How To Know You Should Write Suspense

Rapid Fire Suspense author Ronie Kendig recently put together a compilation of a number of suspense authors (including Brandilyn Collins, Colleen Coble, DiAnn Mills, Carrie Stuart Parks, Melody Carlson, and yours truly) taking a stab (heh) at identifying that one primary indicator that you should be writing suspense!

Click here to see the article.

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I Love My Books

How do you define success for an author? Getting an agent? Getting a book deal? Getting a second book deal? Keeping your agent and your publisher well into a lucrative career? NYT bestseller list? Keynoting writers' conferences? Some level of fame?

I define it like this: writing books you love and getting them into the hands of people who will also love them. And that I have done and hope to continue to do. What I write is not based on what is selling or trending at the moment. It's not the result of a formula found in a "how to plot a bestseller" book. It's what I want to read.

I never understand it when an author says he doesn't read his own books. If you don't even want to read them, why should I? I'm busy at the moment, writing another suspense title, but if I weren't...I'd gladly crack open one of my novels and I'd enjoy it. Why, everything happens just as I would want it to. What more can you ask for? Sure, I'm not surprised by it. There's no nail-biting, but there never is when you re-read.

Even though I meet less than half the above criteria for what makes a successful writer, I'm often asked for writing advice. And this is the best advice I can offer: write books that you love. Books you want to read. There will be others who will share your taste in reading materials and that will mean more than chasing a trend, a hot genre, or the ever-elusive book market.

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Pushstarting a Locomotive

So I read The Secret when it was all the rage because I’m a pastor and I feel like I should keep up to date on the religious trends of our culture. I couldn’t believe how stupid it was. The “Law of Attraction,” which basically says that if you kick out positive vibes to the universe, the universe will deliver positive things back to you, seems like the sort of thing you’d only ever encounter on a sitcom, when a writers’ room is trying (lazily) to establish a character as a flaky, New Age nut.

But people have bought tens of millions of copies. I don’t get it. I mean, it’s one thing if God is rewarding your positivity (although the Christian Scriptures certainly don’t say a peep about that), but . . . the universe? In the words of Don Draper, “The universe is indifferent.” I even find it a little superstitious when Dave Ramsey tells people that having an emergency fund actually makes emergencies less likely to happen (Murphy stands in for the universe in that case).

And yet . . . it was shortly after I decided to start writing again and committed to finishing serializing my book Out of Sardis online (because no publisher wanted it) that the book got a nibble from a publisher who wanted a look at it. Then another possibility opened up. Long story short, the book is off the interwebs and back in play. Coincidence? Maybe. Matthew 25:21 in action? Ehhhh, maybe. Awesome? Potentially.

The fresh excitement of my writing life in general, though, is more explainable. I’m reinvigorated about a number of projects and am working pretty steadily on a YA manuscript that I really believe will be my best book yet. It’s got a slow-burn mystery wrapped up in a rather frantic plot, not unlike The Last Con, but with the addition of a claustrophobic, isolated rural town (which is something I loved about some of Peretti’s earlier stuff). I can’t wait for you guys to read it.

I’ve got no use for Murphy or the benevolence of the Universe, and I know that God doesn't necessarily wait to help us until we help ourselves, but now that I’ve push-started this locomotive once again and it’s picking up speed, the will to write is no longer a precious commodity. I’ve got more than I know what to do with.

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When It Rains, It Rains Frogs. Mutant Frogs.

So a few weeks ago, I confessed that I hadn’t been writing. Not for months. But now I’m back like a butterfly tramp stamp. And I’ve got a lot to write. Too much, actually.

It's not like the merciful end to a writer’s block, when the debris sort of sloughs away and the words and ideas start trickling, slowly at first, before picking up speed. Because this was unnatural. My brain had been active, but I had been willfully pushing all ideas back down into my psyche, waiting for certain external things to resolve, publisher-wise. But now that I’m writing again, I find myself somewhat paralyzed by the sheer number of things crying out to be written.

I might liken it to my favorite method of brewing coffee; the Toddy Cold Brew System. This method involves leaving nine cups of water and one pound of coarse-ground coffee in a carafe to brew at room temperature for twelve hours—or longer if you want it stronger. At the bottom is a special filter and a litter rubber stopper to keep the coffee in there, steeping for the designated period. (The result is a delicious, non-bitter coffee concentrate that can be used to make hot or cold coffee or specialty coffee drinks.)

So it’s like I put the stopper in when I stopped writing and this stuff has been percolating for months. And now that I’ve pulled out the stopper, it . . . You know what? Let me switch metaphors.

You know how they say, “When it rains, it pours?” Well, in my case, it's not normal pouring. It’s more like the frogs that rained down on Egypt. As soon as they land, they start jumping around, croaking and looking for attention. These ideas are alive and somewhat angry. Instead of ribbit, they say, “Write-Me.” And they’re not even regular frogs. They’re mutating before my eyes as they jump around!

What I mean by that is, I spent the last week as camp pastor at a Christian camp for 7th and 8th graders. As I was reflecting on some of the peculiarities of Christian camp culture, it occurred to me that it would make a great setting for a Young Adult suspense story. I’ve never written YA, but I actually still read it—both with my son and (certain books by J.D. Fitzgerald, Gordon Korman, and Frank Peretti) for my own amusement. On top of that, I do believe I have a gift for communicating with young people. Without my consent, one of my frogs (a book I’ve outlined and started) mutated before my eyes into a better idea for a YA novel. I sent my agent an e-mail about it and she agreed it’s a good idea. But they all seem like good ideas at the moment.

So the question remains, what to write? I’ve got the Playing Saint sequel, about which I’m jazzed, but which I’ve given up the idea of selling to a major publisher. There’s this semi out-there project, which is trying to morph into a YA novel. And, of course, the reboot of my gritty, urban retelling of the story of Elijah. Not to mention a sort of medical suspense thing I’ve been outlining in really broad terms, working title: Expiration. And two different nonfiction works.

Usually, one of those frogs is croaking far louder than the others; so you write the thing you can’t bear to not write for one more minute. But this time, they’re all hopped up (heh) on Red Bull, ribbiting at full-blast. I’ve been tending to each one in turn, a bit here and bit there. But I really want to attack one project full-force, and soon. Maybe the right answer will suddenly appear in a Writer’s Digest article about the current state of the market or in an e-mail from a reader. Or maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow with a singular desire to write one of these things and see it through to the end.

Either way, after months of writing nothing at all, it’s a good problem to have.


Update (9/12/16): It's the YA novel. I've used a push broom to corral all the other frogs into a large terrarium and I'm going full-speed on this one.
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#amNOTwriting: A Confession

So you should never begin a blog post by apologizing for “how long it’s been” since you last blogged or (worse) explaining why it’s been so very long. Writing (and Speaking) 101: always start strong, with a hook, not with a soul-suckingly boring laundry list of tedious events and obligations. But what if you’re writing about the dearth of posts? Is it okay then? Nah, still better to kick it off with something that grabs the reader, like . . .

Confession: I haven’t been writing.

If I were the kind of guy to use established hashtags on a regular basis, you’d still never see the ironically-broken-English-sounding #amwriting tag from me—at least not since last November, when I finished a short story double-header called God Rest Ye Motor City, which I think is some of my best writing to date, despite having been cranked out in just a few days. “#AmNOTwriting” is more like it (or maybe . . . “#aintwriting” to better mirror the janky grammatical issues of the original?). Yeah, every tweet and post since before Thanksgiving should be tagged with one of those. I’ve spoken at three writing conferences during that time, but I haven’t been writing anything.

I guess that’s not entirely true. I write a sermon every week. Often two. And sometimes a lesson. But that’s a whole different thing.

So what makes a just-starting-out novelist, briefly referred to as “The Suspense Author Everyone’s Talking About,” just . . . stop? I’d like to say it's kind of a Salinger thing. I’ve penned my Catcher and my Nine Stories and now I’m fading into obscurity while the world builds up my mythos. But that doesn’t work when your paperbacks are ranked in the neighborhood of 1,000,000 on Amazon and everyone’s not, in actuality, “talking about”  you. So, at the risk of reciting the aforementioned soul-suckingly boring laundry list of events, let me fill you in . . .

My two traditionally published books, Playing Saint (2014) and The Last Con (2015), have performed as one would expect the debut and follow-up of an unknown author to perform—neither breakout smash hits nor total flops. They were nominated for three awards, were finalists in all three, but won none. And, for a variety of reasons, my publisher and I parted ways. Which makes it sound like it was mutual, when in reality they had a contractual right of first refusal and they exercised that right (specifically on a proposal for a Playing Saint sequel).

So my agent sent the prop on to some other publishers, along with a proposal for a book I’m currently calling Clinch, which has a rather out-there premise, involving a paramedic, a long-lost treasure, an Indian tribe, and a woman who runs a junk shop by day and decides to become a super hero by night—all in a sleepy little Midwest tourist town. Not surprisingly, Breaking Saint (as I’ve been calling the Playing Saint, pt 2) was a none-starter. No one wants to do the sequel to a modestly-performing thriller owned by the competition. (In fact, a couple editors seemed kind of confused to have received the proposal.) And Clinch was just too unconventional, they said. Too fringe. Too niche. Too midlist. But we like the writing and please send us any future projects that are more marketable.

In early April, I decided to start another project while I waited to hear back from the remaining publishers considering these proposals. I would write a nonfiction book I’d been outlining for quite some time and serialize it, releasing a chapter at a time on The Blazing Center, an awesome online magazine that has published my work in the past. I was thinking I’d write one chapter every couple weeks. To date, I’ve written (waaaait for iiiit) one chapter. And, if I’m honest, that one was already written, almost a year earlier. Chapter 2 remains half-done. It’s been almost three months.

While #notwriitng, I’ve been barely-active on social media (at least on my author accounts), occasionally sharing the sort of stuff authors of Christian fiction are expected to share, along with a few things I actually wanted to. It’s been no secret that I’ve had something of an ongoing struggle with pandering, whether with my “image” as an author or with the actual content of my books. More on that in a future post. Suffice to say, in response to all this, I wrote most of a book proposal that I’m fairly sure would get picked up by an advance-paying publisher if I were to put it out there. And yet, I really had no interest in writing it. Or writing at all.

But wait! Come to think of it, I have been writing something over the past few months. Me and my buddy Ted Kluck have been writing a sequel to the end-times satire we put out in 2012. It’s the last thing any mainstream CBA publisher would touch. But I’m writing like an animal. Seriously, I can’t stop. Maybe because it’s refreshing to write without the pressure of trying to break out of the midlist, without dulling the sharp edges to suit the market, without subconsciously trying to target a demographic that is unlikely to get what I really want to say. Instead, I can write for the hundred or so people who actually e-mail and tweet me, asking when they can read my next book, because they loved the last one. I can write what I want to read. It’s stupid stuff at the moment (seriously, the plot involves a drug called “Ultragest” that shortens the human gestation period to six weeks), but it’s freeing in a weird way. It's the means, not the end, but it actually has me writing again.

So here’s the updated confession: My name is Zach and I’m a midlist author. (“Hiii, Zach.”) And I’m cool with it. I #amwriting, but I’m on no one’s 2016 list. It’s been nearly a year since The Last Con came out and I finally feel the desire to write again—not from without (you should have another book in the works or you'll be a year behind!), but from within.

And here’s what I see in my future: I’m not waiting for one of the Big Six (which I think have become the Big Four) to sign me again. I’m not waiting for anything.

• I’m going to finish Chapter 2 of Out of Sardis and send it to The Blazing Center.
• I’m going to finish Breaking Saint and it will be available to readers next year, even if I put it out independently. People keep asking if there will be another Parker Saint book. There will, God willing.
• And I am going to reboot my gritty, modern retelling of the story of the prophet Elijah, through a new upstart publisher where a bunch of blood and bullets are not a deal-breaker. I’m hoping to make it a trilogy.

And I’ll keep you in the loop, right in this space. Here’s a hashtag I’ll actually use: #MidlistMondays. Most Mondays for the foreseeable future, starting next Monday, I’ll explore a different aspect of life in the literary limbo where I currently reside,having decided to just get comfortable here, light up a fine cigar, and craft some books that I would want to read. Books like Playing Saint. Books like The Christian Gentleman’s Smoking Companion, which I wrote and published with Ted and which has sold almost as many copies as either of my traditionally published novels.

While I respect all the podcasts and workshops and books about how to get your foot in the door of the Publishing Machine (I even contributed to one) as well as all the advice, freely (and not-so-freely) given by industry veterans, about how to keep your career moving up and your “platform” expanding . . . when it actually quenches your desire to write, it’s time to let all that go.

Walk into your local Barnes and Noble today and I’m not sure whether you’ll find one of my books on the shelf. I actually kind of doubt it. Maybe soon they'll be on the bargain table.

But I’m writing. And that feels good.

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Incorporating Real Life into Fiction

Here's me making a really weird face and gesture.
When my wife saw this picture, she said, "Does this speech make me look fat?"

I had a great time speaking at the Jot Conference on Friday the 13th. Despite the ominous date, the presentation went just fine. I did, however, forget that I had taken the top off my Snapple and sloshed Mango Madness all over the guy next to me.

My topic was “Incorporating Real Life into Fiction.” You can listen to it below (the plugin may take a minute to load) or save the mp3 by right clicking here and choosing “save link as.”


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I'm Speaking at the Jot Writers Conference Tonight

One thing I've loved about entering the world of writing is interacting with other writers, particularly at conferences. I've attended ACFW and had the pleasure of speaking at Breathe and CCWA. Next month, I'll be speaking with my buddy and publishing partner Ted Kluck at the KDL Writers Conference.

But tonight, it's an awesome free conference called Jot. No registration, no fees, just show up a little before 7:00 (to get a good seat) at Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'll be speaking about connecting your writing with real life, Amelia Rhodes will address making time to write, super-agent Tim Beals will give a talk called “Agenting 101 (What you need to know about literary agents)” and Kenneth Kraegel will speak on children’s publishing. After the presentations, there will be free 25-minute workshops offered (see the event schedule for details). Add to that the draw of the world's greatest bookstore and Icons Coffee Shop and, yeah, you should come . . .

Writing Triggers

I had an article featured on the Breathe Conference website this week, about getting into the right frame of mind for writing.

Know Your Writing Triggers

At Breathe 2013, I sat on an authors’ panel. I believe I was the token newbie. I don’t remember much of what we discussed, but I do remember that someone asked us, “What do you read to prepare yourself for writing?” Tracy Groot said Steinbeck, I think. Someone else said they read John Ashbery. 

I said I don’t read anybody. I watch an episode of Breaking Bad. And I have a cigar and a cup of coffee. Then I’m ready to write.

 

I should have felt silly about that, but I didn’t. I know what triggers get my mind in the right head-space and I’m very intentional about using them. I know that I do my best writing on a particular bench overlooking the Capitol building and the Lansing skyline, while writing on this decade-old word processor I bought on eBay. I know that music and surroundings tend to affect how I write.

I like to have a playlist for each novel I’m writing, that evokes the mood I want to tap into, but also one particular song that I can play to sort of Pavlov’s Dog myself into the right head-space in under a minute. For my forthcoming book The Last Con, the song was “Crystalize” by Lindsey Stirling. I heard that song in a bookstore a couple weeks ago and immediately (involuntarily) started concocting new scenes. The problem is that I’ve already turned in the manuscript (it will hit stores in June 2015). For 42 Months Dry, it was all about Matisyahu.

For Playing Saint (which is the drug I’m actively pushing now), watching a little Breaking Bad was the thing that chambered a round for me, creatively speaking. Not that I wanted to copy Vince Gilligan’s style; just that I found myself wanting—needing—to be creative in a sort of uncharted way after forty minutes of that. The writing flowed better when I crank-started the process that way (there’s a pun in there somewhere).

Click here to read the rest of the article.

"But It's Fine the Way It Is . . . "

I’m leading a workshop about indie and traditional publishing at the Breathe Writers’ Conference this October. This is my second year being involved with the conference (sat on an authors’ panel last year) and I’m looking forward to it.

It’s also my wife’s second year leading a workshop. Last year, she spoke about finding the time and space to write (she also wrote a book on the topic, which you can buy here). This year, she’s delivering a talk she’s been working on for some time, on a topic about which she’s very passionate: editing your work. Seriously, that’s what she decided to speak on. Editing.

Now, I suppose that makes sense, considering that, in addition to having been called “[one] of the greatest up-and-coming fiction writers today” by the Saturday Evening Post, she has also worked in the publishing industry for more than a decade, in both editorial and marketing capacities. She loves putting words together, then moving them around, then losing some, then nixing the whole thing and starting over. That’s her idea of a swell time.

She also likes moving furniture around, so there’s that.

I, on the other hand, am the opposite. I like to find the best arrangement right off the bat and leave things be. That couch goes there, and it stays there. That semicolon goes there and I have no intention of moving it. If I didn’t want it there, I wouldn’t have pushed the little key with the semicolon on it. Suffice it to say, editing my writing is not among my favorite pastimes.

Let me just quickly acknowledge that different people work different ways here. Some writers do their best work when they just vomit everything out onto the page and then later sift through it for what’s good, rearrange it, etc., like that one scene in Columbiana with the flashdrive and the puke (which is probably a double-loser of a simile, in that it’s both really gross and also a reference to a movie that only like sixteen people ever saw). Others (people like me) like to work it all out internally, running through every idea, word, and phrase mentally (and, sometimes, orally and aurally, using a digital recorder) before putting anything to paper. And by paper, I of course mean this ten-year-old word processor.

Both methods have strengths and weaknesses, but the major weakness of my school is that we tend to convince ourselves that there is no need to edit. When you’ve lovingly, mentally caressed the words into exactly the right shape (note: we have left the “words as vomit” metaphor behind at this point), you are loathe to change that shape or—μὴ γένοιτο!—slash some words out of existence. And when someone else (say, my editor at HarperCollins) wants to get in there with the mallet and the scalpel, my first instinct is to defend with all necessary force. That’s step one: plant feet, raise battle axe, and shout This is Spartaaaaa! I’m only on my second time through this process, but I can already identify the rest of the steps:

• 2. Remember that I am contractually obligated to go through the editorial process and that everyone has do to it and that I’m not a beautiful-and-unique snowflake.
• 3. Bite the bullet and try to change just enough to appease the editor.
• 4. Realize that the book is getting better.
• 5. Go back through with the editor’s notes, with an actual open mind that these changes (the vast majority anyway) might improve the book.
• 6. Finish the back-and-forth with the editor and discover that the book is far better than the one I originally submitted.

I don’t want to move the couches around, but once they’ve been feng shuied to perfection, I do realize they look better and then I find myself ready to viciously defend the new configuration.

Here’s a couple photos to illustrate. They’re totally extraneous at this point, but they were what initially prompted me to write this post, so it seems a shame not to include them:

This is the south wall of my study. It has looked like this for almost a decade (see also: never moving things around). However, I recently acquired a bunch more books, necessitating more shelves (this little square was pretty much the only wall-space not covered in bookshelves).  I knew I’d need to make room for the coffee maker (and, heck, why not also get an espresso machine?), but the rest of the space would still more than accommodate all my new books. Naturally, I was loathe to mess with it, but when my wife started dropping hints about the stacks of books blocking access to her own new bookshelf at home, I finally jumped in and started the project.

Here’s what it looks like now. Upon surveying the completed project, my first thought was, "Wow! It really looked kind of cluttered and junky before, with all that stuff piled and stacked everywhere." I mean, it was fine the way it was and I was happy to look at it every day, but it’s much better now and I would definitely not click the UNDO button, if that were an option in real life.

So the point is: do yourself a favor. Try a little rearranging. Listen to your editor, your critique group, your beta-readers and just give it a try. You may find that you love it. I mean, not that you love editing. Editing is still the worst. But you may love where it gets you.

Talking a Little Shop

A few weeks ago, my family and I were walking to one of our favorite restaurants, when I asked my son (who was about to turn six), if he owned his own restaurant, what would he call it?

Without taking even a moment to ponder the question, he answered "Gatos Marteis." I'm guessing at the spelling; he pronounced the second word mar-TACE. Gatos is, of course, Spanish for cats, but I'm not sure why my son would know that, since his school teaches Chinese as its foreign language. I have no idea what marteis would mean or what language it would be.

I asked what kind of food they would serve. Again, without missing a beat, he said, "Italian." He promptly invited me to be a partner in this enterprise and we began brainstorming (meaning, I asked a bunch more questions about our restaurant). Further highlights include:

• You can eat on the roof, and there are FIVE roofs
• They have a song there, and there's a party every Saturday
• They will be open for one full year, 24 hours a day, and then closed for one full year (to build anticipation? Perhaps he stole this idea from AMC?)
•  The sign will have a green background and white letters and a piece of pizza under it. And the writing will be in Greek.

 After dinner, we went down the street to get some ice cream and I, wanting to broach the subject again, said, "You mind talking a little shop?"  My son looked at me, confused. "About Gatos Marteis," I said.

"Yeah, we can have a little shop there," he answered. "Let's do it!"

This kid, like most kids, spends 99% of his waking life imagining stuff. (Largely involving the defeating of ninjas and the transforming of vehicles into robots). Writing fiction means you get to keep that part of you alive and in good health and even get paid for it. Which is awesome.

You mind talking a little shop? Next time you've got writer's block, try the five-year-old approach, which is also the improv approach: don't think; react! What's the restaurant called? Gatos Marteis! Can you eat on the roof? Duh--there are FIVE roofs. You know how to generate creative material from nowhere. Remember that. Your first instinct may not be the best, but it will do until something better comes along.

Dealing with Digital Distractions, pt. 2

In Which I Review, At Length, a Ten-Year-Old Gadget.

Yesterday, I shared my frustration with the constant dings, buzzes, notifications, alarms, reminders, IMs, texts, and e-mails that constantly use the very same device on which you're trying to be productive to distract you and keep you from any real productivity. I promised that today I'd tell you about my new (old) gizmo that has me less distracted than ever when I sit down to write. (Don't worry; it's not a typewriter).

First, a little background on me and my preferences, technologically speaking. I'm still rocking my Palm Pilot from 2003. I don't like learning new devices or transferring all my info and I get very attached to the status quo. Plus, you can get outdated technology on eBay for a song, which is awesome, and all of its bugs are already known and usually fixed, and you deal with almost no learning curve. I was recently told that this is "hipster" of me (collecting outdated tech), to which I replied that I was into obsolete electronics long before the latest incarnation of hipsterism existed. But then I remembered that claiming to have been into things before everyone else is just another sign of being a hipster.

Anyway, for a good ten years, I was getting around any and all laptop-related annoyances by doing 90% of my writing (including seminary papers, etc.) on my palm with an infrared collapsible keyboard, which was very easy to transport (one in each pants pocket), requiring no case, no cords, nothing. But then my keyboard broke and the only one I could find to replace it wouldn't lay flat on my lap and kept wanting to fold in half over my leg. Besides, while the backlight on a palm works fine inside, it's very difficult to read out in the sun (and let's not forget that staring into a blue light for extended periods was helping to cause mine--and everyone else's--insomnia). It was getting to the point where these distractions were more annoying than the Internet itself.

Then, a couple months ago, I happened upon this device:

It's called the AlphaSmart Dana and it reminds me a bit of the old word processor I had my freshman year of college (before laptops were affordable). That thing was a monster keyboard/display/printer combo with no battery, which sat permanently on my desk in my dorm room. It was the opposite of convenience, but I remember getting into the zone on that beast: minimal formatting (italics, bold, three font choices and three font sizes) and no graphics to fiddle with. I was just concerned with the content of the paper. 

Then I think about the challenge of writing papers in seminary on a desktop computer with a T1, four diferent kinds of Bible software, nineteen different windows open at a time. Facebook wasn't huge yet, but there were plenty of other websites and message boards calling to me (IMDb, anyone?), bringing us back to the problem I described yesterday.

Here's why the Dana works for me: it's as much about the neural pathways in my brain as anything else. As I mentioned earlier, I struggle with insomnia. One of the things experts advise is to avoid working, reading, e-mailing, watching TV, etc. while in bed--so that your brain has just one (okay, two) activities associated with that place and isn't all amped up and confused when you lie down at night. Ideally, your mind and body immediately associate laying head on pillow with sleep. Well, my mind associates my Dana with writing...not wasting time screen-sucking, e-mailing, playing games, editing pictures ,etc.  Just writing.

You can get one of these bad boys cheap. Originally about $400, they're being unloaded in lots as part of school surplus sales on eBay for about $25 a piece (a little goo gone and mine was in like-new condition.) Despite being a decade old (which, in tech years, may as well be a century), the Dana has a loyal following among writers and journalists, which is why its Amazon ranking is still so high.

Because I'm me, I made a list of pros and cons, as if it were 2003 and these devices were just hitting the market, and as if there weren't already a hundred such lists floating around tech site archives everywhere.
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PROs

• Simplicity. There are different levels of simple from which you can choose. From the completely bare (memo pad, with one font, one size, just text) to a little more complicated (Word to Go, with the ability to set margins, rich text formatting, tables, etc.; one can even import true type fonts through a conduit). I prefer to keep it simple.
• Accessibility. There are several options for how to save and open docs. You can write directly to an SD card (there are two slots), working with native Word and Excel files, or you can plug into your computer's USB port and have the Dana "type" your text into whatever program you like.
• Generates no heat. Unlike a laptop (and much like a tablet), the Dana is cool on your lap. Unlike a tablet, it's natural to actually use it on your lap.
• Fairly large display. I'm typing this blog post on my Dana and I can see nine lines of text at a time.
• Great battery life. As in, twenty-five hours on a single charge.
• Touch screen. Another shared feature with your uber-expensive (and rather distracting) iPad. But when it comes to ease of use when writing, the Dana has some advantages. For example:
• Very Rugged. AlphaSmart devices were originally designed for teaching kids typing in the classroom, which means they can survive many drops from four feet off the ground and come off unscathed. Try that with your tablet.
• Outdoors-friendly. I love to work outside, but if the sun is out, it's almost impossible to see your laptop or tablet screen through the glare and reflection. Not an issue with the simple display on the Dana. (This is also why I prefer my black and white Kindle e-ink device with no FB, movies, etc. over a tablet or Kindle Fire.) The Dana's screen is not in the same league as e-ink when it comes to non-reflectiveness and readability outside, but it's worlds better than a laptop screen or similar backlit color LCD display. Unlike e-ink, you have to get the sun at the right angle to the glass surface of the Dana's screen, but after a minimum of shifting, the big light in the sky is illuminating your text, not obscuring it.
• Optional Backlight.  Remember "indiglo watches?" Well, the Dana has the same thing going on: a gentle green light that glows behind your text, allowing you to easily read what you're typing in low-light conditions. While writing in bed (yeah, I know; the insomnia), this has the two-fold benefit of not waking my wife with a harsh white light and not jacking up my Circadian rhythm by telling my brain it's time to get up when I'm actually about to turn in for the night.
• Two SD card slots. And automatic scheduled back-ups so you don't lose anything.
• Can print directly to most any printer.  Using either USB cable or wireless capability.
• Super light. Weighs way less than a laptop.
• No bootup time. Hit the power button and there you are where you left it. You can store eight of your documents in eight quick-load positions that can be brought up with the touch of a single button. This allows you to work on that annual report or short story during the five-minute wait in the doctor's office, whereas your laptop would barely boot up and load your document before you had to turn it back off.

CONs

• Accessibility, again. The file syncing software for the main word processor is not compatible with Windows 7 64-bit or Windows 8 (however, there are ways around this, such as the keyboard functionality, infrared beaming, and using SD cards).
• Built-in word processor doesn't like graphics or hyperlinks, so editing existing documents can be challenging.
• No built-in music player. On one hand, this means fewer distractions, except that headphones can help drown out chatty Cathies in coffee shops and other public places. But once you start getting into semi-vintage electronics and dedicated devices, carrying extra hardware is expected. Anyway, iPods are tiny.
• People think you're either a hipster or way behind the times. Not sure which is worse, but I don't really care.
• Dynamic flash memory. If the battery does completely die (which takes another couple weeks of neglect after it refuses to fire up), you lose all your documents.  However, you can do manual and automatic scheduled backups to the SD card, which removes that danger.

Anyway, that's my current preferred solution to the constant annoyances and distractions of the digital world. I hope you find yours. And for twenty-five bucks, you may want to consider picking up a used Dana.

Dealing With Digital Distractions When Writing

I rarely blog about writing and I very rarely blog about technology (honestly, I rarely blog, to the increasing annoyance of both my agent and my publicist), but today I want to touch on both and where they intersect for me. 

Tell me if this is a familiar scenario:  you sit down to write (whether a novel, a report, a dissertation, a love letter, whatever), you minimize everything but Word and look at that beautiful blank, white space in front of you, just waiting to be filled up by your brilliance. You begin to type, slowly at first, but building momentum. Just as you're about to hit your stride you hear, DOO-doot.  Whoops. Facebook was open in one of those browser windows.

I wonder who wrote on my wall, you think. Doesn't matter, but maybe you should just quick check, so you're not distracted. Ten minutes later, you're trying to get back into writing when an e-mail pops up from your boss. Oh, crud. Does he need me to come in early? Did I forget to use the new job codes on my time card? You read the e-mail, then reply. Then some guy who was apparently sitting at his laptop, mainlining espresso, just WAITING for an e-mail to which he could respond, fires off a reply to your reply. You're in it now, because it's obvious you're still at your computer.

Twenty minutes later, that's resolved. You get a page of writing done before an alarm pops up from Outlook, reminding you that your second quarter estimate tax payments are due in two days. You'd forgotten all about that. How can you focus now?  Maybe you should pop over to failblog for a while and just chill out to calm your mind.

You're just about feeling creative again when your spouse asks if you're coming to bed. Word count for the night: 400.

I don't know about you, but the Internet is a huge distraction for me any time I'm near a computer, particularly when I'm trying to write—whether a sermon, a lesson, an article, or  a novel. Trying to write with the Internet right in front of me is like trying to write with a toddler in the room. It's possible, I suppose, but it takes much more time and energy than it needs to and involves little momentum.

Dealing with (and conquering) that distraction is a big part of being a productive writer. I've found several different tools that work well in overcoming the constant distractions of working on a computer that's connected to e-mail, twitter, facebook, a billion blogs, and my schedule and task list for the day and week ahead . . .   I'll tell you my very favorite method for avoiding such distractions tomorrow, but for now let me suggest two (almost) free pieces of software that can help and ask for your input.

The following programs are very effective, especially when used in tandem:

1. Dark Room. This free program describes itself as " a full screen, distraction free, writing environment." Basically, it's like you're writing on a Commodore 64's word processor (complete with monochrome screen); no features, no bells or whistles, just you and your text. It's a clone of a somewhat pricey (considering what it is) Mac program. You can download Dark Room by clicking here.

2. Cold Turkey. You have to buy this one, but the good news is that you pay whatever the heck you want! This program has been a God-send for me. It will temporarily (you set how long) block whatever websites and programs are a distraction for you.  Want an hour of uninterrupted writing? Open up Cold Turkey, set it up to block social networking and time-sucking humor websites, as well as your e-mail and IM programs, and then click "Go Cold Turkey!" It's like going back to the early '90s, but without the parachute pants. (You'll have to turn off your smart phone too, if you have one.) You can get Cold Turkey at...waaaait for it...getcoldturkey.com.

My newest strategy works even better than these two programs and I will share it on Thursday. But for now, what works for you? How do you keep digital distractions from neutralizing your writing mojo? 

Comment below.