6 Things I Like About the Kindle Fire

I was reluctant to buy an eReader.  I love books.  I love the smell, the rasp of turning pages, looking at the colors and sizes of them on bookshelves.  I’ve surrounded myself with books as look as I can remember.  Going to an electronic device that would replace the physical presence of books was inconceivable to me.

Courtesy of Pierre Lecourt via Flickr

I had a plethora of reasons not to convert.  Before… the displays were hard to read unless you had a specific quality of light, or if it was too bright, you couldn’t use it. Furthermore, I am clumsy. If I drop a tree-based book, there’s no harm done. If I get the book wet, it is annoying, but you could always dry it out.  If you lose a book, it is an inconvenience and at worst, you are stuck with the cost of replacing the book, not out $100 + dollars to replace an eReader.

But the $150 price tag for a Kindle Fire was too hard for me to resist. I bought one on the release day as a birthday present to myself.  It seemed like a low-risk way to give eReaders a try and start getting in touch with one of the hottest literary trends out there now, eBooks.  And I am surprised to say that I like my Kindle Fire.  I like it a lot. So what do I like about it?

• Free Books – This has to be (by far) the best thing about the Kindle Fire.  Every day, Amazon (in cooperation with the authors and publishers) has literary classics available for downloading as well as a selected list of eBook versions of popular books.  They may only be free for a couple of days, or somewhat longer, but there is always a variety of free books for any reading interest. Some of these books are only available on the Kindle in an eBook format, while others are free books to introduce readers to a new author or series of books.  Every day Kindle lists the Top 100 Free Books.  I’ve downloaded over 250 free books so far and have been happy with the quality and value of the information in most of them so far.
• Highlighting and Note Taking – For books in my personal collection, I’ve always had this obsessive need to keep them neat and unmarked.  With the Kindle’s feature that allows you to take notes and highlight passages, this becomes an easy way to track important info or review your thoughts as you read through a book.
• Games – A guaranteed time waster for a writer, but I LOVE playing Words with Friends on my Kindle.
• Internet Browsing – This is pretty smooth for a portable device despite the difficulty of entering text quickly into the search or address windows.
• Netflix – With a decent wireless connection, video content is easily watchable and fun.
• Free Apps – Every day Amazon features a new application that you can download for free.  Most of the offerings are free games, but some of them have been very nice commercial applications (such as Documents-to-Go).  It is fun waking up each morning to see what the free app of the day is.

So the Kindle Fire seems to have slipped away from being a luxury gift to something that I have to take everywhere with me.  There are a few things that I don’t like about it, but I’ll save those for another post.

Finding 15-Minutes to Write: Batch Your Tasks

30-Day 15-Minute Writing Challenge - Day #2

I spent my initial 15-minute session generating content for my Provocative Phrase Friday writing prompts on the Grist for the Muse blog.  By tackling these all at once, I generated about 3 months-worth of content for these posts.  Granted they still need some edits and select the perfect provocative photo prompts to complete the posts, but the hard work is done.  I spent about another 30 minutes putting together enough content to last well over 6 months.

Batching tasks is one of the ways that you can save time by handling several closely related tasks at the same time. Some of the common ways to do this:

• Make all of your phone calls at the same time
• Save errands in a specific part of town and do them in one trip
• Pay bills all at once at a specific time of the month

Finding 15 Minutes to Write: Use a DVR

Post #1 in the 30-Day 15-Minute Writing Challenge

TV is one of my biggest time wasters. If a television is on and I am in the room doing something else, I will watch it.  I try to avoid looking at it at all when there’s work to be done, but I still love TV. I love watching House, The Middle, The Office, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad... you get the idea. 

Luckily, I have had Tivo since the first series was manufactured over 10 years ago, and never have looked back.  Since then, the rest of the world seems to have caught up with me and DVRs are common in homes now, whether purchased by the saavy consumer or provided by their local cable company.

Courtesy of the autowitch via Flickr

What does this have to do with writing?  According to Wikipedia: The average number of minutes of TV advertising for each hour of commercial television in the US is between 15 to 18 minutes per hour.  But that amount seems to be similar in the rest of the world. The UK: Between 12 to 15 minutes per HALF HOUR?!?  Germany: 12 to 20 minutes per hour (depending on the time of day).  Argentina:  12 minutes per hour. Russia:  Around 15 minutes per hour.  The Philippines:  A max of 18 minutes per hour.

So even if I limited myself to watching 6 hours a week of live TV, I’m wasting 90 minutes of time that could be recovered simply by using my DVR to skip through the commercials. If I watch sporting events, such as an NFL game, I’m probably wasting even more time per hour.

I rarely watch a program at the time that it originally airs.  Sometimes I miss the entire series of TV shows, discovering them later on Netflix, Amazon Prime or some other video streaming service, when I have time to sit and watch several episodes in row; Like I did when I watched Joss Whedon’s incredible sci-fi/western mash-up series, Firefly when I was stuck in bed with pneumonia last Christmas.

Time is precious, so if you are going to “waste” it watching TV, use a DVR and put that recovered time to work with your writing.  Tune in tomorrow for post #2 in the 30-Day 15-Minute Writing Challenge.

The One Thing You Must Know About Writing

This is the one thing that I just wish I could remember when I have those dark days where I lose faith in myself.  Those days where I wonder why I bother doing this at all, this writing thing.  Those days where I loathe myself for not getting the writing done, ensnared in resistance and full of excuses (sometimes even good ones) about why it isn’t happening.

Yes, I’m unemployed.  Yes there are challenges, doctor’s appointments, band practice, sick kids and the never ending time-consuming tasks of eating, sleeping, laundry and the occasional home repair project… but everyone has them. And what they are is the sneaky way that resistance or the Inner Critic slip into your life and sabotage your efforts.

Courtesy of Eddie Van 3000 via Flickr

I’ve been fighting and losing the battle the last couple of months. I have good intentions, but get sidelined and manage to put off the writing for just a little while longer, or tell myself that this cover letter is the most important thing I have to do today, when, in truth, there is plenty of time for both.

Maybe I don’t like the particular project I’m working on. Maybe I’m just not in the mood to draft the copy for the sales page on my website right now, but the fact of the matter is: It is important and not having it done is preventing me from completing other tasks that depend on it. 

Maybe I’m not in a mood to write a blog post, because who’s going to read it anyway… at least that is what the critic is telling me right before I open Microsoft Word and begin typing… then decide to check my Twitter feed instead.

But if I decide to sit down and set a timer and write for just 15 minutes, and vow not to check email for that period of time, act on a random thought that occurs during that time (such is the power of the web) and focus on just getting something down, I often find myself resetting that timer for another 15 minutes and then another, and soon enough, the dreaded project is done and I FEEL GREAT!  Even if I only do 15-minutes, my brain lets me relax because it has checked writing off of today's must-do list.

That is the part that I always forget about. The guilt-free, anxious feeling erased from the rest of my day which allows me to enjoy watching some Walking Dead, stupid videos on YouTube, or reading for pleasure without that timer that seems to always be ticking in my head.

You are never going to feel that the time is right to write.  It never happens. There is always something more important, more urgent to do. You will never feel less tired, in the mood, or more inspired than you do right now.

Make a promise to yourself to write just 15 minutes a day. Mark it on your calendar, your to-do list or put it on a post it note that you carry with you everywhere, and do it.  Write for at least 15 minutes a day, during the entire month of December with no excuses and see how you feel at the end of the month.

Who's going to join me? With apologies to Tom Petty: "Sometimes the starting is the hardest part..."

15-Minute Writer Site Review - Dumb Little Man: Tips for Life

Dumb Little Man: Tips for Life is another good source of “brain hacks” which consist of detailed, well-written articles from a talented group of writers, who really understand what makes us tick, and how we can stop sabotaging ourselves.

Although this blog is focused on being more efficient and eliminating roadblocks to productivity, many articles address issues of interest to writers, such as these recent posts:

• 7 Simple Steps to Becoming Well-Read
• 7 Powerful Tips for Becoming a Better Listener
• How Resistance Kills Our Flow

This site posts several new articles every week, and also has over 2000 articles of additional content for you.  It also allows you to follow it via Facebook, email, RSS feed, or Twitter. As a result, this site is a must-add to any 15-Minute Writer’s blog roll. I've added it to mine.

Dumb Little Man: Tips for Life gets ***** out of 5 stars.

15-Minute Writer Rating Scale: * - SPAM is more enjoyable and entertaining; ** - Content not fit for a link farm; *** - An OK site, probably won't be back here often; **** -  Good resource, bookmark and visit often; ***** - An essential resource to consult daily.

Weekly Word Count: Summary of July 2011

Does anyone else do this?  Last month, I moved away from my model of tracking the amount of time I spent writing (in 15-minute increments of course) to tracking actual word count.  I had the optimistic goal of writing 30,000 words (a little under 1000 words or 4 double-spaced typed pages a day).  I considered these words to be “raw output” for blog entries, freelance work and my creative projects.

Courtesy of cinderellasg via Flickr

I thought, hmm 1000 words of raw output shouldn’t be hard at all.  Using Dragon Naturally Speaking some of the time, I should be able to crank out that much and still have time for editing some of the raw words into content… Right?  Wrong.  Most days I generated between 300 and 500 words. July’s grand total: 13,026 words, for a daily average of about 434 words, or a little under half of my goal.

I found that I had hit good word count numbers during the early part of the month, getting more than 1300 words for several days.  It really wasn’t that hard.  The problem was that the rough output was not publishable, especially the words generated by using Dragon Naturally Speaking.  The program worked well, but in the situations where it didn’t work, it created errors that would be embarrassing if it was sent out there.  Dragon is working out to be a decent tool, but it does require careful editing, because it does manage to enter the wrong word occasionally and those wrong words are not going to be caught by the spell check.

Later in the month, a lot of rewriting of the raw output reduced the daily word count significantly.  I also had some freelance work that didn’t help me boost the numbers since it required a lot of editing and several revisions.

This month I’m changing the approach a little and not only tracking the daily word count, but the number of words generated for each of my writing projects.  I am planning to go well beyond last month’s 30,000 word goal (for reasons to be explained next week) and I’ll try to keep track of what I manage to achieve in 15 minute. I’ll post a summary every Monday so you can see my progress. So until next Monday… keep on writing!

15 Minute Goal Setting for Your Writing

This article courtesy of the duolit Blog is a perfect fit for The 15-Minute Writer. The article entitled: No Excuses: 15 Minute Goal Setting for Authors is an incredible use of a 15-minute writing session. Based on the 15 Minutes and You're Done feature in Real Simple magazine, the author breaks down the goal setting process into short, manageable tasks. It blazes through the goal setting process by having the writer list various goal categories, then list the possible goals within that selected category, next edit the goals to make sure that they are realistic and measurable, then break down that goal into small manageable tasks, and finally do some cleanup work such as adding due dates to the tasks and adding them to a calendar.

This article has a way of making an intimidating process approachable and is a must for any writer who wants to write but has no idea how to get started. Using great examples in each of the steps, this article illustrates this process for the writer so he/she can imitate it.

I love the idea of making goal setting a 15-minute process. I highly recommend you check out this article. 

I’m also adding this blog to my blogroll for The 15-Minute Writer since the other content I’ve skimmed on the site is also excellent.

Have You Visited Lifehacker Yet?

If you don't know about Lifehacker yet, you are missing great content.  You will be seeing a lot of links from me here to that site.  It has a lot of great tips on time management, self-improvement, as well as lots of practical advice on daily life, such as this article on getting better customer service, technical how-to's such as this one on recovering from an e-mail disaster, and reviews and information about products and services that may make your life better.  



This site has fresh content hourly and you never know what kind of advice it will generate.  Today's featured articles focus on disaster preparedness in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

In addition, the site allows you to link it to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, see 49 of the most popular articles right now, and search the massive Lifehacker archives via the Search feature.

So do what I do, set up an RSS feed for it in Google Reader, or just bookmark it.  Then, check it out daily.  It will be well worth your time. Lifehacker gets ***** out of 5 stars.

15-Minute Writer Rating Scale: * - SPAM is more enjoyable and entertaining; ** - Content not fit for a link farm; *** - An OK site, probably won't be back here often; **** -  Good resource, bookmark and visit often; ***** - An essential resource to consult daily.

Keeping It All Under Your Thumb

This one is for all of you PC users out there.  If your system is running slow and this little things like running Scandisk and Windows Cleanup don't seem to improve performance of the computer, consider re-imaging the hard drive and start with a fresh installation.

It is time consuming to do this, but even more time consuming and frustrating to be stuck with a sluggish computer. 

Here's a tip to ease a little of the pain. Store many of the installation packages for the programs you use frequently on a thumb drive or CD-ROM.  With the cost of these drives being less than $20 for 4 to 8GB of storage, you have room to store many programs and drivers as well as your critical files.  You can also set this drive up as an emergency boot disk.

On my thumb drive I store my downloaded packages for my virus protection (I currently am using AVG Anti-Virus), anti-spyware packages (Spybot and Ad-Aware), the printer drivers for the 3 printers I use most often, OpenOffice installer, and various utilities such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, decompression software, iTunes, and a couple of other shareware utilities that I commonly use.  Granted they are not always the latest version of the program, but once you have the program reinstalled, most packages ask if you'd like to update them anyway.


This gets all of those packages that you were going to reinstall anyway all in one place to make it a little bit faster to get your system back up and online.

Muse Reviews: Throw Out Fifty Things

Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you saw the condition of my home office right now you’ll immediately understand why this book intrigued me. It has way too much stuff in it. Bookshelves overflowing. Papers piled in baskets, in computer paper boxes, or just scattered around. My daughter has clothes she wants to sell on eBay, I have hundreds of HeroClix figures and accessories that also need to go on eBay. Scrap wood, library books, old magazines, cardboard boxes, bags and packing material, old printer and computer equipment all stored haphazardly throughout what once was a rather large and impressive workspace.


Ms. Blanke takes a concept made popular by shows like TLC's Clean Sweep and presents an unintimidating method to attack the mind-boggling, energy draining piles of STUFF that we collect and retain under the idea that maybe we should keep this because it will be useful someday. She asks you to consider the value of the object vs. the amount of energy that it sucks up in exchange for its continued existence. Sure, those cheap wire hangers that you have gotten from the dry cleaner for every item that you’ve taken there since 1993 might come in handy someday… but do they need to take up all of the rod space in all of your closets? I have a huge Rubbermaid tub FILLED with just power adapters and cables that I don’t know what to do with. I have no idea what they go to… cell phone chargers, video game systems, computer monitors, portable phones, and more. All of the plugs are different, so when I find myself desperately seeking the proper adapter for recharging the video camera battery, it is never there.


Throw Out Fifty Things walks you through the process of getting rid of the stuff that is draining the energy away room by room and gives you options for passing along items that you no longer use to others or recycling them. Now Michael, you say, I could throw out 50 things in the front entryway of my house… sure you could, except for one little ingenious twist thrown in by Blanke. Any of the same object is considered to be only one object of the fifty to get rid of; Hence, all of those cheap hangers in every closet in the house… one item on the list. That tub of AC adapters? One more item and so on. So say good bye to all of those single socks with no mates, those ugly gifts that you received from Aunt Margret taking up precious space in your hall closets and attics. If it drains energy from you when you see it… no matter what it is or how useful it is… GET RID OF IT.


Among the 50 things that you are going to throw out are psychological. Ideas such as letting go of mistakes from the past, the need to have everyone like you, or having to do everything yourself. All of these things drain your energy that can be better spent elsewhere and contribute to the generation of physical clutter as well.


The book is easy to read and provides space for you to create your own list of throwaways as you work through the book. It also provides many examples from Ms. Blanke’s personal experience and those she encountered working as motivational consultant. Last, the book also provides a resource list for ideas on how to get rid of those things that you might not know what to do with, but are still usable or recyclable. All in all, excellent book with good information. I highly recommend it.

View all my reviews >>

Put It on a Post-It

I find it easy to lose track of what I’m working on and when I’m working on it, so I have found a new way to keep myself reminded. Post-Its… I am always working on at least 3 projects at the same time, but I used to get lost and forgot what I was working on… But now I list my top 3 to 5 projects on a Post-It, and post it in a prominent location in all of the areas where I might write. I have one in my cubicle at work, and another at my desk at home. I even use this nasty little Freeware utility, Stickies, to constantly remind me of my priorities on my desktop. You can download this free at http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/download.html. So use one of the greatest office-product inventions of the 20th century to improve your writing productivity today.