Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 97

Presentations

I went and talked to my dad's computer club yesterday about self-publishing and how it works. Ahead of time, I was feeling as if I really hadn't prepared. I only had about 20 slides for a 45-minute presentation, and I hadn't bothered to run through what I was going to say, not even to check timing. I had a vague idea of what I'd talk about, more or less, and a little bit of structure prepared. Some talk about writing as a hobby -- since this was the computer club, I figured not everyone would be writers; some warnings about keeping expectations reasonable and avoiding scams; and then a walk through CreateSpace. Nice and simple. But still, driving over, I was feeling a little insecure.

It was great. I talked smoothly, my audience was attentive and appreciative, and I got lots of interesting questions at the end, plus plenty of positive feedback after we wrapped up (and not just from my dad and step-mom, who are sort of obligated to tell me I'm wonderful!)

I forget how much I truly enjoy presenting when I'm not doing it. I'm such an introvert that I mostly dread interactions with lots of people, but put me on a stage or in front of audience, and I...well, it's not relax, exactly, but sort of it is. It's the lovely combination of a little bit of adrenaline, pumping me up, plus a -- OH! It's a flow state!! How exciting to realize that. A flow state is when you're fully present in the moment you're in, focused and concentrating, but also energized. Wikipedia says "In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand."

When I give a presentation, I go into flow. For that time, I'm just there, just trying to convey something to my audience, to connect with them and figure out what they need to learn and how to reach them. It's a lovely feeling.

I think I should be looking for a job that gives me an opportunity to talk in front of crowds a lot. Or maybe start a business? Except that I can't really travel. Oh, but in 14 months, the kid will be 18. So fairly soon, I really can travel all I like. Wow, that's such a strange thought. I could go places without worrying about who will take care of my boy. Hmm, so maybe I should start thinking about what kind of jobs involve presentations.

Happy Halloween!

I could make lots of excuses for why I disappeared for the month of October -- I actually have a few good reasons, including a couple of fun projects that took up some brain space and writing energy. I'm working on a presentation about self-publishing for my dad's computer club, which ought to be fun if I can pull all my thoughts together. I'm also editing and formatting my son's paternal grandfather's memoirs, which I thought would be a little project, but requires some serious thinking in order to respect his voice and story while still making sensible edits.

And I started some Doctor Who fanfiction, which has been fun but gives me an excuse for lots of research. Bacon cost 38 cents per pound in 1938, which sounds faked, because of the 38-38 repetition, but was actually from a site about prices in 1938. I spent quite a while wavering over whether a made-up price -- 39 cents? 37 cents? 42 cents? -- would sound more realistic than the real price. Plus, of course, the research into Doctor Who itself, which means watching episodes -- where was River in prison? When was River in prison? (Stormcage, 51st century). Who arrested her? Back to the television!

And, of course, I'm still struggling with rewriting A Gift of Time. I've done the first chapter so many times now, so many different ways. My new plan is to NaNoWriMo it -- just write, write, write, get the idea down, and move on. I did this analysis of my current writing process with a friend today:

Line: Half the town filled Maggie's place.
Thought: That's terrible. Well, rewrite it. Get the idea across in a better way.
Line: Maggie's place was packed.
Thought: Is that passive? Is it dull? Sentences with "was" are boring. I should change that.
Line: Half the town packed into Maggie's place.
Thought: Okay, that's just stupid. You're talking about people, not the town. A town can't fit into a restaurant.
Line: People packed Maggie's place.
Thought: Ugh, that alliteration is like bad poetry. And could 'people' possibly be a duller word choice?

And twenty minutes later, I have accomplished nothing. And all I wanted to do was to say that the darn restaurant was crowded!

Mostly, though, my disappearance has been due to none of that. Actually, I've been living in Azeroth. If you've ever played WoW, the Pandaria expansion is really fun. It combines so many good qualities of play and story, humor and tension and excitement and gratification. The makers have put serious work into finding out what makes a game fun and satisfying and trying to build in aspects of the game that will make it enjoyable for everyone. The only problem, of course, is that in order to get to Panda-land, you've got to work your characters through all of the other levels. Huge, huge time sink. I suppose when we're starving because I haven't found a job (<--hyperbole, highly unlikely to happen) I will regret the hours spent immersed in someone else's imaginary worlds, but honestly, I've really enjoyed this past month there.

That said, I'm going to try to cut way back in November in order to spend more time in my own imaginary worlds. And I'll be giving the 50,000 words in a month thing a try. I probably won't do the official NaNoWriMo, because I want to work on Time, of course, and since I've been working on it for, ulp, three or four months already, it doesn't fit within their rules. But in principle, I'll be trying the crazy writing schedule for a month. Anyone else doing the same?

PS The number on the Halloween candy is because it's for a scavenger hunt for Project Team Beta. Welcome, Project Team Beta folks! Good luck with the hunt! And Happy Halloween!

PPS A Gift of Ghosts and A Gift of Thought are both free on Amazon on October 31, from midnight to midnight Pacific Standard Time. If you're reading this, you've probably read them already, but if you have friends who might like a free ghost story or two on Halloween, please spread the word!

Malware and motivation

My computer has become infested with malware, making the internet essentially unusable. I've tried a variety of things to fix it, but every time, either I get frustrated after an hour or two and decide to try again later (fast-forward another week or ten days before I'm willing to tackle it again) or I think I have it fixed only to discover a day or two later that I'm wrong, wrong, wrong. By unusable, I mean that when I'm typing, it may take seconds between letters. When I'm browsing, clicking links takes me to random sites, not related to the sites I've clicked on. Filling out forms is simply impossible, and I'm not willing to go to any secure site (ie banking or business related) in case a keylogger is waiting to steal my password. In other words, unusable.

I have to fix it. I know I have to fix it. I know that I'm the only person who's going to fix it. But somehow, I'm just stuck. It's so much easier to turn the computer off and play Sudoku on my iPad. It's a problem at exactly the wrong level of serious annoyance but not quite completely incapacitating.

But there is hope. I've been following a site called Unfuck Your Habitat . . .

You know, I got exactly this far in writing this post, and then I heard the voice of Ms. UFYH in my head and it was saying, "Excuses are boring." It was a nice voice. Friendly, maybe a little tiny bit southern, in that way that some southerners can pull off of saying something mean in such a way that it sounds gentle, even though it's not. But firm, very firm. So away I went and now, four and half hours later, my computer is reformatted and I'm online again and my most important software (Word, so that I can keep writing) and my most important files (the Time files, of course!) are all back online.

Not only that, the two most recent boxes of stuff from my mom's house are unpacked and somewhat put away, and the kitchen cupboards are reorganized so that some of the china can fit into the kitchen, making it far more usable than if it were stuck in a box in a closet somewhere. And the coffee plus coffee supplies are actually next to the coffee maker. If the camera battery was charged, I'd go take pictures.

I've needed to fix my computer since July. It's October.

Typing at full speed. Checking my email in seconds instead of tedious minutes. Clicking on a link and having it go where I want it to go...It wasn't 20 minutes. But I'm so, so, so glad that I finally just stopped making excuses and got it done!

Thank you, #ufyh!

Grief for the 10,000th time

I started using a site called OhLife last year. It's sort of a diary -- it sends you an email every day and you reply and it saves your messages and then sends them back to you. The ideal scenario is that five years from now, you see something you wrote and feel charmingly nostalgic. Oh, I remember that, what a good choice I made, how fun that was, whatever.

Holy bad words, I picked the wrong year to start using it.

Yesterday, we worked on cleaning out the house. It had to be done. I have no argument with that. It should have been done nine months ago. Maybe a year ago even. I think a year ago I might have cried my way through packing up my mom's things for Goodwill with resolution and dignity and sorrow, but not despair. Yesterday, not so much. I want to keep it all. Everything. She cared about those things. She valued them. I look at them now and think, this was from the trip they took to Russia and they bought this in New Orleans and we got this together on our trip to London and she loved these dishes and I am just unwilling, unable, to let anything go.

I hate clutter. But I miss my mother.

So today's OhLife? Said, "Michelle's tumor is back. She's having surgery on Friday. Pretty sure that's enough said, but until I found that out, it was a nice day. I feel...numb. Not sure there are words, really."

 I stayed numb for a long while. I wish I was still numb. The hardest part is the moments when I think, I am so, so, so sad, I should call...and there I stop. Because I should call my mom or I should call Michelle. They are who I reach out to when life is simply unbearable -- my mom for the unconditional love, Michelle for the unconditional support.

And they're gone.

Book covers

I've not been much of a blogger lately, or much of a writer. End of summer is always such a transition, and not one that I do well. But we're finally starting to settle into the new routine. This week I meant to do lots of writing, but instead I did lots of cover designing. I know that I'm not enough of a designer to make a living at design, but it really is awfully fun.

Well, sometimes it's fun, I suppose. The first cover of Thought never made me very happy. But I went to a meeting of the Orlando Independent Writers this week and a fellow author inspired me to do a redesign. I didn't even stick to my own cover principles with that cover. I do know what I was thinking with the decisions I made, but, eh, better to stick with cover rules. So, new cover for Thought, first cover for Time (unfinished, since I have no quote for it yet), minor re-design on Ghosts for consistency. Let's see how they look at small sizes!

Updated: Immediate changes. Rejected the first round, let's try a second!  

Yesterday's words

Yesterday was the first day I managed 1000 words in weeks. It's too bad the words weren't on A Gift of Time! But they're sort of fun, so here they are:

****

“It’s so bizarre,” Akira said thoughtfully, staring up at the motionless ceiling fan. 
“Is the baby moving?” Zane asked, sliding a hand along the slight curve of her belly. He hadn’t been able to feel a kick yet, but that didn’t stop him from trying. 
“No, not that.” Akira tilted her head sideways, letting it come to rest against his shoulder. She sighed, feeling content with her position although mildly exasperated by her body’s demands. 
“Bizarre,” Zane repeated. “Would that be the miracle of life growing inside you?” 
“A natural process that women have been managing for thousands of years.” Her voice was dry. Of course, it was a little strange that she’d met her baby’s previous incarnation—she imagined that not too many women throughout history could claim the same. But no, that wasn’t what she’d been thinking about.
“What then?” Zane stroked up, long fingers reaching the underside of her breast and lightly tracing a pattern along her skin. 
“How much I want red meat.” Not just red meat. Steak. Gorgeous steak. Red in the middle, seared dark on the outside. Mmm, with salt. Luscious salt, bursting with flavor on her tongue. Or maybe a hamburger, juicy and rich, dripping with . . . ick. Fat and blood. That’s what hamburgers dripped with. But even knowing that didn’t change the way her mouth watered at the thought.
Zane chuckled. 
“It doesn’t make sense,” Akira protested.
“Sure it does. The baby needs some protein.” 
“I ate a pound of edamame last night. A whole pound. That’s about five times the amount of protein the average person needs.”
Zane’s hand stilled. “I read something . . .” He pulled away, Akira’s head dropping to the pillow as he got out of the bed and crossed to the dresser on the other side of the room. 
“Hey!” She complained. She’d been comfortable. And his clever hands had been starting to stir up something a little more interesting than hunger for steak. 
He looked back over his shoulder and grinned at her. “Coming right back,” he promised. He grabbed his smartphone and started tapping.  “Soy,” he reported, “contains phytic acid.”
Akira raised her eyebrows. “And?” She’d never even heard of phytic acid. Why had Zane? 
“It blocks the absorption of minerals.” He joined her on the bed, lying down and putting a proprietary arm across her. 
“Minerals such as . . .”
“Calcium, magnesium, and iron,” he said cheerfully. “Also zinc and mercury, if they matter.” 
“Let me see that.” Akira held out a hand for his phone and he passed it to her, a small smile playing around his lips. 
She read the information on the website he’d found, scowling. “Damn it. All right, maybe I’m craving meat because I need iron. Fine, I’ll eat broccoli.” She couldn’t suppress a shudder at the thought. Broccoli. She loved broccoli. But not for the past few months. Just the thought of it brought a nasty taste into her mouth. 
Zane leaned down. “Good job, Henry,” he whispered to her abdomen. “You and me, bud? We’re gonna be friends.” 
Akira groaned. What was a semi-vegetarian doing getting involved with a confirmed meat-and-potatoes man? Worse, having his baby? 
Zane grinned. “How about I pick up a couple filets? Fire up the grill? We can have steak and baked potatoes for dinner tonight.”
“Steak and salad,” she answered grumpily. 
“Baked potatoes. With butter. Maybe some sour cream.” 
Akira closed her eyes. Why did that sound so good? What was Henry doing to her? Having her body taken over by a creature with his own tastes and desires was not what she had expected from pregnancy. Was it like this for every new mother? 
“Knock, knock!” The cheery voice from the other side of the bedroom door stopped Akira’s response to Zane before she could make it. It was almost with relief that she called out, “What is it, Rose?” 
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but . . .” Rose paused and Akira’s eyes narrowed. Was that nerves she heard in the ghost girl’s tone? Rose wasn’t the nervous type. “I need your help.” 
*** “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” 
“I’m sure it’ll be okay. She acts real mean, but she wasn’t like that when I knew her.” 
“When you knew her? When she was alive, you mean?” Akira didn’t bother to look toward the ghost seated in the passenger seat next to her. Florida drivers were insane. She needed to keep her eyes on the road. 
“Uh-huh,” Rose responded eagerly. “She was a few years younger than me in school, so I didn’t know her well, but she was nice enough.”
“Nice enough. Huh.” Akira thought back to the mean old woman ghost she’d met briefly on her first day in Tassamara. Meredith, her realtor, had been showing Akira houses supposedly available to rent. Akira hadn’t even been willing to go into the little lakefront cottage. The angry ghost grumbling on the porch had made it clear that she wasn’t welcome. “Is that what they call damning with faint praise?” 
“No, really,” Rose answered. “I’ve visited her a few times recently. As long as you’re not planning on moving into her house, she’ll be perfectly friendly.” 
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” This time Akira dared a glance at her passenger. To Akira, the ghost looked almost like a typical teenage girl—only her full skirt and blonde curls showing that she was out of her own time—but Akira knew she was more than that. And more than simply a ghost, too. 
“Yes.” A little frown between her eyes revealed Rose’s worry. “She’s determined to get rid of the new tenant.” 
Akira turned her gaze back to the road. Determined. She didn’t like determined ghosts. She didn’t like angry ghosts, either. She sighed. “I was supposed to be writing wedding invitations today.” 
“Zane said he’d take care of them,” Rose said.
Akira didn’t roll her eyes, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, as she tried to imagine Zane’s version of formal invitations. It wouldn’t be careful calligraphy, that was for sure. If she had to guess, he was picking up the phone and calling most of the people on their list. And then he’d tell her it was all taken care of. 
She dropped a hand to her belly.

Bitter break up songs

We were in the car on the way to school when Katy Perry's Teenage Dream played on the radio, right after Taylor Swift's We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together. I mentioned to Rory that the singers singing about infatuated romance two years ago have now moved on to bitter break-up songs and something about his expression -- first thoughtful, then mildly horrified -- made me laugh so hard I almost choked. I can't remember the last time I laughed like that. I'm sure whenever it was he was the one who made me do it and we were also in the car, because it felt like such a familiar experience, but wow, it felt rejuvenating. I think I've felt happier all morning long because of it.

I wrote yesterday for the first time in weeks. Literally, weeks. This morning, I expected--somewhat gloomily-- to hate everything I wrote last night, but  in fact, I quite liked it. Whee. I haven't yet written any more today, but I'm trying to make a pact with myself that I'll write 1000 words a day of something. If not Time, then a short story or a letter or a blog post. Anything that lets me get back into the habit of fingers moving across the keyboard. This counts as a couple hundred words, but there will be more to come later.

From Fanfiction to Self-Publishing: Ten Tips for Making the Move

Tip #1: To make money, write a lot and write for a long time. Don’t think of writing as a quick path, but as a long-term trek. Every book you write is a seed you’re planting. It may take a long time to reap the rewards, but you could be harvesting that seed indefinitely.
Tip# 2: Spend what you’re comfortable spending. You can self-publish while still treating your writing as a hobby.
Tip #3:  Download Building Your Book for Kindle from Amazon for everything you need to know about formatting an ebook. Your filtered HTML file should work for ePub, too.
Tip #4: Editors aren’t magic.
Finding an editor: www.alanrinzler.com
Faking Editing: Find readers at fictionpress and wattpad; critiques at critiquecircle.com, critters.org, and projectteambeta.com, and an online software editor at prowritingaid.com 
Tip #5: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough, but take your time while editing.
Tip #6: Cover design isn’t rocket science. Some basic guidelines:·         The thumbnail is the most important size·         Keep the imagery simple·         Use colors to catch attention and set a mood·         Good typography matters for than fancy art – make your title readable·         Attractive doesn’t matter
Design site: 99designs.com
Tip #7: Distribution decisions aren’t set in stone, but it’s easier to start small and expand. For audio: ACX.com
Tip #8: Dead trees actually do sell and CreateSpace does a nice job.
Tip #9: Most promotion is a waste of time and energy.
Info on A/B testing: www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/24/the-ultimate-guide-to-a-b-testing
Tip #10: Write fanfiction!

A Gift of Thought

A Gift of Thought is free today on Amazon (and for the next couple of days, too). That's because I'm at GeekGirlCon in Seattle. I'd create a link, but I'm on my iPad and typing is too hard, plus I haven't had any coffee yet, so the chance that the link would go sadly awry is high. But it's been fascinating. I've never been to a convention before, rather than a conference, and maybe this falls somewhere in between. But there are loads of people in costumes wandering around amidst discussions of misogyny and gender and online space and community. I've always thought web design conferences were an improvement over code conferences and this is definitely the step up from that. I'm a little nervous that my presentation is too practical, not philosophical, but c'est la vie, it's way too late to worry about that now. Pam says I need to go slower so people have time to write down the links, so I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. I might have to cut something. Anyway, time to find some caffeine -- but download Thought if you haven't and tell your friends, if they're the type to enjoy quirky ghost stories!

August 5th

I sort of anticipated that tomorrow would be bad, but today. . . today has been not good. Unexpectedly not good. After about my fourth cry, I finally went outside and swam despite the weather (what's a little rain when you're in a swimming pool, right? it's just the lightning you've got to watch out for) and finally managed to get away from my relentless brain. And then getting out of the pool, I thought, "damn, I'm just so sad, I really need to call Mom, she always..." and then there I was again.

There ought to be a word other than "anniversary." Anniversary sounds too positive, too festive. Anniversaries are for celebrations. But I can't figure out what the word would be.