A Christmas Goody

So, I've been shopping around a flash fiction piece for the last few months only to have no takers. In honor of the Christmas Holiday and all the travel we'll be doing I'll be posting it here.

Click on the link on the right for "Terminal Scribbles" and I hope your travels keep you safe.

Technical Difficulties.

Hello, I've discovered some technical difficulties while working on the right side links to the story. I apologize for this. As a result, please use the following link for the time being until I can get it worked out.

Chapters 1-5

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Reorganizing and House Cleaning

I'm going to be doing some reorganizing of the site over the coming week. As a result some older posts may go away, while others may be combined into shared pages.  I apologize if something you were looking for goes temporarily missing, but it needs  to be done from time to time.

Until then, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Facebook Page

I'm letting people know that I would love to have some more followers on the blog or on Facebook so I've decided that I'll do a little challenge to my readers.  If we can get to 50 Likes on Facebook/followers of the blog I'll post the last chapter and epilogue of "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing" early. Otherwise it'll be posted sometime on Friday of next week.

It's your choice, but I would love to be able to share the ending...

Also, If I can figure out how to do a generic link to the Facebook page I'll post it here.

Free stuff

Sorry for the delay, I just got back from a vacation and life is being difficult. Nanowrimo planning is taking more time in planning that I thought it would and so my evenings have been surprisingly busy. I guess that is the cost of being an ML.

Sadly that means the story is delayed but to make up for it I'm handing out some free e-books from Thursday 10/15 - Saturday 10/17.  So if you want to read more about Patch get the book and read the story at the end of the collection, The Last Day of School.  The link is below.

http://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Sanity-Travis-Coleman/dp/1507631723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444886793&sr=8-1&keywords=escaping+Sanity

Please enjoy the stories.

Delay of Game!

Hello to you select few people who read my blog regularly.  First off let me say I appreciate your support and I hope you're inviting others to enjoy the story.  That being said this week has decided to come at me with a chainsaw and I'm currently hiding in a cupboard barely breathing and hoping to go unnoticed.  So, once this week leaves the room I'll get this story finished, (sometime this weekend).  I'll post to Facebook and Twitter when it's available.

That being said, find my page on Facebook and like it, as I try to fill it with awesome stuff!  Follow me on Twitter at @TravColeman and be prepared for updates.  This story is going to get serious and there will be updates every week for October until the end of "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing."  I hope you are ready for it.

Irons in the Fire

An author friend of mine once commented that he felt the need to keep many irons in the fire. It worked well for him to rotate through stories. When one wasn't speaking to him he'd rotate out and work on another in order to keep himself writing.

I love this analogy. There is a bit of a geek inside me that would love to work a forge, but that aside it speaks of something true. A story and a piece of metalwork have a lot of similar properties. Neither are going to be perfect on the first try. Both need to be tempered, cared for, and worked carefully under a watchful eye. What someone who has just written their first short story sees as beautiful, someone who has put his time in at the forge will say that it needs work and can point out flaws.

I think the part of the analogy that I like best though, is both can produce a thing of beauty. The finish product can be beautiful, terrible, useful, or elegant. But once they're forged you can have them until they sell to someone who will love and care for them.

I bring this up because I've got a lot of pieces of work out right now that I'm waiting to hear back on.  Nothing novel length, only short and flash fiction pieces that I've enjoyed writing.  I know that my odds of success and my odds of failure are pretty much the same.  But if I get rejected I can always comb over it again and try for another sale.

The hardest thing you can do is to keep producing though when nothing is selling.  To keep practicing when success hasn't been around in a while.  Eventually though, it's bound to turn up, I can only hope that I have what it's looking to buy when it does.

Also, check out the new chapter of "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing" which was posted tonight.  Plus, if you'd like to read more by me check out the self-published short story collection "Escaping Sanity" on Amazon.  There are many irons in there that taught me something about writing.

A Change in Schedule

I've been struggling to work on my serial during the weekends as that is when I get the most writing time.  As a result I find myself distracted by bigger projects and tinkering away with A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing during the weekdays.  As a result I'll be moving updates to Friday's every other week until the story plays out.

Now without further ado, please go and read Chapter 8 here.

Delayed story

This is a quick post to anyone who is following my blog, there will be a delay in this weeks story.  I'm scrambling to get it done, but this weekend left me fighting to make sure I had the order of events for these chapters.  As a result of that it set back the progress and I've thrown away about three start's.  It is coming though and I haven't forgotten you.  I'll post on Facebook and Twitter when it's done.  Until then go read my friend Lee's story Silence in the Willow Fields.  He's working on getting a site updated for more stories and I'll be with you shortly.

Writers Groups

I am a couple days overdue on a blog post and I apologize for that. I was searching for a good topic and my mind like an arid desert. Nothing took root, nothing grew, so I waited.  I'm glad now that I did because I found a topic that I loved and will now happily write about: Writers Groups.

There is something enjoyable about getting together with like minded individuals which helps kindle the arts.  While this isn't true in all cases, sometimes amazing things occur when minds come together. When musical groups and writers get together ideas bounce around and great things happen. Best of all, in my point of view, the people come out of it feeling strengthened and the creative juices replenished.

An example that I like to use is the song Fame by David Bowie.  If you're not familiar with it please stop everything you're doing and go watch it here.  Now that we're all familiar with it you'll recognize the lovely and iconic guitar part. The story I've heard about this that John Lennon used to have a place in New York where different musicians would meet and jam. The output of one of these sessions when David Bowie was there was this guitar part, it was something that David Bowie was interested in and so he was told he could have it.

Now this isn't something for everyone and there comes a certain level of paranoia.  Letting someone into your creative circle can be both amazing and poisonous. When someone seems like a thief there to steal every gem of an idea it doesn't foster the creative spirit.  But when respect is shown, and the ideas of each person are treated with the reverence of a fine painting, it is an amazing experience.

I know this is shorter than my normal posts, but having had my first writers group meeting in almost six months was awesome.  If you're part of a writers group or circle, take a minute and thank those around you.  Thank them for taking your questions about "which household chemicals could cause a laxative effect without killing the person?" or "If the sun were white instead of yellow what color would things show?" seriously.  Also, should you want to know the answers to the questions, 1) Epsom Salt 2) I'm still working on a good way to figure that one out.

Thoughts on Writing

I was recently loaned a copy of "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card.  As someone who enjoys writing and has read many of his novels I figured I would love to read what he had to say. I've enjoyed Stephen King's "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" and found David Farland's "Million Dollar Outlines" to be a great learning tool.  Going into this new book I secretly wanted to read more about Ender's Game.

I can honestly say that I haven't been disappointed and have learned something early on about the series I love.  The idea for the battle came to him in the mid-late sixties yet he didn't write it until the mid-seventies.  How many of us can't remember where we put our keys? How often do we misplace something we were just using? Yet to remember and develop an idea for over almost ten years is amazing.

I've had a few ideas which have stuck with me and developed for a while. The idea for the villain of my serial "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing" came to me while I was driving to Oregon almost six years ago.  The villain, which started off as a truck driver/serial killer, felt stagnant.  It was an observation which came to me about the Twilight movies which gave the idea roots.  It was a complaint that I had due to the lack of variety in some of the classic horror movie monsters.

At that time the major horror bad guys seemed to be zombies, vampires (twilight being an exception to the horror part), and ghosts. As an avid D&D player I know that there are many different types of undead.  Ghouls, wights, liches, and other spectral menaces. This seemed to work well with the traveling serial killer, someone who was afraid to stay in one place for fear of being discovered.  A creature moving among us that none of us would like to meet in a dark alley. I was struck at how well his own ideas seemed to mirror my own, the idea needing time to get its own legs and develop before becoming a story.

Another thing which he said, and something that I can really agree with, is that you have to define the rules of your world. If there is something which can kill your villain, then you need to know it.  If there is a fantastic element whether it be magic, super science, or some perpetually reappearing monster, you need an explanation of how it works.  If you don't pay attention to these details the story won't hold water or carry the readers attention.

I have a novel which is currently unfinished with the working title Legacy.  In Legacy, there is a fantastic element that I was developing as I was writing.  I never sat down and defined it, I said it was a "trickster spirit" or a "creature of chaos" and left it at that.  Now I'm at a fulcrum point into the story where I will be building into the final climax of the book but it's stalled.  The problem is, these spirits were still fuzzy to me. It is hard to write what you don't understand.

It wasn't until I was reading this section of his book that I realized this was the problem. It has been two or three months where I've been unable to work on that and I couldn't figure out why.  But my writers block is due to my own negligence. Had I put my ducks in a row at the beginning of the story, then I wouldn't have suffered this now so close to the end.

The overall point that I was going for in this blog is a lesson I seem to need to learn again and again.  Sometimes we need to read something we normally wouldn't.  I consider myself a horror writer, so reading a book about Science Fiction and Fantasy didn't seem like a fit.  Yet by reading a book that a friend handed me I was able to solve a problem. It doesn't hurt to get out of your comfort zone, to take advice that you didn't know for certain if you'll need. I think I'll take this advice and look for other words of wisdom from other sources.  Perhaps read some non-fiction, or a cook book, or perhaps even some classic literature.  Something new to add to take me out of my comfort zone, who knows what I'll learn. Hopefully it will be something I can apply to make myself a better writer.

An overdue post

I haven't posted on the blog in a while because I've been busy working on the serial short story that I've been posting. There has also been editing and rewriting on the novel I'm working on right now.  I realize that some people care more about the stories than about the thoughts of a writer but I feel that I have neglected it.

What I'd like to address is that I've had several people point out typos in one of my stories that I published in Escaping Sanity.  The story is called, "Rapture" and it is the second story in the anthology.  I don't want to give spoilers but I wrote the story after I had just experienced a loss.

While I was dating the woman who is now my wife she adopted a dog.  The dog was just a beautiful animal and one that I came to love.  She was a part of our life in a way that I wouldn't have expected.  She was there for us during our wedding, for the birth of our first child, and she was an integral part of our family.  That was when she got sick, that was why that story is so hard.

I've tried reading through the story with intent to edit but it brings me to the verge of tears.  It is surprisingly hard to edit something so emotional, many friends have felt depressed after reading it.  There is something about the story which carries emotional weight I hadn't intended.  I want to go back, to fix the typos, but to open that story brings memories to light that I want to keep buried for now.

I'm happy that my writing was able to bring such emotion to a story.  I was able to present a story which could change a mood, even if it was to make someone sad, which was flattering.  But try as I might I'm not sure I'm willing to go fix it.

Also, I understand that i'm late on last weeks story.  I apologize for this, but I discovered that a sinus headache from a head cold is horrible for concentration. To make up for this expect two stories in the next week. I'll be cranking it into overdrive and hope to have the first up by Tuesday at Midnight MST.  So look forward to that.  If you haven't read any of "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing" then start at the beginning and enjoy.

 

Short stories versus Novels

I love to write short stories. It seems that every time I want to try something new that is where I turn.  There is something that is lovely about a short sweet story that lets you explore a new idea or style.  When I wrote my short story Rapture it was to try to help cope with my recent loss of a beloved family pet. My story Save the Last Dance was a trial of meshing a dystopian story with a contrasting image.  In the case of this story it was the song and dance of Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly.

While I love to write short stories I have found that I struggle to read short story collections, anthologies, and even those in magazines.  I find it refreshing to sample something small without committing to an entire novel.  It's like the free samples at the grocery store, all the flavor with none of the obligation of buying a twenty pound box of frozen tacos.  Yet if you have too much of the same subject, writer, or style it can become stale rather quickly.  This is why I can go through a novel in a week yet it can take me up to a year to get through a short story collection.

So as I was sitting at home sick this last week, unable to write, unwilling to read for fear of my brain acting up with fever dreams, I had something to ponder.  I began to wonder why it was that the short story collection I was working on still had at least one hundred pages left, I'd only been reading it for about a year.  In the same time I had read probably at least twenty novels, if not more.

The conclusion that I came up with is that there is a thread of continuity in a novel which keeps us reading.  While a chocolate sampler is nice from time to time we generally have recipes and foods we eat weekly.  We go back to the same treats, cakes, or dishes that makes us happy time after time.  This is what the novel does, it prepares us something that we like just with some new developments, twists, or characters.

Let's use macaroni and cheese as our example as most people have polarizing feelings towards it.  There is something nostalgic about going back to our childhood with hot dogs and mac and cheese.  You can dress it up by making it from scratch, adding four, six, even eight types of cheese.  You can throw a curve ball at us by adding something like bell pepper, bacon, or even some sun dried tomatoes to the mix.  In the end though it is still something we know and are comfortable with deep down inside.

When you look at the stories of your favorite authors many of them fall into very similar plot patterns. These are our comfort foods, the foods for thought.  For Stephen King I'd say it's a slow burn horror, the story builds pressure like a pressure cooker, and in the end you are never sure if you'll find the ending really satisfying.  I know the characters are going to be well developed, and that I will find myself passionately questioning whether they really should have made key decisions.  I love Stephen King and when I'm in the mood for something like this it is the first place I turn.  Yet even when I find a collection of his like Four Past Midnight or Different Seasons I can't seem to read straight through it.

There is something to be said about the beauty of a novel.  When done right it'll make you turn pages in the way an anthology won't.  When it's done you feel satisfied and can walk away happy (most of the time) as though you'd just left an all-you-can-eat buffet.  You've had your meal and you don't have a bunch of stuff still on the plate, as it often is with anthologies.  The story is ready to be digested and you can start deciding what you want for dinner.

With this revelation I'll probably still read short story anthologies, but I won't plan to get through it as fast as I would a novel.  Sometimes you just want a sample, sometimes you want the full meal.

The importance of reviews.

I have been wanting to write this blog for a while now, probably since I started the blog.  I had just published a collection of short stories and came to the realization that reviews are important.  They're not important in a way that you can pay some guy to read your book and quickly crank out a review, it is something that needs to be heart felt.  

I realize that I am probably as guilty as everyone else in this.  I read a book, get to the end, talk about how good the book is and move on with my day.  Yet in today's market with the self-publishing options that are available to us a good review is the difference between someone buying your book or passing.  

We've all been eyeing products online, or even at the store when we ask someone what they think of it. We already have a good idea of what we'll like, but we have that little nagging voice in the back of our head of self-doubt.  What if the television's picture isn't as sharp as I think it is?  What if there is a newer model of the phone out in two weeks that'll make anyone who owns this one look like a chump?  What if we're not the educated consumer that we all pretend to be at the stores?  

Suddenly, our decision is placed on Jon Doe #476 who just happened to be in Best Buy to see if they had the new Call of Duty game in stock. But what kind of feedback does he give?  

"Eh, that TV's okay, but I went with the sixty inch because I have nothing better to spend my money on."  he says and we're suddenly amazed that we hadn't thought of that astounding option.  That decision which was almost formed is now cast back into the nebulous thought cloud to reform as something with a sixty inch TV in mind.  

That's why I want to address the guidelines I use when I review books on Goodreads.  This basically will tell you what you're getting if you look at my ratings.  I never usually take the time to write a review as I'm usually busy writing all sorts of other stuff, but we'll do etiquette after.  

1.  5 Star Review- This is the most coveted review and should, in my humble opinion, be reserved for those books which changed your life.  The one that suddenly made you want to go seek out the author and kiss them just for bringing those characters into your life.  This is not just some flimsy review, this is enshrining the book in a museum for all the world to see. Example:  Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
2. 4 Star Review - This is the kind of book I'll recommend to a friend if they've already read my five star's.  The book is good, no it's awesome, but it didn't make me want to suddenly go live in that world.  This review means I really enjoyed the book and can't think of anything bad to say, but it just didn't pass that threshold into amazing.  Example: The Crimson Shadow by R.A. Salvatore 
3. 3 Star Review - The three star review for me is a sign that I've read and enjoyed the book.  The book was satisfying and didn't come across as so boring that I couldn't finish it. Now, I wouldn't necessarily go out and read it again right away, but at least its on the list of books I've read.  Example: A Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein.   
4. 2 Star Review - This is the kind of book that I would designate as assigned high school reading. They are books that someone told you to read, but really you find yourself almost making excuses to not read anymore of it.  You know that there is supposed to be a lesson, but really, you don't know what it is supposed to be and don't really care.  Ex: For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemmingway
5. 1 Star Review - This is the one that I reserve only for the worst kind of book I've ever read.  The book that went nowhere and I derived no satisfaction from it what-so-ever.  Above I've mentioned Hemmingway as a two star option, but as I finished For Whom The Bell Tolls I felt satisfaction at knowing that at least something had happened.  At some points the characters acted on their plans and so with some conflict being resolved I was able to accept it as done.  The one star books don't even give you the satisfaction of that, they are the ones that should you find yourself in hell you'll probably be reading it for all eternity.  I can only think of one book that has fallen so low that I felt it deserved one star... Catcher in the Rye.  

I know that gives you my feelings on some books as well as how they should be rated and I understand that you might not agree with me.  That's okay, the last thing I want to bring up is etiquette in your review.  It is sad that some of these things need to be said but the biggest no-no is don't give spoilers.  Another thing, if you're going to pan the book and give it a one star review give a reason.  

These are my two biggest pet peeves when it comes to reviews, the spoilers because it destroys the joy I might have at a well crafted ending or plot turn.  The lack of a good reason because I've read books that people found horrible and loved them.  Perhaps you don't like a book because of the language or the gore described inside.  Please tell us that so that we can understand your rating.  If you rated a book one star because it had lesbian vampires that sparkled and took tea in the sunlight every afternoon while discussing the politics of the court, tell us! I know people that would be intrigued by a Vampire version of Little Women or Pride and Prejudice, though the lesbian aspect would be entirely new.  But this means that you give the author/artist/musician the best chance to succeed.  

The spring becomes a fountain.

It seems in our world that more and more we worry about running out of resources.  We're going to run out of fossil fuels, trees, animals, oxygen, space, and just about everything else you could conceive of.  But it seems to me that there are a lot of things that we'll never run out of.  

There is something about what we do as humans that is amazing, if we work at something we get more of it.  The more I run the more distance I'll be able to do next time.  The more I lift weights, the more I'll be able to lift in the future.  The more I eat, the more I'll be able to.  (All right, that last one wasn't the best example)  

It is surprising that we see physical achievement and improvement as different than mental improvement.  Society seems to have the idea that you can improve your muscles, improve your stamina, or improve your physique.  Yet when it comes to your mental improvement your intelligence isn't as important. 

What if the problem is the perception of the world is it is better to be physically fit than mentally fit?  You could be the worlds strongest man if you work out enough, but you can't be the worlds smartest man because you weren't born a genius or a prodigy.  If we were to work towards changing the picture of society that instead of valuing bulging biceps and a washboard abs we instead valued someone who could solve calculus differentials.  What kind of a picture would it create for us?  

I suddenly see beer commercials where engineers, and scientists are flocked over by women.  I see a Chess Championship as something which draws as big a crowd as the Super Bowl.  It is an interesting picture of the world, where it's not survival of the fittest but survival of the smartest.  

Why did I go through this long rant?  Because I've been amazed at the changes that occur in a mind when you begin to work towards something and practice at it consistently.  In many writers circles they talk about you need to write every day.  That the important thing is that you continue to train your mind in order to produce the ideas and to form the stories in the way you want them.  

Ten years ago I made my first attempt to write a story as a novel.  It came down to three pages of pencil written words that seemed to gloss over ideas but never really explored them.  It was a fantasy story that I felt I could write and would explore a world where reality is based entirely on some kind of group consensus.  That was when I first realized that writing was hard and set it aside. 

There are days that I wish I would have kept at it, where I should have pushed the story to five thousand words, to ten thousand.  I would have something that I could look back at now to see how much I've improved in my writing.  Instead it took me another five years before I finally put words to paper in any concentrated effort.  

Now I can look back and see Creativity is like a muscle, the more you use it the more ideas come to you.  The more you work at formulating sentences, at devising plots, and at crafting characters the better they become.  

There are times that I look back at decisions that I made in my life and regret them.  Regret that I didn't realize that if you want to accomplish anything in life you can't take the easy route.  If you want to write, put your butt in a chair, your fingers on the keyboard, and start writing.  Like with sports, if you want to get better you need to practice.  

Edit's underway and Writing Lovecraft

I've finally committed to a few things which i'm hoping will lead to more for you to read.  I'm setting a date to have my first novel ready for Beta-reading by mid-April.  That's a little over a month away and I have to go through it at least once.  Also there are some things I need to rewrite as this was something first written over two years ago.

I know, two years is a long time to sit around without being worked but I haven't felt the fire under me until recently.  I think part of it has to do with the lesson's I'm learning from the Fear Project.  Having a weekly deadline and only a few days to turn around a finished product is tough.  Though I feel my editing and proofreading skills have really started to blossom.

Another thing I've learned from this challenge is that a deadline isn't always a bad thing.  There are days when I can procrastinate like the best of them.  I can find excuses and distractions to keep me busy for weeks.  But alas, that's one thing I love about National Novel Writing Month.  There is a goal, there is a time frame, there is a deadline.

Since I mentioned the Fear Project above I may as well continue to that now.  During this weeks challenge the rules changed.  We received an e-mail earlier in the week warning us that things would be changing this week.  The ideas which were thrown out were vague but all we knew is that everything was about to get more interesting.  

This week we have a guest judge who asked us to write a story where our main character is wet, cold, and in the dark.  Then, to top it all off, he would really like it if we went with the Lovecraft style.  That is something that I struggle with.  It is something that try as I might in the past I've never been able to pull off.  I've tried for the weird, tried for the darkness, tried for his settings.  Yet somehow it has all escaped me.

Now I love H.P.Lovecraft and his style is amazing in my opinion.  He makes wonderful use of the first person.  His work is the stuff of dreams, nightmares, or even just the weird.  I feel like I did well but this week is still young and we have yet to see which of us the judge likes best.

But that is the way that of life sometimes.  All we can really do is hurry up and wait.

Overloaded

So... I completely forgot about last weeks blog post and it is shameful. What's worse, I didn't take the time to let people know that I was too busy and forgot about this until Sunday afternoon.  So for anyone who was missing my update I'd like to take a moment to say, "I'm sorry."

Well, let's take a moment and talk about projects that I have going right now.  Currently I'm working on an edit and rewrite going for the novel, "A Patchwork of Graves." For anyone following me on David Wellington's Fear Project you were introduced to Patch during week three in the story "To Mend A Broken Heart".  Many people showed interest which makes me happy to have created such a bad guy.

There is also the Fear Project which occupies most of my weekends.  From the time the prompt posts at midnight EST Friday until I send in the submission in, all of my free time is occupied by thoughts of my story.  They might be short in length, probably the length of what I've already written, but the wording is so important.  I can honestly say that in the last four weeks of creating these stories I've learned about the importance of word choice.  It has also helped me in analyzing what I need to cut or change in my own stories to focus on the key elements.

This week I posted a story about Nurse Summers who works in a psychiatric ward. When vampires show up trying to turn her patients into a buffet, she steps up to set things right.  I have to admit that I unwittingly have fallen in love with this character. I never thought that I would want to write  a vampire story.  In fact one of the things that inspired Patch was the lack of a good undead alternative.  But it isn't the vampires that make this story unique, this character seems to have a story behind her behavior that makes me want to explore it.

To answer a question which was posted on my comments the last name is a pop culture reference.  The nurse originally didn't have a name, yet I felt having her nameless was cheating.  When I was thinking of a good name for a woman who is a duty bound slayer of vampires I couldn't resist using the last name.  Just think of this as an Easter Egg and move on, the character isn't Buffy and if I decide to write more with her then you'll see just that.

What has been discussed is just about a third of what my project list has on it.  Needless to say I'll be busy for sometime into the future working on getting all of these done.  But on the bright side, at least I won't be a writer who finds himself without an idea after writing one novel.  I will have to say that I've been blessed with a mind full of fun new ideas.

The plight of Friday...

It seems my Friday update schedule might be something that done for a time.  That being said perhaps I should just confirm there will always be a Tuesday update and from there I may add additional ones as I see fit.  It seems like a good enough idea to give it a try and see where it turns out.

So, this weekend Amazon announced the KDP Select Global Fund breakdown along with letting authors know what they'll be paid for their copies which were enrolled and checked out through the program.  I had enrolled the short story collection "Escaping Sanity" in the program to try it out.  As with many people, I firmly believe that we should be willing to try everything once.  This seemed like a great opportunity to so.

The fund started out at $3 million dollars and due to the success of the program they have added an additional $5.5 million dollars.  $8.5 million dollars for authors who were willing to allow their books to be checked out through the program.  Of course, this only breaks down to about $1.37 per borrow, that is if I did my rounding correctly.

Now, I know what you're thinking, to take that enormous amount of money and have it degrade down to $1.37 that is a lot of books. So this means the eager readers of Amazon E-books  downloaded and read over 6.2 million books this last month.   Each time the book is downloaded and read past the fifteen percent mark, (I could be wrong on the exact amount) the book gets a point.  All the points are tabulated and divided to break it down into that number.

I know I probably should be disheartened to find out that my share of it came down to around ten dollars.  But I then realized that if my book had been bought my local library and was checked out seven or eight times I would have received a total of one books royalties.  This way adds up to be more generous towards the authors than a lot of people would like to make it seem.

I've read articles in recent months which talk about Amazon fighting with publishers and groups to try to control their E-book market, pricing, etc. Now, having not been published or represented by an agent I had no dog in the fight, but a lot of their ideas seemed to make sense.  This is the way that I've perceived it and I'm sure that I could have missed some important stuff, but let me share how I see it.

First, a print book sells for more than the E-book, this to me makes sense.  If you want paper, you should be willing to pay for paper.  If you want E-ink then you already did pay for it and will continue to make the most of it.

Second, an E-book should give greater royalties to the Author. I understand there are logistics with agents, publishers, cover artists and the rest but let's keep this simple.  Being that I'm not paying Jon Doe to run his factories and to print a book I think it should be fair that I'm taking that cut.   The only costs that I shouldn't be getting as an author are the digital storage and distribution costs which are handled by Amazon.  If I have an agent for publicity and publishing then they get their cut too.

Third, this is something that I feel is important.  This gave me an opportunity to put together a collection of short works to start getting my name out there.  A friend of mine had a tentative contract with a large publisher pulled because they didn't know if she could move books.  She was an unknown and so the traditional publisher didn't feel right about extending a contract at that time.  So in a way this is a good way to try to open additional doors.  Perhaps not for the first book I put on here, but for others in the future.

Now, to finish up, I don't see myself as either a self-published author or someone seeking to be published traditionally.  I won't typecast myself as only seeking one path to publication.  I would love nothing more than to be able to find my books in a Barnes & Noble. To be able to be like Brandon Sanderson and do stealth signings of my books at airport book shops.  But all those types of considerations are a ways off still.  The old sayings ring as true now as they have in the past.  "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." and "You have to try everything at least once."

Neglect...

Dear Blog and those people reading this.

I feel that I am in need of an apology for I neglected to update you on Friday as was my original schedule.  But this weekend has been a busy one, with the first update to the fear project requiring my attention.  I didn't know what it would be and the excitement totally got the better of me.  That being said it really isn't an excuse for not doing a blog update.  So, what has been happening?

First off we are in week one of David Wellington's Fear Project. (http://davidwellingtonsfearproject.com/) head on over and read thirteen pieces of flash fiction that are all based around the prompt "setting."  Also, David Wellington has made it sound like the contestants have been kidnapped and we're trying to survive this ordeal.

"So what?" I hear you asking.

"So everything!" I find myself wanting to shout back.  As one of the authors writing in this contest not only does it mean I get to put my creativity and writing skills to the test, but I also may get killed off in a story in the process.

I know many writers talk about killing off people who annoy them in our books.  There meme's saying
"I'm a writer. If I'm staring at you I'm not being rude. I'm trying to decide if you need to go in my book.  If you're a snot, I maybe trying to decide how to kill you." 

That being said, some people would like nothing more than to be in a book.  I've had several people ask if they could be a minor character in a novel of mine.  I even took one of them up on the offer when I needed an administrative character and he fit the bill.  But to be killed off by a no-name writer who is just getting started isn't all that exciting.  But to be killed off by a horror writer who has published several novels.  By a writer who has established themselves enough to make a living off their work.  It is like having all your geek senses tingling because you know you could be next.

I don't know if this is really the most positive message that I should be sending.  I'm comparing myself to characters in a slasher film, knowing that I could be killed off in some horrid manner, and loving every minute of it.

Sorry for the neglect Friday Blog, but I hope to have an update ready in advance explaining my feelings on Kindle Unlimited by then.

Why you give stuff away.

I've been asked by quite a few people in the last few days as to why I would want to give away the short story collection that I put out.  Why would you just hand your book out instead of having people pay?  Don't you worry that people might not buy it if they can get it for free?  I'm going to take a moment and explain my thoughts on Amazon KDP, on publishing, and how my thoughts ran when deciding what I wanted to do with a book of short stories.  

When I first started looking at options for getting published it seemed like there were two options in the world.  Self publishing and the standard publishing house method.  There seemed to be no discussion between the two and trying to listen to both sides left me feeling like I was in the middle of some epic tug-o-war between the two sides.  To me there seemed to be no real way to get your name out there until you were discovered and got a book deal.  It felt like the equivalent of finding a golden ticket in a candy bar, it could happen but it wasn't necessarily likely as they were rather rare.

So, taking this into consideration I looked at the options before me while I was parsing through my finished novel first drafts, finding all the character flaws, and planning new ones.  There came a point where I wanted to have something out there in the world so that I could say.

"Yes, I am a writer.  I have something available for you to read."  All the words in the world on your hard drive don't show proof to most people.  Most people write you off as a day dreamer.  You get told to focus on real things like your job, your schooling, and anything else.  Just not this writing thing, just not your dreams.  

There is nothing I hate more than to have a dream and have people doubt it.  My dream: to someday be able to find my book in a library.  To be recognized as someone that made a difference using my words on the page to someone.  So yes, I gave away over 130 copies of the book.  I didn't see a cent of profit from those.  But there are now 130 people in the world that hold in their hands proof of my dream.  There have been co-workers that told me that the stories that I wrote have touched them, made them sad, made them scared.  That in some way my words have connected to them and I can tell that they have begun to become supporters of me, of my dream.

In the future when I put something else out, when I get a book deal, when I am seeing more than just the conceptual drawing of my dream painted before me, these are the people that will be there.  Not everyone will be touched, not everyone will read more than one or two stories from the collection.  But there are a few which will become the beginning of my literary following.  There are a few that when those new projects see the light of day they'll be waiting to purchase a copy, or perhaps even pre-ordering it.

I know I might not break even on what I spent on the cover of the collection I put out.  I know that those 130 sales might be the biggest month this collection ever sees.  But I'm okay with that.  You have to start your foundation somewhere, you have to draw a line in the sand and see who is willing to step across it to help you in your dreams.  Perhaps I'll just have two, or four that will follow what I write and see me as the writer that I long to be.  But I will greet them with open arms, I will welcome them into my dream and let them help me build it.  Sometimes there are far more important things in life than money.  Because nothing can beat working towards your dream.

Submission Review

Okay, after some reading over at David Wellington's Fear Project site (http://davidwellingtonsfearproject.com/) I have something I'd like to admit.  This is going to be tough, we have some good competition and I'm hoping that I can even survive the first round.

That being said, here are some of my initial thoughts about the contest so far.  Please remember that these are my opinion from my personal reading.  Your opinion may differ and if it does... That's okay.

• Favorite submission: Amanda Rebholz, something about her story made me laugh.  I know this is horror writing but I honestly found it amusing.   
• Biggest Surprise: Joe Sherry, having had a relative whom I loved die of Alzheimers I totally live with that kind of shared fear.  I actually had to chat with him for a few minutes about it last night after reading it.  
• Common Threads: The only one I found is that many people like to talk about teeth.  Laura Hinkle, Catherine Bader, and James Hatton all had references to some degree about teeth.  
• Something that caught me off guard:  Sam Jackson, because he used a point of view that I rarely ever see used.  I love First person past and Third person Limited, but second person is hard to pull off in a normal work.  

If you're one of my fellow competitors who is reading this and I didn't mention your name I apologize.  I did read everyone's stories and I loved each of them for their own uniqueness.  But these are the ones that really stood out to me as I was reading.  

Feel free to go read these stories, they're free and who knows you might just discover a new favorite author.  

Submissions and FanX

The last few days have been awesome.  I have spent some time down at Salt Lake City FanX and really just had an awesome experience.  Why you might ask?  Well for starters lets look as some of the great guests I was able to walk up and chat with.

Over the few days that I was there I got to have conversations with several authors, some of them well known, others still on the up and coming list.  Examples of the more well known are David Farland, Tracy Hickman, and Dan Wells.  All of these guys are great to talk to if you ever get a chance.

During my conversations I discovered that Dan Wells had one of his novels picked up for a movie deal.  David Farland discussed some free literature for writers available on his website (http://mystorydoctor.com/).  While with Tracy Hickman the conversation focused more around the lack of a Killer Breakfast at the event.  (If you ever get a chance to go to a Killer Breakfast, do it!)

Other examples of great people that I got a chat with included the Utah Horror Writers Association, a group which I hope to become affiliated with in the near future.  Johnny Worthen, who's book Eleanor is on the long ballot for the Bram Stoker Award and who I believe only owns tye-dye shirts. Plus a few others that because of the late hour that I'm writing this I can't remember.

Plus I totally got to geek out and get my pic taken with Matt Smith, Billie Piper, and Karen Gillian.  They are awesome and I think I just let my geek flag fly there.

Okay, now that I'm done gloating and being a good fanboy it's time to discuss business.  Over at the fear project website (http://davidwellingtonsfearproject.com/)  they have posted the submissions for the contest.  This is the first impression of the authors who will be competing and you may find yourself a favorite right off.  But keep watch, the prompt will be going up on Friday, then the challenge begins!

Ready for the Fear Project

There comes a time where I just get absolutely sick of waiting.  It was like this while waiting for the birth of my children.  I hit a point where I want nothing more than to move onto the next step, to begin the next stage of life.  That is where I am right now.

As of February 6th I'll be embarking on a new project, the chance to try to out write thirteen other contestants in a reality show style contest.  I have no idea of what to think having even been selected.  I figured that I would put in for the chance and take the rejection knowing that at least I had tried.  But instead I was contacted by the person running the contest, Author David Wellington.

Now, I'm not a small man by any means, I'm six feet tall and weigh well over two hundred pounds.  I have a beard and consider myself manly enough.  Yet when I got that e-mail saying that I was going to be one of the contestants I wanted to squeal like a little girl.  I have no shame in saying this, but now it has left me waiting for this to start.

One of these days, I will learn patience.  One of these days I'll not wish for some kind of instant gratification of my efforts.  I'll actually find more productive ways to occupy my time than to sit here waiting.  But that will probably have to be tomorrow.  For now, bring on the Fear Project.

Twitter: @TravColeman

For more information on the fear project check out this site.
www.davidwellingtonsfearproject.com