Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 144

A TO ZZ TOP REFLECTIONS

Each time I finish a A TO Z CHALLENGE, I think it will be my last.

Did anyone enjoy the ghosts of Twain and Freud sniping at each other?  

Did they make my friends laugh, think, and be glad they visited?

It is getting harder, what with my blood courier duties, to write any of my posts and ...

OOOF!

Ghost of Mark Twain here.  

I just had to bump Roland from his chair and take up this laptop contraption of his.

Childbirth is hard, son.  Writing is just putting one word after another.  

Don't unnerve yourself about it.  Just do it.  

Dance like nobody's watching.  Love like you've never been hurt.  Sing like nobody's listening. 

(And if you sing like me, nobody will be after the first few notes!)

Live like it's Heaven on Earth -- and if you do it right, it will be close.

Reflecting on this here A TO Z whiz bang affair is all well and good but ...

 We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; 

lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid.

 She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; 

but she will never sit down on a cold one anymore either!

If you folks had fun visiting, then me and the boy did well.  

If not ... well that was Roland's fault and none of my own!  

I am the genius of the two of us, you know!

LISTEN TO A BRUISED LEGEND ...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Fae/dp/B00DQ9YBNY/
{Only $1.99 when you buy the kindle for $2.99!}
"If you're tired of the same paranormal tales - same story different characters - then you've found the right audio book. 
The Last Fae will have you laughing, cheering and weeping for humanity. 
 Author Roland Yeomans takes us inside the psyche of Fallen, the last fae, where we get a tiny glimpse of her immortal life through the ages. 
Hear the tales from Fallen herself, an old soul who has seen the worst of our world and come out the other side.
 Let her tell you her stories that are both tragic and fragile - just like her."
-  Wendy Tyler Ryan
THE LAST FAE is a collection of tales told by a lonely, haunted fae bruised by sexual abuse. 
Like many girls sexually abused, Fallen tends to sexualize everything ...
but still yearns for romantic love though she is afraid to believe in it.
And who is talented enough to voice such a haunted fae?
  Shelley Avellino  http://www.shelleyavellino.com/
          Musician, Singer and Artist. Originally from the UK with a voice like velvet!          
She is a British Voice Over Artist with a wide dynamic range.           
She can do most British accents and loves to do character voices.           
Shelley's good with any mood and absolutely loves what she does, which comes across in her work.          
 She has her own studio, and so Shelley can do a quick turnaround. She's professional, reliable and very easy to work with.               
When you listen to THE LAST FAE AUDIO BOOK whether you buy it at Audible, Amazon, or iTunes, you will be amazed at her vocals!      

A VERY HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO MY FRIENDS

To me, mothers share a lot in common with farmers.

Like farmers, they toil every day. 

They sow seeds without a promise of a sure harvest.

Under the most harsh conditions, 

they till the soil, pull weeds, and prune where they believe it is needed.


With no promise of a certain return or a good harvest for all their labor, they work on.


What did my own mother often tell me? 

"Mothers hold their children's hands for only a short time -- but their hearts forever."


And for all their efforts, their loving kindnesses, their reluctant punishments --

they tend to slowly fade into the shadows, 

hidden from the spotlight of their children's ever-growing focus upon themselves, their wants, their lives.

Mothers often grow ghost-like even in the eyes of their husbands, 

chained to the demands of job, bills, and a vitality that is frighteningly leaving them.



For all you mothers out there who feel they are slowly becoming invisible, unappreciated, and alone. 

Here is a video I borrowed from Kimberly Job's lovely blog, SCRIBBLED SCRAPS : http://scribbledscraps.blogspot.com/


:

MOTHERS

Harry Harlow, a psychologist working at the University of Wisconsin during the 1960s,

conducted an ingenious, though inarguably cruel, experiment.

Harlow deprived young monkeys of food, making them desperately hungry,

and then stuck them into a cage where they had a choice of two "mother figures" to run towards.

 On the left was a wire mother - cold and uncomfortable,

yet equipped with a bottle that would feed the baby with life-sustaining nutrients.

On the right was a cloth mother - warm, soft, and comfortable, yet unable to provide the infant with any food

If the only reason why we "love" our mothers (and fathers)

is based on a conditioned response to our need for food,

then the infant monkeys should run to the wire mothers who can feed them every time.

That is not what happened.
Time after time, even when desperately hungry,

the monkeys would run over to the wire mother just long enough to fill up on milk,

 and then dash to the cloth mother as quickly as possible to spend the next 17-18 hours

snuggling into her warm, comforting body.

The infants would sometimes come close to starvation

before they would voluntarily leave their cloth mothers to refill their bellies.

The monkeys needed the sense of being loved, being cuddled

even more than the need for food until they could endure the hunger no longer.




Each year we celebrate Mother’s Day and rightly so ...

although many mothers behave abominably it is true.

Mother’s Day became a nationally recognized holiday in 1914

because of the efforts of Anna Jarvis, a West Virginian 

who campaigned to honor mothers after her own beloved mother passed away in 1905.

Ironically, by the 1920s Jarvis became disenchanted with the commercialization of Mother’s Day 

and began campaigning against the holiday.


WHAT DO MOTHERS REALLY WANT ON MOTHER'S DAY?

Jewelry? 

It just gets in the way of diaper wipes or lost.

Flowers? 

"Oh, great. Just another thing I have to feed and keep alive!"

Chocolates? 

"I have my own stash, thank you very much!"

Vacuum Cleaners or pans? 

"You realize of course this means war!"

Perfume? 

"I am currently wearing Eau de Clorox."


Children, do you want to make your mother really, truly happy on Mother’s Day?

If so, there’s just one gift that all mothers would REALLY love,

and I have some good news: it’s 100 percent free:

SLEEP!
Mothers want uninterrupted, deep, snoring, floating on a comforter,

surrounded by pillows, no-kids-in-the-bed, dream-filled sleep.


AND TO FEEL LOVED AND APPRECIATED -- THAT, TOO. 

I wish my mother were still alive so that I could tell her she is both loved and appreciated.

If you have a good mother, you tell her that while you still can.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

SUCCESSFUL BOOK MARKETING

1.) HAVE FUN!

Above all else, have fun with marketing your eBook.  

Trust me.  

If you hate your marketing method, so will everyone else reading it!

Exciting fun is contagious.  If you make a party of your marketing, your readers will sense it.



2.) CLIMB OUT OF THE PAST



Puttering on Facebook and Twitter is old hat ...

like trying to grind out your book on an old typewriter.

Be creative.

This April, I spoke at a local Sci Fi Convention on how to write science fiction, fantasy, and go about getting published.

Make a book trailer

and host a contest to see if viewers can see the hidden key to a riddle contained within it.

Brainstorm a new road to get attention.



3.) MAKE YOUR BOOK STEAK AND NOT COTTON CANDY



Your book should add value to the reader's life and thoughts besides providing entertainment --

beyond what is already in print.

Does your book fill a need?  

Does it tell a story in a unique way?  

Does it spin a tale from a different angle from what is out there?

Does your book pose questions that will add depth to the reader's thinking?  

Make her laugh?  

Explore a human truth?
If not, you're just adding to the cyber-noise on the internet.



4.) LEARN THE ZEN OF YOUR WRITING


Each of us writes to a specific audience unconsciously.

We can try to adapt, but our worldview slips in when we are not looking.

In a market that is being flooded by millions of books,

we have to try to determine to whom we naturally write.

I'm not talking genre.  

I'm talking discovering your natural niche of writing.  

Once you discover it, you can fine-tune your prose to make it shine.



5.) MAKE YOUR BLOG YOUR NETFLIX


You know why Netflix series garner such loyalty?

Yes, they are quality ...

but you can gobble them up episode after episode

until you feel as if you know the characters intimately.

A good blog is consistent.  
Like a Netflix episode,

it is about one thought or one problem that is handled in a short, concise, entertaining manner.

Do that and you will draw in an audience,

come to be seen as a friend, build trust,

form literary friendships --

all the while selling books.

How cool is that?

HOW TO SELL 1,000 COPIES OF YOUR NEXT BOOK

Between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books are published each year in the U.S. alone.


How do you stand out in that kind of crowd, much less sell multiple copies of your hard-produced book?


Forget email lists. 


YOUR BLOG IS YOUR GOLDEN ROAD TO SALES

Blogs have SEO, comments, and can be graphed either by you or by Google.


When you send an email out, it’s dead.


When you write a great article, it stays live forever and gets page views years down the road.




HOW TO HAVE A POPULAR BLOG

Be aware of what your reader base wants out of the internet.  People go to Google to find the answer to their problem.
If you write the answer to their need, Google will direct them to your blog.

If they like what they read, they may make the leap to try one of your books, especially the latest.

Be like the most popular girl in high school: GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE to build interest.
 You will have to write your blog posts for free for years perhaps before people are persuaded by your post prose to BUY your books.
Yesterday's post, WHEN LIFE KNOCKS YOU DOWN, got 1100 visits as of this moment.
Kindle sales of my latest book, THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD, have doubled as of this writing.

USE THE DRUNK WRITER APPROACH TO YOUR BOOK LAUNCH

Stagger ...

Stagger your Kindle, paperback, and audiobook launch.
This allows you to talk about your book three different times in three different ways!

Oh, did I tell you? 
 THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD is now out in Kindle format.
 https://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Innocents-Abroad-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B01EUFRKKI/

I will set out again soon on my "Don't You Hate Book Tours?" Book Tour starting next week.
This time focusing on my Kindle edition.
ANY OF MY FRIENDS THAT WOULD LIKE TO HELP ME IN THIS, I WOULD DEEPLY APPRECIATE IT!
Again I will be helping you, my friends, with those posts.  Here's a major flaw I see in so many book tour posts:

PEOPLE DON'T BUY BOOKS; THEY BUY BOOKS FROM YOU!
REMEMBER THAT.
So stop hawking your book,and start selling yourself.
People want to see CIVIL WAR, not for the plot, but because MARVEL DID IT.
BATMAN V SUPERMAN had a similar plot, but it stained the brand of DC. 
It will be hard for DC to overcome the inertia of that dismally plotted movie.
Make your posts entertaining, pertinent to your readers, and have fun with the process.
Your book tour posts are like a job interview:
make yourself sparkle and hinting that you are a great  person to know and hang around with.

EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!
KDP SELECT.  Ugh!  Do you know how much you get per page read?  Half a cent per page!
But enroll anyway.
You will get a major ranking boost right away. 
You will be able to give away FREE copies of your book to prime the pump.
Then, switch horses in the middle of the stream. 
Take your new book out of KDP and put in one of your older books.
Readers need a free entry point to sample your writing. 
 Give it to them with one of your older books in KDP.
Now, go on out there and start writing to win!

WHEN LIFE KNOCKS YOU DOWN_IWSG Post

The lab results that shook you to the core.  

The harsh retort that cost you a relationship.  

The needed car repair that costs more than you have.

Life has a way of continually knocking you to the ground without warning.  

Sometimes you don't know if you have it within you to get up one more time.

You don't have to continually get up.  

You just have to get up one more time than they knock you down.
And that means adapting to the present, thinking outside of our usual responses to stress.

We have been brought low by the myth of HAPPILY EVER AFTER.  

There is no such thing.


Our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. 
There is beauty, laughter, and friendship along our journey, 
but if we focus on the maybe happiness of a future with goal won, we will lose today ...
 We will have lost priceless treasures existing in our Now by the searching for Tomorrow's  fool's gold. 


The hidden thing about crossroads 
is that we never know we are at one until we have made our decision and are reaping the consequences.
Sometimes the way ahead is not clear.
Yet "Impossible" just gives birth to legends. 
* When I was abandoned at six on Skid Row in Detroit, 
* When my home burned to the ground with no insurance, 
* When the love of my life died in surgery, 
* When my whole city was forcibly evacuated from our homes --
 I hit bottom all those times.
Bottom gives us a place to stand, to rise, to reflect upon what is left ... 
to perhaps see a new path to old goals or hidden roads to new ones.

Wilde wrote that insanity was trying the same things repeatedly and expecting different results. 
We must take different steps to reach new destinations.

Each blow, each wound, each set-back has a lesson for us if we but stand back and reflect. 
Those things have shaped us and surviving them has made us stronger, wiser.

There is beauty, there is humor, there is hope ... 
perhaps those are the only lights in Man's dark world. 
In tragedy and in despair, 
when an endless night seems to have fallen, hope can be found in the realization that the companion of night is not another night, 
that the companion of night is day, that darkness always gives way to light, 
and that death rules only half of creation, life the other half.
That is the great thing about life:   Though it is often cruel, it is also mysterious, 

filled with wonder and surprise; 

sometimes the surprises are so amazing that they qualify as miracles,  
and by witnessing those miracles, a shattered person can sometimes discover a reason to live.
Often I am scared down to the marrow of my bones, 
but I keep telling myself that as long as I have laughter, I am not without hope.
In my blog, I always try to find something to laugh about.  
May laughter be our companion today, leading us to a new goal or the realization of an old one.

ENDINGS

To every beginning there is an ending.

But not always ...

In my worldview, the soul has a beginning but no true ending. 

Perhaps it has a final destination, yet no ending but eternity.

What did Woody Allen say?

Eternity is awfully long ... especially towards the end.

But for novels there has to be an ending. But where?

Remember the multiple "endings" to the movie, RETURN OF THE KING. 

 I was with my date who kept starting to get up scene after scene. Peter Jackson just didn't seem to want to end his epic tale.

Of course those of us who had read the book knew what the true ending would be. 

 But most in the audience hadn't read the book.

And like my date, they were frustrated and a bit miffed at Peter for misleading them scene after scene.

Not unlike an old car that just wouldn't stop after the key is turned off.

Finally, the epic ends with the closing of the door to Sam's home. 

But it was too late. Most felt dissatisfied at the false endings.

Take John Ford's classic Western, THE SEARCHERS.

It, too, ends with the closing of a home's door -- but the perspective is switched. 

The audience sees from the inside out to the figure of John Wayne beyond. 

A cover story in New York magazine called it the most influential movie ending in American history.

 
The opening and closing shots, of Ethan arriving and leaving,

framed in a doorway. The poignancy with which he stands alone at the door,

one hand on the opposite elbow (his arm having been wounded by an arrow earlier in the film),

forgotten for a moment after delivering Debbie home. 

These shots are among the treasures of the cinema.

Ethan (John Wayne) cannot enter the home which represents civilization, home, and forgiveness. 

 He is too wounded (hence the gesture of holding his formerly wounded arm.)

Ethan's story is the tragedy of the loner: 

we see Ethan at the end of the film, as we saw him at its beginning: 

alone, lonely, haunted by the past, and deeply wounded.

John Ford had this ending in mind when he filmed the beginning. 

I believe to have a truly focused novel, we as authors should have the ending in view from the very start of our story. 

Doing so provides that emotional impact of the closing lines which touches the reader's head as well as heart.

Of course, there are different ways to do that:

Snipping all the loose ends neatly.

Bracketing the novel with book-end type scenes as Ford did with THE SEARCHERS.

Or ending with a cliff-hanger, 

drawing the reader into an anxious anticipation for the next chapter in an on-going story -- 

as life is on-going.

How do you decide when to end your novel and why?
***

Z is for NEVER THE END

"Everyone owes nature a death, but in our unconscious, we are immortal." 
- Sigmund Freud

"Everything ends badly -- that is why they end." 
- Samuel McCord

"There is nothing fair or well in farewells."
 - Empress Meilori Shinseen

 "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times." 
- Mark Twain


The ghost of Sigmund Freud looked oddly sad as he said to me, 

"We now reach the letter Z.  What occurs to you now?" 

"Never the End," I said.

Mark nodded, "From Tom Sawyer to Huck Finn, I always had trouble with endings, too."

Freud shook his head.  "Why am I not surprised that even here at the end, you make this all about yourself?"

Mark Twain sighed, 

"You, of all people, should know that death has always been a door only one person wide."

Freud twirled his still unlit cigar.  

"Yes, that is why I requested my doctor to end my life with morphine when the pain became too great to bear."  

He looked off into the darkness.  "It was my door to open when I wished.  My doctor agreed."

Freud gestured to our haunted surroundings.  "And after all my talk about Thanatos, I find myself here."

Mark smiled sadly, 

"Your life was never what you expected, brother, so why expect death to be any different?"

Freud raised an eyebrow. "Brother?"

"Of course brother.  

We're both ghosts so that makes us brothers, don't you know?

Why, if you t'weren't my brother, I'd have to kill you.  And since you can't kill ghosts, I decided to think of you as a brother."

Mark smiled crooked, "Of course, I think of you as the black sheep of the family."

Freud squeezed the bridge of his nose.  "You would."

Mark glanced over the doctor's shoulder.  "Why if it isn't Napoleon over there playing chess with Darwin."

Mark winked at Freud.  "Let's wander over there and pop some pompous ego's.  It'll be fun."

Freud shook his head.  "You will not drag me into another maddening exchange of nonsense."

Mark nodded off to our right.  "Why, lookee there.  Old Jung and Adler are heading our way."

Freud hastily got up without looking.  I did.  Neither were to be seen.  Mark winked at me.

Freud sighed, 

"I suppose I should accompany you to spare Napoleon and Darwin from your uncensored wit."

Mark tugged on the man's arm.  "This will be a hoot.  Just you watch."

I got up to join them when I noticed Napoleon had a pistol in his waist sash.  

I remembered how innocent by-standers fared at Meilori's.  

I sat back down.  

I smiled wide.  This had certainly been one A TO Z CHALLENGE I'd not forget.

How about you?

Y is for WHY

"The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so 'slow,' so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print." 
- Mark Twain on The Interpretation of Dreams


 "Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young."
 - Mark Twain

I blinked my eyes in confusion.

Freud's ghost dissolved into boyhood, and then slowly re-focused into young adulthood.

The ghost of Mark Twain looked as startled as I felt.  I sighed as I thought I understood.

Which of us has not longed to begin again, wiser for all the mistakes and foolish choices we have made over the years?

But would we live any wiser, any better?  Or would we only make new mistakes, take different roads best left untrod? 

Freud seemed to be unaware of his metamorphosis.  

His unconscious was flinching from the revelations of some of his bitter mistakes, dysfunctional life choices, 

and perhaps the regrets to which they had given birth.

Freud cleared his throat as if to likewise clear his mind from the mistakes Wyrd and Twain had exposed.

"We come now to the letter Y in our Free Association Exercise.  What occurs to you, Roland?"

"Why," I said to a suddenly scowling Freud, and I spelled it out, "W-H-Y."

Freud frowned, "Why?"

"Exactly," I said as Twain fought a smile.

"When as a boy, I saw the across the-street neighbor beating down his front door with a fence post, 

or when I watched the wife of a smart chemical engineer throw herself down on the floor, 

beating it with her fists and feet in a fit of temper, 

or gulped as a driver veered in front of my step-father's car to get ahead of him, 

risking so much to gain so little,

I asked WHY?  

It is what drove me to study psychology.  Isn't that what prompted you into it as well?"

Freud shook his head.  

"When I was 26, I fell madly in love with Martha Bernays.  My lab job did not pay well enough to marry, 

so I studied medicine for three years and was finally able to marry her."

I nodded my head.  

"I still ask WHY?  Why are we so cruel to those who cannot fight back?  Why is the world getting darker and darker?"

Mark smiled, "I am gratified to be able to answer those questions promptly, Roland: I don't know."

Freud snapped, "Twain, you support my feelings about the majority of people."

"Yeah?" snorted Mark.  "Well, I didn't spin a whole theory on just one child."

It was my turn to frown, and Mark said, 

"Despite old Saw-Brains' theories about how children are sexual beings who develop into adults with unconscious issues, 

Freud saw only a single patient during his lifetime who was actually a child."

I turned to Freud who only shrugged, "One was enough."

Mark sighed, 

"Keep asking WHY, Roland, and keep trying to answer that eternal question. 

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young."

"As if you knew anything about life, Twain."

Mark drawled, 

"I didn't charge folks a pretty penny just to tell my dog in front of them that you thought they was lying."

I frowned again, and he went on, "Old Coke-Head transferred his affection to his dog."

Mark put out his cigar. 

"He involved his Chow Chow, Jofi, in therapy sessions, saying things like: 

'Jofi doesn’t approve of what you’re saying.' 

Patients complained that he was more interested in the dog than in them, 

which on the basis of the evidence may very well have been true."

Freud sniffed, "The more I learned of people, the more I liked my dog."

Mark nodded agreement.  "Me, too.  But I didn't charge folks to listen to me talk to him!"