X is for Project X and Xeroxed!

"Xeroxed"

I remember putting my face close 
to the glass plate in wonder
and pushing the button.
What image would appear?
My boss pulled me away 
from the new and very large xerox machine: 
 "You don't know what that . . .
machine will do to you," he said.
I wish the incidental exposure 
to that bar of light 
was the worst that happened then.
My home office now sports
a desktop photocopy machine.
The bar of light yet moves across a glass plate.
but I have covered it over
with a bright Guatemalan weaving for
I have learned how to use the cloud.

DL Hammons asked writers today if they have a PROJECT X, that kind of nagging project that we're not currently working on but that we may write  . . . someday. The project that both inspires  and scares us, that challenges our skill and vision, that one day may take us where we haven't been before.

I have four such ideas in various stages, each one would take me in an entirely different direction. If Years of Stone is finished by June (yes!), then one of these ideas will move to the forefront. So, which one? I truly cannot decide. 

Should I finish this trilogy with Rivers of Stone (volcanoes, Hudson's Bay Company, Hawaiians, Native Americans, and Scots in the 19th Century)? I've got a very rough outline, about 20,000 words of a head start (and a pile of books). 

Should I finish Mothers Don't Die which tells how a woman survives being kidnapped by a serial killer? Here I'm working with a first rough draft of about 70,000 words. Have I learned enough to finish this story?

Or I could write a story about how how the Bayeux Tapestries came into being (royalty, romance, religion, and the big "M" -- mystery). I visited the Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris and came away with an entirely different interpretation, based on what I saw there and then later the tapestries at Stirling Castle in Scotland and at the Cloisters in New York City.

The last idea that won't go away involves a small-town quilter who discovers a murder. Did I ever mention that I quilt?

Just as DL Hammons asks, I'm wondering too. Do YOU have a Project X that won't go away? I know I have to decide, but if you comment, which of my four projects appeals most?

Read what others have written for NaPoWriMo and the A to Z Challenge.

X is for Xerox . . .

As I glance around my home office, the printer/scanner blinks at me. I can remember when making a photocopy seemed close to a miracle. One of my first jobs involved loading paper into the massive Xerox printer that took up its own room. I had to fan the paper just so to avoid a jam, and God help me if I made a mistake and printed too many copies. That paper was expensive! And back-to-back copying? Binding?

Now I can tap dance my way over to any number of PODs or e-readers or even behemoth amazon.com and wearing the proverbial robe and bunny slippers, use my computer to order books, essays, articles, delivered by paper or paperless. The death of libraries is predicted. Not by me. I have far too many books (and several library cards) to believe one day the brick-and-mortar library will disappear. At least, not before I do.

But the real issue for writers (and for me) is understanding how this fabulous technology affects the publishing industry. Over the last several years, we've gone from raised eyebrows and sniffs over self-publishing to a rapidly growing market that big names now enter.

As Rick Bylina says, we have to do it all. Draft, write, edit, polish, edit, and then, if that were not daunting enough, find an agent. Or, today, maybe not. The brass ring calls. Does it mean I can write the book and then design the cover, proofread the bloody thing at least two or three more times, (by this time, wouldn't I hate nearly every word?), and evaluate which company could best 'publish' my book? And then, as if the next book were not calling me back to my computer, then, wouldn't I need to worry about distribution, marketing, and perhaps the most difficult of all -- self-promotion? And not just worry but actually (sigh) treat my writing as a business? When most days I'm thrilled to just keep writing?

Forgive the rant. I know that these various computer-driven technologies will continue to transform writers and how we write. I can't just say it's all the fault of Xerox. Or was that Xerxes?

This letter in cuneiform was sent to the King of Lagash, to tell him his son died in battle (about 2400  BCE) (source Wikipedia). A librarian at the Philadelphia Library Rare Books Department once brought out such a tablet carefully preserved in a tiny box. Parts of this tablet had crumbled to dust, for people once touched the tablet. Perhaps paper books will be like that one day, preserved in museums, accessible only online.