David T. List's Blog, page 12

Conspiracy theory / Need a high-dollar suckin'?

Today my wife gets home from work a good deal before me. She calls me while I'm still at work and I answer.
Bray  "Are you on your way home?"
Me   "No.""You are?""...What?""So you're on your way home?""... What's going on?""...""Umm...?""You're on your way?""Lover. What the hell is going on?"
At this point I was sure she was on drugs of a hallucinatory manner, which was a bit disconcerting as A. She was home alone with our child, B. She's never done psychotropics that I know of and C. She didn't invite me.

She responds quietly, "There's a vacuum salesperson and they won't leave."

Me  "Give them the phone."
Bray   "..."
"Give them the phone, I want to talk to them!"
"I'll call you back."

So now I'm a bit annoyed, because I'm wondering wtf. And I didn't get to wonder wtf into a stranger's ear who seems to be harassing my wife.
I call her back in about 10 and she tells me the story.

[If some of these details aren't spot-on, I apologize. A lot of conjecture has happened in my mind since the incident.]

At about 3pm, a late 90s, early 00s model, dark-colored Expedition eases down our street. We're the last house in a cul-de-sac so that in itself is a bit unusual. Vehicle stops and a passenger exits the vehicle with some unmarked cardboard boxes and makes for our front door. The driver stays in the vehicle, idling in the road.
I'll add that our neighbors are pretty close by. We don't live in last-house-on-the-left solidarity.
Jax (our little baby doggie) is on the backporch already because Bray was getting some cleaning done and it's easier with the resident little baby puppy out of the way. ... Ok, he's not really little.
A knock at the door and Bray answers to meet a late-twenties, tobacco-toothed lady pushing a product. Bray told the lady she wasn't interested. And not ambiguously. Bray doesn't waste words or smiles. (No offense, love. You know I'd have it no other way.)

So the lady consents but with a "parting question."
"Can I just get your opinion on something?"
"Sure."
The next thing Bray knows, the woman's inside unpacking her box and scattering crap on our carpet. And by crap I don't mean stuff. I mean shit.

She proceeds to demonstrate for upwards of 40 minutes, vacuuming Simon's recliner, a square of rug, offering to vacuum in our bedrooms and on our bedspread (to which, wtf?). The Expedition idles a bit longer and then drives off. In the meantime, Bray doesn't move from the window. In fact at one point, tired of looking back and forth between this lady on our carpet and a tinted-windowed, drive-by mobile in the street, she locks the deadbolt.
"What? We aren't convicts," the saleslady says.
What the what? Who said anything about convicts?

She continues her pitch, occasionally making attempts to see the rest of the house (Bray blocks her) and asking the occasional question, such as "What kind of dog is that?" to which Bray replied, "He's a pitbull."
I'm glad Bray didn't let Jax inside. I'll tell you why later.

Finally, Bray's tolerated about as much as she can. And, with little boyo Simon about, she wasn't going to get snarky. But she did ask the lady to leave. The response is a heightened pitch. So my wife responds in kind.

Suddenly, the lady is talking about kids she has to feed. She's talking about the contest she has to win by selling more vacuums. She's talking about how her boss won't pay her if Bray doesn't let her shampoo the carpet.

Finally Bray said, "You have 2 minutes to get out of my house or I'm calling the cops."
"But it will take me more than that to clean all this up!"
Oh my God... If I'd been there her junk would have been decorating my front yard and her ass with it.
Bray said, "Ok. You have 5."
The lady proceeded to tell Bray, "You're mean." and "I thought you were cool at first."
ARE YOU ----ING KIDDING ME?

Did I mention that this vacuum cleaner costs $3000?

It does.

The vacuum cleaner costs $3,000.

The vacuum cleaner...

costs...

Three thousand dollars.

Was the saleslady lost? Did a company that produces vacuum cleaners of that caliber really make such a colossal blunder in the selection of their audience?
Don't get me wrong, our cul-de-sac is a on a pretty street with green trees and pretty houses and smiling faces. But I'd be surprised if there's a $3,000 vacumm cleaner IN THIS ENTIRE ZIP CODE.

I get home from work and Bray tells me some more of the story and shows me the flyer. The lady phoned her driver/manager to say "it's not in their budget at this time." The driver/manager came back, collected her and her box, and they proceeded to visit every house on the street that would let them in the door. That is, unless Bray was able to call the person first with a warning. Eventually someone did call the cops and had them removed. Apparently they didn't have the paperwork to do what they were doing. But they soon got a license from the courthouse and were right back at it a street over.

Allow me to show you the flyer.

But first... You've heard of Dyson, right? High-quality vacuums. They sell models for upward of a thousand dollars.
Here's an advertisement of theirs

courtesy of notcot.comSimple, right? And yet attractive. Not unlike the actual vacuum. This is a high-dollar machine from a high-dollar coporation. That they spent a significant amount of time or effort or both on advertisement is evident in this picture alone.

Now, can you imagine what kind of visual wonderment would come from a company that sells $3,000 vacuums?
You don't have to imagine it! I've got a flyer right here!

courtesy of my trashcan
...

I wish, dear reader, that the poor quality of this document was my fault. I wish I could tell you my scanner is to blame for the pixelated logo top-left. Or the confusing formatting. Or the vague "Includes:" contents. Or the smudges, dots, and wrinkles. Or the fact that this advertisement is a TOTAL BOWL OF BOILED BUFFALO BALLS!

They couldn't even print the image from the source? They had to scan it and clone it all janky looking? They couldn't even be bothered to re-type that line "LOCALLY Owned !!!!..."
I don't know what it said before they covered the word up and scanned and reprinted... But I doubt it looked as bad as it does now!

When Bray handed me this, I was flabbergasted. What part of the presentation or advertisement or any of it was worth a down payment of that much money? What were they thinking?
It was with this in mind that I went outside and cut the grass. And while cutting the grass, my mind built the answers.

What if they didn't accidentally choose the wrong neighborhood as I'd first thought? What if the prices were that high and the salesperson that horrible to ensure a non-sale?
But if they weren't there to sell, then what? What if her questions about our house and dog had an ulterior motive... as if to relay info to someone who may pay a later visit? Were they casing the place? What if "The vacuum isn't in their budget at this time" really meant "They have a big-ass dog?"
I am glad Bray left Jax outside. He has a bark that can send shockwaves through solid cement and when his hair stands up, he looks like he'll rip your lungs out and leave you standing there. But the truth is he's a big ol' pillow.

"I'll eat your face."
Hmmm, eh? Quite the stretch, I know. But fact is stranger than fiction. And if you don't believe that, just open your eyes.


I hope I never have to resort to illegal means to feed my family...

But if I do, I hope I never have to do it at someone else s expense...

But if I do, I have an idea.

I'm going to take up a salesperson job. I'm going to pretend to sell the most expensive product I can, door-to-door, while actually casing out homes to see which is ripe for easy pickings. That I'm not the friendliest of people is actually a qualifier for this job. I don't want to mess up and actually get a sale. I'm going to find a neighborhood that definitely houses some medium-to-high dollar, lightweight electronics, jewelry or other valuables... But not so nice a neighborhood that I actually might make a sale. I understand that I'll have to lie and trick my way into my victim's household to scope it out but that shouldn't be too hard. And while they're in the process of asking me to leave, I'll act defeated, despite that I've gotten exactly the information I came for. If they do call the cops and I'm escorted out, it won't matter.

After all, it won't be me returning two weeks later at an opportune time, in possession of thin gloves and a healthy knowledge of the home's layout. It will be my accomplice. Different person, different vehicle.

Yeah. I think that's a solid plan.

Too bad someone's already thought of it.



Now, if an upstanding, door-to-door, Kirby Salesperson reads this and gets ruffled at my criminal libel about the pinnacle of vacuum sellers that is Kirby, know that my only experience with your company sucked, and not like it should have.
As much as you represent Kirby, with your shining cufflinks, impeccable honesty, and fresh breath, so did the lady that cased my house today.

/rant

Editing ASH / Thanks, Jamie

**Those of  you who are participating in the A to Z are troopers! I didn't have time this year to participate or to even log on daily but I'm digging the topics I've seen. Stay strong!**

I'm wandering about for the first time in the Mirkwood that is the editing process. Not edits in general, like ones I've done myself. I'm referring to the process where you send a person your book and they equip a hammer and a helmet and attempt to beat the stupid out of it without the resulting unbound stupidity killing them to death.

I want to share this process with you for a couple reasons. I haven't posted in a while. And this process is, to me, awesome. It's a bit like surgery for a story.

Before this I was new to the "Review" tab of Microsoft Word (despite that I work at a technical college and have sat in for a teacher's advanced Microsoft Office class). It only took a little while to see how it all worked and I've gotten quicker and cleaner about it... much to Jamie's relief, I'm sure.

So here are some changes Jamie offered in the first 85+ pages of the manuscript. The changes he makes are ALL suggestions. I'm free to listen or ignore. I'm free to get defensive or get smart. I try to choose the latter.


What a great example of why I need an editor. I'm sitting here all smug about funny little Aedron, cluttering about with his blanket until Tahkaan gets enraged. So much so that I miss the obvious dumbassery.
Thanks, Jamie.


Yes, I do think Brandal's speech should match that tone. And so I've rewritten the entire scene, giving more weight to Esmond, Blaire, Samberd and the story Brandal tells in general.
Thanks, Jamie.


This one's a bit trickier. When something's underlined with no comment Jamie's basically saying it didn't sit well with him (I'm paraphrasing).

My initial reaction was, "Nah, it's good. Next!"

Then I looked again. "Ok, change transport to wagon. Tonnes is fine. Done and done. Next!"

Then I thought about it. He wouldn't have underlined it if it weren't a weak spot. And my goal shouldn't be to make the story passable. It should be to make each and every sentence gripping and unique and perfect. To do ANYTHING less would be squandering the dollars of my pre-orderers / pledgers / purchasers. And they don't deserve that.

So here's what I did.

 
Jamie hasn't seen it yet. His red pen might devour it like piranhas on a leg of cow. But as yet, I've executed something mediocre.

Thanks, Jamie.

Some rough sketches for A Sawmill's Hope

Feeling excited.

I'm writing this today because ASH's illustrator, Tracy Flynn, just sent me a fresh batch of roughs.

bridge remains
You may look at the above and not discern much worthy of note. A few silhouettes.

I'm sitting here with my mind blown because I know the gravity of the scene and I'm afraid Tracy's going to nail it and totally own the book!

boats leaving
father and helstem
shadows of the lakeI've adjusting their titles a bit and cropped out some authorial notes to avoid spoilers. But i couldn't just keep these to myself.

Some of them will be the first entries of the Compendium.











I hope you enjoy them. I personally can't wait to see the finished pieces!

Into my process - Turesia

When I was rewriting A Sawmill's Hope I wrote a post describing how I was organizing the story and the point of view characters - How I was writing all the way through, one character at a time so as to keep firmly within their voice instead of having to jump back and forth. It worked very well, making each character at least a bit unique from the others, so I'm doing it again for Turesia. The difference is that in ASH there were 5 point of view characters, 5-10 significant side characters. In Turesia there are 14 POV characters and about 15 significant side characters.

One reason this complicates things is because of the potential for huge advances in plot that break up an individual's point of view. For example - Kraus is drunk and ambushing passerby's on a highway the first time we're in his POV. The next time, he's been arrested, fought monsters in Keswall, sworn loyalty to Torvald and is escaping from Orcanes. A lot has changed! His voice needs to reflect that change, so as to keep his arc smoothly transitioning. I need to know exactly where he's been, where he's going.

To keep it all straight, I made an outline of an entirely different sort than last time. I think this outline would have been most useful if I'd done it first, before my train wreck of a first draft. Then again, I might not have discovered some of the details on this outline if I hadn't tried writing through first.

Red = Dead
(yellow = presumed dead)I've zoomed out to include as much of the chart as possible and to keep it illegible, to avoid spoilers.

This is actually all the significant characters, not just the POVs. Each row is a character's individual journey. The X axis represents the flow of time, from left to right. In this way I can refer to this while writing to see where everyone is, what just happened and what's about to happen.

It's also extremely useful once you determine a starting point and ending point for a character emotionally. Bilbo Baggins would have started on the far left as comfortable and self assured, not terribly motivated but living a quiet, orderly life in the bubble that is the Shire. By the time we reach the far right, he's in the Shire once more but has undergone some serious character reformations. In the middle would be all the inciting incidents - spiders, elves, barrels, goblins, dragons, battles, treasure... The fun parts.

To me, the more well rounded a character begins (especially if they're quite unlike how they'll end up) the more hell they have to go through to transform throughout the book. If you use your imagination, discovering that journey is the most exciting part of being a writer.

This outline came about once I realized the story had become bigger than I knew how to handle. Necessity is the mother of invention, they say and I must agree. If you've written a (I hesitate to say epic...) large-scale story and found yourself lost amongst the details, characters, and side plots, what technique did you use to keep it sorted? Or did you blindly forge ahead, hoping for the best?

IWSG March 2014

IWSG, brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh, occurs once a month. It exists for writers to voice their insecurities and offer advice. The official website, www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com continues to be a priceless commodity in my studying and research. Any one interested in writing to have a look!
I've got a very niche subject for IWSG today. And after writing it out and having read this post again in its entirety, I must admit - It's not the most grievous of quandaries.

I'm writing fantasy that takes place in Silexare. There are certain trades and skill sets that are going to need to measure things in a precise manner, like engineers, mechanics, surgeons, physicists, apothecaries, and so on. In its history, Silexare has experienced a lot of similar challenges as as we have. And although they have certain extraordinary ways of dealing with issues, they've arrived at some of the same conclusions as us, regarding health, physics, aerodynamics, weaponry, agriculture, economy, and especially measurement. This brings me to my current dilemma. To what systems of measurements should I adapt that will least distance my reader?

Allow me to illustrate:

"Scribe, I've looked over your report of the beast but there are some details about which I'm still unclear. How big was it?"

"At least twenty feet long, if I remember correctly." 
"Ah, feet. The unit of measurement exclusive to North America... On Earth... how utterly not-fantastic."

"Did I say feet? I mean he's just under eight yards!"
"Oh, yards. Like a touchdown. On tv." *yawn*

"No no no, he's seven meters long from snout to tail!"
"Meters? What is this, science fiction?"

"Argh. He's about twenty paces!"
"Paces? Like strides?"

"No a stride is like three paces."
"According to whom? A dwarf? A giant?"

"I'd guess a human?"
"How tall? How vigorous a stride?" "Uh, well... um  -"
"Moving on. Your report says the beast's firey spit can burn at 1,000 degrees Farenheit?"

"Correct."
"You mean Farenheit like this grouch? From Earth?"
Danny G. Farenheit. Thanks, chemistry.about.com.
"No! I meant Celsius! 538 degrees Celsius."
"Oh I see. Celsius. Like this shmiling shmuck."

Mr. Celsius. Thanks, Wiki."No! I -"
"Moving on. The gestation period. You said it lasted from January 1st until October 1st?"

"... That's correct... ?"
"Says here  about 37 weeks."

"... correct."
"259 days."

"... yes."
"hmm..."

"...?"
"I see."

"... that's it?"
"So you're telling me not only do we have seven day weeks just like Earth, but distance in time from the month of January (which just happens to be named after Janus, an Earth doorway god) to October (which literally means eight despite it being the tenth month) is exactly the same as on Earth?"

*sigh*  "... I guess I am."
"Therefore, the circumference of Earth, it's distance from the sun, the sun's circumference, and every other tedious factor that might play any part whatsoever on the perceived passage of time for Earth is not just similar, but identical to that of our world, thereby greatly limiting potential for spectacular events in this or any future book?"

*sigh again*  "Weren't we talking about a beast?"
"We were until you threw me out of the story with your Earth words. Begone."

The Refresh Button - Saturday, Feb 15th.

I hadn't been woods'ing in a while. Not with my brother Evan and my son Donavon and Jax the dog, anyway. So we packed machetes, knives and raw ground beef and hit the woods near the Broad River.

Within the forest, some really big trees had fallen. Some had fallen because others fell against them. Yet others had simply fallen. Not because they'd died. Probably because of a particularly strong wind.

Upon seeing a stretch of Five of the fallen trees, my gut reaction was sadness. So many trees, all so tall, so majestic. They were so old, had seen so much, they made up so much of the forest. They had offered so much to the forest, contributed so much... in the past.

But lying on their side, these Five trees were much easier to climb. And once I'd climbed one I discovered a view of the forest I'd never experienced. I could see for miles. Down the massive hill, across the Broad River, up the slopes on the far side that still wore snow and out over a pasture I never even knew was there.


It was in those newly accessible branches that I had an epiphany.

It is sad that the Five big trees fell. When they did, they took down others with them. Others whose only crime was to exist in their vicinity... in their shadow.

But the bigger the hole that is left, the greater the chance for new life.


In the roots of the fallen trees were masses of dirt, wrenched free of the earth and exposed for all to see. It seemed ugly at first... like the remains of a bad wreck. But the dirt was rich... The perfect place for new life to grow. And what better place for new plants than in the woods, free of the enshrouding canopy of these Five enormous trees?

It is sad that the Five big trees fell. But it was inevitable. Because trees, like everything else, can either grow, or die. If they continue to grow, all life around them becomes stunted, receiving only what little sunlight and rain they let pass. And that's not a forest. It's just Five huge, bloated trees, taking everything for themselves.

Here's to new life.


PS. On an unrelated note (or not), there's a website I'll be posting a permanent link to in my sidebar called AuthorEarnings.com. It's very informative for anyone considering making writing their career. Go have a look at this particular post, for example, and see what I mean.