I’m not a luddite. I applaud the technical skill and the long effort to acheive this. They spent 2 years evaluating the risk. The benefits in curing diseases in future could be immense.

But what about ethics?

This is man’s first contribution to the chain of life.

An organism versed in self-promotion from birth. Ready-equipped for the commercial environment. A self-propagating advertisement. A meme made manifest.

What message does that send about what we will do with this ground-breaking new technology? As Mr. Venter cited in his announcement: “See things not as they are, but as they might be.” That cuts both ways. Look ahead … remember how excited Oppenheimer must have been when he started work in his exciting atomic technology … and tread with caution into the future.

Broken Evolution has well and truly begun.

It’s just a quick snap that doesn’t show the full detail, but it looks gorgeous in close-up. Getting there …. bit by bit. The new web site is underway too, and should be live just before publication.

Oh sure, the old arguments against eReaders are still there: “nobody will read an entire book from a screen.” Those arguments haven’t changed. There are only two factors that have changed in the intervening years, combining to make eReading a viable medium in this era: portability and ubiquity.

No one was ever going to sit down to their PC to tuck into a good book. PCs were for work; the last thing you wanted to see when you felt like a recreational read. Reading was always something to take to a special place, or fit in when and where you had some down-time. Neither of those apply to a PC. But the era of personal portable computing devices has arrived. Like a book, we can take those personal devices around with us; unlike a book, we can even slip a computer into our pocket.

In the olde days, the only way to get the book bits onto an eReader was on a “floppy disk” (look it up), or the very fancy new medium of “Compact Disc”. No USB keys back then. Now we have the ultimate form of digital distribution - the wireless internet. Download any book over-the-air from anywhere. Book access is now ubiquitous, as ubiqutious as the marketing-driven popularity of Amazon’s Kindle or Apple’s iPhone/iPad - the eReading devices that have become de rigueur.

There is nothing new in software technology, only hardware. All the software tools and techniques I use every day were all invented decades ago. But what is new, is this singularity - the creeping convergence of all technical factors to make the right time and the right place for something to just … take off.

Next … eReading moves beyond the constraints of the old medium to which it is currently compared … matures in its own unique aspects … comes of age … and becomes something new.

Words … finally in motion.

It’s been a long uncertain journey to get here, but I’m finally feeling excited again. Enjoyment is what it’s all about.

I’ve started to heal my ailing novel also. The revisions and rejections meant I’d lost passion for it, and it’s impossible, in good conscience, to undertake another revision without passion. Otherwise, I would ruin it. After reflecting during this time of reparation, and thinking about how the novel would change, I find I’m no longer afraid to make the changes that a couple of months ago would have seemed harsh. Sometimes surgery is the most appropriate course of action for a patient, as drastic as the incisions may seem. Time to relieve its painful patches too, and roll it out to the world, fitter, leaner … and stronger than ever.

“Will be a primary developer of an iPhone eReading application …
May be invited to contribute to Android, Windows Mobile and other projects, time permitting”

Interesting that even the promoters of the Nook are hedging their bets on eReading platforms. They can’t afford to ignore the ubiquity of the iPhone. It’s also interesting because iPhone eReading apps port very easily to the iPad. And with a built-in link to the Barnes and Noble eBook store … that would put it in competition with iBooks and the Apple iPad Book Store, wouldn’t it?
B&N do know that the only way an app can get onto the iPhone/iPad is with Apple’s approval, don’t they?

Interesting times in publishing!

It’s a big iPhone. It won’t fit in your pocket. Perhaps being seen wearing an iPouch to carry the thing will be the new fashion statement? But I can’t see many people buying it as a phone.

It is Kindle-esque in its proportions, but with a colour screen. Surely the screen won’t be as easy to read as the Kindle’s eInk screen?

Perhaps it’s aimed at home laptop users … who don’t want a tactile keyboard, don’t need to run more than one app at once, and who are happy to only run iPhone OS apps (not Mac OSX apps).

At first, I’m not sure where Apple intend the market for this. In effect, it’s a technology convergence, portable home-media device, but in a recession it must be hard to justify buying one - it costs more that a Kindle or a Netbook. However, no doubt, early-adopters will throng to it. We’ll just have to see where it really settles at home.

Clearly, Apple do intend it as an eBook reader. The incorporation of the new iBooks* strategy is proof of that. It also runs all existing iPhone apps, as I predicted, so existing iPhone book apps would probably command more downloads now that a larger reading surface is there to entice readers.

So it’s ready to go. Time to package up my book for iPhone/iPad after all? However many or few devices they sell, this can only mean more ebook downloads for authors. However, I would be very curious to know the terms & conditions under which Apple are giving publishers access to sell in the new iBook store. Like the success of the iPad itself … that detail will come out over time.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

* iBooks appears to be eReader software, using the ePub format, linked to Apple’s own new iBook store.

I can understand that it may have been controversial at the time it was published, especially in a time where the memory of the harsh sacrifices war was still fresh in the adult generation, and a time when the teenager generation had not yet been given their iconic advocate of James Dean in Rebel without a Cause. But today, perhaps a youth that is disillusioned, confused, and truant is no longer a worrying pointer of the future, but is now an engrained issue in society. When we hear regular news bulletins of happy-slapping, drug and alcohol abusing teenagers, teenage gangs, knife crimes, etc., then Holden Caulfield’s peccadillos seem tame by modern society’s standards.

The voice of the protagonist was certainly strong and convincing and of its time, but everything “killed” him. That killed me … after a while. While reading it, I wondered if a modern equivalent novel of disillusioned youth, laced with OMG!s and Whatevaar!s would attract as much interest as this book.

The biggest disappointment for me was, while the character voice was strong, the story was weak. It meandered. It went nowhere. Maybe that was the point. Maybe it was a clever way to show the lack of any purpose or trajectory in Caulfield’s life. Ok. I get that. But, I didn’t think it was very well done. Look at Karoo as an example. It had a similar type of meandering tale with a strong character voice. Karoo, in a way, is a middle-aged version of Caulfield’s character. I think the big difference was humour and irony. Caulfield’s was a humourless character. Karoo had a wry way of looking at the world and things happened to him. Aren’t things supposed to happen to a protagonist? Karoo certainly had a definitive ending. And something happened. Something that made you realise how much the character had grown on you. Holden Caulfield? I was glad to say goodbye to him. His story didn’t end, it just stopped, where it stopped. Not because it had arrived anywhere. It just stopped. So did I. It was a disappointment that (in my view) didn’t live up to the hype. Maybe it’s just not my taste.

So onto the next classic. I might try a little Dostoevsky this time.

It’s over a year ago now since I wrote a post about procrastination. That post might have seemed a bit macabre, flippant, or even comic, but like most things macabre or flippant or comic it disguises something more serious, namely fear.

I know from personal analysis of my own procrastination that fear is the root cause of it. It’s not fear of work. No. For after all, why would anyone fear to do work that would bring them success? There’s the rub, and the essence of what I meant in my previous post on procrastination. We do not fear to do the work that would be successful, but we fear to do the work that will make us a failure, that will get us ridiculed, or in my case, my greatest fear is work that is simply … wasted. No one in their right mind would want to do that kind of work, would they? So we delay. We avoid. And then the fear becomes self-fulfilling, because by avoiding the work we fail for certain.

I can content myself that I pushed through that, wrote a competent thriller, attracted the interests of two different agents, and learned of the strengths and possible weaknesses of my work. But I didn’t push through, against my fear of waste, just to have it sit in a drawer forever. I honestly believe (as do others) that it is worth publishing.

A period of reflection, based upon the last rejection feedback, has left me considering some other edits that I’m now incorporating into a final draft. I’m making it as best I can, but I’m starting to get concerned that the edits might lose some of the spirit of the story. So I’m going to have to stop revising after this. This brings matters to a head. If no agent wants to take it on. If I can’t revise to make it more attractive to an agent then I’ve to live up to my threatened promise of taking it on myself. So at least all this effort won’t be wasted. But before taking that road, I’ve one last chance. While finishing this edit, I’ve one last agent to pitch to…

2009 has been, without doubt, the second worst year of my life. I haven’t said much about it during the year, because I don’t like to complain, and it would be tiresome to hear it too. But I always look for meaning in even the bad things that happen to us. This year, I have learned to be sympathetic to those in pain, in a way that you can only when you’ve experienced pain. I hope to bring that sympathy with me through to 2010 and beyond.

As much as I can find purpose in this dire year, I really want a better one for next year. Come January, I plan to set about making it just that.

This year I learned something about my writing too. I’m not as talented a writer as I thought I was. Actually, it’s not that I thought I was hugely talented (in some vain way), it’s that I just always assumed I had what it takes to “make it”. In the end, despite what anyone will tell you, publishing, like life, is a bloody lottery, even though you do your best. What I do about that in 2010, we’ll see.

For now 2009 is limping to a close, and me right along with it. I’m exhausted. Blindsided by a bad year that came out of nowhere. And a stomach bug over Christmas too, just to see out the year consistently! But I’m looking forward to the new year of hope.

I won’t wish you all a happy new year, because we can’t know what will come our way. However, I wish that you learn to have a good 2010, in all its sorrows or joys.