sixteen. Doug is mentioned, but doesn't put in an appearance.
   What will my Chinese reader make of that? I'd hope for a realisation that fifteen episodes precede the blog entry under perusal. Maybe the reader slyly read those episodes earlier. I've no way of knowing.
   Though I do know this. I can block phantom visitors with the digital equivalent of bell, book, candle, and Holy Water™. My advice - do the same.

*
Update. Rinse and repeat. Blogger itself eventually blocks the vampiric sites. At which point, the minions step in and remove stakes from chests. I've had to block the vampires again. They spawn and respawn like Space Invaders on commission.
   And yes, updating this blog gives the vamps another vein to latch onto. Stick with my main advice - if you are new to blogging, don't become obsessed by statistics. You can see the real page views anyway. Google links before even thinking about musing about considering clicking a link.


Monday 21 October 2013

BLOGGING WITH BLOGGER - NOT AS INFURIATING AS IT USED TO BE.

Cold rain fell in stair-rods.
   Now I am struggling to remember the last time I was in a house with stair-rods. That's far from the point. I'm remembering

Fuck - talk about irony. (WILL RETURN TO THIS COMMENT.)

   Anyway, as I was saying before I was SO interrupted, I'm remembering the weather from the night I opened my blog for business.
   There were comments before I opened officially. But the proper start to this blog came on a cold rainy night - Hallowe'en, 2011. I walked through the rain-drenched streets, dodging the raindrops.
   Rain fell so hard it clanged, disintegrated, and rose off the pavement in a misty swirl.
   My plan was to publish a book on Amazon. Before I did that, I'd blog six times. And before I did that six-post run, I'd start my blog. Before I did that, I'd run a test transmission or two.
   How to start my blog? Hell, if you blog as a writer of fiction then put a story on that blog.
   Over the weekend I wrote The Chalice in the Snow and nailed it on my blog's Hallowe'en Inauguration page. Just. Barely.
   Took me hours. Using this method of blogging. BLOGGER. I suspect infuriated users spell it in a slightly different way.
   Mm.
   I sat in the public library, sand running out. Wrestling the story into place was a hellish experience. The interface turned its face away.
   But I persisted, and the job was done. Spooky story, released into the wild Scottish night on Hallowe'en. Pronounce it hal. Not hollow. Then it'll sound more Scottish.
   It's hard to fit the letter r in there, to make the word sound e'en mair Callydonian.
   Hallowe'en...argh!
   Using the public library for internet access brought its own problems. Addicts in the library. Technical faults became REALLY technical in a public place. Other distractions.
   The limit of time.
   Looking at my archive, I see that I blogged ten times in that first year - not counting dedicated pages. After that opening, I blogged at least once a week.
   Lately, I've been blogging more - as I now have the internet at home. The constraint of time was eased away. That made blogging less infuriating.
   No addicts, or similar distractions.
   The blog interface changed from that time to this. BUGGER, whoops, BLOGGER used to be bluer. I grew familiar with the backstage layout. Then the bastards moved production to a new theatre.
   If you are desperate for a whiff of the olden times, the internet will help you in your quest to return to that earlier interface.
   I started this post thinking blogging was easier for two reasons. One. I use the internet at home. Two. The change to the interface was for the good, in the end.
   But I reached...

Cold rain fell in stair-rods.
   Now I am struggling to remember the last time I was in a house with stair-rods. That's far from the point. I'm remembering

   That's when I received the warning that my work couldn't be saved, and I'd have to do something about it. Sacrifice goats. (Again? Really?)
   Anyway, if you are planning to blog about being a writer of fiction, throw some fiction on your blog. Try that Hallowe'en Inauguration page. See how things worked out for me.
   The story serves as an introduction to Sorcha, from Neon Gods Brought Down by Swords. That's a book I published on Amazon, after running my blog for a few weeks...
   Yes. All according to a plan that depended on the public library for internet access. I'm surprised I managed to publish the short story under those noisy conditions.
   Blogging. Not as infuriating as it used to be. Haven't lost a blog post yet. Is that the main thing? It'll do for now.

  

Saturday 12 October 2013

READING CHALLENGE.

In January I decided I'd do what I could to read a book a week over the year, demolishing 52 tomes.
   Quality never came into it. Book-size was unimportant. All I had to do was pick up a book and read the damned thing. Nail 52 books, come year's end. I achieved that goal at the start of October.
   Success?
   No. By my account, I'm pretty sure I bought something like 40 new (and old) books this year. So my overall book deficit is down by a round dozen.
   Put out the flags. Hire the band. Mock those afflicted by the bug of reading. I'd hoped to have the number of unread tomes down by 45. That hope was forlorn.
   I'm not counting electronic books. Dinosaur that I am, I tend to use the Kindle to vet my own work. To me, the Kindle is a writing and editing and formatting tool rather than a book portal.
   Just can't get away from reading paper, no matter how I try. Many of the books I ordered for the Kindle were classic tales I'd read. Quite a few sit on my shelves in dead-tree form. I wanted to check digital formatting against paper typography.
   Shuffling numbers, comparing titles, checking formats, how did I do overall? Sadly, I pretty much came out of the experience at about the same level as I went in.
   Except.
   I GAINED from reading those books. Story ideas came to me. Old words appeared. Plots entertained me. I laughed at jokes. Volume by volume, I came away enriched. Even when I read crap.
   The book I just demolished had the whole plot back-loaded into the final ten pages - an infuriating read, given that the last five pages were reserved for an explanation negating the only-just-uncovered plot.
   You can take a mystery too far.
   I read a lot of good stuff. Some truly great material. And that book from the other day. Where is the plot? When will we reach the plot? Blink, oh, you missed it. Here's another twist inside the tale, at the final rattling gasp.
   Blah.
   Where now? To the same challenge. A book a week, over a year. With a limit on purchasing books, so that my deficit drops by a far greater number next time around.
   No more mad sprees when sales come calling. It is lunacy to chomp through 30 books then immediately purchase another 30 in the sale.
   Old thinking. Awful lack of planning. Done with treading water.
   How about you? Do you set annual reading goals? Life intrudes, of course, so you are excused if you don't quite make it through your list. Stack. Pile. Mound.
   I made it, though still felt as though walking on the spot. Next time, I'll be running on the spot. Makes all the difference, I'm sure.
   So, with my library and office revamped, do I fall into the trap of installing new bookcases and filling them? No. I force my way through hasty purchases from this moment on.
   That's the real reading challenge. Avoiding hasty purchases.

Friday 11 October 2013

REPORTS OF MY BLOG'S DEATH GREATLY EXAGGERATED.

Just finished applying electric paddles to the blog. I was here on a routine visit and found my blog gasping on the floor. Blogger took one of its nastier fits.
   I could see my blog. My blog lay in distress. Couldn't do anything to help my poor blog. My anti-virus guard started shouting down the hall, stopping blogger from stealing details of my non-existent credit card.
   Awkward.
   I was given the option to refresh. This did nothing for me. I couldn't access pages, design options, hell, I started to wonder if I'd be let through the exit.
   What do you do under the circumstances?
   I left, in search of electric paddles. Then I switched the computer off and on again. That worked. I know it worked, as I'm sitting here typing in a file that I have almost-magical access to.
   Blog saved.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

KINDLE FORMATTING. SIZE-CHANGE GLITCH.

This glitch took a little while to spot. I believe authors should know their work front to back and back again. Because I checked my books that way, I found this quirk on Amazon's Kindle platform...
   Sometimes, seemingly for no reason, when going back through a book, the size of text would balloon all by itself.
   Reading a page in a small font...
   I'd find myself staring at a piece of text that was filling the page.
   Then I'd find myself back on the much smaller size I'd originally selected.
   So I adjusted the text itself to see what difference that made. Advice? None. Unless you count...
   Ask Alice.
   The problem is thrown at you when reading text that's broken into blocks. And only then, when reversing through the book by more than four pages.
   THAT is why it took me a little while to fathom. You could track back through three pages. Nothing.
   The problem appears more frequently if adding scripts to a work. Writing some form of movie script or running a section of a play.
   Here's the grief. Regular paragraph returns, employed to show space, don't work one after the other. They only show up on the Word file, and not on the converted file built for the Kindle.
   Multiple manual line breaks do show up, but you don't want to use too many of those. Especially if you are compiling one-line lists of things - in a table of contents, for example.
   A single regular paragraph marker will show up as a space if it is preceded by a manual line break. That can cause complications. Fortunately, the reverse arrangement works. Paragraph marker followed by manual line break.
   Somewhere in all these combinations, you'll uncover awkward quirks. To avoid awkwardness when compiling blocks of text, use manual line breaks for all but the last line of text. As shown here...


   In the block running from VAMPIRES through to chapter THREE, each line ends with a manual line break. (Press shift and return together for that effect.) However, the last line must end with a paragraph marker. (The return key, alone, for the end of the chapter THREE line.)
   My entries for blogs are single sections, and are treated as last lines for purposes of choosing the finishing symbol - a paragraph marker in each case.
   Sticking to that pattern avoids all sorts of quirks and gremlins. With the notion of providing a script caught between sections of text...


   ...the line of dialogue ends with a paragraph marker. And the space between lines is registered using a manual line break. UNTIL the last line of dialogue before the next block of regular text.
   Then the position reverses. The line ends with a manual line break and the space is registered by a paragraph marker. See Moff Larkin's line about integrity in Hull for the shift.
   That change removed a lot of gremlin-based activity from my work. It'll only apply to your work if you provide one-line lists, or slices of text resembling a play.
   Look out for spaces in Kindle formatting. How to apply those spaces between blocks of text. And run through your work, page by page, once you've slapped a prototype copy on the Kindle.
   Back the way, as well as forward.
   Keep experimenting with formatting. Find what works for you, based on the tools you use and misuse.

KINDLE FORMATTING. CENTRED CHAPTER TITLE GLITCH.

In the last post I mentioned placing a paragraph mark at the start of a chapter, to negate an awkward formatting glitch. That glitch applies to centred chapter headings. Here's the tale...
   Does this happen in your Kindle books?
   When using Kindle to jump from the table of contents to any chapter, the centred chapter heading flicks to the left of the page. Go back or forward one page and return to the chapter start and the heading changes size slightly as it reverts to the centre.
   Adding an extra paragraph mark to the Word file at the top of the page kills this glitch off. Here's how...
   My stories use manual chapter links. (As opposed to the automated feature provided by Microsoft.) For ease of navigation, I set up my own table of contents and list chapters and special features there.
   Each heading has a hyperlink leading to a bookmark attached to the actual chapter title further in. To save bother, I set that stuff up in template form.
   For example, my FICTION FACTORY stories are in seven sections. VAMPIRES, shown below, started in the template as...

TITLE.
ONE.
TWO.
THREE.


BEHIND THE SCENES – CONSTRUCTING THE STORY.
ALSO AVAILABLE.
ABOUT ME/CONTACT ME.


   I just fill in the blanks by writing the story. Using Microsoft Word, you must go through the menus Tools, Options, View, Show. Tick the box for Bookmarks.
   Then you'll see bookmarks you've added. They show up as grey square brackets.

[CHAPTER TITLE.]

   Each chapter title is hyperlinked back to the table of contents. Hence all the underlined blue text in the Word file. So what's the problem?


   You can see by the purple text that I accessed the first chapter in that shot of the manuscript for VAMPIRES. I was double-checking the glitch was gone.
   If you generate a chapter with a centred title on one line...


[CHAPTER TITLE.]
   ...then you create a curious glitch when using the table of contents to reach that chapter. Clicking on ONE. NO STRINGS SOME RULES. leads to...


    In the Word file, you'll see that the chapter title is on one line, and that's true of the hyperlink too, but the grey bracketed bookmark is spread over two lines thanks to that extra paragraph mark inserted at the start of the page.
   If that bookmark isn't split, there's a glitch. You get that annoying unannounced alteration in size of text and a shunt to the left.
   So. Keep your title in one piece. And keep your hyperlink in one piece. But add an extra paragraph marker at the start. Highlight that AND the title line for inclusion in the bookmark when you go to add the bookmark.
   No more glitch page problems.

*

Note...



   There are spaces between blocks of text on this page. Normally when going from paragraph to paragraph, I use paragraph markers by hitting enter. Return. Carriage return.
   However, when creating one-line lists, I press shift and return together to generate a manual line break. That works until the last line in the block, which must be a paragraph marker. The space between blocks is then activated by another manual line break.
   Doing that avoids a devious glitch, which I'll cover in the next blog post. It's only really of concern when creating lists, or scripts for plays and movies.


Monday 7 October 2013

KINDLE FORMATTING. PARAGRAPH INDENTATION.

This next piece proved useful to people, so I’ll repeat it here with a few visuals thrown in.

To turn my story into a Kindle product, I use MS Word and convert the file to PRC using Mobipocket Creator. (PRC is nothing to do with China, as far as I know.) Go to the Kindle section of Amazon. Find a book, any book, inviting you to LOOK INSIDE!
   Do just that.
   What are you looking for? The first line of the story. Chances are, that line is indented. Amazon has a default setting within its publishing factory, which has given rise to this decidedly non-paperback phenomenon.
   When I was struggling to deal with the format of my first self-published manuscript, I soon discovered this joyful stumbling-block. That’s what the Previewer is for. Well, how do I get my book to look like a book? With the first paragraph free of indentation…
   Solution?
   I couldn’t find one. Answer – chip away at all possible permutations until I found one that worked. This solution relates to using Microsoft Word for the original text, before it goes through the caterpillar-butterfly transformation.
   Start with the chapter title. Type carefully. The chapter title ends with a tap of the return key. MS Word recognises this symbol as a paragraph mark.
   On-screen, the symbol resembles a capital P flipped to face the other way, with the hollow section filled in, and two legs to stand on instead of the usual one leg.

 
   Some of you may think of the return key as the enter key. Others might still call it the carriage return key. I feel I must refrain from making comments about age.
   Follow that single tap of the return key with manual line breaks. Hit the return key and the shift key simultaneously. That generates a manual line break. On-screen, the symbol looks like an arrow coming down and veering left.


   I use three manual line breaks like that before I start writing the first paragraph. The general recommendation is that you never use four or more.



   That should do the trick. Chapter title. Paragraph mark. A number of manual line breaks to suit your own taste – no more than three. (People like to read books on their phones, and more than three breaks will cause trouble for those readers.)
   With the title/paragraph mark/manual line break sequence in place, the first paragraph of a chapter then loses the annoying (unseen) default indent.
   You can’t just use paragraph marks one after the other, as they don’t show up when used in a straight sequence. Once converted to Kindle, they might as well not be there – leading to no space between chapter title and first line. Awkward, unless you are aiming for that style.
   (However, note that, in the above screenshot on chapter links, I place a paragraph mark at the top of the page before the title. This removes a formatting glitch from the book in relation to hyperlinked chapter titles. The title shown isn’t hyperlinked, but I use the extra paragraph mark as a matter of routine. This extra paragraph mark doesn’t show up in the finished product.)

*

For breaks within chapters, I separate the sections by means of an asterisk.
   End the section of text with a paragraph mark. (The return key again.) Next, add a manual line break. (Shift and return. Not one after the other. Together or not at all.) Then type the asterisk, followed by the return key.
   To end the sequence, hit shift and return together. After that, type your new paragraph. Go back and centre the asterisk. The line break above the asterisk should also centre, though the one below should not.

 
 
   Beware. If the next section opens with direct speech, you may find inverted commas starting with closing quotes instead of opening ones. Some fine-tuning is required.

*

Why place an asterisk between chapter sections? The reader will always see the asterisk. If you leave a blank space between sections, that space can be lost in the Kindle shuffle, depending on font-size. A new section, without indent, should indicate where the next scene kicks off. The best solution is to have some form of character, preferably an asterisk, right there as an obvious visual cue.

*

For authors who wish to follow the advice, remember – this arrangement worked for me. You may be doing other things in the background, or foreground, bringing my advice into conflict with how you run your office. Solution. Keep trying.
   All of my books get around the Amazon default setting of the first line paragraph indent. Is this something readers are bothered by? We’re in the Twilight Zone on that one...
   How far does an e-reading experience stray from the paper one? An army of readers, used to paper publishing conventions, will want something that resembles what went before. With all the advantages e-reading brings, into the bargain. (Instant dictionary, etc.) In another generation, who knows...
   Some readers will convert completely. Others will mix and match between paper and e-reading. A few will sample then reject outright, clinging to the familiarity of the past. There is a cry for “proper” books, whatever those are.
   If you feel that you are going to alienate many of your readers by dropping traditional publishing conventions, do your best to take account of this. Though remember – there was resistance to the end of the one-page paragraph. Robinson Crusoe would be a touch easier to read if rendered in smaller chunks on the page...
   For my part, I couldn’t cut loose of an established publishing convention even though I embraced digital publishing. I wrote my fiction that way anyhow, and stuck to that format. To first para indent or not is your choice.
   If it makes production of your book easier and you don’t receive thousands of complaints, ye are harming none and saving yourself some bother if you decide to stick with the Amazon default.
   We’d all like to think it’s what we write the readers are interested in, and not how we encode our scribble...

*

Paragraph indentation itself is handled in the Format box. Highlight the text you want to indent. Inside the tab marked Indents and Spacing, there’s an option for Special settings. To generate paragraph indents, set the feature to First line and select a measurement. I use 0.5 cm, as shown in the screenshot.



   Once you’ve set up the indentation, that’s it for the rest of the text unless you put in obvious breaks. Then you’ll have to highlight again.
   I can’t cover all the quirks here, as I don’t know how you write your stories. But you’ll see how things pan out as you go.
   While your attention lingers on that screenshot…
   Line spacing should be set to 1.5 for the eventual conversion to Kindle.

Sunday 6 October 2013

WRITING FICTION. THE WOMAN TEST.

I wrote this piece after I'd had more than enough of a tired format - quite a specific one. Plugging James Bond movies. Actress dazzles with smile on interview sofa. Talks about how strong her Bond character is.
   And I'm left wondering how much she can physically lift. Will she raise the movie up off the tired format of plugging itself in that one way?
   A few years after I wrote this entry, we were treated to the notion that the movie SPECTRE was a feminist film...as Bond went knocking around with a woman of roughly his own age.
   This is a woman whose husband Bond kills before sliding casually into her arms while what's left of the husband's corpse is still warm. Well, technically that isn't adultery.
   Monica Bellucci's character is spared the death Bond's sexual contact normally brings...presumably the movie-makers had one eye on a sequel that would bring her back for a spot of exposition.
   I'd believe SPECTRE was a feminist film if La Bellucci'd been paid the same rate as Daniel Craig trousered for appearing in that flick. Anyway...
   (This entry predated the release of SKYFALL by a few weeks, and the topic was on my mind.)

After blogging WRITING FICTION. THE KNIFE TEST, I decided to do a post on similar lines. (For more in that line, see WRITING FICTION. THE CHAPTER TEST. And for a piece on conduct, rather than typing, there's WRITING FICTION. THE CREEPY SEXIST DICK AUTHOR TEST.)
   This is a test of the fiction you write - though there is no straight pass/fail result. The test allows for a neutral outcome. You scribble a story. Ask yourself a question of the piece you wrote.
   In your story, does a woman (or female entity) say or do something meaningful?
   If the answer is yes, your story passes the woman test. And if the answer is no, chances are your story has failed the woman test.
   But bear in mind the following points...
   If you write a story with an all-male cast and you have no desire to shoehorn a female element into that story by the most awkward means at your literary disposal, then your story neither passes nor fails the woman test.
   Example. A World War Two submarine story. All-male cast. You wish to avoid the cliché of the submariner reading a letter from his wife - because that guy dies in his next scene if you take that path. IT'S THE LAW.
   Given that you don't shoehorn the female character into the story by that means, your story doesn't pass the test. But your set-up isn't an outright failure, given the stricture of the setting.
   Another example. You write some weird sci-fi stuff about asexual characters. Story doesn't pass, but technically that's not a failure either.
   And there you have the woman test. Keep it in mind when scribbling fiction. Try to avoid writing female characters who are there to make echo-sounds.

MAN: We must stop the atomic explosion!

WOMAN: Atomic explosion?

   Ever-questioning characters, who only exist to blunder through who, what, where, when, how, why, huh, are cardboard at the best of times. There's no need to up the cardboard quotient by dressing those characters in skirts, dumping all the meaningless lines on the ladies.
   And while I'm here, musing, do we really need boob-shaped armour on women? If that trend persists, we should see a little equality there by forcing armoured men to have cock-shaped padding downstairs.
   Next they'll be putting nipples on Batman.

PART TWO. MOVING A WRITER'S OFFICE AROUND.

Grand schemes. The movement of books on shelves. I can handle this. Can't I? My work was done...
   But, standing in a dismantled office, I knew that wasn't the case. In the cold light of what passes for day, in my heart of hearts, I sensed bitter inevitability.
   I had to dismantle my desk.
   There are three desks. One in my library. Two in the office. The old desk had to go. It propped up books. A bookcase would prop up more. Lose the desk and make space for? Two bookcases. Maybe three.
   With that heavy heart, I dismantled the old desk and stored it behind, er, my desk. I can't store the old desk anywhere else - there isn't room to get the main plank into the loft without injury to the loft.
   This isn't about cramming more books in. It's about change. Updating the office. Arranging cables. Having certain grindy-grindy machines to hand.
   I've yet to lose fingers in the shredder.
   Has the main change to the library worked? Yes.
   And the office? I started with one bookcase stacked in front of another. Any improvement? Yes. I now have two half-bookcases stacked in front of two full bookcases.
   That's progress.

*

How is the office now? In bits. Getting there. Moved stuff around a little more. Fixed unspecified things. The printer is back in the office. It fits there perfectly.
   PERFECTLY.
   I may ditch it and buy a new one.
   Not that I print much these days, except essential government files which the government does not see fit to set up for electronic processing - even though I can electronically download and print said files.
   Abed, thinking problems solved, I sensed something. What else, but a falling book...
   Technically, a landing book.
   The library layout is fine. And the office layout is almost there. I have an empty wall to fill, one day, with more books. How long will that take?
   Well, I am going to squeeze a lot more use out of my library and see how many books I can fit in there. Then I'll start worrying about the office.
   I did a world of measuring, just to drag one bookcase from office to library. But that was well worth the effort, for my office now has free space.
   And if I ever have to reconstitute that desk, the old faithful, why, I can.

*

Late arrival of a book caused problems. To fit that book on THAT shelf, those two books must leave the library and travel to the office. There, THOSE massive volumes must make way for the transported books.
   The only place for the massive volumes is, well, back in the library. And so it goes. The recycling of space. A dwindling resource. Solution?
   Embrace the digital archive. Switch from analogue reading machines to digital ones. I look left. There's the Kindle, sitting atop some old-fashioned paper reading devices.
   My library shelves are now officially full.
   I'm forced to think of things that are on order. How many books are still swirling in that system? Probably around half a dozen. There's room in the office, now. For now.