26th Nov2008

Lyrically Speaking for November 26

by Aaron

iTunes 7 Logo

I hope everyone is gearing up for a fantastic Thanksgiving. I wanted to bring Lyrically Speaking back for a special Wednesday, pre-Thanksgiving edition for everyone. A turkey day tradition for me has been listening to the song Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie. This is a folk song that is just Guthrie telling a story about him and a friend going up to a town called Stockbridge Massachusetts to visit for Thanksgiving. The hilarity of walking into a ‘one-horse town’ ensue and the song is quite funny. I have listened to this song almost every Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember.

Now, the song is quite long coming in at over 20 minutes, but keep in mind the story is so funny and just something that drags you in. It’s more spoken-word than anything. I think you’ll enjoy it also if you have a few minutes to spare and also if you enjoy silly humor.

Now, unfortunately if you click here to see it on iTunes, it’s only available to purchase on Album Only. Amazon is the same way, so there’s no way to get the song on its own. I still hope you all enjoy it. This is my Thanksgiving Day tradition and perhaps it may become yours as well.

From Arlo Guthrie, this is Alice’s Restaurant:

This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the
restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,
that’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song Alice’s
Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on – two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the
church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
Fasha the dog. And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of
room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin’ all that room,
seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t
have to take out their garbage for a long time.

(more…)

Category : Ideas
2 Comm
25th Nov2008

Amazon Brings Back Their Breakthrough Novel Award

by Aaron

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

Last year Amazon.com started a publishing contest called the Breakthrough Novel Award. This was a simple novel submission contest that was judged not just by professionals but also took into account votes that people would submit through the site. Well it seems that Amazon has brought it back for another round.

If you visit this page on Amazon, you can get all the juicy details and a timeline on the submission process. Here is the basic rundown:

Today: Visit CreateSpace and sign up to receive contest updates and submission guidelines
February 2 – February 8: Submit your novel for the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
March 16: Quarterfinals begin, qualifying excerpts are available to read and review
April 15: Semifinalists are announced, early reviews provided by Publishers Weekly
May 15 – May 21: Finalist round begins, reviews by our expert panel are posted, and customers vote for the Grand Prize winner
May 22: Winner of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is announced

I would love to participate in this contest with Spirit Hackers but I honestly doubt that I will have the novel finished in time for the submission deadline. In addition to having a finished novel, you have to have a pitch and an author’s biography. The winner gets published by Penguin Publishing and during the process they reserve first-refusal rights to anyone making it to either the first or second round (I forget which). Additionally, all submissions must be unpublished including self-publishing. For anyone interested in throwing their completed work into the ring, head on over to the link above to check it out. Perhaps I’ll try this next year!

Category : Just me
Tags : ,
4 Comm
24th Nov2008

Short Week

by Aaron

shorts

As if this wasn’t easy enough judging from last week’s bust of a posting schedule, Copious Notes is going to be on a shortened posting schedule this week due to Thanksgiving. I was happy that I blogged a few entries last week but equally, if not more disappointed that I did not adhere to my ‘post-a-day’ schedule I set down for myself. Looking to recover this week, I’m hoping to blog today (already done with this entry!), tomorrow and Wednesday. After that, it’s time for Turkey and for everyone to spend time with their loved ones and give thanks.

I hope everyone enjoyed the first half of Capacious Kindle from last week where the Kindle was featured on Oprah. I have part two ready to go and hope that contributes to an entry for this week. Additionally, I did not forget all the great questions and writing prompts posed to me about a month ago. Look for answers and some on-the-fly writing to come out of that great feedback.

Again I apologize for slacking off. Trust me when I say it’s not just with blogging & writing that I am having trouble finding my groove again. Regaining my ‘lifestyle groove’ is the goal for the next few days. I appreciate everyone hanging in there for the ride!

Category : Just me
Tags :
1 Comm
19th Nov2008

Capacious Kindle for November 19

by Aaron

All you Kindle lovers are in for a treat today. Back on October 24th, there was a lot of buzz about a new gadget Oprah was going to unveil on her show as her new favorite gadget ever. I hadn’t heard anything about what it could be, but after just a few minutes I saw she is in love with the Kindle!!

Oprah spends almost 15 minutes talking about it and demonstrating it with Jeff Bezos, who is the founder of Amazon.com. Rather than recap the whole thing, I’ve cut up the video into two parts so you can see for yourself. Today is part one, which runs about six minutes. If these two videos don’t convince you that the Kindle is the wave of the future, I don’t know what will.

Enjoy!

**UPDATE: YouTube has pulled the video, so please follow the link below to watch the video:
Click here to see the Video.

Category : Just me
Tags :
2 Comm
18th Nov2008

Baby Steps

by Aaron

Baby Steps

In some ways I’m surprised it’s been almost a week since I last updated and in other ways I am not. I honestly think I left my writing drive in Bermuda or something. I’ve been just giving the muse time and I’ve been having patience with it come back into the groove, but I think the time for patience is over. Spirit Hackers has been collecting virtual dust and Copious Notes has suffered too, as you’ve all seen. So I have decided a plan is needed to force myself back into something I know I love to do.

First, and most importantly, I plan on blogging every day this week. Now I know you’re thinking ‘Today is Tuesday, you already missed the mark’ but keep in mind my weekend is Sun & Mon, so for me, today is the beginning of a new week. Additionally, that also means I’ll update this Saturday also (or provide a nice, long Weekender to make up for it). I believe that by blogging, that will help feel like a writer and get S.H. moving again.

Yesterday while food shopping, I did think about the roadblock I hit last time which consisted of the design of a key machine for the story. I think I was able to come up with a design and idea that will work for the story and the possible sequel. It’s just a technical hold-up but I’m glad I have at least something. That is the slightest progress (aside from updating here) but I’ll take it.

Finally, I’m going to try to get back into the AW thread again that I have fun on. That’s another thing that helps.

I have some great stuff for you guys, including a Capacious Kindle entry that deals with the whole Oprah endorsement, which will be a lot of fun. I’ll talk to everyone soon!

Category : Just me, Spirit Hackers
Tags :
2 Comm
12th Nov2008

Playing Catch-Up

by Aaron

Panic

Good Wednesday to all Copious Notes readers out there! Just when I thought things were calming down a little, I get a reality check. To start, my RSS reader where I catch up on most of your blogs is happily sitting there with a nice, red 99 badge on it. This means there are 99 blog posts from everyone that I need to catch up on. Now I know I can probably skim them and skip a few but I do want to be up to speed with how everyone is doing.

Additionally, yesterday I had to work a day shift and that threw my entire system off for the day. My company signed me up for a reader-centered business writing class. I didn’t expect to get much out of it, given that I’m a writer and have a degree in english, but I went in thinking it was at minimum a day of work where I didn’t actually work. I was happily surprised that the class went very well and I was interested in what was being taught.

My instructor was a fantastic woman named Jennifer Pawlitschek, who mentioned she did legal writing and wrote some fiction. Included in our paperwork and books was a biography where it detailed her work and I must say I was impressed with her credentials. She kept the topic interesting and I felt like I learned a lot. I wish I could have gotten a chance to ask her about her fiction writing and gain insight from a professional writer. I left the class happy to learn new material though.

Anyhow, Spirit Hackers still hasn’t been touched and I don’t know if I’ll get to it today. The thought of trying to get up to speed is tough, but I think I owe it to everyone to catch up. I’ll stop venting about it now and get back to reading some blogs. Hope everyone has a great day!

Category : Just me
Tags :
3 Comm
10th Nov2008

Back from commercial

by Aaron

Hey everyone! As promised, I am back and gearing up the blog to start talking to everyone. The two weeks I was gone went by pretty quickly but talk about exciting: fun vacation, Obama!, awesome concerts, and most importantly rest. While I did go to work three days last week, I mostly was able to enjoy my time.

So now I’m back and since I haven’t written a single word in over two weeks, I don’t have much to say right now. I did finish Freezing Point while on vacation and I did enjoy it very much. Also Michael Crichton died last week after a battle with cancer, which took me by surprised because I didn’t know he was sick.

My plans for this week are to get back in the saddle with Spirit Hackers and also figure out the roadblock from last time I wrote. I also need to catch up on everyone’s blogs. I haven’t read any of them in the time I’ve been busy so I’m far behind on what everyone is up to.

So that’s about it for now. Today I plan on getting some last-minute things done and I also may write a little later. Thanks for reading and I hope to re-connect with everyone quickly.

Category : Just me
2 Comm