I have learn over the years that are times that the best thing you can do is stop. Slow down at least. I have also learn that are in the moments that your instinct tell you that it is the worst time to do it. That i have learn is when you must do it. So I did.

I went and purge projects, delete stuff, clarify other things and got a new perspective of all the things pending and to do in the next months.

Not to make this long, the plans of finish the edit process of my next novel “Quarry” got on hold, until I finish the translation of “The Writer” in Spanish and send it to the editor. After that I will do the translation of “Putsch” and when that get to the editor I will then finish the edits on “Quarry” a soon as that’s done, then I will translate, and release it in Spanish and English at the same time.

For the question in your head, the answer is: Yes! This delay the publication of “Quarry”, but will allow me to release the books in a better way, how they should be released. After that, you will only noticed when they get released, and nothing else.

I am exited about seeing the books in Spanish, and provide to other readers not only the experience of the book in English but also the adventure in another language.

For now, I need to go, I said I need it to slow down, but now, I need to speed up!

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There are characters that you know, as a reader (and even sometimes as a writer) that need to die, but even knowing that, you care for them, you celebrate and cry with them, and you simple cry and feel hurt when they are killed or died. We have all read them, and cry them.

There are characters, that you celebrate, that you are happy when they got killed, that you shout on happiness when finally the writer kill them, because you the reader will had kill them pages ago.

Finally the ones that you simply don’t care. You don’t remember then, even, most likely you need to think harder to remember one.

When I wrote ‘Putsch’; I found those three present, same when I wrote ‘The Writer’. The ones I care, the ones I celebrate and the ones that didn’t matter at all.

As I am working right now the translation of ‘The Writer’ into Spanish, I got reminded of those different killings, and I found that I continue carrying for some of them, and then got me thinking, even as a reader I care for some, books that I have read years ago, some still hurt. I just wish that when the writer show up, and write those the reader instead of not care, find themselves into the ones that hurt or the ones that celebrate… One can dream too.

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I went again and answer, I have a TypeWriter, I actually have two, I add, let me explain to you. My first Typewriter is a MacBook. I create an user, that has no privileges, no access, no nothing, this user is called ‘Typewriter’ works only for the objective of me writing, editing and working on books. My Typewriter user, don’t have access to the web, or twitter, or email, actually allow me to open five applications only, Scrivener, Text Edit, Pages, Word and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (sometimes I prefer to practice typing instead of writing, if you are going to procrastinate, use things that will be good, practice typing better than Facebook, any day of the week). So when I open that user, I can only type, work, or do nothing.

The second TypeWriter is my iPad. There I work on text files, mostly on PlainText or WriteRoom both from Hog Bay Software.
Since I made my iPad my main machine and you can’t create (yet, I hope on iOS6) different users, I went and remove all distractions from the iPad. I have no games, no movies, not even music.

My play, let’s get distracted device is my iPhone. (Music, movies, internet, games and more are ready for me all the time)

As I said, I have two typewriters, I have consciously make my devices not a super powerful device to do everything, but one that can be more useful to focus on only one thing.

Even that I use these days the MacBook so little, since I spend most of the time in my iPad, I want to make sure that I can focus on the devices and actually accomplish my goals. That’s the reason I had remove the distractions from the iPad, not because I don’t love playing with it, but because I want to sit and work on it.

If you allow me to choose between Work and Play, sadly I mostly pick Play (something inside me has always wish that I pick work, so I learn to trick myself). I learned that many years ago, and it is for that reason that I make sure I have my devices in a way that allow me to be productive all the time.

So How I find time to write constantly, I have set my devices and my work in a way that when I sit in front of them, the only option I have is to work… I have make my devices look dumb, so my brain think he is brilliant again.

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I began continue to get ready and place an egg on the range, with a plastic egg timer and forgot to put the alarm.

The result of the story you can imagine, hours later, the water that boiled, leaving a really hot pan, with a couple of eggs and a plastic egg timer burning.

The good thing, is that nothing, other than a ruined pair of eggs, an egg timer and a pan happened.

It’s always a good habit to put a cooking timer (I didn’t this time, shame on me) when you are not staying in the kitchen, I forgot this time, and I am bless that nothing happened, because the idea frightens me.

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It’s in that processs of discovery that we wrote a lot of awful scenes, a lot of awful beginnings, a lot of sad stories. It’s trying to discover that place, and bring the reader to it, that we write many things that simply didn’t work and are never going to bring anyone to the magic place.

The problem is, (at least to the knowledge of this writer) that there is only one way to reach that magic place, and it’s bringing the reader to many places that are not. The only way to bring readers even for a second to that place, is to discover all those places that are not magical. It is for that reason that writers write in despite of bad books, rejections letters, bad reviews, and books that don’t sell and never will. We write on the hope that we find that place where everything disappear. We write dreaming that one day, even if it is by mistake, that we will bring one reader to that magical place. It’s that day, when everything we do it’s worth, where all that content that we create and was rejected, all that content that was deleted and forgotten, was worth it.

It is for that second, in witch the reader is lost in our mind, in that fictional word that we create with words. It is for that second (that in most cases we never knew it exist or the reader got there) that we continue coming everyday to write. It is with the hope that one day, you, the reader will discover that secret place that we are trying to create.

In the mean time, we write with the hope that someday someone tell us that they have been there, that the magic place really exist and it’s not that we writers, dream about it, that someday someone tell us that they found that secret and special place that we had been trying to create for many years; that same place that readers and writers dream about.

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For years, I spend most of my time being mobile, traveling or in the office, or in the so the Home-Office. The later desk was pretty much useless. On 2010 I began working more at home, especially fridays, and begin struggling with the home office concept. That struggle came to and end around mid 2011 when I began working on what my wife called at the time “The Other Desk”

Little by little I began spending more and more productive time on the other desk, until one day I simply make the move.

I work mostly at home these days, in that little desk next to the fireplace, where I almost have nothing other than the desk. At the time this post was written it had: Inbox, Index Cards, One Pen, a copy of each of my books, iPad Keyboard (on the Origami case), a lamp, a picture of our family and a charger/speakers for my iPhone. Nothing else.

Let me explain. When I envision my first home-office around 2004. I want it something that could be better equipped and supplied that the office I was working then. It had the scanner, the printer, the supplies and everything at reach. I continue with that idea of the perfect supplied office for years, I even got one version that had two desks in the home-office, one for working standing up and one for working sitting down. I had the couch, the music and more; but hate working there, so most of the time I pick the laptop and work somewhere else.

When I make the move to work mostly on my home-office, I again set the perfect office, and everyday, pick the laptop(and later the iPad) and work on the dinning table. (Driving my wife crazy)

When I began moving to “the other desk” I did it in a simple fashion, I didn’t move anything that I wasn’t going to use, and I try on friday to return anything that I am not going to use or don’t use to the desk on the original home-office room, the result is a super simple and clean desk.

Since I work mostly on my iPad, the laptop is in a desk on the original Home-Office room, and only get to be on “the other desk” when an specific task is going to required that I use it.

That’s my standup desk, in the Home-Office where all the tools are, the printer, the scanner, the files, the reference material and more. That’s the ideal office space, sadly for me, not the ideal to accomplish work or to get work done.

What took me years to understand is that I need was a desk to work, and a place to have all those equipment, and supplies that mostly distract me from the task on hand, making me less efficient, making me want to use the room less and less. The clutter generated by all that equipment didn’t motivate me to work more, but less.

I need a super clean desk. If I need the scanner, I can spend the extra ten seconds that will take me to walk to the room where the printer is, same with those files I don’t need daily, same with the stack of folders, same with the pens, hard drives and even the laptop.

If I will not use it tomorrow, I don’t want the thing in my desk. For the first time, I have a desk that I love, and that I am actually working on. Does that mean I quit on the idea of working on a table on Starbucks or the coffee shop? No.

There are days that I continue packing and go to a Starbucks I had found near my home. After years of trying I found the perfect one, is inside of a Target Store and don’t have internet access, and that allow me to be really productive. That may be “the other-other desk”

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When I publish my first novel, The Writer on 2011 some of my friends complaint on the fact that was only in English and that I should had publish the book first in Spanish.

I come here to announce that The Writer will be in Spanish soon. I have an editor and I am working on the translation as I type this, so soon, (I am hoping for an May 2012 release) The Writer or El Escritor as the tittle will read in spanish will be available for sale on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks and more.

In the mean time, if you want to read The Writer in english, is available on Ebook and Paperback on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBookstore, Smashwords, Kobo, and the Sony Ereader.

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I am finishing the edit process of my third novel, I am getting ready to write the fourth one, and I am in the middle of the translation from English to Spanish of my first novel, and like you I have no time to do anything.

I remember when I didn’t have time to write, because I need this perfect set of impossible conditions. In order to write I need it something like what Neil Gaiman’s Gazebo is and a really long time in order to get in the mood, and then things will happen.

What I learn is that I just need to trick my brain, I don’t need the gazebo (even if I drool over the idea) but my brain need to understand when is writing time, and when is playing time.

In my case the answer came in the form of Text Files. Text files offered a couple of things, they don’t allow format, so I can not play with margins, or underlines, or anything, it is just text. Second all computer (Including the iPad and the iPhone and my Mac or a PC) have a text editor, and the files can be email it after (or place in Dropbox that it’s incredible). The cool thing using Text Files is that can’t play, you can only write. There is no tweak, there is no formatting, there is only a place to write. The other thing I learned is that I need to write everyday, because that’s the only way to really have the time. There is no perfect time, some mornings is two hours some is fifteen minutes, some is ten before your eyes close themselves.

The reality is that no one has time to do anything, regardless how much we do daily, because we can only do, what we understand is important, and when get to be important. Until then, you are just calling it important, honestly, it is really different. So like you I don’t have time to Write, and you don’t have time either; and I don’t have time to do anything else, and you don’t have time either.

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I try the Original Kindle and like it, but at the time I choose to continue reading in my Palm or my Treo. When the Kindle app was launch for the iPhone, I stop buying books on any other platform that wasn’t Amazon. I even got another Kindle that love and use until the screen broke on a trip. I never replace that Kindle because I had the iPad and the iPhone so there was no need. I was trying to make the devices be good at everything.

I had noticed already, that I was struggling to keep my focus while reading, I am not sure when, I am guessing with iOS5 something on the phone change, that make it faster to multitask, that in my case means worse for stay on one activity.

After read this post on the Kindle Touch from my friend Gretchen Hunter I decided that another Kindle was the solution to improve the focus. After read her reviews on the Kindle Touch, the Kindle4 and the Kindle fire; I pick the Kindle Touch because my goal was to read. For other stuff, I have the iPad and the iPhone.

I got the kindle touch at the beginning of this year, and had been enjoying long sessions of reading again. The Kindle is not fast, it doesn’t allow me to multitask or go to the web, but keep me in reading mode for a longer time. I also discover (I may start getting old) that I enjoy the weight and the size of the screen very much.

I am all for devices that can do many things, but there are things in witch you need to admit that: Sometimes is better the one that do one thing!

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to all of those that will someday discover love;

and for the lucky ones, the ones that are in love.

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