Being Accountable for your Word Count: The 250, 500, 1000 Words a Day Challenge

From reading Zoe Winters' blog, I've discovered InkyGirl's challenge to us all:  to write a minimum number of words, six days a week. 

Not planning on it. Not procrastinating, running totals to the next day, so that Friday afternoon you're facing a gazillion words to meet your self-imposed word count tally.

Nope.  Doing it.

I write for a living.  However, I have the dream of writing fiction (hence, this blog) and I'm thinking it's a good idea to take up InkyGirl's challenge and Zoe Winter's example and start doing it. 

It will be fun.
It will make me happy (happier).

It's important to move forward in life, and I believe that I have stories to tell.  Things to share that are worth the reader's time.

So, I'm going to commit to 250 words a day.  Fiction.  Six days a week. 

You can see it in the sidebar over there.  And if I can figure out the wordcount measure that Zoe Winters has on her blog, I'm going to include it in the sidebar over there, too. 

No pressure. 
No worries.

Kindle, Nook Color, Sony Pocket: My EReader Conversion

Kindle 3G Wifi
sold at Amazon
for $180 new, refurbished
for much less

Six months ago, I had no ebook reader and no interest in buying one. What with technology advancing so rapidly, my plan was to wait for the next wave - which I assumed would be the next generation of IPad. 

Maybe.  Part of me just didn't like the idea of an electronic book. I'd stick with print, thank you very much.  If tablets advanced that they served other purposes for me and they were great e-readers as a bonus, then great.  I could wait. 

Then I got a Nook Color for Christmas and everything changed.

I enjoyed the Nook Color for the two weeks last December that I went through three different Nooks before getting a cash refund. I liked the color screen, the size, and the ability to immediately download books ... but each time, the Nooks I had went nutzo. They started automatically scrolling ahead in the book, as well as highlighting random words. It was almost as if the Nook Color was possessed, or controlled remotely. Crazy stuff.

But I had the fever after that two weeks with Nook Color. So did I get a Kindle then? Nope. Got a Sony Pocket Reader.

It's cute, and I like the screen on the Sony Reader. It's great that I can download books from the public library. It's terribly bad that there's very little to choose from at the Sony Store. Not much inventory there.

So, I bought a Kindle 3G with WiFi one afternoon at Best Buy.

And, I adore my Kindle. I love the selection available to me. I love that at three in the morning, I can shop Amazon for books. I love that there are great books for free or very, very low cost. Connecting to the internet is fast, downloading is fast. The battery lasts a good, long time -- I'm thinking that I recharge once every 2-3 weeks (lasts longer if you keep the wireless connection turned off until you need it).

Do I still use the Sony Reader?
Yes. I like it, too.  I prefer using the wand to highlight sections of the text that Sony lets me do over the Kindle's text blocking.  Easier, faster.  Plus, I want to support the local library's expanding ebook collection and I can download the borrowed ebooks via Sony's ereader (no can do with Kindle). 

Do I buy more books because of Kindle?
Yes. Full price, 99 cents, free. I'm reading more because of Kindle (and I read a lot before).

Do I buy less print books?
Nope. In fact, I'll buy a book in print after reading the ebook because I want the print version. Never before did I routinely buy the same book twice, just for me.