Roberto Scarlato's Blog, page 19

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #14

Why do people need to put character flaws in stories? Because characters are more believable that way. If you don't believe me, take a look at this article on Wikipedia on the all-important Character Flaw. At one point or another I have borrowed a few of these character flaws so that people will relate to my heroes and villains. You don't need many. One or two should do.
Derek from Mr. Dead Eyes once had a fear of dead bodies, of death itself. His friend Kurt has a fear of Claustrophobia which plays a huge role in breaking his calm exterior.
Another one of my characters has a fear of heights, another a fear of guns.
Chances are, you've read about similar characters. They represent a common theme; if your're going write characters...you have to make them human.

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #13

Today, I thought I'd talk about Tea Parties. I know, weird, right?
But this isn't a Boston Tea Party or even a Princess Tea Party. It's a Tea Party of the mind. What I'm basically getting at is advice for all writers. Make your work different. Make it shine, polish it, let it stand out among the rest. But, above all, please, please, make it believable. Give the characters flaws, give them a struggle, twists, turns and car chases. It all adds to the randomness of life. Think Murphy's Law times ten. Because the last thing you want to do is make the work into a Tea Party.
A Tea Party in my mind is when I read a novel and can actually picture the author writing it, taking breaks in between, saying to himself, "Yes. Yes, I would like that. Oooh, I rule!"
Case in point, I've brought up The Celestine Prophecy more than a few times, and I'm not knocking the book. But, mind you, I've made it about halfway until I saw some tea parties spring up.
What's it about?
A professor (gotcha) travels to Peru (cool) to uncover a series of scrolls which reveal nine (Digging it) insights to the world. Along the way he is saved by a stranger who is on a hunt for the scrolls as well. (Um, okay, well, that's convenient) The journey brings them to a place where they fine the insights (okay) in chronological order (what?) and they don't even have to work that hard to learn them. (excuse me, is this thing on?) There is also a Tenth insight. (Wha?) And an Eleventh. (Wait a minute) And a Twelfth, even though we said there were originally nine. (Now your yanking my chain.)
How can the characters ring true if they don't overcome big struggles? Struggle is a key factor in life. We cling to hope because of so many troubles, twists, turns.
So, you see, when you write, please don't write off the seat of your pants, making everything a little too easy or convenient. It will hurt you in the long run. Because in this case, you've created a tea party where you're the only on invited and you're the only one enjoying the party. Maybe some day I'll pick the book back up. But it would have to be on a plane...where there's no escape.

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #12

Rather than bore you with the mundane tasks I've been writing about for the past two weeks, I figured I'd try something different. Fresh reading My Boring-Ass life by Kevin Smith, I was under the impression that everyone wants to read what people do in their daily lives. The only problem is, all the tasks I do, the movies I rent and the things I eat are all meaningless without something very important: Theme.
So, because there should by something you can take away from this, I've decided to focus each day on one central thought that I have. We don't have to take a trip through my day, you can just sit back and relax.
To start, I'd like to say that I think every author should have a Jumble Box.
Let me explain.
Today, while writing, I found two things I could put in my jumble box. The two things were an ending for a future novel and a code put in my third novel. The jumble box is a document I use to catalogue all the ideas that pop into my head. In the past, whenever something would strike me, say, a line of dialogue, an ending scene, a beginning scene; I would hurriedly write it on a scrap of paper. I'd collected the scraps of paper and shove them in a file and put them in my writing desk. The only problem is I get so many ideas that now I have fifteen folders instead of one. I've written on the backs of receipts, napkins, posters, flyers, my hand, my arms, pretty much anywhere. But those things are frail and sometimes unreadable.
Now I just created a document on my flash drive called The Jumble Box. Nothing's numbered or anything. It all just follows a very basic organization table, something like this:
Name of Book ( Novel, Collection or Novella) - A paragraph of description, dialogue or plot points and character names.
That's pretty much it.
And it has served me well.
So far, I've entered 12 ideas into it and hope to one day enter in all the data from all fifteen folders. I won't through them out but at least, with this, I can comb over the ideas with a more selective eye rather than picking, digging into piles of crumpled papers which are barley legible.
What's in your Jumble Box? Do you have one? If not, why not?

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #11

Woke up at 5:50am and went to work. While at work I listened to Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me, the popular news quiz show by NPR. This episode was not only one I liked but one in which I attended I was there in the audience with my in-laws and wife, before we were married. The show featured Drew Carrey as the celebrity guest. I remember it was at the Chase building in downtown chicago. It was an hour or so long but each minute was gut-bustingly funny. I really liked meeting Paula Poundstone. She's quite a character.
At 3:30 I booked it to my car and was on my way home. On the way, during the bright, sunny and surprisingly warm day, I had my window down and the radio on. I was listening to NPR, my favorite station. I guess I wanted a double dose seeing as how I listened to their forty minute show. A lot of really good bits got cut from that episode of Wait! Wait!
I noticed that NPR was asking for donations. The segment went on for twenty minutes. Now, I love NPR, but the whole segment reminded me something about publicity. I hate self-promoting myself. I feel ashamed and sometimes a tinge of what feels like narcissism hits me whenever I tell people to check out my blog or to buy my books. I've done it so much, I feel like I'm way past the point of begging but actually pleading with people. There's got to be a better way to market oneself.
On a positive note, I checked my kindle sales and found that 4 copies of Mr. Dead Eyes sold. 4 copies isn't a lot for two weeks, but its something. One of my friends revealed, on Facebook, that she bought my book on kindle. She actually owns a copy of my first print of the book, way back in 2006 when I thought I knew what I was doing but was still learning. Back then I was working with Iuniverse. Now I'm with Createspace. They feel like a better, sharper, well-qualified group and are affiliated with Amazon. Before, I designed the cover myself, stupidly making it too complicated. This time around, I found that a vast majority of books get their covers at IStockPhoto or Dreamstime. Which are pretty good companies when You're trying to find a cover that fist your story. With the kindle version of Mr. Dead Eyes, not only did I take it through another grinder wheel of edits but I also just let the picture do the work. I picked some fonts that I liked and that was pretty much it.
Just by comparing the covers you can see how far I've come in the way of sharpening the look of my novels.
Around 7:00pm, I was watching a movie called Fat Head on Netflix instant. This movie supposedly debunks Super Size Me by saying that fast food is good for you and can actually make you lose weight if you eat enough of it. Like a cow and some magic beans; I ain't buyin' it. Not only does the narrator of this documentary shove all this stuff in your face, but he does it with a snarky and somewhat self-satisfied smart-alec tone. I questions some of the doctors he visited and, if in fact, any of this rings true. But hey, it's America. He can make his film if he wants too but man, I doubt people are really digging deeper into this.
For dinner I had a double cheeseburger with fries and a Dr. Pepper. I'm really not trying to be hypocritically but, damn, that movie made me hungry as all hell.
I listened to some more Jodi Picoult Podcasts and then decided to read on my kindle, since I haven't done it in a while. After reading some more I decided to read the first chapter of Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult. She's good at painting a picture, I remember vivid details about her other book Perfect Match when my wife recommended that one as well.
Afterwards I called a friend from a previous job, called my in-laws and set up a movie night with my brother on Sunday. My brother's really funny. He loves this idea of a beard hat; a hat that protects your beard in the winter. He's planning on getting one in black. On Sunday, if all goes well, my wife will be watching Lethal Weapon for the first time with me and my brother.

The night ends with me combing over several of my writing projects. I can honestly say I have too many. I din't write much. 349 words. They weren't even that good. Wasn't the right time to dive in, I guess. I'll try again when the waves of words are more welcoming.

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #10

A funny thing happened at work today. I was at my station, listening to my iPod when I ran out of movies and songs I wanted to listen to so I decided to breeze through some audiobooks. I came across one by Alex Damian. His book The Doomsday Club is a free podiobook. It's a very weird story where you are the main character. It drops you right in the middle of the action when a group of stoners accidentally kill a man threatening to take away their weed. The story happens at a breakneck pace, with all the close calls and twists that remind me of A Simple Plan, where every plan is just another deeper hole dug. Anyway, while I was listening, really digging it, there was a part in the story where a character tries to make a bomb using kidney beans and other household chemicals. Somewhere in there, I think when they call the guy Mr. Wizard, I heard a sound I wasn't too sure of. I turned the volume up and, to my surprise, heard what sounded like the author farting while he was speaking his book. It gave me a good laugh. But when I returned home, and turned it up for my wife to hear, she discovered that it was a glitch in the editing, not someone passing gas as I previously thought.
It wouldn't surprise me though. I've heard people clear their throats in Harry Potter books on Cd, I've heard someone fart on the audiobook Revolutionary Road and I've heard several authors, reading their own works, having their stomachs noisily groan for food. Neil Gaimen also complains that this new recording technology picks up that sort of thing every time, forcing him to repeat the take.
I head to the library before heading home to pick up Dinner for Schmucks. Also, I ask the reference desk how I can get my books in their library. The woman takes down my info and tells me to bring in two copies and, if they like them, they'll buy some stock and put it on the shelves.
When I come home my wife and I chill a bit, joke with each other and then eat some leftovers. I make myself a chocolate milkshake and we sit down to watch Dinner For Scmhucks. But before I dish on that, I just have to say that Vampire's Assistant was a complete letdown. I wasn't sure if John C. Reily could tackle the part and I still don't know. The story revolves around freaks living together in a traveling show, like the Ringling Brothers, only these freaks have a vampire named Crepsley. He takes on an assistant because a war is brewing and soon...gasp...the truce will be broken. Dum, dum, dum!
The story was confusing and melodramatic, the plot was washed in mystery, but not the good kind, with foreshadowing that really screams harry potter. I thought this movie would be a let down but, man, I had no idea how big. As far as changing the vampire mythos goes: in this movie the vampires have super spit (Really?) that heals their wounds, they have super speed which is called Flitting (Looks like a blur), are not overwhelmed with a compulsion to drink blood but do need it to replenish their strength and, oh, this is a kicker, there are another, crueler group of vampires, separated from the good ones because these guys have bloodlust and kill people. They are called Vampanese. Really?
But, oh well, I knew what I was getting into. Maybe I should've read the book.
As we tried to watch Dinner for Schmucks, our cat Bandit made himself known by continually meowing in our faces. We did everything we could. We played with him, made sure he was fed, cleaned his litter box but he would just not keep quiet. By the time the movie was nearing the end, we were getting an earful of Bandit. And yet, when I paused the movie, he did not say anything. The movie wasn't good. The first half was alright but it went downhill pretty fast. While watching Vampire's Assistant he also meowed repeatedly at that one. Which leads me to believe that he's trying to save us from bad movies.
The night ends with me calling my father, just having a chat about how well the restaurant's coming and what good western movies he reccomends. My wife and I talk some more than I head to bed. No writing. I figure I can save that for the weekend, when I have some free time.

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #9

Today kicked off to a weird start, with a dream of me, my brother and my father play a game of Texas hold 'em in plastic suits in a meat locker with famous princess bride actor Mandy Patinkin.
Woke up at 5:50 am again and went to work. I love that we get the chance to listen to iPods while working. Makes the day go by a whole lot faster.
As promised, I leave work a 3:30pm to go visit my father. I pick up a Coffee coolata for me and a small black coffee for him. It's somewhat become a tradition. He always gets a small black coffee, it's his thing.
I wait in the car, reading Best American Short Stories 2008, when he shows up. I help him with the groceries inside the house. After that, my mom takes off to leave us boys alone. He starts preparing food and putting things away. While he does this, we talk.
I tell him about how married life is, how I'm not hungry (He keeps offering me food), and generally how we're doing. He still moves quick for his age, very light on his feet. But, I guess you have to be when you're cooking in the kitchen.
The talk leads to work. What I've been doing, how long I've been working, stuff like that. Eventually he talks about his work at Alberto Culver, the Shampoo warehouse. He tells me how he started from just being a janitor to doing every thing in the place. There was no one job he hadn't touched on. My father, an everyman. He was even a general manager at one point, with 35 people working under him. This impresses me to no and and raises my eyebrows high. To this day I'm still learning about my father. He's a quiet, yet wise, bear of a man. The characters I love the most in my stories (i.e. Thomas Wilker and Horace Grant) have the same physical description and personality of my father. My father is a deep well of thought. There's always been a bit of mystery to him. In the same way as I've scrambled for jobs in the past, so has he. Like father, like son. It wasn't until he found out the company wanted to hire someone and give them more money, but they also wanted my dad to train this guy, that he finally called it quits to their face after 15 years.
He asks me about the books and I tell him I'm making some headway. Every couple of days I make another ebook sale. I explain to him how the kindle royalty payments work and he's listening carefully. When I tell him that some of the royalty payment we used to buy food, he gives me a nod and says,"There you go." He smiles, I offer him a fist bump. It feels really good to have your father be proud of you for something he's encouraged for years.
As I'm about to leave, he tells me one day he'll get into my racket, writing books. I grab him by the shoulders and do a playful shake, "But when?" I ask. He's told me time and again how he has a good western story in him. He just has to write it down. He's told me details, but even from those little tidbits, I see the edges, almost the outline, of a larger, greater western story that's never been told. "I just have to get motivated." He says. "Something has to provoke me. I need to get good and fried up about it."
At 5:40 I decide to go home but not before I hug him about three times, shake his hand twice and tell him I love him twice. I've begun to miss my father the longer I don't talk to him so I'm going to try and call the his house more often, just so we can talk.
The grand re-opening of my father's pizzeria, I find out, is being delayed but, I swear, on the drive home, I can almost taste the pizza slices now.
My wife and I sit, talk, joke. We order Mexican food and watch a couple episodes of Burn Notice and Seinfeld. The night ends with me almost falling asleep in a book - a great american pass time: Snooze Reading.
I get up, type up this blog then finally go to bed.
Oh, and about that movie The Vampire's Assistant, it was dull. More details to follow tomorrow. For now, I need rest.
Tomorrow starts a new day of different market strategies to get my books in front of more people.

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #8

Not much has happened today. Woke up at 5:50am this morning to go to work, came back around 4pm. Sat back and relaxed and finally made it to season four of Prison Break. My wife left to go get fish for dinner while I hung out at the apartment.
My back was pretty stiff from sitting all day so I laid out on the couch. When my wife came home, she prepared dinner while we talked, joked and somewhere into the equation I listened to a couple podcast episodes from bestselling author Jodi Picoult. Yes, if I haven't said it enough, as an author I eat, drink, sleep and bleed all things related to or in the direct vicinity of writing.
Din't write today. But then again, I didn't really need to. But there is one word I want to include in one of my stories: Sacrosanct . Man, I love that word. It just flows off the tongue.
Even though I haven't sold any stories, it seems that my blog is making some headway. Here and there I'm being approached, through email, of websites wanting to advertise on my blog. Guess I'm getting noticed now. It's exposure. That is always a good sign.
At the end of the night, the wife and I sit back and watch The Vampire's Assistant. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #7

As crazy as it sounds, last night, believe it or not, I dreamt I was back in High school, playing bumper desks with some people I didn't know. The desk antics came to a halt when I knocked over some chemicals, spilling them to the floor and breaking some breakers in the process. The teacher was picking up the pieces, yelling at me for the mess I made and the supposed one hundred dollars damage I had caused. When the beareded man looked up at me, I realized that he was famous comedian Rob Riggle.
Then I woke up at 7:00am. I fixed myself a bagel and cup of joe and went to work.
Came back from work around 4:00pm. I dropped off The Town dvd at the library and picked up The Vampire's Assistant. The Town was alright, I guess. In terms of direction it was good. In terms of story, for me, it didn't do anything new or outstanding about heist movies. It actually felt like I was watching that movie Heat with Robert DeNiro.
I arrive home, chill on the couch and watch more Prison Break.
At 7pm I wrote 621 words to my second short story collection. This one story in particular strikes a cord with the old life that I led before I got married. It's bitter sweet. Maybe I'll be able to finish the second part of it later tonight.
At 9pm my missus was coming home so I decided to cook up some Jambalaya. Yep, you heard right. This writer can cook (a total of four dishes). But that's not to say that I don't put my heart into the things I do make, fiction included.
So, with the night dwindling to a close, we both eat some spicy Jambalaya and drink ginger ale. Today was a good day. Tomorrow looks even better. If only I could sell some more books...

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #6

Today I woke up at 10:30am. Man, what a night. I had this weird dream where I was in a warehouse sitting in a chair and I was getting a lecture from Jerry Lewis and Paul Newman on how to be a succesful con man. I'm sure there's a good story in there somewhere.
Last night I was under my quota. I only wrote 425 words. It felt like just getting those words out took forever.
But, at 1:00pm today I finally sat down and took a good hard look at my second short story collection. There are four or five that are really easy stories to write. So I write them. When I'm done, I've now got two finished short stories and I've written about 1,579 words. The good part is that even if the story doesn't flow well, at least now I have something to work with.
After that, I kick up my heels and relax, watching more season 3 of Prison Break.
I have some coffee and my missus returns home.
We clean the apartment and I call my brother. Here and there I go back to Crime City on Facebook to wreak havoc.
Later, I make my way to the bookshelf and pick up a copy of The Best American Short Stories 2008 with Salman Rushdie as the guest editor. This is one series you can't get on the kindle which is, yet again, another reason why I think the eBook will never replace the good-old-fashioned hardcovers and paperbacks. It's pretty good. It's getting me back into the rhythm of what a short story is supposed to feel like and what you are supposed to take away from it.
The night ends with the wife and I watching The Town on DVD.
Because I wrote close to 2,000 words today, I feel no need to write tonight. Plus, I have a job I have to get up for in the morning.
Y'know, back two weeks ago, when I had this job through this temp agency called Spherion, they set me up with one seemingly good job. Then, through a series of miscommunication and dimwitted phone calls, the full-time temp to perm job at Netflix turned into a on call 3am two days a week suckfest. Anyone looking for a job should avoid this Spherion Staffing at all costs. You will make pennies, while they promise you profit. It just isn't worth it.
Man, I remember when I showed up there at 3am one day. Me and some other guy were the only ones there. We chatted for a bit while it snowed about how annoying the unemployment office is, how hard it is to find work and just how some people like to string you along. I told him right then and there that I needed something better. Maybe this is it. Hope he's doing well.
Wherever that guy is, I wish him well.
As for me, I've got a job to do.

Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #5

Woke up at 11:30 this morning. Got up, brushed my teeth and sat on the futon to message my brother and play Crime City on Facebook. It's an addictive game.
Didn't write much last night but today I have different plan of attack. My brain has been bubbling about one particular story that I've had trouble getting off the ground. But some solid research last night helped with some of the factual details. All that talk about time travel awakened something, I guess. The story deals with a wormhole and a man going through it. When he does, he gets stuck permanently in the past. There's an exciting twist at the end that ties into century-long conspiracy theories. It's sure to be a good one. Somewhere in the day I have to schedule a time to write the novella and add more to my third novel. We'll see how far that takes me.
I talk with my wife before she heads off to work. I fix myself a raisin cinnamon bagel and a cup of coffee while watching more of season 3 of Prison Break. It's snowing outside. Man, I hate snow so much.
At 1:45pm, I check my amazon sales. Looks like I sold another copy of Mr. Dead Eyes. I'm beaming with excitement. Mr. Dead Eyes has been the leading seller out of all my books since I put it on Kindle in 2010. It made it to #92 on the 100 best medical thrillers board.
At 2:55pm, I call up my buddy who owns a bookstore to ask when I can get my books on his shelves. Turns out they ran into a bit of trouble with some flooding issues and some books got damaged in the process. Also, a lot of authors are thinking of author signings in March. I'm just waiting patiently. With the help of some of my friends, they managed to get my books into a couple of libraries. But this will be the first brick and mortar store I can have my books in if all goes accordingly.
Around 5:30 I pick up some prescriptions and head to the Fitness center where I find, much to my surprise, that when I weigh myself I had lost a total of 6 pounds! Not too shabby. The first month I started working out, I did so three times a week. For the month of February I slacked off for a bit but, regardless, I still lost the pounds. Diet along with exercise really do work. Maybe my body is more sensitive to exercise than I thought.
On the way out, after working on the treadmill for 35 minutes listening to some podcasts on my iPod(Specifically the Dean Koontz podcast), some guy nearly runs me down in his car. He pulls up to the side of me and asks, "Say, do you know of a Buffalo Wild Wings around here?"
Puzzled, I say, "Are you looking for the one at the Mall?"
"No!" he says. "On Roosevelt Road."
"Sorry, I don't know one around here."
"Thanks!" he shouts. Then he speeds off. The jerk.
When I'm in my car to turn at the intersection of Roosevelt and Highland ave, I find a sign for Buffalo Wild Wings. Would you like Karma with that? I think to myself and smile.
I come home, pet Bandit, our cat, and shower up.
While doing laundry, I also chatted with ten cool cats over at KindleBoards for about an hour.
My wife comes home just as I'm collecting the laundry. For some reason, the laundry room, which is a mere twenty paces from the parking lot, has signs all over saying that it is permanently closing on April 4th. Sooo damn lame. Was there that much graffiti to warrant permanently closing like this? They give an address to another laundry room which is 5 minutes away. Great. Chalk one up for stupid people making it harder for the rest of us. Yeesh!
The night ends with my wife playing on iGoogle and me reading. Sixty pages later, I finish My Boring-Ass Life by Kevin Smith. It ends on a high note, Kevin Smith meeting Bruce Willis. But boy, the thing is 450 pages long. I've accomplished a pretty big headache. It could've easily been 100. But I digress.
It's coming up on Midnight and I still have not written a single word of fiction. Well, now I'll just have to sit here and pound out the words because I'm not leaving this couch until I have at least 1,000 words under my belt.
It's crunch time...and I'm more than willing to stay up late.