One of the first things I did when I found out we were moving to Bangkok was look up the power options. Finding the voltage was pretty easy: it’s 220 (so Europe, UK, Australia, NZ appliances do not need transformers to run, but the US, Japan and anyone on 100-110 will)  but which plugs were available was not so easy. Sure, I found the charts which told me that plug types A and C were used in Thailand and that meant the two pronged round ones, like in Europe and the two prong straight ones like in the US and Japan, but all I really wanted was this:

I did, eventually find photos like this on a couple of sites but they were described as “universal” and I didn’t take a good look so we were a little disappointed when we got here, because they ain’t universal y’all – they won’t take the enormous British plugs, nor the daintier, angled ANZAC ones (spot the pun .) It’s not a big problem, though, because there are lots and lots of genuinely universal adaptors available, including power boards from 3 to 6 plugs and cost from 200 – 500baht (at the more expansive stores).

If you use the British or Australian type sockets, here’s what to look for in a truly universal socket:

The second circle in the middle and the extra dips in the top two holes accommodate the Australian plug and while the extra width of the top two holes and the bottom hole accommodates the British plug (obviously the bottom holes being for grounding third prongs, in any type.)

One of the other things you will notice if you are from countries which don’t just have constantly live sockets on their walls (as our friends from the States pointed out to us in Sydney) there are no switches on the Bangkok power outlets, to turn them off. Now, I’m sure that if I’d grown up with that, it would be fine, but it kind of freaks me out – especially in the bathroom – so I was happy to find both power-boards and single adaptors which had switches for each outlet.

The beauty of the power-boards having these switches  is that they also create more space between each socket, so that you can use plugs with large transformers on them (like for your notebook, or phone charger) and you don’t have to waste a plug between. Even if you have one of those appliances which, for some reason, has a plug set on an angle, there is still space for a normal sized plug beside it (though the switch will need to be left on, in this case.)

The stores you want to get your relocation agent to take you to find these are either “PowerMall” which are in the big “Department Stores” (which is what the Thais call a mall) there is one on the 5th floor of Emporium (cnr Sukhumvit road and Soi 24) and another in Siam Paragon, or, the cheaper option is any of the HomePro stores (if you go out to the big one outside Bangkok, you can pretty much get everything you need to build your own house and furnish it there!)

So you know what you are looking for, here are some packaged pics:

These are the ones we got from PowerMall this three plug cost 266 baht – slightly more expensive than ones you’d get at HomePro but nice and solid (and they will exchange them any time if there are problems):

These are some available at HomePro, I didn’t get prices, sorry, but they were all cheaper than at PowerMall (I’ve no idea how the build quality felt):

Universal power-board with switches and Universal Long Lead

Plain A&C Grounded Power-Board and a roll-up long lead with 3 A&C ungrounded plugs with one switch for all.

So there you go, when deciding what to bring the answer is that any plug can be accommodated, you just need to make sure that anything not running on 220-240volts either has a transformer brick on the power cord or you will have to buy a step-up/step-down transformer here (also available at the same stores )

Good luck!

So, what caused the culture shock? Was it the playing of the national anthem and standing to honour the King, before the show began? No, definitely not: a) we’d been told to expect that b) I was brought up with manners, so I stand for any legitimate national anthem and c) it was the first time I’d heard the Thai Anthem and it’s quite beautiful, as was the voice of the woman singing. What caused the culture shock was one of the ads before the show.

The ad came amidst the usual 30 sec soft drink and car spots and – how to put it -it didn’t exactly match the essentially shallow, “action flick” mood. Obviously, when we saw it there were no English subtitles, only Thai ones for the father’s signing (that the father is deaf is no spoiler) and when the sign for the company came up I wasn’t really watching (sniffling and trying not to sob out loud, as I was) but I hoped it was for some Deafness charity, though the logo looked more like some kind of insurance company – I assumed health.

The ad follows and is 3mins long but please do watch it – grab some tissues first, though, and be warned it’s not a tear jerker because there are ducklings and toddlers or Italian Grandmothers getting long distance phone calls.

I don’t remember any of the ads between this one and the rest, because I spent the time wondering, how far should an ad go? Does purely tugging the heart-strings work, even if it doesn’t seem to be directly relevant, or is there a point where the audience feels too manipulated (I wouldn’t buy from them – it’s just too much)? Where is “the line” in different markets – would this ad work in Australia, if it works at all? The thing is, it wasn’t till Superman found the version with the subtitles and we found out what the ad was actually advertising that I actually understood how far the ad goes – at least I think I do, because it’s pretty hard to believe – but how else does life insurance come into it? Did the hospital allow the father to die giving her his blood and so now the daughter needs his life insurance? If so, is that too far? I wonder if the companies sales went up? I wonder if it would work – or even pass the taste, or regulatory tests elsewhere.

Personally, I think it would make a great ad against bullying.

So, we are in limbo. Superman is playing what appears to be Angband on his laptop and I’m writing this terribly self –indulgent piece which is more journal entry than blog post while, in the corner of the room,  James, Jeremy and Richard re-enact the journey of the 3 wise men, only in cars rather than on camels (equally self-indulgent but far more entertaining for their audience and fun for them.)  Tomorrow, the house will be cleaned, the morning after it will be inspected and keys turned over before we head to the airport to start our next stint as international expats (instead of just interstate expats, as we have been here.) I’m looking forward to it, even excited somewhere deep down but right now I’m just too tired to feel anything that I don’t want to banish with Panadol.

When we do get to Bangkok, I will be focusing this blog on information about adjusting to living in the city, using the same principals I did in Japan: if I go looking for information on something and find that there is little that helps me, I’ll muddle my way through as best I can and then write a blog post about what I discovered, in the hopes that it will help the next person looking for similar information. I should note that my advice about life in Bangkok will be from the point of view of an expat wife in the city for a long(ish) period, not a backpacker moving through or someone scrimping on money (though not wasting it, either) so it may not suit everyone, but there is very little easily accessible advice for expat wives, while there is plenty of information for backpackers – both on the web and in heavy, print tomes in bookstores – so I feel no remorse in helping to fill that gap. Of course, there will also be the “isn’t this astonishing” posts and the odd photography, gadget geek, ink obsession and writing posts, so you’ll have to forgive a little self-indulgence amidst the expat wife help.

For now, it’s goodnight and see you on the other side of the equator, when we have arrived in what will be the 40th home of my life.

I was reminded of this, today, as I watched the movers pack up our air and sea shipments to go off to Thailand. Now, I’ve known for many years that I am more of a geek than I am a “girl”, I’ve worn the geek title proudly, but I have occasionally backed down when my geek-hood was questioned (online, of course.) Well, no more. Between my suitcase and the air shipment, the items that I have chosen not to live without include: 3 Computers of various size and power (but real ones, no iPad), an Android Tablet, a Kindle, all my camera gear, 46 fountain pens, 52 bottles of fountain pen ink … and 2 pairs of shoes. 

If you had to move overseas and you had the volume of 5 tea chests in which you had to put your most essential items, what would you put in your air shipment? What would it say about you?

I’ve been using Flickr since 2008 but the lack of control over how my images are displayed, not to mention the utter lack of style has always annoyed me, so, in preparation for what I envisage to be a photography-inspiring couple of years in Bangkok, I’ve moved to Smugmug. If you’re interested, my photos can now be found at http://photography.narrativedisorder.com.

Below, there should be an embedded slideshow of some of my favourite shots since getting my DSLR – let’s see how it works!

Maybe I just love a ‘ladder’ – I am a list maker – but I found the the graphs helpful because they were satisfying, they made me want to stay above that line!

After NaNo, I wished that I could keep using the site in the same way and for multiple projects but, of course, I couldn’t – fair enough, too, bandwidth for that kind of thing is expensive – even Storycraft crashes once a week, just after the chat, and that’s just to read posts! For months after NaNo, whenever I found myself thinking that the graph might help spur me on, I googled for word count apps. I found a few basic word count metres but nothing like the NaNo graphs and stats – until, finally, I hit on Write Track.

Write Track was designed by one  David S. Gale, himself a NaNo winner (2009) and married to one (2003.) David and his wife felt just as I did after NaNo but David had the skills to do something about it and put together a replacement, with some fantastic additions which take your non-writing life into account.

Here’s the Write Track basics:

1. you register (free;)
2. you create your own projects with your own target word counts and target dates;
3. the software creates a Calendar for you, giving you the average that you’d need to write each day to meet that goal and;
4. creates a graph ( a couple, actually) of your projected goal, which will gradually be overlaid in a different colour as you;
5. enter your actual word counts each day – or every few days because you can enter the actual word count for any day at any time (as long as it’s not in the future.)

Sounds pretty good, so far, but David has been both clever and  considerate and made Write Track a little different to NaNo, because it’s not actually NaNo all year round and life only puts up with that “I’m doing NaNo, how much blood is there?” crap in November, right? 

After you’ve created your project and Write Track has created your calendar, you can click on a day when, say, you have/or had meetings all day and have/had to take the kids to hockey practice and won’t/didn’t get anything done till late at night. You can ‘weight’ that day as ‘25’(percent) or even ‘0’ and Write Track will adjust the daily targets accordingly, spread over all the days you’ve allotted, and give the day in question a 25% or 0% load of the total. Similarly, if you have a day when you know you’ll have the house all to yourself and will write well all day, you can weight that day at 200% and, again Write Track will adjust the target over the whole project. Weighting and recalculating over the whole project allows you to catch up, without your feeling you have to do twice as much the next day – it’s gentle.  The daily target will also help you to work out if you are pushing yourself too hard, or not enough, with your overall targets.

I don’t have any screenshots for you because David seems to be ‘just this guy, you know?’, not a software company so it’s not presented with a slick ‘features’ and ‘screenshots’ page, but it works wonderfully and he does seem to be constantly tweaking it. Write Track is free to use, with a tasteful, unassuming donation button, which I clicked and sent him $19.95, because I’d be happy to pay that each year as a subscription for such a service.  The previous sentence should make it clear that this is not a paid recommendation post  – you’ll never find those on Narrative Disorder – or Storycraft, for that matter, I wish people would stop asking – and I don’t have any ties to the Write Track or David Gale, I simply like the software and highly recommend it.

Happy Writing!

#Storycraft is the hashtag used for a weekly online chat I host on Twitter, using the account @Story_Craft.  Writers from all over the world meet to discuss a specific topic concerning the art of crafting fiction for an hour or so. We stick solely to craft matters and do not discuss ‘the biz’ topics such as querying, getting an agent or e-publishing etc.

Because I move time zone every 18months or so, but also because it’s just a better time to catch lots of English speaking writers online, I schedule #Storycraft based on Sunday at 3PM US Pacific. At the moment, my plan is to keep doing that when I move to Thailand, but I may need to rethink that if being up and ready to host at what will sometimes be 5am, Monday, proves too difficult. If you’d like to join us and are unsure what time that makes it for your part of the world, there is a countdown in the sidebar of each page on the #Storycraft blog we also have a Facebook Page and a discussion group on Goodreads.

If the whole idea of a tweetchat is foreign to you but you’d like to chat with some writers, do take a look at the How to #Storycraft page on The #Storycraft blog.

There are many such tweetchats for writers, such as the enormous #writechat (Midday Sunday, US Pacific time) and, a favourite, #scriptchat, hosted by @jeannevb, the US version of which starts at 5pm Sunday, US Pacific time and many screen inclined #storycrafters go directly from one to the other.

In the before-NaNoWriMo times, I promised a post which would help everyone to install the Kindle for Android app on the Cruz Reader. In the last few weeks, I’ve actually been receiving emails for help on getting it done, so here is the post, at last.
Note that this is the basic process for installing any app. on any Android tablet.

Please do let me know if the link below stops working, it was fine at the time of writing.

How to install Kindle for Android on the Velocity Micro Cruz Reader

Step 1

From your home page, make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi,  launch your browser and go to

http://www.freewarelovers.com/android/app/kindle

(20th Dec 2011 )NOTE:  This post is now more than a year old and Kindle for Android has been updated so, when you get to the freewarelovers page linked to above, before continuing, do a search on freewarelovers for Kindle and look for a more recent version (at least 2.0), then continue with the instructions. Installation itself hasn’t changed.

(Hint: if you open up this post on your Android Reader’s/Tablet’s Browser, you can just click above!)

You should land on a page which looks like the picture in…

Step 2

Under the “Download” heading, you will see a link with a .apk extension – this is the extension you will want to look for whenever you want to install an app on Android.

Click that link.

Step 3

After clicking that link, you should come to a page which looks like this. Note that just under the “Downloading…” title, it has the usual download page prompt:  “If your download does not start automatically, click here.” I’ve found I always need to click there but give it five seconds to see if it starts before you click it.

Once the download starts, whether automatically or no, your screen will change to look like the picture in…

Step 4

Wait while your app downloads.

The yellow bar at the bottom is your download progress bar.

If this is the first app you have downloaded, you won’t have a list as long as this!
Note that from the list of the downloads you can see there, I highly recommend, Skyfire (a browser), NewsRob (RSS reader which syncs with Google Reader nicely), Dropbox (if you have Dropbox, of course), Word Press (if you have a WP blog) and TweetCaster.

Step 5

When your download has finished, your page will look like this, though, obviously, up the top there will be a Kindle icon, I took these shots while installing Skyfire.

Click the Install button on the bottom left.

Step 6

Watch the progress bar fill while it installs… after which is should look like:

Step 7

…this!

Now click Open on the bottom left.

Step 8

Watch Kindle for Android launch and follow the prompts to enter your amazon account details and register your new Kindle!

Step 9

Sync and browse your Kindle Library – you are ready to start reading!

(I think the library page looks much better than the Kindle for PC version, don’t you? )

Now it’s time to return to writing As Long As She Lives – many thanks for the procrastination excuse!

I’ve meant to address this question for some time because it is a logical question to ask when someone tells you that they are an audio book producer (“director” in US parlance).  For those who are interested, I’ve popped a new page up on my website: Dani’s Audio Books , where you will find the answer as well as I can give it (okay, so maybe there is a shorter answer, but I don’t think “Lots” really cuts it) and gives you links to a few of my favourite, internationally available titles, including my all time favourite, Saving Francesca, by Melina Marchetta and read by Rebecca Macaulay.

This review is very much for the Android-newbie who wants to know what the Cruz Reader is like out of the box, who would be using it as an eReader first and foremost, and who wants to see some pictures of it in action, without having to sit through a video to get to them.

If you are reading this as you consider whether to buy one as an eReader, these are the three main reasons I was looking for an eReader like this, instead of a kindle or Sony etc.…:

1) the reverse contrast flash, which is part of the e-ink tech, gives me headaches and motion sickness – instantly. The faster the speeds get, the worse the effect. No e-ink for me!

2) I’m simply not going to pay money for any hardware device which restricts my available file formats, and/or choice of retailers;

3) As fantastic an eReader as my tablet PC is, it’s too large and heavy to throw in my bag or sit in a comfy chair and hold for hours.

If you’ve come here wondering whether this will be a cheap iPad replacement, the answer is: No, it doesn’t have anywhere near that power.  If you’re wondering if it will be a cheap replacement for a tablet PC the answer is, again: No –an iPad doesn’t come close to the power and functionality of a tablet PC (and I know, I’m writing this blog post on one and have been using tablet PCs since 2003.)

If you’re wondering about buying it as an Android tablet for dev.-play well, it’s only 2.0 and, if you have that kind of knowledge and passion, then obviously the WITS A81E is the way to go for you at the moment, and they cost around the same as these. (I came this close to getting one but decided that I don’t have time to get sucked into that world – and I would be so easily!)

After playing with it for a couple of days, my basic impression is that it does all that I expected and need of it, plus a little more but it is a SLOW machine – tech-rumour suggests it will be much faster, once I do the firmware update, though.

On to the overview!

eReader Questions:

Lets start with the most asked question on Amazon (whence I purchased mine), first:

Q. Can the Kindle for Android App be installed on the Cruz Reader?

A. Yes.  See photo!

Q. Do I need to have the knowledge of a fully-paid member of the Android Developers Club to install it?

A. No. I know I’m a tech-head in comparison to many but this was my first exposure to Android and I can assure you that it’s easy.

Q. Is it illegal to install the Kindle eReader on the Cruz?

A. No. Kindle for Android is freeware and accessing it via the official Android Market is purely a convenience measure. There is nothing illegal about installing anything you like on your hardware device, as long as you have paid the appropriate fee to the appropriate people which, in Kindle’s case, is nothing. Just make sure you trust the download site you choose. 

Q. How do I install the Kindle App on the Cruz Reader?

A. The easiest way is to connect the Reader to the Wi-Fi, start up the browser and download the .apk (the android app file format) file directly from this page: www.freewarelovers.com/android/app/kindle   I won’t detail exactly how in this quick review but, for those who want a blow-by-blow, it will be coming in the next few days. If you’re totally new to android, or consider yourself particularly un-technical, I do suggest you first try installing an app via the “Cruz Market” app which comes installed. The process is fairly obvious and, after you click ‘download’, is exactly the same as it is when you download from the browser.

Freewarelovers.com is, I’m sure,  just one of several sites which allow direct download of Android software, rather than just giving you links to the Android Market site, which is not accessible on the Cruz, it is even blocked through the browser. I used it because it was oft-mentioned as safe on the Android fora I was hunting through for reviews on the Cruz and Android in general. If you don’t use this site, do use a site recommended by someone because there are wicked people out there who might disguise something nasty as a genuine app file.

Size and Weight

Weight: Though advertised as “under a pound” the actual weight turns out to be just under 1lb 2 ounces, or 508gms. It’s not light, but it’s light enough for me, considering the trade offs.

Size Comparisons:

Below you will find three comparison shots with the Cruz reader sandwiched between the following:

From below:

A4 size Notebook (mmmm, Clairefontaine);

A5 size (#16) Rhodia Bloc Notepad;

Cruz Reader;

Standard size novel (Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett);

Blackberry Bold 9700

The black thing at the head of them all, in the first photo, is the stand which comes with the reader (but won’t come with Cruz Tablet), which has a nifty hole into which the power cable slots when plugged in. It’s as stable as it is clever (very) and well balanced, too. 

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi on the Reader is b/g only, the upcoming Cruz Tablet will apparently be n. I had no trouble connecting, I simply pressed “Wi-Fi Settings” on the Home menu (see pic) and our network was there to be logged on to. It has also happily reconnected every time I’ve booted up. The only time it has lost connection in the past two days has been when our Wi-Fi network has wavered and my Blackberry has also lost connection. Obviously, two days is not much of a sample, so that will be revisited when I do a full review in several weeks.

Other Apps

The biggest consideration for most is going to be: what else can I do with this thing? Well, this is the OS for Android phones, so you can do anything on it that you can do on a Droid phone, that doesn’t require phone, camera or 3G functionality.

The email program setup is easy as pie, especially if you have a basic account like Gmail, but my POP accounts were no issue, either.

Of the social media apps I’ve tried, so far, I like Tweetcaster (see pic) it handles multiple accounts simply and effectively, switching between with just  two “clicks” and notifications from all accounts, rather than just the last one that was active in the app.

I found an RSS app called NewsRob which I’m finding I LOVE. It syncs with Google Reader and is an all round nicer experience than reading directly on GR. It does, however, only give you your new items so it really is just for keeping up to date (as I did before I even got out of bed this morning – bliss!) You can star and share items, so you can get back to them later, but commenting required JavaScript to be on and I kept getting a message that it was off (whether it can be enabled at all on the Cruz, I am yet to discover.)

Of course, whether you will enjoy doing those things depends on how you feel about the speed of the processor – but, again, I’ll say more about that in my later review, when I’ve updated the firmware. For eReading of novels, newspaper and RSS feeds, mail and checking on Twitter and FB I find the speed is plenty (and the colour is lovely to have). The actual booting of each app may take a few seconds but, once started page turns in the readers are instant.

One thing the Cruz Reader definitely is not, though, is a web-browser. Sure, it can do it but it is achingly slow, a smidge slower than my Blackberry on Wi-Fi – again, it’s a phone OS, not a full OS.

The Keyboard

The keyboard is, of course, the other main factor in whether you will enjoy using this tablet for anything other than eReading. The picture shows the keyboard in portrait mode and this is the only mode I have a hope of using it with the two-handed thumb method I’m used to on the Blackberry  but that is because my hands are small. Were my hands larger, I’d have no trouble in either orientation because I find the screen to be the perfect sensitivity. Any issue with keyboard or ‘clicking’ in any way is more likely to be a failure to click than clicking the wrong thing, which was my main problem on the hugely sensitive iPads that I’ve tried, and on my freshly upgraded to Win7 tablet PC (and wow, has MS finally got their tablet OS right!) The resistive versus capacitive screen issue (the Cruz Tablet will be capacitive) is not one that bothers me, having had a capacitive, multi-touch screen for a year on my tablet PC and I find the only thing I use it for is the occasional zooming – and the browser zoom on the android works just as well and I can set my reader apps to maintain the font size that I want.

Mind you, I’m especially happy to have to be more deliberate in my presses on a machine which does not appear to have any cursor-movement arrows anywhere – this is something I find particularly annoying and, frankly, makes any long-form document writing on it impossible, in my view. If any Droid-heads are reading this and can tell me how to find the arrow keys, I’d be hugely grateful.

Conclusion:

For me, this is the perfect eReader, however, if you don’t get sick from e-ink, and you’re happy to purchase your eBooks from only one site then I wouldn’t recommend it – for now. We need to remember that it’s, basically, first generation hardware and they will get lighter and faster and that’s when I’ll start recommending them to all and sundry. For now, this is exactly what I need and I’m happy to buy it and do what techie stuff I need to do to keep it running because a) I like that stuff and b) that evolution won’t occur if there aren’t enough early adopters.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Social Media cannot or should not be used for promoting a product, of course it can. I have no issue with someone I have followed or befriended posting about their current project on their account so that I’m aware of it and can opt-in in some way, nor do I have an issue with someone I have directly corresponded with sending me a private message asking me to give them a little support in their project before they go wide with it – that’s the good, effective way to use Social Media for PR. What I do have a problem with is the number of messages I have been getting, supposedly ‘tailored’ to me, or not, from accounts clearly set up purely for PR, which show very little genuine interest in either me or the platform they want to exploit.

So, fwiw, here’s my advice to anyone wanting to use Social Media for promotional purposes:

Any time you send an unsolicited message about a product directly to someone on any of these social media, you are not being an uber cool company that is down with what the kids are doing these days – you are TELEMARKETING. Not only are you telemarketing, but you are calling during a dinner party. Imagine being at that dining table when the call comes through. Now imagine the talk about you and your product afterwards – it’s not going to be good is it?

If you want to use Social Media to promote something, you have to actually BE social – be ready to put in the time or it will all be for naught. Tweet or post about something other than just your own products, something which will be interesting to your target audience so that they will engage with you and wonder what you or your product is all about. Getting a good word of mouth campaign going used to be a real coup in the PR world, because it was subtle, if sometimes vulgar, work. Social Media is all about word of mouth, so you need to put as much creativity into encouraging those conversations as you did pre-social media – the size of these vast networks you wish to exploit make it a more delicate process, not a shortcut.

Illustration credit: Matt Hamm

"I have a thing for second hand bookshops which specialize mostly in non-fiction or old textbooks (there’s something brash and low self-esteem about second hand fiction, their titles somehow always seem to have turned into huge, slutty pink-foil letters!) The good ones have the musty-sweet scent of old paper and have no cafe, and no music, just floor to ceiling books with conveniently placed ladders.

My two favourite stores in Melbourne (Australia) were Dr. Syntax in Commercial Rd, South Yarra and what is now boringly called the Queenscliff branch of “Barwon Booksellers” in the old bluestone Wesleyan church in the main street of Queenscliff. I say “were’ because one lunchtime – god, a decade ago? – I headed down to Dr. Syntax to finally purchase the complete John Donne in pretty blue leather and the 1930s textbook on Australian Aboriginals and two other texts from the 50s, that I’d had my eye on for some time (I love old anthropology textbooks as a sometimes eye-opening, often hysterical history of the ignorance and arrogance of the ruling elite) to find it had gone out of business.  I was devastated, and felt fairly guilty for not having just bought the books in the previous weeks (my $120 surely would have kept them going!)

Some weeks later, on holiday in Queenscliff (a beach town around the bay from Melbourne) I wandered into the ex-church-bookshop and was browsing when I spotted a familiar little book with pretty blue leather binding. I snatched it up and, sure enough, it was my Donne – with the Dr. Syntax price still in pencil in the front flap!
I raced to the counter and breathlessly asked if they’d purchased the Syntax stock – they had! I found all four books that day and left with the odd feeling that I’d discovered that some lost friends had found themselves a good home."

The following picture was taken in on Sea Shipment Day, 2008, 6 weeks after we arrived in Japan – many of the books pictured were purchased at Doc’s

Below are some examples of my play (I’d annontate it but WordPress is worthless when it comes to laying out images, let alone lining up text – any suggestions for plugins would be appreciated!)

For those of you in the midst of NaNoWriMo and for the rest of us in the midst of writing anything, here is J.J. Abrams talking about the blank page as the ultimate “mystery box” and how technology inspires him.

What mystery boxes are you creating for your audience?

Enjoy!

And, yes, I’m aware that these TED Tuesdays are being posted on Wednesday lately but, hey, it’s still Tuesday in the States and, frankly, all my days run together till Superman is still home when I wake up and I realize it’s Saturday.  Public Holidays (of which there are a ridiculous number in Japan) TOTALLY screw with my mind!