Sherrie R. Cronin's Blog, page 43
July 8, 2014
Seeing as how you’re going to have a little wire running into your brain anyway ….
One of the problems of writing speculative fiction, I suppose, is that reality has a way of getting weirder than the stuff you make up. So I’m going on about how amazing telepathy would be and how it would work ……. and then ….
Seeing as how you’re going to have a little wire running into your brain anyway …
Filed under: x0: telepathy Tagged: mind reading, psychic powers, speculative fiction, technology, telepathy
June 26, 2014
Music to read by
I was working on my first draft of x0, and wanted to include some snippets of well known classic rock lyrics to give my reader something to hum in their head while they took in certain parts of the story. It turns out that a LOT of authors have this great idea. I was concerned about copyright issues, but every one that I mentioned this to assured me that I would be fine thanks so some vague notions of public domain and fair use. Only the nice people at AW said differently. Song lyrics are like poetry. You cannot safely use even a tiny bit of them. Doooooon’t do it.
I was forewarned but still determined, so I tried another approach. I took my nine songs and found out who owned all or part of them in the US and world wide and I started writing people. Can I please use this line from your song? How much will it cost? The assorted parties for seven songs just ignored me, and they kept ignoring me no matter how many times I wrote them back.
Sony/ATV Music Publishing however, has people on staff to handle just this sort of thing, and I found myself in negotiation for weeks with a Licensing Analyst named Lacey. She wanted to see context, I sent her pages from my book. We argued about how many copies I could sell for the price she decided on. I’ll never know why I persisted with this, but I think it was just that the whole process fascinated me. There are people stealing these songs left and right all over the internet, not to mention quoting the entire lyrics, and yet this very nice woman was spending time dickering with me over few words in a self-published first novel that might not sell ten copies. I think we both thought that the other person was nuts.
I will also never know why in the end I paid about $300 of my own hard earned money to secure the rights to use selected words from two of my favorite songs, in the first 5000 electronic copies of my book. But I did. No, I have not sold 5000 copies yet, and yes I am keeping track. I’m like that. And so is Sony/ATV.
I’ve included links to the two songs below, along with the placement in x0 that I paid for so dearly. What can I say ….. these two songs will now always have a special place in my heart :) . And maybe Lacey bought my book.
Filed under: music Tagged: 4 non blondes, Cyndi Lauper, Lyrics, music, Sony/ATV, Time After Time, using lyrics in books, What's Up
June 22, 2014
Going Crazy
Somewhere between meaningless uses of the word like “I’m crazy about you” and serious, perhaps even crippling, mental health issues is a world of sort-of-comic, sort-of-sad neurotic behavior that we lightly refer to as crazy. We use it to mean that you (or I) have crossed that fuzzy boundary that surrounds normal and you (or I) are now happily dancing around naked in pig shit singing songs from “The Sound of Music” while making funny faces. You know, crazy.
via Going Crazy
Filed under: writing Tagged: c3, crazy, creating, finishing a novel, happy, obsessed, publishing, writing
June 17, 2014
The sound of change in Costa Rica
I now know, in a very visceral sense, how much power that water has. It had a enough to trap to me once, to hold me under until I thought I well might die, and all my will and strength were nothing compared to its casual, everyday force. In a similar battle I would lose again. I would lose every time.
The sound of change in Costa Rica
Filed under: z2: favorite posts Tagged: change, Costa Rica, hope, nature, Qigong, trauma, white water
June 10, 2014
Feeling gratitude in Costa Rica
Pick something that you are grateful for. It sounds like an easy directive, coming from the qigong instructor…
I do a little Americanized “Hindu Yoga” and I am familiar with the gratitude thing. Good stuff, this feeling of thankfulness. Perhaps it is the Chinese influence, but my first thought is of my parents. Raising me to be open minded, to try new things. Good, that’s settled. I am grateful for my parents.
“Make sure you choose something simple, with no complications,” he tells us. Oh dear.
Feeling gratitude in Costa Rica
Filed under: y1: favorite posts Tagged: gratitude, ice cream, joy, Qigong, sunsets, yoga
June 9, 2014
Not thinking in Costa Rica.
I get it. Thinking about not thinking does NOT constitute not thinking.
via Not thinking in Costa Rica
Filed under: x0: favorite posts Tagged: creativity, meditation, peace, Qigong, travel
June 7, 2014
Way to go Texas!!!
I’m struggling right now with news that members of the Texas GOP want to take a stance against the gay community. The moderates seem to want to recommend therapy for those seeking to escape from their homosexual lifestyle while the hardliners would prefer a statement that homosexuality tears at the fabric of society. Seriously?
These freedom loving folks — who so clearly do not want the government telling them how to live their lives — seem hell bent on telling about 10% of the population how to live. Is there no sense of irony in the GOP?
Today as I was looking for a post to move to this new umbrella blog, I stumbled on a video from awhile back. It reminds me that Texans of all kinds value courtesy, freedom of choice and just plain old letting others be themselves.
The Texans in this video make me proud of my home state. I wish that more of them were helping to write the GOP platform.
Filed under: y1: favorite posts Tagged: gay rights, Texas, waitresses
May 30, 2014
Make a joyful sound!
It occurred to me to wonder what were the best songs ever written about joy. I am rather joyful tonight. And music, being such a shared activity, is a wonderful way to communicate happiness.
May 29, 2014
Singing for World Peace
Music rules as a powerful medium for getting across a message of peace (or anything else) because it is something that people make together and appreciate together.
May 28, 2014
How to write like a wolf
I discovered that in spite of a cheerful tendency to smile a lot and a skill for using words well, I was in fact not Miss Congeniality like everyone else thought. I was very much an introvert. Well, that suddenly explained a lot.
