A Short Post on Aim

Aim, as in, what are you aiming for? What's your intention? You do know what it is your trying to accomplish, right. Because if you don't, it's going to be awfully difficult to know when you've achieved it.

Aim, as in, what I want my voice to be. Most people's voice is heavily influenced by who they've read. That's normal. Most writers continue to read the genres they write, often quite heavily. Again, this is to absorb influences, to further shape a voice.

I read quite heavily in the genre of "being a writer" currently. I'm not planning on writing how to write books, so I can't say that I'm picking up a lot of style particulars from these books. Learning a heck of a lot about writing, for sure. But not much about being an individual.

It popped into my head, though, the other day. The exact description of what I am aiming for, the writer's who I would love to be compared to, who I have learned so much about what writing is for from. To wit - I want to be the Louis L'amour of Phillip K. Dick, by way of Robert A. Heinlein and Kurt Vonnegut.

Any questions?

Further Thoughts on Idea Vs Story

It actually might be better, or at least more clear, to say idea as a separate entity from story, rather than idea vs. story. The latter implies an adversarial relationship which isn't actually extant. Of course, the former is more than a little bit cumbersome.

Anyway, to break from pedantry, the actually crux of this post. And, to answer that query that may even now be formulating in the vast recesses of your questing intellect - I am not intentionally using as many big words as possible. And I most certainly did not imply that you had a large, empty head.

This new goal of being both informative and humorous may need a little tweaking.

I have been running every new idea that I add to my idea bank through the full developmental process. In other words, I write down the original thought/brainstorm. This, plus maybe some dialogue or exposition used to be all I did with the ideas before saving them and moving on.

Now, I also state the idea in a single sentence (usually a what if?). Then I develop the idea to a possible next level, adding specifics, but still keeping it at one sentence. Then I write a full paragraph summary, similar to a blurb, but with no attempt at keeping out spoilers.

I've illustrated the form a few times now, in other posts, so I'm not going to give an example.

This process has not only vastly improved the quality of the ideas that I bank, it is also helping to push my storytelling skills to the next level. Ideas i would have quickly moved past, I am now forced to fully develop, regardless of perceived merit. This is a good thing.

Since the whole purpose of the idea bank is to stretch my imagination, and practice telling the core of my stories, anything I can do to make the process more productive is time well spent. In other words, I am adding heavier weights to my mental whatever-it-is-a-bar-with-weights-on-it-that-people-lift-is-called.

A couple other quick notes - 1) I have now definitely been posting daily for over a month. whee. 2) As I challenged myself, so I deliver. I now touch-type all my blog posts. Okay, sometimes I peek, but I never do the two hands but only five fingers thing anymore.

I Dislike DRM

This is a fairly off-topic post, but this strip got me thinking about this subject today. It is relevant to writers in a tangential way, in that you will have to decide where you stand on DRM if you publish yourself. And file-sharing (AKA piracy, a misnomer that I dislike.)

It's worth reading the news part, as well. A house divided and all that.

Basically, my idea is that if I pay for something, I own it. I am not interested in asking permission from the manufacturer every time I want to use it. I'm not even talking about copying, sharing, or anything that might be a violation of intellectual property laws. I'm talking about a video game that I cannot use without connecting to the internet and asking the manufacturer's servers if it's okay to play.

Not happening. Other manufacturers have tried this same stunt, and I have been uninterested in their products as well. As have the general range of consumers. There was a huge amount of backlash those times, and I expect there will be this time as well.

Now, in my case, it is a moot point. I rarely play games on my computer, and haven't for years. I did own a copy of the first Diablo, but I really didn't get into it much. So my not buying a copy is a foregone conclusion, regardless of the presence or absence of DRM.

I would worry about this sort of thing migrating over to other content (movies, books, music), but I doubt consumers would stand for it. So far, it hasn't worked out well for the video game companies that have tried this kind of heavy-handed approach.

More importantly, I'm with the likes of Neil Gaiman, Corey Doctorow, and J A Konrath on file-sharing - it's beneficial. DRM is stupid, not just because it annoys paying customers without affecting the (determined) non-paying ones. DRM is stupid because it limits an audience's potential scope. The more non-paying readers you have, the more paying ones you will have. It's that simple.

Ebook lending, file-sharing on torrent sites, library lending of print or ebooks, even photocopies - all drive sales. DRM screws up this beneficial process.

In other words, steal my books, please. Just pass them on when you're done, and thanks for reading.

A Quarterly Report - Lessons

Things I've learned in the last four months -

1) A daily wordcount is crucial to production. 250 words or 2,500 words, whatever. Set a limit as high as you can consistently make it, and stick with it. Producing new words of fiction on a regular basis is the essence of being a fiction writer, and producing a volume of new words on a regular basis is the essence of being prolific. Unless you're one of those binge writers, which I'm not, mostly. Although I am considering doubling my wordcount and only writing every other day.

2) Have a one sentence idea written out for every story. This simplifies the hell out of actually writing the story, and keeps me from writing something that I'm not sure how to finish. In other words, it's much harder to get stuck if I have path to follow, even if I don't know the features of the path (story or plot) beforehand.

3) Keep an idea bank. This keeps the ideas flowing, keeps my imagination in shape, and ensures that I never have to sit around wondering what to write about. For a guy that had no concept of how to plot a story four months ago, this has been crucial in developing my storytelling basic skill set.

4) Power days. This is the opposite of the steady wordcount theory above, or the next level of it, if you add in the concept of blurting. Basically, once a week I set aside a day to write my ass off. This is also known as the Day Off Story Challenge, and has been another really useful way to expand my storytelling skills. The next level of this is taking every writing day and turning it into a power day. I'm not there quite yet, but hopefully soon.

5) Miscellaneous smaller lessons - The seven point story structure is another, useful way to look at novels. Heroes and happy endings are worth writing, too. Plot is what happens when characters interact. The math of writing as a career heavily favors the prolific. Voice recorders are really useful. Touch typing, on a keyboard, is way faster than pecking, and way way faster than typing on a touchscreen. Android tablets are great for tweeting, but suck for writing blogs. Tweeting and posting on other people's blogs about your own work (especially "buy me, buy me" is mostly just irritating and counter-productive. Podcasting takes work, and possibly money.

6) Final lesson - I can do this, at least for four months. And next quarter makes half a year, and that twice is a full year. More math, and it says that all this adds up, eventually.

A Quarterly Check-Up - Statistics

I began writing seriously tomorrow, four months ago. I know this because I have a journal that I started on that date, as well as a text file of an idea I was trying to develop.

The journal got 5 more entries, I started blogging somewhere in that time frame as well. The folder labeled "story ideas" with that first text file, labeled "story ideas", eventually became my idea bank, and it now has 188 entries. This number doesn't include the ideas I have already written stories from, or the actual usable ideas in the "good ideas folder".

I blogged off and on until a little more than a month ago, when I began the Daily Blogging Challenge. I haven't missed a day since.

I have completed 13 short stories, one drabble, and one flash fiction piece since then. I have six more stories in various stages of completion, as well as two novels in progress, and one more novel that is at the planning stage.

I have a spreadsheet to keep track of my stories and the markets they are submitted to. I have submitted to various markets 29 times, and received 18 rejections. Two of those, from minor markets, have been personalized. I have not made any sales, yet.

I have more fiction available for sale at this point than markets to send my work too. Also, some of my earlier stories have been rejected by nearly every professional market they are suited towards. I launched my first ebook, a fantasy novelette name Tes-Nin's Elbows. It has been downloaded a whopping thirty times in the last week. Baby steps. Baby steps.

Day Off Story Challenge - Round 5 - Postponed

I spent my day off this week at a funeral. A better man than me might have managed to write a story anyway. I am not that man.

On the positive side, I am not counting this against my challenge. Round five is postponed.

On the other positive side, I still managed to squeeze this (truncated) blog post out of the experience, thus keeping my daily blog posting challenge going without a miss.

May you all be as blessed as I have been, to not only have had such a wonderful loved one, but to get a full measure of time to say goodbye.

Blurting

I have another new idea that I want to put into use in my writing. As the title implies, I want to be a blurter.

What does that mean, exactly? Blurting is writing faster than any of your filters can keep up, as fast as your unconscious can compose. Basically, edit as I write, instinctively, get it all out now.

Why blurt? Because I am writing too damned slow, in a nutshell. Blurting is the nutcracker that will free my fingers from the drudgery of composition. Or something along those lines.

Basically, if I can write as fast as I can imagine, I can get a lot out, much quicker. My goal as a writer i to be really excellent, and prolific. Both having nearly equal merit, in my view. Maybe a little more on the side of excellence, but not by much.

To get as much done as I want to in this lifetime, I have to be prolific. I already am firmly of the opinion that any rewriting more extensive than a light edit is time wasted. It takes me nearly as long to edit, as it does to write in the first place. Any ideas about editing I apply to old work can be equally applied to new work, as I write it.

So I can rewrite a good piece, and make it great. Or I can write a good piece, use what I learned to write a great piece, and have two stories to sell, instead of one. Now I just need to learn to write without thinking, AKA blurt, and do it well.

I'm not entirely sure I did this idea justice with this post, but I am going to chalk it up to typing too slow.

Imagination Wants to be Free

I learned something pretty cool last night, browsing a fellow writer's blog. http://davidalbarron.blogspot.com/ This writer has a particularly funny way with words, very Pythonesque. Almost like slapstick, but with words. The lesson there is that being funny is a very good way to make people laugh. More importantly, it's worth going for the extra silly joke, rather than holding back for fear of the dreaded unfunnyness.

This wasn't the really important lesson, however. That lesson is summed up in the tittle to this blog, a play on the hacker's mantra - imagination wants to be free. Think about it, how often have you held your writing back by running your ideas through what I like to call "the filter of fear of failure"?

In other words, you approach an idea with the intent "what can I do to make this idea viable, ie not so loony?" instead of "what can I do to make this idea as awesomely cool as possible?" This second approach I like to call "the unfilter".

I have been using this process in my work with the idea bank lately. I come up with an idea, no matter how outlandish, and try to run with it. Very often, if you take an idea far enough, you end up somewhere both viable and fresh.

For instance - Ribbot Invasion

Idea - What if robot frogs were assaulting a suburban home? How would the homeowners fight them off?

Refinement - A elderly lady must defend her home from an invading force of robot frogs, while attempting to figure out their origin.

Story - Doctor Hoptario's ninja android swarm has been defeated by the combined might of the Science Hamster Team. He decides to try robotic frogs instead, or what he terms "Ribbots". He mistakenly targets the wrong house, and the SHT only gets wind of the assault on their neighbor's house when it's almost too late. They manage to save the elderly lady, whose late husbands fly fishing lure collection comes in handy. They defeat the frogs, but what will they do about the continuing menace of Dr. Hoptario?

That particular story has some severe lack of genre identification, it's silly on many levels, and who on earth would buy it? Atlwast, that's what my filter of fear of failure says. My unfilter say "Holy bleep! That sounds like the coolest
saturday morning cartoon that never actually aired, but should have. Let's write it, right now!"

See the difference?

A Few Further Thoughts on Tablets

Specifically 7" Android tablets. Even More specifically the Coby Kyros 7022. In a nutshell, I like it. For the price, I am perfectly happy with its utility. I would not have wanted to pay more than the slightly under $200 it costs, for what it does. But I also don't see more expensive tablets doing much of anything worth paying more for.

Basically, the niche tablets fall into now is that they are essentially low powered netbooks. The problem with this is that netbooks are already as low powered as is practical for most actual productive applications. But...

Tablets are really cool for surfing the web in bed. There portability makes them pretty nifty videogame machines, media devices, and that kind of stuff. I may get some use out of mine for reading PDFs as well, although I definitely prefer my ereader for actual book reading. Oh, and I just read a comic book on the tablet as well, and actually enjoyed it more than on my larger netbook screen. A 10' tablet, or even 12' (should one hit the market), might be better for that, however.

As kind of a back-up option for the netbook, the tablet is nice, too. I am typing this entry on mine. It's definitely clumsier than it would be on the netbook, even using a full sized USB keyboard, but it does get the job done.

The Kyros 7022 runs Android 2.3, BTW. I can see room for improvement, which presumably 3.0 and 3.1 have been. But again, a little clunky, but gets the job done.

The netbook I have is an Asus 1005p, BTW, and it is my main computer. It does enough, and is portable enough, and gets about 6-9 hours out of a charge. Since I don't do processor intensive stuff, it has been great for me so far. When I write I just hook it up to A USB mouse and keyboard and a bigger monitor (an LCD TV/DVD combo that serves triple duty in my household.)

This post has gotten long enough that my tablet is freaking out, so I'll stop here. Short post shorter - I like my new tablet, and think most people could get some use out of one, this brand or another. Especially writers who spend a lot of time online trying to learn new stuff.

Hot News - First Ebook Now Available

Big news - I just published my first ebook. This is otherwise known as putting your money where your mouth is. The story is called Tes-Nin's Elbows, and it is available via Smashwords for free. It's a novelette, about 9,500 words, or 38 pages.

Go here to download it for free.

I have it in submission to Amazon as well, but their review process will take a day or so. I am fairly sure, based on my experience with Smashwords, that I will end up having to reformat and re-upload it to Amazon.

Technical notes - I created the cover myself using Gimp (Linux's answer to photoshop.) It looks a bit plain, but decent enough for a first try. I wanted to avoid dealing with photos and licensing. I also don't much care for the photo with text slapped on look of many ebooks. I will likely go back and re-do the cover later, when I have my sea-legs.

It took me about 6 hours to get the whole thing done, from opening my browser to typing this blog. I think I can get it done in an hour or so next time. The covers might take a bit longer, if I continue to do them sans photos. We'll see.

I have a few more stories that I haven't had any success selling to the high-paying markets, so once all the dust has settled from this little hoo-haw, I will likely get to work on those titles.

Plus, Tes-Nin's Elbows is only the first story in the Hammers and Hexes series.

Quality Isn't Related To Conditions

To explain the title - The quality of your writing is in no way related to how you feel as you write. This includes mental states like stress, physical states like illness, even emotional states like heartbreak. Note that this doesn't mean your state won't affect the tone of your writing, as it often does, merely the quality.

I first read this theory in Dean Wesley Smith's series "Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing." If you haven't read that series, do so, including the comments. It will take a bit of time, but be well worth it in regards to furthering your writerly education.

Back to the matter at hand. I have not felt well lately. I've had a cold that has dragged on for nearly a week, as well as family matters dogging me emotionally. Yet I managed to complete a fairly light-hearted and enjoyable short story for last weeks day of challenge, and another one this week. I've done some writing over the last two weeks besides these stories, but not a whole lot.

If I were to believe that my sickness and general sense of lethargy would preclude my being able to write engaging prose, neither of the two recent stories would have been written. The fact that both turned out well, and are at least as good as anything else I've written, proves the matter. Quality of writing is independent of the circumstances of that writing.

So next time you feel to tired, sick, or emotional to write, do it anyway. Force the words out, one letter at a time if you have to. You may be pleasantly surprised by the quality of your output.

Day Off Story Challenge - Round Four

I just completed my day off challenge story number four, as of three PM. I started writing this morning around ten, so this one took about five hours. It clocks in at 2,800 words. The title is "Minor Mutilators".

It took me longer to write this than the last few stories. I usually come closer to 700-800 words an hour. At my normal rate, this would have taken an hour or so less. However, I am sick today, and this story included more characters and complexity than usual, so I don't fell like I was really all that slow writing it.

I vacillated this morning between this story and a simpler one that only had two characters. This idea was one I added to my idea bank only a few days ago. But, I thought this idea was slightly more interesting, and I wanted to try to stretch out a little.

In the interest of demonstrating the process, for those curious, The original idea and the refinement are listed below. These are all the development I had, going into the challenge.

Idea - A micro race of aliens mutilates small animals.

Refinement - A collection of house pets team up to stop the menace of tiny alien animal mutilators.

The fun of this story is seeing how the animals, who are heavily personified, manage to defeat the aliens. I had a lot of fun coming up with the viewpoints of the house pets, and their names for themselves, as well.

As the last few stories, I would like to put the full story up, but my readership is so small that I feel it is best to keep it unpublished, and try to sell it. If I get more people reading, or publish it myself, I will likely put the story up here as well.

Multi-Tasking

Now, when most of you think of multi-tasking, you probably think of consciously doing two things at the same time. Like talking on the phone and making dinner, or rubbing your tummy and patting your head. All good examples, but not what I'm thinking of.


What I want to talk about is the kind of multi-tasking where you prime your subconscious, and let it do the heavy lifting, while you go on about your life. You already do this all the time without realizing it. It's only a small step to doing it on purpose.

One way to utilize this is to fix your mind on a particular story you might be working on, just before you go to sleep. This works best with stories that you are stuck on, or unsure how to finish. Think about the characters, let your mind roam. Sometimes, you might have to jump out of bed and write the answer to your narrative problem, if it just pops into your head. Other times you might dream the answer, or have it come to you at a seemingly random point in your day.

I call this effect the "Internal Churn". Like the opposite of a woodchipper. You give your subconscious a bunch of fragments, and it will put together a narrative. Sometimes you may get so many ideas that you have to discard some, sift through them for the right one. Your subconscious will bust ass to be creative for you, if you let it.

I try to keep myself thinking about creative things throughout my day. I take a moment here and there to reflect on the stories I am writing, or want to write, and let the thoughts stew, then let go. I nearly always get far better return than if I continued to beat my head against a wall, trying to force creativity.

So - Focus, Fix, and Let Go. Easy peasy.

A few good references - Walter Jon Williams's Aristoi, Richard Bach's Illusions

The First Rule of Self Publishing

There are lots of first rules. Goodkind promulgated the Wizard's First Rule. Asimov put forth the First Law of Robotics. You do not talk about Fight Club. And so on.

One of my favorite first rules is the first rule of gunfighting - Have a gun. This rule can be applied to many situations besides an armed encounter. Like self publishing electronically. Or, for that matter, submitting traditionally. The rule? Have a manuscript.

Sounds dumb, I know, but it is a very useful reminder for me. It's easy to get caught up in the internet hubbub, social media and publishing gossip. Promotions seem alluring, gotta get the word out, right? Wrong.

The first and most important thing I need to be doing, every day I can, is writing new work. Absolutely has to come first. When I have a manuscript to show for my efforts, and it's up for sale, then maybe some promotion is in order. But, it's all to easy to get the horse before the cart.

I am currently of the belief that the best promo I can do is to put out new works, though. And one of the rules of gunfighting that many people put second is - have a back-up gun. So the second rule of Book Club is the nearly same as the first rule - Have another manuscript.

Ideas Vs Story

I am reading through Bob Mayer's book on novel writing, and getting a lot out of it. In some ways it is a much more nuts and bolts book than other ones I've read recently. He also took the rather unique approach of writing the book over the course of about fifteen years, so a side range of perspective is evident. really good read, highly recommended.

One of the concepts I have picked up is the difference between an idea and a story. Read the book for the full scoop, but the gist is that an idea is a one sentence summary of the core of the book, that must at all costs be maintained. What if an omnipotent being created the universe from scratch - an idea. Genesis - a story. That one idea could generate many different stories, but none of the stories could be summed up as anything other than the one idea.

One of the ways this concept affects me is that I am now applying it to every entry in my idea bank. It goes like this - I have a flash of genius (or something else), I write it down as concisely as possible, in one sentence. Then I start revising that idea to be as interesting as possible, then I start brainstorming the story. The first step is different form my old one, which was - write down the idea, higgledy piggledy. The middle step, enabled by the first step, is brand new.

And no, I am not afraid to use phrases like higgledy piggledy, if I need them to get my point across.

An example -

Idea - What if an office worker was driven mad by her spreadsheet.

Refinement - What if the elder gods used office software to mentally enslave a junior accountant?

The Story - The Elder Spreadsheet - The protagonist, a junior accountant, isn't climbing the corporate rungs fast enough to suit her ambitions. Her weird friend from high school is having great success with an import/export business. They have lunch, the friend suggests using an occult self-help book, which in turn leads to online discussions and eventually a website. The protagonist downloads office productivity software, which she installs on her work computer. It mimics her regular software. She begins to succeed, wildly, but also has strange events and nightmares, etc. Eventually she is a mindless drone, as is the rest of her company. She ends up the CFO, and her weird friend is the new CEO. Her company begins producing and selling the software, worldwide.

I am sure there are a lot of other ways this same idea could be developed into a story. I like this one enough that it is likely going to be the next short that I write, though. Easy peasy, huh?

The Coby Kyros 7022

This is partially an addendum to yesterday's post, and partly a further review of my new tablet. First things first - as I continue to use the device it's clear that once I get past the initial learning curve I will be able to work much faster. The barrier to entry is fairly steep, at least on this particular tablet.

The hardest aspect of blogging on the Kyros is, of course, the typing. I have installed an app called the hacker keyboard. Between its much improved sensitivity, predictive text, and expanded layout, I am moving along at a much better clip. Still slow, but not quite as painful.

I have also had to spend an inordinate amount of time managing the OS. For some bizarre reason, Coby didn't remove the phone functionality from the kernel. So I had a fair amount of fun fixing all the issues this was causing. Were my time worth more than the money I saved, the Kyros would have been a poor choice.

Fortunately for me, I enjoy goofing around like this. The experience isn't just a money saver for me, it's also a learning opportunity.

Just like this blog entry. The main purpose was to test the hacker keyboard app, which I can now recommend as a great replacement for the stock Android keyboard.

Typing on a touchscreen

Here is an attempt to compose a blog entirely on my new android tablet. I recently bought10 a Coby Kyros 7022. Coby is not known for their high end electronics. Rather, the company is known for inexpensive tech that works adequately.

This is a fairly good description of the tablet I purchased. This particular model is likely the highest quality tablet that Coby makes. It has a metal back, and a capacitive touchscreen. Two features every other Kyros lack.

It is responsive and gets good battery life. I had to hack it and root it to install amenities like the Android market, and to fix firmware issues. Now that I have done so I quite like it. Definitely a tablet that needs a technical minded user to get it up to snuff.

I use lots of open source stuff, like Ubuntu. If I was the type that needed an easier to use product, this would be a no go. More later, as I get to know it.

And by the way, typing on a touch screen is really slow.

Day Off Story Challenge - Round Three

I really thought this one was going to be hard. I haven't written much in the last few days, for one thing, so I had no momentum. I did have a story idea, which I came up with the night before.

Unfortunately, I didn't write it down. All I could remember going into today's writing were the character names and general details. I went with it anyway, rather than falling back on previous idea. My hope was that I would remember the rest as I got into the story.

This didn't happen. I managed to prevail anyway, and finished the session with a fairly goofy comedic story. I think it's funny, anyway.

Total time spent was about three and a half hours, word count is about 1,900 words. The story is the shortest of the three, and took me the longest, comparatively. I spent more than the normal amount of time wondering where the hell I was going with the plot :)

All said, I'm quite satisfied with the day's challenge output, especially given my apprehension going in. Yay, me! I'll be putting another tick in my challenge count box.

Oh, the title of the story is "Super Stud". That alone should give you a good idea of how goofy this one was.

Doldrums

We all hit them sooner or later. Those days (or weeks, or months even) where creativity just doesn't flow the same. Where our needs to get it out doesn't burn. Ho-hum.

I've barely written anything this week. I had an important birthday party midweek, and all my energy went towards making that a success. Between that and other stuff, I've basically lost the last four days, as far as writing new fiction.

Besides the party, I had another distraction. I got a new 7 inch android 2.3 tablet, the Coby Kyros 7022. I will blog more later about this particular device, which fits me fairly well. Suffice it to say, new toys and writing discipline don't go hand in hand.

The worst part about all this is the loss of momentum. I feel like it is difficult to get started again, now that I've been stopped for so long (comparatively.) Not too worry, today is my day off, and should be an upswing. But that feeling is a real one that's important to acknowledge.

I seem to run in cycles anyway, a few days of heavy writing, followed by a few days of editing. And taking a break sometimes is good, right? But it's time to get back to work.

The most important lesson - distractions will kill your word-count. Kill it dead dead dead. Eliminate the distractions (when possible).

One Simple, Easy Step to Increase Your Output

Many writers have found that the most creative and best time for them to work is as soon as they get up in the morning. I work early hours, so getting up early, before work, just isn't gonna happen. For me, "as soon as I get up" translates to "as soon as I get home from work".

If I get writing as soon as I get home, it's fairly easy for me to make my writing goals. Especially if I start writing first thing, before any distractions manage to take root in my mind. Online distractions being the chief culprit. These can ruin my entire days production.

So here is the one step to higher output - get up, and get going writing. No internet, no mail, no morning cartoons. But have coffee, for the sake of all that is sweet and holy. We're not barbarians.

 This works even better on a day off. You will amaze yourself with how much you can get done if you start writing first thing and keep going until you're ready to keel over. Or lunchtime, whichever comes first.

Make your daily word count the first thing you have to accomplish, every day.

Further Thoughts on Voice Recorders, the Ws710M, and the Coby Kyros 7022

I'm gonna go ahead and give you all a full report on my recently purchased and returned Olympus ws710-m, as it pertains to blogging and fiction writing. Kind of a review, but one on the concept more than that particular device.

Recording in stereo was pretty awesome, The recording quality was definitely better with the dedicated device than it is with my phone or mp3 player. This is the biggest plus of having a dedicated device, if you need high quality audio, like for podcasts, reporting, basically consumption by others.

Also, a separate device was nice because my phone is clunky to record on. I never had to worry about missing calls or texts, stopping an mo3 to pull up the recorder on my player, that kind of thing. I never used any of the additional functions of the ws710-m (mo3 player, FM radio, can be used as usb drive), but it was nice that they were there if I did want them.

The fact that it was another device was a downside as well as an advantage. Having to remember to carry around a third thing, worry about power, juggle devices, the whole experience can be summed up by the phrase "three's a crowd". So the pros and cons of a dedicated device basically cancel each other out in this regard.

The other big con was the cost. This recorder was fairly expensive, compared to the cost of other tech in my life. As voice recorders go, the ws710-m is actually only mid-range or so, kind of the highest lower end product. Even so, the outlay of money was questionable for something that basically just did a job that something I already carried could do, even if it did it better.

This negative became even more glaring when I compared the cost of the other two devices, which do many things, to the cost of this one device. Basically, the recorder was more expensive, and narrower (a function of being really good at one thing.)

The final problem I had was uneven levels between the two speakers on the recorder I received. The left side mic was hotter, and always recorded at a higher gain. This was a deal breaker for me, no sense spending the money and hassling with a third device if it doesn't work flawlessly. The seller I bought it from was gracious enough to accept a return and refund my money, so that was a bright spot.

I was considering getting another one, but my recent problems uploading podcast to the hosting solution I chose are swaying that idea. I don't need a swank recorder for notes to myself, so if I'm not recording podcasts on the go, it's just not necessary. For Armadillocon, I am now just planning on using my mp3 player to record, as it does adequate quality.

The final nail in the coffin was me getting a Coby Kyros 7022 Android 2.3 tablet. The money that was originally slated for replacing the recorder is spent now. The Kyros is a 7" capacitive model, and I expect to get a lot broader use out of it than I would a recorder, so I am happy about this turn of events.

I will consider getting another recorder sometime in the future, if I find one I like better. Bang-for-the-buck is a big factor though, and the Kyros, at roughly twice the price, does so much more than twice the work.