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Monday 31 December 2012

MARK TWAIN.

Writing isn’t always about writing. Sometimes reading strays across your plans. Then there’s maintenance to consider. I’d just filled in a form for the tax. This parchment was due under penalty of penalty.
   The scroll was destined for delivery and receipt before Hallowe’en. Why? Tax is so complex that the relevant department is literally arcane. Yes. Run by supernatural beings. Let us ponder the fiction of Mark Twain.
   Now he went back to his treasure-house, and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his pocket, and tossed it in the same way, saying:
   “Brother, go find your brother!”
   Tom Sawyer wishes to find a lost marble by means supernatural and arcane. He throws one bauble after the other. How absurd. Really? Not in the least. My work was interrupted by the need for maintenance. I will now relate that tale of woe.
   Things used every day tend to work just fine. Leave them be and they may fall apart while you aren’t looking. I use my computer daily. It’s a rare day that doesn’t see the machine switched on. Sleep aside, if I am away from my desk the break is never long.
   It is important to take breaks.
   I was on holiday. Returning, I found the house still stood. Gremlins walked all over the equipment in my absence. The computer monitor tired itself while I clambered over a foreign landscape looking for story material. Broken? The damned thing took ten minutes to wake.
   Ordinarily, I wouldn’t care. Ah, just one more quirky piece of equipment. The printer that insists on chewing every third envelope. I endure the quirk. Why? I run a near-paperless office. A few times each year, I’ll have to print an actual letter. There’s little point in upgrading to a new printer just to avoid a torn envelope.
   An office without quirks is a sterile place.
   One of my DVD drives refuses to open on the first use of the ejector. A second stab at the button does the trick. My shredder developed the tendency to gather most of my shredded material in its jaws and hoard the wedge for reasons best known to itself. This only becomes a problem when I attempt to empty the beast. Suddenly, the shredded flakes decide liberty has come. They seek the carpet. The carpet is welcoming.
   Quirks. Petty annoyances. You put up with them, until you don’t. After the second incident of sleepy monitor sickness, I’d had enough. I bought a cable to connect my television to the computer, and unplugged many many things.
   My computer sat in my office. I moved the machine to my library. For various reasons of the plot, the television isn’t moving from the room full of books. I tried the new arrangement. Sitting on the floor in front of the TV wasn’t a great solution.
   I decided to improvise. Why don’t I hunt that old PC monitor out of storage and try that? A temporary fix. Can’t do any harm. I moved many many things back to my office and plugged those things into other things. The ancient monitor was retrieved from storage.
   Cold storage. The garden hut, to be exact. After a spot of mountaineering inside the hut, I scrambled and clambered to my goal: a tired old monitor that had weathered a good and bad seven winters. In my office, an awkward cable was plugged into an awkward receptacle. Click. Fizz. Buzz. Zap.
   Everything worked. The monitor was darker. That was my only problem. I had difficulty gauging the state of my cover art on a darkened machine. My best option was to buy a small computer desk and shift everything back to the library. There, I’d use my TV as a monitor again.
   I braved the elements. This is a Scottish cliché meaning I went outdoors. Many a mile I trudged in search of self-assembly office equipment. The day was dry, and I had no fear of raindrops. More to the point, the cardboard box containing the desk had no fear of raindrops.
   At the edge of reason, and my library door, I assembled the creature. “It’s ali-ive!” This creation was a simple metal desk with a shelf beneath for the computer keyboard. I plugged many many things in and fixed them around the new desk.
   My library was now my office. The office was now somehow empty. My old computer desk had nothing to do but support a tired old monitor from the Dark Ages. In my library, a folding chair – interposed between PC desk and comfy TV chair – saw the job done.
   Word reached me that I’d be offered a new computer. Great. I could put that where the old machine once sat. My office’d be an office once more. All was right with the world. And so things went. My new computer, a free horse, was not examined in the mouth.
   Let me turn to this afternoon. I’d finished inscribing the illuminated manuscript with runes. The tax was fixed. Seated in my library, at my old computer, my world exploded. The new computer desk, with its sturdy construction, survived the explosion. My problem lay within the handy sliding shelf that held the keyboard.
   That shelf shattered on the left. I was showered with shotgun pellets. Tiny ball-bearings. They flew everywhere. I caught the free end of the shelf, and did my best to stop the keyboard from flying off. In this, I was unsuccessful. The keyboard gradually slid away and clattered onto some TV equipment stationed below.
   What went wrong? The shelf’s runner failed. I saw a tiny clip which still contained ball-bearings. Other, more rebellious, shiny pellets were scattered. I secured the shelf and gathered ball-bearings. Count those.
   Twelve spaces in the clip. That didn’t mean there were twelve steel trophies to be had. If twelve were packed in there initially, then yes. I couldn’t be certain of that. So I danced on the floor. Whirled and swirled like a dervish. My hands scoured the carpet for these missing steel spheres.
   I had to look. The basic components were all intact. Nothing sheared off. The shelf was fixable. Therefore, I had to look. The main body of the desk was perforated with circular holes. Those circles lay just shy of the size of each sphere. I found two bearings nestled on the desk in these circles.
   My swirling dance continued. I applied Cosmic Law. The spheres pinged all over the place. Most would be on the desk or lying in the carpet. Some may have popped and pinged into the nearby bin. A few could’ve loitered in the desk’s superstructure to the rear. I’d check.
   Where did I look? Everywhere, of course. I uncovered ten spheres and two tiny chunks of rock. Then I found an odd piece of plastic from nothing in particular. Under my chair I detected a crumb of fossilised food. Ew.
   One piece of twine later, I finished my search. Nothing more to see. The metallic glints in the carpet weren’t helping. I’d never considered the carpet to have a metallic pattern. Until I went hunting ball-bearings.
   Cosmic Law dictates that the impossible direction is the one in which hardened seekers must travel. I found myself behind the computer desk, swirling my hands on the floor in that strange low-level dance of mine. Cable after cable, I checked.
   Where were the two missing bearings? Patience is its own reward. Luckily, patience also rewarded me with the eleventh ball-bearing. I had marked one. Could I mark twain? Now all I had to do was uncover Judas. This twelfth apostle lay hidden. I turned my attention to deconstruction and reconstruction of the shelf.
   Bomb-disposal. I had to be careful. The old TV stand, glass, was now to the right and served as my printer stand. I definitely didn’t want to knock anything over onto that. Oops, seconds later, there flew the keyboard.
   Klunk.
   Ah, toughened glass. Glad to see that level of design in an otherwise fragile object. Be more careful. I’ll be much more careful than that. Clatter. Oops. Okay. Calm down. The design of the shelf is tricky. I’ll remove the shelf to get at the runners.
   This was achieved with minimal dropping and fumbling of bits I removed as I went along. (Believe me when I say a radical revision of the word minimal occurred in the previous sentence.) Finally, I had the eleven ball-bearings to hand. They could not be assembled in place. Resignedly, I knew I’d have to remove the left runner, flip that on its side, and apply the ball-bearings with great care.
   Situation. I’m one down. Judas has escaped me. What will I do anent that? I’ll try to fit the loose bearings inside the clip. Clatter. I drop a bearing. The metal globe rolls under the desk and settles on one of those small circular holes down there.
   “Brother, go find your brother!”
   The words come unbidden. I look right, to the nearest bookshelf. There sits Mark Twain’s story. Come on. Seriously? Am I going to follow in Tom Sawyer’s footsteps? The one place I haven’t looked is on the right of the floor-level bottom shelf. My tiny computer desk has no more secrets to relinquish.
   I haven’t looked on the right as the right side is taken up by the computer itself. There is no way that a ball-bearing could have ricocheted under there. As soon as this is put to me, I realise Cosmic Law dictates that the impossible direction is the one in which hardened seekers must travel.
   So it proves. Judas ricocheted under the rectangular computer. The twelfth apostle wormed its metallic way into hiding. Tom Sawyer helped me find the missing piece of that puzzle. I assembled everything with great skill and panache. (That is a lie.)
   After clumsily fumbling for eternity, I reassembled the whole runner. Bolted the tricky piece to the frame. Then watched in horror as the entire assembly pinged out again. Three bearings escaped. They clustered around the same dim part of my desk.
   I began again. With some cajoling, the job was done. I fixed the shelf into its awkward spot. There’s a tidy solution. Be wary when using the desk. That’s all. Yes, a flawed design was responsible. It’s possible to extend the shelf in full. Doing so on both sides extends the right side a shade further than the left. Leading to a twisting of the parts on the left. Twisting and popping of ball-bearings.
   The same is true in the other direction, when sliding the shelf away. There’s a slight uneven quality to an otherwise smooth operation. Why am I telling you this? Maintenance disrupted my writing routine. The least I could do was fashion a blog post out of the disruption.
   As for the circular black plastic clip that fell out of something, I’m sure I’ll learn where that came from. The item sits on my desk, mocking me. I am certain I dislodged the clip from one of many many things in my office/library.
   Pulling an item apart is followed by assembling that item and declaring it fixed. If you don’t have any spare parts at the end of the process, Cosmic Law dictates that you are doing something wrong. I considered throwing the clip away, to see if the thing might find its brother…
   In the time it took to write this blog post, I discovered another two black plastic clips. I can’t throw one away to locate more. If I do that, I may be swamped. Nothing appears broken or wobbly for a lack of three black circular clips. If the last you hear of me is that I was felled by an unsecured bookcase, consider the mystery solved.

NEXT BLOG: OBITUARY. MISSY BIOZARRE.

Monday 24 December 2012

SCHEMES O’ MICE AN’ MEN.

Twice in this blog I announced the impending publication of collected blog posts. My schemes drifted from the template. Instead, I published WITCHES, THE MADONNA GAMBIT, and WEREWOLVES ahead of REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE. I published those tales ahead of my second REPORT, too.
   Life gets in the way. In my next blog post, I’ll talk about the physical workings of an office. Gremlins feature. Time is spent fixing things that shouldn’t have broken. Do your best, in writing, to take those events and make something of them. I took a broken desk and parlayed the experience into fodder for my next blog. Stay tuned.
   Over the summer I put a novel together. At least, I thought that’s what I did. I rushed the idea, and I knew I rushed the idea as I rushed the idea. That’s okay. These things happen. Adapt. I had straightforward pieces of writing to munch my way through. These were linked by a delicate plot mechanism.
   That delicate plot mechanism was adjusted with all the skill of a Swiss watchmaker taking a hammer to a jar of nitro. After the resultant blast, I picked up a few pieces and retreated gracefully. (That last sentence was a lie.)
   What happens when your schemes gang aft a-gley? You translate for non-Scots. My schemes went astray. Not too far. Collected blog editions were still in the works. I could return to the fractured novel once the smoke cleared.
   It’s okay to make mistakes. I wouldn’t recommend spending a lot of time on airy nothingness. That happens, though. Dust yourself down and look beyond the nothingness you weren’t working on. See something, anything, worth salvaging or conjuring into substance.
   Learn from errors. Fix the fixable. Put a foot wrong then set that step right. I blog weeks ahead of the game so I can turn to work on actual work. Problem. I saw that I wouldn’t immediately put out collected editions of my blogs. Solution. I could’ve gone to the automated blog posts and silenced my wayward announcements.
   Instead, I preferred to let the writing stand as scribbled – as a sign that things don’t always plan according to go. I’d operated to very strict publishing deadlines initially, knowing I’d loosen up on deadlines in the next phase. The more I published to deadline, the more I felt that way. Why?
   Publishing to a date, a second date, and a third date was hard to do. A lot of things jumped in my way. Well, boo and hoo. No, I’m not complaining. Publishing strictly, I might have lost sight of a great many items if things were slightly worse for me at the time.
   With a more flexible approach to publishing, I can take account of life’s complexities with a lower likelihood of bursting a vein. Concerning my first three publication dates, I knew the hour of publication. On the day, my plan fell apart and my first stab was delayed for a few hours while I took care of an arcane piece of formatting.
   How important is it to have deadlines? Almost as important as having the material. First you generate the material. Very important. Then you publish to a deadline. Very important. My first bloody stab at self-publishing worked. The deadline was kept. Almost to the hour.
   Second stab. Same tale of success. To the hour.
   Third stab. No fresh news there. Same story. To the hour.
   So much for winter/spring. Then I generated material over the summer. Kept myself busy setting up projects. Designing covers. Manipulating artwork or photography. Editing. Thinking – managed a bit of that. I read articles on the business, chatted with colleagues, and I planned. Unsurprisingly, I also changed plans.
   One approach worked. Another avenue was blocked. I learned. Hell, I even enjoyed what I was doing – how about that. With the summer’s end, I wanted to dive back into the publishing side again. I’d avoided a rigid clockwork existence. Nothing wrong in that – if you are a cog and all is right with the mechanism.
   Writers must avoid being too tightly (or loosely) coiled.
   There were technical issues with blog posts. I didn’t set a definite deadline for blog publication in a collected edition. Instead, I went for a fluid approach. And I’m glad I did. I was able to check a whole load of things. The same went for the second collection. Because the first collection was delayed, the second one had to follow the familiar trail worn by the first.
   I embarked on my FICTION FACTORY publication schedule. October arrived. Could I put out two stories before the end of October? Yes. WITCHES was written in three days. THE MADONNA GAMBIT took longer to write as I incorporated an old piece of fiction into the story. If I’d written from scratch, I’d have done the piece in three days.
   Stitching the old to the new took careful work. I didn’t want to trip up over myself. The same thing happened with WEREWOLVES. I used an old piece of writing as the foundation for a new story, and gave myself an extra week to construct the tale.
   Delay isn’t always bad. I felt that extra week paid off. My loose plan was to put a story out every week from late October. I’d do this three times, and then see to other projects. A change is always better than arrest. I had semi-loose deadlines. WITCHES had to be available by Hallowe’en, to mark my first year of blogging.
   Even allowing for differences across the world, thanks to multiple time-zones, I should be able to publish on the day I publish. If I feed my Scottish story in at one end and an American company takes that story on at the other and the company dictates the time of publication…
   Then if I publish late in my day, it’s still the same day – only earlier – in America. For some reason, that’s never been the case. Amazon always backdates publication by a whole day. WITCHES was published on the 21st of October 2012, not the 20th as stated by Amazon. I published late enough on my 21st for Uncle Sam’s calendar to be on the same page. Still, the story was thrown back in time.
   My schemes didn’t go a-gley. THE MADONNA GAMBIT was published on the 28th of October, or the 27th if you believe Amazon. Two stories, a week apart, before Hallowe’en. I kept things fluid. Job done. If I’d had difficulty getting the work seen to, then I’d have imposed a strict deadline of the 31st.
   No need to burst a vein. Bursting a vein, or a gut, will delay writing and publishing projects. Unless you work through the pain. I’ve never written from a sick-bed, and I possess no desire to join the ranks of writers who have done so.
   My plan continued. “I’ll publish WEREWOLVES by the 4th of November if I can.” It soon became clear that I needed an extra week. So I gave myself an extra week. I published on the 11th, or the 10th if you listen to that scamp Amazon.
   What am I trying to say? I’ve published to strict deadlines that were so tight that I could go in and publish at a precise minute of a set hour. And I’ve published to loose deadlines that were still deadlines. One option isn’t right with the other being wrong.
   The broad idea to publish to a deadline is right. Should I have published WEREWOLVES as intended, a week earlier? No. Other considerations come into play. Publish when you are ready to. Out of the three stories, all three were ready for publication when published. Not before.
   Except. Mm. I rushed publication of WEREWOLVES in one respect. Didn’t credit my artist on the Amazon page. I spotted that and fixed the glitch by publishing again. There’s a delay of several hours before the story goes live on the Amazon network. You think you ticked all the right boxes and filled in the appropriate sections. Think hard. Then check anyway.
   What am I trying to say to would-be professional writers? Write your story and see that your story is published at some point. Let go of your tale. It doesn’t matter if you let go of your tale with a stopwatch standing by counting down the seconds until launch.
   And it doesn’t matter if you look at the colour of the sky and think it’s time to send that file off to Amazon. As long as you do publish before you drop dead. It’s a bit harder to publish after. That’s a technical issue.
   When I set my strict deadlines, I published. And when I set my loose deadlines, I published. I know that I’m going to have strict deadlines for some projects and loose ones for others. The biggest deadline of all is unavoidable. (DEATH.)
   Have a plan. Be prepared to change that plan. Don’t panic if events conspire against you. Try to react in such a way that events conspire for you. Your schemes may be best laid, by mouse or man, and still fail. That’s no excuse to ignore planning.

NEXT BLOG: MARK TWAIN.

Monday 17 December 2012

MADONNAS, WITCHES, AND WEREWOLVES, OH MY!

Fiction. I’m known for writing it. What is the nature of fiction, in the Digital Age? Stories are whatever the hell you want them to be. I have slight trouble with the word novella. To me, the term signifies a story around 50,000 words.
   When I decided to put out short stories, I wondered if I’d call a 30,000-worder a novella. I didn’t wonder long. No. At that level, my tale is an extended short story. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s a short story stuffed to brimming.
   I do what I can to gather my work for sale. My Amazon author page appears at the end of my blog collections. Blog posts are bundled with fiction – on the off-chance that my blog vanishes. I always write blog posts with the intention of publishing them in e-book form. Whether or not that improves the quality, I leave to the muttering of others.
   Familiar readers of this blog may have noticed that I mentioned a factory for my fiction. The phrase seemed ripe for exploitation. I wanted to write, edit, and publish rapidly. Format? Stories around 30,000 words. I felt like throwing in a few pages of notes. Behind the scenes. FICTION FACTORY was born.
   I created a red stripe for the top of each cover. Initially, I used black lettering. Black on red. Must be a winner. At thumbnail size, I saw white on red had a slight edge. I ditched the winner and backed a horse I wouldn’t normally give a second glance.
   Red stripe. White lettering. Hell, I’d just created a mini-brand for handy doses of tale-tellery. Here’s the blurb for the first three stories in my FICTION FACTORY

*

WITCHES.

Selena Salem spins tales o’ witchcraft, and worse. Mystified strangers are invited to her kitchen table to hear uncanny stories. Fanning the blood-spattered cards, Selena casts her storytelling spell into the rainy Scottish night.
   Tonight’s tale is one of war between greedy clans. The clan o’ the Hand hires the man in the scarlet cap to do the clan’s bidding. His task? Destroy the clan o’ the Eye and the clan o’ the Tongue. No easy feat for mortal man. A difficult job for a warlock.
   Enter Rory: bandit-killer and lover of married women. The Laird o’ Tongue sends Rory to redress the balance of power by hiring witches. Rory stands on the brink of destruction at the cottage of Selena – prentice witch. Selena’s uncle may be too tired for the fight to come. All the while, the clan o’ the Eye keeps watch. Who will triumph, in this devilish tale of magic gone awry in the service of mortal men?
   35,000 words, plus notes.

*

THE MADONNA GAMBIT.

Harvey lingered, in case the rain concealed someone tailing from the weather’s depths.
   Come on. Is that likely? A tactic you’ve used, true. If they are sharp enough to keep an eye on you, they’ll do so from here. Not on the exposed walkway by the shore. Leapfrog ahead in that red car, and hang around the streets. Around the spare wheels. No one knows about the contingency except her. Your link to the outside world. If she’s suspect, throw yourself in the lake now.
   Placing the spare car here was a thin point generating weakness. Getting the keys to him constituted another thin spot. Forget this crisis of non-confidence. The only way to compromise the alternative exit is by going there to check on things. You are a tourist, remember. Lurching from puddle to puddle. Doing touristy things on a rainy day.
   They are watching me.
   Snap the hell out of it.

Harvey Yale is a hired killer. He wonders why the Madonna Gambit isn’t going according to plan. Is revenge really reaching from beyond the grave to spoil Harvey’s appetite, this job, and the rest of his day? Perhaps there’s more to his paranoia than his paranoia.
   Someone marked him. Coincidence. He was offered a gun he wasn’t sure about using. Uncertainty meant nothing. This wasn’t a high-profile job. He could walk away from the pittance they’d offered him, claiming the set-up looked bad.
   Set-up. The phrase needled him. When in doubt, run with your gut before your gut is wrapped around the other guy’s cutlery. Is the mission compromised? Has paranoia won over instinct? Join Harvey on the treacherous slopes of the rock, to find out…
   37,000 words, plus notes.

*

WEREWOLVES.

Two men died. The third man faded. SHE spoke to the police. The police looked into that connection. Nothing connected. Trailing over old ground, cold ground, SHE thinks SHE’s on the right track. The trouble with following tracks? Sometimes you meet trains coming the other way.
   SHE has little to go on but instinct and a curiosity that’s already killed the cat. On this mad little adventure into the unknown, it’s the dog SHE should worry about. No full moon. Little sign of silver bullets. Maria Ouspenskaya checked out of that hotel a long time ago.
   Follow in the footsteps of two, or three, dead men. Take a walk into the alleys just off Maldine Square. Ignore the café chatter. Find your way to that place, where the brass dragon shakes two silver bells as you tumble through the door. Take a look around. See what you can find. Be wary of anything that finds you.
   39,000 words, plus notes.

*

I don’t feel the need to blog about my work at every turn. Relentless plugging is dreary. If I automated the process, relentless plugging would be just as dreary.
   BUY MY STUFF!
   HEY, BUY MY STUFF.
   ZZZ, HUH, WHUZ, UH, BUY MY STUFF.
   Automation has its place. I automate the blog to cover for a few weeks if I’m out of the country, ill, or otherwise missing in inaction.
   If you want to check out my fiction, root around the blog. There’s the Hallowe’en page. Free story. There’s also the free novel listed under DOCTOR WHO FAN FICTION if your taste runs in that direction. My commercial wordsmithery is on Amazon, for the Kindle…
   The first ten per cent of each tale is free. That’s the Amazon sampling system for you. Click to LOOK INSIDE! The system can take a week to kick in after publication. If you don’t see a free sample, have patience. Give it a few days for Amazon to ferry the free slice to a book-hungry public.
   Free samples. Blurb is free. Product description.
   I wanted a home for my blurb. A place that wasn’t Amazon. Right here. A blog post must be built around any blurb-fest. I thought I’d talk about the nature of product descriptions. Self-published digital writers have the power to fashion blurb. I control the content. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? In the world of movies, I often feel the need to shoot the people who come up with trailers.
   Rules for movie trailers?
   Never show a serious heavy-duty plot-point in a trailer. By that, I mean one that thunders into sight when people sit to watch the movie. They’ve seen the trailer, and guess the cunning part of the plot once they take in the first half hour of the film. Your shitty trailer gave away the last half hour. Awkward.
   Don’t put stuff in the trailer if it doesn’t make the final cut. Annoying.
   Please don’t show half the film in the trailer. Pointless. A tactic used for thrillers, mysteries, and suspense flicks. Trying too hard.
   Comedy trailers. Don’t show five jokes in the trailer. Especially if there are only four jokes in your movie.
   Please don’t tell us HEROES WILL RISE. That makes the movie sound as though there’ll be a catastrophic start to the good guy’s tale, followed by an extensive training montage/landscape-hopping journey, ending with a bare-chested revenge fight in rain. With knives.
   There’s nothing wrong with films like that. Just don’t tell us heroes will rise in them. DOUGH WILL RISE. VILLAINS WILL RISE. DOUGHY HEROES WILL RISE. Don’t confuse doughy heroes with doughty heroes. They’ll all rise.
   Don’t show any snippets from the final scene of your film. Let it go.
   Time for a DO, instead of a DON’T. Do use James Horner’s music from Aliens in your trailer. Hell, we won’t spot that tactic. Year in, year out.
   I give away my plot for Neon Gods Brought Down by Swords right there in the blurb. Our hero is sent to kill seven bastards. There’s an immediate betrayal and all bets are off. A good example of product description, or not?
   Go to Amazon’s Kindle Store to check the blurb. If you’re reading this in the collected edition, you’ll find blurb for Neon Gods under the heading ALSO AVAILABLE. Judge for yourself. I tell you everything, yet give nothing away.
   The plot outlined in my product description is divulged inside the first ten per cent of my book. You get the basic idea from the blurb, true. That plot surrenders to the reader of the free sample. I’m not giving out a major twist that upsets the customer.
   Did I say too much in my blurb for WITCHES, THE MADONNA GAMBIT, WEREWOLVES, or any other story I’ve written? Those FICTION FACTORY pieces are short stories. Should I say less that’s plot-related when describing shorter works?
   Rory enters a deal with witches. Harvey Yale is an assassin. SHE is a curious investigator of strange doings. Well, I have to tell potential customers SOMETHING. What am I saying? There’s a skill to writing, and there’s a skill to writing blurb.
   If you are a self-published scribbler, you must develop the skill of writing blurb. In the paper publishing world, this skill was thought too dangerous to be left in the hands of authors. There are times, glancing at paper publishers, when I thought those publishers wanted to do it all – even writing the books.
   You know. Do away with authors.
   This is the Digital Age, and many of us simply chose to dispense with the paper publishers. If I’m going to have crappy blurb attached to my stories, I may as well be the piss-artist responsible. Excuse my bias – I don’t have crappy blurb attached to my stories.
   Sometimes this sentiment feels right – if only the people who made the movie had made the trailer.
   Occasionally, the view runs in another direction – if only the people who made the trailer had made the movie.
   What to do, about blurb? I’d advise adding the word-count to product description. Be transparent. For my REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE editions, I make it plain that I’m bundling around 30,000 words of a free blog with paid-for fiction. The FICTION FACTORY line consists of stories that aren’t going to be reissued in larger collections – that’s transparent on the product description. (See any FICTION FACTORY story on Amazon or the ALSO AVAILABLE section of this collection for the main mission statement.)
   Transparency. Be honest about the product without giving away the goods. Have I altered product descriptions? Yes. The only way to know you set the blurb down straight is by studying the text live on Amazon. I’ve had to correct glitches and deal with gremlins that popped up.
   Don’t mislead customers. That’s a rule for writing blurb. When constructing novels, feel free to misdirect readers – that’s different. It’s also a topic for another time. Leaving me just enough space for a spot of blurb plugging the next blog post…

NEXT BLOG: SCHEMES O’ MICE AN’ MEN.

Monday 10 December 2012

RETURN OF THE REVENGE OF THE RETRIBUTION OF THE SITH.

Wicked self-publisher Darth Sinister lies bleeding on the floor of his refurbished DEATH STAR. His Jedi foe Young Vanderkarr shakes off unconsciousness. In a shameless attempt to introduce a flashback, both struggle to remember WTF just happened…



YOUNG VANDERKARR: Overcome these obstacles. It doesn’t have to be about you and the blank page.

DARTH SINISTER: Oh but it does, my Young Apprentice™…

YOUNG VANDERKARR: There is good in you.

DARTH SINISTER: Your plot is lost, your characters are weak, and your description is about to collapse under the ponderous weight of its own gravitational field. Search your feelings. Soon you will turn to the Dark Side of Publishing™. Join me, my Young Apprentice™. Face your Publishing Destiny™. Short stories. Quicker. More seductive. Take the swift path to the Dark Side™. Embrace your fear of editing. And Trademark signs.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Er…

DARTH SINISTER: Your Jedi ways are well-suited to the do-gooder meandering across the surface of a novel. But there is a darker path. Strewn with the bones of the well-intentioned. No room for vacillation. Little time for exposition. Zero space in which to wax lyrical.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: I dunno…

DARTH SINISTER: Cut your writing to the bone, Young Vanderkarr. Sample the discipline of plotting a short story with all the power and ruthlessness that true editing commands. Lose those sub-plots. Kill excessive characterisation. Abandon description of every minor character’s clothes. Do not tell us what he said or she said. Banish those phrases from your vocabulary, and your journey to the Dark Side™ will be complete.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Ulp. We-ell. Maybe I could veer a little to the Dark Side™. You know. A teensy bit. On a trial-basis. Worked for Luke Skywalker. He seemed to do okay. What harm is there in a short story, after all…

DARTH SINISTER: Good, good. Fried Ewok?

YOUNG VANDERKARR: I’ll pass. What of the threat Darth Biozarre poses to your personal carer, Darth Phibes?

DARTH SINISTER: Leave that to me.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: And allow all these Darths to run free in the publishing universe? You can loosen up. Take the day off. Walk by the creek.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Pardon me, Your Munificence. A transmission from the Star Destroyer Prophylactic. It would appear that Darth Phibes has ordered full steam ahead in the desire to wipe Darth Biozarre from existence.

DARTH SINISTER: My plan proceeds as anticipated.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Only one will survive. Though which? Things don’t look good for me either way. They are all Darthtastic. I’m going to have to…

NOISES OFF: Bzhwwzumm.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Holy Eff! Put that Typesabre away. I don’t want to fight you.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: If no one objects, I’ll shut down before I’m cut in half by razor-sharp wordsmithery.

DARTH SINISTER: I am composing a ditty.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: How…unDarthlike. If there is such a word.

DARTH SINISTER: You have coined a word. Good. Now use it at every opportunity. Then mercilessly edit the word from your work.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: No! Wait! Using and unusing unDarthlike would be Darthlike.

DARTH SINISTER: Yes. Give in to temptation.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Never. Not when I can flick this handy switch that throws your entire DEATH STAR into cataclysmic overdrive.

NOISES OFF: CLICK.

DISEMBODIED VOICE OF GLOOMY FEMBOT: WARNING. CATACLYSMIC OVERDRIVE SEQUENCE INITIATED. ALL PERSONNEL NOT COVERED BY DEATH STAR INSURANCE PLEASE MOVE TO THE EMERGENCY FIRE ESCAPE. THANK YOU FOR USING THE FAST LANE.

DARTH SINISTER: A momentary glitch, young fool.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Now you’ll pay for all the clichés you’ve used. Dark Lord™ on his Dark Throne™. What’s that? The Fried Ewok Stand. Also serving bagels. Ew. There’s not a force in the universe that…

NOISES OFF: MAN NARRATING SOUND OF EXPLOSION FOR REASONS OF CHEAPNESS.

*

YOUNG VANDERKARR: What the Holy Eff just happened?

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Excuse the mess, Your Commendableness. I appear to be leaking oil. My big end’s gone, I’m afraid. Now I’ll have to seek emergency maintenance round the back.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Where the fudge am I? What the fritz is going on? Who the flip skewed with my sense of reality?

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: The DEATH STAR is deep in the Censored System. Profanity is heavily-shielded here.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Motherfudgers! You’ve got to be flipping kidding me. And this ledge?

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: I believe we were blasted from the control room to the maintenance platform over the main reactor shaft. The platform doubles as an ice cream counter. Would you care for some?

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Fudge, yeah. Wait! The last I remember, I was caught up in my own little world with that motherfudging fear of editing. Say. I didn’t turn to the Dark Side™, did I? There’s this short story on the ground and…

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Oh, that belongs to Darth Sinister. It appears that you’ve intercepted a transmission meant for Darth Biozarre.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Why the fudge would Darth Sinister send a short story to Darth Biozarre? And why the fudge would he leave a copy for me? That’s just not his way. Why, his whole Darthtastic persona is based around this antiquated notion that it’s just him and the blank page.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Is there such a thing as robot wee? I think I may have to visit the lavatory.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: He’s sent out a sample of his fiction. There’s hope for us yet. Darth Sinister may turn to the Light Side™ after all.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: As I understand things, only his own fear of his personal carer, Darth Phibes, prevents Darth Sinister from acting in this way.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Yes. That’s true. I sense a disturbance in the Force. As though an Evil Presence™ yelled out in pain after taking a sword of buzzy light to the face. Could it be that Darth Phibes and Darth Biozarre clashed? Who won? Does that concern me? I have to face a Darth at the finish, no matter who kicked butt.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Fudge?

YOUNG VANDERKARR: What happened?

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: I was offering you ice cream.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Fritz, I knew that. Fudge.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: What now?

YOUNG VANDERKARR: I was accepting your offer.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Ah.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Just give me some fudging ice cream while I read this story. Hm. I know the Dark Lord™ tried to turn me to the Dark Side™ with talk of short stories, but…wow. This really is short.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Pardon me, Your Commendableness. I believe that’s only the opening page. There’s a whole chapter here.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Darth Sinister has gone off the deep end. Maybe it’s an Evil Ploy®, designed to lure me to the ways of the Sith. By doing good deeds, he, er, does more evil. Somehow. I dunno. Must think about that.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Incoming transmission from Darth Biozarre.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Yeah, I’ll take the call.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Greetings, Darth Sin…aren’t you a little tall to be a Sith Lord?

YOUNG VANDERKARR: I’m Young Vanderkarr – I’m here to rescue you. From yourself.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Scoffing ice cream won’t save you.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: I’ve been mocked by more sarcastic holograms than I care to mention. There was this glazing sales-droid…

DARTH BIOZARRE: Zip it, motherfudger. What the fudge? You’re in the Censored System. How did you end up there?

YOUNG VANDERKARR: A bunch of cocklesuckers designed this DEATH STAR, and…

DARTH BIOZARRE: You know censoring profanity in that way only draws more attention.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Fudging right I do. Long story short…

DARTH BIOZARRE: Taking up the short story. Good, good. Your Destiny™©® grows ever clearer. With each passing second, you make yourself more my servant.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Your servant.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Yes. I’ve just split Darth Phibes in half.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Fucking hell!

DARTH BIOZARRE: Shielding couldn’t contain that outburst. Impressive.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Darth Phibes is all that stands between Darth Sinister and the concept of sharing fiction ahead of publication.

DARTH BIOZARRE: All that stood. Darth Phibes is now in the past tense. If a corpse can be described as tense. Well, maybe going by the look on his false face. Wore a mask. A tense-faced mask. Odd, even by my standards. I’d go for the cliché of the jolly clown.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: You find the task of creeping people out a tad easier dressed as a jolly clown?

DARTH BIOZARRE: Mm. In a paper ruff. That way I crêpe people out, too. Nice use of tad, BTW.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Appreciate that.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Darth Phibes is no more. Well, he’s in two pieces on the floor.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Poetry, now.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Coincidence breeds creativity. Darth Sinister is free. An end to tyranny. Until I take over, with my own evil ideas.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: He’s not that free. Looks like he only sent the opening section of a story to you.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Yes, a mere pittance.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: So it appears. Nice use of pittance, BTW. Commendable.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Well shucks. Look closer, Young Vanderkarr.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Just as the droid said. Darth Sinister’s gone mental. He’s produced a whole chapter. Just for us. I may cry.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Stifle a sob. Turn to the Dark Side™. Write short stories of your own.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Wait!

DARTH BIOZARRE: Am I really meant to fall for that ploy again?

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Duh, yeah!

DARTH BIOZARRE: Bought you some time. I have to cross galaxies to reach you, in any case.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: This isn’t about my turning to the Dark Side™. Fudge no! This is about Darth Sinister having some good in him. And. Redemption. And…

DARTH BIOZARRE: Were you going to mention kittens? Don’t make me destroy you.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Redemption, not revenge. Recovery, not retribution. And kittens, darn it!

DARTH BIOZARRE: Fudge. Appears to be the fucking ice cream you’re eating.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: I’m drifting clear of the Censorship System, or your hologram would’ve been affected just now.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Why, I’m practically on your doorstep.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: This is the end. Darth Sinister fled the DEATH STAR. His enemy Darth Phibes is dead. I’m still a good guy. You could pack the whole Darth persona in a box and write your own stuff.

DARTH BIOZARRE: That’s a pretty pat ending.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Yeah. Until Disney comes along and resurrects the whole thing.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Sounds like our cue to fade.

NEXT BLOG: MADONNAS, WITCHES, AND WEREWOLVES, OH MY!

Monday 3 December 2012

SOCK PUPPETS.

I thought I’d address the problem of the sock puppet in the world of writing. This term is used to denote the adoption of another identity for the purpose of having an argument with oneself on the internet.
   Your book was good but it could do with more scenes in the lost city.
   Dude, I’m returning to the lost city in the sequel.
   Awesome. I take it back. Your book is excellent.
   Gak!
   Using a sock puppet leads to the scheme, or scam, of pretending to be someone else in order to review one’s own work. Poisonously, this is also done to generate adverse reviews of writers perceived as rivals. Surely the people who resort to this have something, anything, better to do with their time. Putting on an actual sock puppet show, for example.
   At the time of writing, I run two blogs. One is a static page, RLL AUTHOR, which leads back here. I also have a Twitter feed and a Pinterest account. My Google+ account is rather webby from lack of use.
   Just before I published my first e-book, I decided my Facebook page was too close to the line between the business world and personal life. I canned the Facebook page. Almost immediately, I set up a new page for one of my characters. Gilach Mac Gilach. That page is webbier than the Google+ entry.
   What can I say? I just don’t like Facebook. Facebook is for stalkers, cat-obsessives, cat-obsessed stalkers, and people who like to describe lint as a means of updating everyone about what’s not happening in their part of the world. Rant over. Blogging, on the other hand, is useful.
   In the early days of setting up some kind of handle for making comments on Amazon forums, I came up with Winterkill. Clearly me – I didn’t deny that I was the author when discussing aspects of my work. Depending on how I sign in, I still sometimes appear as Winterkill. It’s random. That’s what I’ve set in place. I think I’ve covered everything. Here’s what I don’t do…
   I don’t set up fake identities to review my own work. Why would I? I could spend the time writing fiction instead of fiction ABOUT my fiction. And I don’t make comments on my own blog pretending to be someone else…
   Okay, you got me. You can trace the IP address back to Michigan. I’m really Kacey Vanderkarr. Any Scottish words or phrases thrown around on this blog were taken from a dictionary. I just love me an accent. That’s going to amuse the real Kacey Vanderkarr. And confuse the hell out of her husband.
   Kacey, have you been pretending to be Scattish?
   Aye, hubby. McMercy me!
   To what end?
   Until a’ the seas gang dry.
   I’m calling the hospital.
   This is worth repeating. As a self-published author of electronic books, I have no rivals or competitors in publishing. Instead, I have COLLEAGUES. Writing in my area? Outwith it? Doesn’t matter. Colleague. Big-name author? Just starting out? Colleague.
   I’ve helped authors in many ways. Example? I spotted a devious format glitch in another writer’s e-book. Did I snort and chortle behind my hand and push the writer deeper into the dirt by keeping this to myself? No. I took a photo, explained how the glitch came to light, and passed the info on.
   We all promote reading and writing to further the cause of reading and writing. The end.
   Quibble with that view at your peril. Add to that view by all means. We write for many other reasons, true. By writing, we advance literacy. That’s a beautiful thing. The ability to convey ideas through symbols sets us above the level of…sock puppets.
   Why do these people resort to puppetry? Insecurity. Reviews do not guarantee sales. If any writers are reading this and thinking of walking that tightrope – stop! Spend your time writing stories instead of setting up bogus review accounts. If you think you have rivals in the writing business, stop thinking that! Swig from the bottle marked REALITY.
   The sale of someone else’s book is not a lost sale of your book. Don’t allow yourself to be trapped in that mired reasoning. Think of the readers. As I now must. Readers choose books for all sorts of reasons. They may well decide to unchoose an author’s books on the basis of puppetry.
   Fans follow a runner who tackles five marathons. The runner didn’t really run the whole of marathon number five. He caught the bus when he thought no one was looking. The truth is exposed by our conscientious driver. What do fans discuss? The four marathons the guy ran, or the one he didn’t?
   We all create characters. Some of us stick to letting different people talk to each other inside the fiction. There are still authors out there willing to generate buzz by having imaginary conversations with themselves about forthcoming books. If you want to generate buzz, use a buzzsaw.
   No, this doesn’t anger me. It saddens me. Miffed that another author won a literary prize instead of you? Taken the blow personally? Your answer to the problem? REVENGE! Be someone else on the internet, and rubbish the winner. Hell, why not rubbish everyone on the shortlist except yourself? And praise your own entry while you are about it…
   Don’t get me started on literary awards. That’s a separate issue. Let it go. Yes, I can lay claim to being an award-winning writer. I was kept waiting so long for the award that I decided awards weren’t worth the effort of collecting. Ceremonies are too ceremonial for my taste. Away with them, I say. I know. Off-kilter. That I’m the sort of writer miffed at winning something, rather than not winning something…
   Readers probably engage in puppetry too. On studying no evidence, I’ve concluded that the entire publishing industry, paper and digital, is run by three accountants hiding out in Switzerland. One of them is writing this blog. You think you are reading a sarcastic blog written by me. Wrong.
   I’m the accountant in Switzerland and you are an Australian taxidermist picking up some coin to pay for your trip home. You are one of four new employees hired to stand in as the reading population of the world. The accountant pays you in cash – no questions asked. You don’t even write the reviews for the books you don’t read – those books the author hasn’t even written.
   Let’s shift a rock out of the road. Has it always been like this? No! The digital world is evil. Back in the good old days of paper (snort), this never went on. Mm. I’d be shocked to discover that journalistic newspaper book reviewers invented reviews. The tip of a sharp iceberg.
   Have I ever considered puppetry? Not of the pernicious sort. I planned to write short fiction on a new blog as an anonymous writer. This non-person was going to give nothing away. No info. Just short stories or chat in response to blog comments. I took the idea from several intense blogs I’d studied. Thinking I could learn something.
   But I shot the idea down. A new blog required a new Twitter feed. Anything else? Social networking with absolutely no visual imagery attached to it – in case people recognised my photography or locations in photos. I’d have told no one, run it for six months, and pulled the plug at that point. Just to see what I’d learn.
   Why chicken out of this? I write under one banner. Not an umbrella. With no reason to write fiction as someone else, I avoid sidelined work with an uncertain value. Alistair MacLean wrote two books as Ian Stuart, to show that his writing sold books and not his name. This was nonsense. The books were eventually published under Alistair MacLean.
   He hadn’t helped his case by writing in the same style. One of those books opens with a chapter-listing that’s torn straight from his work. MacLean titled many a book chapter by time. Wednesday 0800 to 1300. Doing that under another name fooled no one. In a world devoid of the web, his ruse was transparent. His front would be glowing radioactively in the era of internet-equipped telephones.
   I could have written as the anonymous writer. A shy writer. The label doesn’t much matter. To keep that secret, I’d have committed to abandoning work written for the new blog. Stories I’d never release. That’s quite a gamble.
   If I write a great little story for a non-blog, do I publish there? Or am I tempted to save the story for myself? Duplication of activity. Diversion of effort. An experiment in writing. A step too far. I didn’t go into the mire. Even benign sock puppet nonsense wasn’t for me.
   As far as benign puppetry goes, if you feel you might gain from it then I’m not stopping you. If there’s too much self-conscious static rumbling inside your head, benign puppetry may tide you over until you are on more certain ground.
   How would benign puppetry work? Use a blog to post your fiction anonymously. Welcome comments. Do not plug or review anything. Give a reasonable explanation for your activity. Perhaps your friends and relatives would be shocked at the stuff you write. That’s fine.
   It’s up to you to decide when that experiment ends, and how you end the thing. Maybe no one ever finds out who FRIGHTENING WRITER was. If you do pull the plug, you’ll be able to set aside the extra e-mail address you made. The other Twitter feed. All those additional associated social networking sites. Given the amount of effort involved, that wouldn’t be me. I considered the option, and came down against.
   After all, I have a hard enough time as it is – writing this blog and Kacey Vanderkarr’s. ;)

NEXT BLOG: RETURN OF THE REVENGE OF THE RETRIBUTION OF THE SITH.