BOOKS

The local library probably has more actual "books" inside their doors than the last "bookstore" you were in.   Still, most of them are now lending e-books and actual e-reading devices,  and I am sure they are not lying awake all night worrying if they are doing the right thing.  Which thing? Take your pick.  This is going to be kind of like those books you buy in the gas station when you are on a long road trip and they fill in the blanks in the story and then you are supposed to laugh or marvel.

Anyway, it is moot.  Libraries run on tax dollars, right?  Not counting the tote bags they sell and the money that they get from over due fines, and from the used book sale and that box in the corner of the hall full of unclassifiables that are twenty five cents a piece.  Oh, no.  Wait.  Now those are free.  They have the unclassifiables shelved and priced now.

(Aside)  I used to take a book I owned and had finished reading and put it on that shelf.  Hardcovers 50 cents, paperback, 25 cents.  One day I got "caught".  You have to put it in a special slot so it can be catalogued.  A person does this, a library employee, paid with your tax money.  Not a volunteer.  I asked her why they decided to do it that money wasting way and were they afraid someone would not put down the quarter or the two quarters that they were charging for books people left off for free? I guess our town is so safe and secure that they do not have a training program at the library for new hires on how to deal with the local anarchist.  I just set my book on the shelf while making a noise that I hope sounded like a wry chuckle and not a threat and left.  She can stick it in the slot herself.

Anyway, I just read another article about how Penguin is determined to crush the world of publishing and reading under their heel, or maybe that is the wrong metaphor.  Maybe Penguin is actually trying to bring the world of publishing to its knees.  Heels, knees, what ever. Now they will not give the author of the book a copy of his own book pre-release, unless he pays  $300. Why did he NOT upload his MS to Adobe Books before he sent it to them? Well, someone said then he is not seeing any of the final edits. Lora Leigh sells like hotcakes, and you would go through two red pencils sitting and editing any of her books just for fun. The same rule applies to the cover art, or the facsimile of the actual cover, or something.  And everyone is ringing in, which is I guess what I am doing here, and wringing their hands about rights and DRM and piracy.

I am small potatoes.  I do no promo and I drop off the map in two or three months.  But I did enough business back in the day when I cared about being a writer to win a spot in someone's algorithm so if someone buys even one of my titles, my rating jumps way up.  Of course that probably doesn't mean anything to most of you since you don't know anything about purchasing one of my titles since you have no experience at that sort of thing. (Yeah. Bitchy.) During one promotion when I was able to offer Sacred Sin for free, I had over 6,000 downloads.  The day after the freebie was over I had eight cash sales (no returns) and shortly thereafter, in one day, which I remember clearly, cuz it never happened again, I had thirty two cash sales of different titles. I have had (few) cash sales in Germany, France, and Italy and I do pretty good in New Zealand for some reason. I am building up to this.  As an Indie I may have had equal or less success than most, but most of the stats I have read state that I have sold more than the average Joe E-pubber.  Well, actually it said I made more money than Joe.  And this is my point.  I am on Pirate sites. Some let you download a PDF for free.  I saw one the other day that was charging more for my Anymore than I do.  I don't see a cent of that money.  I actually find it flattering.  They go on about DRM which has been a non-issue for at least four years.  You can find how to break DRM in dozens of places on the net.  They talk about having a real publisher, a real agent, a real book.  I net more on a single copy of my book than almost anyone who goes through the traditional method.  Unless it keeps selling for years, like Harry Potter but not like Shades of Gray which is already dropping out of sight.

I cannot understand the furor they are trying to create.  It is like they are screaming from the bottom of a well and there is a hurricane roaring right over head of that well.  I know they have to try.  I know there are firm believers, but how many JKRowlings come along?  Not enough to make more than one publishing house happy. That David Foster Wallace was goopy and he is gone.  Did you read him?  Did you try?  I tried.  I think I checked out a Franzen but returned it unread.  I read this book that knocked my socks off about this guy that was having weird dreams and deja vus and then a missile crashed into his office building and I never saw a review of it and I cannot remember the title much less the author's name.

Maybe I will never publish another book.  Maybe I am a flop.  Maybe I am jealous.  But that is all about me trying to be an author.  Me being a reader, I have the creds.  And I know these people are barking up the wrong tree.  (That happened just before they fell in that well. )

Did you see that movie Happy Feet? They inserted a huge electronic tracking module into the body of this famous dancing penguin and he was happy. There is surely a metaphor in there somewhere.

Image attribution:  Life-Is-But-A-Stage.blogspot.com

Y'know?

This is all a little confusing.  I hate promo, and when I am doing it, I am doing it on a surface level.  It produces meager results, but it produces results so I have to keep doing it until the right person reads the right words. Then I am home-free, money in the bank, genius acknowledged.  Well, no.  Probably not.  But what I was saying about doing it on a surface level--

There are many helpful sites.  There was one on Goodreads that had a list of places to post your freebie promotion.  These are very helpful.  I use more each time, and the downloads of my freebies are phenomenal, thousands, actually.  If one percent of those bought the thing or even read it, it would be sweet.  But anyway--

I get mixed up about which sites said which thing, and I do not have the mental ability to keep track of it.  I have notebooks full of web addresses and where my last chapter ended and I will post a whole promo and realize, thank God usually before hitting PUBLISH, that I have used the wrong book.  It is one of the others that is on freebie this time.  Seriously.  I have done that.  I try to watch it and supervise myself, but I guess I am just not that vested. It may be age related, but it is certainly, let me assure you from the lofty viewpoint of my aging reputation,  not an IQ problem.

I think it is mostly Linked-In, a site of spurious reputation.  It seems to generate lots of hits and downloads, but it is always full of people offering their editing services and someone from a distant Nation offering conversion services which is a laugh and a half.  If I can do it, and I have done it beautifully, anyone can.  But maybe they buy those conversion services because they are not that vested in their projects. But the site to which I give  vague and unreliable reference constantly has people mouthing off about editing.  How you are just plain stupid if you do not at least invest the money in a good editing service.  (What money?)  I retort constantly about the complete superfluity of conversion services,and I retort frequently about the unnecessary expense of purchasing editor services.  Most of us have no way to discern the reliability of such services, and I kind of think if we did have that ability, or that much familiarity with the process, we would not be sitting in our dining rooms at our PCs uploading our "work" all by ourselves.  Maybe that is just me.

I was used as an editor in an unofficial capacity at Contemporary books some years ago.  To explain that, I was given unedited manuscripts and expected to return printer ready galleys with all the errors edited out and corrected. This was only after I had worked there for a number of years and proved my abilities.( By the way, I would only want a proofread from anyone.  I don't want my peculiar style edited away.)

But today I followed a link to a site that had an excerpt from a book about the Iraq War.  It was labeled humorous, a biting satire.  No.  The excerpt was not humorous.  It was a dead on narration of the way things are.  There were problems I had with the story.  The person who printed the excerpt on this blog was an editor at Grove Atlantic.  He did admit this was his first project (or, at least, his first in that capacity at that company) and he was infatuated with it, (his included remarks about the moral or practical elements of that war being waged  may have influenced his attitude,)  but he mentioned, when expounding about the work, several times, military officials sitting in the safety of the FOB and making decisions and giving commentary about the actual battle front of which they had very biased views.  FOBs are most definitely NOT havens of safety.  They are shelled all the time.  They are targets.  Big targets. So that was wrong.  Then I read the excerpt which was well written and a powerful narrative.  But he would use a phrase and you couldn't get whether he had the reference wrong or if he was being facetious.  I read a lot.  I get irony, sarcasm, jokes, etc.  Seriously.  I get it. I can even write it.  I guess you have to take my word for that cuz you haven't read any of my work yet, have you?  And this guy's attempts at acerbicness (acerbicity?) (being acerbic!) or wryness (being wry) or direct humor fell short a few times, just in the excerpt.

THEN, one of my bigger concerns because I deal greatly with dialogue, some say successfully, but there again you will have to take my word--there was a paragraph with quotes from two different people in the same paragraph.  Does that seem like nit-picking to you?  It wouldn't if someone had said to you that they had trouble figuring out who was speaking at the time.  (I don't go for that "he said" "she replied" "he retorted" stuff, probably to a fault.)  My grand daughter, darling though she is, has no interest in writing so much as a grocery list, but is able to quote that rule to me.  A new paragraph for each speaker, even if it is only a one word quote. Crap. That's hitting the return key once.  Now this was an excerpt that was presented for our viewing by the guy who edited it for Christ's sake.  This, to me, is up there with the typo in the New Yorker cartoon (yeah, I saw that) and the typo in the two page, glossy, perfume ad spread in Vogue Magazine.  Yeah.  That was real.

I just don't like the pot calling the kettle black, so to speak.  Getting an MFA in fine arts, or writing, or literature, or what ever they label it, does not indicate anything but some writing on a fancy piece of paper for which you paid great sums of money.  More to be said for epublishing.  That editor is the one that would be selecting your offering from the bunch of offerings presented to him by the agent that won't even reply to your query.

AUTUMN

It doesn't matter if I love the cool breezes and the colored leaves.  I get depressed in the Fall.  More depressed I should say.  It shows up everywhere.  My house is a mess.  If I get a row of counters washed, I have to pat myself on the back because, the job itself is not hard--is pleasant--provides instant gratification, but I have to "work" up to it.  To get myself to do it. 

I am sick of this book promo thing and have two more to publish and I think one is not actually "done".  I was having trouble remembering the main character's name the other day.  I am just tired of it.  I know the whole thing was because I was on that crappy Welbutrin, and the stuff I am on now is almost as bad as Paxil, that you totally do not give a shit about anything.   So, maybe I was manic, and after I came back down, I realized I was writing stuff that was practically porn, and I went in and got all fucking sensible and took so much crap out, and now I realize, it doesn't matter.  I opened a book in WalMart the other day cuz this one message board talks about Lora Leigh and I always envied that she did this whole book series about the Navy Seal, and I have trouble maintaining a character like that for more than a few lines in a couple of chapters, and I probably have way more experience with them than she ever will, but that is another story that I probably will never write cuz it is pathetically, fucking sad.  But I opened the book, and the cover doesn't even say Explicit Content and the page I open it to is this guy telling this girl to blow him in a kind of authoritarian cruel, definitely not loving kind of way, and she is so all excited to chow down on this guy and it was just so blah, and what the heck ever happened to the blue oxford cloth shirt as a sex symbol? And she has a whole web site devoted to how badly edited her books are, and how many mistakes she makes, and she probably is rolling in money, her sales are astronomical, and the reason they are not edited very well is that the editors have just read about one blow job too many at this point, and I suddenly realize I should have spent my life writing dissertations on the parallels between the color spectrum and the depression spectrum, or maybe continue, much as they have done  with the very successful Nancy Drew series,  writing the Mary Poppins series and sort of segued her into the Space Age and through the Cold War and into the computer age.  Mary Poppins and the Magic of HTML.

I get terrible attacks of give up-itis very frequently and have throughout my life, and I think it is because just getting through the day is such a huge enterprise for me that I should just not even bother with having something that is mine "to do" as my doctor puts it because it is minuscule and a total fucking waste of time.  I need to spend more time figuring out how to feed my granddaughter the bottle with out falling asleep and having the bottle fall on the floor and the baby roll under the coffee table.  No.  You don't have to report me.  That didn't happen.  But the falling asleep and dropping the bottle part did.

I spend too much time questioning the worth of my existence and not enough time washing  the dishes. And no, there are no dishes that need to be washed either, at the moment, which is why I am sitting here putting meaningless symbols on a plastic screen again.  I was being figurative.  My whole fucking life is figurative and when I understand what it is supposed to represent, it is all over.  

I

DIGITS

I guess I had a bad day, although I was not aware of it at the time.  It rained off and on, and I don't mind the rain.  It means I don't have to go out and water all my flowers which I really don't mind doing, but I always get mosquito bit even if I carefully spray that very expensive and nasty Off on.  Or spray on Off.  But I've just been surfing and procrastinating and I noticed I feel confessorial.  Is that a thing?

I actually still feel a little ill from that sun issue, and I am quite angry with Mother Nature over that, but I realize I have dealt unfairly with her and she owes me a few.  So I have to get better physically and get over my blame thing.  Nothing can be done about it now.  It happened.  It's over. 

I need to admit that I want to and try to disregard peoples feellings.  I think  that is justified, but I am not in an excuse making mood.  The truth is, if I am pissed off at you, you can go fuck yourself, and I usually want to tell you that immediately, and I usually do, and I seldom feel regret for it and I generally think, before and after the fact or the incident, that you deserve it.  And, upon later rumination, if I feel I was impetuous in my judgement, I have no problem apologizing.  I frequently will add why I think it happened, not as an excuse, but actually, believe this or not as you choose, as an explanation so you will understand and find it easier to forgive.  This is rare.  That I actually find you undeserving of my wrath and feel you deserve my apologies or that I would expect your forgiveness.   Often I will offer a most sincere sounding apology for something I said or did, not because I am truly sorry I did it, but because I feel bad about hurting your "feelings" which I so expertly run rough shod over.  This is so direct a result of a glaring fact in my upbringing that it doesn't need any more explanation than does the fact that I have red hair.  Hurting "feelings", even those of an unloved pet, or a disliked person, is not something I would ever choose to do.  If I just shot you and got rid of the misery you were causing me, at least then, while I languish in my cell, I will not have the pain of thinking about you walking around with hurt feelings.  You won't be feeling anything. 

I find that when I write fiction, those passages when I deal with people who are more than fond of each other having painful issues dealing with one another, I go on and on with dialogue, having these two imaginary creatures waltz all around the actual issues, trying to say what they think and feel and get to the point where they want you to understand why they are telling you to go fuck yourself but not hurting your feelings or making you feel unloved.  What  is that all about?  I am so quick to fly off the handle.  You don't see it as much as you did when I was 29 cuz I can put up the facade and say the no nevermind words, but in my mind, the bullet has gone out the back of your head and taken 92% of your brain with it.  And I will clean up the mess it left on the wall and the floor with no reluctance.  I am VERY good at cleaning up messes.

In my books I think it is cuz she still wants to have sex with the guy and doesn't want to admit to herself that he is an asshole cuz he is a good lay.  But that for sure does not transfer to my real life.  I guess maybe I wish it did, or it had.  Then.

YIKES

I just read the most depressing blog I have ever seen.  It was called Kuwait is the New Black, and the guy that wrote it--wow.   I have read blogs where the child is ill and then they post the announcement about the funeral service, and you're crying, or the mom was sick and passed.  And, shit, when you read this guy's blog, please DON'T, I don't want him to have the traffic, you will think anyone who passed from this life, sorrow for those they left behind, but no one wants to share the planet with this dude.  Ugly soul, taking up space.  Why?   Why is life so unfuckingfair so often? 

Isaac Asimov (I think it was him) or Arthur C. Clark,  maybe, wrote this story about how God ran out of souls cuz there was a finite number and He didn't count on people hanging around so long, so people were starting to be born without a soul.  Y'know, when He started the human project, life expectancy was 33 years.  And, to quote myself, who better than God knows how imperfect someone can be. So maybe this dude, I know he is not living in MY country, and the title makes me suspect stuff, but I didn't explore too much, but maybe this dude was hiding behind the barn when the souls were being handed out.  Or maybe God ran out. 

Anyway, I shouldn't even be venting about this, but I am kinda wound up and was before I saw his fucking hideous blog. 

We went to see Super 8 tonight.   I thought it was great.  Tons of subtext.

(Now that I think of it, someone was published that wrote about a woman with no soul and how she was the only one who got the goods on the vampire.  No, I didn't read it, and won't.)

STATS

I admit I am a little obsessed with my stats.  I probably don't need to explain that it is an ego thing.  I have been feeling kind of bad lately that I am within a few minutes of launching my book and my stats have been in the gutter.  And I have had some editing problems, like the mysterious dotted lines that when you try to get rid of them, they reproduce like bacteria.  I am actually kind of afraid to open the MS cuz once I did and it had a bunch of red paragraphs, and I always look at that stuff like a sign from God. Although He has already mentioned that He likes the book and is glad I spelled His name right, and, no, He will not sue for royalties, I am free to quote Him as I see fit.  And I am so thrilled with my cover art.  I get scared that I am fooling myself about this whole thing, but then I have to reassure myself that I have good instincts and have always had to chastise myself when I let someone talk me out of following them.  So I am going to give it a go anyway.  Yeah, don't hold your breath just now.  Or sneeze.

But today?  The google stat thing is unreliable.  I have read about how they have all these different sources and it can be confusing, and last month was not too great.  And I am kind of ticked about fucking FaceBook.  It is like nobody pays any attention to me on it.  I kind of wish they had a FaceBook hissy page. But my blog stats said I had seventeen hits yesterday, and I think that is one of my all time highs.  I wonder why they don't comment.  I comment on all kinds of blogs.  Who cares if they have no clue who I am. 

And there was no particular reason for it which makes it feel better.  I have been feeling bad that I have not been connecting with some of my favorites that usually provide good return, but apparently some of them remember me anyway.  So, I am ready.  Just need to work on some chapter numbers, and I have kind of a weird idea about titles, and, lately I have been saying about stuff like Louie driving after his first vicodin hit, it is in the hands of God, so I am not going to worry about the red paragraphs, and God is actually kind of excited about His little chapter in the book.  He wants people to sit up and notice Him too.

And, no, No, NO, it is NOT a Christian book.  It is kind of what you might have to call "Adult".

The Need for Sarcasm

I feel wrung out.  This has been too crowded a week and it's only Wednesday.  I am pretty good at coping, but this week I wanted to throw in that towel so many times and just say, "Fuck it."  And lots of the stuff I had to deal with turned out really well.  Well, there was that one customer service wait with the staticky Muzak.  But I think the thing that is missing is the bouts of laughter that bring tears to my eyes.  Apparently the tears have to go out anyway, (damn that Amygdala) so they were brought on by trips through the bank drive up instead of the strange and funny things that usually happen that we make stranger and funnier. 

My daughter has a friend staying with her, and I guess that is making me a little lonely.  But it would sure be nice if there was someone else in my life that I could converse with until we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. But the subject of friendship has been permanently shelved as far as I am concerned.  And the books I am reading are kind of formulaic, predictable, and dark.  My choices.  Not good ones.  Then last night I am proofing and editing the "Big Deal" and the sad parts were making cry, again, and the technical  mistakes I was finding were way too common.  I couldn't believe it after all this time.  And then one of those stupid dotted lines showed up. That just about drove me off the edge.  At least nothing turned red.  The sooner I launch that boat, the better.  If it sinks, oh well, I tried.  And tried.  And tried. 

I know all these feelings are aspects of my personality that I have had to deal with all my life, and part of it is my choices and part of it, as an actual physician said to me very recently, is my "neuro-biology".  I wonder if it could be  the weather that is making it all so much harder to deal with.  I am so used to being the way I am that I actually like me and prefer being this way.  I think the "devil may care" attitude toward life has to be an elaborate costume drama for anyone trying to live it.  No.  I KNOW that.  It just gets to me every now and then and I can be in the line in WalMart and feeling a little creeped out  cuz everyone looks ugly and scary and I can be in the line in WalMart and chatting with strangers and smiling at babies that smiled at me first.  And I know it is me.  Not the people in the line at WalMart.   For God's sake.  For one who feels and enjoys being as insular as I am, man, I sure let the outside world get to me way too much.

I am incapable of any sarcastic rejoinders, my stock in trade, my stress release mechanism of choice. Oh, well.  It will come back to me.  It always does.  Right? 

Friendship

My younger daughter has many friends.  My older daughter has friends that have been her friends for many, many years.  My younger daughter had a break with a friend that was very serious.  The person felt betrayed and came back and said, "Well, I am still mad about it, but I have to put it behind me cuz I still want to be your friend."  I would say she and her friends love each other.  I wonder where they learned to have friends and be a friend.  Not from me.

I had a friend for many years.  One.  I have many casual acquaintances and waaaay too many relatives, and I am the kind of person that ends up giving the person in line at KMart a hug when we finally say good bye after our eleven minute life changing conversation.  I am also the kind of person that the Mexican handy man on the estate where I worked offered to marry one day when I was complaining about my spouse.  And I have always been able to make friends with people that I work with.  They have attempted to keep those friendships, and "friendships" going when we no longer worked together and seeing one another became less convenient.  But it was always me that dropped the ball, or let the air out of it. 

The one friendship that persisted did so not because of my efforts.  I am phone phobic and I love to read, and would never  bother to call someone just to catch up or make a date.  I just don't want to.  Part of it is time related, part of it, the biggest part of it, is definitely psychological.  But the friend persisted in keeping in touch.  Now we have parted.  She has denied saying things that I have in print (electronically) and she has accused my husband and me of doing things we did not do.  (Also backed up with the printed words she twisted) She claimed that some years back she decided to steer away from certain topics cuz she thought I was going a little wacko.  Well, shit fire.  Everyone knows I am a little wacko.  And the stuff that I have heard from her over the years indicating she is not going a little wacko but has crossed the line into the land of the strangely unbalanced, well, why even bother?   Today I received a letter from her that is so far beyond the pale (whatever the fuck that means) that my mind is spinning and burning and I am venting on this blog to keep myself from taking her letter and annotating each and every bizarre accusation she makes.   I am asking myself, and everyone around me, and they are getting damn sick of it, why did I ever bother?  What did I ever get out of it?  I would get so nervous about meeting her for lunch, I would have to take a Lunesta (maybe two) the night before or else I would toss and turn in a frenzy of anxiety.

I have rewritten my life in fictional works, three or four times.  I cannot actually rewrite my life, and when I consider the bad things that happened, the terrible tragedies that I wish I did not have to live through, the difficulties and mental obstacles and horrible decisions I have had to make, honestly, I look back and think that is just the way it was.  That is why I am here now and things are this way.  And I honestly don't think I would change it.  Well, maybe I would have married that med student, but I think he had a drinking problem.

But this friendship thing?  I twice have moved from towns and left no forwarding address because I did not want some one who wanted to be my fucking friend ( and I don't literally mean fucking. That's a whole other issue. And a way easier one to deal with.) to find me.  And, honest to God, one of them tracked me down.  What is wrong with me, except that my DNA proves my ancestors are from another galaxy, that makes me think friendship is such a HUGE pain in the ass?  I invite your input.  You may feel free to post anonymously and thereby relieve me from having to do anything, besides accepting gratefully,  that might be construed as friendly. But I am courteous, trustworthy, appreciative, kind, generous, unselfish, highly accountable, extremely responsible, fun, witty, (acerbically), literate, intelligent, attractive in an aging sort of way, just unfuckingfriendly. And that wacko thing.

Quote of the Day, of a Lifetime Maybe. . .

If not now, then when?

If not me, then who?



From some dude on Ted.  Thank you.

Here Comes My Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown

I got the courage to call and make a dr. appt. today.  When I was through my hands were shaking.  I had the same problem calling the dentist last week.  It is totally the phone.  I am not at all nervous when I go to the dr. or dentist.  Anyway, I guess I have to tell her the .25 Xanax isn't cutting it anymore.  I am sure I could go back to "handling" things drug-free if ithe shit wasn't piling up so fast.

I received notice Monday that my driver's license that I just renewed in April is being revoked so I won't be able to drive my wonderful Rendezvous that I love beyond reason, that we put $450 in last month and another $500 the other day so I could pass emission control so I could renew my plates for $112, and today we noticed the water on the rug in the car wasn't because I left the sunroof open, but, in fact, is pouring in from God knows where everytime we start the engine.  My driver's license is being revoked because I sold a car to my daughter's "boyfriend" and didn't take the plates off and he ran up dozens of tickets before I retrieved the plates.  Allstate called and said he was also in an accident, but Allstate took my word about the sale when I sent them a copy of the sales contract.  City of Chicago has received that from me at least four times, but they say I am still on the hook since Jody never retitled the car.  Can this be true?  It seems it is.  Chicago petitioned Illinois to revoke.  And they are.  So I am SOL.

Louie goes in next week for a myelogram (sp?) to determine the exact nature of his spinal damage to prep for surgery and, damn it, they better do a good job of fixing it cuz I have a  bathroom that needs to be  tiled.  We are waiting final word on the mortgage work out and trying to figure out why our electric bill is $350 a MONTH.  Dannie has to move back in,  If my dad tells the story about the lady at the DMV that demanded his DD214 for ID once more, I WILL jump off the porch, which I know will only maim me.  And my dog just pooped under the dining room table without so much as a 'by-your-leave'.

WTF

Blather

I am trying to figure out something that is really bothering me.  I read too many blogs on too many websites.  It uses up way too much of my time.  But I need to fill up the time since it seems my great professional writing career will never get off the ground, and was, apparently, just a reaction to the wrong medication.  This is disappointing to me, needless to say.  And I am not quite throwing in the towel yet.  But I haven't had the courage to look at my manuscripts in quite a while.  And the urge to start another is nonexistent.  The whole time I was writing so prolifically, I was wondering where it all was coming from.  I kept getting these ideas and running with them and asking myself where I got the ideas.  I will probably find out in a few years  that I actually wrote down word for word some story I read thirty years ago that was fermenting in the depths of my brain.

Anyway, the latest thing is that I have no patience with people that I personally feel take themselves too seriously.  Why is that?  Don't I take myself seriously?  You know what?  I don't think I do.  I think I am afraid to.  I think I am way too ready to back down.  Not that I will surrender my principles or beliefs.  I mean, I honestly do not care what you think about that. I go with what I am comfortable with.  But some people tackle a philosophy and they dissect it ad nauseum, and end up with all these semantic distinctions and I counter with an absolutely true, practical, real-life example of what they are talking about and they cannot respond in a realistic way.  They dissect my language or point out a typo.  And I feel like I climbed up the pole and waved  the flag and they all walked away.  And a couple of them stopped and peed on the pole just to accentuate their disdain. I feel like they threw in the towel.  (Maybe so I could wipe up the pee) And I guess I want them to say, "Yeah, Virginia.  You are right.  I was just being an asshole.  I just like to spell long words correctly."  But, seriously, even I don't believe that.  I mean, maybe they have a point.  I am just prepared to shoot them down and show them the errors of their ways, and I back it up with the truth.  I always make sure the gun is loaded and cocked and I have an extra clip handy.  Otherwise, I would not bothering aiming, much less entering into the fray. I do not even start on my theories about how I think God feels about it.  Like recycling, and light bulbs.  What would Jesus do?  I can't even get there.  No one will even say, "No shit.  That really happened?  You must be making it up."  They just blather about lumens should be Lumen and watts should be Watt, like each and every light bulb is actually a tiny biography.  C'mon.  This is reality we are dealing with.  I can't fucking stand it.  We are going down the tubes here and all I've learned is that von Mises took on the economy and bureaucracy but would not address social issues.  How can those things NOT all lean on each other?  If you buy the cheap medicine you don't get well as quickly.  Usually.  A + B = C.  Not A is one side of the coin and Q is the other side of the coin and that constitutes the Tao of knitting, or web surfing or porn addiction.  It's blather.  Stupidity is one side of  the stupidity coin and stupidity is the other side of the stupidity coin and that is the freaking Tao of freaking stupidity. 

And it seems I've been inspired to clean up my language just a little bit.  Fuck that.

And?

Here is a rejection letter, from an agent that handles women's fiction, that I did not retype.  I deliberately did cut and paste to preserve the quality as  best I could. The quotation marks are my own.


"After having a chance to read this, however, I am afraid I am going to pass on this project. While there were certainly elements of the story that were interesting, and, I just didn't feel the story was right for what I am looking for. The end result is that it just didn't appeal to me as much as I had hoped."



I am, of course, bitter and dissappointed.  Harlequin erotic novels are a biggie for the particular agency that sent this to me, and my sweet little stories don't cut it.  My point is, though, that EVERYWHERE you read about how perfect and concise your query letter MUST be or it won't get a second glance.  And truly, I SO much want to know what the and. . . was going to be.  It sounded like he was on the verge of saying one more positive thing before he shot me down.  But all I get was "and". . .  So, let's let the judges pass judgement on themselves here.  I almost want to include this dude's name in my tags, but ain't gonna happen.

Me Me Me Me Me

I'm so special.   I mowed the whole freaking lawn myself.  I planted all the flowers.  I took out the garbage.  I did all the dishes.  I cleaned the counters four hundred and eighty three times.  I got the license.  I paid the bills.  The car was  fixed with my money.  I cooked those amazing brownies.  Gee, my hair smells terrific.  Righteous rack.  See, I told you she dyed her hair.  I can't see that far.  What did you say?  I know.  Isn't she darling?  Just like her mom.  Really smart, too.  Not that that matters in the long run, but you know. . .
No, I don't know.  I never had a zit.  I never used that stuff for diaper rash.. You keep thinking you can get away with it.  The floors need to be stripped.  My Alfredo is better.  When a grown man says, "I wish I could. . ."  Some stuff you never forget.  Some stuff is important.  "Isn't that skirt a little tight?"  "You are the smartest person I know."   "I wish I could. . ."

LINK

This video took my breath away.  You HAVE to watch it.  I think it should turn civilization on its ear.  I cannot believe my reaction to it. I have to think about that. The phrase "open-sourcing" sounds so simple, but has to have more ramifications that I can possibly be aware of.  Please PLEASE leave comments for me.

 I hope it empowers people while there is still time for it.



http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html

Publishing in Today's World.

What do I know?  I know more than a thousand times, someone, somewhere, and in some pretty darn disparate places, has chanced upon or been led to my blog.  I wish I knew if they read it, but the stats only show visitors, and it seems, mostly, they are reluctant to comment.  (Seriously, despite my threats, I will not come after you.)   But, I was thinking about electronic publishing versus the usual query route.  Which I am spending a lot of time doing lately.  Thinking about it and querying.  (C'mon, Dit, just do it.  What do you have to lose?  The people that you write about can't sue you if you have nothing for them to take.  Right?)  And, what I was thinking, and I feel they are thoughts worth considering,is,  if someone commits to downloading your work off Amazon or Borders, or Avon, or Carina, then chances are they will  follow through and read it and maybe comment, and maybe review and maybe spread word of mouth.  I mean, we already know even negative reviews rustle up a spike of interest.

And the querying thing, how they go on and on about how you have to have that hook in your query, a single sentence that is supposed to sell them on your work.  How are they ever going to now how charmingly facetious and whimsical are my darling characters?  How quaintly singular is my style?  How my very naughty creations manage to waltz around the most major moral inconsistencies.  And still be loved and forgiven. 

Michael Connelly is getting so much flak for going along with the price guideline stuff. (Industry standard?)  I wonder if he will fold.  I wonder if he, personally, has anything to say about it or any influence on the outcome.  The industry guideline has already been shown to be way too full of holes and ways to get around it or over it.  You read about Amanda Hocking and you cannot help but be swayed and tempted.  Sure, she signed a contract, but she already made her nut and she was probably happy to hand off just a little of the responsibility.  I don't care about the financial or legal ramifications, so I think I'm going to go back and reread that long, long, article on how to load your work on Kindle and think a little bit more about whether or not it is too complicated.  And whether my Word software can do doc. or only docx. The querying thing is just damn dispiriting.  Especially when you pick up a book that someone already got money for, and it is the same genre as your's and your's is cuter and deeper and naughtier.  Shucks.  I guess if you are not your own best fan, then you shouldn't even be  trying.   Frankly, cover art is my biggest concern.