Outsourcing NOW

As I was telling you in my last post, I am currently reading "The World is Flat", I am already halfway through it. It is a good book, if you ignore some repetitions that tend to disrupt a little of the flow in the book. Well, one of the main themes in the book refers to "outsourcing".
What does outsourcing mean? Well, it is a process through which companies in the US (and not only here) can transfer some of their workforce, especially services workforce to country where labor is cheaper. For example, if you call the Microsoft technical support, don't imagine you're calling America. Someone over in India will answer and give you all the answers to questions you have. And a lot of companies have decided to do this, given the fact that it cost three times less to pay an Indian call operator than an American one.
I was in Boston yesterday, buying tickets to go to Denmark later this month from Northwest Airlines. So, I go, like any normal human being to the ticket office and ask what are the availabilities for the dates I was interested in.
The woman looks at me and gracefully points to a row of phones, somewhere in the terminal. She told me that I should call their center, make the reservatio
n and then come back to her to purchase the ticket. Oh man, I am well behind all of these service advancements that are just happening. And I thought to myself: "Wouldn't it be easier if she had just punched three buttons to check what I need and then sell me the ticket?" Well, for them, apparently it pays off to do this.
Obviously, I go to the row of phones and make the call. I sensed from the first second the slight Indian accent the woman had on the phone, so I realized they were doing exactly what I had read about in the book. Of course, it took me over 30 minutes to decide on a flight before making the reservation, so I guess the call center pays off.
Air France, another carrier I usually use (because of their fabulous food on board) does not do this. They still use the archaic system with computers and Internet. Isn't this funny? What we thought yesterday as being breakthrough technology, today it just might seem as something way old. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Advice: You don't know EVERYTHING about your characters

I've seen a lot of people writing stuff, excruciatingly painfully explaining every single twitch that character had in the first few pages of that story. People, we do not need to know the entire biography of someone right when you open the story. Why? Well, first of all, because we do not care. We are not yet attached to that character emotionally, so it's definitely not interesting. There are few authors that can pull this off, and they have their methods.
Best was to describe characters is, first of all, gradually, over the entire length of the story, so the reader gets to know it and gets attached to it, and then, use a lot of dialogue and interaction. You can very well describe your character through dialogue, he can answer inspired questions put by other characters, so you don't need to foolishly explain everything to your readers.
That should be a ground rule. Your readers are not stupid. If you hint them something, they will probably understand what you meant without trying to give them every single bit of information you have stacked up. Also, don't have every single character of your fully developed in your mind in the beginning. Of course, if that happens, it doesn't mean it's wrong, but you will be amazed at how much your character can evolve while you're writing your story. Every twist and turn in the plot, will obviously affect your characters, and through that you will find out how they're shaped and how they react to different impediments. Test yourself, put a character through a few different actions that would obviously endanger it. Write down how he or she would react to that. After doing that, you'll have a much clearer picture on how brave your character is. You can do this for a bunch of other qualities you can think of.
I hope my advice will help you, and hoping to see some feedback here.
Start writing.

Advice: Don't put too much of yourself into your writing

If there is one thing I learned while writing short stories and starting to write a novel is that putting too much of yourself into something you write doesn't always work and doesn't always appeal to your readers.
Yes, it's fine to distinguish one of your characters with your qualities, flaws and maybe something really exciting that has happened to you and you want to share with the world, but writing too much about yourself into a fiction piece will not work.
Why? Because, let's face it, you as an individual, unless you've been to war or experienced a truly traumatic event, will not have a story as interesting as a "fictional" character you can mold and turn into anything you like.
If you want to tell your life story, wait till you are famous and then publish it as non-fiction. Till then, let your characters be free, don't assimilate them with you.

I think I have a title

One of the best things you can do as an author, especially, an inexperienced one, when writing your first major piece is to find a title before. Of course, it doesn't have to be the one you'll use when you finish it, but something to get you started, to give you the definitive proof that you are headed somewhere.
I am, apparently headed somewhere with my novel, but didn't think of a title yet. This until yesterday. Another sneak preview I'm gonna give you regards two main themes in this book, probably one of the first two locations that I have imagined from the beginning. One that I am completely familiarized with by now, about which I sketched already entire scenes and charts of significance and another one that is just revealing itself to me. You will understand in a second why one of them can be the title of the novel and the other cannot.
"The Dump" will be one of the major "spacial" characters of the book, obviously when you will read it you will understand why. There's still some time till that happens. The second, that I think will be the title of the book is "The Glass Gazebo".
I already have in mind so many ideas about this fabulous place I have discovered that I cannot wait to share them with you.

Places that tickle my muse

It's interesting in the beginning of the writing process of something like what I'm about to do to get to know your characters and find out what they're made of - what they feel and who they are. I sometimes imagine that they are real people and not just figments of my imagination. However, never before have I felt more attached to a couple of character like I am to Chris and Anna. I really believe that this will be a journey filled with adventures and the final result will be more than pleasing.
I don't always find inspiration everywhere, there are some places that tickle my muse, like the little shack on Fisherman's wharf in Provincetown's old harbor or under the old trees in Cambridge's Harvard Yard. The key word is old. Even if I'm still young (or at least I like to think of myself as such) and I know how to use all the miracles of technology, I still feel the need to write on paper, my characters are better brought to life in my own handwriting, using my favorite golden pen.

Welcome

I begin here, with you, a voyage, a demanding and mind-shattering voyage that probably no author has done before. Through this blog you will be able to explore everything that goes behind writing, editing and finally publishing a novel. From start to finish.
Let me introduce myself. My pen name is Alex Nick, the "Provincetown Banner" says I have a "sheer imaginative force". I sure hope they are right, otherwise this would be a waste of time, right.
Well, anyway, I welcome you all to my blog and hope you'll enjoy what I will be writing in here.