|
|
 |
Print: $14.96 For nearly two decades, computer-based Bulletin Board Systems were the primary method of communication between computer users. As suddenly as they gained popularity, they were made obsolete by the next big thing - a newfangled system called the Internet.
Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie takes its readers on an exciting journey through the BBS era. Through the author's personal tales and adventures, readers will discover more about these amazing times and what it was like to grow up online. With tales of copyfests, BBS parties and random acts of online debauchery, those who were there will find themselves reminiscing, while those who weren't will enjoy learning about life "before the 'net."
You know, back when we used to modem uphill, both ways in the snow.
|
Rob O'Hara's Lulu Journals
2006 Oct 24 The cool thing about websites, eBooks and online documents is that they're never set in stone. I can't tell you how many times I've read an old review of mine on my website, noticed a typo, and gone back in and fixed it. Some of my reviews and articles are still being tweaked years after they were originally posted.
Books, however, are set in stone. Once the ink is on the paper, that's it. There are no more corrections or changes allowed.
Probably my biggest regret with Commodork was that I didn't have an actual editor read and edit my book. I've been getting compliments on my writing (which is occasionally unorthodox) for many years. I was afraid that an editor would try and change my book. And they probably would have — for the better.
Editors are more than the "grammar police." They are an invaluable set of eyes who can look at your book with an unbiased and critical eye. They spot more than spelling mistakes. They can help you with things like sequencing errors, logical errors, stuff like that. Like I said in my last entry, my wife helped me with a lot of that stuff. For example, one thing she pointed out to me was in chapter five I reference my friend Justin; in chapter six, we meet him for the first time. Whoops! All the things my wife found took my book from a C- to a B+ or maybe even an A-, but I think with the help of an editor, I could have made it all the way to an A+.
When you near the end of your project, it's easy to start rushing. When looking back at my book, I can tell the parts I wrote when I was in a hurry. I can also spot the parts I wrote when I was tired. When I get tired I tend to drop my long descriptions and get to the point; as a result, the parts of the book I wrote while tired came out shorter and less interesting. There's no rush to get your book out. If it comes out a day, a week, or a month later than you had planned, that's okay! Your book will be printed in permanent ink and will be around for years, if not decades. Make sure you get it right!!!
This almost goes without saying, but one regret I narrowly avoided was, make sure you don't bad mouth anyone in your book. You never know who will end up reading it, and words in print are pretty difficult to retract. I left one particular story out of my book about a high school acquaintance. A month after the book was released, that person (who I haven't spoken with since high school and lives over 1,000 miles away) caught wind of the book and picked up a copy. It's a small world, folks. If you do plan on talking trash about someone in your book, make sure it's something you don't mind everyone from that person to their parents (and your own) hanging on to it for-ev-er.
Other than that, I can't say I have too many other regrets about my book. Things have been going well, and I can't wait to get my second one done. In my next installment, I'll talk more about the Lulu process — what worked well, and what was difficult.
2006 Oct 19 Okay, so great — you're writing your ideas down (maybe in a notebook, or on a computer, or on a blog somewhere). Now it's time to start thinking about putting those journals together and creating a book! I'll deal with publishing my my next entry. Right now, all we're interested in is creating a final product.
Let me demystify something for you; my book (Commodork) was nothing more than a Microsoft Word file. I wrote it on my computer, and when it was done I uploaded it to Lulu.com who magically turned it into a book for me to sell. That surprises a lot of people. I've had several people ask me technical details about the printing process, and my honest answer is, I have no idea. I'm a writer, not a printer.
The system I used to organize my book last time took me several months. On the book I'm currently working on, it took about two hours. The reason is, the the first time around I had to invent a system; this time around, I've already *got* a system. Here's how I did mine; feel free to use this method, modify this method, or come up with your own.
When organizing Commodork, I first sat down and made a list of all my stories I knew I wanted to include. I didn't write each story at that point; I just jotted down keywords that represented each story. "Party at Beetlejuice's." "Jack Flack from the Moon." "Razor story." These should be specific stories, not chapter titles — those will come later. When I was done with that, I started moving them around in Notepad, grouping "like" stories together. I found this system worked good, but not great. Eventually, I resorted to writing down each story idea on index cards, laid them out on my kitchen table, and moved them around until I got them in the order I wanted. I found this system worked pretty well, and once I had "like things" together, the chapters formed themselves.
For my second book, I haven't (yet) resorted to index cards. As I've come up with story ideas I immediately write them into a notepad file so that they can be easily organized, and as before, with enough stories the chapters have already come together. Now when I come up with ideas for stories or tips, I know exactly where to put them in the book. It's like writing the outline, one line at a time, out of order.
One mistake I made with my first book was just sitting down and writing down stories out of sequence. You can do this, and I did this, but if you do be prepared to cut large amounts of those items out of your book. Out of sequence, it's very difficult to know what you've already explained in detail. For example, in my book about BBSes, I found myself defining the same acronyms over and over. It makes no sense to explain to your reader that BBS stands for Bulletin Board System in chapter 7 when you've already done it multiple times in previous chapters. I also found that by writing out of order, my tone changed throughout the book. Many of the parts I wrote early were more technical and historical in tone, while the later ones were more funny and entertaining. I'm not saying you can't write a book out of sequence, but if you do so you will need to pay more attention to continuity, not only in plot but in tone as well.
Once you've got all those story ideas and chapters lined out, it's time to get to writing. You don't need anything fancy — Microsoft Word (or whatever word processor you prefer) will work just fine. Don't worry about grammar too much at this point. If you write much it'll probably already be decent; you can clean it up and make it perfect later. Using another art analogy, your outline was your sketch — now it's time to start "coloring inside the lines", so-to-speak.
As you start getting parts of your book finished, you'll want to start having other people read it. This may mean a spouse, a friend, a co-worker, or an actual editor. In my case, I had people from all those groups read my book and give me feedback. You will get different feedback from each of those different groups, so it's a good idea to "consider the source" from each one. Find people who don't have a vested interest in you as much as people who enjoy reading — you'll find they have a lot to say. Having a spouse or anyone who is particularly close to you may have mixed results — if they are a reader and good proofreader (like mine is), they may offer some great advice. The problem is, your book is personal, and as such, you may take criticism of it personal as well. That means that a spouse's well-meaning advice could be taken the wrong way and turn into something more personal. You could have this problem with anyone who is close to you.
Another problem I ran into was that, instead of editing, at least one person wanted to completely re-write my book. One thing I learned through this is, make sure you are specific in the feedback you are seeking. If you are seeking grammar fixes, or style suggestions, or overall interest levels, make sure people know what you're looking for. That way you won't be surprised when you get a chapter back that you don't recognize.
To summarize so far: brainstorm, organize, write, get feedback from people.
I hope that this information is helpful to at least one person who has a spark of a book waiting inside them!
Next time, I'll start talking about my experience with Lulu.com itself. One other entry I plan on writing is simply titled "Regrets". It'll cover what I would have done differently.
2006 Oct 13 Originally this entry was going to be titled "How To Become An Author," and I will in fact write that entry in the near future (maybe tomorrow), but to become an author you must first become a writer, so I decided to jot this one down first. You know, that whole pesky cart-before-the-horse thing.
I'm a writer, and chances are if you're reading this blog and don't have a gun to your head, you are too. There are a lot of things you'll need to become both a successful writer and a successful author, but to me the most important skill is the ability to be a good story teller.
Every day, I soak up information around me. I am constantly writing stories in my mind. If my wife and I go to the mall, I constantly watch people, activities, and situations. Some of those will appear directly in my writings. Maybe I'll just use bits and pieces of a situation or an event. Either way, I'm constantly soaking up things I can use at a later date.
One of the most important things in story telling is having a beginning, a middle, and an end. For example, I write a lot of blog entries (blogging, by the way, is a great way to practice your writing skills). Each entry needs a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Last week while paying for some items at the dollar store, one of the items I attempted to purchase didn't have a price tag on it. The name of the store is, "Everything's a Dollar." It was a funny situation that I thought would make a funny blog entry. So when I wrote it down, I had to figure out where the beginning, the middle and the end of the story were. It's almost like telling a joke — you've got to set up your stories. If you're writing humor or a cute story, you've got to set up the story. You've got to quickly get your readers into the same mindset that you were in when the event happened. If I just wrote, "so this lady at the dollar store asked me how much an item was," it's not a whole story (it's not even a complete punch line!). Instead, my original blog entry went something like this:
Last night I took my son Mason to our local dollar store, which is named "Everything's a Dollar." I like the concept — everything in the store only costs one dollar. Sure, a lot of it is crap, but hey — it's only a dollar! There are even little signs posted around the store reminding shoppers that everything in the store is only a dollar. Before we went into the store, I handed Mason a buck and told him he could pick out any one item.
Mason ran directly to the Halloween display and picked out a cheaply made zombie mask. The zombie's hair was already falling out on the way to the counter, leaving a black trail of synthetic strands behind us. As we went to pay, the cashier began searching the mask for a price tag. She looked all over — inside the mask, on the front, on the back, everywhere. Finally, the lady leaned over to me and said, "do you know how much this is?"
At first I thought she was joking. I turned to Mason, who is four years old, and said, "Do you remember the name of this store?" He replied, "Everything's a Dollar." It was all I could do to not crack up. How is it that my four-year-old grasped the concept that had somehow escaped the employee?
So while it's not classic literature, let's look at it. The story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the beginning, I set up the story. I tell you that we're going to the dollar store, and at least three times I stress both the fact that everything in the store is a dollar. The middle is the action, where the cashier asks me the dumbest possible question an employee at a store called "Everything's a Dollar" could possibly ask me, and the story ends with a funny commentary on how my son grasped a concept that the employee somehow missed.
Now of course not all of you are writing humor, but this same idea can be applied to any story. My book Commodork is a collection of stories, so with each one I made sure I set up the story, delivered it, and then commented on it. The beginning and ending parts can often be used to segue between stories. For example if I had a story about my son's piggy bank, it could go like this:
Intro: son is saving pennies.
Story: son saves a dollar.
End/Segue: promise to take son to dollar store.
Intro: take son to "everything's a dollar" ...
It's even possible to tie the end of one idea with the introduction to another one, if it's a case where the stories are closely related (as with the above example).
I got a little sidetracked today. That's one good thing about blogs. No one deducts points for rambling.
My point was/is, if you're telling a story, make sure it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Don't drop your readers into the middle of a story, or not wrap it up. Remember the old "five paragraph theme" format they taught you in grade school? Intro paragraph, fact, fact, fact, summary? It works! Books are easier to read when readers know where your story is headed.
I need one more set up before I write "How To Become An Author." Tomorrow's entry will be titled, "How To Write A Book." I hope it's less meandering than this one. If it sucks I will issue you all a refund.
2006 Oct 12 Both the gift and the curse of a writer is the need to constantly write. Something about blogs are a little too inviting; the empty blog to a writer is what a white canvas is to a painter. Just click a button and start typing — instant publication! And with a little luck you may even pick up a fan or a friend along your journey. My name is Rob O'Hara, author of the book Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie. If you've published a book through Lulu.com too, then hey — we're members of the same club! If not, well, why haven't you? Maybe the process seems complicated, or you're still working on your project. Trust me when I say that regardless of what people may say about "vanity presses", there is nothing like the feeling of opening your mailbox and findind a real honest-to-goodness book with your name on the front cover! One neat thing about the Internet is that there is a direct link between the author and the reader. I went as far as to include my personal website and e-mail address in my book, and as a result of that, I've received many, many e-mails from people who have purchased my book, read my book, or just want to talk about my book. The link between author and reader can be as open or closed as you want it to be — I prefer it to be as open as possible. I want to know what people liked (or didn't like) about my book. I want to meet people. I want to hear about their experiences now that they've read through mine. The Internet provides two-way communication in a way that a book simply cannot do. One of the questions I get the most is, "how did you become an author?" Through this blog, I plan on explaining exactly that. Through this blog I plan on documenting not only the creation of my first book, but the next one which I have started as well. I have written for magazines, articles for books, and many, many websites. If you're wanting to read some of my other works, I will gladly point you in those directions. However, if you are interested in my thoughts and experiences as it relates to writing and getting published, well, you've come to the right place. Here are a couple of links to tide you over, until the next installment here. Mewww.robohara.com - My home page and main blog. myspace.com/robohara - MySpace (Blog Mirror) flack.livejournal.com - LiveJournal (Blog Mirror) Places/ArticlesTheLogBook.com - I write reviews here. Digital Press - I moderate here. Extended Play - One column I write MAMExpose - Another column I write Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS JunkieLulu.com Page for Commodorkrobohara.com/commodork - My Commodork Page Review of Commodork on SlashdotReview of Commodork on TheLogBook.comThat's enough links for now. Tomorrows blog installment ... "How to Write a Book." 
|
|
