Category Archives: The Writing Life

Posts about writing for fun and profit.

Your Poorly Written Communication is Not Cute

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Capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and spelling — it’s pretty basic stuff.

I’m trying to determine whether some of the people who contact me via blog comments and email are illiterate or trying to be cute.

I’m a writer. I’ve been writing for a living since 1990. No, I don’t have a degree in English. And no, I know my grammar isn’t perfect.

I learned to read and write with everyone else in school back in the 1960s-1970s. We were taught to write using good grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. If we got it wrong — and yes, there is a difference between right and wrong for these things — we were penalized with bad grades. That became motivation for getting it right. Some of us learned better than others, but we all learned the basics.

Apparently, this is not the case these days. Take, for example, the email message I blogged about back in September, “News Flash: I am NOT a Helicopter Cost Consultant.” I quoted the full text of the email message I received:

as of this date if i were to buy a used R22 with approx a 1000 hrs on it how much would the total operating costs be per hour if i were to fly 100 hours a year including reserve money for future overhaul

Note the lack of proper capitalization (well, he got R22 right) and punctuation. The whole thing is a run-on sentence fragment.

Yes, I understood what he was looking for. And yes, I know that mutual understanding is the goal of communication.

But seriously: this email message leaves me wondering if this guy was asleep through elementary school or simply doesn’t care enough about the recipient of his messages to bother making recognizable sentences.

I got another one today, this time in comments:

i think it hard to become a pilot if it in book to study…………….

Ironically, this was posted on a blog post titled, “So You Want to Be a Helicopter Pilot, Part 6: Study Hard.” Was this supposed to be a joke? I didn’t find it funny in the least. And because it added nothing of value to this blog, I trashed it.

So I’m left wondering whether these people are:

  • Stupid. They just didn’t learn the basics in school.
  • Too stupid to care. They think it doesn’t matter.
  • Trying to be cute. They think that lack of capitalization and punctuation is unique and different.

As a writer, this failure to even try to write in decent English (or the language of your choice) pisses me off to no end.

I’m just wondering how these people survive in today’s economy and job market. I know that if someone contacted me looking for a job and couldn’t be bothered to communicate with something resembling good English, I wouldn’t bother to read past the first sentence fragment.

Autorotation Explained

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A primer for non-pilots.

One of my pet peeves is finding inaccurate information in works of fiction (or non-fiction, for that matter). You can argue all day long that fiction is fiction and the writer can write whatever he wants. After all, fiction, by definition, is a made up story. That gives the author license to make things up as he goes along.

I agree that it’s fine to make up the story, but unless it’s a work of science fiction or fantasy (where it might be acceptable to change the laws of physics), it’s not okay to make up the details of how existing things work. I explored this theme in my post “Facts in Fiction,” and picked apart the work of a bestselling author in “Dan Brown Doesn’t Know Much about Helicopters.” Both posts were triggered, in part, by basic errors about how helicopters work that appeared in works of fiction.

The Question

“Facts in Fiction” was also triggered by an email message I received from a writer looking for facts about how helicopters fly. Oddly, I just received another one of those messages not long ago:

I’ve recently been writing a novel in which I have to describe the sound a helicopter makes, how they fly and things along these lines.

But there is a section of my book where a helicopter runs out of fuel and begins to drop. However, below them is a forest and they crash into the canopy. But in order to minimize damage the pilot uses autorotation to make the helicopter somewhat stable. I don’t want to be an ignorant writer that makes stuff up at the expense of fact. I’ve looked up autorotation but it’s still not clear to me- would you be able to help me out with how a pilot would initiate autorotation (in simple terms!)

Again, I applaud this writer’s desire to get it right. The aviation community certainly doesn’t need yet another work of fiction that misrepresents basic aerodynamic facts.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty clear that this writer does not understand how helicopters fly. This is common among non-pilots. Some folks think that the rotor disc — when the blades are spinning — works like a giant fan that keeps the helicopter in the air. Other folks — well, I don’t know what they think. But very few seem to realize that like airplanes, helicopters have wings.

Yes, wings. What do you think the rotor blades are?

Helicopters are rotary wing aircraft. This means that they have wings that rotate.

The Real Question

Although this writer seems to want an explanation of “how a pilot would initiate autorotation,” he has a bigger misunderstanding to clear up first. It all stems around these two phrases:

…a helicopter runs out of fuel and begins to drop.

and

…in order to minimize damage the pilot uses autorotation to make the helicopter somewhat stable.

The problem is that if a helicopter ran out of fuel and the engine quit (assumed), the pilot has only about 2 seconds to enter an autorotation to prevent a catastrophic crash. You don’t enter an autorotation to “make the helicopter somewhat stable.” You enter an autorotation to maintain a controlled glide to the ground that, hopefully, concludes with a landing everyone can walk away from.

Or, put it another way, in the event of an engine failure, the pilot must perform an autorotation if he wants to survive.

So in order to answer the question this writer asked, I need to first address his misunderstanding of how helicopters fly and what autorotation does.

How Helicopters Fly

Let’s start with something most people do understand — at least partially: how an airplane flies.

An airplane has at least one pair of wings that are fixed to the sides of the fuselage. The wings have a specific shape called an airfoil that makes lift possible.

When the pilot wants to take off, he rolls down the runway, gathering speed. This causes wind to flow over and under the airfoil. After reaching a certain predetermined minimum speed, the pilot pulls back on the yoke or stick which lifts the airplane’s nose. This also changes the angle of attack of the relative wind on the wings. That change produces lift and the plane takes off.

Obviously, this is an extremely simplified explanation of how airfoils, relative wind, and angle of attack produce lift. But it’s really all you need to know (unless you’re a pilot).

A helicopter’s wings — remember, they’re rotary wings — work much the same way. But instead of moving the entire aircraft to increase the relative wind over the airfoil, the wings rotate faster and faster until they get to 100% (or thereabouts; long story) RPM. Then, when the pilot wants to take off, he pulls up on a control called the collective which increases the pitch or angle of attack of all the rotor blades. That change produces lift and the helicopter takes off.

It’s important to note here that when you increase angle of attack, you also increase drag. Whether you’re in an airplane or in a helicopter, you’ll need to increase the throttle or power setting to overcome the increased drag without decreasing forward speed (airplane) or rotor RPM (helicopter).

Rotorcraft Flying HandbookIf you’re interested in learning more about lift and how helicopters fly, I highly recommend a free FAA publication called Rotorcraft Flying Handbook. This is a great guide for anyone interested in learning more about flying helicopters. You don’t need to be an aeronautical engineer to understand it, either. If the text isn’t enough to explain something, the accompanying diagrams should clear up any confusion. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

What Happens when the Engine Quits

Things get a bit more interesting when an aircraft’s engine quits.

On an airplane, the engine is used for propulsion. If the engine stops running, there’s nothing pushing the airplane forward to maintain that relative wind. Because it’s the forward speed that keeps an airplane flying, its vital to maintain airspeed above what’s called stall speed — the speed at which the wings can no longer produce lift. To maintain airspeed, the pilot pushes the airplane’s nose forward and begins a descent, thus trading altitude for airspeed. The plane glides to the ground. With luck, there’s something near the ground resembling a runway and the airplane can land safely.

On a helicopter, the engine is used to turn the rotor blades. If the engine stops running, there’s nothing driving the blades. Because it’s the spinning of the rotor blades or rotor RPM that keeps a helicopter flying, its vital to keep the rotor RPM above stall speed. The pilot pushes the collective all the way down, thus reducing drag on the rotor blades — this is how he enters autorotation. (The helicopter’s freewheeling unit has already disengaged the engine from the drive system, so the blades can rotate on their own.) The reduction of the angle of attack of the blades starts a descent, trading altitude for airspeed and rotor RPM. The helicopter glides to the ground. With luck, there’s a clearing or parking lot and the helicopter can land safely.

It’s extremely important to note that as long as the pilot maintains sufficient rotor RPM, he has full control of the helicopter all the way down to the ground. He can steer in any direction, circle an appropriate landing zone, and even fly sideways or backwards if necessary (and he has the skill and nerve!) to make the landing spot. So to say “the pilot uses autorotation to make the helicopter somewhat stable” shows complete ignorance about how autorotation works.

About 30 feet above the ground, the pilot pulls back on the cyclic to slow his forward airspeed. The resulting flare trades airspeed for rotor RPM, thus giving the main rotor blades extra speed. That comes in handy when he levels the helicopter and pulls the collective full up — thus bleeding off RPM, which he won’t need on the ground — to cushion the landing before touching the ground.

The point that needs to be made here is that helicopter engine failures and autorotations don’t always end in a crash. In fact, with a skilled pilot and a suitable landing zone, there’s no reason why it should end in a crash. So in the example presented by this writer, the helicopter doesn’t have to crash at all. It could have an engine failure and safely land in a clearing.

And here’s another newsflash: every helicopter pilot not only knows how to perform an autorotation, but he’s tested on it before he can get his pilot certificate. He’s also required to prove he can do one every two years during a biennial flight review. And if he’s like me, he’s tested annually by an FAA inspector for a Part 135 check ride.

Writers: Do Your Homework!

It’s good to see this writer trying to get the information he needs. But in my opinion, he went about it all the wrong way.

It’s been over a month since I got his emailed request for information. I never replied by email; this is my reply. Has he written his passage without the answers to his question? I have no idea. He never followed up.

But wouldn’t it have been smarter to simply talk face-to-face with a helicopter pilot? Any helicopter pilot could answer these questions and set him straight. Helicopter pilots aren’t so hard to find. Flight schools, tour operators, medevac bases, police helicopter bases, etc. Not only could the writer get his questions answered by someone who knows the answers from experience, but he could gather a wealth of information about helicopters, including their sound, why they don’t usually take off straight up, and other operation aspects. And if he visited a flight school or tour operator and had some extra money to spend, he could even go on a flight to see what it’s like from the inside of the aircraft.

Emailing a blogger who happens to write a lot about helicopters and complain when novelists get it wrong [hand raised] is downright lazy.

And despite what you might think, writing is not a job for lazy people.

The Book from Hell

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I know how I like to work — and this wasn’t it.

Over the past eight or so months, I was a passenger on board a roller coaster that slugged its way through my life. The ride started quite suddenly in the summer when I realized that when I was finished working on the book I was revising (the software manual for QuickBooks Mac 2011, published in ebook format only), I had no other projects lined up. The publisher I like working with most had cut back on many titles that simply weren’t selling well enough to make them worthwhile and most of mine were affected. In fact, it became quite clear that I would not be revising my Excel book for the Office 2011 version of Excel. My Word titles were already dead and buried and much of the other software I’d written about in the past was either gone or not of any interest to anyone. As I wrapped up that QuickBooks project and finished off my summer as a cherry drying pilot, I began to worry about getting enough writing work to take me through the winter months.

A New Relationship with a New Publisher

A friend of mine mentioned in an e-mail to a bunch of writers that a publisher was looking for someone to do a book about Outlook 2011 for Mac. This was the replacement of Entourage, the Mac e-mail, calendar, and contact management component of Microsoft Office. I’d used Entourage in the past and liked certain aspects of it, including its ability to apply rules to outgoing e-mail messages and manage projects consisting of documents created with any program. I’d been thinking about switching back to Entourage to help me with my project management needs and this seemed like a good time to do it. I contacted the editor — who happened to be one of my very first editors with another publisher back in the early 1990s — and got more information. I drew up an outline and submitted it. He loved it. In fact, he loved it so much that he had me draw up another outline for another book, too.

I was very happy. It looked as if I’d be able to build a new relationship with a new (to me) publisher.

Things Begin to Sour

I got to work on the project in October with every intention of knocking it out before Christmas. At first, my editor seemed behind me on this strategy. But as I began submitting chapters into what appeared to be a void, I began to lose interest in the project. Looking back on it, I realize there were a few reasons for this:

  • The void. I’d submit a chapter and not hear anything about it. I’d have to ask whether it was received to make sure it hadn’t actually gone into a real void. It didn’t seem as if anyone on the other end cared much about what I was doing. It wasn’t until weeks later that chapters started being tech reviewed and sent back to me.
  • Lack of urgency. The original publication date had been set for sometime in the spring. I knew I could beat that and pushed hard to get the date moved up. This is the way I usually work. You see, a computer book has a limited shelf life. Every day it’s not on the shelf is a day sales are lost. This is the way I’ve come to think about all my books. Apparently, I was the only one who had any sense of urgency for the project and without the support of my publisher, I couldn’t maintain it.
  • Book style. At first glance, the book was in a format I was used to: numbered step-by-step instructions. But rather than create sets of instructions for short tasks using generic material, the book would come with example files that readers could use to follow my steps to the letter using the same files I had. Not a big deal, but it did mean that I had to write exact instructions that would work for that specific example. What made the format difficult for me, however, was that before each long set of instructions, I had to write explanatory text that described all related features in full. The exercises had to illustrate these features in action. In my mind, I was writing the same thing twice. I struggled quite a bit with this because I couldn’t figure out where to put the screen shots without repeating them. This book (like most others) had a page count restraint. Screen shots take up a ton of space. I didn’t know if I was doing it “right” because I wasn’t getting any feedback from the publisher.
  • Typical Book Page

    This is a screenshot of a typical page from the book during the editing process. I don’t know about you, but looking at stuff like this makes my eyes glaze over.

    Manuscript template. This book was written and edited in Microsoft Word. I like Word — really. I’ve been using it since 1990 and it is a vital component of my writing toolbox. I’ve tried other word processors — Apple’s Pages and numerous other applications that might not even exist anymore. Word’s my choice. So that’s not a problem. What was a problem was the template, which included dozens of predefined styles for book text and figures and sidebars and headings. The template came with two extremely long style guides that attempted to explain how to use the template. These documents overlapped and had some conflicting information. And despite the fact that there were two guides, some information was missing. So I struggled to understand how to format the manuscript properly. In the end, I think I got it mostly right, but every day I was faced with pages that looked like a mess of text and images. This only got worse during the editing process when various editors used the revision tracking feature and comments to mark up the manuscript so that it was barely readable. Although this is common at most publishers, I prefer laying out my books as I write them and being able to see finished pages as I work.

  • Disappointment with the software. I hate to say it, but I liked Entourage a lot better than Outlook. I understand that Microsoft’s goal was to provide Mac users with the “enterprise tools” that their Windows co-workers already have, but in rewriting Entourage to make it Outlook, Microsoft removed some features that I really liked. Project management was one of them. In addition, Microsoft apparently thinks that all Outlook users will be connecting to a Microsoft Exchange server so it put many features that depend on that technology right in user’s faces. For example, if a contact is not on your Exchange server, several tabs of his contact record will display error messages. I still don’t believe most Outlook Mac users are using Exchange and can’t imagine why they designed the software to rely so heavily on Exchange features.

My loss of interest really bugged me. I’d never felt like this about a book and I didn’t think it was a good sign. Not only was I failing to show a satisfactory level of professionalism with a new publisher — thus making them think twice about wanting to work with me again — but the related guilt was making me miserable.

This wasn’t me; why was I being like this?

I wanted to be done with the project very badly, but, at the same time, I simply didn’t want to work on it.

Frustration Kicks In

Things took a turn for the worse when frustration began kicking in. That was caused by a combination of the above and a few more things:

  • Microsoft Exchange. I don’t have it and, frankly, I don’t want it. I didn’t think I needed it. When I realized that I would need to show Exchange-related setup and features, I was unable to get an Exchange account through my publisher or Microsoft. I had to buy one from a third-party hosting service. Then I had to buy a second one to work with it so I had two accounts that could interact. Of course, neither of these accounts were full-featured, so I couldn’t show everything I needed to. This really bugged me; the way I saw it, I was not able to do my job right and the publisher didn’t seem to care. So I stopped worrying about it — until a new tech editor started pointing out all the Exchange-related content that was missing. I thought I’d signed up to write an Outlook book for Mac users. Apparently, the tech editor thought I was writing an Exchange book for Outlook users.
  • Conflicting instructions. About halfway through the project, I was told to hold off because a service pack update would be released “soon.” A month later, I was asked why I wasn’t submitting chapters. I was waiting for an update that never came. An update that would likely change many of the screenshots — and this book had tons of them — in several chapters I’d already written. I did not look forward to making all the necessary changes.
  • Editorial comments near the end of the project. I’d submitted more than 10 of 14 chapters by January or February and that’s when they decided to have someone other than a tech editor read them. And that’s when the errors I’d repeated throughout the book began to emerge. The worst was related to “fictitious names.” I was supposed to draw all example names in the book from a fictitious names list that I didn’t use. Example e-mail messages had to be drawn from a list of fictitious domain names. (I couldn’t even use hotmail.com, which is owned by Microsoft.) Example phone numbers had to be in the range 555-0100 through 555-0900 (or something like that). Example mailing addresses had to be on common street names, like Main Street, Elm Street, First Street, etc. This affected text examples and screenshots. I spent hours redoing screenshots and editing text. This annoyed the crap out of me; if they’d reviewed it months ago when I submitted it, I would have fixed the problem from the start and not have had so much work to do.

I should mention here that I don’t blame the publisher. I’m sure this is they way they always work. Evidently, other writers don’t have a problem with it. That might be because their experience with the publishing process — and what it could be — is different from mine. Or maybe they don’t care about the quality of their work or maximizing book sales or working efficiently. Maybe they just don’t think about it as much as I do.

My feelings of guilt turned to feelings of anger. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I nearly backed out of the book. As far as I was concerned, I’d already blown any chance of doing more work for this publisher. And even if they wanted to work with me again, I couldn’t bear the thought of working with them again. It pains me to say this, but it’s the truth.

Halfway through the project, I e-mailed my editor to tell him that if he was interested in that other book, he should find another author for it. If they wanted to use my outline, fine, but I would appreciate some credit in the acknowledgements. That e-mail took a huge weight off my mind.

Probably his, too.

Not the First Time

This isn’t the first time a project has completely turned me off. For years, I wrote and revised a book about a certain Windows application that I didn’t use. I was uniquely qualified to work on it because of my experience in finance and I had no trouble coming up with solid content. The finished book was something I was proud to put my name on — and that means a lot to me.

I had two problems with the book, though: (1) I didn’t like (and still don’t like) using or writing about Windows and (2) the publisher seemed to have a knack of hiring at least one person in the editing/production process each year who seemed determined to punish me for taking on the project. For the first few years, I fought editors tooth-and-nail to prevent them from changing my voice and changing the meaning of what I’d written. An editor one year would change a sentence to her way and the editor the next year would change it back to the way I’d originally written it. They were justifying their existence. And production people would cut illustrations that were referred to in the text without cutting the references or place illustrations in idiotic place. And, in later years, a handful of tech editors who were more concerned with me leaving out obscure tips and shortcut keys than providing helpful feedback about content.

Making matters worse was the book’s insane deadline — the whole book was written based on beta software every year and the final manuscript was due before the software was finalized. For about two months every summer I’d suffer through the process of getting this book done.

In the beginning, it was worth every headache. The first edition turned out to be the second bestselling book of all time (up to that point) for the publisher’s imprint. For the first few years, it sold well and I made good money. But who really needs annual updates to software and the book about it? Some years, there was very little new material to write about because the software simply wasn’t that different. Book sales started to droop and I began seeing less and less reward for my effort. One year, I turned the book down, but they got me to do it again by offering me a better advance. That lasted a few years. Then they cut the advance — after all, it wasn’t even selling enough copies to cover the advance anymore — and I backed out after a total of 11 or 12 editions. Someone else does it now and frankly, I’m glad.

Past Experiences have Ruined Me

And that brings me back to the point of this post. Not only did I want to get these experiences off my chest, but I want to explore why they were such bad experiences in the first place.

I think the main part of the problem is my past experiences. I’ve written or revised more than 70 books since 1992. The vast majority of these books are in Peachpit’s Visual QuickStart Guide (VQS) series. In fact, I’m willing to bet that I’ve authored more VQSes than any other author.

Although Peachpit (as a company) has changed dramatically since I began writing for them in 1995, they still seem to understand that a book is written by an author. Because of that, each book project centers around what the author does — at least in my experience. They don’t pull in a huge editorial staff with members that each have their own agenda to hack apart a manuscript and make sure the author knows she’s just a cog in a big corporate wheel. Hell, they hardly edit my work at all.

Another Book Page

I created this the other day. Not only is this a lot easier on the eyes, but I’m rewarded with a sense of accomplishment every time I finish a page. That’s a real motivator for me.

Another thing I’ve grown accustomed to is laying out my own books. I do “packaging” for Peachpit — that means that I submit my manuscript as finished, laid out pages that I create in InDesign. I can visualize each page and how the information on it is presented because I create each page as I go. The result is a book that I feel good about because I’ve built every single page from the ground up. This is a feeling I simply can’t get when I work with Word template manuscripts covered with weird formatting, editing markup, and comments.

Also important is that sense of urgency: of needing the book done as soon as possible — or even sooner. Even my annual Windows book project had that feeling. My editor was always in the loop, encouraging submissions, providing feedback, answering questions, reminding me of the fast-approaching deadline. Sure, they’d hand me schedules for completion that I’d just ignore, but I always got it done on time because I was always encouraged to do so. I work best under stress — despite how damaging the health gurus say that is. It’s like I’m climbing up out of a gorge as floodwaters approach and I’m thrilled when I get to the rim safely with a new book in hand.

The point is, I’m used to working a certain way. When I’m forced to work a dramatically different way — one that is centered more around the publishing machine than the author or the book — I’m simply not happy. And yes, I do realize that we all do work we’re not happy doing. But I work better when I’m happy; I produce a better product and feel better about my career choices and life.

Bring on the Challenge, Bring on the Urgency

Fast forward to today. I’m working on a revision to one of my Visual QuickStart Guides. I don’t think I’m allowed to say what it is, but you can probably figure it out.

It’s a huge revision. I reworked the entire table of contents and shuffled content considerably while adding all kinds of new material.

On top of that, this book needs to be laid out in a brand new format I’d never even seen before. That means each page has to be reconstructed from scratch using a new template that I have to learn as I work. (Thankfully, the template came with one very thorough and easy to understand formatting guide.)

The software I’m writing about has also been completely reworked and I need to learn it as I write.

The book is over 600 pages long and I have less than two months to write it.

I’ve been putting in 8- to 12-hour days, 6 to 7 days a week. In the middle of each day, I’m convinced I’m not going to finish what I’ve set as a goal for the day. But at day’s end, when I’m done, I have a feeling of exhilaration that can’t be beat. I feel good about my work. I feel happy. I like this project.

This is how I like to work.

Learning from Mistakes

I’m sorry I took on the book from hell. I know better than to do that again. If my past experiences have ruined me for those kinds of projects, so be it. I’m too old and too set in my ways to compete with new authors who will deal with any nonsense handed out to them and consider themselves lucky to get it. I know better.

Print publishing — especially of computer books — is dying. I know that. It’s getting harder and harder to make a living writing content that readers think they can get for free on the Internet. There needs to be a new publishing market strategy and it’s sad to think that I might not be able to work with a publisher who understands that.

But part of the revolution in publishing is the rise of small presses and self-publishing. The way I see it, if I can’t get the projects I want with the publishers I want to work with, I’ll just have to come up with my own publishing projects. The next time I’m facing an empty project calendar, I’ll fill it with my own projects rather than take my chances with an unknown.

Lesson learned.

A Hectic Month

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And I thought February was bad.

March was likely the most hectic month I’ve had since I began freelancing back in 1990. It combined flying, travel, customer service, and the completion of a book in such a way that I was constantly busy and constantly thinking about what would come next. The month’s almost over now and I can look back at the craziness that was March 2011.

Two Businesses, Two Sets of Balls to Juggle

Those of you who know me or have been reading this blog for a while know that I wear two hats:

  • Freelance writer. I’ve been a freelance writer since leaving my corporate job back in 1990. I write mostly books, but I also write some articles. My area of “expertise” is software how-to for Mac OS, Microsoft Office, Twitter, WordPress, FileMaker Pro, etc. I’m a Mac person but I also “do Windows” when necessary.
  • Helicopter pilot. I’ve owned and operated Flying M Air, a helicopter charter company since 2001, although the business “got serious” in 2005 with the acquisition of a larger helicopter and an FAA Part 135 certificate. I fly tours, day trips, charters, multi-day excursions, aerial photography, and survey flights in the Southwest U.S. during the winter months and escape the heat to the Northwest U.S. for agricultural work in the summer.

Juggling these two jobs has never been difficult. Writing gives me a huge amount of flexibility as far as time is concerned. I can usually put a writing project aside for a few hours or a day or even a few days to handle the demands of my flying business. After all, there never was much flying business — until recently.

And that brings us to March 2011.

Starting Off with a Bang

Hoover Dam and BridgeThe month started off with a bang. One, two, three: three days, three charters. I took a couple on a Moonlight Dinner Tour on Tuesday, took three people to the Las Vegas area and back on Wednesday, and took another couple to Sedona for a few hours on Thursday. That’s 8.9 hours of flight time in three days.

(Okay, so I know that I used to fly a lot more when I was a tour pilot at the Grand Canyon. But this is different. These flights are for my company, not some humongous tour operator serving busloads — no exaggeration there — of people daily.)

Wildlife Surveys

Escape RouteI changed gears the following week and spent a good portion of the next two weeks conducting wildlife surveys for a client in various locations throughout Arizona and New Mexico. Not only did this require me to do about 40 hours of seriously intense flying in a relatively short period of time, but I also spent four nights away from home.

In the middle of all that, I had to arrange for some minor maintenance for the helicopter — I was quickly approaching my 50-hour required oil change. I’m still amazed that I managed to pull that together as quickly as I did. Many thanks to my now-retired local mechanic, Ed, for taking care of it for me.

The Excursion

Also on my calendar for the month — booked months ago — was a custom 8-day version of Flying M Air’s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure. I don’t do these trips very often — they’re costly and not everyone understands the value of what the package price includes — but it’s become almost routine, with me using the same hotels and tour operators and flying the same routes each time.

Icy-covered HelicopterThe emphasis this time around was on “adventure” in that the weather really messed with us. Not only did we get snowed in at the Grand Canyon, but high winds made flying conditions less than ideal. It was extremely stressful for me; these folks had paid a lot of money for a trip and it was my job to make sure they were happy. Worse yet, to make up for scenery missed when I had to reposition the helicopter without my passengers on board, I had to fiddle around with the routes a bit to make sure we overflew certain terrain. And then there were doors-off photo flights as part of the trip; that wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t so darn cold.

In the end, I wound up flying more than 10 hours, driving more than six hours, and spending seven nights in various hotels all over northern Arizona. All while stressed out. Exhausting.

First LightI did, however, get a chance to fly down to Marble Canyon at dawn for breakfast with a friend. Shot some nice video along the way. I’m working on another video with the 10+ hours of “nosecam” footage I shot that week.

And the Total Is…

In case you’re wondering, I flew a total of 76 hours in March. To give you an idea of just how much that is for me and my business, for the past six years, I’ve flown only about 200 hours per year.

So in one month, I flew more than 1/3 of the hours I fly in an entire year.

But Wait, There’s More!

That’s just the flying side of things. I was also chest deep in a new book for a publisher I haven’t worked with before.

I don’t want to go into details about the book. I’ll just say that the experience was not ideal for me — and likely not for the publisher, either. The trouble is, the book seemed to drag on and on. Normally, I can knock off a new book in a month or so with constant pressure and support from my editor. This book…well, we’ll just say that no one seemed to be too interested in me finishing it up.

Until March.

That’s when someone pulled the project off the back burner and turned up the heat. I had to finish writing a chapter or two, then start reviewing edits and proofs. And revising screenshots — let’s not go there, okay?

Trouble is, I needed to do this kind of work in my office and I was away from my office for about half the month. So the days I was in my office, I was working my butt off on this book.

Yesterday, I reviewed the last of the first-round proofs. The book looks remarkably good and I’m more proud of it than I should be. But they tell me there’s a second round of proofs to come. How can I politely tell them that I’m sick of looking at it? Answer: I can’t.

The Months Ahead

So far, my April calendar looks refreshingly open. I have another short wildlife survey, two moonlight dinner tours, and a multi-day photo flight with a regular client. I have two book projects to start — one brand new, one a revision. And that’s it.

In May, I have another wildlife survey flight that’ll likely go two or three days and then a week at Lynda.com to record a course revision. And then, at month end, I move up to the Pacific Northwest for the summer.

I’m Tired…And Glad It’s Behind Me

The month of March left me exhausted and I’m glad its over. I wish I’d been busy like this 5 or 10 years ago. Now that I’m getting older, I’m really feeling the impact of hard work and long hours flying or in front of a computer. It’s great for my businesses, but difficult for me.

Anyway, this should give you an idea of why my blog posts have been in short supply. I’ll try to start writing more regularly again soon.

Dragon Dictation? Maybe.

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I try an iPad-based dictation tool.

Note: This blog post was dictated into my iPad. Although I’d originally hoped to display the text in two columns to show unedited and edited text (as referred to in the post), I later decided to use DEL and INS tags to show actual text edits required — places where Dragon Dictation actually got it wrong. I did not correct my failure to dictate punctuation or my poor use of words, since those are my errors and not the software’s. A few additional comments are included in square brackets in the text.

I am trying something different today. I’m writing a blog post by dictating into my iPad.

I’m using a program called Capps dDragon caps dDictation. I downloaded it for free on my iPad not long after I bought the iPad. I’ve tried it a few times, and was very pleased with the results. Unfortunately, there’s a lot more to using dictation software and than simply saying what you want to say.

These first two paragraph are good example. On the left you see my dictated version. On the right you see my edited version. Notice the changes I needed to make. It’s really not bad, but not exactly perfect.

The main problem with using dictation software. See is that you have to dictate everything you want to type. That means you have to dictate your punctuation, capitalization, quotes, and any other information that you want to put in your text other than the exact words.

You also need to speak clearly directly into a microphone. On the iPad that’s not exactly convenient since the microphone is at the top of the iPad. Right now my iPad is standing up on my table with the microphone close to my mouth so that so that Dragon dictation can understand what I’m saying. Of course if you have an external microphone it will work with that as well.

You also need to be careful about what you say. Any mistakes you make will be transcribed. This makes dictation a useful tool for getting out of a first draft, but not for getting final text. You’ll still have to go through the document and make changes to it as necessary to correct errors and rephrase sentences.

As I dictate this today, I see that I’m quickly getting the hang of it. Although it’s not natural for me to do this, I don’t think it will be difficult to learn. What amazes me the most, is the way the software can recognize exactly what I’m saying. I haven’t edited any of this text other than what you sought saw at the top of this post. [Not true; read note at top of post.] Get Yet as you can see dragon dictation has managed to understand almost everything that I’ve said. This absolutely amazes me. What I don’t understand, however, is how many people reported that dragon dictation could not understand them. The overall reviews in the iTunes store for the app are very low. I can only assume that these people are not speaking slowly and clearly so that the software can understand them.

What I do find a little bothersome about this software is that it needs an Internet connection to work. As I speak it evidently records what I say and then when I’m done it sends it to the Dragon dictation website words where it’s translated and returned to me. This isn’tthe best solution if you don’t have an Internet connection all the time. But given the price of the software, which was free, I really can’t complain.

Another thing I find a little bit bothersome is the fact that it evidently has a buffer. I can’t just go on talking for a long period of time and expect the software to be able to translate. Instead it automatically cuts me off gets the translation in and puts it in the software sometimes while I’m still talking. [Boy, that previous sentence could sure benefit from some commas.] This means that I need to stop at the end of every long paragraph let it translate and then start again.

It’s interesting to me also how the software does not recognize upon a pause as a place to put a comma or period it’s also interesting to me that it probably just inserted those two forms of punctuation instead of the words that I just set. Let’s see. That’s funny it’s got the words as I said them and didn’t put in punctuation. I guess it does take a little bit of time to get used to this. [This whole paragraph is a good example of experimenting. Believe it or not, Dragon dictation made only one error; the other errors were mine.]

As a writer, it’s a dream to be able to say what you want to say and have it automatically typed for you. But the reality is and not so sweet. In reality, I can type a lot faster than I can do this dictation. I can also make a lot fewer mistakes. And I can edit as I go along.

Still, I think the thing that bothers me the most, is that I have to stop at the end of every long paragraph to let Dragon dictation catch up. I don’t type like this. I don’t think like this. I tend to type thing [I corrected myself here but DD didn’t know that.] right write a lot more a lot more fluidly. I also don’t think about the comments commas that I need to put in my documents.

Overall what do I think of this? I think it has its uses, but I can’t see using it as a normal writing tool. I’ll keep experimenting with it, but I’m not sure whether it will ever be something I use daily.

If you have an iPad or my phone iPhone I recommend giving this a try. You might like it. And if you like it a lot. You might want to buy the regular software that they self sell for your computer. They have a Windows version and a Mac version.