Elgon Williams's Blog, page 35
June 13, 2014
‘Frieday’ The Thirteenth Acknowledgements
This morning I have been thinking about the future more so than the past. Although the two are connected to the present, the difference between people is largely about which direction is their focus. Although we all reflect on our pasts and strive to learn from our mistakes, it is not good to dwell on what has been. Obsession with those things that you cannot undo will prevent your arrival at destiny.
What is it about today that makes me philosophical? I guess it is the fear associated with Friday The Thirteenth, though I’ve never suffered from triskaidekaphobia. Quite the opposite. Some of the best things have happened to me on the 13th of the month. That’s not to say I don’t have bad days. I believe July 2nd is particularly bad for me. It is exactly eight weeks from my birthday, so maybe it has something ot do with biorhythms. I don’t know. What I do know is that I have tended to have mishaps on that day.
For example, when I was sixteen I amputated the tip of ly left little finger on that day. Also, I was married on that day. Although the marriage went well for many years and produced three wonderful children, ultimately it ended. There are many other examples.
That’s not to say I avoid getting out of bed on July 2nd. With my luck I’d fall asleep and the house would burn down around me. It’s just I’m sort of extra careful on that day. I try not to transact any important business on that day but it is not out of fear for what might happen just respect for what has happened in the past. I don’t believe in coincidence or accidents, so I have to believe that my apparent bad luck is part of a predictable cycle.
Going back to thoughts of the future, I’m not sure when it is the appropriate time to turn my focus to my next book in production, Becoming Thuperman. I need to do that at some point but I eels too soon. I owe it to my current release to promote its sale to success. For whatever reasons the reception has not been quite as good as I might have hoped. Some of the factors are my relative obscurity as an author and the fact that the project was finished literally days prior to release. That did not allow for advanced reviews to be generated in support of the launch. But books have longer life cycles than most people have been led to believe. It’s a good book. It will do fine. Anyway, my publicist and I are working on some things, so expect promotions and book signings, especially in the Orlando area.
Because of the crunch experienced in the production of Fried Windows an important piece of the book was omitted. No, it has nothing to do with the story other than how many people were involved in brining the dream of publishing the book to fruition. I wrote an acknowledgment piece that I sent to my editor but it den;t make it into the final version. So, I’d like to take this occasion to publish it here:
Acknowledgements
This is not my first book and hopefully it is not my last. I’m grateful to many for bringing this dream to fruition. Some I should have acknowledged long before now for contributing to my journey to be here as an author.
First and foremost, my family has been there for me. The past couple of years I have been living off the largesse of others. Without my sister Joyce and brother-in-law Jerry I would have been literally homeless. They opened their home for an extended period and I overstayed my welcome. Sir Barnaby, a.k.a. ‘Sparky’, their King Charles Cavalier, was a baby when I moved in. He became my companion every morning while I worked on this book and some of the others to follow.
Also, I need to thank my son, Rob, and his girlfriend, Erica, for putting up with me while I put the finishing touches on this book. Rob was int he finishing stages of his post graduate work, so it won’t the best of times for me to impose.
My daughter Amanda read the post substantive edit manuscript and gave me some helpful suggestions for tweaks. She is an example of someone who hasn’t given up on her dreams despite difficulties. The example of her determination has inspired me.
My youngest daughter Sarah, the last of my children to set out on her own, was my roommate for a while in Kissimmee, Florida. We had many marathon conversations about books each of us have read and some of the stories I have written.
Jina, my ex-wife, deserves mention. Although we still argue whenever we are in the same place at the same time, those three wonderful children are also hers. Some of the twenty-five years we were married were great while others I’d prefer to forget.
She never understood the writer that emerged full force in the Spring of 1995 when I decided my life was too short to ignore my dreams. However, she convinced her stubborn husband to see the doctor, else I would have died that year.
There are many people I have worked with over the years who suffered listening to ramblings and warped ideas that have become stories.
Jack Ericcson, my friend, taught me a lot about the publishing business. He gave me a few tips about making an engaging, dialogue-driven story.
Liz Flores, my friend, confidant and, for many years, my muse, inspired a character or two song the way. There have been other muses since but we are still in touch.
Ed Madore, Jerry Mannix, Carl Roberts and Joe Tyler were good friends and business associates while I juggled writing against the functional insanity known as retailing management.
Zara and Allan Kramer deserve my gratitude for having faith in this particular project and supporting my dream with a lot of advice, encouragement and resources. Without them Fried Windows would still be an unfulfilled dream.
My editor Michael McBride polished off the rough edges and helped make this book what it is.
Matt and Fletcher, the cover designers, outdid themselves in brining the imaginative Inworld to life.
My publicist and co-conspirator, Christine Gabriel, a fellow fantasy author, has endured my creative flashes that sometimes sound like rants to others. She may not also understand but she listens well.
I also need to thank all the other Pandamoon authors (Pandas) for their chats and continuing support.
Then, there is Kristin Hibbett, my 9th Grade English teacher, who did more to compel me to write than any other before or since. Over the years our student-teacher relationship evolved into something more respectful than how it started out.
Last, my mother and father, Alta and Bruce Williams gave me a name I didn’t like at all but eventually it grew on me. One of the reasons this book exists is because of that strange name grabbing attention as much as the bizarre title, Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce).
#success #published #newbook #FriedWindows #FridayThe13th
Emily Belden’s Eightysixed Receives Glowing Review
I can honestly say that Eightysixed was an extraordinary read. I am a huge fan of romance novels, but this one stood out of all the romance novels I’ve read in the past few years. I read 1 book every few days to a week, so that’s quite a few. This novel, I want to say, feels life changing and changes my perspective on life and love. I have a love for food and feel just as lucky as Emily to have found the love of my life and have been happily married for years so I am happy to read about her trials, horrible dates and happy story in the end.
The dinners and meetups with Floris were enchanting and magical to say the least. The detail of the courses, flavors, and how mesmerizing the chemistry was literally transported me to feel as if I were experiencing it for myself. This will be a favorite read of mine for a long time, and a romance read I will suggest to anyone I find interested in the genre! I hope everyone will give this a read and experience the beauty of it first hand.
June 11, 2014
The Importance Of Readers
Every author knows that without readers he or she isn’t really an author. Usually the distinction between an author and a writer is that the author sells what he or she writes. I suppose intention also needs to be considered because a writer may write something without any intention of publishing it while an author writes with the a potential reader is mind. The distinction is important these days when anyone with a computer and enough spare time to write a manuscript can eventually upload it and press the publish button. Technology has forever blurred the demarcation between author and writer. Although it creates a plethora of material from which a reader may choose it has also overwhelmed the public with choices.
A possible criterion for a new definition of author might be a writer who has been published (whether through a publisher or self-published) and has sold a piece of writing for the purpose of having it widely distributed to a base of fan established solely from publication of his or her writing. With this definition, personal friends and family members who purchase books based on a relationship apart from the usual reader/author connection would be excluded from the determination.
My point is that with million of books now being published each year, the vast majority of which are offered through self-publishing, the term author needs to be qualified for the sake of a reader’s understanding. With upwards of 70% of all books published fail to recover production costs – and that figure is probably going up as more and more people self-publish – the simple ability to publish a book should not make someone an author. This is not intended to dismiss the work of self-published authors. Some are highly successful. But they are successful because they do something well that has nothing to do with whether he or she has self-published. They have established a credential as an author with their readers.
It is no surprise to authors and writers alike that what we do is not an lucrative enterprise. Even for successful authors, by the time one composes, revises, edits, revises again, edits again and then submits a manuscript for publication the author has earned far less than minimum wage. But successful authors, those who have an enduring kind of brand – don’t write for the money. The readers is the focus and perhaps that is what truly makes someone an author instead of just a writer.
Authors are professional writers who create works with the intention of sharing them with their readers. That may be the best definition of what an author is. It removes the crass necessity of selling books from the equation at the point of inception for a written work and delivers something for the reader to determine its success or failure . You see, if given the choice, most true authors would prefer being read and appreciated to making any money on the transaction. These days, so few authors make a living solely from writing that it is clearly not money that com els us to write. So, that brings me to the real point of this blog post – the importance of readers.
Without a reader an author is a failure. There is a relationship created when an author convinces someone to read his or her book. In some ways it is similar to asking for a first date. If the date goes well there may be another date and another and son on until it is a serious relationship based on trust – that the author will provide for the reader’s need for a certain sort of diversion.
Readers need to escape for whatever time from whatever they are dealing with in real life. A well-conceived story offers that. You see, at some point a writer must evolve into an entertainer in order to attain the next level, authorship. Whether he or she writes fiction or non-fiction the ability to tell a story is paramount to the development. I’ve often heard other authors tell me that the highest praise they can receive from a reader is being called a storyteller.
It is the quality of the story that compels a reader to read on to the conclusion, write reviews praising a particular work and recommend the read to friends. That part of the process of building a fan base is sorely lacking in modern publishing where almost anyone can become an author without much more effort than merely writing something. Why so many authors fail to sell is that a book to succeed it doesn’t need huge launch events, blog tours or full page ads in major market newspapers – although those things may contribute to a enticing new readers to try a book. What must happen at some point in the process of building an authors reputation is for a reader to like a book enough that he or she convinces three or more people to read the book and, subsequently, those three or more people convince three or more people each to also read the book – an so on. That and only that supersedes all the hype. That creates a viral effect of popularity necessary for a book to become a best seller and its author to earn a living doing what he or she loves most, writing.
#writing #readers #books, #publishing, #authors, #writers
June 10, 2014
This Is A Test
Everyone has good intentions – I want to believe that anyway. They tell me all sorts of things in my best interest. They want to see me succeed. They also want to understand exactly what it is Im trying to do. The problem is that unless you’re a writer you don’t have a prayer of understanding.
If it was thirty years ago maybe I’d be all about playing the game and working for advancement in a company. But I did that. Where did it get me? I believed and for a while I benefitted. I probably wouldn’t be working now if I hadn’t sold my stock to buy a house and invest in an ill-advised franchising venture. It’s only money, right? Had I never made those mistakes I would never have felt compelled to write. It would sill be a hobby. There would be all sorts of dreams unrealized and books never to be written trapped inside of me. So, despite the difficulties and all that, I’m okay with how things turned out. There were invaluable lessons learned in the process. i’m better for knowing what I know about failure and surviving at the bottom of the economic ladder.
People who are driven by money and accumulation of wealth will never get why I spend the time I do writing or promoting my writing. It seems a waste of time for the return not he investment of time and energy. I used to think hat way to. I understand that analysis. But that’s not why I write. I couldn’t care less about making money except that I have obligations to others who have invested their time, efforts and money because they believe in my dream as well. So, for them I promote my work. As far as I’m concerned as long as people read my books I’m happy.
Fried Windows has been out for a little over two weeks. It’s building a following. It will take time for strangers to discover it. I get that. It also will require people I know reading it and recommending it to others. That is beginning to happen as well. If you’l like to sample the book for free, let me know. I have a special version that includes the first there chapters. Think of it as a test drive. If you like what you read, as I know you will, you’ll buy the rest of the book.
For the month of June, if you sample Fried Windows, you’ll automatically be entered into a drawing to receive an autographed book and poster. Just send an email to freebooks@pandamoonpublishing.com
#FreeBooks #FriedWindows #TestDrive, #FreeSample #NewBook
Breech Of Contract
The way I see the state of the way our Federal government deals with US Military Veterans they are in breech of contract. I have some personal experience with the VA, not all of it good. It is illustrative and indicative of what is actually going on.
First of all, the problem is not in the clinics or hospitals, per se. From my experience, the medical professionals who work for the VA are dedicated, caring people. They are overworked and understaffed. The reason is that the other side of the VA, the administration and bureaucracy, is as bloated as any other government agency. The money allocated to take care of the veterans is squandered and wasted on paper pushers. Heaven forbid a veteran is seriously ill and decides, out of necessity, to use his or her VA benefits. The ensuing process of filing and application to even have a first check up may extend beyond the Veteran’s ability to survive it.
A couple of years ago, I started the process to receive my VA benefits. I served int he US Air Force. I was one of the lucky ones. Although where I served was technically a war zone I didn’t get shot. I never lost a limb or had to be treated in a military hospital for anything more serious than the flu. My son was born in a military hospital in Korea. I think that constituted the largest expense the government had to pay on my behalf.
After years of working in retail, eating late at night and going to bed – or worse staying up and having a few beers before turing in for the night. – I developed a weight problem. Also I had aches and pains associated with getting older and being overweight. There was swelling my my ankles that concerned everyone as it indicates other problems, some wight he heart. Since I had open heard surgery in 1995, those things need to be monitored. So it was determined that I needed to have a check-up. It had been several years since last I made time for a physical.
Out of work and basically homeless, I was staying with my sister in Tampa Bay. She insisted I have a check up at the VA just to make certain there was nothing wrong – since I had benefits, right? No big deal because it should be free. After all, I served my time in the military. The government promised to take care of me. And that discharge paper they told me to hang onto when I left the service was somewhere in my important papers. Amazingly, I found it without too much trouble.
The Form DD214 was actually a two part carbon paper document. And, of course, when I went to the VA clinic that was closest to my sister’s house – actually a few miles up the road – they informed me I brought the wrong copy. So, I had to make another trip. I was relying on my bother-in-law to drive me around, since I no longer had a car. So it inconvenienced two people instead of one. The copy of the form they needed had an all important extra couple of lines of information they needed. You’d think that the government would know everything about me and have the information in a computer somewhere – but they didn’t. The complications were just a prelude of what was to come.
Once I returned withe the correct copy of the form, they initiated my claim for benefits and told me that as soon as I was registered int eh system they would set up an appointment for me. Also I would have to go through an orientation session where they would explain my benefits and their services. Things were underway…I thought.
After about a month I received a letter from the VA informing me that based on my income the previous year I was not eligible for free health care – even though I was presently out of work. However, I could submit a form, which was included, and be reconsidered for hardship. I filled out the form and several weeks later I received a letter of approval, stating that I was now approved for free health care under my VA benefits. I scheduled an appointment for my initial physical examination, blood work and the like that had to be done prior to seeing a doctor. About a week later I received another letter from the VA informing me that although my medical services were covered 100% any prescription drugs would require a co-pay because, yes, I had income the previous year in excess of what was allowed for a waiver of the charge. I sent a response, reiterating that I was unemployed, had no income or unemployment benefits, was homeless and living with a relative. Their response was that according to their regulations, because I had income the previous year in excess of a certain amount, I was not eligible to have the co-pay waived under hardship but that I could reapply in the next year if my income situation did not change.
Okay, well, I just won’t be able to buy prescriptions, right? Or I would have to borrow the money from my sister which I shouldn’t have to do in the first place. The co-pay was a token amount, really. I’m sure the government saw it that way when the decided to impose it on veterans seeking prescriptions. But when you aren’t making any money at all, a few bucks is a lot.
Finally, I had my physical. The doctor told me what I already knew. I was overweight, my blood pressure was borderline high and I needed to exercise and watch what I eat. Otherwise there was nothing wrong with me. However, since I was over fifty, to continue with my benefits I would need to have a check for prostrate cancer. I scheduled the appointment. And the doctor gave me a prescription for something to reduce my blood pressure. The latter my sister paid for the co-payment saying she didn’t want me to go without it.
A process that began in July had seen me through to October. I went to the VA hospital – my brother-in-law drove me there – to see a doctor about scheduling an appointment for a colonoscopy. Again I had to make two trips to accomplish one thing. The procedure was explained to me and the appointment was scheduled for December. Later on, they sent me a container of really foul smelling and even worse tasting stuff that leaves the tongue feeling as if it has licked a dead fish. They promised it would would flush me out. On the day before the procedure I needed to drink the whole thing over the course of a few hours and suffer through the consequences of purging my bowels. Oh, yes, of course there was a co-payment applied to the stuff that was sent to me to take.
Following the procedure, to which my brother-in-law drove me yet again, I was told they found nothing wrong – which was good news. A month later my blood pressure prescription ran out. They told me I needed to schedule another appointment with a doctor to receive a new one, but the next appointment available was in March. They would, however, extend my prescription. Again, co-payments were applied and by now I was receiving bills for the token amount that I couldn’t pay and threatening to send it to collections.
Again I called about the co-pays and was informed that even though I had very little income the previous year and was now eligible for a waiver of the co-pay that because I had income the previous year in excess of what was allowed I still owed the co-pay. And if I didn’t pay it it would be turned over to the IRS for collection. I was also told there was nothing I could do to change any of that because the law clearly stated that I was ineligible for a waiver of the co-pay.
I still owe that money and, now that I have a part time job, I suppose that whenever I pay my taxes for this year that will be charged against my refund.
In light of my experiences with the VA, I have some thoughts. Again, nothing against the medical professionals int he system. they are kind, polite, professional and caring people who really make the effort to take care of their patients. The red tape involved in getting benefits which are promised to service members as part of the reward for military service is what is clogging the system and wasting the money that should be directed to taking care of veterans who actually need to use the hospitals and clinics. I’m fortunate int at there is nothing seriously wrong with me. However, had I had serious problems I’m not sure what would have happened to me. Months to get approved, months to see a doctor and a convoluted and confusing system to administer the benefits upon approval with inflexible regulations that do not define extenuating circumstances on claims.
June 8, 2014
Everything Backwards In Life
Probably, it started out with being grumpy. Everything seems to go back to that. I ws a grumpy young man. And so, since that didn’t make a lot of sense to everyone else, they overlooked that I was young, saw that I was grumpy and assumed I was older than my age.
Always, I got along with older people. I guess some of that had to do with being around them to the exclusion of anyone else. There were a lot of kids my age around where I grew up. In fact there weren’t a lot of people around where I lived. There were lots of animals, though, I got used to being with animals – not just dogs and cats but also cattle, sheep, pigs and a horse named Patsy. Farm kids tend to understand animals from an early age.
In education I received my Associates Degree after I had received two Bachelor’s degrees. It’s how it worked out. Call it a gift from Uncle Sam. In the process of learning Chinese I earned enough credits that when combined with enough courses from my prior higher education the Community College of the Air Force granted me an AA.
There are many other exactly of how I have done things backwards. I call it temporal dyslexia – living like you’re older when you’re younger and as I get older I live more like a younger person: renting a room in some one else house, working part time for a store shagging shopping carts and loading bags, riding a bicycle to work and pretty much everywhere else I go.
If all this has a purpose, as I’m sure it does, it will come to me in time, exactly when I’m ready to understand it and not a moment before. That’s how life works. And with the prospective I’ve gains after years of being a grumpy younger man, I’m not as grumpy anymore. In fact I’m not grumpy at all. Having used up every conceivable reason for being grumpy, I’m tend to be happy with who I am and what I am doing.
I’ve been rich and now I’m poor by others’ standards. But you know what? The way I see it when I was rich I was really poor and now that I’m poor I finally understand what it is that makes me rich and it has nothing at all to do with money. If you think that it takes money to make you happy, you’re probably grumpy most of the time too. And you are suffering tom temporal dyslexia because you have some things backwards in your life as well.
June 6, 2014
What I Should Have Been Doing All Along
I’m not sure I ever intended to be where I was a couple of years ago. I could play the blame game – there was enough to go around but the tough times I was experiencing were largely brought upon myself. But that is not what this blog is about, anyway.
I’ve overcome a lot in the past couple of years. Some of it I did alone but for my basic surviving and needs I have to thank others, particularly my family. You see, I’ve been basically homeless for nearly two years – since my eviction. I’d be couch surfing had it not been for family support.
Artists go through period like I’ve just been through. It’s nothing new. It was a strain on my relatives, though. I’m sorry for what I put everyone else through but not for the way things turned out. I am confident that had I continued in the way I was going a little more than two years ago I would be dead by now. I have far too many stories I need to complete to be about dying. So you see, I didn’t have a choice then or now.
Along the way I applied for other jobs, but i was not willing to go back into a situation similar to what I was before. You see, once the kids were grown and I was divorced, I really didn’t care how much I got paid as long as I could survive on it and continue to write. I have that situation now. It;s not idea but like an situation it;s temporary.
It’s hard for people who don’t write to comprehend living the way I do. I get that. Most people don’t think of what I do as work and, frankly, neither do I. Over the years of working I have learned that it is tedious, stressful and wholly unenjoyable. Although writing can have moments when it is like work in those ways, generally it is a worthwhile experience providing a sense of accomplishment at its end. That has rarely ever happened whenever I worked for someone else.
Also, there’s something to be said about writing as therapy. Most writers will tell you we’re functionally insane on the best of days. We use the escape time that our creativity afford to gain a sense of balance and for me it is a daily battle. I used to drink too much in an effort to cope with the confluence of pressures surrounding me. Working 70 hours a week – if not more – with feet and back hurting so bad afterwards that I could barely walk or sit up in a chair. Alcohol numbed things at least And it also helped me slip into a creative state of mind for a brief while.
I’m not saying that I write better when half lit but I had some highly creative ideas – provided I was able to set them into words that a sober me could read, revise and edit. I played that game for a while. Yet, all along I knew it was incremental suicide. Every drink I took was killing me.
I struggled a lot between 2002 and 2013, the period I will label as ‘between publishers’. I wrote quite a lot of material but never was it good enough for a publisher to pick up. I’ve always been a writer in search of a good editor, though I could never afford to hire one to transform my raw manuscripts into clean works of literature. So, I think when I checked out – quitting my job to write and being forced to scale back on my living expenses – it was purposeful. It eliminated the pressures and it also forced me to quit drinking. Oddly enough, I wrote Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce) about a month or so into the sober period of my life. What was different about it was the author’s voice I discovered writing it in first person. I had written about the main character, Brent, before but I had never actually tired on his skin to become him and see the world through his eyes.
Since writing Fried Windows I have written a few other new things but mainly I have been revising the older things with fresh sober eyes. Most of what I have written in the past was done in third person, which is fine. I’m just tweaking things, removing redundancies and correcting errors. I am determined to make writing my career, now. This is my life and it’s what I should have been doing all along.
No Superbowl L
Wait! Before you have a panic attack, there will be a fiftieth playing of the world championship pitting the surviving and hopefully best teams of the two football conferences again one another. It’s just they won’t call it ‘Superbowl L’. After forty-four years of using Roman numerals for designating the particular edition of the annual Superbowl game in American football, the National Football League (NFL) has decided to break with the tradition established inn 1971 and not to use the the letter ‘L’ to designate the fiftieth one. Instead the game will be officially called Superbowl 50.
I suppose they could call it Superbowl 5-0 but that would be confused with the TV show Hawaii 5-0. Perhaps if they held the game in Hawaii that might have made sense in a cute sort of way. Also, there is the stoma associated with the letter ‘L’ standing for ‘loser’, something popularized int he 90′s by someone holding up the thumb and index finger of one hand to his or her forehead to indicate that someone else was a ‘Loser’. We can’t have something like that associated with the most watched sporting event in America, now can we?
Do they intend to to return to Roman numerals after this coming Superbowl, designing it LI? Well, I’m concerned that could be mistaken for a reference to Long Island. The game will not be played there. It was a gamble wight he weather and all playing it at the Meadowlands in NJ last year. I think most people in the league feel they dodged a bullet as a snow storm was bearing down on the east coast at the time and hit the event site the day after.
Maybe they should just scrap the Roman numerals altogether. After all, how many times have you had to explain to a kid what the letters meant. And then there is the whole matter of how Romans added subtracted multiplied and divided those crazy looking numbers and why western civilization adopted Hindu-Arabic numerals in lieu of the Roman ones. Who wants to go through that explanation? Eventually the roman numerals will be so long and complicated that it will be difficult to immediately decipher. Superbowl MCDXCII is a few hundred years away, but every American football fan hopes there will still be games then so we can continue watching them from the grandstands in Football Heaven.
My suggestion is to just start calling the games by their serial number in standard, commonly used and understood numeral like 51, 52 and so on. It’s not like you see Roman numerals on that many things any more, some analog clock faces, volumes of books, the copyright script at the bottom of some movies. Yeah, I think we could officially just do away with them. Let them go the way of cursive writing, forever forgotten and no longer taught in school. We have more important things to teach. Who cares about tradition and cultural identity?
It’s all a little silly anyway, isn’t it? Although I love watching American Football it always struck me as being rather odd that they used roman numerals for the Superbowl anyway. It was only for appearances, so it seemed more official or important in some way. Appearances is the real reason Superbowl L will be designated Superbowl 50.
April 16, 2014
From a Misread Headline to a Manuscript and Beyond
Like every book I have written it was a labor of love though the creative impulse came unexpectedly. The core of the overall story - sixteen chapters really - were composed in less than a month in the early spring of 2012. I left a dead-end retail management job after more than four years and I had pretty much decided to pursue writing as a career. As is so often the case, it wasn't the best of times to make such a choice.
The quirky title of the book fits the unusual story. It came from a misread news headline that, of course, drew me right in. I wondered what Fried Windows were and immediately pondered how one would serve them. In a light white sauce! - yeah, it was one of those days.
Somewhere along the way I was sidetracked, deviating far from my personal goals. Some of that I did because of three kids I believed in and a marriage I no longer did. I took that one last job in order to continue supporting my youngest while she finished high school. She lived with me for a couple of years afterwards before moving away, joining her older sister who was beginning graduate school up north. That event triggered something of a midlife crisis for me. Immediately after hugging her and her sister goodbye, I felt like I was left pretty much alone.
Certainly, I was not alone. My son still lived about fifteen miles away; he was also in graduate school. My ex-wife with whom I still communicated occasionally was on the east coast about an hour and a half away from where I was. My sister and brother-in-law lived on the west coast and my great niece was in the greater Miami area. Still, for all intents and purposes I was alone.
My job frustrated me. I don't know whether I had ever been satisfied though at first I believed a lot of the bull about being promoted, being given my own store, and the company's desire to change its ways to become more modern and competitive. At first it seemed like that was happening, albeit slowly. Later on it became clear that it was a district effort that was not aligned with the corporate direction. The district manager was replaced. A company man took over and word went out that there would be changes. Foremost was an antithetical concept for me that I hadn’t had to deal with since leaving the military: we were being paid not to think but to execute on directions from above. That predisposes that upper management is always right and has an unambiguous direction in its policies – which was not the case at all. Ignoring feedback from the front lines is the formula for disaster in any campaign.
Anyway, there were other reasons for my eventual resignation. Many of those related to my unhealthy lifestyle that had evolved form working crazy house, making time to write trying to write, which was something I enjoyed, and dealing with the stress of working a job in which there did not seem to be any progress. A lot of what I was experiencing related to my desire to do what I always wanted to be before getting married and going to college. A little over two years ago it seemed like the last chance I might ever have to become a professional writer - a sort of now or never proposition.
Alost a month after quitting by job, I wrote a short story under the Fried Windows title. At the time I belonged to a writer's group. I posted the story in two installments with the break roughly where the chapter breaks are now in the book. It received favorable reviews and some suggested I continue writing about the characters. Over the next few weeks I continued writing what I believed were related short stories. Afterwards, I shelved the project and continued working on revisions of The Wolfcat Chronicles, a ten book series I began seriously working on in 2002 though, honestly, the story has roots back to a character profile I created in a writing course at Purdue University in 1977.
For the next year what was left of my personal life pretty much fell apart. I experienced the worst parts of economic demise and personal embarrassment. I was essentially homeless by choice doing some couch surfing among my relatives. One can only do that for so long. The experience afforded me some time to finish revisions. One of the last things I worked on was Fried Windows. I wanted to submit the initial short story to a magazine. I always believed the story was good enough to be published somewhere.
A friend who lives a short train ride away from Toronto consented to editing the piece for me. Afterwards, I figured it was in pretty good shape for critical scrutiny. So, I submitted it, sincerely expecting that it would be published. My next concern was having something to submit as a follow up, envisioning the sixteen original stories as installments that the magazine would want after all the positive feedback they would receive about my first short story. Yeah, I live in my own world a lot.
While revising the pieces I found some continuity of story line. I wrote a couple of bridging pieces and what was a collection of short stories took shape as a novel - one starting with chapter three of the present book because, after all, the first two chapters were a short story that I expected fully to be published in a magazine.
The same day the rejection notification from the magazine came I finished revisions to what had grown into a twenty-eight-chapter novel. The story connected well into the overall Brent Woods universe of my other unpublished fiction ventures. I was disappointed, of course, but at the same time elated because now I had an excuse to include the short story that began it all as the first two chapters of the book. I repackaged it, renumbered the chapters and prepared it for self-publishing.
In the background I had been working on building a fan base through social media. Part of that was building up my Facebook and Twitter following. Already I had many friends who were authors and some who were publicists and small publishers as well as a couple of smaller houses with affiliations with the major publishers. Those were not really great connections for getting a book published but you start with what you have. Also, I had been seeking a literary agent for the past three or four years, discovering that finding a good one was probably the only thing harder than landing a publishing contract with one of majors which is something more difficult the gaining admission into an Ivy League school.
Somewhere in the few moments between finishing the revision of Fried Windows and setting it up for eBook publishing I receive a tweet from a small publisher based in my favorite city, Austin, asking for new manuscripts. The name of the house intrigued me enough to check them out. In the process I discovered they were a traditional publisher with a very different mission statement that focused on building author brand rather than selling books alone. Deciding that I liked their ideas for growing their business, I read and followed the submission guidelines and reformatted my manuscript accordingly. I sent it to them instead of self-publishing it. I figured I could wait a few weeks for the rejection I'd come to expect. In the meanwhile I could move on to other projects.
There's a funny thing that happens in most author's lives surrounding rejection. Eventually you do grow numb to it. You warp the universe around you to actually set a goal of receiving the maximum number or rejections possible for any submission. It makes sense in a way. If you try every avenue you might find that one yes. You get to the point that when you don't receive another rejection letter to add to your growing collection you're almost pissed-off. But then, in the next moment of disbelief, you re-read the acceptance letter as the surprise turns more toward suspicion that 1) you must have read the thing wrong or 2) there must be some catch – start looking for the fine print. Paraphrasing the immortal Grocho Marx, you wonder if you want to belong to any club that would have someone like you as a member. You’re so accustomed to hearing that your baby is ugly you disbelieve that anyone could actually like it. Even more surreal was that it had been less than two weeks from submission to acceptance. That’s unheard of in an industry that routinely takes a week to decide to get around to thinking about doing anything and several months to actual years to finally produce a novel. So, I remained guardedly optimistic going into a conference call regarding the acquisition of my book.
Although I had experience in self-publishing I didn't have good results. The failure was not necessarily the quality of the material but the lack of promotion behind my releases. After all I was still growing my network of followers and establishing my author’s brand. That takes time. I didn't lack from material to publish, though. At that point, I had twenty manuscripts ready to go. It was just that when I was working sixty to seventy hours a week. I had plenty of excuses for why I didn't have the time or energy to put forth in becoming successful. I had been stuck in the trying stage of reaching my goal for so long I had grown roots and settled comfortably in obscurity. With the successful negotiation and signing of a publishing contract all that ended. Someone else believed in one of my books. Together we were going to embark on a journey toward producing a novel. A publisher was committing to provide professional editing, cover design and marketing. And so, the long journey of taking a raw manuscript through to a finished novel began.
Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce) launches May 30, 2014 from Pandamoon Publishing. Sharing the dream begins then.
April 4, 2014
Pandamoon Publishing's Current And Future Releases
http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Bleeds-Ja...
http://www.amazon.com/Sitnalta-Alisse...
http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Alliance-...
http://www.amazon.com/Eightysixed-Les...
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_...
Other titles in the immediate queue for Spring: (Launch Dates Are Tentative)
April 14, 2014 – The Secret Keepers by Author Chrissy Lessey
April 30, 2014 – Crystal Coast: The Coven by Chrissy Lessey
May 30, 2014 – Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce) by Elgon Williams
Image
Coming this summer:
The Long Way Home (Part 1) by Regina West
The Long Way Home (Part 2) by Regina West
We The People by Heather Jacobs
Crimson Forest by Christine Gabriel
Coming this fall:
Lord Hyacinthe by Rebecca Lamoreaux
A Tree Born Crooked by Steph Post
Coming in 2015:
Until Proven by McKelle George
Knights Of The Shield by Jeff Messick
The Vaccine’s Agenda by Jeff Skinner
Becoming Thuperman by Elgon Williams
Other information on Pandamoon Publishing: Pandamoon is a small publisher based in Austin, Texas. It provides its signed authors with production, marketing and promotional assistance in selling books under contract. These services include substantive and content editing as well as final proof reading, cover design and developing and executing a marketing plan through assigned publicists. Marketing fact: The vast majority of new books offered each year come from small, independent publisher and self published authors. The big five publishers make the noise splashing around in the pool but there are a number of extremely good books released each year that sell very well without deep pockets and big bucks.
