Kyle Pratt's Blog: Musings & Rantings, page 13

Lost at Sea

The Lost at Sea scavenger Hunt has begun.

I’m taking part in a fun event with seventeen other authors, including Jill Williamson, Kerry Nietz, and Morgan L. Busse.

You, the reader, visit the websites of the speculative fiction authors, read a little about their books, gather clues, and enter contests along the way. My website is stop nine and I’m giving away five signed copies of Seekers of Earth, book one in my new series the Guardian Knights of Terra. Many of the other authors are giving away their books and two lucky winners with receive Kindles.

The Lost at Sea scavenger hunt has already started, but you still have a chance to join in and win the prizes so, click here to start and enjoy the hunt.

I'll be doing another giveaway for signed copies of Seekers of Earth starting on March 1st. So if you didn't win during the Lost at Sea Scavenger Hunt you'll have another chance.

No to NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month (often shortened to NaNoWriMo), is an internet-based writing event that encourages people worldwide to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. This is a fantastic and fun event which I have participated in and promoted for the last few years.

However, yesterday NaNoWriMo.org, the organization behind the event felt, compelled to send me an email in which they stated, “Because of this core organizational value, we join the many voices standing against the presidential executive order that bans refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.”

Why is National Novel Writing Month involving itself in issues of immigration, foreign policy, and national security?

The email went on to state, “We are also concerned about upcoming issues that may affect people’s self-expression, like the President’s desire to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)….”

The National Endowment for the Arts is the government agency that used tax dollars in support of Piss Christ an art exhibit consisting of a crucifix immersed in a glass of the “artist’s” urine. I don’t know why that’s even considered art, but in the halls of our federal government, it’s worthy of $20,000 in National Endowment for the Arts funds. Imagine the outrage if it had been a Koran in urine. The NEA views Piss Christ and other anti-Christian art as acceptable uses of tax money. I do not. I support defunding the NEA and NaNoWriMo should stay out of the controversy.

In America, citizens can, and should, debate the merits of the government policy. I am very capable of speaking for myself. I do not need, nor do I want the help of NaNoWriMo in voicing political opinions.

Let me be clear, NaNoWriMo does not speak for me. The non-profit organization should confine itself to the promotion of the writing event and stay out of politics.

Mentor Day

Author Kyle Pratt in his office with Houston 

I first met Houston two years ago when I spoke about writing as a career at Centralia High School. I read some of his work and noticed a definite writing talent. Then a few weeks ago my friend Julie Zander asked if I’d like to help her mentor a writer as part of the local Rotary/TRiO program. The program pairs students with adult professions for a job shadow and mentoring day. When I saw Houston’s name on the TRiO form I agreed to take part.

Houston and Author Kyle Pratt at the TRiO lunch.

Now a junior at Centralia High School, Houston writes very descriptive fantasy and, while Julie is an excellent non-fiction writer, she wanted my fiction perspective included in the mentoring. The three of us met at Centralia College. While there we discussed writing as a career and the training and education that advanced our careers. Houston also wanted to know how a typical work day looked. As part of that answer, we took him to my home office where I spend most of the day on a keyboard staring at a computer screen.

After that, we joined the 61 adults and about 80 students from area high schools for lunch at St John’s Lutheran Church in Chehalis. It pleased me to see so many adults willing to take time out of their day to mentor the youth of our community. I was also glad to see so many young people eager to learn more about careers.

A Time to Endure Promo

This morning the ebook edition of A Time to Endure went on sale for 99 cents.

We’re planning more promotions this year with the purpose of getting more of my books into the hands of readers. In October of last year, we featured Through Many Fires. For our first promotion of 2017, we’re featuring the second book in the Strengthen What Remains series, A Time to Endure. Starting today and for the rest of the month, the ebook edition of A Time to Endure will be only 99 cents on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iTunes and Smashwords.

Happy reading!

Passengers

Passengers is a PG-13 hard science fiction movie directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), and starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence.

Five thousand passengers and crew are asleep in hibernation pods aboard the starship Avalon on a 120 year voyage to planet Homestead II. However, just thirty years into the trip, a malfunction awakens passenger Jim Preston (Chris Pratt). Later Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) awakens. Unable to return to hibernation, the two face living the rest of their lives together on the ship as it travels in deep space. However, the problem that awakened Preston remains and is a growing danger to the ship. They will need to risk their lives or everyone may die.

In addition to Pratt and Lawrence both Michael Sheen and Laurence Fishburne, have roles in Passengers, but the film still has one of the smallest casts I’ve ever seen for a big budget production. That being said, I think the bartender, played by Sheen, steals some of the show.

As often happens, during the second act the plot takes a twist. This one involves Preston in an act of desperation. How you feel about that twist will determine how you view the remainder of the movie.

Passengers offers little that is new to the science fiction genre, but the plot is good, it’s well acted and the CGI is first rate. Despite my issue with Preston, I found myself dwelling on the many issues raised by the movie for several days. Even now, when I think about the last scene of the film, it evokes emotion. If you’re a science fiction fan I think you’ll enjoy the movie.

Recommendation: Buy the ticket and see it in the theater.

For more film and book reviews from Kyle Pratt click here.

A Janus Look

This time of year I like to take a Janus look at my goals.

Janus, looking backward and forward in time.

Janus was the Roman god of beginnings and endings. He looked into the future and to the past. So, as we end one year and begin another, I like to take a Janus look both back and forward in time.

I write goals every year and, as the year winds to an end, I enjoy looking back at those old goals and seeing how I have done. That look into my past helps me set goals for the coming year. While for us mortals, every look forward in time is seen as if through a dark glass, I still like to imagine what I may achieve in the year ahead?

So, here is my 2017 look back into the past and into the future. These seven points were my goals of 2016.

1. Complete the first book in a new series. As 2016 started this project was so new the novel didn’t have a title and neither did the series. It was planned as a three book series dealing with the issue of electromagnetic pulse. In the first novel, storms on the sun throw off massive Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that hit Earth over a twenty-four hour period. The resulting electromagnetic pulses set technology across the planet back a hundred years.

I failed on this goal and have only written thirteen chapters of this still unnamed novel. However, as 2017 starts, I’m updating this goal with a plan to finish the first book and release it by May of 2017. You can read more about this upcoming novel on the projects page of my website.

2. Complete the second book in the Guardian Knights series. At the start of 2016, I had completed the first novel in the series Seekers of Earth, a 39,000 word prequel that ends in a cliffhanger. I wanted to finish the second book, Recall the Earth, and have both available near the same time.

I succeeded with this goal. Seekers of Earth will be released in March of 2017, and Recall the Earth is scheduled for release in April. Since I’ve achieved this goal I’m adding a new one, complete the third book in the series, Return to Earth, by December 2017. You can read more about this series on the projects page of my website.

3. Write 130,000 words in 2016. I planned to complete the EMP book, Recall the Earth, Nightmare in Slow Motion and The Long Way Home. I finish all of them except the EMP book and wrote 107,342 words.

While I’m pleased with what I accomplished, I didn’t make my goal. I’ve updated the projects list with The EMP book and Return to Earth and set my writing goal for 2017 at 110,000 words.

4. Release the Strengthen What Remains omnibus edition. Planned for release in April of 2016, this ebook only edition would include Through Many Fires, A Time to Endure, Braving the Storms, a short story, Nightmare in Slow Motion and a novelette, The Long Way Home. The boxset came out late, in August, but is now available. Click here for more information on the boxset.

5. More book promotions. My only book promotion of 2015 was tied to the release of Braving the Storms. I planned for three book promotions in 2016 with two tied to the Strengthen What Remains series.

The promotions went off close to what I had planned making this fifth goal a success. So, I’m planning five in 2017, three large scale events and two smaller campaigns. The first major event, discounting A Time to Endure to 99 cents, has already been scheduled for January 19th.

6. Update the website cover pictures regularly. This turned out to be a burden and received mixed reviews from website visitors. As with goal number three, I’m pleased with what I did, but need to do better, or in this case, different. I adopted a more landing page style for the website and have been working on other changes that visitors will see over the coming year.

7. Make shorter blogposts. A year ago my wife looked at the goals blogpost and said, “People don’t have time to read long blogposts.”

Yeah, I’m still working on that.

Please don’t read this

At least not on Christmas Day.

I posted this earlier because, on this day when we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus, I’m going to be with family and friends and hopefully having a joyful Christmas day.

So, I’m hoping that you aren’t on your computer reading my blog on Christmas Day. I hope, pray actually, that you, and all of my readers, also have a joyful day with family and friends.

Immanuel hallelujah

Three Pictures

As I gazed at three recently taken pictures it occurred to me that each had something to say about where and how I live.

Kyle Pratt, and friend Pat, standing in the road.

The first picture is of my friend Pat and me (blue shirt) standing in the middle of the dirt road that passes in front of his house. We were waiting for a friend who had never been there before and the road seemed like a good place to keep an eye out for her. During the nearly ten minutes we stood there her car was the only vehicle that came along.

Kyle Pratt in his backyard.

It doesn’t often snow here, but when it does it’s time to get the camera out. My wife Lorraine took this picture of me in the backyard. For many years I lived on military bases and suburban communities and my backyard looked pretty normal for those areas, small with mostly grass and some flowers. In this picture an apple tree obscures the view of the hen house behind it. The apiary is hidden by more trees and a blind. The greenhouse is out of the frame to my right and additional fruit trees are off to the left, but my backyard still looks pretty normal—for this area.

One of my summer jobs is filling the wood shed (also in the backyard) with an ample supply of logs. I do this gradually as I clear trees that have grown to close, are dead or have fallen during windstorms.

Kyle Pratt keeping the home fires burning

The recent snow arrived with arctic cold and was the first time this season we fired up the woodstove. We could use the electric heaters to keep the house comfortable, but we’ve learned that the woodstove actually keeps the house warmer and, since all the wood comes from our property, it costs us very little.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and perhaps I could write more, but I think these three photos say a great deal about the way I choose to live my life. I wouldn’t change any of it.

NaNoWriMo & Friends

I love National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

During the month of November, the NaNoWriMo goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel. I have a strong internal editor that always wants to correct or improve what I’ve written, so I’ve never been able to write 50,000 words in a month.  But, I love the comradery of fellow authors and enjoy watching as they work to achieve their writing goals.

Author and friend Lisa Brunette wrote a full page article titled, The World Needs Your Novel, for our local paper. The article focused on a local write-in at the library and quoted my friends Amy Flugel and Jennifer Vandenberg. The article also included a nice picture of Jennifer.

I didn’t attend that event, but a few days later Jennifer came to my house for a critique meeting and I was able to get this picture with her.

So, another year will pass and I won’t “win” NaNoWriMo but, the good news is, several friends, including Jennifer, have.

Digital Crime

I had to deal with a crime a few days ago.

I’ve done well as a writer. Every year I sell more books than the previous year, but I’m still small enough to know all of my online book distributors, Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play, iTunes and a few more. So, when I received word that my novel Through Many Fires was available on Behance.net I was immediately suspicious.

I checked the pages on Behance. The price was wrong and the description was an old one used for a sale more than a year ago. Clearly the website was not legitimate. So, I did a Whois search and found the Behance.net is owned by Adobe Systems. I couldn’t imagine why Adobe would be selling illegal copies of my book. Further checking revealed that someone created a shop on the website to sell books they didn’t own.

While I don’t mind if people share my books among friends, it does bother me when people profit from my labor.  Several sites in China sell my books and there is little I can do about it, but Behance is here in the United States.

So, for the first time since I went into the publishing business, I filed A Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Takedown request with Adobe Systems, to remove content, and Google, to remove search results from the web. That took less than thirty minutes. Because I figured it couldn’t be that easy I emailed my lawyer asking him to be ready.

I’ve got to admit that I was surprised. Adobe advised me the next day that the site had been removed from Behance, and a few hours later Google told me that the pages were no longer in its search results.

Now, if I could only get the Chinese sites removed that easily.