Man v Machine?Never has this question been so important until now.
Writing my first books was always done by hand, in notebooks I still keep today with pride. Are they worth anything? I don't know whether they are to anyone else, but to me they represent Life. They define my beginnings as a Writer. Notes written at the side represent the stages I went through in my mind. Like the jottings of mental arithmetic they show how I got the answer. It was only after my fourth book that I ceased to write ... mainly because I'm a speed typist and using a machine as a tool is easier and less painful than using arthritic hands. It's so easy to cut and paste. To channel new ideas into what has already been written. To get an overview and to edit the complete work. There are many publishers now who accept through email which has made this way of working convenient to all.
However, I am taking a giant step forward now in embracing Kindle ... placing my books directly onto Amazon and seeing them ready for publication. The price tag is almost a bonus.
It's creative, it's easy ... well, relatively ... and it's fun.
I've never read a kindle book in my life. To me books are about choosing, touching, feeling, holding, with a magic drawing you into its pages. I like to know what I am reading, to make books a part of me. And there are those which become my best friends. I can't get my head around a piece of metal giving quite the same experience. So it's a challenge. But then, it's the way the world is moving. And so as not to get left behind, I thought I'd try my hand at this new thing called 'Kindle'. It's not the same as having a book published. But hey, I now have a kindle on Amazon. It's a re-write of Pandora's Box, where a young girl loses her mother and wishes by the graveside she could follow. It's a case of be careful what you wish for ... some wishes might come true. And Pandora is waiting in the lower regions just aching to be brought back to life, to exchange souls with another, and to try her hand at technology and all the wondrous things she has only glimpsed at and heard about.
Now I've completed 'BETRAYED', I'm about to create that also as a Kindle. It's a book which unlocks all my secrets of the past and, rather like Pandora, opens my little black box of memories, showing the world I am no longer afraid. It's a good feeling. I hope there are many who live in fear, who are being abused today, or who are worried about its effects, who might challenge themselves to read my work.
I look forward to hearing from you.