100 Words About: Story Ghosts

I’ve been looking through some of my old files. I’m a pack rat. I have tons of story fragments and things, although most of them are in dead tree at this point. (Really must scan those now that I have a scanner.) I have some on my hard drives, though, going back 6 or 7 years. A few are older, doc files so old that Windows doesn’t know how to open them anymore. (Must task The Husband with finding a solution to that…)

Looking through the old files is like being haunted by the ghosts of unborn stories. Most of these are fragments, where I wrote down just enough to get the story idea to be quiet before going back to work on Scent and Shadow. A few are just notes. But some are pretty good, if I do say so myself. The character voices jump out at me, echoing in the chaos that is the back of my brain, asking why I never finished them.

Because I don’t know what happens next, I usually reply.

Um, hello, they snap back. You’re the author. That’s your job.

Stories are all about me, me, me. They don’t like to share, and they hate being upstaged. But they are stubborn ghosts. Hell, I have one character that’s been waiting for a story for fifteen years at this point.

Someday…

100 Words About: Forgetfulness

I was totally going to rant about something, but I have no idea what it was now. I know I had a great post in mind earlier in the week. You'd think I'd know to make a note about it by now. But no. Instead I get to Friday and have no post topic.

I blame my new story idea. I haven't had an idea be this persistent in a while. Fortunately I'm fobbing it off with world building. "Well, I can't write you until I figure out why X happens." Sometimes that works and I get a little epiphany into the nature of the universe. And sometimes the story just says, "I don't care. Write me. Write me NOW."

(This is not helping me finish Paul Galati's origin story...)

In other news, edits for Demon's Asylum are pretty much done. Now I'm writing the metadata so I can make the beta ebook files. Then I just need to proof it and finish the cover, and you'll all have 25,000+ words of historical m/m vampire erotica. What could be better? ;)

100 Words About: Football

(And yes, I mean American Football.)

I only got into football last year, which I totally blame on Scott Sigler's GFL series. Despite living amidst some of the most fanatic football fans in the nation (Badger fans and Packer fans), I had never pursued the sport. I enjoyed it when it happened to be on, but (like all other sports, except local roller derby) I never sought it out.

And, of course, now that I have the NFL Rewind and the Krakens jersey and the fantasy football team, I'm too busy to watch it. Even though I can watch it darn near whenever I want.

Ahh, the things we sacrifice for art.

I take comfort in the fact that the season runs for longer than this current flurry of activity will. I've got edits done on all the short stories, and now I need to do blurbs for all of them and finish the covers, but I'm still on track.

Which is good, 'cause roller derby starts up in December!

100 Words About: Wind

It was really windy last night. The kind of windy where tree limbs fall off. I love that kind of weather, especially in the fall. It's hard to describe exactly how it makes me feel; I guess wild is the best word. If the Wild Hunt were sweeping around you, and you couldn't see them ('cause it's not Halloween or Walpurgisnacht), I imagine it might feel something like that. Unfettered and insidious, tempting you to follow.

The next day after a fall wind storm is almost like a hangover. There's trash blown everywhere because the bins have all blown over, and tree limbs and twigs all around, and what pretty fall leaves there were have all been ripped from the trees, so the foliage that's left is bare and patchy like a two-day beard. I hope there's some color left up by the apple orchard when we go.

Image: Tina Phillips / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Actually Honoring 9/11

Yeah, it's been ten years, and I can kinda see maybe wanting to do something in remembrance of that fateful day. I don't know if we did anything for the ten year anniversary of Pearl Harbor. But we sure as hell weren't selling commemorative coins or bits of blasted boats back then. Back in those days, if you wanted to spend money related to the attack, you bought a freaking war bond.

What the hell changed?

Every year around this time I have to start filtering my media consumption. I wish it was just because listening to sad stories makes me cry, but mostly it's because all the 9/11 "coverage" just pisses me off. Most of it is selling something, whether it's a trinket that won't help either the survivors or the families or the war or the first responders (I won't get started on that one right now, Congress) or selling an idea: racial or religious hatred; fear, uncertainty, and doubt; or "vote for me."

You want to honor the fallen? How about you get something done with that big empty hole that's been sitting there for ten years now? Our grandparents' generation would've had the twin towers rebuilt in six months just as a giant "fuck you."

Right after the attack, this country came together, neighbor united with neighbor in a way that made me proud to be an American. Since then, people have done nothing but use its memory to tear us apart from each other and take away our liberties.

So have one last three-ring circus. But then, let's put this thing to bed and move on to something relevant.

Image: Paul Martin Eldridge / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Talent

Dean Wesley Smith had an interesting post over at his blog, talking about "The Myth of Talent." I agree with a lot of it. I think labeling someone as "talented" or "untalented" (especially at an early age) can be incredibly damaging and counterproductive.

However, I do believe in talent, which Dean doesn't.

The Husband and I had a great discussion about this topic last night, which led me to post a comment over at Dean's blog. Here are my thoughts on the subject:

My husband did bring up a good point after I showed him this post. You can say that talent doesn't matter up to a point, but you also have to take into account certain limiting factors. Just as there are physical limitations, like my poor eyesight making it so I will never be a fighter pilot, there are also mental limitations. He reminded me of a couple friends in high school who worked their butts off trying to learn stuff, and could just never wrap their heads around it. Certain maths just didn't make sense to them, no matter how it was explained. And it's not that they weren't trying, but they just couldn't grasp the fundamental concepts needed to improve their skills.

I think hard work can improve anyone. Those friends of mine certainly understood more than they would have without the hard work. But there is a limit, and that limit is different for different people on different subjects, and I think that is what true "talent" is. Talent without hard work will only get you so far, and hard work without talent will only get you so far (although I'd wager that hard work will get you farther than raw talent 99 times out of 100). In the cases where you hit a limit, though, telling those folks that they just aren't trying hard enough is cruel. They haven't discovered a surgery yet that would make my eyesight good enough for me to be a fighter pilot, no matter how hard I worked at learning to fly planes.

Ultimately, I think talent is anything you can't take credit for. I learn things very quickly, much more quickly than most of my peers in school. That's not something I did, and I can't take credit for it. It's a talent, and one I am grateful to have. I exercise and make use of it by always learning about new things, but ultimately, I can't take credit for it. And I think recognizing the talents we do have helps keep us humble. Be grateful for the talents you have, and work your butt off in appreciation to make the most of them. I bristle when people say "well, you can be a published writer because you have talent," because writing IS something I can take credit for. I've worked hard for years to get to the level I'm at now, and I'm going to continue to work hard, hopefully for the rest of my life. There may be some talent there, but it's mostly hours and hours and hours of hard work.

If someone tells me I'm "just talented" at something and it makes me uncomfortable, it's usually because it's something I can't take credit for. That's a talent. If someone tells me I'm "just talented" at something and it pisses me off, that's not talent, that's hard work. And that's how I tell the difference.

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Progress Update

My novel is off to my Write by the Lake instructor for final polishing and tweaking. Of course, I've already thought of a couple more things to fix, but such is life. (Must make a note somewhere...) I still have to come up with a better name. Names are usually not too bad for me, but this one has never really suggested a good name to me so I'm still kicking it around. And of course, no idea what to do for a cover. I want to get a professional cover for the novel, but I need to come up with a name first.

I have 2-3 short stories that I can do a little extra polishing on, but which are pretty much good to go. I just need to format them and make covers. I have some software to learn so I can make the covers myself (hiring out for short stories doesn't seem very cost effective), but I'm not sure when I'll have time to go through the tutorials. Summer is so busy! Maybe I'll take another vacation day.

I have two novellas that are close to being ready also. My hope is to have 5-6 items at varying prices (free to $4.99) available all at once initially, and just keep adding more. Timing is going to depend on how long my novel edits take. It's all a ton of work and planning, but very exciting!

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Book Buying

Kris Rusch had a great post yesterday about the upcoming third quarter sales slump. The short short version (and I do recommend reading the whole thing) is that with Borders gone, there is less shelf space for books. And Barnes & Noble is also reducing its shelf space for books. Since 70% of books sold are still paper copies of one form or another, that means that third quarter sales are likely to drop. Which means that a lot of authors whose work would normally be selling will have a hard time convincing their publishers that the drop in sales is not because their writing has suffered. (Kris points out that, traditionally, publishers fail to take external factors into consideration when looking at sales numbers.)

Times just keep getting more interesting...

100 Words About: Amazon and Piracy

Not that long ago I had a post about piracy. Today's post is about a whole new level of piracy: not only stealing someone else's work, but "publishing" it yourself for profit.

PG over at the Passive Voice alerted me to the plight of Ruth Ann Nordin. It seems someone has taken one of her free stories and published it on Amazon and is charging money for it.

Ms. Nordin has tried contacting Amazon, but they aren't doing anything about it. She's actually having to get a lawyer over it.

Now, it's hard to imagine anyone paying $21.99 for "the-path-to-christmas.pdf" but that's not really the point. Amazon needs to respond to these issues quickly. Given that their business depends on internet sales, they need to be careful that they don't develop a reputation as a digital fence for stolen goods.

100 Words About: Newspapers

At my day job, we get three newspapers: the Wisconsin State Journal, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Wall Street Journal. Every day on my breaks I pour through the Wall Street Journal, looking for news about publishing and technology, as well as reading the book review. Not to mention all the neat articles I find just by skimming the titles--articles I never would've found otherwise, but which I'm glad to have read.

You know what else I love about the newspaper? I get all sorts of interesting news about what's going on in the world, but I don't have to listen to or watch or read anything about some comedian I've never heard of from a show I've never seen who said something stupid, or what reality TV star is currently having a meltdown, or which movie celebrity is adopting a kid from some foreign country. You know why? 'Cause that crap's not news, that's why. The only reason that crap gets play nowadays is because the 24-hour news cycle needs stories, and they know they can get the soap-opera crowd to tune in if they have celebrities and human interest stories.

I'll be very sad if newspapers ever really do go away, because even if they are slanted, they're slanted a heck of a lot less than television. And I'd hate to have to rely solely on BBC for honest-to-God news.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Dignity

I'm watching Stephen Colbert, and I have to wonder: was he born with no shame, or did he have a dignity-ectomy? I wonder that about a lot of the Daily Show crew, but Stephen really takes the cake sometimes. I mean, he makes such a fool of himself that I can't bear to watch and I had to come do my blog post while that bit finished up.

Don't get me wrong, I love The Colbert Report. I think Stephen is awesome; he's often very funny and he does a lot of good things. It's just sometimes the humor is all about making the interviewees as uncomfortable as possible, and I don't much like watching it. (To be fair, I can't watch humiliation movies like Meet the Fockers or that sort of thing either.)

100 Words About: Brain 'Splodey

Write by the Lake is over. I'm sad, but also excited, because I feel like I'm really close to having this thing done--and done in a way I'm proud of, not sick of. Not only that, but I had the privilege of helping five other budding novelists get improve their novels, and boy, those are going to be some FANTASTIC novels! I can't wait to read the revisions that will hopefully be showing up in my inbox soon.

It's been a great week, but my brain is very full. Not so full that I can't work, or that I don't know what to do next, but don't ask me any complex questions right now, ok?

I had expected this would be a one-and-done for me, that I'd bring my novel here and get it fixed and then I wouldn't be back. But I'm thinking maybe next year, I'll bring my next novel. Because not only am I confident that I'll have some novel to bring, but that it'll totally be worth coming back. I'm totally re-energized about my writing, and that's a feeling that's hard to come by in this solitary profession.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Cleaning

We're looking at adopting a second dog, and the nice people are coming out to the house tomorrow to make sure we're not hoarders or something. (I kid.) So I've spent three hours cleaning, and still have to vacuum the living room. Blarg. Fortunately The Husband is handling the upstairs, which is Cat Litter Mess Central.

There is something sort of primal about a deep clean. Not the brush-the-crumbs-off-the-counter kind of cleaning, but the my-elbows-hurt-from-scrubbing kind. It's like once I get started I just keep going and going. When I realized the mopping cloths I'd bought wouldn't fit my Swiffer, I even (briefly) considered the old hands-and-knees scrubbing routine.

Fortunately I came to my senses. I'm getting too old for that crap. (Or so I tell myself.) So I'm off to try skating around my kitchen with mopping cloths under my feet. Wheee!

Image: scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Power Naps

Every weekday morning, my alarm goes off at 5:45am. It then goes off every 9 minutes after that until 6:30am, when we finally get up.

We have mastered the morning power nap.

For whatever reason, by the time the alarm goes off at 6:30am I'm more or less ready to be awake and alert, whereas when we used to just set the alarm for 6:30am I'd be groggy and zombie-like.

I'm not entirely sure how this works.

I first learned to power nap in college, when I would catch catnaps in the hallway in between classes. (People thought this was weird, but I didn't care.) Now I can drop off to sleep fairly quickly most nights, and in between the alarms I'm usually back asleep and dreaming within seconds.

I think it's a way for my brain to ramp up to full consciousness. By the time that last alarm goes off, I'm usually just dozing and sort of thinking ahead to what I need to do that day.

Do any of you power nap? What's your morning routine?

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: May Flowers

Gods know April was rainy enough to bring some awesome May flowers. Every year my yard gets closer to my goal of being nothing but violets and creeping charlie. The violets are just starting to wilt in some of my neighbors' yards, but my honeysuckle are starting to bloom, and while the dogwood has lost most of its petals, the chives are about to flower.

And the lilacs have started blooming. Bliss! I swear there's heroin in lilac blossoms.

The roses had been off to a good start, but the Husband cut them back and now one is taking awhile to put out new growth. The other is well on its way. My lavender plant has new shoots, and the woody nightshade is starting to put out leaves. I transplanted some along the fence, and I think some of the transplants will take. And the creeping bellflower is, well, creeping farther and farther into the rosebed, but I like the stuff. Like the honeysuckle, it just showed up one year, and I approve of that kind of initiative.

100 Words About: The American Cultural Dichotomy

Growing up as a WASP in small-town America, many moral values were impressed upon me. I was told that honesty was valued, and honor, and chastity, and loving one's neighbor. I was told that compassion was important, and sharing was praised, and understanding and empathy and charity were supposed to guide my actions.

All of these virtues were given lip service.

But we are a country where cunning is often valued more highly than honesty, and skillful manipulation is admired. People talk about honor to their kids, but they don't practice it, and it's often derided in favor of "sense." ("She said she would do X and he believed her? That boy don't have a lick of sense.")

Maybe it comes from being a country founded on using guerrilla tactics against "honorably" ranked and drawn-up troops. The founding fathers weren't terrorists; they had "sense."

This dichotomy has often left me feeling conflicted. Honesty is the one that gets me the most often. I admire honesty, but I also admire sophistry. (More in the classic sense than the modern, but both apply.) Sophistry requires skill. Honesty requires courage. The fable of George Washington and the cherry tree never seems to end with the serious ass-whuppin' his honesty probably would've gotten him. If it did, I think most Americans would probably have the attitude of "well, snaps to him and all, but that was dumb."

We admire bravery. But we admire it more when it's coupled with cleverness. And we never forgive or forget when it comes to getting caught out.

Image: vichie81 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About:

Recently it was revealed that a tenth-grade teacher in Pennsylvania writes erotica on the side.

Now she's looking at losing her job, or at best having to choose between teaching and writing.

Seriously, WTF people? She's been described even by her detractors as "a top-of-the-line teacher." You'd rather get rid of a top-rate teacher than possibly have a frank discussion with your kid about erotic fiction?

What she does on her own time is none of your business. If she writes under a pseudonym and doesn't discuss her work in the classroom, what is your problem? Do you think tenth graders don't know about sex yet? (If so, you're doing your kids a serious disservice.)

One comment from an offended parent said, "Now my son knows, so how is he thinking when he's sitting in her class knowing what she does on the side."

First off, do you expect your kid to be sitting in class thinking about the fact that all their teachers who have kids had sex at some point? Besides, you have a tenth-grade boy. He's going to be thinking about sex all the time anyway. (Don't believe me? Read Angela's Ashes.)

Hell, one of the books I had to read in my ninth-grade English class was Fade by Robert Cormier. That's a book that deals with inappropriate relations between an aunt and nephew, and incest between a brother and sister. That was far more messed up than finding out one of my teachers wrote erotica would be.

(And see, I turned out fine...oh, wait, I turned out to be an erotica writer. Um. But I'm willing to bet the rest of my class didn't. So there.)

Yes, this touches a nerve for me. A couple of nerves, given the systematic attacks on public-school teachers across our nation lately. (Public-school educated and proud of it!)

Of course, I wouldn't care if it turned out my kid's teacher was a stripper on the side, so maybe I'm already going to have a hard time seeing eye-to-eye with these folks.

100 Words About: Working at Work

A federal jury ruled yesterday that Mattel does not own the Bratz dolls IP and the company must pay $88.5 million to MGA Entertainment.

The long-running dispute (seven years and counting - Mattel is expected to push for a new trial) centers around whether creator Carter Bryant worked on the Bratz dolls idea while employed by Mattel, with whom Bryant signed an invention agreement in 1999.

How does this apply to writing?

In short: know your contracts, folks. Also, doing work for yourself while you're on the clock is a bad, bad idea. Even though, as things stand now, the jury ruled that Mattel doesn't own the copyright, this is the third ruling on the suit, and Mattel did win one of those. Mattel is also rumored to have spent $400 million on the ongoing litigation.

Do you have $400 million? I sure as hell don't.

Image: scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Digital Publishing (and Whiskey)

Publisher's Weekly has an interesting "whiskey poll" from the London Book Fair wherein of those who responded "nearly 80% of publishers expect e-book sales to surpass physical books within 15 years. Of that number, 32% expect e-book sales to overtake print sales within 10 years and 5% within five years. On the other hand, 18% said that e-book sales will never surpass physical book sales."

I spent this week doing an online seminar through How To Write Shop on Digital Self-Publishing for the Newbie. I'm also reading some books on the subject. (Oddly, one digital, one not. BTW, The Husband bought me a Nook! Go, Husband!) While many of the anthologies I've been in have been ebook only already, or had mostly ebook sales, I expect to jump into self-pubbing a few short stories in the next couple of months, just to see what the response is like. I don't know if that 80% of publishers are going to be right...but it doesn't hurt to try to get in before the train leaves, right?

What e-readers do you all use, and where do you download your books from? So far I've gotten a few from Barnes and Noble, of course, but I've also gotten several from Google Books and Archive.org. I expect I'll be using Smashwords, B&N, and Amazon. Where and in what formats would you like to see my work? Leave a comment and let me know!

And now I'm off to WhiskeyFest, woohoo!

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

100 Words About: Construction

You know, when the city sent us a letter saying they were going to be doing some utility work and would be replacing part of our sidewalk and driveway apron, I thought the most annoying part would be the $1800-$2000 it was going to cost. But no. I forgot to factor in my sound-sensitive bulldog.

The poor boy just doesn't know what to do. There are noises outside! Noises! Outside! Alert! Alert!

So he's on some meds "to take the edge off," and we've got a little DAP plug-in, and I'm leaving music on when we're out of the house, but ugh. He's making me insane. And I can't even blame him, 'cause he's a guardian breed. This is what he's supposed to do. It's just that now he's gotten so overstimulated that even the cats meowing will set him off.

Besides walking him more or taking a pet-inclusive vacation, anyone have any further suggestions?

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net