Adam Oster's Blog, page 49

Fat Mogul vs. Authonomy

There are a ton of places on the internet for writers to congregate or showcase their wares.  I’m not going to pretend that I’ve explored all of them, but I can state definitively that I’ve tried way too many of them.

From time to time (read: when I’m out of other things to talk about) I’ll try to showcase different sites and give my thoughts on how they might benefit you, or, how they might just suck you down into the depths of writer despair….

Authonomy just so happens to be a place that has the great possibility of doing both.

Authonomy.com is a site managed by Harper-Collins, traditional publishing powerhouse based out of the UK (I’m pretty sure they’re based out of the UK anyways…the site seems to be).  When I first joined the site, it looked pretty darn stark.  The website was ancient, appearing to be something that might have been a bit more top of the line in the late nineties, but had gone quite past its prime by the second decade of the new millennium.  They recently had an overhaul of the site which seems to have put a shiny new front to the package…although it now just looks like a generic marketing website…which is probably not too far from the truth.

Now, this overhaul to the site claims to have done much more than just put a new face on the place.  I spent all of about 5 minutes on the site by the time the new version rolled out (as I’ve got more than enough social interaction with authors now than to need to sit around chatting about next to nothing on a place like that).  So, it’s possible that all of my thoughts here are completely moot.  From what I’ve gathered, not much has really changed, outside of some of the backend stuff that doesn’t seem to have actually made any legitimate changes to the front end.

But…that’s a lengthy and confusing introduction for a site that you probably know nothing about….well…if you’re a regular reader here, you probably know something about it…but I digress.

Authonomy.com is intended to be a place where authors can get together, collaborate and help each other to produce the best manuscripts around.  It really, in its purest form, should be a method in which authors who intend to self-publish can help each other to edit and clean up their manuscripts before they hit the publish button on whatever distribution platform they choose.  However, since this is owned by one of the larger publishers on the planet, there’s a twist.  They have something of a competition where folks can actually get their manuscripts looked at by someone who works for HC.  The definition of that person is pretty weak.  Now, the idea here is that this someone might decide that your book should be published by them, complete with big ol’ contract and royalty advance.

Of course..ideas are one thing…realities are the other.

What happens here is that the collaborative efforts of the site take a back seat to the attempts to win this competition.  There is so much gaming and begging and cheating that goes on (as well as a fair amount of backstabbing and bickering and other gross writer habits) that you could quite easily get dragged down into a disgusting drama surrounding someone who believes their book will be the exception to the rule and actually get published, even though they just wrote it yesterday.

But that’s really just the high level overview of the site…the version of the site I found the first time I logged in.  If you don’t actually dig deeper, this is what you’re going to find, a bunch of authors battling against each other for that carrot…the carrot that during my time there, none of the winners of the competition ever actually achieved.

But if you dig deeper, get into the forums and the more social aspects of the site, you’ll quickly find that there are some honest souls hiding in the corners…some folks who genuinely want help with their own writing and are completely honest in their wants to help others in return.  Sure, a lot of this will still continue to be rather superficial…but you can find something that every author in existence needs…empathy.

Because once you start getting into the forums and finding people that are going through the same things you are going through, you find that you’re not all that crazy…and that you might actually have good reason to continue moving forward.

Of course…you might not ever find this on the site…because it’s generally only a select few of the folks hiding back there in the corners.

For me, authonomy ended up being an amazing opportunity to meet some like-minded people and actually help grow not only my confidence and my skills, but also my brand.  It’s something that I’m glad I went back to after my first terrible experience with the site.  It’s not something I would go back to again, simply due to the amount of stupidity that happens in conjunction with the main premise of the site.

Good thing there’s a few other options out there as well…a few more places that offer similar opportunities.

Places that I’ll likely showcase on here quite soon in the coming weeks.

Have fun out there!

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Fat Mogul vs. The Snow

from Wikipedia.

I recently came to the realization that although I had left Tuesdays to just talk about whatever random item might pop into my head at any given moment, I haven’t been…I’ve been using it for things that seem so much more…you know…planned out or something.

So, instead, I’m taking today off.  Today is about nothing worthwhile, important, or anything that you should care about at all.

Today is about how I feel about snow.

Now, although I’ll be soaking up the Florida sun when this thing hits the internets, at the time of writing this, I’m still 9 days away from it…meaning, I’m still dealing with another 9 days of below freezing temperatures…9 days of cars that really don’t want to start, 9 days of kids who cry the second they step outside because their snot instantly froze all across their brain, 9 days of putting on fifteen layers just to check the mail, 9 days of…okay, you get the idea.

Here’s the thing: I hate snow.  I’m not one of those people who go, “Ooooh, the snow is so great, at least for the first couple weeks.” I have never been one to utter, “I could never live somewhere down South, because I need to have a snowy winter”.  In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever even just sat by the window during the first snow of the year and said anything similar to “now this, this is why I stay in Wisconsin.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are things about winter that I enjoy.  There’s not much better than a great sledding hill.  I love throwing snow balls at my kids.  And I’ve recently found that ice skating can be a much more majestic alternative to roller skating (meaning, you can do it as an adult without looking like an idiot).

But that doesn’t mean that it’s a requirement for me at all.

In fact, I lived most of my childhood without the stuff.  My only actual memory of snow for the first 14 years of my life involved a pile of the stuff that came up to my chest (because I was about 4 at the time this memory formed).

But here’s the thing.  I actually don’t mind the snow at all.  I don’t even care as much about the cold…although I could really do with a climate that doesn’t involve needing to state which side of zero you are on when you state the weather outside.

It’s the sun that I miss.

Wisconsin is an odd mistress when it comes to the sun.  I need it…it withholds it for somewhere around 9 months of the year.  For a while, I used to deal with some pretty bad depression due to the fact that I just didn’t see any sort of solar radiation for months at a time.  So bad, in fact, that for a couple years, I would hit up a tanning bed for a couple minutes a day..which, I’ll add, actually helped lift my mood.

The snow’s not too bad when it really comes down to it. It’s almost like living at the beach, except the sand is everywhere and then melts when it comes inside…even if it’s inexplicably ended up down your pants.  It’s cold, but that just means that it’s more fun to throw at people, without any real danger of blinding them for life.

Snow is actually the awesome counterpart to beach sand, and you get to make paths through it and can make people and forts and whatever else that stick around for months until the sun finally clears the earth of the stuff.  Snow makes for the ultimate temporary (although, in Wisconsin, the temporary isn’t quite as temporary as many other areas) playground.

But for some reason, my kids just don’t see it…unless I’m out there with them playing in it myself.

Sooo…new plan for life…invent snow that sticks around in warmer weather, but then also somehow melts when you want it to…yeah…okay…that might be difficult.

Guess I can’t have the best of both worlds.

But sheesh I wish it’d warm up…says the guy who is wearing shorts and swimming when you read this…

Have fun out there!  I’m sure I am.

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Marketing Monday: Finding Your Market

from marketoonist.com

One of the hardest things to do, especially as an author, is actually finding where your market is..you know, in order to let them know you exist.

Actually, if you know where your market resides, ie. one specific location where all members of your market go on a daily basis and would actually be able and willing to notice your book…well, you’ve really got your task laid out quite easily before you.  Make sure they all see your book in that one location.  Done.  Await your call from the New York Times for how you’d like your bio to read.

The truth of the matter here is that there really is no ONE place for most reader groups.  Yeah, if you’re writing a book on how to work the bus system, then an ad inside the buses would probably suffice.  But if you’re writing fiction, there’s not really one place where you’re going to find readers.

Readers don’t really congregate very often, unless it’s for a book club or, I suppose, at the release of movie adaptations of books they love so they can be horribly disappointed in how the adaptation went.  There are a few places online where readers get together to talk about books, but they are generally quite wary of any advertisements, as those locations can quite easily become spam spawning grounds, making the spot all but unliveable.

In fact, for the general writer, you’re going to be stuck with that same situation where ever you go.  Sure, you could drop off books at coffee shops, libraries, local park book swaps, and the couple other places where book readers might hang out and want to find books, but you’re really going to find yourself some stiff competition…you know, seeing as those places are also filled with the Gaimans and Grishams and Goddards and even authors whose last names don’t start with G.

But you need to get your book(s) in front of readers.

This is a question I’ve been working through for myself for quite some time.  If you are an author and want to actually make a number of sales per month you can be proud of, you generally have to find readers outside of your local community (that doesn’t mean you should ignore your local community, but that you’ll still need to think on a much more global scale as well).  This, of course, leads you back to the internet, as that’s today’s best method in which to interact with the world.

Finding your market, then, becomes quite the process of searching through haystacks for readers who really want to read.  You could go everywhere placing your links on every possible thing you could place it on, but you’re much more likely to just be overlooked as spam than you are as something worth checking into.

Here’s my thoughts on the matter…thoughts I’m still currently working on testing out fully.  Go through Goodreads and other online reader sites (there are quite a few…few of which have the regular users Goodreads does) and find places in which to directly interact with readers as a person.  Make yourself a person first, salesperson second.  If you can find the readers you want to have reading your books, get them to listen to you first by offering up useful things to talk about, then bring up the fact that you write books.

It’s what I like to call the sneak attack.

But it’s not much of an attack, as these are folks who are looking for things to read anyways.  All you’re doing by talking like a real honest-to-goodness person first is getting past that personal spam barrier that everyone has learned to put up.

Finding your market isn’t easy, even by putting in the ideas of doing a search on goodreads or where ever.  But it’s incredibly easy to find your market and completely lose them by acting like a jerk.

I’ve interacted directly with most of my readers (well, I honestly have no clue how many more people might have read my books, so I could be overshooting here).  It might be a bit more slowgoing on getting people to read my books, but they’re also much more dedicated to reading all I have to offer…and getting quite interested in what I have coming out next.

This is where social media really reigns.  It’s not that you can create ads for free…it’s that you can interact with your audience directly and show them that you’re someone they want to interact with.  People expect that kind of attention nowadays.  Be prepared to give it.

Alright, that’s it for today.  Have fun out there!

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Flash Fiction Friday: What Just Happened?

I jump to my feet, gasping for air, ready for….ready for what?

There’s a loud blaring horn sounding regularly, and the room is filled with a flashing red light.  Looking around, all I see is metal.

Where am I?

And I was going to fight someone or do something or…what was I going to do?

Looking around, nothing seems familiar.  I’m not sure how I got here, not sure why I’m here.  And definitely not sure where everyone else is.

Actually, I’m so uncertain of everything that I’m not really all that sure who I am.

Amnesia.  You hear about it, read about, and watch countless sitcom episodes about it, but you never actually believe it could happen to you.

Of course, luckily I’m more self-aware than those idiots on TV.  Obviously I’m suffering some sort of amnesia, otherwise I’d have some clue of who I am, why I’m here, and you know, all those other basic questions about my current existence.  But, knowing is half the battle as they always say.

I look around the room a bit more carefully.  It seems almost as if I’ve seen a room like this before.  Well, I mean, it’s obviously a bedroom, but a very familiar looking bedroom.  Not something I remember from my own life, not that I actually remember my own life at this point, but something still quite familiar.  I notice the door on the far side of the room from me, a heavy metal thing with a small round window and a circular wheel in the center, which I’m guessing is what you use to open it.

I know where I’ve seen this type of door before!  At sea.  This is the type of thing they use to keep rooms watertight in case a ship should be submerged.

Simple enough.  I’m at sea.  Not that it helps me all that much to actually know that, but I’m already answering questions at a fifth grade level here.  I’m no idiot.  I just don’t know anything about myself.  That’s a good start.

I run to the door and eagerly begin to turn the wheel on the door counter-clockwise.  After half a turn, I realize that there could be a reason I’m all alone, remembering the blaring warning horn that fills the air.  I look out the little porthole to make sure the room on the other side isn’t submerged.  It seems fine to me.

I return to the act of opening the door and three spins later, it creaks open loudly.  I peek my head out.

“Hello?” I yell into the open corridor.  “Anyone else out there?”

My voice echoes tinnily through the metallic hallway, but my request is not answered.  Cautiously I step out into the hall and check out my surroundings.  The hallway is quite long, with open hatches at regular intervals along the way.  As far as I can see, there doesn’t appear to be any immediate danger, so I begin walking toward a ladder I see situated in the middle of the hall down about three segments.

“Hello?” I yell again as I make my way.

The air tastes funny.  Not salty or anything, like I would expect from being at sea.  It actually tastes a lot like motor oil and aluminum, with a bit of rust.  And it’s quiet in here, outside of the horn that still blasts my ear drums at 3.5 second intervals.  During the brief time between blasts, I can’t help but notice a very odd silence.  There’s a hint of something mechanical doing its job, but nothing else.  With a ship this big, I’d think there’d be a lot more activity.  Especially with a warning going off like it is.

I begin peeking into portholes on the doors along the corridor as I continue toward the ladder.  Each room is the same.  Dark, small, and filled with beds and toilets and minor assortments of personal items.  This must be the sleeping quarters for the crew.  That probably explains why I’m not seeing anyone.  They all went up top when the alarm started going off and for whatever reason, my brain just stopped working.

I reach the ladder and see a sign posted to the wall.  On it is a whole host of terms I really don’t understand, but the one that sticks out most to me is right at the top.  It stated the name of the ship as the USS Rock, and below it the designation of Gato-class submarine.

Submarine, I thought to myself.  I’m on a submarine?

My mind reels with fear as I recognize the fact that I currently have no clue about anything of myself or my crewmates or anything outside of the fact that I am locked within a metallic bubble which could possibly be miles beneath the surface, and there’s an alarm going off.

I rush up the ladder, hoping to figure out what’s going on as fast as I can.  I may not remember my job, but I know that I don’t want to be stuck on a broken boat if it’s about to collapse in on me.

 

For what feels like hours, I search the ship and can’t seem to find a single other person.  The blaring horn continues at its regular intervals, but I can’t find anyone or anything that would show that this was an actual ship.

I did find the exit hatch, it showed itself as inoperable due to current depth.  I found the bridge, but couldn’t get the door open either.

In fact, the only place I could find that could be considered a worthwhile find in all my hunting across this place was the mess hall.

After digging through the fridge for a few minutes, I finally land on cottage cheese as the item to drown my sorrows in.  It’s an odd choice, but it seems like it might have been one of my favorites in a past life.

As I sit and think about my situation, I can’t help but come to one conclusion.  I’m goatrope’d.  I’m down here alone.  I have no idea how to operate anything.  And as far as I can tell, the ship’s about to hit an underwater mountain, although, I’d guess that the noise that’s currently deafening me is more likely a distress signal being blared out for any other passersbys.

I rest my head in my arms.  Maybe I can come up with something, figure out what happened, determine why I’m alone and how I got here.  I just need something that could remind me.

But for now, rest seems most important.  If I could turn off that damned horn.

And just as I think it, the horn stops.

I jerk my head upright, and standing in the middle of the doorway to the kitchen, I see a blonde woman staring at me.

“Charles,” she says as she nears.  “How long are you planning on playing around in here?  We’re supposed to be leaving in an hour.”

 

I know…I left that one a little oddly…not really sure how to end this one, just playing around a bit.  

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Fat Mogul vs. Preparing Kids for a Trip to Disney World

this one’s all mine

Hey, when you’re reading this, I’ll actually be on my way out to Florida with 5 kids in tow, meaning that by the time you read this, I might have even more to add to my idea list, seeing as I’m writing this 13 days ago.

But, needless to say, I’m pretty darn excited about my vacation.  Sure, I love Disney World, as can be noted by my recent discussions about such, but I’m also just happy to get the family out of the state together for the first time in 2 years (Minnesota doesn’t count).

However, I’ve also come to the realization that in my few trips down to the world of the mouse, I’ve gathered quite a few useful ideas on what you might want to do in order to prepare them for such a trip.  And since Thursdays are the day for me to give you actual grounded useful information about pretty much anything (and Disney World tips are always a great SEO phrase)….(speaking of which… Disney World tips, Disney World tips, Disney World tips…is that enough times yet to be an expert?)

Let’s get down to it, shall we?  I’ve got a lot I can offer for advice…we’ll see how much we can fit before I reach the cut off.

1. How old do my kids need to be to go?

The first question asked on every single post of this nature is this one.  Of course, this question isn’t as much about how to prep as it is about whether or not your kids are able to be prepped.  My kids are awesome, so I’ll admit that my experience could be skewed.  But honestly, I think any kid could be the perfect age to go.  More often than not, it’s the parent that comes into question with this one.  If you’re not willing to carry your 2 year old as you walk for miles, or throughout a long fireworks/parade, have troubles with being eagle-eyed, and don’t know how to just let loose and let your kid break the house rules from time to time, then you might not be ready.  Ultimately, Disney World is a kid’s paradise, no matter the age.  I can’t even express how amazing it was to watch my daughter at 2 years old see the castle for the first time.  It’s documented in pictures, but even that doesn’t truly do it justice.  And the rest of the trip just kept getting better from there.  Or my son, when he was about the same age, getting kisses from all the princesses…he went from there to try to get similar affection from every female he saw.

2.  How to tell them you’re going.

Honestly, this is really my first dilemma when it comes to a vacation of any sort.  My kids get super excited about everything…I mean, everything.  Tell them that Grandma (you know, the one who lives in town and they see fairly regularly) is coming over tomorrow: They won’t sleep a wink.  So, when it comes to something as huge as Disney World…well, yeah…they haven’t really sleep a full night since I told them…the day after Christmas.  Many people like to go with the surprise aspect, something we tried the last time we went, to great effect.  However, you don’t have to look too long on the internet to see that this doesn’t always go well…Turns out, if you tell your kids that you’re doing something, get them excited about it, and then tell them that you’re actually doing something completely different, it doesn’t matter how awesome the new thing is, you already got them excited about the other.  When we surprised them, we actually told them all about the place we were staying, just didn’t include that Disney World was next door.  That wasn’t any form of insight into this particular issue I bring up above, just happened to get lucky on this one.  The surprise one was pretty awesome, but I personally have been enjoying getting to spend the past couple weeks counting down the days with them…even if I’d really like it if they would sleep a little more.

3. Okay, so, they know, how do we actually prepare them for what’s to come.

     This is the big issue here.  Actually, whether or not you’ve told the kids that you’re going, you’re going to want to make sure that they’re prepared for what they’re going to be doing.  Disney World is exciting in concept (and in reality, if they’re prepared for it), but can be quite devastating to a kid who is looking at a human-sized Mouse for the first time ever.

So, how about we break things down into the few basic food groups of Disney World prep:

The Characters

If you’re not going to see at least one princess or anthropomorphic animal while you’re there, you’re probably not human.  I mean, even adults love to get themselves a picture with the main mouse himself.  But take a kid into that situation unaware of what they’re truly getting into and you’ll quickly find that it doesn’t work as well as you might have hoped.  Don’t believe me?  Stand outside the line for Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny for about half an hour.  You’ll find at least one kid who will cry at being placed near this stranger and several more who can’t bring themselves to go anywhere near them.  However, those exact locations are perfect spots to get your kid acclimated to the idea.  The more your kid sees costumed characters, the more accustomed to them they become.  I know if my home town, you can go to pretty much any community function and find someone in costume, our parks and recreation department has a shark that comes everywhere, and one of our banks likes to bring along its fish (we are the town of clear water, after all…).  I’d suggest seeking out as many of these characters as you can before you make your way to the house of the mouse.  Coax your kids into saying hi, don’t force it.  Sooner or later they’ll get up the courage to do so (hopefully) and once they see it isn’t that bad, they’ll have a very hard time not wanting to get a hug from everyone in costume they find.

The Experience

Disney is everywhere, and really has been for almost 100 years now.  But when you get yourself into those parks, you’ll realize that you haven’t seen anything yet.  Sure, you can’t go far without watching another trailer for yet another Marvel movie, or a pile of Frozen merchandise, but when you get into those parks, that’s it, you’re not going to see anything else for as long as you’ve decided to hand your money over to Mickey.  Might as well get as much out of it for your kids as possible.  Best way to do that, hands down, is to have them watch the Disney movies which are most shown in the parks.  Best ones to start with are things like Toy Story, Winnie the Pooh, Finding Nemo, any of the princess flicks, a collection of Mickey Mouse cartoons, and…well..the list could easily go on.  This will also help with the previous item.  Getting them intimately familiar with these characters will only serve to get them more excited about meeting them in the parks.  And the second they see Buzz Lightyear in the ‘flesh’, they’ll geek out, even if they won’t go anywhere near him.

The Rides

    This is a hard one to go through simply.  Obviously every kid is different and not every kid will be good for every ride.  The first step you need to take here is just understanding who your kid is.  For instance, I have one kid who is fearless (my daughter) and one who is fearful (although trying to change).  With my daughter, I’ll actively coax her into pushing her personally believed limits.  Hey, you’re tall enough for Tower of Terror now, you think you want to ride it?  It’s pretty scary!  With my son, however, there’s a bit more of a preparation involved so he knows what he’s getting into.  Sure, I can convince him to ride Splash Mountain if he has no clue of what it involves, but if he gets on it and gets completely scared, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to get him to ride the tamer rides, like It’s a Small World.  My personal favorite option with him is youtube.  The ride videos on youtube are annoying to watch, they’re generally not filmed well and give a paltry example of what it really is like to ride the rides…but it builds excitement while also making him aware that there’s a big ass drop at the end.  Unfortunately, for all the excitement he has over riding this one, it’s supposed to be closed while we’re there.

The Walking

Before I go any further here, I’m going to reiterate something I glazed over above.  You WILL be carrying your child.  Well, unless you want a complete and utter breakdown in the middle of the line for Pirates of the Caribbean.  Just be ready for it.  It’ll happen.  But, you can make it better with two things.  First, a stroller.  Well..sorta with a stroller anyways.  No strollers are allowed in the lines for the rides, and many times it’s easier to just part the stroller in one spot for a while as you enjoy a particular area.  It helps, but more than that, you need to get your kid walking beforehand.  The more you can strengthen those leg muscles now, the more you can save your back muscles later.  Again, you WILL be carrying your child (assuming they’re under the age of…let’s say 10), but you can lessen the load, so to speak.

Rest

Which brings me to my final point (I could honestly go on much longer, but I’m way over my limit for today).  Rest.  This is more of a mental preparation, and again, more for you than for them.  You will need to rest.  It can be rather annoying to go all the way back to a hotel in order to take a nap.  Luckily, there are a few options here as well.  First, not all kids will need a nap, so just finding a spot to sit and get off your feet for a half hour or so is a great plan.  If they do need a nap, this is where the stroller can come in mighty handy.

But might I suggest an entirely different option?  Almost every park in the whole place has a great show or ride where you sit in one spot for at least a half hour.  Some of them seem to have been made for nap time.  Here’s my list of spots to take the kids for each park if I see them needing some down time:

Magic Kingdom: Has the most rides in general, therefore has the most options for resting

Hall of Presidents

Carousel of Progress

The PeopleMover

Honestly, outside of the Hall of Presidents, I love these rides, and absolutely MUST ride the peoplemover every time I’m in the park.  But I have to admit, they do a great job of putting a kid to sleep.

Epcot:  Universe of Energy.

Hands down.  It’s 45 minutes, it’s air-conditioned, and even dinosaurs can’t make this ride interesting.  I’d love to say things like Spaceship Earth work for this, but my kids always seem to stay wide awake for everything else in this park except UoE.

Hollywood Studios:  The Great Movie Ride

Again, I love this ride, and to be honest, I’m not sure my daughter has ever fallen asleep during it, and it does have some loud noises.  But it meets most of the standards of Universe of Energy.  Just depends on how tired the kids are before you get there

Animal Kingdom:  Finding Nemo the Musical

This musical is one of the best shows on property (only surpassed by another one in Animal Kingdom, Festival of the Lion King), but there’s usually a long quiet wait in there before you get started, and the show is rather lilting.  If you can get your kid to sleep before the show starts, you’re golden.  If not…well..it is Nemo after all.

 

There’s my tips.  Use them if you wish.  I know I will be doing so, starting today!

Have fun out there!

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Fat Mogul vs. Writer’s Block

If you don’t already know that this is from the amazing Bill Watterson, I suggest you pick yourself up a Calvin and Hobbes omnibus immediately.

Writer’s block.  It’s a phrase that I think everyone is familiar with, and no doubt countless high school essays have caused the term to be uttered by just as many people.  It’s a concept that can mean so many different things, and has been used to explain away the reasons for so many different failures.

I’ve talked about Writer’s Block on here before, although generally on a pretty small scale, as I typically find myself in the issue of having too much to write about, instead of too little.

Well, I’ve always said that, but it was because I didn’t fully understand to what lengths Writer’s Block can really occur…something I’ve become much more aware of since I’ve begun attempting to make this blog filled with more reader-friendly content.

You see, although I don’t generally suffer for lack of things to write about (because I often come here and just start typing whatever’s on my mind at the moment), I do often suffer from coming up with worthwhile things to write about.  With my books, I’ve got so much planned out ahead of where I’m actually at in the writing process that I don’t generally get stuck too often, outside of just not wanting to deal with a particular scene or transition that I’m currently working on, but now that I’ve been working with these new-fangled reader-centric blog posts and flash fiction, I’ve found that sometimes I can just sit behind the keyboard and be at a complete loss for what I might want to say.

I recently realized that I was actually prepared for such an occurrence.

As said above, one of the worst pieces of Writer’s Block is when you just can’t think of anything worthwhile to write.  Sure, you could sit behind the computer and discuss how much you hate Batman for hours on end, but there’s generally only so much you can say before readers tune you out, especially considering how much fanboy love Batman’s got nowadays.

When I was a younger man, I often dealt with the issue of coming up with great ideas at the most inopportune times.  I would be laying in bed with my eyes closed, and suddenly I’d come up with this awesome little idea for a story, or attempting to feed my kids, or, well, you know, doing things that definitely didn’t allow me the time to just sit and thing and plot and whatever else.  Finally, after over a decade of dealing with this situation, where I would sit in bed afraid that I would lose this perfect idea, I started taking notes.  At first, it was on whatever scrap of paper I had around, later, I started using a note-taker on my phone.

These all got compiled into a big text file that sits on a hidden corner of my hard drive…very few times has it actually had anything taken off of it.

When dealing with these blockages in the most recent weeks, I suddenly realized that I had a huge wealth of ideas of things to talk about, things that I just never actually explored at all.  Mostly these apply well to my attempts at flash fiction, but in the end, this giant file of random thoughts and sometimes nonsensical sentences serves quite well to jump start my brain with a whole bunch of things that I find interesting.  Things that then lend quite well towards actually giving me something to write about.

So, here’s my cure, the thing you need to do in order to keep yourself writing (at least when actually blocked and not just dealing with how to work through the next section in a book or whatever): Take notes.  All the time.  Your brain is constantly coming up with new random things that interest you or intrigue you for further exploration.  Note them and actually come back to them.  You’ll find that it won’t take much for your brain to get right back on that same track of thinking and get jumpstarted into writing mode once again.

As far as when you’re blocked on how to move forward on something you’re in the midst of, here’s my trick for that:  Decide what happens next.  Many people say to just skip that scene and start writing the next section after it.  That could help, but that’s more procrastination than anything else.  Typically if I’m stuck, the issue is more that I just don’t know how to get through the next scene because I’m not entirely certain of what it all leads into.  If I just sit down and do a plotting of the scenes that follow, I’m almost always immediately launched into yet another spat of writing that can’t be stopped.

Now, if you’re blocked (like I am right now) due to the fact that you just don’t have the time to actually sit down and write…let me know when you figure out the cure.  Because I’d really like to have the time to sit down and rock through the rest of my work in progress in a couple sessions.  Right now I’m moving like molasses just because I can’t do more than 1000 words a day before I get called away to other duties.

Hope this helps.  If it doesn’t, there’s always one other fix.  Write something completely different, possibly whatever’s stuck on your brain that isn’t worthwhile writing.  Sometimes just getting that out will help give the muse some room to work once again.

Alright, I’m gone.  Have fun out there!

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Book Review: Henchmen by Eric Lahti

I came into this book without any real knowledge or expectations or…well..anything.  I just saw that it was a story told from the perspective of an evil super-villain’s henchman and I was sold.

And I’m really truly happy I was.  Henchmen is quite the amazing take on the supervillain back story…as well as an amusing look into how they manage to get so many people to work beside them.  This story follows Steve (or Steven? I forget because his role as nameless henchman seemed much more important to the tale) and we get to see a firsthand account of what it really means to work for someone who is trying to destroy the world…or, in this case, try to overturn the US government.

Actually, once you get into this book, you’ll see that the term supervillain might be a bit of a misnomer, at least as far as what we know through Steve’s eyes.  Eve, his 7-foot tall Amazonian boss with at least a minor dosing of super-strength, doesn’t seem to be doing what she’s doing to mean any form of selfish means, but in order to better the world.  This isn’t Lex Luthor trying to sink California into the ocean so he can sell real estate on the other side of the San Andreas fault.  This is someone who believes the system is broken and is looking to fix it, through means that might be questionable, sure, but sometimes drastic times require drastic measures…or some other similar overused cliche.

This is where Lahti’s brilliance shines.  Not only does he manage to craft a wonderful thought-provoking piece of what might cause someone to turn to supervillainy, while also showing that they aren’t completely blameless, even if they might have noble intentions; but he also does so with a hefty dose of humor.  This book is plenty funny and on more than one occasion I was reminded of John Dies at the End (although I must note this is nowhere near as flatout funny as that book…rather superficial reminders).  Comedy isn’t the primary purpose here, just a great additional to the voice this book carries.  One of something much larger lying under the surface…which we only begin to get a peek at by the conclusion of this tale.

Simply put, this is a great title and one I can’t wait to see how it progresses.  I highly suggest you check it out!

Buy it now!

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Fat Mogul vs. All You Can Eat Services

place I found this image sourced it from thedivaofdating.com…but not to the direct article.

I love all you can eat buffets. I mean, sure, there’s always the issue of there not being enough turn over and things getting stale, but I still absolutely love them.

It’s not even as much about the all-you-can eat aspect, although the single price for a meal no matter how much you eat is definitely appealing to me.  It’s more because of the wealth of items that are available for consumption, things, that in many cases, I might not order off a normal menu becaues I have no interest in having a full dinner of it.

In other words, I love trying new things.  I just don’t always want to be stuck with them.

My feelings about food are pretty similar to how I feel about most things.  Movies, television, books, music, video games…I’ve, in the past, been hesitant about purchasing new items in any of these categories because of being stuck with a bad egg…this isn’t necessary today.

We live in a pretty cool time, specifically with the internet at our fingertips.  I mean, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, they all allow me to watch whatever it is I might want to watch at whatever time I want.  No longer do I have to pay exorbitant amounts of money in order to have five billion channels, only to turn on the TV and have absolutely no idea what I might be interested in watching.  Instead, I have a whole list of things I want to watch, and I simply have to pick whatever it might be at that given moment.  My filmed entertainment is now available to be consumed on my schedule, and for a fraction of the price…

Music also has some pretty cool options in this arena as well…although if I were a musician, I would be afraid of how much music is devalued today…Seriously..why pay for any music when you can simply do a search for the song on youtube or spotify, or any other number of absolutely legal methods.  Even outside of those options, though…you have Pandora (and other similar options like Songza and IHeartRadio) which changes the radio game for good.  Just pick a style of music you want to listen to, and you’ll be hooked up for as long as you’ve got an internet connection.  And then there are services like Amazon’s music service where you actually have a whole host of albums available for you as though you actually own them.

Video games….well…honestly, these are actually, in many ways, getting worse, when you look at all the micropayments that are getting introduced everywhere.  But there are still pretty cool services like Gamefly that are available to allow you to rent all you want for a standardized price.

Heck, even my local movie store is trying to get in on the all-you-can-eat pricing structure action…although I haven’t actually subscribed to their service, it’s tempting even for the few times we hazard out there for movies not available for our subscription fees at home.

And books!  Well, I mean, the library has always been there as something of a subscription service for books (which just so happened to be free…well, you know, ignoring that tax money that would go to support them).  But now we’ve got things like Oyster, Scribd, and Kindle Unlimited that put hundreds of thousands of books at our fingertips for almost nothing a month.  It’s incredible!

There’s a lot of talk going on out there about how such services are devaluing art.  And I mentioned that I see some reason to fear that specifically with music (as I’ve bought approximately 5 albums in the last as many years).  But I actually think that although this might happen in the growth period, in reality, it will just cause us to value quality art that much more.  The more we have available to imbibe, the more difficult it will be to find what we want.  The more picky we’ll become.  The more insistent we’ll become on quality.

I’m actually quite excited about the future of entertainment. Right now, there’s a lot going on that could be seen as a way for all of us to be acting as patrons of the arts.  But most important is that these all-you-can-eat services aren’t just spreading out the wealth equally among all of the people offered on their services.  The money is going to the people whose stuff is being used.  The people who are created the art that’s wanted.  We’re becoming patrons of the arts in one very simple manner…when we pay our monthly fee for these services, more and more of that money is going to the creators, instead of the people who own the pipelines.

And that’s a pretty big deal.

Now if only there were some way I could pay a monthly fee for my whiskey…

Have fun out there!

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Fat Mogul vs. Review Swaps

I know absolutely nothing about this book…I just liked the picture. Click the link to read a review on it.

If you’re an author and you’ve done any reading up to learn how to best sell your books, you’ve no doubt come across one piece of advice time and time again…in fact, this advice is so important, that you’ll find millions of places giving you millions of different form of advice on how to follow through with it.  That piece of advice: Get More Reviews!

In fact, one of my first interactions with an indie authors was him telling me about how many 5-star reviews he had on his book…all of which he admitted were gained through less-than-ethical means.

I’ve talked about it on here before as well…reviews are definitely an important piece of the book-selling process.  600,000 books were published in 2014 (or something like that, so I’ve been told by countless other sites…).  I’m not going to even look for a source for you right now.  You don’t have to look too hard to see that there are way too many books being published today.  Needless to say, most of those books will just never see any form of real reader response.  Many of them shouldn’t…if you just take a quick look at the most recently published books on the front page of smashwords at any given moment.

The ease in which you can publish a book today has caused so many new authors to hit the market.  I’m not going to say that they aren’t trying very hard to write good material…but…well…let’s just say that there’s a reason that so many good books fall through the cracks.

Reviews, therefore, are an important piece of the puzzle.  Readers, when looking for something new to read, either go to their friends for their recommendations, or seek out books within their favorite genres to try and find a diamond in the rough.  Reviews, therefore, give them something to go on, an idea of what might be worthwhile.

Alright…I’m getting off track here.  We already know reviews are important.  We all use them with almost every purchase we make.  The real question is: How do you get them?

There are so many methods in which to get reviews up for your books.  You can find reader/reviewers through any number of means…although getting them to actually read your books can be trying.  You can give away books and hope that they will review after they read.  You can beg and plead with your family and friends.  You can even make up a whole host of fake accounts to place hundreds of your own reviews and prop yourself up (this used to be a fairly big practice with authors on Amazon, which Amazon found out and made it a lot more difficult to succeed in).

The other item, the one that actually takes the largest amount of work (assuming you’re working ethically here) is the review swap.

This is where you seek out other authors to have them read/review your books under the agreement that they will do the same for you.

I’m going to stop for a minute here to note that there is a possible dilemma of ethics here…and me, being one of those ethical authors will urge to you recognize the dangers inherent in this system.  It’s quite easy to put out reviews for books, make them glowing reviews for books you haven’t read a single word.  There are many authors who do just that, expecting a glowing review in return.  Recognize that if you are an ethical author/review, you may have a situation where the author you are swapping with won’t like that you gave them less than a 5-star rating and can lash out at you negatively…

In fact, the review swap is quite filled with questionable practices that I would suggest taking good care with whom you choose to swap with before actually doing the swap at all.  That is, if you intend to review honestly.

But the review swap is easily one of the best ways to get your review numbers up.  By simply reading books, you should be getting more reviews on your own books.  And authors are so craved for reviews right now that you can be assured that many, if not most, will keep up their end of the bargain.

And the cool thing is, you don’t even have to look too far to find authors who are willing to engage in such activities (although, again, finding ones who are willing to give and receive honest reviews can be a bit more difficult).  Do a quick search for a goodreads group and you’ll find hundreds of such options available.  Facebook also has many such groups…and I can’t imagine it would be too hard doing a google search to find such places as well.

There is even a secondary piece to this wonderful puzzle.  In getting involved in such practices, you’re actually reaching out and networking, increasing your social profile, and ensuring that more people actually know and care about who you are.  Indie authors can be an incredibly supportive bunch, and finding more indie authors to work with can be amazing and wonderful for your own art, even if it simply serves to give you the daily affirmation of knowing that others are going through the same difficulties you are.

Review swaps, in my opinion, are really the only true method to follow, if you want to ensure the best return on your investment.

Of course…Amazon is also not entirely cool with them either, as there is the possibility of being seen as authors working to game the system together…and therefore getting your review rejected simply because it’s not being seen as honest.

I’ve reviews hundreds of books now and have never had a review of mine rejected…but it happens.

Which, once again, is why I stress the importance of acting ethically here (and, of course, in all actions).  There’s not much better of a way to lose your audience than for them to figure out that you’re trying to trick them.

And they will figure that out…A person who has 100 5-star reviews and no bad ones is likely not legitimate.  Give me a book with a healthy dose of 4s, 3s, and 2s, with a smattering of 1s and 5s, and I’ll believe that their stuff is worth reading.

Alright, I’m out.  Have fun out there!

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Flash Fiction Friday: Ollie Ollie Oxenfree

This is barely flash fiction, I know…but I was struggling for story ideas and this one was sitting in the back burner…even if it is mostly an ode to my daughter.

This is a story about Ollie.  Of course, her real name wasn’t Ollie, but rather, Olivia.  She liked being called Ollie, though.  Perhaps it was because her parents had started calling her by the shortened moniker at birth.  Maybe it was due to how she shared the name with a certain archery obsessed superhero.  Or maybe, and most likely, it was because it made her different.

She knew many Olivias.  She’d meet them almost everywhere she went.  And although it was exciting to meet someone with whom she shared a name, it also had the distinct detraction of making her feel less special somehow, like she had been given a rubber stamp name instead of one picked out especially for her.  Yet Ollie, she knew so few.  And of the ones she knew, they were all in stories, not people she met in real life.  If anything, the fact that she shared her nickname with that of characters that other people were aware of from books and television and movies make the nickname that much better…even if most would think it a boy’s name.

But that’s the thing about Olivia, she wasn’t just not afraid to be different, she strove to be her own person.  Sure, she might get caught up in trends and get excited about certain queens with mystical ice powers or other such popular items.  But in the end, she would take them and make them her own, constantly changing her interests based on new information, always finding new things about the world to get her excited, and never as interested in watching something a second time when there was something new to enjoy.

You see, Ollie loved the world.  And, in turn, the world loved her…at least most of it.  At the young age of five, she already would learn how quickly others can judge you based on such silly things as the way you dress and the things you talk about.  And Ollie, at the age of five, would still take these rejections as any five year old would…which is to say, poorly.  She’d come home, sad and dejected, and cry on her parents’ shoulders as she relayed her failures of the day.  She’d take these things hard, knowing in her heart that they weren’t personal attacks, but the silliness of childhood, but ultimately knowing that knowledge didn’t change how it made her feel inside.

Yet, the need to conform never completely overtook her.  She would still get excited to try out new clothing combinations, to show off her creative ideas to her friends, no matter how completely odd and different they were.  And she would take on each new day with the positive attitude that she could make it her own, even if the previous one didn’t work out as hoped.

Ollie was not only a trailblazer, but she was an optimist, a strong, defiant little girl who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to make sure it happened.  She was dedicated to the friends she found and almost always willing to help those who were less fortunate than she.

And sure, she might get excited about presents and toys and games and things, but in the end, she would much rather prefer spending time with people than stuff.

Ollie was and is an inspiration, if not to anyone else, to her father, because of her kind heart and her constant willingness to love.  And he found himself always struggling to be more like her in his own daily interactions…and failing quite miserably.

 

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