Tag Archives: writing

About the Photos

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I add a new category to Maria’s WebLog.

I’m not sure if readers are aware of this, but I took all of the photos that appear in the header to this site. There are about 20 of them now in the random header rotation and they’re from all over the place.

It struck me that it might be somewhat interesting to learn more about each of the photos and the circumstances under which they were taken. So I added the About the Photos category. During the upcoming weeks, I’ll be writing a bit about the photos you see on this site, explaining where they came from.

I was heavily into photography for a while — mostly while I was in college (and dating a photographer) and for several years afterward. I don’t think I have any special skill. I believe that anyone who goes to an interesting place, points an autofocus camera in the right direction, and snaps off dozens of shots has to get at least one good shot. (A friend of mine’s sister proved that when one of her photos was published as a poster for a rock band; 99% of her photos were absolute crap.) So I keep snapping and every once in a while, I get one worth sharing.

Bear with me as I tell you about some of them.

RSS Summaries

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A reader chastises me.

The other day, while writing about the Reading Options in WordPress, I decided to experiment with this blog. I togged the settings so only summaries of my entries would be sent to people accessing with RSS readers.

Understand that I don’t use an RSS reader. I surf the old fashioned way, with a Web browser. I don’t surf that often and I don’t follow any one particular blog or site. So it’s never been an issue for me.

But for the book, I had to understand what this WordPress feature did. So I toggled it to the Summaries setting, downloaded a feed reader, and looked at the result. What I saw was a list of 10 or so posts in a window. I’d click a post title and the beginning of the post would appear in a window pane beneath the list. There was a link at the end indicating that there was more; clicking the link brought me to my Web site.

This seemed a logical way to release content via RSS. After all, didn’t I want visitors to come to the site where they could read not just the articles but the comments? And see all the pictures that came with the piece?

Dori of Wise Women didn’t think so. She commented on my “Stand Up for Your Principles” piece to stand up for her principles: that RSS feeds for blogs should include the entire content.

Whew! No problem. This morning, I remembered what I did to create the summaries (I did have to remember something I learned about 2 whole days ago!) and toggled the option back to its original settings. I just checked it with my feed reader and it’s working fine.

But this makes me curious. I’d like to know more from the folks who use an RSS feed reader to follow this blog. Here are a few questions; I’d appreciate it if you’d take the time to answer a few of them in the Comments for this post.

  • How often do you check the site? Regularly? (If so, I’m flattered to be on your list!)
  • Why do you prefer a news reader to a Web browser?
  • Does your news reader display formatted text and graphics?
  • Which reader do you use? On what computer platform?
  • Would you like to share any advice for people considering using a reader or for bloggers like me who aren’t fully aware of the benefits?

Although I’m a technical person and write about computer technology for a living, I made a decision long ago to concentrate on only those technologies that I use or write about. There’s just too much out there to learn it all — and still have a life that doesn’t revolve around a computer! As a result, my knowledge of computer technology is spotty, with expertise on certain topics balanced by sheer ignorance of others. (Ignorance is bliss, they say.)

Perhaps its time to give the RSS feed reader topic a bit more attention. What do you think?

PostScript: I just used my RSS reader to check out the other blogs that were included in it. It appears that none of them include the full text of the article. What’s going on here? Perhaps that’s why I discarded the idea of using a reader when I first tried it about two years ago? Because you had to go to the Web site anyway to read the article? It seems that, in many instances, the reader adds an extra step to following blogs. If you’re commenting on this piece, please comment on that, too.

DaVinci Code Plagiarism?

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What?

Okay, so we all know that I sometimes retreat into a cave where I have no knowledge of current events. But this isn’t even current. It’s been going on since February. And even I can’t stay in a cave that long.

I’m talking about the plagiarism lawsuit over The DaVinci Code.

I heard about it today and spent some time catching up on the news with some good old Google searching. It appears that the authors of The Holy Blood, The Holy Grail (HBHG), which I thought was a work of non-fiction, are suing the author of The DaVinci Code (DC), clearly a work of fiction, for “appropriating” the central theme of their book for his. The situation is summed up quite nicely in this article from the The Times of London.

I read both books. Here’s my take.

I read DC first, primarily because it was getting so much press. This was about two years ago. I found the story very interesting — in fact, it was the primary reason I kept reading. It had a lot of fascinating “facts” and puzzles. I’m a sucker for fiction based on little-known fact and this had me hooked with its wild premise — that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, who escaped to France with their child — based on a string of facts that could just make the premise true. But as for writing style, characterization, etc., Dan Brown missed the boat, at least as far as I’m concerned.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Frank Wilson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, quoted in Opus Dei, said:

In my view, the book is unexceptionally written, with minimal character development and a third-rate guidebook sense of place. It is, however, a quick and easy read, largely because most of the chapters are only a few pages long, and just about all of them end as cliffhangers.

If you don’t pay too much attention, but sort of let the book go in one eye and out the other, you’ll get to the end before you know it. [Emphasis added.]

And Peter Millar of The Times of London (again quoted in Opus Dei — they must love this stuff) said,

This is without doubt, the silliest, most inaccurate, ill-informed, stereotype- driven, cloth-eared, cardboard-cutout-populated piece of pulp fiction that I have read. And that’s saying something. [Emphasis added.]

They said it better than I could. But there was enough page turning action to get people to read it — I breezed through the first half in a day, then finished it up a few days later — and I think the premise was more than enough to get people talking about it. The result: a bestseller from a rather average piece of writing. (It wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last.)

After reading it, I remember wondering why it was a bestseller. Maybe I missed something? I read fast and that tends to lessen the reading experience. So I did double duty and I read Brown’s Angels and Demons, too. More of the same poor characterization but with better puzzles and an even less believable plot. I don’t need to read any more Dan Brown.

Anyone who thinks Dan Brown is a great writer must read an awful lot of crap. (I’m sure that statement will get me in trouble somewhere.)

Intrigued by the whole Jesus-was-married-and-the-Catholic-Church-tried-to-hide-it thing, I sought out HBHG. I found it in my local library, of all places. It was a slow read, even for me. But I slogged through it. Lots of fascinating stuff, in painstaking detail. (Too much detail for light reading, if you ask me.) It seemed to provide all the background information for DC — the well-researched facts to back up the book’s central premise.

In fact, I always assumed that Dan Brown had read HBHG — he mentions it in DC — and had written a novel based on it. After all, how could he — a novelist — have come up with all that material by himself? It would take years to dig all that up. Or a reading list that included HBHG and a few other books that covered the same general topics.

Mind you, I don’t think it’s wrong to base a work of fiction on a work of non-fiction. And that’s where I’m having a problem with the lawsuit. Is it wrong? Am I wrong to think that it’s not?

My understanding of copyright law is that you cannot copyright an idea. Has someone changed that?

As a Guardian Unlimited article points out,

The case is also likely to clarify existing copyright laws over the extent to which an author can use other people’s research.

And that’s what scares me. Suppose I read a handful of books about Abraham Lincoln in preparation for writing a novel that takes place during his presidency. Suppose one of the books says something silly — like he was gay (hmmm, why does that sound so familiar?) — and that becomes one of the underlying themes of my book. Will the author that built the Lincoln-was-gay premise be able to turn around and sue me for plagiarism?

I guess if my book became a bestseller, anything is possible.

And then there’s Lewis Perdue, the author of Daughter of God, who claims that Dan Brown plagiarized his book. I guess he’ll be suing next. Until then, he’ll keep himself busy with his own blog, The Da Vinci Crock. I haven’t read his book, but if his claims are true, it would appear that he has a stronger case than the HBHG authors. Perhaps he just doesn’t have as much money for lawyers.

The lawsuit’s court case ended today, which is probably why I finally heard about it. You can read the Reuter’s coverage of the closing day here.

I’ll be waiting to hear how the judge rules.

Nothing by Chance

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I reach for a book on my shelf and am pleasantly surprised.

I had a Grand Canyon charter the other day. Although most Canyon visitors like to walk along the rim and enjoy the view, I’ve been so tired from work lately that I thought I might like to spend my wait time in a comfortable chair in a hotel lobby, reading a book. So before leaving home on Wednesday morning, I went into our little library and pulled a paperback I hadn’t read yet off the shelf. The book was Nothing by Chance by Richard Bach.

I was introduced to Bach’s writing when I was in high school. His book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was a huge bestseller back then and all the students who liked to read read it. (Wow, is that a weird sentence construction: “…read read…”) I don’t remember the book very well and plan to read it again soon.

This book, which was published in 1969, is one of Bach’s flying books. He wrote several of them and they’re carried by most good pilot shops. I bought this copy at least two years ago from Aero Phoenix, the wholesale pilot supply shop I used to buy products for resale in the little pilot shop I had at Wickenburg Airport. I’d bought two other books by Bach on the same shopping expedition, but had chosen the wrong one to read first and hadn’t gotten any further.

The subtitle of the book, which doesn’t appear on the cover, is “A Gypsy Pilot’s Adventures in Modern America.” It pretty much sums up the nonfiction story. I’m almost halfway finished and the story so far has been about Richard and two friends as they “barnstorm” around the midwest, attracting crowds with aerobatics and parachute jumps, making money by taking people for rides in their two airplanes. The book is no longer “modern” — unless you still live in the 1960s — and the idea of $3 airplane rides takes you back to those days. It certainly takes me back to those days: my first ride in an aircraft was in the late 1960s, when I got a helicopter ride in what was probably a Bell 47. That ride, which I took with my dad, cost only $5 per person.

Bach’s writing borders on amazing. Take, for example, the very first paragraph of the book:

The river was wine beneath our wings — dark royal June Wisconsin wine. It poured deep purple from one side of the valley to the other, and back again.The highway leaped across it once, twice, twice more, a daring shuttlecock weaving a thread of hard concrete.

I read that paragraph and suddenly felt ashamed to call myself a writer.

Fortunately, the whole book is not like that. It’s a story that moves forward, with brief interludes of wonderful imagery and flashbacks to other times in the author’s past.

I can identify with the story. I often make extra money with my helicopter by bringing it to county fairs and other outdoor events. He talks about the spectators who watch but don’t step up with their money. About how dead business can be until a passenger or two climb aboard and get the whole thing started. About flying for hours with a long line of people waiting. About waiting for hours with no one wanting to fly. He talks about trying to keep count of the passengers, about their reactions to seeing familiar terrain from an unfamiliar perspective. About the responsibility of the pilot and the joy of flight through someone else’s eyes.

It’s clear that Bach loves (or is it loved?) to fly. We have that in common.

I’m glad I pulled this book off the shelf on Wednesday. But now I’m wishing I could write its sequel, as a barnstorming helicopter pilot in the 21st century.

On Deadlines

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The reality of book deadlines — at least the way I’ve learned it.

Miraz confessed to me today that she was a bit anxious about getting our WordPress book done by its deadline. According to the project site she maintains for the book, we have only 18 days left.

I replied via e-mail with my take on deadlines. Here’s a slightly expanded version.

Every book I’ve worked on seems to have at least two or three deadlines:

The Contract Deadline

The contract deadline is the one that’s in the contract. It isn’t necessarily real and is often ignored.

Why? Well that deadline was cooked up to fill a placeholder in the contract template. It may or may not reflect a deadline that is possible.

For example, suppose I signed a contract today for my next Mac OS X book. When will that book be due? No one even knows when the software will be available to write about. Or when the software will be released. So how can someone put a realistic deadline in a contract? They can’t. But they have to put a date in the contract. It’s required. So they guess at a date and put that in. I sign it because I know it isn’t necessarily real and will likely be ignored.

The Editorial Deadline

The editorial deadline is when your editor expects to get the book. It’s based real-life things, like when the software will be available to write about it and how quickly (or slowly) you write.

Although this deadline is often after the deadline in the contract, sometimes it’s sooner. That’s the way it was for my Tiger book.

Sometimes there are multiple deadlines. That’s the deal when I work on my Quicken for Windows book. My editor actually has a spreadsheet that lists all the chapters and they dates they’re due. Sometimes they’re only a day or two apart. I used to follow those deadlines carefully. Now I just churn away at the revision and submit chapters as I finish them. Some come in early, others don’t. But it all gets done on time.

Does your editor tell you this deadline’s date? Sometimes. It depend on the editor.

The Drop-Dead Deadline

The drop dead deadline is the real date the book needs to be done. That date is often tied in with some third party event.

For example, my Peachpit books all have drop-dead deadlines based on printer schedules. Here’s how it works. I work on a book and my editors (editorial and production) get a feel for when the book will be ready to go to the printer. They schedule a printing date. The printer expects to get the files that make up the book by that date. If Peachpit and I miss that date, we’ll miss our printing slot and will have to wait for the next slot. I have a feeling that there’s a financial penalty involved with missing a drop-dead deadline, but fortunately, I’ve never been asked to cough up money.

Does your editor tell you this deadline’s date? Of course not! The book has to be done before that.

The Sad Truth

The sad truth is that most editors don’t expect their authors to meet deadlines because so few do.

I remember my third book (which was my second solo book). I finished the book the day it was due (per the contract) and actually hired a courier to deliver the manuscript to my editor in New York. (I lived in New Jersey at the time.) This was in the days before manuscripts were submitted electronically via e-mail or FTP. Back when they actually expected me to print out two double-spaced copies of the document and I’d send it in a manuscript box. Anyway, my editor was completely shocked to get the manuscript on time.

I, of course, was proud of myself for writing 300 pages in 10 days.

The moral of this story? Don’t sweat the contract deadline and get it done within a reasonable time.