Carol Anita Ryan's Blog, page 14
June 5, 2011
The Post-Modern Matador
Rafa Nadal the number 1 men's tennis player in the world beat number 3, Roger Federer today at the French Open. The score makes the outcome look more convincing than it actually was. So many points looked like staged exhibitions at a tennis camp for the gods. Both men played breathtakingly beautiful tennis and the match could have gone either way.
As I watched the two men at the peek of their tennis careers, I thought of the incredible focus and dedication required to play at such a level. Roger Federer is Swiss and at 29 has long been known for his elegance and grace on and off the court. Rafa is younger and is Spanish. Lately the Spanish have succeeded in many international sports competitions including soccer. Of all the Spanish athletes excelling lately, Rafa Nadal playing singles tennis makes me think of a post-modern matador. It is not his clothes—typical tennis wear, not his hair—drenched and tangled and held at bay by a sweat band, but something more ephemeral. To be a champion tennis player takes grace, bravery, and strength. When I saw Rafa use exquisite footwork, amazing athleticism to move around the court, and focus to look past the occasional missed opportunity to stay in the game, what I saw was the very best aspects of the matador.
Maybe I only saw it today because Roger was wearing a red shirt and I kept thinking of a matador's cape pushing Rafa to triumph.
June 3, 2011
CA Writers at the County Fair
Fun at the Fair
The unofficial start of summer is Memorial weekend and I spent it indoors at crafts building C at the Sacramento County Fair at Cal Expo. I was lucky to help out with the California Writers Club table. We provided literature about the club and its many activities. Each of us at the table displayed copies of our recently published books, occasionally selling a copy or two, and we encouraged people interested in writing who happened by to attend club events. I brought my book marks embossed with my book cover and contact information. I gave away hundreds of them to potential readers eager for something free.
The weather outside last weekend and ever since has been anything but typical for Sacramento. It was mild and cloudy, just like Seattle. It was actually pleasant to be indoors meeting interesting people. I didn't feel like I'd given up a wonderful summer weekend to be at the fair. I was happy to be there talking about writing with all kinds of interested people. I'd never been to the County Fair before. I found it to be a more accessible (cheaper and less crowded) than the State Fair, but still lots of fun. As Arnold would say, next year "I'll be back."
One of the unexpected delights of publishing a book has been getting to know the other authors who are busy marketing their own books. I've learned a lot by seeing how others chat up potential readers, display their books, and design various marketing tools (pencils, cookies, candy, posters, and postcards). The best thing is getting to know such creative and intelligent people in our community.
May 24, 2011
Saturday was not the end of the world!
Seattle connections
Last Saturday was, according to one fellow, supposed to be the end of our world. Luckily the prediction was wrong. It so happened that a couple I've known for twenty-five years were passing through Sacramento on vacation and planned to spend the weekend visiting me. By coincidence my sister-in-law who now spends winters in Arizona was headed back to Washington State for the summer. I know she wanted to see me, but she really wanted to see my friend Dee and her newborn baby. On Saturday I had a house full of old friends, relatives, and a brand new friend—all with connections to Seattle, my old hometown. I don't have such a windfall of visitors that often. I hope it's the start of a new era.
May 15, 2011
Pakistan Revisited
Now that we know Osama bin Laden was cooling his heels among the heart of Pakistan's elite outside the capital city, Islamabad, we should re-evaluate our complicated relationship with Pakistan.
I'm glad the U. S. flew helicopters into the country to dispatch bin Laden without so much as a whisper to our allies. After giving billions to the country, proof that the money was not well spent seems obvious. Pakistan is a nation of very well educated elites (Benazir Bhutto, a former assassinated leader is a famous one), as well as millions of poorly educated or misguided terrorist wanna bes. Apparently the anti-western forces exist at the highest levels of Pakistan's military and government, and we now have proof Pakistan can not be trusted.
Until bin Laden's death, our country tried to appeal to the pro-western forces by giving military aid hoping to get help with the war on terrorism. Forty years ago I entered Pakistan by local bus from Kabul, through the Khyber Pass. In those days, the U. S. was also giving aid to Pakistan as part of the cold war strategy of the time. The U. S was building a highway system and while there were always anti-westerners in Pakistan, it wasn't a popular sentiment. As a traveler, as an American, I was welcome and safe at least as long as I was with my male traveling companion, masquerading as my husband. Islam was important then as always. But in those days the godless communists of the Soviet Union and their ally, India were the big threats to Pakistan.
The first step in re-evaluating our relations with Pakistan should be to stop giving them military aid. As it is we look like fools with regard to the search for bin Laden. A few months of no funds to Pakistan would at least send them a message. If we could pull out of Afghanistan so that our need of Pakistan weren't so obvious, that would be even better!
May 5, 2011
Judging a Book by Its Cover
It took a few years and several re-writes to complete 'Right Now Is Perfect.' By the time I was ready to consider publishing details I knew I wanted a professional designer to help with layout and the all-important cover. The cover had to convey the spirit of the book as well as entice readers to buy it. My publisher, Authority Publishing, had me answer questions about what I wanted (blues and ocean photos, mainly) and based on that the designer came up with three covers from which I could choose. I loved all of them for different reasons, but one stood out because, well, it was perfect.
Soon after I selected the cover I entered it in the Northern California Publishers & Authors annual book awards competition. April 30, the cover design and layout of the book won second place! I'm very happy with the award which really should go to the designers at Authority Publishing.
The design work was done for the paperback edition, yet I use it for marketing the EBook edition as well. I have recently entered the Global EBook Awards competition and you can see my prize winning cover in the post for that competition. Actually, please vote for that post by pressing the fifth e along side 'vote' in the following link:
April 29, 2011
Enjoy A Visit From The Goon Squad!
A Visit From The Goon Squad won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the day I finished the first third of the book. Naturally, I started paying more attention. I realized that the chapters I'd already read, which had seemed like discrete short stories, were related in a mysterious way, and my too casual reading style wasn't helping.
By the time I'd read eighty percent of the book, I knew I needed to go back and do some re-reading. The earlier chapters were often later in the story. It was like the film, Memento, only the story didn't flow straight backwards in time— it jumped around like the chapters were being thrown out of hiccupping time machine.
There was San Francisco seen through the lens of members of a high school punk band in the late 1970s, then other college students in New York City in the early 1990s, then a wandering young traveler in Naples in the late 1980s. Finally a few of these characters are thrown together, this time in the New York City of the not-too-distant future. A unifying subject is the popular music scene, but you have to put the story together for yourself. The author brings all of the different times, places, characters, and milieus alive, so you feel like you've read a very dense book.
I read the Kindle edition and it colored my experience more than usual. One chapter, from the point of view of the twelve year old daughter of one of the important characters, consists of power point slides. Even with the Kindle's ability to enlarge font size and change page orientation, I still found some of the fonts too small and too pale to read. I could read enough to gets the general sense, but some telling details may have been lost to me. On the other hand, using the search feature to find earlier references to 'Alex' for example was really helpful. More than once I used the dictionary lookup feature.
In the 1970s lit majors were talking about Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet pushing the boundaries of the novel by telling a story from four different view points. Books I've read recently (The Imperfectionists, Lady Matador's Hotel) seem to be short story chapters linked together—with different characters point-of-view. A Visit From The Goon Squad takes this trend even further, telling a story about time and music with even more complexity. There are plenty of interesting and disquieting points to think about as you piece together the plot and peer into the future. Like seeing Memento a few times, I may have to reread this book, to make sure I've completely got it. But, A Visit From The Goon Squad will be worth it!
A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
April 27, 2011
How One Slightly Corrupt Cop Can Ruin Your Driving Record
Kirkland Washington is an upscale suburb of Seattle, like Roseville, California is to Sacramento. It reclines along the beautiful east coast of Lake Washington. From there at sunset you can see the lights of Seattle start to come on, like stars twinkling above. It is not the place for serious crime, or corrupt police, you would think.
And yet, three years ago a friend from Fiji was in a car hit by a truck driven by a drunk woman driver. The drunk driver ran from the scene, and the passenger called a police officer (who happened to his personal friend). The truck passenger claimed to his police friend that he was the truck's driver and that the car (which contained four Fijian passengers) was at fault. Despite the testimony of the witnesses in the car, the police took the word of the truck passenger, and blamed the driver of the car.
When a truck runs a red light and hits a small car there will be damages to the car, at the very least. Luckily no one was hurt. But, to this day the car's driver has to pay much higher auto insurance for an accident that she did not cause. This is a dainty version of what can happen when police become arbitrary. My guess is the Fijians (who all had green cards or were citizens, by the way) looked foreign, while the friend of the cop was a long-time Kirkland resident.
April 22, 2011
I Can Guarantee You Can Make a Small Fortune on Your Book!
Since the publication of my book, Right Now Is Perfect, I've joined the hordes in the quest to sell books. Step one is to market the book and I've discovered the latest growth industry revolves around this need. There are now so many published authors that books, consultants, seminars, videos, etc. are popping up everywhere offering marketing advice—for a price.
During my first book selling opportunity, I met another author who gave me something to think about. We were being given an opportunity to pay (quite a lot) for the chance to set up a table at a local mall. The other author told me he will not spend money to sell his books. I thought the mall would not suit me anyway, but I wondered why he was so vehemently opposed.
Since my book was published, I've realized how expensive it can easily become to sell books. There are all kinds of book awards competitions, seminars, publicity packages etc. that one can easily be convinced to purchase. Now I can understand why authors need to create strict rules about when/if to spend or invest money.
In addition to a local awards competition, I've decided to enter the Global EBook Awards competition which is organized by Dan Poynter. It, like so many of the awards competitions, looks like simply a big money-making operation to me. I'm participating as an experiment, in part because I'm on an eBook awards committee. So far the Poynter folks have given me a spot on the website where you can vote (press the right most 'e') for my book
Everyone who applies gets an e-label for their book stating that the book was nominated in the competition. It looks like the entrants so far include a lot of low quality books, so this competition may turn out not to be worth while. It is going to make Dan Poynter some serious money that is for sure.
This leads me to say that, like the old joke, if I make a small fortune on my book it will be because I spent a large fortune.
April 18, 2011
FaceBook and Diversity of Thought
You are probably like me in this respect. I have friends and relatives that I love but absolutely disagree with about important topics like politics, religion, or even fashion and TV programs. Like they say, there's no accounting for taste. Many of these folks are on FaceBook and talk about things I may disagree with. For example, one is a professional astrologer; others are professional skeptics. So, it's a matter of diplomacy, like having Thanksgiving dinner with some relatives you disagree with.
My dad is one of those life-long scientists who never had a good word to say about astrology, in fact never investigated it and dismisses it as nonsense. He's a retired oceanographer, who worked on plate tectonics back in his day. He's been thinking about the increased seismic activity in the Pacific Rim and about the effect of planets on tides. Right now there is an unusual alignment of planets causing rare tides. (One of his many interests is astronomy, so he is more aware of this than most of us). He mentioned last night his new idea that this planetary alignment, which is strong enough to affect tides, could also possibly affect seismic activity. I had to laugh because that is pretty much what the Astrologist has been saying all along.
Is this a case where polar opposites agree?
