"When are you going to send new novels in to agents and publishers?" asks a friend of mine. I'm afraid I've used up all my viable pieces on Amazon.com Kindle. Such efforts, though more-or-less self-published, count as published to the book industry (as does uploading stories onto your own blog or web-site). Therefore the world must wait until I churn out more novel-length works.
A Kingdom of Children, a fantasy tale that starts with the Children's Crusade of the Thirteenth Century then flies off the map into my own world of "Aanuu", is the nearest to completion. Just yesterday I found the last notebook containing my notes and scribbles for the last section of the book. This also means, however, that I must bridge a few chapter-length gaps with brand new material before I can safely type "The End." Then comes the reviewing and rewriting.
The last of my written works were hidden in a small (7" x 5") spiral notebook. I'm a bit surprised, because I don't like writing in notebooks that small or smaller. Just as I get up a head of steam, I have to stop and flip the page. Also, the smaller the book, the easier it is to lose, or just become one of a pile of near-identical booklets.
On the other hand, I don't like college/school sized notebooks either. It seemingly takes forever to write across a single line, and it feels like longer than forever to finish a page and turn to a fresh new sheet. Ever since I started writing seriously, I've used mostly Mead 9-1/2" x 6" Spiral Notebooks (or the nearest equivalent), the more pages the better. Originally they had 200 sheets, but I haven't seen more than 180 per notebook in quite some time, and many are a paltry 150 or even 100 sheets.
Some of you might ask, "Why not compose straight onto the computer?" Well, I've tried doing that for over twenty years; it ain't happening. I'll always be faster with pen and paper. Also, I can pull out a notebook and pen almost anywhere, and I'm limited to my tower PC computer-wise.
This device they call a Tablet certainly looks interesting, however . . .
