I completely forgot to mention here that I relaunched the Copyhacker site a couple of weeks ago! From now on, I’ll use it for quick posts–news and such–and continue to use this one for essays, nonfiction or whatever else crosses my mind (I refuse to use the word “musings”).

I’ve also been outlining a novel for the last couple of weeks, and this morning I laid down the first words–a whopping 263 of them! Here’s a small, completely unedited sample:

As he approached the corner, his gait became jauntier, less purposeful. By the time he reached the crossing street, tapping out a text message with the fluidity of a native language, he was one of a crowd of hundreds, converging on the roped-off front door of the nearest club.

I plan on releasing companion stories to the novel as I go along, so watch Copyhacker for updates!

Some big news dropped yesterday in the e-reading world: Amazon acquired Lexcycle, makers of Stanza, the popular (and, dare I say, best) reading software for iPhone. I’ve used Stanza for months now and have read about half a dozen books and other works on it. I was as skeptical as everyone else about the ebook thing, but my iPhone is now my go-to reading platform. Stanza started out good and has only gotten better.

Big wins for Stanza: integration with several e-text sites via API, the ability to read just about any format you can throw at it, and ad hoc downloading of any file from a URL (you can also pull down a file from your hard drive by opening it in Stanza’s bare-bones desktop app). Obviously, it can’t read DRM-locked files, so all those books you bought for your Kindle are so much garbage to Stanza.

Not to be outdone, Amazon released its own reader for iPhone, named Kindle after its pricier hardware cousin.

Big wins for Kindle: access to the entire Kindle store (which I like), and syncability with your Kindle hardware (which I don’t have, but wish I did).

I love Stanza, but I did try Kindle, since 1) it’s free and 2) the real Kindle isn’t. I bought Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon on the Kindle store (you can’t do it from inside the Kindle app; you have to use the Web site) and got about five percent through the book before missing Stanza so badly I bought the non-DRM edition from Fictionwise (which you can do from inside Stanza on the iPhone).

So what is Amazon going to do with Stanza? Though there is precedent for Amazon offering DRM-free content, I can’t see them offering competitors’ titles for sale right alongside the Kindle Store, can you? I think the best we can hope for is a beefed-up Kindle app with some of Stanza’s sweet user interface features, like low-light mode, screen orientation control and the iPod-like book browser.

Those things are all wonderful, but for me, the discovery of new content right inside Stanza is key. I published stories to Feedbooks and Smashwords. All those Stanza users can find my stuff right on their iPhone, and I can find other independent writers to connect with and support.

The worst possible outcome would be the end of free (as in speech) titles in Stanza. I really hope Amazon isn’t just out to eliminate the little fish, throwing out the nascent indie fiction market with the bathwater.

I would love the best of both worlds: a reader that can read any file you own, in any format, in addition to the vast Kindle catalog. But I’m not holding my breath.

I’m hoping that Amazon is really interested in Stanza’s desktop app, and its sharing feature. I’d love an ebook answer to Delicious Library, or iTunes (Cory Doctorow’s on-point rant notwithstanding). I’d love to have a desktop application that organizes my content and can push it to my platform of choice, keeping my place in sync everywhere.

I’m looking in another direction for that, though.

…to be his friend on Facebook and Twitter.

What are you waiting for? Viva la revolucion!

(I seem to say this a lot, but thanks to Bryan for the killer logo.)

One of the writing projects I’ve been working on over the last few months is a 6000-word short story called Ends. I finally wrapped up the last edits and submitted it to a contest. It’s the first fiction of any real length that I can call a finished product. While I decide where to shop it next, I’m going to let you lot have at it. No one sells their first story anyway, right? So enjoy, everyone.

Grab the PDF, and an excerpt, from this page.

Happy reading!

For those of you who aren’t following along on Twitter, my first TVgasm recap is up. Much to my relief, I get to do a show that I love (House), something with a bit of brains, instead of some knockoff reality show that I’m not interested in. Don’t worry, it’ll still be a snarkfest.

Check out the recap here. It would seem I also picked up my first critic already, in the comments. Sweet. Now I just need my first rejection, and I’ll be a real live writer…

I’m thrilled to announce that TVgasm’s fall recapper auditions are over, and I made the cut. That’s right! This fall, I’ll be ripping into some poor, unsuspecting TV show on a weekly basis. I don’t know which one yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

Huge piles of thanks to all of you who voted for me. This is my first honest-to-goodness writing gig (unless you count the AskSpace thing a couple of years ago). It’s unpaid, but I should pick up some readers, and I’ll get to find out if I can produce under a deadline. Besides, now I can sit in front of the TV and say it’s for my writing career.

Stay tuned!