Category: Books

Final Edit Of My Book

On By Michel McDonaldIn Autobiography, Books, eBookLeave a comment

My book is nearly completed.  I have finally finished editing it but I have to read it one last time to make absolutely sure that it is right before I publish it.  While I was editing chapter 40, it occurred to me that I may have left something out of chapter 20.  I went back and as I was reading a few paragraphs to find where I needed to add, I found 4 errors.  That means that I am not completely finished.

It only took me 2 months to write it, but it has taken me 4 more months to edit it.  I never knew that writing a book was so difficult.  It really makes me appreciate the hard work that writers and editors do.  I am constantly remembering things that I want to add, discovering discrepancies, spelling, grammar errors and redundancy.  Writing is hard ya’ll!  LOL.

I had a good laugh today because when I finished editing the book, I had lost 15 pages from the ODT (OpenOffice) file.  It was originally 182 pages and now it’s 167.  The epub file on my Book had 289 pages, but edited it has 302.  It doesn’t make any sense to me that I lost 15 pages in the ODT file, but gained 13 in the epub file.

What happened to all of those page numbers is that I had too many paragraphs because I split too many thoughts up.  I combined the paragraphs which made me lose pages.  I also deleted a ton of things, but then I also added some things which gave me 5000 more words.  I think that was why I gained 13 pages in the epub file.

My cover is finished and I have shared it with a few people to get some opinions.  So far I haven’t had too many complaints.  It was my 4th or 5th cover design job.  I liked the first couple of covers, but none of them really stood out as much as the final cover does.  I am really happy with it and that is all that matters.

I uploaded the epub file so that I could read it one last time on my Nook.  I hope I don’t find any errors, but if I do, I can jump on the computer and find where they are and fix them.  I have never read one book so many times on a white screen until now and it’s killing my eyes.

I have spent a lot of time on this book and have started feeling bad for my family because of how I talk about them.  But then I look at a picture of my step-dad and realize, I’m writing this because of him.  He never cared enough about me to stop beating me, or enough to not hurt my feelings with his words every day my whole life, so why should I give a rats ass about his feelings?  The arrogant nasty look on his face in all of his pictures is all the motivation I need to keep going.

I didn’t just write this because of him, I wrote it because I want to show what life was/is like for gay people.  What bullying does to gay children, whether it’s the parents doing the bullying, or the children in school or both at the same time.  I want to share my first hand experiences and give a message to the gay teens that it gets better.  I hope that it opens eyes and helps someone who may need advice on how to cope with it.

Anyway, the book will be published after Christmas this year so stay tuned for the blog post announcing it.

Thank you for reading.

Publishing My Book

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBookLeave a comment

I spent this summer writing my life story into a 289 page e-book.  It took a lot of time to write and it has taken even longer to edit because I am not what most would consider to be a writer.  I barely manage writing a blog, I have a difficult enough time thinking of what to write in a greeting card.

I have already copyrighted (pending) my book (title and unedited contents) so that when I am ready to publish it, I won’t have to worry about waiting for the copyright to kick in.

I have already signed up with Amazon and Barnes & Noble as a self publisher, which was so easy that anyone can do it.  I also wanted to sign up on the Rainbow Ebook website as a self publisher because I want to support them as an e-book store.  It’s nice to give back to my community in any way that I can.

As soon as it is completely edited, I will publish it and start advertising and promoting via here, twitter, Facebook, my space and anywhere else that I can advertise it for free.  I may even pay gay and gay friendly bloggers to advertise it for me.

I am not looking to get rich on this book, in fact I mean to do the opposite.  I can only make so much money per year on top of my disability so I can’t get rich off of it.  I am only going to sell it for $6.99 so that I only profit a few dollars from the sale of each book and 10% of those profits will go to charity.  10% from Amazon, B&N and Rainbow Ebooks combined will be split up to go to the Human Rights Campaign, ChildHelp.org and Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors fund.

My book will hopefully raise awareness to so many issues in our society about the way children are being raised to be as abusive, racist and bigoted as the parents who are raising them.  I feel it’s important not just to tell my story about the trauma I went through, but hope that it will help parents to change their hateful ways and views and know what they are doing to their children when they raise them full of so much hatred.

I wanted to be able to publish it before Christmas but then I got to thinking that it’s not the kind of thing you want to read during a happy time of year.  Instead, I will probably publish it after Christmas or maybe after New Years.  Keep in mind that it is still being edited so it is possible that I won’t have it ready to publish until January.

So until then…

Update: I signed up for the free trial of Grammarly and was shocked to see that they raised the price from $20 to $70.  I thought that I would just go ahead and do the trial and get it done as quick as I could but it was catching too many errors that weren’t even errors.  So screw that, if my grammar checker in Open Office doesn’t show me those errors then they aren’t errors in my opinion.  I will read it one more time and fix any errors I think need to be fixed and then publish it when my copyright goes through or January like I said before.

I Finished Writing My Book

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I am happy to report that I finally finished writing my book.  I have edited the hell out of it about 20 or 30 times but it’s finally done.

I sent the file to 2 friends to proof read and send me bug reports if you will lol.  Basically, they are beta testing my book for the lack of a better term lol.

The book in doc format is only 181 pages but in epub format it is 289 pages.  I don’t know why there is a huge difference but there you have it.

I have learned a boatload of stuff about myself while writing this autobiography.  For example, I remembered things that I had blocked because they were too painful.  I don’t know how I remembered them but I’m glad I did.

The timeline of some memories were wrong in my head and it took writing it for me to remember when everything happened.

Well, I am just exhausted from writing.  My eyes are killing me from staring into a white screen for 6 to 8 hours a day.  I can’t even imagine this being my regular job.  I mean blogging is my job but I’m not doing it for 6 to 8 hours non stop day after day.  Some weeks I’m lucky if I have 2 posts written.

To celebrate my victory today I decided to play Lord of the Rings Online.  I finally did an epic quest so I can check that off of the list of things I have to do in the game.

The book won’t be published until my beta testers have read through the whole thing and given me their input.  When they do then I will have to read it one or two more times before I send it out just to make sure it’s right.  Who knows, I may even have more editing lol.

I’m pretty sure that it is finished so I do plan on getting it copyrighted this or next week so that I can sell it through Amazon and Barnes & Noble as ebooks.  If they sell enough copies then I will have it printed for those who don’t have a Kindle or a Nook.

Wish me luck!

Finishing My Book

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I have been working hard on my autobiography for a couple of years now.  It has taken me so long because I would feel emotionally overwhelmed by the memories that I was forcing myself to recall just to write one chapter.

I had 3 chapters half written last year and gave up.  This year I thought, I am going to write and finish this book and I don’t care how much pain it causes me to do it.

I had written maybe 12 chapters that were anywhere from 10 to 16 pages each when a friend told me that most autobiographies are around 30 chapters even if a chapter is only 4 pages long.  So I decided to take that advice and I’m glad I did.

Those 12 chapters turned into 30 chapters and I still hadn’t finished.  I found it easier to write a chapter with 4 or 5 pages in them after that.

I have finished writing more than 40 chapters.  I have an introduction page, 40 chapters of my life then there is a resources page at the end.

I can’t believe that I am finally finished writing.  Now all I have to do is just proofread it from my Nook and if I see something that needs to be edited which could mean changed, removed or added, then I will hop on my computer and do it there.

I’m doing from my Nook because my eyes can’t take any more staring at my computer screen lol.

Anyway, I am glad that it’s finally written and ready to be edited and then of course sent to a friend to edit before copyrighting it and sending it to a publisher.

It was a lot of work to write this book, especially since I’m not a writer.  My only experience in writing has been my blog which has helped me with the skill of writing since 2007.

By the way, it’s 275 pages on my Nook so it’s going to take me a few days to read it lol.

My Book is Coming Along

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I have been trucking along with my writing which means I haven’t been blogging as much and I would like to.

There are 8 chapters that are written in my autobiography.  The one I wrote today still needs editing but there are 106 pages total.

I found 5 of those chapters on a USB drive and naturally those had to be totally rewritten because I wrote them last year and they weren’t written with the same technique I am using now.  Also, they didn’t even make sense so I just had to rewrite them.

I never thought that I would get as far as I have because I didn’t think I would know how to write this book.  The problem was, all of the things that happened to me all blended together and I could never remember the exact time lines.

Writing this autobiography is not only therapeutic but it’s also helping me put the pieces to the puzzle of my life together and I’m remembering which order things happened in.

I believe I have another 5 chapters to write and then I will be ready to send it to a publisher and hope it gets published.  If it doesn’t then I will try to copyright it and self publish it through Barnes & Nobles Pubit.

I don’t want to self publish it because I probably won’t get very many readers because I won’t have an advertising budget.  If I have a publisher then perhaps it might sell millions.  Who knows.

My main objective in writing this book is that I might help people understand the mind of the abuse victim.  What they are going through when they are being abused and why they do the odd things that they do.  Which in this case would be me.

Even if I don’t help anyone, I am helping myself because it is making me feel so much better to have all of this out in the open.  It’s like a huge weight is being lifted with every word I write.

I changed 95% of the names in my book so if I said something about someone and they don’t like it then they can’t sue me for slander because their name isn’t in it.

I hope it’s finished soon because it’s killing my eyes and my back lol.

New Kindle, Kindle Touch and Kindle Fire

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Gadgets, Kindle, Nook, Products I Like, Reading, Tech1 Comment

Amazon has done it again.  They have surprised us with new Kindle devices.  Not just a replacement for their popular Kindle but 3 all new Kindles.

First there is the Kindle Fire (pic) which is more like a tablet and some people are calling it an iPad killer.  It’s battery lasts 8 hours which is pretty good for what it is.

The specs on the Kindle Fire is an 80GB hard drive for storing 80 apps plus either 10 movies, 800 songs or 6,000 books.  The Kindle Fire has a 7″ vibrant color IPS screen with multi-touch.

I had never heard of an IPS screen before so I had to look it up and I found some information on it on a message board.  This is what someone said it was.

IPS – in-plane switching…. the liquid crystals are aligned horizontally instead of on an angle. This process greatly increases vertical viewing angles. When coupled with the high brightness and contrast of the glaretype displays, color reproduction is almost perfect. Basically it becomes a 1/4″ professional graphics flat CRT monitor…. which is why the display is primarily for those in professional graphics.

Very interesting.

The new Amazon Kindle Fire is $199 and it is a WiFi only device.

The 2nd new Kindle is a smaller priced Kindle with no keyboard.  It is WiFi only, has a 6″ e-ink Pearl screen, 2GB storage for 1,400 ebooks and its battery life is 1 month.

The new $79 kindle doesn’t have a keyboard but it does have a 5-way controller at the bottom for navigating.  With no keyboard I would imagine that it would be a bit difficult to type in the name of a book you are looking for.

I noticed that it allows you to check out books from the library.  That was something that will make it easier on most people who can’t afford to buy a lot of books but don’t want to have to go to the library for their books.  I looked that feature up when I was researching last year and our library is not in the system so it wouldn’t work for me unless they changed that in the last year.

They still have their Kindle with the keyboard which they have 2 versions of, a WiFi only version for $99 and a WiFi and 3G version for $139.  That went way down in price since last year when it was $150 for WiFi only and $200 for 3G.

Now they have a new Kindle touch in WiFi only for $99 and WiFi and 3G for $149.

The battery for both the Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Touch lasts for 2 months which is longer than before.

All of the kindles use the Amazon cloud storage for unlimited amazon content and they have an experimental browser with the exception of the Kindle Fire which uses their new Amazon Silk cloud-accelerated browser.

I remember when e-book readers first came out.  I had just made my new years resolution to start reading in December of 2005.  I saw the Sony reader at Costco for about $500 or $550, I can’t remember.  I do remember thinking how cool it was that they were coming out with them but I didn’t think they would catch on at that price.

I started reading the Harry Potter books in January 2006 and got hooked on reading.  I was reading all the time after that.

Then Amazon came out with their first e-book reader which if I can remember was almost as high as the Sony Reader but eventually they lowered the price down to $250.  Then B&N came out with their Nook after a little controversy with another e-book reader with a color screen at the bottom.  The nook was also $250.

The war was on and every year these 2 rivals have come out with a new version of their e-book reader with a lower price.

The Kindle has dropped from a high $500 all the way down to a low $80.  I never thought the day would come and it has.  Before you know it there will be another Kindle or Nook on the market that will be as low as $50 and every kid will have one in school with their textbooks on them.

My question is, what ever happened to the Sony reader touch?  That was a good one and it’s a shame it’s gone because you could write on the screen.  I seriously thought that the Sony Reader would evolve into the Sony Trapper Keeper where you would have all of your textbooks in there as well as a notebook with tabs for each subject and you could write your notes on a notepaper screen and have it turn it into typed text that you could save.  That would’ve been awesome.

Maybe that will be the next evolution for the Kindle or the Nook, or who knows, maybe even both.  It would be much easier for a child to carry to school rather than a heavy 20lb backpack filled with books and a notebook or a laptop.

Writing My Autobiography

On By Michel McDonaldIn BooksLeave a comment

I started writing my autobiography a year ago but I stopped after I wrote a couple of chapters.  I fizzled out on it after a few days because it was harder to write than I thought.

I started telling a story of my childhood to someone a few days ago and it got me thinking about working the book again, so I did.

As of right now I have 3 chapters finished and 2 chapters that are halfway written.

I turned those 3 finished chapters into an epub file to read on my Nook because I wanted to see how it looked but I didn’t like what I saw.  The paragraphs were too big and it was very difficult to read.

I went through the book again and started fixing all of the paragraphs so that they were shorter, you may notice that I have learned a thing or two by the way this blog post has very small paragraphs.

While I was editing that chapter I discovered a lot of grammatical errors so naturally I had to rewrite those paragraphs.

I talked to someone about copyrighting which also lead to talking about people’s names in the book.  Since it’s an autobiography I will be talking about people in my family and it’s not good stuff so in order for me to write it without worrying about being sued for slander I needed to change everyone’s names.

I made out a huge list of everyone I will be talking about and gave them fake names.  Not all of those people will be slandered but I thought I should change their names anyway.

It’s funny because now I am writing the fake names without thinking about it.  So now when I think of that person, I think of them with their fake name.  I guess you had to be there.

Anyway, 3 chapters complete and edited for the 10th time.  I still have maybe 10 or 11 more chapters to go.  This is going to take me a long time but I don’t care if it takes forever, I just want it to be written.

I haven’t been blogging that much anyway and now I will be blogging even less because of this book.  So if you don’t see me blogging, it’s not because I gave up on it, it’s because I’m very busy writing a book.

Writing Books

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books2 Comments

I started writing my autobiography again on my netbook using SoopBook.  I was using just a regular word processor before but it seems easier using SoopBook since it uses the WordPress blogging platform that I use to write my blog with.  It’s easier to do it when I’m using something that I am familiar with.

I have 3 1/2 chapters written down so far.  It has been a little taxing on my emotions having to go through each and every memory.  What is even more difficult is having to remember when each memory happened.  So many things happened and it was so many years ago that sometimes the memories just bleed into each other and I can’t remember which event happened first and second and even in which month or year.  I am doing my best to remember but these things take a lot of time to write.

I have sort of veered off to another book that I wanted to write.  I figured that if I’m going to have an autobiography, I should probably be known as a writer first.  So I am writing a short story about an Indigo Child named Henry who has a premonition about something that will greatly impact his life and he has to stop it from happening before he loses everyone he loves.  It’s not going to be a huge novel, think of it as a half hour episode of the Twilight Zone.

I wrote the first chapter today and I have many more ideas for the second chapter in my head but I will have to get to it tomorrow.  It’s really a heart breaking story and every time I think about what I’m going to write I start to cry because I know how it will end lol.

I don’t even know where this story came from, it just popped into my head out of nowhere.  I was trying to read a book and I just couldn’t focus on what I was reading because I had this big story churning in my brain and I was just thinking, how can I be reading this book when I need to be writing this amazing story about this amazing little Indigo Child?

It’s going to be a Halloween story so I hope to be finished with it before or on October 1st 2011.  It will be my first ever story that I have ever thought of so be easy on me when you criticize me because I’ve never written a story before.  Of course when I have it published I will link the ebook in my blog so all 5 of my readers can get first dibs lol.

I’m hoping that this little short story will get bigger and end up being a novel instead of a short story but we will have to see how many twists and turns my brain can think of.  I am giving it a title that will be open to a second book, maybe even more, who knows.  We will see.

Reading is a Skill

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, Nook, Reading4 Comments

I talked to one of my aunts on Facebook this morning about reading a book that she and my uncle had recommended to me in 2006.  I read the first book in the series of a million books (over-exaggerated number) and it was probably the most difficult book I had ever read.  I told her, and I was just saying this as an excuse, that reading is like a skill.  I can’t read an advanced book as a beginner, or even intermediate reader.

This was her response:

“Your analysis of reading being a skill is spot on, as the Brits say. It IS a skill, and the only way to improve that skill is to continually work at it.”

So, it is no longer just an excuse and the only way for me to be able to read those books is to continue to read my immature vampire ebooks to continue to grow as a reader lol.

I actually love reading.  I would say that I used the Harry Potter books as my beginners books and have grown from there.  The Harry Potter books were amazing because they didn’t have big words that I had never even heard in daily use, they were simple words that every person knows.

I think buying the Nook was the best investment towards my “skill” for many reasons like the built-in dictionary for example.  If I don’t know a word I can look it up by either typing the word into the Nook or by placing the cursor next to a word.  This helps me learn what those words mean for the next time I see it.  It helps me grow as a reader.

Eventually I will get to those Belgariad books.  Like I said, I read the first book and as difficult as it was to read, it was just as difficult to put it down because it was such a good story.  I’ve only read the first story and I can’t wait to get to the next one because I have to know what happens next.

I’m in the intermediate stage because the vampire books that I have read have had some pretty big words and I’ve been able to understand without having to look the words up so I feel like I’m almost there.

I was going to make up my own skill level names but I wanted some examples like beginner, intermediate, pro etc. but I actually found that there is in fact a reading level Wiki site.  Wikibooks: Reading Levels.

So here we have pre-reader which are the children’s book which I actually did read as a child until I was maybe 5.  Then there is beginner which is almost similar to children’s books but maybe without pictures.  I’m pretty sure Harry Potter is in this category.  Intermediate which are books that most adults can comprehend and I do believe that the vampire books that I read are intermediate.

The final 2 categories are advanced and professional.  I’m pretty sure the Lord of the Rings and Belgariad are both in the advanced category.  They may be somewhere in between though, I’m not quite sure.

It will take me a bit of time to get to the advanced stage because I haven’t really read that many books but I’m working on it.  The more I read the better I get at it and as long as I continue to read what I’m reading I’m pretty sure I will get up in the ranks and join the rest of the adults my age lol.

Cirque Du Freak eBooks

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, Nook1 Comment

I started reading the Darren Shan “Cirque Du Freak” books late last year on Halloween.  I figured it was time to start a new series of books and since it was Halloween, I wanted it to be some type of horror book and I remembered the Vampire’s Assistant started out as a book so I figured it would be a good read.

The ebooks were only a couple bucks and I figured it would be a very good purchase.  I didn’t read them all right away, I read the first 3 then stopped to pursue other books.  But last month I decided that I wanted to finish them once and for all.

These books are small so it doesn’t take more than a day to read them, less for everyone else who doesn’t have dyslexia.  So it usually takes me 2 days at a couple of hours each day to read them.

The first book was very similar to the movie but with a lot more detail.  At first I thought the movie was all 12 books rolled into a movie but after the first book I realized it wasn’t the case because decades have passed in the book where only maybe months have passed in the movie.  But the movie also didn’t get to the war of the scars either and with Darren and Mr. Crepsley leaving the Cirque at the end of the movie, or rather the next day when Darren has had his rest, it leaves it open for more story which I doubt they will ever tell in movie format.

The books were very good to read and since I had most of the characters in my head from watching the movie I was able to visualize most of them for when I read the books.

I hate giving away plots or story lines because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone but if you do get a chance to read these please do.

I said the books were a couple bucks, well, unfortunately they raised the price.  eBooks are now $7.99 each but you can buy the actual books in a set for only $35 on Amazon.  That’s only a couple bucks per book and it is so worth it.  I don’t know if $8 is worth it since they are so small though.  I’m just glad I bought the whole series when I did lol.

If you weren’t aware of the story, here is a synopsis from the Cirque du Freak Wiki:

The Vampire’s Assistant is a fantasy-adventure based on the first three books of the series, The Saga of Darren Shan, by author Darren Shan about a teenager who unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between two warring factions of vampires. Pulled into a fantastic life of misunderstood sideshow freaks and grotesque creatures of the night, one teen will vanish from the safety of a boring existence and fulfill his destiny in a place drawn from nightmares.

16-year-old Darren was like most kids in his suburban neighborhood. He hung out with his best friend Steve, got decent grades, and usually stayed out of trouble. But when he and Steve stumble upon a traveling freak show, things begin to change inside Darren. That’s the exact moment when a vampire named Larten Crepsley turns him into something bloodthirsty.

Newly undead, he joins the Cirque du Freak, a touring sideshow filled with monstrous creatures from a snakeboy and a Wolf Man to a bearded lady and a gigantic ringmaster. As Darren flexes his newfound powers in this dark world, he becomes a treasured pawn between the vampires and their deadlier counterparts. And while trying to survive, one boy will struggle to keep their brewing war from devouring what’s left of his humanity.

There is a lot more about the story than in this synopsis but you can find out about it by reading the books.  This synopsis says the movie is based on the first 3 books but that isn’t exactly the truth because so much happens in the 2nd and 3rd book that you never even see in the movie.  If I were you I would just get the books and find out for yourself.  I double dare you.