Michael Ashley

It was really cool to see an article about FastPencil in the Santa Cruz Sentinel this morning. Especially because I used to work at the Sentinel many years ago and I know how many changes that paper has been through. There were guys upstairs like Bill and John who had scars on their forearms from the hot lead they had to pour to make newspaper plates. When I joined the Sentinel we were still printing out stories on paper and waxing them onto boards to be photographed. We worked in Picas. I helped make the transition to direct-to-film where we would compose the pages on computer and print them to film. That's when Pixels became important. Just before I left we were implementing a content management system that allowed editors to enter stories directly onto the page... and the internet was taking off. Today the Sentinel is basically a virtual paper. There is an office in Scotts Valley but the giant metal press, the million-dollar monster that used to occupy half a city block is no lo...

It Takes a Village to Write A Novel You may have heard it said that it takes a village to raise a child. That's also true of novel writing. While the image of the lonely writer hammering away at her typewriter in a dark room for days on end springs to mind, today a writer has to employ every available trick to slip away from the chaos of life and get the words out. One wildly successful program has helped thousands of writers get published. It's called National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Every November writers are challenged to create a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. If you complete a novel, you "win" the contest. It's a challenge where your only competitor is yourself. Unfortunately most participants fail the challenge because they attempt to take on this Herculean task alone. Today, you can invite your friends to take the NaNoWriMo challenge with you. Take advantage of Facebook and Twitter to post your progress. Do your writing online in a collaborative t...