I’m usually a sucker for new technologies — have been, ever since my dad brought home an Apple Macintosh back in 1985. Maybe earlier — I can’t remember when we got the Colecovision. And if that technology makes it easier for me to do the creative things I like to do, that’s all the better.

So when I started using Pages on my iPad to work on a new manuscript, I noticed something really fun — Apple’s word processor now lets you save to the cloud. This means I can start writing something on my iPad, save it, then open it and make changes on my laptop. When I’m done there, I can save it again and it syncs the changes to my iPad. So, no matter which device I’m near, I can always get my latest version of the manuscript and make changes.

Which would be wonderful — except for the fact that I live in Blacksburg.

You might remember Blacksburg as the home of Virginia Tech. You might also remember that Blacksburg was one of the cities that Adam Orth (formerly) of Microsoft said he would never live in, so spotty internet service was not a problem as far as he could see.

That particular name came up in conversation because internet infrastructure in Blacksburg is pretty notoriously bad — even more notoriously because it was only back in 1998 that Blacksburg was recognized by Guinness World Records as the “Most Wired Community.”

So, last night, I discovered a problem with the cloud and all of the wonders that it offers me as a writer. When your internet access completely disappears for, say, nine hours starting in the afternoon and ending late at night, it puts a damper on any internet-based activities. In fact, my webcomic only updated on time because I was able to move the comic strip from my computer to my phone (through a cable), then log into my host (which isn’t designed for mobile) on my phone and upload from there.

As for my next novel? Well, it just didn’t get anything new written that night.

Because it was in the cloud.

And without internet access, the cloud is pretty useless.

Which is why I’m not a big fan when people start preaching ditching physical media — or even on-board digital storage. When people start saying, “The cloud is here! We should all be streaming all of our movies and music from the cloud and not even need copies on hard drives!” I hug my blu-ray collection and my hard drive full of music a little bit closer.

Because I live in Blacksburg.

And I haven’t watched a YouTube video in the past two months that didn’t stop to buffer.

I have a bad habit that goes way back — a habit of working on more than one story at a time.

it’s a bad habit because it makes it that much easier to abandon a story in mid-stream, as well as making it easier to forget where you’re going with any (or, occasionally all) of them. 

I’m not alone in this habit. Apparently, Isaac Asimov did the same thing — but that mutton-chopped son of a bitch made it work and became one of the most well-loved and prolific authors of his time. 

So I search for ways to make it work for me. My most successful attempts to date involve limiting the number of stories I’m working on at any given time and setting aside new ideas in the form of hastily-scribbled notes until the ones I’m currently working on are finished.

But today my efforts to curb my bad habit came around and bit me. Hard. I sit here looking at four documents — two novels, two short stories — all four works in progress.

And I can’t shake the feeling that there should be three short stories.

It all started when I went looking for a short story I was certain I was working on. I opened one story, glanced over it, and said, “No, that’s not the one.” Then I opened the second, glanced over it, and said, “No, that’s not it, either.”

Then I opened the novels and said, “No, not there.”

And as I continued to open documents, I started to think, “Man, I would hate to have to start all over again. It was a great story about—”

About…

What the Hell was that story about?

I’m sure it was great.

Maybe it was…

Nope. Gone, completely.

And so I look at four open works in progress and try to figure out — was there a fifth story? Or just a dream of a story in progress? A dream I forgot to write down that is now forever lost?

I’m a bit of an addict to limited-availability t-shirt sites. Something to which my wardrobe can testify. So every day I check out Qwertee, Teefury, Riptapparel, and even shirt.woot.com.

Today’s shirt from shirt.woot.com was an awesome design by ApeLad. Which is no shock — ApeLad’s pretty awesome.

But their write-up — in which they imagine the twist endings monkeys would add to Shakespeare — set my teeth on edge. Not because it insulted The Winter’s Tale, which I feel is an unfairly maligned Shakespearean work, but because of this little bit here:

Romeo And Juliet
In Act 3, Scene I, instead of saying “Get thee to a nunn’ry,” Romeo says “Get thee to a Columbian drug lord’s private jet.” Acts IV and V take place aboard Don Raul’s jet, as Juliet attempts to steer the plane into international waters, sacrificing herself but stopping a civil war that would eventually consume all of Latin America.

“Get thee to a nunnery” is from Hamlet. In the first quarto edition of Romeo & Juliet, Friar Laurence tells Juliet “I will provide for you in some close Nunnery.” In the second quarto, he says, “I’ll dispose of thee among a sisterhood of holy nuns.” Neither of these quotes is “Get thee to a nunnery,” and neither of them is Romeo speaking to Juliet.

Look, I get it — humor is difficult. And making humorous references is even more difficult. Not everybody can hold onto everything they ever learned and call it to the forefront.

That’s why we have Google. And why you need to learn to at least skim the results.

All right, who was it?

‘Fess up.

Who’s the guy that actually granted somebody a trademark on the title Carnival of Souls?

Because the guy who owns that trademark is now using it to try to erase a novel of the same title from existence. It’s not enough for him to try to stop the novel — Oh, no. He also wants to force people to remove their reviews of the book from their websites, claiming that the reviews are further violations of his trademark.

Of course, as the multiple outlets that are paying attention to this story point out, BookFinder can find you tons of books that use this title — including a novel from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.

But, honestly.

Carnival of Souls is one of the biggest cult classic films of all time. I have a shocking number of copies of this movie in my film collection because it winds up in almost every single multi-movie DVD set released. Not to mention my cherished RiffTrax edition. But not the Wes Craven Presents remake — renting that one once was enough.

Of course, my intellectual property regulation hobby (Yes, I know it’s weird) is pretty specialized around copyright. Trademark law makes copyright law look downright common sense by comparison.

For all I know, Jazan Wild may actually have grounds for a suit against HarperCollins — as ridiculous as that might seem when I can’t even count the number of media items in my apartment that use the same title. I can think that Wild’s claim to own the phrase “carnival of souls” is laughable in a world where it’s the title of an album from KISS, but my opinion (sadly) cannot predict the loops and whorls of trademark law.

But going after reviewers? That’s plain ridiculous.

I love libraries.

If you’ve followed me on any network for any period of time, then you know I have a lot of varied interests. That means I spend a lot of time online hanging out in forums for independent artists. And here’s what I’ve learned:

Independent artists don’t know a good deal when they see it.

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