Perceptions of Time part 2

This is part two of a blog I did earlier about my perception of time and how I struggle with feeling like I'm wasting it or that things/tasks will "take too long." Even now, I am at my day job office without my computer so I'm redeeming the time by blogging on my ipad.

So I surprised myself yesterday. I put on music and did some chores. I did dishes, swept floor in kitchen and hall. It was only 3 songs. So figure an average song is around 3 minutes. In 9 minutes, I did much more than I would have thought would occur in that amount of time.

On the other hand, I tried to quickly go through my email. It took me 5.5 songs to deal with email, not actually do it but disband it to the "to do" "to read" and then a few things I could dispatch instantly. More time than dishes and sweeping and feels maybe like less done.

I did a seminar on writing once and I did an exercise with the class. Something I stole from a class I had been in previously. You take a theme and write on it for 3 minutes and then count the words. You'd be amazed how much of a rough draft you can do and how many words appear on paper. It's so much about just sticking to it or squeeking out some time here and there.

I've been having trouble getting back into a couple writing projects because I feel I'll be interrupted or it's not enough time. It's true that when you've been away from a project for a while it takes a bit longer to find your grove again, but maybe I need to use the small bits of time despite the fact they feel insufficient. I need to write anyway whatever the time frame, but that doesn't come easily to me.

Evolution of a blog

This blog was started originally when I moved to Spain between a few friends and myself to keep in touch and I'm grateful to you who have hung with me on this.

The evolution of which I speak now is that I am creating the pieces of a writing career if I do in fact decide to launch myself in self publishing. Even if I decide ultimately to search out an agent and a traditional publisher having a writers blog, writers page on facebook, a twitter account, and other marketing/contact elements is still essential. So for this I am migrating this blog to be attached to my author page on facebook: "Denise M Hartman."

I will then migrate my day job blog to my personal facebook page. So depending on which part of my life you are interested in, you can choose accordingly.

This blog will feature writing things or perhaps random life things. The day job blog will focus on the video production/religious aspects of that side of my life. So there we have it. The evolution as it now stands.

My first ebook

I have read my first entire book on a reader. It was a light read that only took a couple days and I wanted to put down my reflections on such a momentous moment for me. Things were different and some I liked and some I did not.

I borrowed the book from BookLending.com. That was a very positive experience - after some initial stumbling and not being sure how my book would be delivered to my ipad. Still not sure how, but it was there with almost no fussing. And I'm psyched about still being able to get free books from time to time.

I read on my kindle app for the ipad. It worked well and I had no problems. I noticed an occasional glitch that would eliminate a space between words, but then I notice typos in real books so as we say in Spanish de igual.

I missed the front cover of the book lying around the house when I read a book. I couldn't remember the author's name or the exact title and I couldn't just flip it over to see that. It's like a little of the personality of the thing is missing, but this of course doesn't effect the read or the content. You can click out of the book and see the cover.

I had some reservations about reading in bed. I hate reading magazines in bed; they're so unwieldy and it's hard to see the page when lying down. The ipad actually performed better than I expected or should I say the cover did. The cover acts as a stand so I could balance it on my (ahem) mid section or the mattress.

The angle at which I normally read (not in bed) made one portion of the screen dimmer than the rest, but by no means illegible. I read outside for a bit with a concern that the glare would make it hard but I was in the shade and it didn't bother me. I could see myself reflected in the screen while I read but I forgot about it after a while. That might bother some people though. I guess the dedicated book readers are non-reflective and I can see how that would be nice.

I was trying to flip back through and reference something earlier in the book. Never ever has a paper book given me a spinning wheel signal when I am flipping pages too fast, but I found what I was after.

I miss page numbers and seeing how far along I am in a book. I did discover that there's a way to see how far along percentage-wise and a location number but it is not a page number. I wanted to make some notes for myself and normally I would put down for myself what page number I'm referring to, but a location number seems less tangible or less accessible somehow.

My husband had to help me figure out how to lock my screen. The sensor that flips between horizontal and vertical would get excited and hop around when I was shifting around in my chair and that was quite annoying. Real books don't jump upside down when you're reading them. Once it was locked in place it ceased to be a problem.

I will be doing it again as I am far from bookstores and as we've seen there are going to be fewer bookstores even in the USA to browse. I'm importing a bunch of books too but a limited supply to be sure. I'm already grateful for my ipad as I may run out of paper reading material before my boxes arrive.