Category: Writing

At least it’s writing…

I think I’m writing here largely because I was having trouble at my typewriter. You see, I’m writing another novel, and I’m doing the first draft on one of my typewriters. This novel happens to take place in the same world as Lost and Not Found, chronologically after most of the events of that book, though not actually a sequel as such. It’s been a few days since I’ve written anything – I was working on getting started on the audiobook version of Lost and Not Found, then on composing a musical theme for same most of the week ((If you want to hear what I have so far, email me or leave a comment and I’ll send you a link)) – and I set down and tried to pick up where I left off. Apparently something had interrupted me in the middle of a chapter, in the middle of a paragraph. I’ve been trying to write chapters for this book for a variety of reasons -people seem to like and/or expect chapters, they help create a structure for moving between or tying together different elements of the story, it makes it easier to stop and pick up again at another time if there’s a chapter break, because I don’t have to match the flow of what came before quite as closely- but for whatever reason (now lost to me) I was half-way through this chapter. I set down a while ago and tried to just start going.

I read the preceding pages. I looked at the sentence. My hands sprang into motion, the keys of the typewriter clacking away noisily as the words formed on the page, and then … well, then the sentence started giving me trouble. It got longer and longer and, as it grew, it became less and less coherent. Where did this sentence think it was going? In the time I can usually pour out a couple of pages all I had managed was to mire myself in the first sentence I’d attempted. I XX’d out several words, cut the sentence short and -relatively- understandable, and stepped away from the typewriter. I finished my research on Klein bottles (one of the things that managed inexplicably to wedge its way into the sentence (which you will now be able to look for in the finished book, to find the troubled phrase)) and then came here.

To blog. Because I’ve been meaning to write something here for a while now, but keep either having something better to do (sleep, work on my novel, sleep, et cetera) or not enough to say.

Although that isn’t really the case, is it? I always have something to say. And I’m working on a lot of projects right now, have a lot of things coming up, going away, et cetera. So what is it? One long post, or a lot of little posts? I think a lot of little posts. I’m making a list right now of subjects to cover, so I don’t forget them.

An idea about reviews for new media & independent publishers

Alright, so here’s a post about a concept that has occurred to me. It would probably serve me well to implement and participate in it, but -like so many of my ideas- it will probably not get further than this post. Depends on how ambitious I feel, I suppose.

It’s a pretty basic idea: Old media’s old ideas about reviews don’t work in the new digital world.

Not just because fewer and fewer book reviews are being published, and not just because the old media isn’t interested in new media, independent and self-publishers, and anyone who happens to use the ‘new’ tech of print-on-demand (unless they “hit it big”, sell out, and stop being those things). The old ideas don’t work for reasons I discussed here semi-recently: More books are being written and published than ever before, and more than could ever be reviewed in the old media without overwhelming everything else. Over a thousand new books a day in North America alone, last year. Heck, five of those were mine. So what’s the solution for getting all these new books reviewed? Heckifiknow. But I have an idea for getting some of them reviewed.

How about creators themselves -rather than just pro and amateur reviewers- review each other’s work? There could be some sort of central site where authors could log in and connect with each other and readers could come and see all the reviews in a central, searchable, well-organized location. The reviews could be done quid-pro-quo, ie: I’ll review yours if you review mine, and every book review then brings visibility to both works (because there’s always that “[name of reviewer] is the author of books such as [blah] and [bleh] and writes a blog at [blerg]” at the bottom of a review). Authors could exchange PDFs (MP3s, HTML files, URLs, et cetera), or probably, if they wanted a paper copy of the book, send them a pBook at cost (instead of full retail, since you’re getting a review, but also because none of us wants to go broke trying to get internet reviews). Reviews could then be cross-posted to the authors’ blogs, linked form their books’ sites, et cetera… Increasing the visibility of the review site. And the site would be able to scale better than most of the solo-blogger-reviewers out there, since every new author that wanted to be reviewed would have to become a reviewer. It should be media-agnostic, since we’re all internet people, here: eBook, audiobook, POD book, dynamic hyperbook, whatever, it’s all good. Lots of duplicate reviews are (I think) good, since different people have different opinions on different books – book reviews aren’t objective. A system similar to the one they use at MiniBookExpo For Bloggers could be used (except not just for Canadians), so one could be restricted to three (or so) pending reviews at a time.

Obviously, such a site would take a certain amount of work to be put up and maintained, but since it’s powered by the strengths of the network (each independent author / publisher handles their own distribution of the books, and is in charge of posting their own reviews, and for generating traffic to the site, and the more authors are involved the better the whole thing works), it’s mostly a matter of getting it off the ground.

Ooh, or does this exist already, and I don’t know about it? Point me in the right direction. I’ll sign right up. I should be doing more reading, myself, and adding the selfish motivation of getting my own books reviewed sure would help get me to review other people’s works. I bet it’d do the same thing for yours. Know anyone who could help put this thing together?

Press, Release. Marketing, Products.

Haven’t decided whether I’ll be verbose or brief on this subject, here, today.  Have to look back and see, I guess.

Conversation threads this morning on Twitter (which I can’t retrieve, on account of Twitter is “stressing out” – and I don’t feel like trying to track everything down with tweetscan/summize), included one creator saying they were thinking of planning on releasing a project they’re working on … in September or October.  To which my mind replied: “I don’t understand.  If you have a releasable product, why not put it out there as soon as it’s ready? For a finished product, why wait?”

Now, I can see how with certain products – say, a dancing Santa Claus doll or a new line of Valentine’s Day candies – releasing at a particular time of year might be appropriate.  And I can see how products which will only be relevant for a limited time should be released in a specific time period – though that’s now, not later – to avoid irrelevance.

I can even see where something like a blockbuster movie, trying to maximize attention and profits would want to schedule its release to not be the same weekend as a directly competing release, which would not only compete for viewers dollars but for the actual, finite number of screens, but — and this is a big but — I can’t see why a studio would hold off on releasing a movie for months or, as actually happens more often than you’d think, years after it was ready to be shown.  The finite number of screens is (I believe) now well over 30,000 in the US alone, and even the widest of releases hasn’t topped 1/3 of those – there’s a LOT of screens, if you have a movie ready to go, put it out there!   If you don’t think it’ll make “enough” money in theatres, throw it to DVD – as long as you keep it in print, it’ll be available to whoever wants it.  As long as it’s sitting “in the can”, unreleased, it’s not making anyone any money, it’s not entertaining anyone, it’s not communicating anything, it’s wasted.

Which, I think, is part of my problem with the whole thing:  Someone, possibly a lot of someones, put their hard work and creative energy and ideas into creating something, and that work, that creation, is being held back, hidden, kept from its audience. Continue reading Press, Release. Marketing, Products.

I don’t GTD, but I got things done today anyway

Today was a relatively good day.  I hadn’t made any overly ambitious plans, I certainly hadn’t made a detailed schedule, but I’d put together a list of things that needed to be done today, and I did them all.  Everything on the list was business-related (things like getting the art I sold this week packed up and shipped out, and marking them as sold on the website), and everything on the list got done.

Mmm... CakeI also managed to write about a thousand words of a short story I’m working on, study (to my frustration) what it takes to make eBooks compatible with MS Reader and Palm Reader, get paperwork over to Lightning Source for getting set up for eBooks (which was then confirmed by email), listened to all of NIN’s Ghosts at least 3 times (I’m considering using part of it for intro/bridge/outro music for my audiobooks, which I am also releasing under CC BY-NC-SA), went to a strange appointment with my car insurance agent which seemed actually about making a contact with a gallery-owner friend of his rather than about insurance, made a nice dinner and ate a big piece of cake as well (okay, I didn’t finish the piece of cake – too much goodness. I mean, look at it!), and watched both of my Netflix DVDs.

Now, I’m going to go cuddle with my wife, and get a good night’s sleep.  Tomorrow, more audio work, and more writing, and hopefully another good day.

8/30/01 (3.5.2.-1)

Right now, tonight, I am lying in my bed, charged up with energy, but not sure if I should try to get anything done. It is long past my bedtime, and just a little bit ago, I was too tired to watch TV. Perhaps TV is just too tiring, too mind-numbing right now. Then again, it is Thursday. There really isn’t anything good on TV on Thursdays right now. I tried to lay down for bed. I took all my clothes off, took my extra garlic, turned out all the lights and lay down in bed.

“My mind is racing, as it always will. My hands tire. My heart aches from half the world away.” – REM

On my stereo right now, on repeat. Track eight, Out Of Time, and I don’t want to turn on the lights to find out what the name of the song is. This could be the saddest dusk you’ll ever see.

Continue reading 8/30/01 (3.5.2.-1)