Zoe E. Whitten's Blog, page 92

Sandy Morrison updated and reviewed, and other stuff…

Thanks to help from Twitter follower @MystycalMage, I have been able to release an updated version of Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies. Those of you who already bought a copy, you can just download the new copy from your shelf without having to buy it again. And those of you who didn't buy a copy yet, please take a look at the preview at least. Sandy's story has been generating some good feedback from the few people who've picked it up thus far, and @MystycalMage has just released a 5-star review, where she said:

At the beginning of the book, I had to remind myself that I needed sleep. I did not want to stop reading. I probably would have read the whole book at once if not for my battery dying.

Woot! Hells yeah, and many thanks to @MystycalMage for all of her help with the feedback on typos and the review. If I could have few more fans like her, and Becka, and Amanda, and…and others, I'm sure I might one day generate enough buzz to turn my library of titles into a Lilliputian cash cow.

Now I want to talk about something totally random. Today, I was hit on by a cute guy who was around 18. He pegged me as an American by my accent, and so he shifted to English and attempted to make a booty call. Dude was even bold enough to try for a handshake and kiss combo, but I blocked him on the kiss and dashed away quickly. And the whole time, I was thinking, How can this be happening? I'm an ugly nerd.

I'm 36, but dress like I'm still 13. I don't wear make-up. My hair is a mess all the time, and I was dressed in what I consider scruffy clothes. Yet this kid is fawning over me like I'm the find of the century. Last month a guy tried to invite me out to "coffee" and so this is not an uncommon occurrence. Shopkeepers who know me and are used to my limited vocabulary call me Bella. And I still wonder who they're talking about when they say it. Hubby literally drools over me sometimes, and I wonder if maybe he's overreacting.

I know I have low self-esteem, and that I can't see myself as others do. I see only the flaws and scars. I see the broken cracks in the shell, and others see a finely aged vessel. Hubby considers himself lucky to have found me. And the funny thing is, I think I'm lucky, because who else is going to want a crazy bitch like me?

But while walking back from lunch and my shopping trip, and while still reflecting on this kid flirting with me, I thought about a tangent. I thought, Tonight, I'm going to crack open a forty and drink beer while I practice guitar. I'll bet the teenage me would love to know I'm somehow considered cool in my middle age.

And then I was struck by the huge contrast of how very different my life is now from how it was when I was a scared and lonely little boy trapped in the middle of Texas with no idea of how to fix myself. I imagine someone going to me at 15 or 16, and telling me, "When you turn 28, you're going to start transition. Two years later, you will complete transition with a Thailand surgery, and then you will get married in a palace in Milan. You will spend your days gardening and editing, and you will divide your nights between writing trashy fantasy stories, playing guitar, and drinking aged rum."

And then I imagine the streams of tears running down my cheeks as I lay on the floor giggling hysterically. Me? A rum drinker? Please, I was a vodka lover "fo-ever" (I don't like vodka as much anymore…or more accurately, vodka beats me up and spits me out. Rum is gentle as it leaves. I like rum's graceful exit. Ahem.)

Life isn't great. I have poor health, and I still can't seem to convince the publishing bosses to give me truly steady editing work. I still have my self-esteem issues to work on, and if I ever sort that out, then I have to go about sorting out my confused sexuality. I get depressed that I'll never know what it means to be a parent. And of course there's the fact that I'm still nuts and still dealing with the long term effects of prolonged physical abuse. Life will never be a bowl of cherries without having to deal with some very big pits.

But every once in a while, it helps to stop and think, I'm a 36 year old nerd, and people think I'm hot. How fucking cool is that? I claim to write trash, and people tell me it's really good stuff. And if, somehow, my teenage self could see me now, they would never believe how cool I am. I'm reminded of the old milk commercials, where progressively older versions of the same person show the younger self what the future holds. When I looks ahead to 36, I didn't know what to expect. But a punk princess indie author living in Milan? Totally not on my list when I was a kid.

My roundabout point is, you really never know what life has in store for you. When you start out your life story, you sometimes feel like you've got it all planned to the last detail. But trite as the saying is, it's still true; life is what happens when you were making other plans.

New book, new review, and new chords (Yay!)

Yep, I called this one just right: Touched made it through the Smashwords queue this morning. So, for those of you who still haven't read any of my vampire stories, they're all out of the archives now. The order of the vampire stories is:

Touched

Redemption Lost (Crossover title)

Blood Relations

A Phone Man Visits the Vampires

Job Interview With a Vampire

Stark Raving Bonkers

Most of the Mystical World Wars series is up now, except for Erick's Journey and Shadow Walker. They'll be out soon enough, but I'm getting in some regular daily editing work starting this week and won't have as much free time for conversions. If this new job works out, I could have regular pay for a few months, enough to pay off our taxes, buy some gadgets, and even have money left over for my growing Chupa Chup addiction. And since you folks are not yet populous enough to support me, I have no choice but to sing a familiar refrain: I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.

In slightly related writing news, last night I got TWO 5-star reviews on My Gay Sparkly Vampire Romance: A Twilight Parody. This also follows a great review of Confessions of a Zombie Lover, which already had two good reviews last week. Now, I just need to convince more of y'all to pick up Sandy Morrison's book and give her some review love.

Actually, I want to take a paragraph to nag about this. Apparently, some of you decided that since I slapped a YA label on Sandy Morrison & the Pack of Pussies, it's not worth your time. Fair enough, but let me assure you that if you like my dark stuff, you'll like my lighter stuff. The book is reasonably priced for a short novel of 75K, and it is guaranteed to be very different from anything else you may have read with werecats this year. (Possibly even last year.) Plus, it will give you something to read until The Life and Death of a Sex Doll ships later this month. (Please, buy a copy. Push your friends to buy copies. Threaten to shoot your relatives if they don't buy copies…okay, threaten to maim your in-laws, at least. [I didn't say you had to offer them a book as an ultimatum, either. Go ahead and threaten them either way. It's cathartic.])

I know some of you wish I wouldn't nag about feedback, but let's face it; the squeaky wheel gets oiled. So again, remember: I have multiple sclerosis and I work at home trying to peddle my writing or my editing to earn a living. If you want me to shut up on this stuff, more of you have to be talking up my stories. Otherwise, you aren't talking, and I'm not talking. So who's going to find out about my books if nobody is talking about them?

Now, guitar news: Yesterday, I practiced a lot. No, a lot. I had three really long sessions spread throughout the day to give my right hand time to rest. During the first, I was still struggling with barre chords, but during the second and third, I was able to form a passable barre E, and then an A, and finally a C. But they all hurt a lot, and I still can't get enough pressure on my index finger for more than two or three strums before I get a fret buzz or a dead string. Obviously, this means more practice is required.

The third session wasn't supposed to happen. I'd already bagged the guitar, and I was TIRED after working all day on writing, editing, gardening, cooking, and guitar practice. I just sat down to watch some YouTube videos, and that rat bastard Peter Vogl had some "real simple scales" that he wanted to teach me. And the next thing I knew, it was 2 AM, and I was strumming through an improvised chord progression based on a four-finger G chord. And, I wasn't tired. My fingers and my right hand were sore, but I just wanted to keep playing until I could work the transition naturally without raising my root fingers.

And while I'm talking badly about Peter, have you seen this guy's instructional videos? He's got a mullet. He's worked with Michael Bolton, and is actually proud to admit it. When he looks up at the camera in early videos, he blinks with almost every word he enunciates, making him look like he has eye problems. (He's not so bad in later videos with the blinking, and he's lost the mullet. He is, however, still proud to be associated with Michael Bolton. So there is that.)

In his videos, Peter plays really complex stuff slow, and he makes it sounds all studenty and amateur. And then he plays the song at normal speed with some "phrasing" added, and suddenly I want to throw my wet panties at him. I don't know how that works. "Oh, look at that loser with the guitar. He's so…so…dear god, that is a beautiful song! I want to have his babies!"

So, yeah, I kinda like music, a bit.

Yet another great review, and some update stuff

Don Campbell at the The Future Fire Reviews has turned in a very detailed analysis of Confessions of a Zombie Lover, coming up with a favorable but scoreless review. I ought to give a mild spoiler warning, but I suppose the review really does skirt the spoiler's edge without quite going all the way. You can read the whole thing here.

In any case, I want to thank Don for reading my book and for the very detailed review. I note that Don, like most reviewers, has come into the series with book 2, and yet they did not feel left out of the story for missing book one. And this is awesome. But, I was kinda hoping someone might buy Zombie Punter first and read it, and THEN read Confessions of a Zombie Lover. But what would be even better is if that person also got around to making a review explaining how they felt about both books. Maybe not as detailed as Don's review, but still, it would be nice.

And while I'm on the topic of repetitive patterns, I'm finally making some progress with those calluses, and I'm able to form most normal chords. However, I still cannot form any barre chords. The main issue is my middle finger, which cannot rest on a string if the index finger goes into motion. This is a problem because every instruction I've seen on barre chords says to set the other fingers first, and then lay the index finger down. And since I've tried it the other way, I can tell you, it really doesn't work the other way.

I'm also working on strumming practice, as my accuracy for strumming five and four string chords is somewhat iffy. Oh, I do fine if I just strum down. But if I have to come up for an upstroke, I tend to overshoot my target and hit the next string as well.

Oh, random note. I'm trying to make up a chord progression similar to the books, but improving on one weak spot. The book opens and closes on Dm, and after opening Dm it goes A7-E7-G7-Dm. Which, when you go to repeat for a second refrain sounds like poop. In my opinion, this progression needs a five string chord to go after G7 and bring the song back around to Dm for the start. When I mention the progression on Twitter, the first and ONLY suggestion was Dm. Is that really the only chord you can go to from G7, or can I maybe toss in something else?

Moving on to other news, hubby is in China this week for a sale convention, so I have no language classes, unless I attempt to use some old language course software I bought. Which I might, just to keep in practice while hubby is gone.

Since I'm all alone for the week, I'm going to be more focused on work type stuff. I have a new assignment that may start on Monday, a paid gig that I'm asking for pro rates on. If I'm approved, I can handle that job in one or two hours a day, and then devote a little time to writing, and a little to editing.

On editing, I'm working on Mmmm…Crunchy! It is just as wrong and sick as I remember, and I really should feel guilty for laughing at some of this stuff. But between Dr. Tubright, John, and Susan, there's so much wicked fun going on that's it's hard not to find joy rising in my beady black evil heart. And that's before you add in Viktor Von Glofelt and Wanda, the crunch-addicted assistant manager of Test Market 420. It may become my most hated book evah, but I will always love it for what it is: a teenage-cheerleader-shaped demon with bloody pompoms chanting "Evil is great!" (^_^)

Ahem, and on the writing front, I'm still working on the intro of Bran of Greenwood and the Scary Fairy Princess. And it's awful. The joke with the rabbit knots is getting out of hand, as now my herione can only use the tears of female dire bunnies. The snare traps needed to catch these giant rabbits has been mentioned twice, but the knot itself still hasn't been seen. This is sadly only funny to me and one other writer, and I have the dreadful feeling she won't read this dreck anyway. X^D

On the gardening front, all of my plants are still alive, a small miracle in and of itself. ^_^ And I think that's just about it for now. Expect another update as soon as Touched clears the Smashwords queue.

MORE new reviews, and a shameless reminder…

Today, I was alerted to a new Smashwords review of Trail of Madness by Preston, who said:

I enjoyed the storyline even more in this installment, as the characters seemed more thought out and the story seemed to flow even more quickly and naturally.

And that's already an awesome day for me, getting one 4 star review. BUT, I just got another 4 star review, this time on my latest Vicky the Vampire story, Stark Raving Bonkers. Wendy said:

That this book is erotica came as a surprise to me, as I didn't bother to read the revue below before downloading.

That said, Ms Whitten handled that aspect of the story and all others, with her usual flair and panache.

So that's a review on an older work from a new reader, and a new review from a recent recruit. And by the way, thank you, both Preston and Wendy. You guys rock!

Preston said on Twitter that he felt his review was perhaps too short, but I think it does a good job. It covers what he likes, what he had a problem with, and doesn't dip into spoilers. What's not to like? (^_^) So really, folks, go look at those short reviews. Those are fine, and I'm really not expecting a 500 word essay. I'm not even asking for anything this long. A one sentence review can work, and only an obsessive compulsive snowflake like me bothers with that long kind of anally retentive critique anyway.

You may think that was the shamelss reminder to keep doing more reviews, but it was not. In fact, I'm making a shameless reminder that this is the month in which Belfire Press will be shipping The Life and Death of a Sex Doll. That's two complete novella in one slim print copy for only $11.99. Adopting a Sex Doll and When a Sex Doll Dies are a lighter kind of writing style for me, a sci-fi coming of age tale narrated in two parts using a third person limited POV. One half is told by the human adopting mother, and the other is told by the Sensu-Doll daughter. On its surface, the story seems very simple, but at the heart there are a lot of subtle comments about the definitions of family and the virtues of acceptance over mere tolerance. It also make some sly remarks about parents who expect too much from their kids.

Some of you didn't want to get into G's stuff because it's too gory or dark. For the same reason, you might be skipping out on a lot of my work. Totally fair. This is one of my books with no gore (and only a teeny bit of sex, which is handled a bit more discreetly than my usual unfiltered style) and almost no violence at all. Being about a happy dysfunctional family, it's a bit whimsical, at times a bit romantic, and sometimes really funny. It's one of my usual crazy blends, but it's a milder blend. So if you found my other stuff too strong for your liking, please, consider ordering a print copy of The Life and Death of a Sex Doll.

(In writing news…I wrote 4,000 words in three and a half hours last night. Yep. Still got it.)

Yet another vampire book, and stuff

Yes, A Phone Man Visits the Vampires made it through the Smashwords queue. This time around, I only made corrections, no additions. I'm already working on Touched, so that should be out by this weekend, or Monday at the latest if the SW queue is really long. Once I finish with Amber's first book, all of the archived vampire stories will be available again. I'll go through the rest of the archive at a much more relaxed pace. I don't think anyone is going to be complaining bitterly that Shadow Walker and Erick's Journey are temporarily unavailable.

But I will get them up soon enough. Getting the old stuff back online is actually a very high priority at this point. Just look at how fast I've worked to release this, as well as Job Interview With a Vampire and Haunting Sins. I want to get all the archives up, and then work on getting out the newer series. Now that Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies is out, my next new series starters are NINJAWORLD and Peter, The Wolf. I've also got to figure out when to finally release Books of Daniel, but given how it has themes similar to Peter, The Wolf, I might hold it back and give the other stories time to find an audience first.

I've also decided to release Mmmm…Crunchy! It was my 2010 NaNoWriMo winner, and I abandoned it because I was intentionally trying to write a bad book. But I still like the premise, and I figure I'll explain that it's a bad book in the extended description. If people buy it then, at least they were warned, right? Oh, and don't worry, I still have no plans to release Dave: A Messiah. Some trunk novels just need to stay in the trunk, know what I'm sayin'?

[image error]My roundabout point is, even if I stopped writing, I'd still have a loooong backlog to put out.

That said, the muse is back, and she's insistent that she's got a winner. She wants to do a high fantasy porn about a transsexual half-elf princess and a half-orc barbarian. Oy. A 3rd person POV pure story from the perspective of the barbarian. Oy! And the elf is underage. Oy vey! (y_y)  But, at least it's a hobby. Or, that's what I'll tell myself when this sucker flops.

And now, a sales report. I know, you're dying to know how sales did after I blew up. Well, they were steady, and this month's income from Smashwords and Lightning Source is $36. Not bad at all. Yes, I took a hit for not having sales with Amazon, but my higher prices made the few sales I got really count. As I get my archives onto Smashwords, I think that trickle of sales from my back catalog might be enough for me to earn a very modest living.

As I get the stories up on Lulu this summer, my other goal is figuring out where to find print readers willing to shop with Lulu. The book quality at Lulu is fine, so I shouldn't feel ashamed of working with them. I know from personal experience that the books from Lightning Source are almost identical, and I didn't get anything out of the "prestige" of selling with Lightning Source. People didn't buy my print book with them any more than they bought from Lulu.

But, I can put out books through Lulu without ISBN numbers for free. The archived stories will be given a proper layout for their paper format, but if I didn't already have a cover for the book, I'm not bothering. In fact, I'm not even bothering with a stock image. I'm just going with a pastel color and white text.

Go ahead, judge the book by the cover. Judge it by the vendor, or by the hack writer's lousy attitude. I don't care if you decide not to read me. All I know is, if I put out my books with Lulu, I can do it for free, and the products that readers order will last a long time. It will not be good enough for me to ever win an award, or ever be taken seriously by bigger reviewers. But hell, I wasn't haven't any luck with those people even after I had a professionally edited book through LSI with a custom art cover worthy of an award. So now I'm just making sure I get rid of as many typos as possible, and screw alla that cover bullshit.

I will say this about Lightning Source: they have the BEST customer service. You email them and say what you need, and bam, it's done. They may be a bit pricey, but the service they give for that price is stellar. So, if y'all folks were wondering what I think of Lightning Source, I think they're all right. They're just too upscale for my redneck ass.

Off to do guitar practice. Later, peeps.

"New" Book, and a little ditty I worked up for the haters…

So yes, I finally made it through the Smashwords queue, and now you can pick up updated ebook copies of Job Interview With a Vampire for $1.99. As with all free archived books, I fixed some typos. BUT, I also added a little extra bit of information to the final chapters, stuff that will help me hook better into future episodes. There's going to be novellas and short stories in the future for Lucas and the Colby sisters, Amber, Claudia and Dimitri. (Yes, really.) But conditions are not yet right for any of these characters to spin off. For now the best perspective to follow is Vicky. (As evidenced by the next episode in Vicky's story after Job Interview With a Vampire, Stark Raving Bonkers.)

Fans of halflings, magi, changelings, or werekin need not worry that I will be neglecting you. There is PLENTY in the editing queue for y'all too. I just have to sort out which stories I want to put out first.

And now, for the haters…

Some people have said to me, "Zoe, what have you contributed to art, REALLY?"

Well…

I've written some novels and po-ems.

I drew sketches and painted, and then

I even wrote a few haiku, BUT

I'm not very good at them!

I'm a starving artist,

and I was since before I was born!

And the one thing they say about artists,

is that we're bitchin' as soon as we're warm!

We may be filthy rich bastards,

or we don't have a cent to our name,

but the one thing we all have in common

is we love to play the arteest blame game.

Because every snowflake's speshul

Every snowflake's good.

Every flake is needed, in your neighborhood.

Every flake is useful, every flake is fine.

My opinion's needed!

Mine, just mine, all mine!

Every flake is flakey!

Every flake is fake!

We're hacking as a hobby

every time we're baked!

Every flake is useful, every flake is great.

You haven't read my books yet?

I am quite irate!

Every flake is funny, every flake is cool.

If you need a shitbomb

us snowflakes are full!

(With apologies to Monty Python)

Two new reviews, and an update on editing…

One of the downsides of being offline more often is, I'm not able to obsessively check for new reviews. So I missed two reviews for Confessions of a Zombie Lover, one a 3-star review from Nick Cato, who said my story was a "somewhat fresh twist on a tiring subgenre." You can check out the rest of the review here. (along with some other possibly interesting reviews for this month.)

Colleen Wanglund also offered her 4-star review, which I'm told will also be up soon at Monster Librarian. Colleen said, "While it can be tough to write something 'new' in the zombie sub-genre, I think Ms. Whitten has done an excellent job here." Read the rest of the review here.

This is fantastic to find two good reviews that I'd missed before, and I want to thank Nick and Colleen for reviewing my stories. Both noted in their review that they were coming into the story without reading G's first book, and I'm happy that neither felt like they were missing out on something. This was a frequent comment about the Campaign trilogy, that you really need to read the first book to make any sense out of the second or third. While the books have been reviewed favorably, and I consider them one of my my few financial successes, I also felt they failed my intended criteria of making every book a standalone episode. So G's second book is a success in that regard. Woot. (^_^) (more news after the cut.)

[image error]In other news, I've just completed edits on Job Interview with a Vampire and uploaded it to Smashwords. But I'm back in the queue a bit. I recalled seeing a single error in Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies, and I decided to fix that one mistake and upload an updated copy. So it's a bit farther back in the queue. Both books should be updated sometime tomorrow, unless everyone ahead of me was submitting very short stories.

I'm also working on the edits for Adopting a Sex Doll and When a Sex Doll Dies. I've already gone over the changes proposed by editor Tracy DeVore, but I'm going back over the same stuff to read it aloud and make sure everything sounds okay. I did find a mistake mentioned twice in the second book, but it was very easy to correct, and I think the editor and publisher will be happier with this correction made to keep the story consistent.

And on that note, please let me remind you once again that Belfire Press is taking pre-orders on the limited print edition. Yes, there will be an ebook for all you ebook lovin' folks, but there will only be 100 copies of the print edition made for paper peoples. I really would like to help Belfire sell out those copies, but aside from buying 10 or 20 copies myself, I'm not sure what to do. I'm almost desperate enough to consider a boobies for books program, where I offer pics of my tits if I meet certain sales goals. But I'm sure there has to be a better way of selling book than putting my naked ass on the cover. And I should know, because that's my lily-white fanny gracing the cover of In the Grasp of the Devil. (Really didn't move a single unit, which completely blows hubby's theory about the selling power of my naked ass.)

Anywho, I got good reviews, and I've had some decent sales lately. Hopefully, as I roll out more of the archives in their polished third and fourth editions, I'll be able to get reviews and sales on them as well, even if they are older stories. After all, they're still new to people who've never read them before, right? Right, that's the theory.

Anywho, I'll post an update as soon as Job Interview With a Vampire is up. Because my vampire books have proven so popular with people, all of the archived vampire stories will take precedence before I work on the other stuff. Those among you who consider yourself fans of my vampire should be pleased to know that when I get back into writing, it will be the Vicky and her coven I cover in more of these short novelettes and novellas. Again, people seem to like these shorter episodes, so I'll try to cover more of the subplots in this way, instead of making a huge novel with a bunch of scattered subplots. (Which would only annoy folks anyway.)

Right, and now I'm off to do more editing. Because I love you people, even if you don't believe me.

A new book and other stuff…

So, the blog has been a bit quiet, as you might expect. Weather shifting is making unstable Zoe highly unstable, and I'm keeping to myself to avoid spreading the misery. I keep myself distracted from my emotions with Portal 2 for now. When I'm not distracted or drugged, I go from happy to angry to depressed in cycles so fast, I'm not even sure what's going on. I just need stable weather to stabilize, but we still don't have it. We get warm weather for a day or two, and then back to cold for the rest of the week.

But despite my crappy mood swings and constant sense of distraction, I worked a few hours per day to convert Haunting Sins for Smashwords. I uploaded it like 2 days ago, but I was in the processing queue for a long, long time. Like, I started out at something like 3,858. Yeesh. But okay, so now the ebook is online, and being a novella of 32K, I felt $1.99 was a relatively fair price. Already some people have bought copies (and thanks very much for that!), so it seems like the price isn't too steep. I did clean it up a bit and get rid of a few more typos in this pass, including one scene where David suddenly becomes Daniel for one line. (Daniel's story was actually written one year before, but I was editing the second draft for Books of Daniel while writing Haunting Sins…so, had a brain fart.) Oh, as Haunting Sins is up on Smashwords now, I must take it down from the blog. Just FYI.

In other sales news, someone bought five of my Mystical World Wars books and a copy of The Sole Survivors' Club. So, thank you very much to whoever bought those books. And to the folks who bought copies of Haunting Sins as soon as it was released. You rock! (^_^)

[image error]In gardening news, the cold weather has made it all but impossible to do anything. All the plants already sprouted are in a kind of stunted stasis, and none of the new seeds I've planted will germinate. I'm just about ready to lodge a formal complain with Mother Nature over this. About the only plants that look great are the weeds in my zombie tree pot. But then the big weed (possibly yellow dock) in that pot sprouted during the winter, and it survived two snow flurries, bouncing back from a withered and near dead condition. It's been joined by a patch of clover, which looks fantastic. So my weeds are lush and gorgeous. I really do wish I could grow weed as well as I grow weeds. Alas…

Language classes are frustrating. I wish I could explain without devolving into a three page long rant about gender and "well it's the way we've always done it." Also, it doesn't help that my lesson book was written badly in English AND Italian. I complain about the lack of commas or other basic punctuation in the English writing, and then hubby points to the Italian phrases and says "Actually, that's not the best way to write that. It's more common to see…" So I think I'm going to swap books and try something else.

Guitar lessons proceed at a slow but reasonable pace. I still need more calluses on both hands, so instead of relying on the hand exerciser, I'm forming chords with both hands. I turn the neck over and press the "wrong" strings to form the chords and work grooves into the fingertips on my left hand. My right hand is almost ready for me to hold chords for a full minute, but my left hand still needs a lot of help.

Just to be cute, I formed the major chords on my left hand using altered finger positions. And let me tell you, that F chord is a real bitch to pull off upside down. If I can learn to play upside down with my left hand reliably, I'm thinking of turning it into a gimmick where I play one part of a song with the right hand fretting, and then partway through I flip the guitar. Hubby was just impressed that I could strum the chords, but it really will be more impressive when I can strum my way through a song, even if it's a slow song.

My last attempt to play 3:16 was better, but still not fast enough to be right. Same goes for Finish What You started. (A song I can't finish yet…ironic.) Mostly practice these days is chord strums and chords pairs. When I'm not playing or working the hand exerciser, I've come up with some new hand exercises to build hand strength. In one, I touch my thumbs to my finger tips, but I start on my pinky on my right hand and on my index finger on my left. I know I've messed up when both thumbs end up back on the index finger. X^D In another, I touch my index and ring fingers over the middle finger, and then I move them down and around to connect under. After a few passes (which hurt and look really shaky at first) I switch and touch my pink to my middle finger over and under my ring finger. THEN, while holding my pink and middle finger together, I fold in my ring finger while keeping the knuckles straight.

And I do this with both hands. Loads of fun, can't begin to describe the pain. But, it does seem to be helping with finger independence. Which is a bit of a problem, still. My middle finger likes to stand alone and pretend to be a leader, but task it with some real work, and it can't be independent. Typical sheep finger, really. Tragic.

But so, yeah, that's the full update. No, wait. Did you buy Portal 2 yet? Because if you haven't, you're probably a soulless minion of the machine. You may even take joy in strangling kittens. In front of their mother, no less. I've played it through three times, and now I'm playing through different parts just because I really liked those levels. I've done the whole thing with director's commentary, and I've got most of the single player achievements. I've only played one co-op game so far, but I liked it a lot and hope I will be able to tackle the rest with a friend soon.

And yeah that's…now, wait, have you heard of the band I Blame Coco? Their album The Constant is very addicting. Like, they finally knocked MGMT from the top of my daily playlist. I love the song Quicker, though I'm not sure if the original or the remix is better. Both are really good. Playwrite Fate is also really good, and I find myself busting out and singing the chorus even though it's not even close to my vocal range.

Yeah, okay, that's everything for this update. Oh, wait, I'm on a lot of sinus meds right now. Can you tell? Bet you can. Okay, see you later…

Updates and stuff…

I've been quiet this week for two reasons. First, I had a paid editing job that required most of my brain cells to unscramble. At the same time, Portal 2 dropped. Anybody following me on Twitter knows that I'm a Portal addict, and I play the first game about once a month, sometimes twice if the muse hadn't grabbed me too firmly during that particular month.

Well Portal 2 is three times longer than Portal, and I never wanted it to end. Everything I loved is still in there, but they've added a long, long history for you to work through, and the older experiments are full of "new" compounds that either assist your jumps, your run speed, or your portal placement. It may sound complicated, but every concept is laid out in an easier first lesson before the puzzles get progressively more complex. Later levels are…VAST. HUGE. Just eye pooping graphics everywhere, and this time around you get three "narrators." GlaDOS makes up one familiar voice, but she's joined by a "corrupt core" named Wheatley, and by the prerecorded messages of Aperture Labs founder Cave Johnson. (Who is funny in a very, very morbid way. No, even more morbid than GlaDOS.)

But when you get to the Cave Johnson portion, GlaDOS undergoes some personality changes that I really, really loved. I won't spoil it for anyone, but because of that part of the game, the ending made me sad because of GlaDOS. No really, the murderous AI I killed in the first game has my sympathy at the end of this second game. And that is the mark of some great game writing. There were some little unrealistic niggles I had with the ending. (If you get hit by a direct bomb blast from the villain, you shouldn't be able to hear him gloat a moment later, even if you don't die. The blast would deafen you.) But it is a video game, and the problem here is consistent throughout the game. And since the game is so gosh-darned fun, I'm not going to detract from it for a niggling minor detail.

So I give Portal 2 an enthusiastic 5 stars, and I recommend it to everyone who likes fun. I'll even recommend it for people who don't like fun, because the cynical humor will make your miserable old asses laugh. Seriously, go buy this game. You'll thank me for it.

And now, the bad news. Tonight, the deadline will pass on Eddie's First Circus, and I'm nowhere near 20 sales. I don't see it happening tonight even if I went out and ballyhooed all day. I was actually planning on goofing off all day, so with this impending failure, I'm no longer going to bother doing incentives either. I've actually considered doing the Kindle giveaway thingie, but since I hate Amazon…it sends mixed signals, I think.

I've got to do one last serious ballyhoo for my duel novella release in May. I'm not sure if the situation has changed in a week or not, but the last update from Belfire Press said 7 print copies of The Life and Death of a Sex Doll were ordered out of the 100 limited edition copies. Of course there will also be an ebook, but in theory there ought to be at least 93 people who would like these sci-fi stories in a print format. I just have to figure out how to find them. (No pressure for me, of course. Just the impending failure of my only professional book release due to my complete ineptitude. Yes, that is flop sweat trickling over my brow.)

Anyway, between guitar lessons, language practice, fun with Portal 2, and the editing job, I had to put away all of the writing projects, which included removing the free fiction from the blogs. But in the meantime, someone came along and started commenting and reading. So I left the rest up for them. Their comments often include typos they've found, so I need the comments for the edits on the ebook conversion jobs. For now, I will be leaving up the fiction. It's still coming down after I've used the reader suggestions, but as this project is long term and indefinite, there's no final date for the free stuff on the blogs.

Behold, the power of useful comments.

I did start a conversion on Haunting Sins, but as I said in previous posts, I won't work for more than two or three hours before I go do something else. Writing has to remain a hobby until it starts to pay some bills. Since it never has, I'm no longer willing to go for a 14 hour work day. Even for the paid editing job, I'm not putting in any more than five hours.

And, by the way, the effect on my health has been pretty good. I have less fatigue attacks, and I'm able to get a little housework done. I'm still having bad mood swings, but I'm trying to fight them and just focus on my lessons.

The language practice does seem to be helping. I've muddle my way through conversations with people on the street and at the store, and everyone who's seen me before is now stunned that yes, I can speak. But I have to keep up the practice, so I can build on these little successes.

The same is true of my guitar practice. I'm still on page 1 of chapter one, the chords. But I can now form all the 21 basic chords. I'm struggling to form barre chords, as my middle finger always tries to move to assist the index finger instead of staying in the fret where it needs to be. I can form an A9 barre chord after much struggling, and it HURTS. And this is not a good pain. So, all I can say is, I can't wait for my hand and forearm muscles to firm up.

And my gosh, really can't wait for the calluses to form! Because as it is, even with half calluses built up on the tips, I can't hold ANY chord for longer that thirty seconds before I have to stop and wait for the grooves to fade. Otherwise, when I go for on the chords, those grooves…they mess me up. I can't even really explain how without devoting a page or two to it. But suffice it to say, I will look forward to pressing on the strings without them biting me.

Anywho, I can now do 12 of the 21 chords from memory. I go in the living room and gab with hubby between chords to let my finger rest, and I do all the chords I can remember over and over. Then I do chromatic scales, and then I wander back to my room to open the book and practice the chords I didn't remember. THEN after I put away the guitar, I break out the hand exerciser for a post-practice workout.

And yet, I'm still too weak to make barre chords…and someday, SOMEDAY, I may even make it to page two, chord pairs.

I download a free guitar tab for Van Halen's Finish What You Started. I can play the whole intro now…but I play it so so damned slow, you'd never recognize it. X^D My two "Guitar Hero" starter songs are both Van Halen numbers. The other is 3:16, a solo piece composed by Eddie for his son, Wolfgang. I'm sure my cousin Bill would be happy to know this. But my reason isn't sentimental. Both tunes use a three finger plucking technique that I long to master, and both move at a fairly relaxed pace (compared to a lot of rock tunes, that is.)

Once I master these, my next tunes to learn will be Green Day's Time of your life and Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine. So if I can master these too, you can probably figre out what will be in my first YouTube concert set. Mostly acoustic numbers, but played with Lili (

I also have this idea that after I have enough Italian and guitar licks down I'm going…to audition at a comedy club. If that doesn't get me booed off the stage and/or stoned to death, I may attempt translating my books and hiring a POD printer in Italy to make dirt cheap books. Who knows? Maybe if I play to the local market, maybe they'll buy my crap.

Or, that's the pipe dream, I guess. For now, I'm just learning chords and verbs, one day at a time.

And speaking of which, it's time for me to wander outside for a bit.

Preorders, orders, chords, and musical concept novels…

You might get the impression that I had nothing to ramble over the last few days. Not so. I have sat down to write blog posts, but after playing with them through a few revisions, I'd come to the conclusion that they were too random and unfocused to publish. I blame the Vicks sinus medication, but need them to breathe, so there you go. Rather then start over, I figured I'd let that stuff go and concentrate on other stuff until I had a shorter ramble to offer.

I want to talk about the guitar first, but I need to cover something more important above the cut: Belfire Press is taking preorders on my duel sci-fi novellas, The Life and Death of a Sex Doll. The print edition is limited to 100 copies, though there will also be ebooks available. This duel novella release features my sci-fi story Adopting a Sex Doll, but with new material added after the book was pulled from my site at the request of Belfire's lead editor, Jodi Lee. While they worked on other titles, I was able to write a sequel, When a Sex Doll Dies, and I submitted it as a separate project. It was accepted too, and the editors of Belfire decided to publish both stories together.

If you've been reluctant to read my horror or dark fantasy titles, this pair of light-hearted sci-fi titles are probably a better story for you to check out. In this story, the year is 2028, and Kelly Braun is a single Internet stock broker incapable of having children. She's unable to adopt either, so she opts to relieve her loneliness by getting a Sensu-Doll, a robotic companion intended for erotic adventures. But Kelly modifies her new sex doll with a childlike appearance, and then codes her expensive toy with new personality modules. Kelly wants to use Ashley Braun in a sophisticated game of house, but the doll's core functions often make playing the game awkward or embarrassing. As Ashley continues to grow, taking on more of her creator's traits and growing willpower, the game becomes her daily life. A sci-fi coming of age story, Adopting a Sex Doll and When a Sex Doll Dies follow the development of an artificial family and explores what it means to be a parent, even if one's child isn't real.

I won't have any self-published releases for May because of Belfire's release. I want to spend my little bit of promotion time in May committed to selling it. BUT, during this month, I still need to sell you TWO projects. First, I'm still looking for more folks willing to check out the newest Zombie Era book, Confessions of a Zombie Lover. I've had a few people read this without reading the prequel, and they felt it worked as a standalone story. As an added bonus, they wanted to go back and read the first story, Zombie Punter. Both have received near constant praise from readers and reviewers alike, and I'm hopeful that more people will check out G's second story and give my nerdy and runty mad scientist a chance to tell his story.

And speaking of reviews, Sandy Morrison & the Pack of Pussies has picked up its first review, a short but positive note from a fast reader. (And thank you for your speed reading and graciousness in picking up my new story. ^_^*) It wasn't in the review, but while talking to the reader on Twitter, she called this a very uplifting story, and she said it put her in a really good mood. This pleases me, as I intended for Sandy's book to be much lighter and positive in tone than my darker horror and dark fantasy stories. Like the Sex Doll novellas, Sandy's story is intended for the folks who looked at my horror and dark fantasy offerings and said, "this is not for me." Which is fine, and if that is the case, you might want to look at Sandy's novel this month, or take a look at Kelly and Ashley's stories next month. In either case, I hope you'll check out the previews even if my prior work made you go "ick." These really are quite different. (BTW, there is a free preview excerpt for The Life and Death of a Sex Doll up on the Belfire Press site at the link I posted above.)

And for those of you who like my horror and dark fantasy, don't worry. There's plenty of stuff backed up in the editing queue coming for you. Of course, you could pick up G's story, and Sandy's too. Maybe they aren't gruesome or dark, but they are entertaining.

Aaaannnd now, I can get to the guitar. I've had it since Monday night, an Ibanez Gio which I've named Lili (pronounced Leelee) Home Wrecker. Lili now shares space in my couch cubby hole with a Fender 20W amp, a DSP model with a USB connection. I haven't played with anything fancy on the amp, and won't even move it off the clean channel until I've learned to play something right. So instead of noodling around trying to sound like Eddie Van Halen, but without his skills, I got a Guitar Basics book, and I'm teaching myself chords. I've since learned six major chords; C, D, E, G, A, and B; and one minor chord transition by shifting my ring finger from the C chord over by one fret to make A minor. (And also to come up with a really tasteless joke: "Now look at A minor. I can't look at a minor! It's illegal!")

I still need more time to build calluses, and I lack the hand strength to hold down the two bottom strings to make a proper F chord. (F chord, AKA: the "Fuck you, noob" chord.) But I have a hand exerciser to work on my finger strength, and it includes an exercise for building calluses. So very soon, the F chord shall be mine…and then I only need to learn the other thirteen chords out of twenty-one. And then I get to work on chord pairs and progressions. And then I can learn how to play rhythm guitar and address basic improvisation. Yay! Learning r fun!

In between chord strums, my fingers need to recover from the many assaults of the wires. It's a lot like sticking your finger on a wire cheese cutter at the deli, and then pushing down REAL hard. After about ten seconds of strumming, I lose tone because my wussy fingertips can't hold the wires down with the right amount of pressure to make the string "sing." While I was performing a practice for hubby, I'd cringe at every mistake and say, "I messed up. Did you hear it?" And he didn't hear shit. He thought I'd done okay. But every metallic "whine" from a loose string riding the fret was an instant "gotcha" to my ears, as was every "plunk" from a dead string, and every "thunk" from a badly applied strum. So, I may be a newbie to playing the instrument, but after twenty years of listening to guitar rock with headphones on to study every whisper of fingers sliding over strings, I know what those strings are supposed to sound like when you show them the right love. I just have to teach my fingers to be better lovers, is all.

But right now, the strings are harsh mistresses who abuse my fingertips like masochistic submissives at a gang spanking party. So I try to change hand positions between each successfully strummed chord and move lower on the frets. I work on speed exercises to get my plucking more accurate and get my fret work up to a speed faster than "Mr. Snail Getting Mugged by Hooligan Teenage Turtles." (Which would make a great title for a death metal song.) This exercise creates lines in another direction on my fingers, and then I go to make another chord, creating more horizontal lines. After I finish all the chords, speed exercises, and hand stretch exercises, my fingers look like pink zebras with red stripes. They're also sore from all the work, so my hands think I've picked up a new masochistic streak.

My left hand is getting twice the torture and doesn't know what the right is bitching about. This is because in addition to all the plucking and strumming, I'm also using the hand exerciser on my left hand, and I'm using the callus builder. If I can get my right hand to learn fret work on my Ibanez, my next guitar purchase will be a cheap right hand acoustic electric model. I figure, there will be lots of times when I have to use a right hand guitar because a left hand model isn't available. So I might as well learn fret work and plucking with both hands.

Anywho, that's the plans for now: keep the house clean, attempt gardening, and work on my Italian. I've kept my schedules consistent, and I've greatly reduced my online time, (And thus my stress levels.) And, just as I'm looking around for sources of cash to deal with the back taxes, I might have an offer to do the assistant editor gig with the glass trade magazine again. It's not assured yet, so I might have to report the deal falling through if my reasonable requests for better training are not met. I hope they will be, because I really could use the work. It's not an exciting job. The corporate-speak in the articles frequently makes my left eye twitch hard, but the company pays well, and they pay on time. There may even be enough work this year for me to afford the back taxes and some gadgets. (I hope so, cause I killed my Blackberry in a tragic mineral water incident.) I'd said the first year I started writing: "I wanted to be a computer animator, but I wasn't good enough and had to become a computer technician instead. So it's probably going to be the case that I'm not good enough to be a published writer, so I'll become an editor instead." Sadly, it looks like my prediction was almost true.

Okay, it's not entirely true, but I HAVE made a lot more money editing than I have on any book. Last year, I had to report 1,800 Euros to the Italian government for my editing. I invested my euros into my books, and I made so little from my sales that I never met a single expense. The same was true of 2009. I made 800 Euros from editing, spent it all on my books, and made so little back that there was no point reporting sales as "profits." I simply reported the sales and moved on. So while I think I write well, and with passion, it has never converted into great sales. One of my closest friends online has suggested that people will start to notice me after the release of my first published work. Belfire Press is giving me this opportunity, so we'll see if being vetted helps to convince more people to take a risk on me.

Even moving back to the amateurs, I want to have faith that something has to hit with people. When I can push a book into the hands of a new reader or reviewer, they usually have great things to say. This has not helped me out in convincing anyone else, though. If there is some way to convince people to try new things, I haven't found it yet. Which is why I gave up on trying to convince people, and it's why I'm playing around with music.

But there is a future writing project related to all this musical learning. In the last Jenny Wrigley book, A Bard's Tale, Jenny comes to the realization that to be a real emissary of Apollo, she has to perform her own music instead of casting her spells over the music of other artists. So she endeavors to learn guitar, piano, and music theory. Once I learn guitar, piano and musical theory, I can compose an album, and then try to locate male vocalists willing to sing parts for Marcus, Tommy, Roland, and Kevin. I'll write a novel around the album, making it my first musical novel with an original soundtrack. But that's a project to pursue a few years from now, so for now, it's fluffy cloud talk.

And that's it for my ramble this time. The sun is finally up, so I'm about ready to have tea and start my housework routine. Back later with more gabbage.