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.