Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 32

On the writing front

By Mike Jastrzebski

I have to admit my book sales are way down. In fact, they haven’t been this low since I first published on Kindle. There are many reasons for this.

First and foremost, I haven’t put out a new book in over two years. This is my own fault. I’ve been writing, but not pushing, and now that were putting a lot of effort into getting the boat into cruising shape I’m not writing much at all. I hope to have everything done on the boat by the end of January and then I can hit the keyboard. Of course this means that Stranded Naked Blues will not be published until March, but there are only so many hours in the day.

The second reason I feel that my sales are down is that when Amazon first offered its KDP Select program that gives Indie writers the ability to offer books free for a limited time and lend books to Prime members, I pulled my books from Barnes & Noble, the iBook store and other distributors and offered them exclusively on Amazon.

The Select program was great for increasing sales until Amazon began to tweak the way it counted free books. In my eyes, this has decreased the value of the program. Consequently, I did not renew in the Select program when my contract was up, and now I’m in the process of making my eBooks available with the other booksellers out there.

In doing this my wife, Mary, who is my editor, has been doing a re-edit of all my books, and we are now in the process of getting them ready to go live on the other sites. This is a rather time consuming job and I do not want to run any advertising until the books are all available on all of these sites, so I do not expect to see the sales bump back up until that point.

Finally, do I regret putting the books on Select? Not at all. It worked well for me for over a year, but everything is changing in the book business, and if a writer isn’t willing to go with the flow then he/she might as well give it up.

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Passages

by Christine Kling

I’ve made many ocean passages of more than a couple of days. I started with my first long trip up the Mexican coast from La Paz in Baja California to Long Beach, CA when I was only 20 years old. I’ve been blogging here about my early days of sailing and writing about many of those long passages. I’m going to resume those blogs next week, by the way. I had to ease up recently because I was using every last word in my brain to finish a draft of my sixth book.

Those blogs and my recent thoughts about what I want to do next in my life have had me thinking about long passages quite often lately. Long passages mean night watches. I struggled with those night watches when I was in my twenties. I remember thinking many times that once I got to land, I was never going to put to sea again. About 16 years ago, I even thought I was giving up sailing entirely.

But I keep coming back. And now as I near my 60th birthday, I find myself dreaming more and more of making more ocean passages. Even now as a more seasoned sailor and a more patient adult, I still struggle sometimes with the fear, anxiety and boredom of long ocean passages. People who have never done it often say, “That sounds like fun.” I can hear the experienced sailors out there chuckling. When it’s blowing like stink, you’re hove to and the current is carrying you backwards, you’re running out of water, you’ve blown out your mainsail, the dog is sick, the kid is bored, and you’re exhausted – it’s not what I’d call fun.

And that is why I think ocean passages are so much like writing a book. There are moments when neither is much fun at all. But then the clouds clear, the sun comes out and you see land ahead. The waves ease as you come into the lee of the island, and the boat that seemed to be beating you up starts to sail like a dinghy on lake. You know that you are coming to the end of this voyage and in spite of all you’ve been through, the knowledge is bittersweet. You are delighted to have arrived but it also means the end of the battle. The challenge is no longer before you, and the unknown has been made known.

Finishing a book feels so much like making a landfall at the end of an exhausting yet exhilarating voyage. While underway, you called your ride every name under the sun, and you were not entirely sure you weren’t going to sink before getting there. But now that you’re there, you feel oddly adrift. What next? Where now? Yes, there is lots of tidying up to be done, and there was plenty that went wrong and broke during the voyage, so there are repairs ahead, but soon, you’ll be thinking about new horizons and planning your next voyage.

I got to write the words THE END after completing the 132,000 word draft of Dragon’s Triangle on Saturday. I emailed the raw first draft off to my editor on Monday. I know there’s still lots of maintenance to be done, but that’s different than voyaging, than driving that imagination out to places untraveled. Voyaging is sometimes exciting, but most of the time it’s more like those long night watches, counting not minutes or miles, but words to measure your progress. Fun? I wouldn’t call it that. But making that landfall is sweeter than words can express.

I’ll never be one of those prolific writers who write several books a year and who rack up an impressive list of completed books. My problem is I don’t know which I like better – to write long passages or to sail them.

Fair winds!

Christine

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Letting go of Perfection…

C.E. Grundler

So another winter is just around the corner, and once again, Annabel Lee remains right where she’s been for far too long.  No, the work I’ve been doing should have never taken this long, but sometimes health, hurricanes, and life in general get in the way. All the same I do know for certain (with the exception of any unforeseen impending disasters, of which I’ve had enough, thank you very much,) I am on the home stretch. If all goes according to plans (okay, go ahead and laugh. I know the boat gods are even as I type this.) her completely re-cored decks will once again be sheathed in fiberglass by next Monday, and she WILL WILL WILL be afloat come spring, her decks nice and solid, her engine gleaming and purring, and her new-old mast standing high and proud. I may have mentioned in the past, it’s my delusional optimism that keeps me going. Hey, sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got.

Now, I’ve heard the whispers. I know what some people are saying. I’m a perfectionist, and until I come to terms with that, the boat will never be done.  And that is true to some extent. For one, no boat is ever truly done –that just goes with the nature of boats. And I am a perfectionist when it comes to the boat, but only to a point. For example, I have a strong dislike for leaking decks, and I believe if you’re going to tear them all up and re-core them, you might as well do it once and do it right. So no, I won’t cut corners there. And I strongly believe that the engine room should be the cleanest, shiniest area on the entire boat, because then if there are any leaks, they are clear and easily located and addressed. But beyond that, I’m actually rather partial to the New England workboat philosophy – minimal brightwork, minimal shiny bits, and simply freshen up the paint once a season.  Let the boat look respectable, let her show she’s maintained, but don’t sweat the finish. Personally, I’m seriously considering simply rolling the hull with a nice, flat, off-white paint.  It’s a look I’m rather fond of, and not just aesthetically.  It’s a look that says, “This boat isn’t just a show piece.”

Don’t get me wrong – I’m the first to admire a truly beautiful, meticulous finish. You’ve got to respect the work and discipline that goes into achieving and maintaining it, and brightwork that gleams with flawless richness is truly a thing of beauty. I’d been that obsessive on my old catboat, Myra Lee, and took great pride in the admiration she attracted. But these days I’m letting go of that ideal. So long as she’s mechanically and structurally sound, I’d prefer  Annabel Lee be less of a show piece and more of a functional, functioning boat. A boat I won’t mind dogs romping around, and one I won’t mind hauling a striped bass aboard. A boat that guests don’t have to remove their shoes to board. A boat that dinghies can thump against all night without concern. A boat I don’t have to pamper. A boat with the lowest maintenance-to-use ratio I can achieve.  A boat I can simply enjoy.

It’s easy to get caught up in the quest for perfection. As a writer, there’s always another sentence we can tweak, and on boats, there’s always something that could shine just that much more.  But there’s a point where it might be best to let go of perfection in exchange for ‘good enough’. Because in the end, once Annabel Lee is finally anchored out, as the sun dips below the horizon as the clouds streak the sky with a magnificent pink and orange display, the last thing that will matter is how shiny her hull is.

And on that note, I found this video had been emailed to me a few days back from Jamestown Distributors, and it sums this philosophy up perfectly. It’s well worth watching.

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Research and make someone’s day

michaelhaskins@bellsouth.net

It never ceases to amaze me what influence we writers have on the public. I am in hell, referred to by many as New York, freezing in 45-degree, damp weather. Remember, in Key West the electric blanket comes out of the closet at 75 degrees. I’ll admit that the 50s ain’t bad if the sun is out and you’re dressed for winter. Luckily, I get to test the jacket I bought for my Ireland trip in April.

Anyway, I’m here researching for the book I’m working on. I need to get to Thatcher McGhee’s pub in Pompton Lakes, N.J., to get the full feel of the place for a few chapters I’m about to write. I’ve been in the dining room but hadn’t spent much time in the bar. My daughter Seanan and I went Saturday afternoon and the manager I had emailed no longer worked there. I asked to see the GM on duty and was told she was busy but the server would let her know I was there.

I had copies of Stairway to the Bottom and To Beat the Devil with me because the other GM had asked for a copy of my book. Via email, she seemed excited the pub would show up in my book.

While Seanan and I ate and had a beer or two, Marilyn came by the table and wondered what I wanted. When I told her I was a writer from Key West and wanted to included the pub in my next book, she lit up like a Jersey Christmas tree! All kinds of questions about the books, Key West and when I gave her the books she said the owners of the pub were readers and she’d see they got these and word of the pub being in the book.

I have found when I’ve approached people for help with my writing, police, fire, GMs of bars, they are all more than willing. Part of it, I’m sure, is I approach them as needing their expert advice. Who doesn’t like to feel appreciated for what they do?

Someone asked why go to all the trouble since what I write is fiction. I write fiction in a real locale that many people are familiar with. I use real locations and businesses and if I took too much in the way of poetic license, people would notice and I’d lose them as a reader. I keep faithful to the Smokin’ Tuna Saloon, Schooner Wharf Bar, the Hog’s Breath, The Green Parrot and often hear from people that know those watering holes how they enjoyed reading about them and remembering their times there. Not to say I haven’t used poetic license in my stories, but only when I needed to so the story line would work.

I’m doing the same in the new book (untitled as of now) because I want someone from the NY/NJ area to read it and realize I got the place right. I know the employees of Thatcher McGhee’s will mention it, especially the bartenders, so by word of mouth I may make a few sales; and if they like the book, more word of mouth will result in more sales.

If you’re writing, published or not, do not hesitate to check with professionals in the field you’re dealing with to get a true feeling to your story; facts are facts, so unless you’re doing science fiction, don’t mess with them if you don’t have to. Don’t depend on Google when experts are the there to reach out and touch. Hey, you’ll get a pot full of information, make a source contact and, who knows, might just make someone’s day because you’ve made him/her feel important.

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Those unexpected expenses.

By Mike Jastrzebski

We’ve been budgeting for our next cruise and like every other time that we’ve left the dock and headed for a new destination, the costs have outpaced the expectations. Last year we added dinghy davits and solar panels to the boat. We set what we thought was a reasonable budget and I think we only went about $1000 above those expectations. Most of this was due to our decision to install three 140 watt panels instead of one larger one.

This year is a different story. We’ve budgeted $4500.00 dollars for a 20 gallon per hour Cruise RO water maker, $2000.00 for a new auto pilot, $500.00 for an AIS capable VHF radio, and then there’s the miscellaneous items. One of these items was to have lazy jacks installed on the boat.

While he was here I had the rigger go over our rigging and he discovered that three of our turnbuckles had tiny cracks in the metal. All of a sudden we’re adding another $1900.00 to the budget. This is not a total surprise, we had a rigger out a couple of years ago to inspect the rigging and he told us he thought we had another 3-5 years before we’d have to worry about our rigging and we were hoping to hold off for another year. We also planned to hold off on the bottom painting until next year but the last time we had the prop cleaned the diver told us the paint was getting scarce, so we’re going to paint the bottom before heading to the Exumas this coming year. That’s another couple of grand over budget. Oh well, so much for budgeting and planning. Now we just have to decide if we want to squeeze these expenses into our budget, or if we’re going to have to put off the water maker for another year.

I guess I just have to remind myself about all those months we spent on the hook in the Bahamas this past year without having to pay slip rent. It’s a good thing both Mary and I would rather spend our time at anchor than at a marina.

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Deadlines, word counts, and imagination

by Christine Kling

Monday is it.

I have to ship this first draft off to my editor on Monday. I would like to have months to revise, but that’s not going to happen. In fact, I won’t reach those lovely words, THE END, until sometime late tonight.

I know I’ll get there now. I know how things play out. Yes, I might still be surprised — as I am almost every day of this business — but for the most part, I know. I’ve seen it already on the movie screen that is in my head. This week, I’ve been averaging about 2,000 to 3,000 words a day and that is a lot for me. This draft is going to come in somewhere just shy of 130,000 words and I imagine it will go a bit longer as I revise. As I said to Mary at the dog park last night, I feel like a toothpaste tube, and I’ve been having to squeeze the stuff out of me every day. I like it — in much the same way I like long night passages in foul weather. It sure feels good when you stop.

A friend of mine, Libby Fischer Hellmann wrote a blog post recently titled “NEW RULE: No more Binge Publishing” that was excerpted on The Passive Voice blog here, and it went on to generate well over 200 comments. Unfortunately, it turned nasty in some instances and a personal attack against Libby. Setting that bit aside, it brings up the interesting fact that some writers can write very fast and produce 7,000 words a day easily, while others like me struggle to produce 1,000 words per day. It seems the writers in these two camps are incapable of understanding one another and love to throw mud.

If you write that fast it must be crap.

You’re so slow because you’re lazy and you don’t work as hard as I do.

But the fact is that many extraordinary classics of literature were written very quickly (defeating the argument that it takes time to write well) and some other writers insist their quality would suffer if they were forced to write even a single book a year. There is no one size fits all.

I really have been trying to up my productivity, and I’ve been fascinated by this great difference in how writers work for about the last 9 months. I’ve been reading books on productivity and practicing different techniques. I’m getting better, but I still cannot imagine a day when I could produce more than 2,000 words a day on a regular basis. I’ve asked myself why. Why do I sit there at the computer for hours and only produce a few sentences? What do I lack — the right words, the proper sentences or the needed ideas?

One of the comments among those 200+ on the Passive Voice blog really resonated with me. A fellow wrote:

“It wasn’t the actual writing that took the extra time, but inventing sufficiently interesting ideas and working out their consequences in the story.”  -Tom Simon

I’ve discovered I have to wind up that old time movie camera in my head and watch the scene play out before I can write it. That’s why I’m not at all stressed about the big finale I have to write today. I KNOW this scene. I’ve seen it play out over and over as I wrote this book knowing that was where I was headed.

The struggle has been in getting here. I don’t think I have a very good imagination. These things don’t come easy to me. In this book, I didn’t know what was going to happen to my characters along the way, and some days it was so very hard to figure out what all these people would do and what the consequences of their actions would be. I wanted the ideas and the action to be unique and interesting — as Tom said “sufficiently interesting ideas” not just to carry the reader forward, but to impel them to continue reading, unable to put the book down.

And that’s such a high bar we set for ourselves. Am I capable of coming up with such ideas? It takes a fair dose of hubris to believe that.

But I do like to try, as difficult as it is. So it’s time to head back out to the Philippines and join Riley and Cole as they (meaning I) figure how to get out of this terrible mess I’ve thrown at them.

Fair winds!

Christine

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The Halloween pirate ship…

There’s much to be said for a boat you can bring home and store in the corner of your yard.  For one, you avoid getting hit with storage fees.  Working is easier – you don’t have to worry that a specific tool you need is back home , and when you’re done that glorious shower, comfy chair, and cold drink are all close at hand.  But one of the best things about hauling my catboat, Myra Lee, home each year was Halloween.

As a rule, I would sail until the last week of October. The leaves along the Hudson put on one spectacular show, the winds were crisp and steady, and it certainly ended the season on a high note. Then onto the trailer she’d go, down came the mast, everything got bundled up and strapped down, and home she went.  But there was still an outboard to winterize and a summer’s worth of gear to offload before I could wrap her up for the winter, so I’d park her in the middle of the driveway and go to work.  Frequently, my  winterization day fell on or around Halloween, and one year as trick-or-treaters began to show up, I decided it would be fun to ‘pirate’ up my little ship. I stepped the 18’ boom, (the mast required a crane,) raised a shredded canvas drop-cloth, positioned my Jack-O-Lantern crew, then strung the boat with Christmas lights. I threw some ‘piratey’ clothes on, (technically, my most beat up work-on-the-boat clothes and a bandana,) tossed some candy in a bucket, then proceeded to distribute said candy to all the small visitors who marveled at my diminutive pirate ship.

I have to admit, it was great fun, more than I could have foreseen.  So much fun, in fact, that it became an annual Halloween tradition, and one that drew in visitors from all over town. And the first year after I had sold Myra Lee, many children voiced their disappointment. And all these years later, these same children, older now, still stop by and tell me how much they loved coming to the house with the pirate ship out front, and that they miss the little boat. Truth is, so do I.  I only wish I’d taken some pictures at the time, but I was too busy having fun.

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The Tiki Bar

by John Urban



It’s about time we recognize an important institution that’s close to the hearts of everyone who spends time by the water.  I am talking, of course, about the Tiki Hut, or the even more specifically, that heartfelt institution, the Tiki Bar.

Anthropologists identify the origins of the Tiki Hut as going way back – yes, before Gilligan’s Island, before McCale’s Navy, even before James Michner’s book Tales of the South Pacific.  Some identify the US Tiki Hut culture as Polynesian kitsch. (That may be true but life experience has repeatedly confirmed that things characterized as being “low-brow” are a heck of a lot more fun than the alternative.)

An authoritative review of the research site Wikipedia pegs the Hollywood, California restaurant Don the Beachcomers as the origins of Tiki culture in the states, followed by another California restaurant, Trader Vic’s. Yet before we digress too far in this intellectual exploration, let’s get back to our underlying interest here – the Tiki Bar.

This past week I did some extensive research at a select poolside Tiki Bar.  This first-hand, primary research was conducted on behalf of you, dear reader.  Rum drinks, cold draft beer, bar food – I investigated it all while sitting on a bar stool poolside beneath a thatched roof.  Here are some observations:

- You can frown at umbrella drinks all you want, but there is no arguing that they’re damn fine when consumed under the mid-day sun.

- Did you ever notice that if you camp out at your local watering hole in the early afternoon you’ll be identified as having a serious social and medical problem, but if saddle up to the Tiki Bar mid-day you’re living really, really well?

- Have you ever stopped to consider that you’d get escorted away if you walked around your local bar wrapped in a towel and swim suit, while the outfit is de rigueur at the Tiki Bar?

Academic researchers might help us understand what’s behind all of this. Shorts, flip-flops, loose-fitting shirts, does this attire signal the brain that we are in a very different mode from that of the normal working day? Does the thatched roof and its open sides tell us that we are in a more temporary enclosure than the home, one that emphasizes being in the moment rather than the permanence of a more solid structure? These are deep questions. Then again, maybe this is just about having a rum drink by the water.

I’ll leave these questions and answers to others, but I do know that the Tiki Bar serves as an important research site for those of us who write fiction (at least that’s what I am telling the IRS if they ask). Anyone want a Piña Colada?

Mahalo

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Key Lime Blues audio winners

By Mike Jastrzebski

Last week I offered 10 free copies of the audio version of Key Lime Blues (Wes Darling Book 1). The ten free audio winners are, Karen Hermanson, Jill Liddell, Thomi (Zenthomi), Helaine Hoffman, Mark Bratz, Joe Jacobs, Steve Campbell, Don Weiss, Jim and Glenda Simons, and Pat Moss. If any of you on the list did not receive the email I sent out Sunday with your redemption code and download instructions, please let me know.

If you missed out on this free offer and are interested in an audio copy of this book, I will be offering additional copies in November–just check in with my Monday posts and you won’t miss out.

On the cruising front, Mary and I spent all day Sunday on our hands and knees on the dock re-sewing the sacrificial Sunbrella onto our Jib. The stitching had rotted away in many places and we decided to do the repair ourselves. So how did it go? It went fine, but much as I hate to admit it, I think I’m getting too old to be spending hours on end crawling around on a dock.

Mary and I will be attending the SSCA Melbourne Gam next month. We are probably going to drive down from Merritt Island where we have the boat rather than sail there. I’m hoping we’ll run into some of you out there who read our blog. Christine Kling will be there doing a presentation on self publishing so maybe we’ll run into you there.

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Hi, my name is Chris and I’m an Apple addict

My screens in my 33-foot boat – photo shot on an iPhone

by Christine Kling

Last Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. when I should have been hard at work on this book that is due in less than a week, I was watching the Apple event being streamed live via my Apple TV hooked up to the new 19″ Samsung TV that I mounted on the bulkhead of my boat shortly after I arrived here in Merritt Island. On the screen of my new 21″ iMac I was listening to the chatter of tech pundit Leo Laporte, the CNET crew, and the MacWorld gang while on my iPad I was watching the feed from my Twitter list of Apple folk.

So, yes, I am an Appleholic.

At this event in San Francisco, they announced a new version of the operating system for Macs called Mavericks (and made the upgrade free).  Apple people will recognize on my computer pictured above that I have already upgraded. Nope, there’s none of that “I’m going to wait until they’ve worked the bugs out of the new OS” for me. I was fighting to be among the first in the virtual door to download it.

Happily, the iBookstore has now separated from iTunes and Mac users can read their ebooks on their computers with the iBookstore Mac app that is part of Mavericks. There has been a Kindle app for the desktop for years, so Apple is playing catch-up here. There is no Windows desktop app, however.

One of the most exciting things they announced was a new feature for this version of Apple’s word processing software for the Mac called Pages — it will now allow real time collaboration. Two people can work on the same document in the cloud doing all sorts of things like adding photos and making corrections simultaneously. Yes, we have had Google docs, but it doesn’t work anywhere near as well as the new Pages. Already we are seeing more writers collaborating on novels than ever before, and this will make it so much easier.

The second most interesting thing was they changed the name of the full size iPad to the iPad Air. Apple already makes an incredibly light and thin laptop called the MacBook Air. I think this name change was the first step Apple has taken towards merging these two devices. Many people are already starting to use their tablets as their travel computers instead of their laptops, and with the addition of a keyboard cover, this becomes very easy. For the first time at this event, the presenters were talking about iPads as something one does real work on, not just a device for media consumption. I think Apple will introduce their own keyboard cover when the Macbook Air and the iPad Air merge to become the new iteration of the travel computer. (Hopefully, Keith and company will have the iOS version of Scrivener complete by then).

There still remains one area of Apple tech that I haven’t dabbled in and that is the creation of multimedia books using iBooks Author, a Mac app.What many people may not know is that we get many visitors every day to this blog who have searched the web for Marine Navigation iPad Apps and they find the post I wrote last year. Since my brain will need a rest from fiction writing for a while, I’m going to try my hand at writing a multimedia book on the topic. Unfortunately, books created using iBooks Author cannot be read in any other bookstore so this book will have to be exclusive to Apple. But, since my market will be people who own an iPad, I’m not going to worry about trying to get the book in other online stores.

Since I’m going to be starting this book in a few weeks, I’ll really need to know everything there is to know about iPads. I mean how am I supposed to know how it will look on the new high-resolution iPad mini unless I own one to check it and see, right? What’s one more screen?

Yes, that’s me. My name is Chris and I am an Apple addict.

Fair winds!

Christine