Being more productive as a writer for me means being able to write whenever the urge strikes, or at least being able to get those flashes of insight down before the moment of brilliance passes. Unfortunately between work that pays the bills and other distractions I can’t always count on being in the mood to write when I manage to find the time. And if I haven’t jotted down those flashes of brilliance or made a note somewhere it is hard for me to get back to the heart of the original idea.

Since I can’t carry my netbook with me everywhere, and sometimes even a notebook and pen is out of the question, I decided to resort to cell phone apps for writers. My cell phone was always in my pocket, and hey, why not turn it into my personal assistant?

First I wanted to see if my cell phone could make me a more productive writer. Enter Habit Streak.

Habit Streak is a free app that allows you to input habits that you want to start doing. (There is also a Habit Streak Pro version) It keeps track of your status by reminding you to update it every day with wether or not you completed a given task, and it keeps track of how many days in a row you have completed that task. This helps you build that activity into your daily schedule creating a habit.

For my first habit I added, “Did you write for at least 1 hour?” But you could easily choose something like, “Did you write at least 500 words?” I also included several exercising and eating habits as well.

After 3 weeks I can say that this is one of the better apps for writers as it has forced me write on a regular basis. However Habit Streak seems to be far better at motivating me to go jogging than it does in getting me to write. The problem was that while I was out jogging I would come up with half a dozen ideas to work on but by the time I got home those ideas would be lost to the sands of time.

So, making sure I had my cell phone handy during my morning jog, I used the Voice Recorder app to get ideas down. (I also use Notepad or ColorNote for typing notes when I don’t want to talk to myself in public) That way when I got back home, even if I couldn’t get to writing right away, the ideas would be there. Only with the hustle and bustle of my life those recordings sometimes built up, and by the time I could get to them there would be several half formed ideas for various projects.

I needed to be better organized and Any.Do was exactly what I was looking for. It is another one of the free apps for writers where you can schedule tasks to work on later. Their slogan is “Organize your life in a simple and elegant way.” and after trying and failing with many other To Do List apps I found this one easy to work with, mostly because if I get called into work on a day off the tasks for that day automatically slide to the next day.

Any.Do has Today, Tomorrow, This Week and Later sections where tasks can be organized and they are all very easy to edit and remove once the task has been completed. If I’m ever sitting at the computer, about to log onto Facebook for lack of anything better to do I can grab my phone and check the Any.Do app for a few tasks that I can get done right away.

So Habit Streak reminds to make writing a habit, Any.Do keeps track of specific things I want to get done, and the Voice Recorder and ColorNote help me keep track of ideas on the go. Each of these apps for writers helps to keep me focused and more productive.

** Authors Note: I recently heard of an app called Catch, that allows you to make voice, text or picture notes with annotations and tags. This would effectively combine the Voice Recorder and Notepad apps into a single app that also allows you to better tag and organize your ideas.

OK, maybe sad is the right word.

I was reminded of some of the stories when a waitress was explaining a news story to me that they had found a new planet. “A planet is so big, how could they have missed it for all this time? I mean it’s a huge planet not a star or something.”

I tried to explain to her that a star was very much bigger than any planet ever could be, to which she accused me of having looked up that information on my phone. How else would someone know such a random fact.

That got me thinking about some of the stupid conversations I hear on a daily basis.

Not always from waitresses.

A customer ordered a shot of tequila and requested a lemon wedge with it. Strange, the waitress thought, but he’s a paying customer. So she has to wait while the bartender slices up a new lemon for her and she brings it and the shot over to the guys table. He takes one look at the lemon and asks, “Do you have a green one?”

At the front desk I get some funny questions, for instance “Is cheesecake made with cheese?”, “Is tuna fish and tuna salad the same thing?”

Or “Is it a holiday?”

“Yeah I think its Lint.”, another waitress answers.

(Lent)

A waitress comes up to me with a customers plate of half eaten food.

“My table doesn’t like this, she said its ransom.”

(Rancid)

Then there are the stories they tell.

A neighbor of one of the girls had their pet python escape from its cage and they believed it was in the basement. Only that’s where the washing machine was and her neighbor didn’t want to do any laundry with the snake slithering around.

“Just do what I do,” Our ever friendly waitress chimes in, “wear high heels, snakes cant jump that high.”

And they always seem to be having car troubles.

Silly things like changing the oil and sidewalk curbs tend to get in the way. So when one of the girls mentions that she was out car shopping it was no surprise that she wanted to fill us in on what she had learned.

“Did you know that some cars have three pedals?!”

Weird huh?

“I wonder what the extra one is for?”

(Clutch)

So what she had only ever been in automatic transmission cars in her whole life, she is a good waitress and friendly as hell. And every conversation like that reminds me that it’s almost time to hike again, y’know before the apocalypse.

My addiction to reading travel narrative has only increased since finishing my Appalachian Trail thru hike and being confined to an apartment and a job with no car.

I imagine myself everywhere else but here. The open road, on a beach, in the desert.

The problem is that there is a lot of awful stuff out there, ok, maybe awful is a little strong. How about half assed? But these “blog to book” books continue to get positive reveiws which push them up the Amazon charts which makes more sales which pushes them even higher.

As you already know most first time thru hikers will read a few books about the Appalachian Trail before setting out on their hike. It is sad that one of the most complained about books on the AT is also the best written. I’m talking about Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods.

It is sad because most people despise this writer for failing to complete a thru hike. And yet they will read, and worse, praise a thru hikers book that reads like a blog. (Specific books wont be named, you know who you are.)

Blog post after blog post does not make a book.

Then again I might be wrong, maybe the blog to book thing works for some readers.

There are a lot of these in the travel category, books that are merely a compilation of blog posts and many of these continue to be on the bestseller lists.

Some are better at covering up the fact that they copied and pasted text from their website to create their book. Others like Bumfuzzle mention the fact that the book was taken directly from their blog in the introduction.

Despite being very interested in the premise of a novice sailing couple attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a 35 foot sailboat the blog post format turned me off and I stopped reading. Having lost interest trying to get through the sample there was no way I would be buying that book.

That and the fact that they had tons of money to start with, though that is more of a personal objection.

Take a book like Happier than a Billionaire, which was also converted from a blog, about quitting a job to move to Costa Rica and live on the cheap. Ahh, the zero hour work week in a tropical paradise, or so I thought. Selling your chiropractor practice and giant house to fund an early retirement isn’t my idea of adventure.

Besides which her problems all seemed over dramatized and blown out of proportion. Little problems with a big net to fall back on don’t really capture my imagination.

Again, a personal opinion. Her book is a bestseller in several Amazon categories and is well reviewed by the majority of readers.

So maybe the blog to book thing can work.

For some readers.

Blog to Book Benefits

The benefits of the blog to book formula are the pre promotion for the book that the blog does and keeping the writer focused on a series of smaller pieces instead of facing the daunting task of writing a “whole” book.

After all, in the end you just have to cut and paste right?

And a blog can help you define your target audience and to let you know who your readers are before publishing. The importance of knowing your target audience can’t be underestimated. (Check out this useful post by DuoLit – Six Steps to Finding Your Target Market) And knowing that information could help you make small but significant changes to your blog prior to publishing it as a book which could greatly increase sales and improve reviews.

That will take a little more work than just copying and pasting your blog to book format but you might be infinitely happier with the results.

So I found my own easier way.

Everything I originally found online was confusing and even Amazon’s own free Kindle book, “Publish on Amazon Kindle with Kindle Direct Publishing” was vague.

After I thought I had it figured out Mobi Pocket Creator was still giving me the error message that there was no Table of Contents or TOC.

So I decided to turn to what I thought was an expert and paid for, Just Tell Me Simply: Formatting a Kindle eBook for Non-techies, (How to Write, Format and Self-Publish Your eBook for the Amazon Kindle Ereader for Writers and Authors)

I didn’t care that there were grammatical mistakes and editing problems every other page, as long as the information allowed me to create a TOC that Amazon could work with I’d be happy.

This Kindle book had me creating a seperate TOC.NCX file and editing the html code. On top of that the example pieces of code were pictures that were so small they couldn’t be read on my Kindle for Android app.

After following all of the confusing instructions Mobi Pocket Creator still failed to make a functioning TOC though I was no longer getting the error message.

Frustrated and falling behind in my writing because I was still trying to figure out how to put out a quality Kindle product there was no sense in trying the same thing over again.

I did everything the way it should have been done and it didn’t work.

So I’ll throw everything I know out the window and start fresh creating my own version of the KDP Table of Contents.

KDP Table of Contents Made Easy

I noticed that when inserting bookmarks then converting to html the bookmarks were converted into a link with the index.html#bookmark format. I thought I could use that to designate not only links to each chapter like I did before I read the How To book, but I could also designate both a TOC and Start locations for the Kindle version.

Since I had already inserted bookmarks at the begining of each chapter it was easy enough to highlight the chapter name in in the Table of Contents then link within the document to the appropriate bookmark just like you would to any outside URL.

Then I added a TOC bookmark by placing the cursor at the begining of the Table of Contents and inserting a bookmark named toc.

Where I wanted Kindle to open up to I inserted a bookmark named start.

After saving my work I then saved the file in html format.

In Mobi Pocket Creator it is a simple matter to import from html. Then we go to the Guide option on the left hand side of the program to designate those guides within our document that we want to use.

We have only two, toc and start.

You can see in the picture below how to enter the information.

Of course instead of BabysittingPerverts.html it would be the name of your source html file followed by a # sign and toc or start depending on which one you are adding.

Now when you build your Kindle PRC file using Mobi Pocket Creator you will not get an error message, (hope you remembered to include a cover) and when opened in Kindle or any Kindle app the first location displayed should be where you inserted the start bookmark.

If you go to the location drop down menu you will see both the Table of Contents and Start listed as options.

That’s all there is to it.

No TOC.NCX files, no editing html code, just a simple application of bookmarks and the easy to use guide section of Mobi Pocket Creator and the worst of your formatting errors are over.

Creating a KDP Table of Contents couldn’t be easier.

Like a life changing kind of thing that takes everything in your head and reassembles it in a new way?

That’s the kind of conversation this was. I don’t remember what the hell else we were talking about, maybe something about my new Twitter account and not being sure about what I was doing. But that’s irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is when she said, “My cat has 500 followers on Twitter.”

What? “Your cat has a Twitter account?”

“Yeah I just post meow or purr once in a while and upload a few pics here and there…”

Then I found out that as many as 1 in 10 pets has a Twitter account.

My mind is officially blown.

Sockington the cat, the most used Twitter pet example, has 1.5 million followers.

1.5 million people are interested in knowing what this cat is up to.

Move over Pinky and the Brain.

Of course humans have to do the actual tweeting, or anipals as they are called for those of you who don’t newspeak. But they love it.

Using their cat’s, dog’s or fishes voice on Twitter these anipals are raising money for a host of charities.

And we’re not talking chump change here.

This is big bucks on a regular basis to help animal shelters and other pet friendly orginizations.

We all knew that YouTube was owned by pet videos and cute babies.

Now it turns out the pets have taken Twitter as well.

The Hamburger Hunt had been on my mind for a long time, so much so that several people turned out to be mad at not being included when the trip finally went down. But it was just a simple loop, a Golden Brown Beefy Triangle if you will that started with Louis Lunch.

Louis Lunch in New Haven, CT is a historic landmark for being the oldest operating hamburger stand in the United States, and some argue the location where the hamburger was invented. I don’t know, what do I look like a beefamatician?

What I do know is they serve a tasty burger allegedly made from five different cuts of beef, and so you don’t spoil the flavor condiments are not allowed in the consumption of this masterpiece of meat. Also they don’t give you buns, or rolls, or whatever you want to call them that usually go on the outside of any self respecting burger. Instead you get two slices of toasted white bread and you’d better be happy with that.

A short hop north to Meriden, CT lands you are in the twilight zone of burger cooking. Sometime in the early 1900′s they started cooking their burgers the way they ironed their clothes, with steam. These steamed burgers are a tradition here and Ted’s Restaurant has been serving them up since 1959. I don’t want to make a bad joke about it being the same steamer since they opened but lets just say that it will be a long time before I try another steamed hamburger.

Besides which the vertical cast iron hamburger stove at Louis Lunch is from 1898 and those burgers tasted great.

Ted’s cooks little square patties that I wished had fit the bun. Instead there was some extra roll, no doubt to catch the melted mozzarella cheese they cover the burger with and makes for a damn tasty presentation. But unlike the first burger of the day these needed a little condiment love to get them down.

The original plan then called for a nice hike to Heublein Tower in an attempt to try and burn off some of those burgers before the Rhode Island finale. Located just north of Ted’s in Talcott State Park it is a castle tower the manufacturing magnate of A1 Steak Sauce and Smirnoff Vodka built for his fiance.

It’s too humid. It’s uphill, I just went to the gym yesterday and my trainer…

“The view is awesome.”

“You go, I’ll wait here.” She says slumping back into the drivers seat of her car.

Haven Bros., the supposed end of the Golden Beef Triangle wasn’t to be either. Located in downtown Providence, RI, how the hell else was I going to complete the damn triangle?, was the original and intended ending.

“Maybe just a salad.” She says.

Haven Bros. Burger!

“Maybe I have to get home in time to watch the new Thursday line up on NBC.”

I still got them to make me a burger at the Greek place where we ate, lettuce, tomato, feta cheese and tzatziki sauce.

No Haven Bros., no Beefy Triangle, not as it was originally envisioned anyway.

My large intestines breathe a sigh of relief.

Normally after summiting Katahdin and finishing up ones five month thru hike of the Appalachian Trail one would have some idea of what to do next. I mean its not like I didn’t have plenty of time to think about it.

But I suspect that like a lot of other thru hikers out there who spent so much time on the trail, living trail life day in and day out, that I simply denied the very fact that this would all somehow come to an end.

Then it happens, and a quick bus ride later I’m back in the Bucket. Pawtucket, Rhode Island that is, with no place to go and it turns out nothing much to come back to. You see I sold my car and put everything I owned in storage at my families house. My car is still sold, duh, and all those boxes have gone missing. All of my stuff, including the thumb drive with the first 1,500 pictures from my hike have disappeared into a strange sort of alternate dimension where the transition back home is a smooth and chaos free experience.

Normally I would suspect that a hiker would trade the freedom of the trail for the security of home. I just seemed to have missed out on the security part. I have actually stealth camped twice since being back, something that was unthinkable before the hike.

Things will change soon enough I’m sure, they just need a little time, a lot of work and whole hell of a lot of money.

In the meantime I’m missing the freedom.

… but enjoying the electricity.

I hadn’t planned on stopping for more than a couple of candy bars, well, and maybe some BBQ. Maine hasn’t been treating me too well, from the storm that delayed my hike to the mud puddles, rocks and exposed tree roots on the trail, it has all been conspiring to slow me down.

I don’t even want to mention the river crossings.

My shoes smell like stale urine and the temprature has been dropping at night, I swear it was only in the 30′s this morning. I pushed 22 miles yesterday and stayed just 6 miles outside of town. I cooked a nice 40 ounce cup of hot chocolate and thought to myself, “Why push big miles over hard terrain and ruin the last few days of your hike?”

So now instead of finishing on September 8th I will not be pushing miles to make the deadline. Instead I will be taking it as it comes. With a few food supplies from the hiker box at Shaw’s Boarding House and a box of Little Debbie Snack Cakes I will be heading into the last 100 miles of my trip, through the wilderness and on to Katahdin.

The weather has been fantastic, besides that little Irene thing, and I borrowed a kayak today and spent most of the afternoon on the lake stuffed full of BBQ and sipping soda watching the birds dive for fish. Lazy and sunburned, the way I like it.

I uploaded the last of my YouTube videos today, that is until after I summit. I’m not sure how long it will take me to get up pictures and videos uploaded as I still have no plans after Katahdin except to eventually head home and start working again.

And buy a car.

And get an apartment.

I look forward to Chinese food.

Up to the first ridgline I was still in the trees, unable to see the peak. Passing a few dayhikers I asked if they had seen any of the guys I was hiking with, they were unsure which I thought was odd, usually you remember the people you pass on the trail even if its just a short term thing. Then as I broke through the tree line at about 4,000 ft I saw why, there were at least 40 hikers covering the peak of Little Haystack all in their variously colored synthetic hiking gear. The mountain was covered in candy sprinkles.

Awesome.

The views and the ridge walk to Mount Lafayette were incredible. It didn’t matter that it was another 1,000 foot climb or more to 5,260, it was worth it. This I thought is why I’m hiking, for views like this. By the time I slowly made my way to Lafayette, only slightly more than a mile and a half away, and with only 7 miles hiked for the day I had spent several hours just taking in the vies and snacking. True to our Nero the North tradition we decided to hike the mile downhill to Greenleaf Hut and look for work for stay.

The idea was that the hut was so far off trail and way downhill that they didn’t se many thruhikers and would be more likely to take us in. WOrk for stay is an option where we do dishes, sweep floors or clean windows in exchange for them letting us sleep on the dining room floor and feeding us any leftovers the paying guests may have left behind. Sure enough there were no other thruhikers there and they let us stay, we just had to stay out of the way, outside, until they were done feeding the guests. Then, and only then could we sneak inside to consume anything that was left. First night it was turkey and cold peas and mashed potatoes for which I washed all the windows in the lodge and helped sweep the dining room.

In the morning we left almost an hour after most of the guests out for a day hike to the peak. We passed them less than halfway up to the peak and they looked ready to quit. By the time we reached the top we took a break in the clouds trying to decide wether or not rain gear was appropriate. It rained on and off throughout the day. My hands wrinkled as if I had been doing dishes for days and they were numb from the cold. No matter what I did I was still soaked through from sweat created by the heat trapped by my rain jacket. I stopped at Galehead Hut for some hot soup and got ready for the straight up climb, 1,000 ft in less than a mile up South Twin Mountain.

Again pushing above treeline was breath taking.

Down across Zeacliff and down to Zealand Falls Hut where they generate their own electricity from the flowing water of the falls. They already had two SOBO’s doing work for stay and despite the 4 person max they let the three of us stick around. The huts are changing out Croo’s as they are called and there is plenty of work to be done. Cleaning Grease traps, freezers and food storage areas that hadn’t been cleaned out in a long time. Once again we had to wait outside in the rain for the paying guests to finish eating. At least here there was a small porch.

From Zealand Falls Hut to 302, and easy 7 miles or so which was mostly flat, we managed to hike at 4mph. The fastest we had done in a while. The terrain quickly changed after crossing rt 302 though where we crossed the Saco River and climbed Mt. Webster. An almost straight up climb that was dangerous for being so wet. Usually on the long climbs I fall a bit behind, but the wet rocks and danger slowed everyone else down while I managed to climb on ahead.

What a day that was, over Mt. Jackson, the terrain was hand over hand climbs at times and dizzying drops across wet rock faces. So much fun. Mountain Dew kept slipping and falling, Pigeon and I fell a few times but would turn to watch Mountain Dew on the precarious climbs, more for entertainment than safety. We were all swearing at each other and freezing cold and having a great time.

Did work for stay at Mizpah Hut where a couple of section hikers who had hiked up from the parking lot took two of the work for stay spots that pissed everyone else off. And it continued to rain. After that I only hiked 6 miles to Lake of the Clouds hut where a lot of thruhikers had zero’d. There were no views and the joke was it is called the White’s because thats all you see. But after missing views on Clingmans Dome, Roan Mountain and Grayson Highlands I wasn’t going to miss the entire Presidential mountain range. So I called it a short day and huddled up with 17 other hikers, NOBO’s and SOBO’s, hoping the weather would change.

Luckily it did. Mount Washington which is clouded in 237 days out of the year was spectacularly clear and the morning view from Lake of the Clouds was amazing. Pink and purple clouds on the horizon, white clouds filling in the mountain valleys. Halfway up Mt. Washington I stopped and sat on a rock and lost myself in the view. Too bad my camera battery had died days before or I would have had a picture.

Even taking my break I managed to beat the cog railway up the mountain and didn’t have to wait in line to take my picture at the summit. When the tourists started to pile in we worked our way out, back down the otherside of the mountain for some more spectacular views and hiking.

God I love this.

Later in the day after descending Mount Madison the blazes became non-existant and the signs confusing. For miles I wasn’t sure if I was still on the AT or on some side trail. I didn’t know if the people behind me were following the same route as me and wether or not we would all end up at the same place in Gorham that we had all planned. But somehow we all made it, showered, ate and slept in a real bed.

Tomorrow I climb Wildcat and the Carter Mountain Range.

I’m not complaining. There is a girl out here hiking the Long Trail who had to get off the AT in 2003, the wet year. It rained 95% of the time she said. My weather has been perfect on this trip, I couldn’t have asked for much better. Of course I’m still on a hiking high having been sweating my brains out for the last few days and pushing myself fueled only by Ramen and Caffeine.

God I love it out here!

The climb up Stratton Mountain was easier than expected, I feel like I’m flying up these mountains lately. 3,936 feet and I climbed the fire tower at the top for lunch. Penut Butter by the spoonful and watered down Gatorade. The mountain itself was enclosed in the clouds, no view except looking down as clouds glide easily under foot. A little bit of a cell signal allows me to connect with the outside world for a few brief minutes until that fades into the clouds like the landscape around me.

Down the mountain, through the clouds, out of water and every spring seems to be dry. Mud everywhere but nothing to drink.

Spruce Peak Shelter has been a highlight as far as shelters are concerned. Sliding door, indoor wood stove and picnic table. Front Porch?! Then from there it was an easy early morning hike into VT 11 to try and hitch into Manchester Center for resupply and a shower. Pigeon, a German hiker, and I got a ride as soon as we hit asphalt. Everyone else I have been hiking with, Mountain Dew and Rawdog both had the first car that drove by stop for them once they emerged from the trees.

537 miles to go.