Another Chapter

Well, if things aren't crazy enough in life, the new week just came up behind me and reminded me that it is time to post another chapter of Spokes on my other blog. I promised to do that and after checking the view count on that blog, people apparently are liking what they see. Nobody is leaving comments, I don't know if that's good or bad, but if you want to leave one, please feel free to do so either here or on the spokes page.
Here are the hyperlinks to both the blog post and my website:
http://spokesthebook.blogspot.com
http://robertdetroit.com/in-the-works

Different Roads to Travel

When it comes to different ways to find just about anything, technology comes right in and helps on a daily basis it seems. Today is the release of the newest, latest gizmo for 'techies,' the new iPhone 5. That's all fine and dandy in more ways in one. Instead of getting too deep into the rivalry between Apple and other manufacturers, Samsung comes to mind, I will instead focus on what this means to the average writer like myself. Even though blogs and such can be read on older devices, people always want to monkey around with their new toy. Well, new toy holders, check out the blog on my upcoming novel, Spokes. It has only been in public view for around 32 hours and already hit over 100 views. Not too bad, keep reading folks! It only gets better.
http://www.spokesthebook.blogspot.com
Leave a comment either here or on the Spokes blog if you want; I would love to hear your input.

Later,
Robert Detroit

By Popular Demand...Spokes

Even though my upcoming creation, Spokes, is far from being a completed book, I have decided to make it public by popular demand. This decision hasn't been an easy one, the thing that took me over the edge is the online seminars I an attending through The Author Learning Center. That program is proving to be quite useful but I'll let you make up your own mind about attending that. Google it, it's there. This post is to provide a link to the blog which will draw you into the book I am writing. It keeps gaining popularity even though it hasn't even been finished, let alone published. I guess it's the idea and concept that has generated so much attention. Here is the link and I will provide a new chapter each week. That will give me the push I sometimes need to keep writing this interesting novel.
http://spokesthebook.blogspot.com/
Enjoy, leave a comment if you want to.

Until next time,
Robert Detroit

Making More Time

In my last post, Making Time, I thought I was really having a rough time making time. Well, that's all changed now with my gramdmother in the hospital and other things that come along at the most inopportune time. I did manage to sit down and spin out the rest of Spoke 5 in my upcoming novel, Spokes, and I truely beleive that I did an excellent job. The chapter falls right where I wanted it to and was very enjoyable to write. With that being said, I will close now and get back to it. Here is the link to my website and it should land you right on the page with a basic outline of Spokes.
robertdetroit.com/in-the-works

Until next week or sooner,
Robert Detroit

Making Time

Preparing for the introduction of my upcoming book, Behind the Signs, has taken pretty much all of my time. I've been aching to write some more in Spokes but quite simply, I haven't had much of an opportunity to do it. Well, I decided at 4:30 this morning that by 5:15 I would fire up the HP, check my email, then open Spokes and be writing by 5:30. I now have about 45 minutes of writing into it. The stuff I wrote just flowed out like there was no tomorrow so it's going to take a trememdous ammount of editing but that's okay; at least I whipped out about four pages of double-spaced text. I think it's now time for another cup of coffee.

Until next week,
Robert Detroit

More Time to Write

Finding time to actually sit down and write is becoming increasingly more difficult. With the marketing of Behind the Signs taking a huge ammount of time and keeping up with blogs and websites...not to mention the social networks, just doesn't leave much time to actually write. I guess I am just going to have to make time one way or the other. How, you ask? I don't know. If someone has the answer, please let me know by commenting below.

Until next time,
Robert Detroit

Cover Design

Not ever going through this phase of book publishing is probably why I had no clue as to how much work actually goes into just the cover itself. After three photo shoots and numerous email attachments, I hope we have finally got something we, (the publisher and I), can work with. If its not the low resolution that's the problem, its something else. I thought digital cameras were fine...not, as I explained in a different post. Once that minor issue was resolved, then it's onto modifying the picture to make it more attractive by adding color, adding border shading and bluring, etc. I guess that's why publishers have a team to do just that one particular thing, cover designs. They can keep their job, I'll just keep writing the stuff that happens inside those covers.

Until next time,
Robert Detroit

The Digital Days

Don't get the wrong idea from this post, I do think technology is woderful but sometimes the old ways are just simply better. Case in point, digital cameras. Everybody has one, either on their cell phone, computer, or just a digital camera...Or all of the above. My publisher and I are now working on a cover for my memoir, Behind the Signs. Everything was going fine and dandy until I emailed them a cover photograph in digital format. For the life of me, I could only get 96dpi resolution from that digital POS so now I must take a picture with a good old fashoned 35mm film camera, have the film developed, then scan the picture only after I program the scanner for 600dpi through my computer. (No big deal). It's just one of those things that pops up to remind me that nothing is ever easy, even with digital technology. Please leave a comment if this sort of thing happens to you. I would love to hear from you.

Until next time,
Robert Detroit

Writers are Sick

I never realized until recently how sick writers really are. It's a disease that isn't controllable. Not only do I have one book that is being published and needs to be marketed, I have another at several publishers, waiting for one to pick it up. That's not enough though. The marketing plan on the first one is a challenge that is time consuming and requires a great deal of contact with other persons either by phone or online. Then I have Spokes, which I am writing, and if that isn't enough to keep me going, I went and fired up yet another book project with a person in Australia. This one is a joint project, like no other that I have ever written. We are doing it 'in the cloud', and it is proving to be quite challenging and fun. I think it will work out pretty well for the both of us. I can critique her work on the book and she can do the same to my work. Yes, we probably will occasionally fight but since she is on another continent, the violence level will only be vocal through my cell phone or written through emails. Of course, we chat through Google talk but since she is 17 hours ahead of me, that is a different challenge all in itself. No rest for the writer! Leave a comment below if you would like to provide some input, it's always welcome and I don't bite.

Until tomorrow,
Robert Detroit

Labor Day

It's Labor Day and laboring it shall be. Yes, I do know the real meaning of Labor Day but my version is a little different this year. I am still going through my memoir so it will hit the printers soon and I am learning about the use of commas with the word, 'but.' I culd have used a comma in the second sentence of this post but...there I go again. See how difficult that can be? I used the word 586 times in my memoir, Behind the Signs, and it only contains 107,896 words. Yes, that is a  lot of words. Behind the Signs could have been a longer book although I decided to leave out some of the less imortant parts. behindthesigns.yolasite.com Now it's back to laboring, my version.

Until next time,
Robert Detroit

Pulling Off A Real Dandy

Yesterday I talked about mind slippage. Today, I will elaborate on that a little more. Early this morning, I took my laptop out into the living room and continued editing my manuscript for Behind the Signs when I decided, after four-and-a-half-hours, to save it onto a flash drive and on SkyDrive. I put a flash drive in my computer and thought for sure I was doing the right thing. That was just after I brought up the SkyDrive window and the file window where the file is stored in my computer. I drug the file into what I thougt was from my computer file into SkyDrive. All went well, the computer prompted me to make sure I wanted to replace this file with the other. I pressed okee-dokee and transferred files. The only problem was I transferred the old file from SkyDrive and replaced the new file in my computer with the old one. I tried and tried to get it back, even thought about restoring my computer to a previous time. The problem there is that Windows doesn't do anything with files, only programs are restored. Crap, I have to do it all over. Now I am taking a break before my beloved HP takes flying lessons, even though it isn't the computer's fault. It's my own stupidity right down to the core. I learned my lesson and will definetly pay more attention from now on.

Until next time,
Robert Detoit

Mind Slippage

I don't know if slippage is a word or not. I could look it up but I'm a little short on time today. You get what I mean anyway, right? I needed to run some arrands in town yesterday and I was walking out of the library when my cell phone vibrated. I answered to find my publisher on the other end. It's the publisher that is producing my memoir by another name. It's entitled Behind the Signs, if you're interested, and should be on the shelves or available to download through Amazon in about two to three months from today. I was told that there were a few updated that needed to be done in order to avoid some legal battles. That's what I've been working on. I am going ahead and reviewing the whole manuscript once more before it atually goes to print. A 342 page manuscript that contains just over 104,000 words is just not something that is easily and quickly read and modified. Well, that concludes today's session.

Until later,
Robert Detroit