Hank Garner's Blog, page 46

Trading my bookshelf for a Kindle

I love to read. Always have. My family values reading and we accumulate a lot of books.  Some get read and reread. Some sit on the shelf. But we have a lot of books.

Long ago I got in the habit of taking a book with me when I would go to a doctor’s appointment, to the DMV or any place where I would have a few minutes to wait. Taking a four or five hundred page hard back book with you is cumbersome, and not very convenient in all cases. Then I got a Kindle.

It started a few years ago when I got a Kindle Keyboard and immediately fell in love with the idea of carrying a whole shelf full of books with me anywhere I go. I could read a little in this book and it would save my place while I read a little in a different book. I soon found that I was reading more than ever, and reading new and different things.

This past Christmas my daughter bought me a new Kindle Paperwhite and once again I was blown away. The new screen is crystal clear and the built in light is a game changer.  You can adjust the light on the fly from dim to bright to suit any room.

I was listening to an audiobook the other day by Nick Offerman and he talked about how he didn’t like reading on a kindle because he didn’t want to be distracted by internet connected apps, or the temptation of Angry Birds or whatever else called to be played with.  I understand this sentiment, and while the Kindle Fire has those options, the standard Kindle line does not. My Kindle is a reading device. And that’s all it is. I can’t surf the net or play games, not to mention I far prefer the e-ink display to the glass screen of the Fire. Yes, I understand that the Fire is a good tablet, that just happens to also be an e-reader, but I don’t want a tablet. I want a small, thin, portable device that lets me read lots of books. And the Paperwhite does that while exceeding expectations.

I understand that technology doesn’t always make things better. Sometimes it just muddies the water, but when it comes to the Kindle, technology has proven to be a help. Couple it with a subscription to Kindle Unlimited and you will not only find yourself reading more, but discovering new authors and genres that you might never have gotten a chance to experience.

Have you embraced ebooks?

Kindle, 6"


Touchscreen display that reads like real paper-no screen glare, even in bright sunlight
Holds thousands of books and lighter than a paperback
Battery lasts weeks, not hours
Download books in less than 60 seconds with built-in Wi-Fi
Encourage kids to read even more with Kindle FreeTime, Vocabulary Builder, Word Wise, and more
Massive book selection, lowest prices – over a million titles less than $2.99
Try Kindle Unlimited free for 30 days – choose from over 800,000 titles










Kindle Paperwhite, 6" High-Resolution Display


New, higher resolution display (300 ppi)–now with twice as many pixels
Now with Bookerly, our exclusive font, hand-crafted from the ground up for faster reading with less eyestrain
Built-in adjustable light–read day and night
Unlike tablets, no screen glare, even in bright sunlight
A single battery charge lasts weeks, not hours
Massive selection, lowest prices–over a million titles at $2.99 or less
Lighter than a paperback, holds thousands of books




Exclusive features help build your vocabulary, learn about characters, and connect with like-minded readers–all without leaving the page
Try Kindle Unlimited free for 30 days–choose from over 800,000 titles












Kindle Voyage, 6" High-Resolution Display (300 ppi) with Adaptive Built-in Light, PagePress Sensors, Wi-Fi


Passionately crafted for readers
High-resolution 300 ppi display-reads even more like the printed page
Reimagined page turns-PagePress enables you to turn the page without lifting a finger
New adaptive front light-provides ideal brightness, day or night
Our thinnest Kindle ever
Battery lasts weeks, not hours
Try Kindle Unlimited free for 30 days – choose from over 800,000 titles










Kindle Fire HDX 7", HDX Display, Wi-Fi, 16 GB


Exclusive 7″ HDX display with high pixel density and perfect color accuracy (100% sRGB, 323 ppi / 1920 x 1200)
Enjoy more than 33 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, Android apps and games
Ultrafast 2.2 GHz quad-core processor for quick app launches and fluid graphics
Free, live video support 24×7, 365 days a year with Mayday
Front-facing 720p HD camera
2 GB of RAM, with 16, 32, or 64 GB storage and free unlimited cloud storage for Amazon content
Stay connected with fast web browsing, and email and calendar support including Gmail and Outlook

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Everybody won’t like what you write… and that’s OK

I saw a link someone shared on Facebook earlier about classic books with one star reviews.  The point of the article was that people have opinions and not everybody likes the same things.  It is a great motivator to see that even the “big guys” get their share of shade thrown at them. So I decided to look up some more and see what folks had to say.  These are actual Amazon one star reviews:

 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

hate this book

seriously that is all I have to say now:I hate this book. Now I’ll just need to say more because there has to be at least 20 words long. Really it is no different from many other magic books.

Divergent

It’s so SO awful

Thank God I didn’t buy the trilogy. I bought the hype well enough to purchase the first book on my kindle, and even that was a giant misstep. (If I’d bought it on paperback like a sane person, I could have resold it, and might not have felt pressured to finish it.) I wanted to give up on this book maybe a quarter through, as it wasn’t getting any better, but I convinced myself that I’d purchased it, there was no way of getting my money back, and I might as well see it through. I love Dystopian fiction, after all. I also hoped that maybe there was gonna be twist in the story that might compensate for the weak writing, ridiculous plot, and uber-bland characters. Nope. In fact, once it became clear what the “twist” and the ramping up of the plot was, I started skimming like mad. Oh man this is Young Adult in the worst sense of the term. It reads like it was written by a thirteen year old. I usually don’t feel inclined to leave a negative review as it was my own darn fault for subjecting myself to the experience and hell, if you like it, you like it. More power to you. But I hated it

The Firm

THE WORST BOOK I’VE FINISHED

This is the most boring,pointless book I’ve read.”It grabs the reader on the first page and propells him through 400 more” is the quote on the cover.I don’t know what kind of drugs he was doing, but he was not in his right mind when he said it. More like it holds the reader on the first page and drags him through 500 more. Pointless to waste your time on this book when you can read great works like “The Lawyer’s Tale” by Kincade.My point in writting this is to tell you “PLEASE DON”T READ THIS PILE OF DOG DOO!

The Fault In Our Stars

The fault in our literature

This is it.

This is the kind of title that probably pops up if you rated Twilight with 5 stars.

If thats you thing, whatever floats your boat.

I personally found this to be the most overrated story I’ve ever had the misfortune to read.

The kind of book you hear so much hype over and actually look forward to and the author actually looks like a decent human being and then you start reading and its like that sinking feeling you got when you sat and watched The Phantom Menace for the first time in the theater- you keep telling yourself it can’t possibly be as bad as your brain is telling you but soon you’re overtaken completely by that hollow ache of hope dying – slowly then all at once.

OK, so those are really popular books.  And popular books can’t be any good right? And we love to see people that sell out get what’s coming to them, right?  Well hang on just a second…

The Hobbit

I’ll stick to the movies

Love the films, but could not get through the book. It was a challenge to read. Maybe I didn’t like the author’s writing style. Very slow character and plot development and too many useless details. Gave up. .

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Most Overrated Book of the Century

I’ll admit this was an assigned book for school, but please don’t misjudge me. I have read other books Anna Karenina of my own accord and loved them, and I am not criticizing this book because of bitterness of being forced to. I actually had not heard much about To Kill a Mockingbird before I read it, due to the fact that I tend to read nineteenth century literature, and I started this book with a fairly open mind. As cliche as this story is, I thought that the plot had great potential for making a powerful book, but Harper Lee’s approach to writing it seemed a mismatch. The powerful theme served merely as a backdrop to a far less interesting story. There are points at which one can fairly hear the plot wheezing as it is being choked by Lee’s attempts at cuteness and nostalgia. The descriptive passages were rather crude, and at times the language became practically unintelligable. Am I the only person who despises dialect? There are two things I thought of that can affect the way people criticize this book. One of these is fear of disliking a book at the risk of being labeled a Philistine. The other of these is which books are read immediately before reading a book. The latter affected me in particular, as I was reading Madame Bovary alongside this book. The lack of any elegance and refinement, which is so abundant in Madame Bovary, made the primitive style of the writing even more displeasing.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: The Chronicles of Narnia

SUCKS

 It’s STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not a good story at ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! 0 STARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do not by it at ALL!!!!!!!!!

WASTE OF YOUR MONEY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pretty bad, huh? So what’s the point of all this? I showed you these to illustrate something.  As a writer, or an artist of any sort, you will make art and some people will love it. But some people will not.  You can be a really nice guy, and make the best art that you possibly can, and some people just won’t like it. AND THAT’S OK.

Here’s the takeaway:

Some people aren’t going to like what you do. Your art isn’t for them.

Find the people that love what you do and write for them. Make the best art you can, and make it often. 

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Come chat about Writer’s Block at the Leighgendarium

Today over at the Leighgendarium, the awesome blog run by Preston Leigh, is a discussion of Writer’s Block.  I hope you’ll go over and join in.  Writer’s Block is the first in a series called The Weston Files.  All of my stories take place in the fictional town of Weston, MS, and you quickly learn that there is something odd about this little town.  The Weston Files help explain some of the strange happenings and will ultimately give clues to patch together the overall narrative.

Come on over to the Leighgendarium today.

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Author Stories Podcast Episode 50 | Andy Weir Interview

This week is episode 50 of Author Stories, and my guest is Andy Weir.  Andy authored a book called The Martian that is soon to be released as a motion picture starring Matt Damon.  Andy’s path to publishing is a fascinating and mind blowing story.

To celebrate our 50th episode, I am giving away a copy of The Martian audiobook.  Leave a comment below to be entered. I will draw a winner on August 17, 2015.

Here is the trailer for The Martian:

About Andy:

ANDY WEIR was first hired as a programmer for a national laboratory at age fifteen and has been working as a software engineer ever since. He is also a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects like relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. The Martian is his first novel.

Author Stories is now on Youtube.  You can listen to the episode here or on our channel.

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Guest Post: Ian Garner releases his new story Roswell

A guest post from Ian Garner:

Hey guys, it’s Ian Garner. I just wanted to let everyone here know that today I released my newest short story, Roswell. Roswell is a short story of roughly 1,600 words. As the title infers, it’s set in New Mexico, the day after the famous alleged alien spacecraft landing. The story takes place through the eyes of the local coroner, and the things he experiences throughout the story will leave you (hopefully) reeling.

Roswell is now live on Amazon.com. It only costs $0.99, and I hope that you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’d like to check out some of my other stories, here are the links to American Son , and Whispers. If you like what you read, honest reviews are always appreciated.  Don’t forget, all my stories are in Kindle Unlimited, so you can read them free with your KU subscription.

Thank you all so much for your support. It means a lot to folks like me, just trying to follow their dreams.

May the Force be with you, and God bless.

Roswell

When a spacecraft crashes in New Mexico, nothing will ever be the same for a local coroner and the rest of mankind.

American Son

Zack Mason is an ordinary boy, working his way quietly through high school. When armed terrorists take over the school, Zack must summon all his courage to lead his classmates in victory against the threat.

Whispers

Bruce hears voices. Whispers reminding him of death and betrayal. Now he must face the mistakes of his past so he can secure peace in his future.

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Episode 2 of SciFi Writers Playing Old School D&D

Some friends of mine get together to play table top games, D&D 3.5 to be exact, and they decided to record it. Then they asked me if I would help them take all this fun and frivolity and mold it into a podcast. What happened is so much more than just a group of friends playing a game, it turned into something magical.  We posted the second episode last night, and  you should go take a listen.  It’s pretty crazy.

http://www.oldschooldnd.com/episode-2-a-brief-interlude/

The players are:

Nick Cole

Allison Pourteau

Chris Pourteau

Jason Anspach

Christopher Boore

Forbes West

Jon Frater

 

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New clip from The Martian

As you might have heard, Andy Weir is my guest on next week’s Author Stories for episode 50.  Check out this clip recently released from the upcoming movie.

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Soon…

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Episode Forty Nine With M. Louisa Locke

M. Louisa Locke, a retired professor of U.S. and Women’s History, has embarked on a second career as an historical fiction writer. Her Victorian San Francisco Mystery series feature Annie Fuller, a boardinghouse owner and clairvoyant, and Nate Dawson, a San Francisco lawyer, who together investigate murders and other crimes. Her short stories give secondary characters from this series a chance to get involved in their own minor mysteries.

As Louisa Locke, she has recently started writing as part of the open source science fiction world of the Paradisi Chronicles and Between Mountain and Sea, the first book in the Caelestis series, and Butler’s Brother, a short story she has written with Ashley Angelly, are now available on pre-order. To learn more about her historical mysteries or the new science fiction series go to mlouisalocke.com/.

Maids of Misfortune

Pick up this book free!

It’s the summer of 1879, and Annie Fuller, a young San Francisco widow, is in trouble. Annie’s husband squandered her fortune before committing suicide five years earlier, and one of his creditors is now threatening to take the boardinghouse she owns to pay off a debt.

Annie Fuller also has a secret. She supplements her income by giving domestic and business advice as Madam Sibyl, one of San Francisco’s most exclusive clairvoyants, and one of Madam Sibyl’s clients, Matthew Voss, has died. The police believe his death was suicide brought upon by bankruptcy, but Annie believes Voss has been murdered and that his assets have been stolen.

Nate Dawson has a problem. As the Voss family lawyer, he would love to believe that Matthew Voss didn’t leave his grieving family destitute. But that would mean working with Annie Fuller, a woman who alternatively attracts and infuriates him as she shatters every notion he ever had of proper ladylike behavior.

Sparks fly as Anne and Nate pursue the truth about the murder of Matthew Voss in this light-hearted, cozy historical mystery set in the foggy gas-lit world of Victorian San Francisco.

Maids of Misfortune is the first book in M. Louisa Locke’s historical mystery series, see also, Uneasy Spirits, and Bloody Lessons, as well as the two short stories based on the characters from the novels, Dandy Detects, and The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage.

Bloody Lessons

In Bloody Lessons, it’s the winter of 1880, and the teachers of San Francisco are under attack: their salaries slashed and their competency and morals questioned in a series of poison pen letters.

Annie Fuller, the reluctant clairvoyant, has been called in to investigate by Nate Dawson, her lawyer beau, and the case becomes personal when they discover that Laura, Nate’s sister, may be one of the teachers targeted for attack.

In this installment in the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, readers will find the same blend of a cozy mystery and romantic suspense, played out against the historical backdrop of late 19th century San Francisco, that they found in Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits.

If you are new to this series, you will still enjoy spending time with the lively residents of Annie Fuller’s boarding house and visiting San Francisco when Golden Gate Park was filled with horse-drawn carriages, politics were controlled by saloon-keepers, and kisses were stolen under gaslight.

Uneasy Spirits

In this sequel to Maids of Misfortune, it is the fall of 1879 and Annie Fuller, a young San Francisco widow, has a problem. Despite her growing financial success as the clairvoyant Madam Sibyl, Annie doesn’t believe in the astrology and palmistry her clients think are the basis for her advice.

Kathleen Hennessey, Annie Fuller’s young Irish maid, has a plan. When her mistress is asked to expose a fraudulent trance medium, Arabella Frampton, Kathleen is determined to assist in the investigation, just like the Pinkerton detectives she has read about in the dime novels.

Nate Dawson, up-and-coming San Francisco lawyer, has a dilemma. He wants to marry the unconventional Annie Fuller, but he doesn’t feel he can reveal his true feelings until he has a way to make enough money to support her.

In Uneasy Spirits, this cozy, historical mystery of romantic suspense, Annie delves into the intriguing world of 19th century spiritualism, encountering true believers and naïve dupes, clever frauds and unexplained supernatural phenomena.

She will soon find there are as many secrets as there are spirits swirling around the Frampton séance table. Some of those secrets will threaten the foundation of her career as Madam Sibyl and the future of her relationship with Nate Dawson, and, in time, they will threaten her very life itself.

Uneasy Spirits is the second book in M. Louisa Locke’s Victorian historical mystery series, the first is Maids of Misfortune, and there are currently two short stories based on the characters from the novels, Dandy Detects, and The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage.

Deadly Proof

It’s the summer of 1880, and once again the lovely and inquisitive businesswoman, Annie Fuller, is helping San Francisco lawyer and beau, Nate Dawson, with a troublesome case. Nate’s client, a female typesetter accused of murdering her boss, refuses to help in her own defense. Complicating matters, Nate’s sister Laura insists on getting involved in the potentially dangerous investigation, while Laura’s friend Seth Timmons, troubled Civil War veteran, finds himself a witness for the prosecution. Will Nate be able to win his first big case? Will Laura and Seth find some way of becoming friends? And finally, will Annie and Nate’s upcoming nuptials be derailed by their attempts to track down a killer?

Old friends and new readers alike will enjoy Deadly Proof, this fourth installment of the cozy Victorian San Francisco Mystery series that blends light romance, suspense, and a glimpse into the lives of late 19th century women who worked.

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Stories…

Stories have the ability to change the way we look at the world, and each other. There’s something transcendent about baring your soul and allowing a stranger to share in your joy, your grief, your fear and your celebration.  In sharing our stories, we become a part of the creative force that binds us all together, anchors us to what it means to be human, and hopefully allows us to plug into our higher calling. This doesn’t mean it’s easy, on the contrary, it might be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But the stories you get in return make the fear and trepidation all worth it. In sharing, we not only allow others to see us for who we are, but it allows others to show us who they really are, and that is an even better reward.

Share your stories.

The world will be better for it.

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