Good ideas are common.
What’s uncommon are
people who’ll work hard enough
to bring them about.
[Ashleigh Brilliant]

I have recently been blessed with an iPad 2 (I should have mailed announcements to explain why I’ve become such a recluse). Actually, my world exploded with interesting things, and endless ideas and opportunities. Not far into this new experience, I started dreaming of ways to put my publication design experience to use on this relatively new media. This past year has been my year of the eBook—reading, researching, producing… Meanwhile, I’ve focused upon layout and design of knitting patterns to publish as printable PDF files.

My friend, Mary in Ann Arbor, emailed me today about reading knitting patterns (in a PDF file format) in the GoodReader App on her new iPad2. She could annotate it with highlighter marks to keep track of where she was on the pattern. I rushed to get the app and experiment. WOW! It works. It also shows me what I need to do to make my patterns GoodReader friendly.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy — yarn, knitting needles and a few well-placed pixels.

This is a shot of the iPad screen showing
a PDF knitting pattern with a highlighted
line to mark the place. The line is easily movable.

There was nothing but land: not a country at all,
but the material out of which countries are made.
[Willa Cather]
(Jim Burden, in My Antonia)

The first thing many writing coaches advise is read, read, read. I’ve always read a lot and now that I read eBooks on my iPod, I read even more. I’ve discovered many authors who captivate me with their story-telling skills. I’ve also discovered that there are some authors who are published but who do not strike me as being much more than mediocre writers.

Do understand that I am not an authority on writing nor am I a professional writer. I just know what appeals to me as a reader. To me, good writing is so much more than good grammar. It includes a feel for shedding the limitations of mere words and expressing the spirit of the subject. When I read, I consider the author a mentor. I itemize writing traits and decide which traits I’d like to emulate in my writing.

After I went way over my budget buying eBooks, I discovered the least expensive books  are among the best written. Some are even free. That is when I rediscovered Willa Cather’s My Antonia. The simplicity of Ms Cather’s writing style seems to arise from her ability to use exactly the right words, phrases and sentences at the right time in her story. Her writing puts me in mind of The Pearl by John Steinbeck. I don’t remember the story in that novella as much as I remember his style of writing. It seemed that not a word in the story was unnecessary or without purpose. The overall effect was simplicity composed of the complex ability to say the right thing at the right time.

Reading encourages me not only to write, but to write better. Perhaps it will do the same for you.