Rashad Freeman's Blog, page 5

What does The Lion King teach us about life

So I'm sitting here watching The Lion King with my two and three year old for the trillionth time.  And suddenly the question occurred to me, what life lessons am I getting from this movie.  I mean on the surface it seems like a happy go lucky movie but the deeper meaning is dark and disturbing.  Without fail your Uncle will try to kill you and succeed in murdering your father.  You will then be outcast from your home and befriend a fat guy and a midget.  You'll run off into the jungle with this motley crew eating psychedelic foods and wasting the days away as you sing rather catchy tunes.  Someday an ex-girlfriend will reappear to tell you what a loser you are and how you've let everyone down.  You'll fight her, but like always she'll over power you and beat you into submission.  This will abruptly end your bromance with the fat guy and midget who no doubt had a slight crush on you.  You'll return home to find your place turned into a crack house with dozens of strung out crack heads lurking around mooching off the women.  With the help of your ex, the fat guy and the midget you'll vanquish your homicidal uncle and restore order to your home.  And there you have The Circle of Life.   

At some point this will make a hell of a book

My life is in some type of cyclone these days.  Haven't had much time to blog, write or promote as of late dealing with the madness of stupid people.  One thing is for sure, when all of this is over I'm going to turn this into one hell of a book.  I'm tossing around titles but I think "Shit Happens" may be the only way to explain it all.  Sorry if I'm being too vague but I haven't gotten to the point in my blogging career where I can be completely forth coming with my audience.  So until that time comes just wait for the book.  On brighter news I am back to writing as of this moment.  Sitting up and watching LOTR Two Towers is a great way to wrap up a thriller novel.  Sales have been lagging this past month but that could be due to a number of things.  My intense fascination with zombies has kept me up until at least 3am every morning or that could just be the constant racing of my mind and the gray hair fighting its way to my head.  This whole self publishing craze is kind of funny.  Strolling the boards you see people from every range of the spectrum.  Some that couldn't formulate a sentence in any language putting books together on how to put books together.  Then you have those that waste writing time complaining about the latter.  Then there are the ones that claim to sell thousands of copies a day, but rank in the hundred thousands.  The main theme however seems to be that the very few barriers of entry will make it harder for the talented to sell books.  This is a stretch of a comparison but it's kind of like Nike saying all the knock off shoe makers are eating into their profits.  I just think we are all gonnna have to be a little patient and let the get rich quick crew run their course and then find another industry to ruin.  My .02 cents, don't rush to failure.   

Did the end of the world get here early?

What you see above is not an optical illusion but the picture you see if you walk outside in Florida.  This could be seen elsewhere, but I'm in Florida so I'll stick with that.  Today is June 4, 2012 and I'm starting to think the aliens didn't get the memo that the end of the world is supposed to be in December.  How dare they! 

As if folks in Florida don't have enough to deal with.  Zombies in Miami, flesh eating bacteria in Georgia and now an alien invasion.  You heard it hear first ladies and gentlemen, get your guns ready; or perhaps you shouldn't.  I've seen enough alien movies to know we stand very little chance of winning a battle with interstellar travelers.  Unless of course they are allergic to water and decided to come to the one planet in our solar system that is mostly comprised of H2O. 

Zombies on the other hand we can tackle.  As most movies have shown a simple gunshot, knife stab or other blunt object to the head will render them un-undead.  Flesh eating bacteria, just stay out of rivers and wash your wounds.  But the alien threat looming over the Florida sky, we are ill equipped to handle. 

Seriously, though I'm not sure what on earth is going on.  As a science fiction/everything else writer I'm apt to run with conspiracy theories.  But even a church going, tax paying republican might see the series of events that have unfolded in the last few weeks and quiver a tad.  Things just keep getting more and more odd and if aliens don't invade soon I'm not sure how we'll explain this.

My message to aliens, why don't you guys come back in a few months you're like half a year early.

The Zombies are coming!!!

I've been yelling this for years.  And now it seems they've landed on the shores of Miami.  I'm not a conspiracy theorist and all, but you can't get me to believe that LSD is causing people to get naked and eat their fellow humans.  If you haven't heard a few days ago Miami police shot a naked man who was eating the face off of another man.  It took several shots to stop the naked man and he growled at the officers when confronted.  The story that's being told is that the man was on some drug known as bath salts, which oddly enough were once sold in gas stations.  To make this story even more strange this isn't the first case.  Another naked man tried to eat someone last month, in Miami.  You be the judge but I'm calling zombie on this play.  My advice load up your guns and keep your gas tanks full.  Time to dust off that bug out bag cause you may actually get to use it.  I've said it before and I'll say it again...the zombies are coming!!!!!

Not so self published

So in the writing realm it seems self publishing is all the rage right now.  Or at least constantly the topic of discussion.  Amazon seems to be leading this charge and as such, most talks revolve around their product KDP.

Recently I've seen a lot of blog posts and forum discussions around the death of self publishing, or watering down of the product due to the lack of barriers to entry.  You know, anyone can write a book or smash together words that represent incoherent thought and put them up for sale.

A lot of people see this increasing trend as killing the brand or ruining the opportunity for those of us that take this seriously.  Trust me, the idiots are out there.  Two minutes glancing over the writing forums and you get questions like "how do I save my novel in word" or "can I publish a sci fi novel?"

The ludicrous amount of people that see this a get rich quick scheme and constantly upload less than sub par material is staggering.  Throw a rock and you'll hit an author that can't read, much less publish a book that has one complete sentence.

But the chicken little syndrome a lot of people have adopted, to me seems unwarranted.  I see the increase in crap writing, as an opportunity to shine.  Stop looking at yourself as self published and simply think published.  It's a chance to stand out against the books that should never see the light of day.

What we need to do as serious writers is start viewing this as a business.  Many of us do this already, but many more continually will tell you they write for the love and don't worry about the money.  Well that's great and all, but doesn't go a long way to solving the problem.  There is only one difference to me between self publishing and major publishing and that's that major publishing focuses on the bottom line.  I don't see why we can't do this as well.  We still retain full creative control of our work but we cannot afford to lose the professional side of it all.  "If it doesn't make dollars, it doesn't make sense."

Sure anyone can upload a book, but anyone can't bring pages to life or paint a masterpiece with words.  The barriers to entry lie there.  While the simple act of uploading a file is easily reproduced the quality of the work is not.  So take a page from the majors and make it professional and the increasing number of sucky books will make the better writers float to the top.  

Caillou is ruining America

Don't know if many of you have kids, but if you do, you may have caught an episode or two of Caillou.  The bald headed 4 year old that pops up on the Sprout network.  This child is ruining America one episode at a time and represents all that is wrong with the world.  The entire cartoon is filled with his envious, jealous, self centered and selfish whining.  Now I know that seems harsh and quite a stance to take on a children's cartoon, but this show drives me crazy.  Caillou doesn't want to share his toys, he whines.  Caillou can't do as many monkey bars as his friends, he whines.  Caillou can't run as fast as someone else, he whines.  This little child complains about everything and his parents continually make excuses.  They pacify him at every turn and I want to yell shut up and start working at the television.  What the hell are we teaching our kids.  It's okay to suck and we'll make an excuse for you.  Pretty much.  This is the American problem at large.  Run a business into the ground, we'll bail you out.  Kill all your children in the bath tub, just blame it on the voices.  Republicans blame Democrats, Democrats blame Republicans and meanwhile we all lose.  We've become a culture of whining snake oil peddlers and it's sad.  Who shall we blame for this?  Caillou of course.  Because at a young age children don't learn hard work and perseverance anymore.  They don't learn to applaud determination and the rewards that come with it, they learn envy and hate.  They learn whining and acceptance of failure.  Get it together America, we've become the Caillou's of the world.     

Here's the thing

It's 1:02am and I'm up watching the social network wondering when I'll finish my latest novel.  It's been a week or two since I blogged last and not much has changed with me.  Apocalypse, the short story seems to be my biggest seller and does about 200 copies a month.  I know J.K. here I come.  Creature Kid I expect to pick up once I get the 2nd volume out.  And my other short story Love in a time of outsourcing hasn't really done much, not sure why...I really really liked that one.  On another note I bought Groupon a while back, 410 shares at an average of 15.61.  They subsequently made a number of errors and the stock plummeted to 9.63.  But like a trooper I held my stock and it looks like I may turn a profit tomorrow, after a better than expected earnings report.  I know that was quite the leap from my dwindling book sales to the stock market but I'm eccentric like that.  Since I'm not a best selling author yet living off my superior writing skills I've been looking at different out of state and out of country job opportunities in my real line of work.  I think a little time out of the states would do me some good.  My life is turning into a soap opera of sorts, but unfortunately I can't find the nerve to divulge my life story here.  At any rate I suppose I'll try to bang a few words out before I pass out. 

Beta Readers wanted

Looking for a few beta readers, let me know if anyone is interested.

"Love in a time of outsourcing"

So I know I suck.  "Night Slashers" isn't quite finished yet, but I'm trying.  I did however put another short story out as a peace offering since I suck at keeping dates.  Hopefully those of you who buy it won't be disappointed.  I think it's hilarious actually and one of my favorite stories I've written.  Click the following link to get the book.  Buy Love in a time of outsourcing 

On another note I did however finish making about six covers for the next novels to come out.  If this whole book writing thing doesn't work out I may have a future as a graphic artist.  Creature Kid Volume II is now in the works and a second edition to volume I is coming out shortly after Night Slashers.  With that said I'm going to try and get back to writing.

It's Tuesday People

Someday I'll hop on this blog and have 24,000 followers instead of 24 but until then ugh!!  I really want to finish "Night Slashers" but jeez it's hard.  I'm sure I missed my last deadline and I should be chopping off my lying hands instead of typing.  This lack of product is truly damaging my goal of selling 8000 books a month.  I'll laugh to myself since I'm more on track to do something like 80.  Doomsday preppers keeps me going though.  LOL.  Twitter, I don't know what to say about that thing.  Either I'm internet illiterate or I just suck but I don't get it.  In 3 months I've managed to acquire just about 500 followers which i'm guessing isn't much.  But I still don't see the value.  I normally use my phone when on twitter and I really don't pay much attention to the majority of tweets.  If the rest of the world is 50% as lazy as I am then why even tweet.  I digress, I suppose I better get back to writing.