Trudy Myers's Blog, page 42

Monopoly Money

Once upon a time, there was a young man who wanted to sell books. He created a website and negotiated deals with the big publishers to put their books in his warehouse. It took him a few years, but he built up his business to the point where he was the first place people thought of going when they wanted a book.Meanwhile, more than one national chain of book stores went out of business.At some point, this young man realized changes had occurred in the book market. People also bought electronic books. The big publishers were resisting going electronic, considering it a fad, but lots of small publishing companies had sprung up. Some authors were their own publishers. These small companies and individuals not only embraced e-publishing, they were also able to create paper books by using POD printing.The young man thought, “People are spending money on e-books and POD books. If individual authors can set these things up, then I can, too.” So he became not only a book seller, but a not-so-small publisher of e-books and POD books. His company grew even bigger.The big publishers finally, reluctantly produced e-books, but they charged virtually the same amount for the ebook version as they did for the paper version, despite the much lower cost of production. When the young man saw that, he demanded that they lower their e-book prices. Or else! Some did, but one did not, and he punished them terribly, by not selling pre-orders for them, and by letting their orders languish for weeks before they were sent out to the customers.Some authors and small presses thought, “I’m all for lower prices on e-books, but this guy is throwing his weight around.”One day, the young man thought; Since he had the capabilities to POD print, a warehouse, and people to mail books to customers, it only made sense that he do all the POD printing. He ‘negotiated’ with the various POD companies, making arrangements for them to ship their printing jobs to him (and pay him) to print.Upon hearing of this, some who had been ready to use his POD/e-book services thought, “Whoa! Now he’s trying to put POD companies out of business? He wants exclusive rights to sell your e-book for at least 3 months? This guy is not only a bully, he wants a monopoly!”In a round-about way, I’m trying to explain the reason why I (and MoonPhaze Publishing) will not be working with Amazon. Even though not being listed on their site is likely to make it harder to sell our own books, we cannot condone their practices.Since we don’t know which POD publishers are still independent, or how long they can hold out, we’ll have to have a number of books printed and store those we haven’t yet sold. And we need to get a move on, because we have a book due out in January.To hear all the news about this small publishing company in Omaha, Nebraksa, Become a friend of Moon Phaze on facebook
Or even better, send an email to us at MoonPhazePub@hotmail.net asking to sign up for our monthly e-newletter. We’ll tell all about our next book, what our authors are doing, where you might see them, etc. And since we are a small genre fiction publisher, we’ll even tell you about some good genre books we’ve noticed published by others!

Have a Heart

Heart transfers have been part of the medical scene for a good chunk of my life.Donated hearts, along with other organs, used to be (and still are) ‘harvested’ from a donor, packed in ice and rushed to the recipient. But the waiting list is loooong, and many people die while waiting for a new heart.Australian doctors have harvested a heart from the recently deceased - 20 minutes or less - placed the heart in a special fluid, resuscitated it, and kept it beating until it was placed in the recipient patient.They have done this 3 times. The first 2 recipients were doing well, the most recent patient was still in intensive care after the surgery. The doctors stated that with this process, with the heart actively beating right up until placed in the new body, they know the heart is good, that it hasn’t deteriorated past the point of use. When I mentioned this article to my husband, he made some comment about, ‘Dr Frankenstein must be living in Australia these days.’ Always ready to see the funny side.I found this report a bit creepy, when I first read it. But after further reflection, it dawned on me that all donated hearts come from dead people. Nobody has a spare one they can donate while still alive. If anything, the brain dead person who is still breathing and heart is still pumping through artificial stimulation is slightly closer to being alive than the gruesomely decapitated person from the car accident that just happened on Interstate 2 (for example). So the idea lost its creepiness.In the old method, the heart dies as soon as it is removed, and it remains dead until it is sewn into the new person and jolted back to life. In the new method, the heart still dies, but it is resuscitated and nourished until time to sew it in the new person. The patient still gets a formerly-dead heart, but it hasn’t been ‘dead’ for as long.Okay, I was wrong. Thinking about it like that makes both ways creepy. But it works, and if it saves more lives without costing any extra lives, then I’m all for it.I still think the ideal thing to do would be to take some cells from the patient who needs a new organ, put those cells in a nutrient bath and coax them into growing a new heart/liver/whatever for that patient. I would think that would avoid rejection, too. Maybe they’ll get to that, some day.
While I’m waiting, I’m making a list of the parts I’d like grown for me. Let’s see, both knees, right shoulder, pancreas, gall bladder... Since I’m making a list, is there anything you’d like to order?

Tractor Beams!

Hey, remember the tractor beam used in every Star Trek version, in Star Wars, in - heck - probably hundreds of science fiction movies? Well, they are here!I read about it a couple days ago. Scientists have figured out how to move things either towards them or away from them using a circular laser. They called it as a doughnut laser, because the middle was empty (of laser light). With less than 400 words in the article, there wasn’t a lot of information for me to gather, but it also involves putting tiny (microscopic) hollow glass beads coated in gold in the ‘hole’ of the doughnut. Heat from the laser light transfers to the gold of the beads and creates hot spots. When air molecules hit the hot spot, they bounce and speed off, and the bead recoils in the opposite direction. By careful manipulation of the laser’s polarization, the tractor beam operator can decide if the item they’ve grabbed is pulled closer or pushed away.Okay, Scotty, push that missile away from us and make it fast!I kinna doo it, Cap’t! There isna enough molecules in space to make that kind o’ tractor beam work!Yes, I was excited about this announcement until that bit of reality crashed the party. Then I reread the article.It turns out that what they’ve managed to beam around their lab is an item 2 mm in diameter, which is pretty small. And they moved it not quite 8 inches. Well, it’s a start.
Not sure how they’re going to overcome that ‘not enough molecules in space’ problem, though.

Old Dog

You know that ancient saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” I am here to tell you that either a) it isn’t true, or b) I’m not old yet. I have been painting walls since I was 10, or thereabouts, but painting my office has managed to teach me a few things I hadn’t thought about. It’s also kept me too occupied and distracted to do any research into science things to talk about, so that will be next week, I hope.1. Since my family was poor, I was instructed to “make that paint go as far as you can!” That means there are always streaks in my first coat to show where the paint brush went back and forth. Try as I might, I could not stop doing that, probably because I was trying to paint the entire room with 2 pints of different colors of paint, not a gallon of 1 color. A 2nd coat was absolutely necessary. And when I looked at my finished 1st wall, the streaks were not horribly noticeable, but in the proper light, I could still see some. The 2nd coat needs to be applied with the paint brush going at an angle to the strokes of the 1st coat. Those streaks disappear so much easier! Lesson learned: If your first attempt at a project doesn’t produce the result you want, try approaching it from a different angle.2. I was taught to always tape around the wood trim, etc., that you don’t want painted. It doesn’t do me much good to carefully tape up the woodwork when the last person who painted this room didn’t bother. (Now, how am I supposed to get those bits of 25+ year-old splotches of white paint off the dark, dark wood?) Lesson learned: Always do your best, so as not to be ‘That Guy’ that makes more work for someone else.3. The door of this room sits in a corner, in a small ‘alcove’ that’s barely larger than the door. The section of ‘wall’ to either side of the doorway is narrower than the paint brush I was using. In this case, an artist’s brush reached that area much easier than the brush I used on the rest of the room. Lesson learned: Get the proper tool.So, even doing mundane things like painting a room can provide you with a few ‘learning’ moments. I love to learn, so I try to make the most of those moments.
How about you? Any tidbits you’ve learned recently while doing something mundane?

Let Me Check My Schedule

Do you have a schedule? I think most people have a schedule they more or less follow. I had one for the greater part of my working life. It got tweaked if I changed jobs or got a promotion, but it mostly looked something like:Get up at a certain time in order to arrive at work on timeHave a lunch breakGo home and prepare/eat supperSpend the evening on family activities, housework, hobbies and/or writingGo to bed in order to get up in the morning.Weekends - or whatever days off I had - did not follow this schedule, and often felt scattered, unfocused or even wasted. That did not mean I was ready to give up my time off, of course.Now that I’m ‘retired’ from my day job, I am looking for the perfect schedule to follow. In the meantime, I have a rough schedule for when I’m at home: get up, breakfast & pills, write, lunch, housework, business, prepare & eat supper/take pills, tv & hobbies, take my last pill, extra time on the computer, go to bed.Okay, it’s not that different from when I was working, but this schedule includes those pills, which are far more than a multi-vitamin, these days. It works most days, unless I can’t wake up, every joint aches and my brain doesn’t work. Weekends take more effort to remember those pills, because we usually have errands to run, extra chores, or go out for a movie.Then we have vacations, when I might be away from home as much as a month, and mini-vacations where we go to a convention. Somehow, it becomes a major undertaking to remember those pills, see that I eat somewhat regularly and get some ‘me’ time to keep the stress level down. The less I can follow a schedule, the worse things get. I start sleeping more. I have trouble waking. I forget my pills or to watch my blood sugar.And then I have a hard time recovering once I get home. It might take me several days to get myself organized and ‘on schedule’ again. Con-i-tis.People are creatures of habit. I certainly am. Doesn’t mean I want to give up conventions or vacations.
What happens when you‘fall off’ your schedule?

Stress-itis

A few weeks back, I read an article on how stress makes us sick. I spotted the article right after I'd made yet another trip to my doc to complain of aches, pains, stiffness and low-grade nausea. And he gave me what I thought was his automatic response - "It's stress." But then I read this article, which gave me something to think about.Stress triggers the immune system. The immune system starts its repairs by causing inflammation around the injury. When there is no particular injury, only stress, that inflammation can occur anywhere and everywhere. So that explains why I need extra sleep and have more aches and pains after a convention or a tight deadline or when I don't seem to get anything on my to-do list done.As an introvert, spending 3 days surrounded by other people at a convention is a big stressor. I sometimes retreat to a solitary place to recharge my batteries, but maybe what I'm really doing is trying to tamp down my stress. A looming deadline can be a whole heap of stress. A missed deadline effects my professional reputation, and could effect my earnings. Yikes! The article said that people who have an active 'emotion center' have more issues with stress-itis than those who don't. No, I don't cry over every little thing that doesn't go my way, but I do have active emotions. I have worked hard to develop resiliency when receiving rejections of my work. But if my husband says something that I perceive as negative, my mood goes into a tailspin. Stress. Inflammation. Aches, pain, stiffness.Happily, simply changing my reaction can help me release the stress and avoid the related illnesses. Keeping my mind on things not related to my situation, recognizing and labeling my negative emotions, even venting will help. I've been trying to do that, these past few weeks, and all in all, I think I've been feeling better. Yes, I've had some bad days, but not as many as before.
What stresses you out? How do you react to it?

Exploration

I've heard NASA has awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to provide rides for astronauts to the space station, starting in 2016/2017. I figured something like this was coming, because I knew that1) they discontinued the shuttles because Congress won't let them do more than one project at a time. I guess that's one 'transportation' project, because there's been loads of science projects done at the same time.2) they were paying Russia a b**tload to carry astronauts to the station, but recent events in Ukraine have made that arrangement tenuous.3) private companies have already been given contracts to take supplies and equipment to the space station, including mice and other lab animals, so why not people?I've also been thinking about the history of exploration, of people moving into new and unknown territories. Most of it happened before any notes were kept, before the only government was tribal hierarchy. But from what I can remember of world history, there was a pattern to exploration and settling a new 'unknown' territory.The pattern seems to be that a government would send people out to explore. Sometimes the ruler would accompany his army, such as Alexander the Great, but in other instances, the government merely provided the means, such as for Christopher Columbus.Alexander may have been 'seeing what was there' for himself, but his great venture was more about conquest than exploration, and the lands he went were already well occupied and settled, so there was not much in the way of resettling.But in the case of the Americas and Australia, there was still plenty of land available. And people set out to claim their own little piece. (Yes, this was not voluntary in the case of Australia, I know that.)The point is that governments may have 'found' and 'explored' unknown territory, but businesses and individuals then did the actual moving in. Yes, it's more dangerous to leave Earth for a space station, the moon or another planet than to sail across an ocean of water. But as a government agency, NASA has done its job in producing a space station, exploring the moon and is now moving on to more distant territories.
It's time for (some of) us to move out there to start homes and businesses.

Happy Birthday, Mac!

It dawned on me that book characters have birthdays, too. In Mac on Fireball, the soap opera I'm putting out as a blog, Lt Bugalu's birthday is August 2. He was born on Earth, so he knows that.People born on a colony - whether planet, space station or even space-faring ship - don't necessarily have the same calendar to work with. Gaelund, which is where Mac was born, not only has slightly more gravity, but a slightly longer year. She reached legal age (of 18 Earth years) to sign up to join the Fleet when she was 16.5 Gaelund years old.On Gaelund, she knew when her birthday was. But when she reached the Academy, which works on the Earth calendar, she was informed that Sept 17 was her Earth birth date. So at the Academy, and on any Fleet ship she works on, her birthday is on that date.But she is a Gaelunder, and sometimes she feels affronted to be 'aging' faster than everybody else from her home world. When she first reached the Fireball, she was 27.75 Earth years old, but only 25.6 Gaelund years. Maybe it is this too-speedy aging that makes her somewhat reluctant to celebrate her 'birthday' by this time.Or possibly - since she won't talk about her earlier assignments, this is pure speculation on Bugalu's part - her birthday offered an obligation to accept gifts from crew members - and officers - that she didn't want to accept.Whatever her feelings about her birthday, while she is in the Fleet, Mac celebrates on a date that has no noticeable correspondence to the date she was born on the Gaelund calendar. At the Academy, the early fall date didn't feel anything like the early spring date she knew as her 'real' birthdate. It may be easier on a ship, where there are no seasons. Or maybe not, since the calendar is not the one she grew up with.
What about you? If you were suddenly told your birthdate was now Korbalco 33rd, and you were a few years older than you thought you were, would you be inclined to celebrate that date or not?

Shamrokon Report

After visiting the doctor, we rode the train to Holyhead (Wales), where we caught a ferry to Dublin (Ireland). We pulled into Dublin port around midnight on Thursday, and were lucky to catch a taxi going in our direction. The driver asked if we were in town for the convention, we specified which convention, and he knew exactly what hotel it was in. He almost delivered us to there, instead of the one we had requested, which was 3-4 blocks away. We checked in, and this was an actual hotel room, instead of a closet.Shamrokon was the European science fiction convention. Although held in Dublin this year, it travels from city to city, like the World Con does. Since we were traveling to London for the World Con, and Dublin was just a wee bit away, we decided to check it out.John thought the con started early on Friday, at 9 or 10, so we had breakfast and walked over, only to find signs that registration would open at noon. So we walked back and I made the mistake of laying down. When it came time to go, I could not get up, and my throat was sore. John went by himself and I slept. I did get up for supper, but I was probably asleep again before the sun went down. It was disappointing to miss the first day.Saturday, we walked over and kind of went our separate ways, choosing different panels to attend. In looking over the list of panels, I got the impression that European conventions take their science fiction somewhat more seriously than Americans. But it’s possible I didn’t understand any inside jokes they may have.They also had far more panels devoted to one guest than I’m used to seeing. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with that guest’s work, so I didn’t feel a need to attend those panels. Actually, I seldom attend panels that are based on one of the guests; it’s the subject matter of a panel that gets my attention.One panel I attended on Saturday was about how their plan to have WorldCon in Dublin in 2019. I wouldn’t have a chance to site-see before we left, so the idea of coming back appealed for me. They were taking a bus load of people to the Convention Center on Sunday morning, but I had a panel to be on. Happily, John opted to join that bus load for the look-see.Another panel I attended gave the answer to, “Why have a pen name?”, a question I’ve wrestled with for some time. Let’s say somebody reads books by Trudy Myers and they are fantasy and science fiction. Then they see a new title and grab it (I’m dreaming a little, but this is just an example). If it turns out to be a romance or a western, that reader will be disappointed and confused. But if I write fantasy and science fiction as Trudy Myers, romance as Linda Joy and westerns as Mel O Myers, and they know that, then they know what to expect based on the name I’m using. It’s all about branding. I don’t know if I ever heard anybody explain it so well before.Saturday night, we got to see the new Doctor Who in his first episode on a big screen (Well, bigger than we have). What fun!My panel was about mapping and world-building. The moderator spoke about star-maps, and I stated that I had not mentioned stars in my novel, but I did mention the planet’s 4 moons, which the natives call ‘Mother & daughters’. I design worlds by deciding where the plates are located and which direction they move, which gives me mountains, rift valleys and some volcano locations. Then I consider the prevailing winds, which would determine which areas get lots of rain, and which ones get very little. Later, I was surprised when all the questions that came my way were about the moons! Did I know their orbits? Did they have strange tides because there were 4 moons? I tried to give answers that would satisfy their curiosity.
Dublin’s Shamrokon was an interesting experiment for us to try. It was not nearly as big as a World Con, and hadn’t expected to be. It had 5 (maybe 6) panel rooms, ranging from large (seating 350) to medium. If I had to guess, I’d say it was about the size of a decent regional convention in the US. Maybe that’s why I could enjoy it; the size did not overwhelm me. Also, the trees in the yards, the houses and businesses along the route we walked to get there and back were... homey.

Dr Who? Experience

After the World SF Convention in London, we took a train to Cardiff in Wales.The map showed our hotel as a straight shot east of the closest rail station, about 2 or 3 blocks. In real life, the road made an S-curve, and the distance was 4-5 blocks. But we got checked in, and it was still early afternoon. This room had a desk and chair, drawers and a closet!My husband does not sit quietly well. He decided we should walk ‘into town’ and visit the museum. It was pretty much a straight shot to get there, but distance was a little vague. Well, if I reached the utter end of my endurance, we would have to figure something out.The center of Cardiff is one big shopping area, no cars allowed, and a wonderful mixture of new buildings among the really old ones. We went through that, and turned a block too soon, but it was simple to correct our aim and get to the museum... 45 minutes before it was scheduled to close!They had a wonderful section on history of Earth that I had to race through, and I had almost reached the point where people began to evolve when I was told they would close in 5 minutes. Bummer! Now for the walk back.When I’m getting tired, I count my steps. It simply distracts my mind and keeps a rhythm. When we finally reached the hotel, I pretty much collapsed into a chair in the restaurant for supper. I had made it!We had tickets for the Dr Who Experience the next morning. Again, the distance was kind of vague (I thought it was about half a mile), and this time, the directions were vague, too. (It wasn’t shown on the map.) “Go into that shopping mall across the parking lot, and just before you get to the theater, turn left, exit the building, follow the path, and you can’t miss it. Happily, the ‘path’ was marked by signs with a Dalek to show us which way to go.I won’t spoil the experience by telling you much about it. On the other hand, they will probably change it soon, for what we experienced was the Matt Smith doctor. But it did have Daleks, and the Doctor tried to convince them that we were not worth ‘extermination’ because we were obviously an inferior type of human known as ‘shoppers’.After this entertainment, we were in the museum, where John took lots of pictures. We weren’t allowed to touch anything, but I had John taking close ups of buttons and lace bits, lapel styles... And then it dawned on us - there are no Dr Who costume police! As long as your costume is recognizabe, you are enthusiastically accepted! Even so, we still analyzed the costumes on display, especially those not made of cloth, like the rubber suit that looked like it had octopus suckers all over it. We could see a small slit (maybe 9 inches) in the lower back, but was that the only opening? Further study revealed the feet were separate, as were the hands, and probably the head as well. I am not eager to wear an entire rubber suit - think sauna - but I am trying to learn to make such prosthetics, so I was happy to study these items.We could not take a tour of the studio, as the sets were being revamped, getting ready for filming. So that left the souvenir store.John had a particular shirt he wanted, but he couldn’t find it. Bummer. I found a shirt and a poster for me, and he settled for the sweater vest of Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor. We went to the snack bar for something to drink, then walked back to the hotel, where we had a quiet afternoon as he surfed the net, trying to find the shirt he’d wanted.We also did not find any jelly babies in the Dr Who shop, although we had found them at Stonehenge and in London. Not finding them in the DW shop was a real bummer!
To me, Cardiff was better than London! Not as crowded, in other words. I enjoyed our brief stay there. At one time, I would have hated the idea of walking that far to see a museum, but this time, I saw it as a challenge, one I managed to survive. And I got the reward of seeing a fantastic display about the History of Earth that I could have spent at least half a day in, if given the chance. The Dr Who Experience was icing on the cake.