Reviews / Tech / Writing 0 Comments

Kobo Elipsa : In-depth note-taking review

Kobo’s flagship e-reader, the Elipsa, comes with a second act – note-taking. But does the Kobo Elipsa’s note-taking and annotation capabilities justify it’s steep price? Students, authors, editors and anyone who writes should take note of this imperfect device with a lot of promise. I demonstrate it’s note-taking capabilities using these size criteria:

  1. Likelihood to lose the pen
  2. Boot speed to ‘write-ready’ state
  3. Note-Taking experience
  4. Handwriting conversion effectiveness
  5. Ease of transfer to computer
  6. Annotations of documents

CLICK FOR MY DETAILED VIDEO REVIEW OF THE KOBO ELIPSA

Entertaiment / Writing0 Comments

Embrace Your Inner Demon

How a hard look in the mirror will help you write a better villain

I am fully awake, alert and ready. A villain looms nearby, wraithlike in form, it skulks in the darkness. And I’m scared. Not because it will harm me, rather, because I struggle like mad to coax it out of the shadows.

Why would I?

Because I am a writer of stories. And stories need villains. Much has been written about what makes a good villain, but little is said about where to find the inspiration necessary to shape one. And the stakes are high too! Writing your villain poorly sets your novel’s foundation on shaky sand.  To shore it up on solid ground, you must tap into a part of you that you’re intimately aware of, but one that you’re loathe to embrace.

Your dark side.

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Sports / Writing0 Comments

On Writing, Foolishness and Sprints

My editor started earlier this month. After almost three years. I can barely believe it. And with the end in sight, I’ve hit pause for a few weeks and it has allowed me to reflect on the journey. It started with a heavy dose of naiveté that seemed to be warranted when I finished the first draft in six months! “Heck, I’ll be done in a year!” I uttered sincerely, with no understanding of the bumpy road ahead. So how did one-year become three? And the most terrifying question of all. Was three years enough time to completely finish my novel? 

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World / Writing0 Comments

A Word to the Wise

Gandalf, Yoda and Admiral Adama are a few of my favorite supporting characters of the sci-fi and fantasy genre. They each possess strength, character and a secret weapon that in and of themselves, could carry the story unaided and in truth, they do in the opening chapters, shading the hero from the harsh sun and giving them time to take root and mature. But they can’t shield the young sapling forever, they are old after all, and so our learned guides must pass the mantle of leadership to our heroes and it amounts to giving them the ability to operate independently in the world. In addition to teaching them to harness their latent superpower, they give them something of innumerable value – wisdom.

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