Stop SOPA/PIPA

As I write this, something remarkable is happening around the world. Mostly in the US, I suspect. English speaking students are trying to do homework the only way they know how — by visiting Wikipedia.org. Instead of the usual wealth of questionably curated content they’re used to, they’re being greeted by a blackout page that’s denying them the use of the site for 24 hours.

Wikipedia’s not the only site blacking out today; Google’s logo is blacked out, Reddit.com will be going down for 12 hours starting in several hours from the time this is written, and many other sites will be blacking out in various ways. The other site I write for, GeekBeat.TV, will also be observing the blackout.

I’ve been following a Twitter search for the last several hours, completely transfixed, that’s looking for tweets containing the terms “wtf wikipedia.” There are a LOT of them. It’s kind of awe-inspiring to see just how much awareness Wikipedia is raising with the blackout, and a little disturbing how much UNawareness there is out there.

SOPA/PIPA are important issues for any content creators to understand, even ones like myself who don’t live in the United States. It seems on the surface like people in other countries wouldn’t have anything to worry about, but if major sites got pulled and they’re sites we still use, that’s one small impact.

A bigger impact is that the very purpose of SOPA at least is to allow American companies to deal with sites they deem infringing but that they can’t legally touch specifically because they’re outside of American jurisdiction. Under SOPA, they could have made such sites appear to disappear from the Internet. (Could have, because the technical trickery that would have made that possible is no longer part of the bill, thankfully.)

It’s still very important to raise awareness of these issues because you can bet there will be more bills of this nature coming out in the States for consideration, and I’ll be surprised if similar things aren’t brought up in Canada and more countries too. Know about it and be watchful about online freedoms, and hopefully we won’t have to worry about it.

eReaders as Proofreading Tools

One of the beautiful things about the Kindle is that it’s fairly easy to put your own content onto it. Stick a USB cable in, attach it to your computer, copy and paste files into the documents folder, and as long as the document’s a supported format (of which there are plenty,) you’re golden! You’ve got your document on your Kindle.

This can be really valuable for any writer in several ways. Naturally the first use most people will think of is creating Kindle ebooks for distribution and/or sale, but that’s not the limit.

How about using it as a proofreading tool?

One of the best ways of self-editing a document (which we all have to do, no matter how many other people will be looking at our work too) is to change how you view it. If you wrote it on paper, get it on the screen and look at it that way. If you wrote it on a screen, put it on paper. Especially if that paper is coated with eInk.

When you proofread on eInk, you can change how you’re looking at the document in many ways, at any time, as many times as you like. You can make the font size bigger, change the typeface, the line spacing, the words per line, even the screen rotation. And those are just the Kindle options, other eReaders may have other options to explore.

Every change you make alters how your brain processes the words you’re reading, which helps combat the “too close to the work” issue that makes editing your own work such a challenge. When you’re too close to it, your brain remembers roughly what to expect, and our brains are far too good at seeing exactly what we expect, instead of what’s really there.

Anything you can do to change up the display counteracts the brain’s habit of filling in errors with expectations, and makes it more likely you’ll spot unexpected typos, missing words or awkward-sounding phrasings.

eInk is my preferred choice for this, but the same can be accomplished with any reader, and in fact it’s a good idea to use eInk and other readers in combination, if possible. Right now color eInk displays are uncommon, and color is yet another way to change things up. So grab your tablet if you have one, or a computer-based reader and get proofreading.

GeekBeat.TV and CES

This week’s going to be an interesting one; it’s the first time I really get thrown into the fire over at the GeekBeat.TV blog, where I’ll be exercising my brand new site-shaking powers as editor while most of the usual editorial team is off in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show.

Not only will I continue to blog there as usual, I’ll be handling other duties like scheduling and promoting posts and getting shows up in a timely manner, and with the volume of CES coverage we have planned, there should be plenty to keep me busy.

None of this means I get to slack off here either; in fact if anything my output on this site is actually increasing. It DOES mean I may get to be a little exhausted though, so bear with me if my rough work ends up being a little rougher than usual!

Google Maps: The Descriptive Writer's Secret Weapon

One of the things I like about writing in imagined worlds is the freedom you have to invent detail. It’s a place the reader isn’t familiar with, so it has to be described to them so they’ll understand what’s in your head.

Of course the flip side of that is you have to describe all that stuff so they’ll understand.

Writing in a familiar place is easier in that regard. You don’t want to waste a lot of the reader’s time telling them all the details about things they are familiar with. But even in a familiar setting there are details they need to know, and it’s your job as a writer to provide them.

This comes back to the old saw that you should ‘write what you know.’ What doesn’t occur to most people is that ‘what you know’ is not limited to what lives in your head. It can be what’s in front of your eyes, too.

The story I’m currently writing is set in a fictional world, but it’s a world that’s a lot like ours, except that it has suffered some sort of apocalyptic catastrophe and oh yeah, there are zombies. Aside from that though, it looks a lot like the real world, with cities that resemble ours, people that are like ours, a culture that was like ours until catastrophe struck.

I’m trying to go for a feeling of authenticity in the city descriptions, but there’s a problem. I’ve never lived in a large city. I’ve visited them, sure, but never spent enormous amounts of time in one. I live in a small town, so I can’t really just open my door, go to the coffee shop and write what’s in front of my eyes. That would work for a small town, but not a large urban center.

Enter Google Maps and StreetView!

While absolutely NOT a replacement for research or visiting areas in person, if possible, StreetView (or similar services from Microsoft and others) can give you instant access to the world, at least on a visual level.

There are certain scenes in The Fast and the Dead that I want to be distinctive, to have the feeling that they’re real places, that they really exist. The best way to accomplish this is to base them on places that actually do really exist.

Ideally you’d use a place you know or can go to, but if you can’t, or if you simply don’t know something suitable, pick a real-world area that evokes the feel you’re going for and find a suitable street. Virtually explore it until you find the perfect building to describe.

It’s unlikely you’ll find an exact, 1:1 match, unless you happen to be writing in a real location and you’re describing that specific location. That’s okay though. It means that what you describe will remain within the realm of things that come out of your head; you won’t be lifting your descriptions off of a photo and pasting them into your writing. You’re going to have to adapt the descriptions, accommodate the differences, invent or change additional details.

It’ll still require some work, but the realism and detail of your descriptions will thank you for it.

Google+ Hangouts and Editing

A lot of my planned working time was taken up unexpectedly tonight by a really fantastic Google+ hangout. Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer of Discovery.com) and several other astronomers were aiming a telescope at the sky and looking at the moon, at Saturn and several of its moons, and at several constellations in real-time online. It was fascinating, and inspiring.

It made me start to think about other uses for hangouts. I know writers have taken to doing writing hangouts, which I haven’t tried yet. Has anyone tried an editing hangout? It could be done as part fiction reading, part suggestion/critique/workshopping. It seems like that could be an interesting way to take advantage of the technology, as well as solve some of the issues I was having conceptually with editing in public.

I’ll have to put the idea out there on Google+ in particular, see what users there think. If you’re on Google+ and would be interested in something like that, add me to your circles and let me know.