Wednesday, October 17, 2012

My "I Can't" Is Invalid

Did you watch The Jump on Sunday? I was on the edge of my seat from the time Felix's balloon left the ground until his feet were back on terra firma. I am so happy that he was able to complete his dream and walk back to his friends and family when it was all done. I am certain that someone will take a photo of his perch at 128,100 feet and caption it with "Your Argument is Invalid".

Speaking of arguments, I had one with my tablet last night. Rather, I had it with the Kindle app for said tablet. I was trying very hard to load the Kindle app so I could download some ebooks (and hopefully provide reviews for them later). I went round and round with it, having never used my tablet this way. I got so frustrated that it wasn't funny. If you try to load the Android Kindle app to a non-Kindle device (like a tablet), and you have issues, make sure you have done this things (assuming you have already registered the app with Amazon):

- turned on the 1-click option. Open the "Your Account" drop down menu and Select the "Your Account" option. Look for the "Settings" list (third grouping) and from there select "1-Click Settings". On the new page, look on the right side of the screen at the small box that indicates the 1-click status. Make sure it says ON for you. If not, click the button below it to turn it on. Kindle purchases can only be done via 1-click, so it needs to be turned on for that kind of download. Mine was not turned on by default when I created the account.
- set up a street address for the 1-click option. This is also done on the "1-Click Settings" page mentioned above. Use the "Enter a new address button" and follow the directions.
- set up a payment method Under "Your Account" / "Payment Methods". My first download was a "free" ebook, but it still seemed to want a payment method in the setup before it would let me proceed
- Be patient. If everything seems to be set up correctly & it still won't work, just walk away for a couple of hours. It may take a while for the registration information to show up on the web site. My main issue was that the Kindle store kept telling me that I didn't have a registered device, even though I had used that registered device & app to get to the store! They were not showing up in the 1-click download list on the purchase page for the book I wanted. After I did the above and waited an hour, my devices showed up. You may just have to log off and go get a cup of coffee and watch some Babylon 5 for a while, then check again.

This is not an exhaustive troubleshooting list by any means, but I thought I would share these solutions in case someone has similar issues.

In other news: The National Day On Writing is on October 20th; but since that is a Saturday, Twitter will be celebrating it on Friday the 19th. For my friends who are authors and/or teachers, this might be a fun event.

I hope to post a writing sample here on Friday. I'm not sure what I'll do yet. Maybe a writing exercise, or maybe a snippet from my novel-in-progress. We'll see what turns up.

We had a lovely bit of fog here at Twin Cedars this morning. I used it for a quick writing exercise to get my gears rolling, as I got up far earlier than I usually do. "Fog" is a great topic for writing exercises, as you can summon almost anything out of the mists. It is a rather target-rich environment; it seems so empty and yet teeming with the unknown at the same time. Brrrrrrrrrr. Maybe I should add "paranormal romance" to my genre list!

See this website for additional details:
www.ncte.org

Remember, NaNoWriMo is just around the corner!
NaNoWriMo