David R. Michael's Blog, page 48
October 11, 2010
Writing Progress Report
Writing progress report for the week starting Monday, October 4, 2010.
Writing Project
Words
Monday
"Insanity" (first draft expansion)
"Encounter" brainstorming.
444
Tuesday
"Encounter" brainstorming.
Wednesday
"Encounter"
1501
Thursday
"Encounter"
1513
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Formatted Serene Morning & Other Tales for POD and ebook.
Total
3458
Marketing/Submission
Monday
Posted "The Puppets Take a Bath" to the blog.
Sent review requests for The Summoning Fire to theselfpublishingreview, smashwordsreviewed, indiereader, indiespotlight, thefrugalkindle, thebookbuff.
Gave a review copy of The Summoning Fire to Jeremy N.
Tuesday
Sent review requests to dearauthor, afantasyreader,
Wednesday
Created a "fan page" for my writing on Facebook.
Sent review requests to
Thursday
Ordered a box of TSF paperbacks (10).
Sent review requests to laina turner-molaski, literaryrr, murphyslibrary (accepted for review, sent paperback 8 Oct), readerrecommended (accepted for review, sent ebook, need to send paperback), readingonthedarkside, booknerdextraordinaire, thebookbee (accepted for review, sent paperback 8 Oct), thebooksmugglers, thebooktree, readingreview (accepted for review, need to send paperback), tictoc (accepted for review, sent paperback 8 Oct), utterrandomonium.
Friday
GraceKrispy at MotherLode gave The Summoning Fire 4-Stars.
Mailed paperback review copies.
Saturday
Ordered another box of TSF paperbacks (10).
Sunday
Sent review request to indieparanormalbooksreviews.
Reading List
The Devil's Broker: Seeking Gold, God, and Glory in Fourteenth Century Italy by Frances Stonor Saunders.
October 9, 2010
I Overestimated the Appeal of Ebooks
That is, so far as reviewers are concerned.
So far, about 70% of the reviewers who have agreed to read The Summoning Fire have requested the paperback version.
I don't blame them. It's a gorgeous-looking book.
I just expected most reviewers to want the ebook.
I'm OK with it. I like receiving boxes of my book in the mail (I just need to order another one now). And it's fun mailing them out too.
-David
October 8, 2010
THE SUMMONING FIRE Given 4 Stars at MotherLode!
GraceKrispy at MotherLode gives The Summoning Fire 4-Stars:
We've all heard the phrase "Hell on Earth," but did you know it's an actual place, and it's located in Missouri? David Michael has created a fantastical world in which Hell has recently exploded upwards to create Hell on Earth, a place where Hellish creatures mix with a very human population. It also does a booming tourist trade as the residents of the Suburbs flock over to experience this exotic location. They can meet with demons, the undead, and even the Old Man himself, but they can only hope to make it back home to tell their friends…Read the whole review here…
-David
October 6, 2010
The Social Media of it All…
I've created a "fan page" for my writing on Facebook:
I expect I'll use that to announce new ebooks and free fiction. And it seems like a cool place to create a photo album of book covers. I like my covers.
-David
Book Review – THE TRANSLATED MAN by Chris Braak
The Translated Man by Chris Braak.
A Great Read if a Bit Rough Around the Edges
The Translated Man is a lot of fun to read. I've been describing it to my friends as a Lovecraftian steampunk Dark Victorian crime story.
The setting and the situations of the novel are the reason to read this novel. They're incredible. Sometimes the writing is a bit uneven, and you probably shouldn't squint too hard at the plot, but there is a lot to enjoy about this novel: the city of Trowth and its Architecture Wars, the sharpsies and the trolljrmen, phlogiston and Aetheric geometry, Reanimates and Mr. Stitch, and more. It's well worth the read.
I'm looking forward to reading other books and stories by Chris Braak. I want to see what he comes up with next.
-David
Book Review – The Translated Man by Chris Braak
The Translated Man by Chris Braak.
A Great Read if a Bit Rough Around the Edges
The Translated Man is a lot of fun to read. I've been describing it to my friends as a Lovecraftian steampunk Dark Victorian crime story.
The setting and the situations of the novel are the reason to read this novel. They're incredible. Sometimes the writing is a bit uneven, and you probably shouldn't squint too hard at the plot, but there is a lot to enjoy about this novel: the city of Trowth and its Architecture Wars, the sharpsies and the trolljrmen, phlogiston and Aetheric geometry, Reanimates and Mr. Stitch, and more. It's well worth the read.
I'm looking forward to reading other books and stories by Chris Braak. I want to see what he comes up with next.
-David
Serene Morning
by David Michael
He wanted to write. She wanted to color. She won.
They colored.
She couldn't find the brown crayon, which she liked to use on the "Tubbies" faces. This caused some stress. She recovered, though, and chose another color, a lighter shade of brown.
Teletubbies came on. That was good. Better than good. Since they were coloring in a Teletubbies coloring book.
"How come Tubbies is on," she asked, happy wonder mixed with awe, "and we have a Tubbies coloring book?"
The explanation that came to his mind involved the success of modern marketing and licensing practices combined with digital cable technology. He kept that to himself. "Because your aunt and uncle knew you liked Teletubbies," he said. "So they got you a coloring book."
"Oh."
He started to get up from the couch, but she said, "I don't want to be all alone. Here," she added, "I have two greens. You color that side and I'll color this side."
They colored.
Teletubbies ended. Upset, she wanted it to be on again. Angelina Ballerina wouldn't do. Nor would Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. That last was surprising. She loved Maggie and Beast. Fortunately, Dora the Explorer was deemed an adequate substitute.
He slipped away to write. In the living room he could hear her helping out Dora. "Green!" she shouted. "It's beside the blue one!" A little later, "Swiper no swiping! Swiper no swiping!"
He didn't know what he would write about, but he started anyway. The only way to get anything done is to get something started.
She had been silent for a while–seldom a good sign with children in a different room–so he poked his head back into the living room.
"I found the brown," she told him, holding the crayon up so he could see it, then shifted the coloring book so that he could also inspect what she was doing with it.
"Good."
"Can you sit and color with me some more?"
The writing hadn't been finished. Morning was getting on. On the other hand, "any subject" and "any length" did leave a lot of leeway. And he could finish later. There was a lot of day still left.
They colored.
October 5, 2010
Why I Don't Worry About Confusing The Market
So far, I"ve released 3 ebooks:
Nostalgia – contemporary fiction with slipstream elements
The Summoning Fire – horror, modern fantasy
Nasty, Brutish & Short Short – horror stories in a variety of milieus
And now I'm working on Serene Mornings & Other Tales of a Little Girl, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a small collection of contemporary stories (with one science fiction story).
Notice a theme?
Notice a lack of a theme?
It'll get worse (or better). After Serene Mornings, I'm planning a collection of stories with the name Demon Candy. And then I expect to release The Girl Who Ran With Horses, a contemporary young adult novel about (you guessed it) a girl and her horse(s) which has some slipstream/magical realism elements. After that, I have another slipstream-bizarro novel I expect to release (I plan to start editing it in the next week or so).
I'm all over the map with my offered genres: horror, contemporary, slipstream, and who knows what else I'll end up doing?
If I had a traditional publisher, they would be seriously pissed at me about now. At best, they would insist that I use a pseudonym so that they can focus their marketing on a per name (per brand) basis. This name for horror, this other name for the young adult, and maybe a third name for the contemporary pieces. That might be a good idea…
But I don't have a traditional publisher. And I don't want to bother with pseudonyms. I have a generic name–possibly the most generic name in the English language (don't believe me? go to Amazon and search for "David Michael", watch the endless list go on and on)–but it's my name. And these are all my stories.
Finally, I'm not worried about confusing the market one big reason: I don't have a market yet.
I'm working on one, though.
-David
October 4, 2010
Posting Stories for a New Collection
Today's story, The Puppets Take a Bath, is the first in a small collection of stories that I will release in a few weeks: Serene Morning & Other Tales of a Little Girl.
These are very personal stories for me. They are remembrances and homages from one special year.
In 2006 I started a project I called "A Short Story a Day". This project was my first real attempt to improve my writing through intense practice. What could be better practice, I thought, than writing a short story every day? Ultimately, I wrote 202 stories that year. Not quite one a day, but a good effort, I think. I learned more about writing in those 10 months than at any other time in my life.
In 2006 my daughter, Serene, was 5 years old.
A writer needs a muse, especially when he's writing a story every day. These are the stories from the days when Serene was my muse.
Some of the stories are biographical-ish (like "The Puppets…"), my attempts to remember-with-prose her earliest years. Others are pure whimsy, though inspired by the antics of my baby girl. And one, oddly enough, is science fiction.
Serene, April 2006, 5 years old
-David
The Puppets Take a Bath
by David Michael
Three year old Serene put down her spoon and her right hand became a puppet. With her fingers together and her thumb working as the lower jaw and tongue, the puppet could talk.
"I want oatmeal," the puppet said in his squeaky voice. "I'm hungry."
"Me too!" said the puppet her left hand had become. Her voice was squeaky too.
"Try to be neat," Serene told them, as Mom had told her a few minutes earlier when putting the bowl of oatmeal on the table in front of her. Mom wasn't in the kitchen now.
The puppets dived into the bowl and began eating the oatmeal. They weren't at all neat, and the puppets got oatmeal all over their faces. Then the food fight started and Serene burst out laughing.
Mom walked in. "Serene!" Mom said. "What are you doing?"
"It's the puppets," Serene replied. The puppets pulled their faces out of the bowl and faced Mom. "They were hungry." The puppets nodded. A bit of oatmeal dripped from the left hand puppet's face onto the table.
Mom's face struggled, resisting a smile, then she saw that oatmeal had been splattered all over the table and onto the floor. "Serene," Mom said again, less surprised and more irritated, no hint of a smile. Mom sighed. "Come on. You have to take a bath now."
Serene and the puppets exchanged looks of dismay. "You mean the puppets," Serene said. "They need the bath." The puppets opened their mouths in shocked betrayal.
"No," Mom said. "I mean you, Serene. And the puppets," she added. She pointed to the bathroom. "Go get undressed."
"But I took a bath last morning," Serene protested.
"And you're taking one today too," Mom replied. "Come on."
Serene pouted, but she slipped out of the chair and she and the puppets followed Mom to the bathroom.
"Take your clothes off," Mom said and turned on the water in the tub.
The puppets helped Serene undress. At first. Then the right puppet nibbled on her shirt when he found some oatmeal stuck on it. The left puppet became jealous and she tried to get a bite too. They struggled to pull the shirt from each other.
"You're not undressed yet?" Mom asked.
"The puppets were helping me."
"They don't seem to have to been much help," Mom said. She leaned over Serene, pulled the shirt up and off and tossed it into a corner. Then she helped Serene take off the rest of her clothes.
"Cold cold coooold," Serene said. The puppets snuggled against her body to keep warm while she hopped from foot to foot.
Mom picked up Serene and placed her in the water.
"Ahhhh! It's too hot."
"No, it's not too hot," Mom said, but checked it again with one hand to be sure. "You just need to get used to it."
Serene wasn't convinced, but after a few seconds the water did seem to cool a bit, so she sat down. The right puppet, always the braver of the two, dove into the water to test it for himself.
The right puppet poked his head out of the water. "It's not too hot," he said.
The left puppet looked at him dubiously. She made no move to get into the water. The right puppet splashed her with water, and Serene laughed. "You got me wet," the left puppet said. The right puppet splashed her again.
Mom slid the shower door closed as the left puppet dived into the water and began splashing back. Serene laughed some more.
The puppets had stopped splashing each other a few minutes later, and were re-enacting the most recent episode of The Fairly Odd Parents when Mom opened the shower door again. The right puppet played the role of Timmy Turner. "I wish I had a new babysitter," he said.
"Ha ha ha," said the left puppet, acting as Vicki, the evil babysitter. "Your Mom and Dad left me in charge."
"Noooo," said right hand-Timmy.
The rest of the episode played out while Mom used a washcloth on Serene's face (the dialogue got a little muffled), arms and hands (the puppets nipped at the washcloth until Mom told them to stop), body, legs and feet.
"OK," Mom said. "You need to lie back so I can wash your hair."
"The puppets don't want you to wash my hair," Serene said. "The shampoo stings their eyes."
"The puppets don't have eyes," Mom said.
"Yes we do," the puppets said, and posed so Mom could see their eyes.
"If you lie back and keep your face still," Mom said, "you won't get any shampoo in your eyes."
"No," said the right puppet, looking firm.
"The puppets are about to get Serene in a lot of trouble," Mom said.
Serene and the puppets made noises of dissent in their throats.
"Lie back," Mom said, putting her hand on Serene's shoulder. "Now."
Serene laid back, but the puppets kept their heads above the water, burbling along with her as Mom washed her hair. She sat up as quick as Mom would let her.
Mom flipped the lever that controlled the drain. With a loud cha-chunk, bubbles came out of the drain and the water started out of the tub.
"Stand up," Mom said, holding a towel.
"It'll be too cold," Serene said. The puppets nodded their agreement.
"Stand up," Mom said again, "and I'll wrap your towel around you. You won't be cold that way."
Serene stood and Mom wrapped her in the towel. As Mom picked her up, the puppets became hands again, and Serene hugged Mom around the neck.
