yuvi zalkow - novelist, failed writer, schmo

The thing about it is that I have some geek followers and some literary followers. (And some who are both. And a few who are neither.) In any case, I get confused about who to address sometimes. I love both worlds. So I’ve decided to start this series to help each audience learn more about the other.

LITERARY UPDATE (for my geek friends)

Publishing is a bitch. But one exciting trend in the literary publishing world is that it is now officially a bitch to publish with a big publisher, a bitch to publish with a small publisher, and it is a bitch to self publish. General consensus is to crawl into the fetal position and weep until this passes.

GEEK UPDATE (for my literary friends)

Task management apps are still all the rage. There is a beautifully-designed task management app available on the iPhone that will help you manage all your other task management apps. But the big controversy is about which task manager app to use to manage your task manager task managers.

Hope I’ve provided insight here.

Call me slow, but as far as I see it, there are two ways to write a book:

METHOD #1

Buy a new house. Not to live in, but to write in. (Yeah, you heard me correctly: I ended that sentence in a preposition. My upcoming novel is full of those kinds of sentences, and also dangling modifiers, and split infinitives, and run-on sentences, hot damn do I have a lot of run-on sentences! And sentence fragments.)

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Happy Whatever-It-Is-That-You-Do this month! As for me, we’re spinning dreidels and lighting Hanukkah candles right beside a Christmas tree… so you explain to me what the hell that is all about…

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My people have asked me to get slightly more savvy in the social media and marketing realm. Since I’m a pretty low key sort of person, I wanted to step up my online game in a way that still felt suited to who I am. Basically, I didn’t want to get a sick feeling in my stomach as I proceeded. So here is how I handled the situation:

1. I hid in the bathroom weeping for 30 minutes. My people didn’t specifically ask me to do this, but I find that this is an effective first step in any great (or tolerable) plan.
   

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I cheated my way onto the 5by5 podcast network. This week, I appear on the Cocktail Napkin, a video podcast with Jeremy Fuksa. He calls the show “a periodical of uncurbed ideas”. Jeremy saw my Obsession x Voice video and asked if we could sit down and talk about failure and creativity. (Two of my favorite subjects.) Thanks, Jeremy, for the fun conversation. Click on the link below to watch…

The Cocktail Napkin, Episode #49

I just got a copy of iPad at Work (Amazon, iBook), written by my online friend, David Sparks. This book is so well put together. What I mean is that it’s more than just a list of cool iPad apps; it’s more than a bunch of productivity insights; it’s more than a bunch of really useful (and often amusing) screenshots. From start to finish, it’s clear that David spent a great deal of time ensuring that this book makes you more productive on your iPad. (more…)

I didn’t know shit about the man. Plus, I was late to the party. I didn’t even start paying attention to Steve and Apple until a few years ago. He was already uncomfortably skinny when I noticed him and when I started admiring Apple products. But today my Macbook Air and my iPhone are essential parts of my work. A single day without either of these devices and I will feel it heavily. Even so, I think I’m unqualified to talk about the guy and the company.
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I got a lot of new subscribers after my last video about Obsession & Voice. Very cool. Welcome! But I want to make sure that everyone knows the lameness of my bloggability. Really it’s just that I don’t blog (much). But once a month, I try to release a new video about writing or creativity or inspiration or obsession or productivity or failure. I’ll release the video here on my website and at Writer Unboxed. I’ll also mention a bit here and there if I get interviewed or get published or something like that. As my novel gets closer to publication, I’ll mention news related to the book, though I’ll try to keep that safely in the realm of Not-Overdoing-It. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thank you for dropping by.

Merlin Mann at kungfugrippe and John Gruber at daringfireball both linked to my latest video from their blogs, which totally destroyed my whole “I only get 50 hits a day” statement in that video, at least for the day. This is what happens when my piddly blog gets linked to by them:

I’m totally honored that they liked it.

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