WriteChain: Thank You * 280000

WriteChain
Closing in on 28,000 downloads…

Back in 2009, I wanted a simple word count tracking app on my shiny new iPhone. There wasn’t one, so I wrote it myself. From what I recall, creating WriteChain was a really fun process. I look at the app now and I still smile when I see the interface and think about how much things have changed since those “early days” of iPhone development.

So, tonight, I was checking in on the little guy and I wondered just how many people had tried it out. I haven’t looked at these numbers in a long time and I was surprised to see that about 5,000 people had tried it. Then, I realized I was only looking at a single year’s downloads… This year, which isn’t even half over.

WOW!

Adding it up, WriteChain is just shy of 28,000 downloads now. I see a lot of people download the app around Nanowrimo and that makes me happy. I hope it helps out Wrimos and other writers alike.

Anyway, nothing else special to note here. I just felt like saying thanks, so thank you… 🙂


WriteChain is FREE. Nothing fancy. No hidden editors or quotes or any of that fiddle faddle. Just a super simple tool that any writer can use to set a daily goal and hold themselves accountable.

Click here to get WriteChain on iTunes

The Bother of Writing is Totally Worth It

I’ve been playing at being a writer for nearly thirty years, which seems like a very long time. But whenever I begin to wonder if I will ever get tired of the bother of being a writer, I find myself writing once more and falling in love all over again.

It’s a bother to be a writer, but it’s totally worth it.

The Bother of Writing

A.A. Milne knew more than a little about the bother of being a writer. He was the creator of Christopher Robin, the Hundred Acre Wood, and Winnie the Pooh. This is what we remember of his work, but he wrote for nearly fifty years in total. Twenty-five before the bear and roughly twenty-five after, until he was finally hobbled by a stroke.

Still, no matter what Milne tried the critics always came back around to the boy and the bear. It was something he took quite poorly by all accounts, but he kept on writing.

From Milne’s essay, “The Ideal Author”:

The truth is that a layman will never take an author quite seriously. He regards authorship, not as a profession, but as something between an inspiration and a hobby. In as far as it is an inspiration, it is a gift from Heaven, and ought, therefore, to be shared with the rest of the world; in as far as it is a hobby, it is something which should be done not too expertly, but in a casual, amateur, haphazard fashion.

Even Then He Knew…

Milne had no choice. I assume the same is true for you too.

Most of us who “become writers” have always been writers. No matter what else we do we remain such creatures all our natural lives.

From Milne’s story, “The Sunny Side”:

There, just inside the gates, was Mary. He was only six, but even then he knew that never would he see again anything so beautiful. She was five; but there was something in her manner of holding herself and the imperious tilt of her head which made her seem almost five-and-a-half.

“I’m Mary,” she said.

He wanted to say that he was John, but could not. He stood there tongue-tied.

“I love you,” she went on.

His heart beat tumultuously. He felt suffocated. He longed to say, “So do I,” but was afraid that it was not good English. Even then he knew that he must be a writer when he grew up.

She leant forward and kissed him. He realized suddenly that he was in love. The need for self-expression was strong upon him. Shyly he brought out his last acid-drop and shared it with her. He had never seen her since, but even now, twenty years after, he could not eat an acid-drop without emotion, and a whole bag of them brought the scene back so visibly as to be almost a pain.

Yes, he was to be a writer; there could be no doubt about that. Everybody had noticed it. The Vicar had said, “Johnny will never do any good at Polwollop, I fear”; and the farmer for whom John scared rooks had said, “Thiccy la-ad seems daft-like,” and one after another of Mrs. Penquarto’s friends had given similar testimony. And now here he was, at twenty-six, in the little bed-sitting-room in Bloomsbury, ready to write the great novel which should take London by storm. Polwollop seemed a hundred years away.

Feverishly he seized pen and paper and began to wonder what to write.

Writing Through the Bother

Being stuck in the bother of being a writer is particularly troublesome if we should find ourselves in some other line of work. Even if the work is pleasant and the pay substantial, we are nagged by the idea of writing night and day till we set down to do it. Then, we find ourselves paralyzed by the excitement and the fear.

This rush of adrenaline coupled with stirrings of old ideals becomes the ruin of many attempts to write. The writer fears they may fail. They fear they may become a success. They fear many things, but they often fear is that they will have to return to the real world.

And often, they are right on all accounts, but it hardly matters. Fears, real or imagined, are still there but the pleasure of writing cannot be denied. It’s worth all the bothers.

Trust me… Just write and you’ll see.

From Milne’s essay, “The Pleasure of Writing”:

Sometimes when the printer is waiting for an article which really should have been sent to him the day before, I sit at my desk and wonder if there is any possible subject in the whole world upon which I can possibly find anything to say. On one such occasion I left it to Fate, which decided, by means of a dictionary opened at random, that I should deliver myself of a few thoughts about goldfish.

But to-day I do not need to bother about a subject. Today I am without a care. Nothing less has happened than that I have a new nib in my pen!

OThis post was originally published on Medium…

What It's Like to be Rejected by Charles Dickens

While looking through the collected letters of Charles Dickens, I came across a rejection letter Mr. Dickens wrote to an anonymous author.

The letter came as a result of this author’s submission to “All the Year Round”, a weekly published by Mr. Dickens for a great many years until he handed over the enterprise to his son (Charles Jr.). During it’s publication run, the magazine distributed the works of a great many authors in serial form. No doubt this anonymous scrivener sought to join their storied ranks by sending along his three-part manuscript.

I really wish the author had been identified in the book. I’m sort of dying to see how their fortunes turned upon receiving this letter from Mr. Dickens.

In any case, I’ve kept you waiting long enough already. So, without further ado:


Office of “All the Year Round,” Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 1867.

Dear Sir,

I have looked at the larger half of the first volume of your novel, and have pursued the more difficult points of the story through the other two volumes.

You will, of course, receive my opinion as that of an individual writer and student of art, who by no means claims to be infallible.

I think you are too ambitious, and that you have not sufficient knowledge of life or character to venture on so comprehensive an attempt. Evidences of inexperience in every way, and of your power being far below the situations that you imagine, present themselves to me in almost every page I have read. It would greatly surprise me if you found a publisher for this story, on trying your fortune in that line, or derived anything from it but weariness and bitterness of spirit.

On the evidence thus put before me, I cannot even entirely satisfy myself that you have the faculty of authorship latent within you. If you have not, and yet pursue a vocation towards which you have no call, you cannot choose but be a wretched man. Let me counsel you to have the patience to form yourself carefully, and the courage to renounce the endeavor if you cannot establish your case on a very much smaller scale. You see around you every day, how many outlets there are for short pieces of fiction in all kinds. Try if you can achieve any success within these modest limits (I have practised in my time what I preach to you), and in the meantime put your three volumes away.

Faithfully yours.

P.S.—Your MS. will be returned separately from this office.


I have to say that I’ve received a great many rejection letters in my time, some from famously blunt editors. Never have I received anything quite like this… But I wish I had.

A letter like this leaves no room for interpretation. The author has utterly failed in every sense of the word. Not only is the work, as submitted, below even an unsatisfactory grade it leaves the impression that there may be no hope at all of redemption. However, Mr. Dickens does not simply allow his dismissal of the work to shuffle the author off the stage. He goes on to question the author’s heart and commitment to the craft itself, leaving scarce hope that the author may be redeemed (though there is a faint chance).

A letter of this sort is bound to cause one of two reactions: utter despair culminating in abandonment of the craft, or a redoubling of efforts resulting in a breakthrough. For me, I think it is the latter though the former is certainly the first reaction I had.

Nearly 150 years after the fact, I can’t help but hear the words of Mr. Dickens directed at my own works. I cannot help but feel I am playing the role of the wretched man to which he alludes.

Assuming they are honest, what writer could say they feel otherwise? We’ve all been there. We’ve all worked hard to create something we felt was perfect and beautiful only to see it later, though the eyes of another, as a catalyst for weariness and bitterness of spirit (to borrow a phrase).

Still, there is a hope. There is the faithful closure to the letter and the brutal honesty in which to seek comfort. There is a sense that if one begins by aiming lower, one might acquire the skills to dare for something more grand.

This is really what writing comes down to. It’s a battle in the trenches, a successive piling on of failures, until at some point there is a breakthrough or better yet a real understanding of what one is trying to achieve and sense of how to reach that destination.

Keep writing.

Using Ghostery for Competitive Research and Protecting Privacy

Ghostery - Click to Download

Ghostery is a special browser plugin that will allow you to block cookies from adware, spyware, and tracking services. It’s 100% and focused on helping the average Internet citizen protect themselves from prying eyes.

However, if we turn the tables, Ghostery can be used by marketers to help discover the tools other marketers are using. In this brief post, I’ll show you how to do that and also show you how using Ghostery can protect your own customers.

Download Ghostery

Downloading Ghostery is pretty simple, just pop on over to their site and hit the download link. Right now, Ghostery supports all major desktop browsers as well as iOS (iPhone and iPad) using a special browser app available in the App Store.

Using Ghostery

Once installed, Ghostery will ask you to set up blocking options. If you’re interested in sniffing about other websites, don’t turn on any of these features. This will let Ghostery notify you of tracking cookies dropped when you visit various sites.

Here’s an example of Ghostery in action when visiting Amazon.com:

Ghostery on Amazon

When entering a page, Ghostery will check the scripts and cookies set against its repository and alert you to the “bugs” dropped on your browser. In this case, Amazon is dropping beacons from Amazon Associates, DoubleClick, and Microsoft Atlas.

If I click the little ghost icon in the menu bar, I can drill into each of the found beacons for more information:

Screen Shot 2012-12-14 at 2.59.53 PM.jpg

For example, if I drill into Microsoft Atlas, I’ll go to the Microsoft Atlas entry on Ghostery. Here I’ll learn that this script is found on over 60,000 websites and is used for targeted advertising on Microsoft’s online properties.

Protecting the Privacy of Your Customers

Obviously, Ghostery is a powerful tool that makes it easy to find out exactly what your competition is trying, but don’t stop there. You can also use it on your own site to see how your knowledge of the beacons you drop on visitors stacks up against the reality of what’s really going on. You might be surprised by what you find.

For example, you might be trying a new advertising network. Everything looks simple enough. You just drop a little bit of Javascript and you’re serving ads somewhere, right? Well, it may just be that that Javascript loads some additional script and or beacons and suddenly your site is getting flagged for serving malware or spyware. Even worse, you might be exposing your customer’s information in ways you did not expect (nor which you’ve covered in your site’s Privacy Policy).

Not only is this bad business, but it could also spell trouble.

27% US Yet to Begin Holiday Shopping

According to NPR, the past weekend (12/8-9) was the biggest weekend for buying Christmas trees this year, which is a little surprising because that distinction usually goes to the weekend after Thanksgiving. (side note: Christmas Trees are a $3B+ industry – both real and artificial. Wow!)

Wait, Thanksgiving? Oh yes, it’s been so long now that you’ve forgotten we’ve even had Thanksgiving. Well, you’re not alone.

This year’s early Thanksgiving is something of an anomaly. In fact, you have to go back to 2007 in order to find such an early occurrence of Thanksgiving and we won’t have another until 2017. If you dig a little more, you’ll find that consumers were procrastinating back in 2007. So with the Christmas Tree sales coming so late, I was curious to know if there as a general consumer trend to match. To answer the question, I turned to Google Consumer Surveys to gauge the 2012 US consumer’s interest in holiday shopping.

Methodology

As with past surveys, I used Google’s tool to sample the US Population, pulling out a smaller subset after the initial qualifying question. In this case, the qualifier was Have you started your holiday shopping?. Those answering “No” ended up with a follow-up question to determine when they would actually start. After submitting the survey to Google, the experts there asked that I modify the survey to include “I don’t holiday shop” as a possible answer, and I’m glad they did.

The Results

First, the top-level finding:

The headline number is interesting, but I also think the fact that 14% of the population claims not to holiday shop is also intriguing. Since I don’t have historical data here, I’ll avoid conjecture.

If we look at the insights inferred by the tool, we’ll see that low-income, rural survey takers were more likely to have started their shopping than more affluent, suburban participants. At a higher level, more men than women selected “I don’t holiday shop”.

Looking at those procrastinators, we’ll see that of those who have not started holiday shopping, some 40% don’t plan to begin shopping until next week (week of 12/17/2012). This could spell some good news for brick and mortal retailers going into the weekend of the 22nd.

Complete Survey Results

By request, I’ve gone ahead and made the survey public so that anyone can access the data. Just hop on over to Google Consumer Surveys. Complete Survey Results. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line at jamiegrove@gmail.com or ping me on LinkedIn.


Disclaimer: All of the comments and insights on this post are my own.