My success as a writer has been fairly modest. My poetry publications have been appeared in very small literary magazines. The copy of Superior Poetry News, in which my poem “Fair Warning” appears, is photocopied pages stapled together with a construction paper cover on which the title is handwritten. So, yes, rather modest. But success, nonetheless.

My short story, “Drunk Monkeys,” received an honorable mention in a Writer’s Digest contest. Me and 100 other people. Not the most exclusive of awards, but I’ll take it.

Of course, I am hoping to build on this modest success, so we’ll see what happens. I would like to post more here about my writing thoughts and projects as I have sporadically in the past. We’ll see what happens with that as well.

I won’t go into a lot of details about how it works since that information is available elsewhere, but, in short, cloud computing allows you to access applications and storage on the Internet, thereby not requiring you to have software packages and storage on your computer.  Most people do a lot of cloud computing without thinking about it as such, such as writing to a blog that’s not self-hosted.

Why does this matter, and, why particularly would this matter to a writer? One benefit of cloud computing is that it allows you to be more mobile. I recently purchased a netbook which is small and light.  This particular netbook has a nice amount of disc space but many are rather limited. My Asus does not have an optical drive, which means either I need an external drive to load software or I have to download software. Or rely on “cloud” applications, which I’ll detail in a bit.

The other major benefit is that cloud computing reduces the need for version control. I write on my home PC, my netbook, and sometimes I’ll even work at lunch hour on the job. So, I work from 3 different computers. In the “old days” I would have to move files using a flash drive from one computer to another and, yes, I made mistakes and not always be working on the most recent version.  With cloud computing, you can access the same exact files from different computers.

Another major benefit of cloud computing–one that I find more useful for the job, not so much for my writing–is the ability to easily share and edit documents.

And let’s not forget that most of these applications are free, at least for the basic service.

In a more practical sense, how does this work? I’ve played with a few different applications and am settling in on the ones that seem to be working for me.

One of the most popular online applications is Google Docs, which consists of word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. I have also recently tried Adobe Buzzword which is just a word processing application. Both are very convenient, but are limited as far as how much formatting you can do. Both allow you to upload existing documents and export them into common file types such as .doc or .pdf.  Buzzword is a little slower to load than Google Docs but offers more formatting options. However, I found that it did some funky things to my documents on export. I would recommend either for drafts or brainstorming but would work locally to put a final polish on a document.

Dropbox is an excellent resource for remote storage.  Dropbox basic is free and offers 2GB of storage.  If you get a referral, both you and the person doing the referring get an additional 250MB of storage. Feel free to use my referral link to take advantage of the extra storage.

To use Dropbox, you need to install a very small application on your computer.  This application allows you to have a folder on your desktop (or wherever you like) that functions like any other folder. You can drag and drop or cut and paste any files or folders into Dropbox and then access it from any other computer onto which you’ve loaded the application.  As a Dropbox user, you also have access to your files via their website, so you can get to your files even if you don’t have the application loaded.

Although Dropbox also has options for sharing files with other Dropbox users, I am inclined to continue using GoogleDocs at work since many people already use it, and it seems to be an easier option for the workplace since it does not require the application download.

I also use some cloud applications for keeping on task and keeping organized, and I will write about them in another post.

• Bookends, LLC – A Literary Agency
• Editor Unleashed (I removed the link to A Writer’s Perspective which was Maria Schneider’s old blog)
• Nathan Bransford – Literary Agent

I have left my posts about Monkey Logic and my thoughts as to why I originally wanted to post it. They may seem a little out of context without the actual Monkey Logic posts, but they speak to some ideas about blogging and self-publishing that still may be worthwhile.

So, why the change of plans? Part of my reason for posting the novel was that it had become this big unwieldy story, and I felt that it was unpublishable. But it wasn’t without its strengths, so I felt it was worth playing around with on this blog.

Posting the chapters was surprisingly rewarding. I saw the structure and the pace of the work in a new light. I had tried in the past to streamline the narrative but was never happy with what I came up with. However, working on the draft on this blog changed all that and I found a way to shorten the work, so now I am in the process of yet another revision. Whether or not I’ll post anymore of Monkey Logic here is a decision I’ll make further down the road.

“Writing is a deep practice. Even before we begin writing, during whatever we are doing–gardening or sweeping the floor–our book or essay is being written deep in our consciousness. To write a book, we must write with our whole life, not just during the moments we are sitting at our desk.”

I had heard of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges before but couldn’t tell you anything about it, not even the name of its author. But I just read a short essay by and an interview with Nathan Englander in New Letters (74:3 2008). In addition to Urges, Englander also wrote The Ministry of Special Cases and the interview focuses on this latter work.

Of course, the short essay, “The Quick and the Dead” (about his visit to Argentina to visit cemeteries) and the interview made me want to read his books, so onto the pile they go.

Although the interview focuses on The Ministry of Special Cases, he does make some interesting observations about novel writing in general. Since part of my hope for this blog is to chronicle interesting and helpful quotes about writing, I’ll pass along a couple from Englander:

On plot:

“From reading the book it would seem that one outcome is much more likely fated, but I like to think that, as in a haiku, if a novel is functioning, there’s a momentum to the ending.”

On getting the details right:

“Because fiction has to be this unbroken dream. If a reader says to himself that street doesn’t go that way, or you wouldn’t hear the airport from there, he isn’t in the dream. To me that’s a failure, because it’s a question of effort.”

And since it’s November:

“Some people write a book just because they can, and those people are scary to me.” (The connection of this quote to nanowrimo is mine not Englander’s but it seems apropos.)

Creative Writing Contests, as the name suggests, posts a variety of upcoming contests and other calls for submissions.

Narrative Magazine posts a story of the week among other interesting items.

Southern Writer is a new blog by Tito Perdue. He has been posting excerpts from his new book The Node.

Writer Unboxed is a blog by a group of 7 writers. Because this blog has a number of contributors, there is frequently new content on a variety of writing topics. They often have interviews with other writers.

• Eros-Alegra Clark
• CatalystBlogger
• PW Writers’ Blog
• Laurel Snyder
• DIY Poetry Publishing Cooperative
• Maud Newton

• Creative Writing Corner
• FinePrint Literary Management
• fullcirclelit
• Guide to Literary Agents
• Marketing for Writers
• Poets.org
• Query Shark
• Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century
• The Peripatetic Poetess
• The Writer’s Perspective
• There Are No Rules