kindle-ing.

So there I was, sitting at home watching a baseball game, and I get this email from Lulu telling me the books I have there are now also available through Amazon. Just right outta the blue, no asking or nothin’ – as of now, readers can find me on Amazon and purchase my books through that megolythic supplier.

Oh, by the way, Amazon takes a cut, so in order to do that they’ve raised the price of my books.

Yeah. So while readers CAN buy my titles from Amazon, I’m still suggesting they purchase through Lulu – they’ll pay less. My revenue remains the same, but why should my readers pay an extra couple of bucks just to purchase from a giant megacorp and slap a few dollars into their pockets? They had nothing to do with writing or publishing my work.  Sure, it’s cool to see my titles there, and sure – I’ll take any access to more readership that I can get. But I never agreed to hand Amazon any profit. They simply saw something that was popular and decided they wanted a piece.

Whatever, Amazon.

Regardless, I’d been toying for a while with putting the titles out in ebook form for the Kindle. I already produce ebooks of my novels in DRM-Free pdf versions, but figured I could reach a wider audience if I produced them for the Kindle. As they’re priced at $2.00 average, they’re more likely to garner some interest over the $9.99+ titles Amazon likes to supply. Kindle owners tend to flock to any title that’s only a couple of bucks – it’s a cheap way to try a new author.

(for the uninitiated: if you’re a book publisher, and you want owners of a Kindle to be able to purchase, download and read your book, you have to “publish to the Kindle.” Basically that means using Amazon’s special voodoo to upload your manuscript, which they’ll turn into an ebook filled with spikes and razor wire that can be purchased and downloaded by Kindle owners, but filled with the same codes and crap that prevent them from sharing, storing or really even owning what they’ve just bought. Like all their other Kindle titles, they can buy it and read it, but not share it – and Amazon, as they can and have, can reach right into that Kindle and remove anything you’ve got on it whenever they feel the urge. Stuff you’ve paid for, they can arbitrarily take away.)

So I researched, and I read up, and I was “this” close to it when all of a sudden, as I’m preparing to go ahead and sign up, I ran into the brick wall of all brick walls.

You all know how I feel about protecting my (and your) finances. How militant I am against credit cards, credit use (outside the realm of home and auto buying) and how bat-shit crazy I get at the thought of someone reaching in to steal identities and money . . . Well Amazon has this little caveat that you don’t really notice until you’re three minutes from committing, finger eagerly hovering over the Submit button, thoughts of your novels being downloaded onto Kindles around the world (even though I have yet to meet someone who even knows what they are, let alone see one being used). . . when suddenly you realize there’s one requirement that has you swallowing your gum.

Amazon requires – absolutely demands – full and complete access into your checking account.

And it MUST be a United States bank account – which thanks to 9-11 can only be obtained by United States Citizens (which I am, but that’s not the point).

Amazon will NOT allow you to use a Paypal account – they claim it’s for tax reporting purposes, etc etc, bla bla bla, but I call Bullshit on that. The I-fucking-RS doesn’t have direct access to my checking account! Amazon has only to fill out tax paperwork and submit it to the I-fucking-RS, let them worry about whether or not I claim it properly. And let’s be honest, I’m not earning enough on this to claim anything other than a hobby venture. I have a business license for another aspect of my art, and even THAT doesn’t bring in enough to claim business tax on. It simply goes into the heading “other income” and you pay tax on what you made.

So, if you’re an Indie, and don’t have a business bank account you’re used to opening up to every teenager with a PC and a grudge, then you have to give them access to your personal checking account. Do that, and Amazon will gladly make your title available for download to the Kindle. And your paycheck, savings, and identity available to said teenagers with said grudge and that old PC.

Not only does this requirement suck eggs through a nostril, it prevents our friends in Canada, Australian, Europe – wherever – to produce for the Kindle. Publishing companies can, sure, they all have accounts in other countries – partners – they sell foreign rights all the time. But Joe Writer who wants to protect his/her money/identity from thieves?

Amazon says Fuck you, Joe Writer.

Not satisfied with their quest to eliminate Independent bookstores, and swallow whole any and all they can get their grubby little mitts on, they’re kicking Joe Writer to the curb. ISBN or no, if you wanna play their game, you gotta open your doors wide, bend right over, and smile, so Amazon, and ten thousand hackers with itchy code fingers can waddle right through your privates.

I’ll stick with my own ebooks, thank you very much. My pdf, completely DRM-free ebooks. You can buy one, share it with friends, pass it around, keep it forever, read it a hundred times, you can even READ IT OUT LOUD and I won’t sue you for audio book violation !

In fact, later this summer, you’ll be able to download audio versions of my novels from the Midnight Reading website. Listen to them in the car, stuff ‘em into your iPod, take a walk with them, let your kids fall asleep to the sound of my voice, reading chapter after chapter.

I’ll try to sound intelligent !

girls just wanna have fun

I was going to write a ranting post about an article on Yahoo yesterday, wherein a family earning $250,000/year claimed they were really “poor” with that income – then I thought I’d just write a ranting post about the lack of respect given to Science Fiction fans by network television . . . But then I realized all this ranting might make me seem a bit “lunatic”.

Then last night, as I had to stop what I was doing and get dinner made, I wanted to talk at length to someone about what I’d just been doing — only no one was around. And that brings me to: Uncharted; Drake’s Fortune.

Yes, I’m a gamer. After years (and years) of avid PC gaming, I got tired of being told I’d have to buy a new $2,000 computer every time the next game came out, so a friend of mine told me I should try the Playstation 3. They’re making great games for these things, often the same as the PC games, and you don’t have to buy a new one every year. So I took the plunge ‘round about Christmas of ‘08, picked up Far Cry 2 (since Far Cry 1 had been a favorite on the PC) and played to my heart’s content.

And saw that it was good.

But then that game came to an end, and I bought the next one on my Must Try list: Bioshock.

And saw that it was not so good.

And I was frustrated. My game-of-choice is the First Person, and I’ve always looked down on Third Person in disdain, but the same guy who talked me in to buying the Playstation (who also looks down on me now for not liking Bioshock) kept talking about Uncharted; Drake’s Fortune. At first, I ignored him because it’s a Third Person perspective – something I hate and can’t manage with any skill at all. But I was desperate for something to do (read: needed a tool that would allow me to procrastinate writing my current novel), so I tried the demo.

And saw that it was GREAT! Had to buy the game right away, and I’m hooked.

This game is incredibly well put together, with stunning graphics that are almost distractingly beautiful at times, realistic movement and action, cut scenes that rival a lot of movies today. One minute you’re enthralled with the movie on your screen, admiring the visuals and calling on memories of Indiana Jones — the next instant you’re in control, fighting to survive an attack or swinging wildly from vines to find a precarious finger-hold in a sheer cliff face or fortress wall, while a 100-foot drop into raging seas await should you slip up.

You play Nathan Drake, descendant of famed explorer Sir Francis Drake. Having found a diary inside your ancestor’s empty coffin — which you’ve just recovered from the bottom of the ocean — you’re on a quest to find some lost treasure (‘natch) but your buddy had some bad debts, and brought along a bit of baggage in the form of loads of baddies who’ve taken the diary (but didn’t find the secret map you discovered while exploring the U-boat stuck in the river). After you escape that little encounter, and reconnect with the reporter you ditched earlier, your plane crashes, leaving you in the jungle without your map, the reporter, or a way off the island.

Your character has some smooth moves when it comes to ducking for cover, and impressive hand-to-hand combat skills for when your ammo runs out. He can climb, and has to quite a lot, using rocks, finger-holds, even vines. His movements are incredibly realistic for a game, covering his head when he ducts bullets, turning slightly sideways if he’s running down stairs, flailing for balance if you get him too close to an edge.

Being a solid First Person shooter fanatic, I didn’t think I could ever get the hang of controlling a character from “outside”. I’d tried one of the Tomb Raider games on the PC years back, and hated it. But the controls and motions and camera angles available in Uncharted are uncanny, and incredibly intuitive. After playing the short demo for just a few minutes, I’d already gotten the hang of movement and shooting. Then when the game arrived, and I had the chance to start from the beginning, I learned Nate can do so much more. The game teaches you special moves and controls gradually, until one minute you realize you’re doing all of this without a second thought. Taking anything new you learned in one scene and applying it in the next.

I can’t even describe the visuals. If you’re a gamer, and have been for a long while, then you’ll remember how amazed you were when games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein came out and impressed you with realistic looking castles, flickering flames, enemies that looked like humans (except of course the zombie-fied ones). Or Duke Nukem, and his plethora of pole dancers, who would give you a peek if you gave them a dollar, or you could make Duke use the toilet. (this does make me sound less like a loon, right?) Then Far Cry hit the shelves, putting every game before it to shame with jungles that rendered distance, enemies that behaved realistically — even ducking for cover and circling around you. If you killed a guy at the top of a staircase, his body would thump and roll down the steps. If you gave away your position, the enemy would circle around, flush you out and trap you in cross-fire. You could run, crawl, jump, swim, dive, even use a hang glider.

Uncharted; Drake’s Fortune puts them all to shame with visuals alone. (well, okay, Far Cry 1 and Far Cry 2 are still amazing. Seriously amazing)

Last week, I stood on a cliff and looked down at THE most breath-taking waterfall, with moss-covered rocks and swirling, deep blue waters. Then I had to cross those raging waters by leaping from rock to crumbling rock. Yesterday, I stood on an ancient fortress wall and looked out over the ocean. There were waves moving in the distance, while the surf crashed against the rocks below me. The sun was low over the horizon, casting an orange and yellow glow over the water. Seagulls flew by, calling out as they swooped down toward the waves. Even the sounds were soothing. Moving surf, calling gulls, a pigeon that landed near my feet.

Then gunfire rang out and I had to take care of business.

I don’t know how far into this game I am, but I suspect (and fervently hope) I still have loads of game play left to go before I reach the end. Uncharted; Drake’s Fortune is definitely a game I’ll replay, because there are many ways to change up the action with your ever-growing abilities. Hopefully it’ll carry me through till Uncharted; Among Thieves comes out in the fourth quarter.

There’s just something incredibly satisfying about using a moss-covered pillar for cover, then taking careful aim, and blasting one of those bubble-gum bloggin’ literary agents in the head, then taking out each of their sycophantic ass-kissin’ followers one by one.

#sanityfail?

the more people I meet, the more I like my dog

I’ve been pondering this, off and on, for some time now. A short while back, some literary agents got together and started to Twitter something called QueryFail, wherein they openly – if anonymously – mocked the queries they’ve received from hopeful, inexperienced, probably completely virgin writers. I don’t know what they were intending, beyond the High School cheerleader tactic that keeps any new students from sitting at their table.

I won’t lie, it pissed me off. To each their own moral convictions, but it made me sick to think these professionals in the publishing industry act like this.

Following that, I stumbled into something of a “get back at ‘em” called AgentFail. There’s no getting back at anyone, of course, it’s just apparently a spot for writers to — mostly anonymously — vent off some steam. I skimmed through some of the posts, just like I skimmed through some of the QueryFail talk. While I did feel some solidarity with a few of the complaints, I can’t really go along with that any more than I could go along with QueryFail.

Valid or not, it’s as effective as shouting into a canyon. The canyon doesn’t hear you, or care what you’ve just said, it merely echoes back until all the words fade into oblivion. The most you’ve done is frighten a few rabbits and pissed off a raven or two.

Then, because I’m writing a novel right now and that tends to make me procrastinate by surfing around, I found a group of writers agreeing with an agent who’d shaken his head in sad disappointment at AgentFail. All of his followers are agreeing, waggling fingers here and there with the odd tsk tsk.

And it occurs to me, as it has many times before and does with more frequency these days — The more time I spend in the pursuit of that elusive dream of Traditional Publication, the less I give a flying shit about it. These are people — hundreds, if not thousands of them — who have reached a point in their lives where this is ALL they can see. It’s no longer about writing a novel, or telling a story that’s burning through your fingers. It’s no longer about the passion of conveying an idea through fictional characters and fantastic or dramatic settings.

It’s the cult of personality, fueled by the information age, igniting overblown egos who proselytize their own brand of publishing religion to fawning worshippers willing to sell their souls and nod their bobble heads for a chance to be rejected.

And it reminds me of the time I learned there were people born and raised in large cities, who spent their lives in their own neighborhoods — living, breathing, vacationing and dying without ever experiencing anything outside their city streets. People who had a world view that encompassed a twelve-square city block. I was stunned, and couldn’t imagine anyone with that narrow experience.

It’s even more shocking to realize some people are perfectly willing — happy even — to create their own twelve-square mentality block and never leave. Never venture outward, never ask themselves what might be going on where other people live. Never considering there could be another avenue, a different path. People who are convinced by others, and themselves, that to venture out of the city is to fall off the ends of the earth. Peer pressure keeps them bobbling their heads, and they comfort themselves in the blanket of that twelve block square. They let tradition keep them on the main streets, they elevate others in order to have someone to follow. They’ve stopped looking up to the sky, stopped striving for change, and live in fear of falling off the edge.

I guess that’s why Valhalla is only for the brave.

my 2 pack-a-day habit

Would be a ridiculous title for this blog post about writing, but I was a little stumped for a better one.

So today, I was going to do a real Debbie Downer post about how greed has brought our country to its knees – but a friend suggested I write instead about how I manage to put forth 2 novels a year. And I realized that, while no one’s going to care much, it’s at least nicer than what I was planning to say 😀

How to Write Two Novels Per Month:

Step 1: Sit down.

Step 2: Write

Step 3: Finish

Step 4: Repeat.

More clarity, you say? Well, what the hell, I have time.

Before you can write TWO novels in a year, you have to write ONE. Typically, for me, that means I’ll come up with a character I’m really curious about or interested in, then spend a few days thinking about him/her and what’s so interesting about him/her that I want to explore. And who are we kidding – I don’t like to write lead females, so for the sake of all that him/her, I’ll just tell it how it is. I find a character I really want to explore, and I’ll start to ask myself what is it he does – what makes him so interesting, and what do I want to know about him? What made him who he is, how will he change in the course of my story, and what will it take to change him?

More often than not, I’ll find myself doing something utterly unrelated, like washing the dishes, driving home from work, or working in the garage, and a scene will suddenly appear in my head. Then I have my starting point. Now I just have to explore that scene and build it up, and ask IT questions. What’s going on? Why is it happening? Who started it, how can it be stopped/altered/prevented? How does this scene relate to my new character? How is he affected?

And the novel starts to take shape. Then it’s a few more days of pondering the scene, the scene before and after it, the character, all the other characters he’s going to meet/interact with along the way – what exactly IS the way. If I can see the scenes playing out, adding up and shaping into something interesting, then I’ll declare (unto myself) that I have a new novel idea.

Immediately following that, I’ll spend a day or two contemplating titles, mostly because I’m OCD about having a great title before I start writing. I don’t recommend this, it’ll drive you bonkers. After I finally get one, though, I go through a brief period I like to call SHEER AND UTTER PANIC, wherein I realize I can’t possible write this novel, I don’t have the skill required.

That’ll last a day, sometimes a week if I’m out of rum and my friends aren’t around to smack me.

At this point, if the novel really is a bit complex, I’ll go ahead and take notes. Jotting down some character traits, background for the leads at least, get to know them really well. Most of what I make notes about doesn’t come out in the story, but by knowing all these intimate details about the characters, I’m able to write them in a way that suggest I really do know these people. If a writer isn’t familiar with the minutia of each character’s lives, he or she won’t be familiar enough to write them well.

When it comes to notes – I suk. I’ll start off with grand intentions. I’ll even get a little notebook devoted to this particular novel, and start out with page 1 really neatly hand written, starting off with names and places and events and dates . . . after a couple of days, I couldn’t even tell you where the little notebook is. But if you could find it, you’d probably find scene details scribbled out of order, suggestions for stuff I really don’t want to forget to include, important facts and more than one quote I’m desperately determined to use IN the novel.

Some day, after I’m dead and buried and strangers are going through my belongings looking for loose change, they’ll find these notebooks.

Anyway, now I’m ready to start writing, and the OCD comes back into play. I have to start from page 1, scene 1, and can only write in linear progression until I’ve reached The End. Loads of writers can do scenes here and there, then stitch them together. Some write an ending first, to make sure they have one, others like to pop about as the “mood” strikes. I say moods are why God made Midol, and you can only strike a match.

But that’s just me.

Once I’ve started a novel, I’m right into my writing routine – which is Monday through Friday, during the day, and weekends off. It’s just a quirk of mine, but it produces anywhere from 2-5 thousand words a day, five days a week (sometimes four days, if I’m feeling those mood things). Occasionally – and I have to admit I really enjoy this – I’ll get into a “writing contest” for a month at a time with two friends of mine, Lori Basiewicz  and Pete Tzinski. We’ll challenge each other to a word duel for a month long period, then try to outdo each other daily. It keeps me working every day, and keeps me from sitting here staring at the screen or jetting off to play solitaire for “just a few hands” that seem to take eight hours. It also keeps me from wasting time wandering around the internet when I really need to be writing.

After that, I just keep going, and going, and going on until I’ve reached the end of the novel. A process that typically takes 3 – 4 months, start to finish. I write a clean first draft, not a rough, write-crap-then-fix-it style. After that, a month or two go by where I’m planning that novel’s future, dreaming of making the big time, realizing I won’t, then thinking about another character to take my mind off it all, and it all spirals into a second novel that will be thought of, started, worked on, and finished well before the end of the year.

And then I do it all over again.

That may sound a little pathetic, but if you’re thinking I’m a mushroom growing on a keyboard in front of a computer screen, I actually do have a day job. And hobbies. And a house, and pets, and a yard that needs working in, a lapidary business, and a habit of walking on beaches for hours at a time. I also create and sell a line of shirts, and run my own little indie publishing world.

And I don’t like mushrooms.

economy = fail

Contrary to the familiar movie line – Failure IS an option.  Sometimes it’s the best option, in the long run.

Think about when you learned how to ride a bike. You probably fell down a few times until you go the hang of it, right?  You fall off a horse, you get back on, but until you’ve fallen off that horse at least once, you don’t have a healthy respect for their power to so easily — if accidentally — kill you.

And what did your father always say when you were about to do something stupid?  “Let her find out for herself that’s the wrong thing to do. It’s the only way she’ll learn not to do that again.”

That’s why I’m so vehemently against all these “economic bailouts”.  Let’s call a pig a pig, shall we? Our government is handing out our money to companies that got rich by screwing us over.  They fooled the willing into believing credit was good, like the credit card companies when they try to convince you that having a charge account and carrying a balance is the only way to maintain a good credit report.

Um, NOT.

First, who do you think invented the credit report?  Second, if you want a good credit rating, pay your bills.  Pay your rent/mortgage on time. Pay your power bill on time.  Pay your phone/cable/internet bill on time.  Make your car payments and pay your car insurance.  That’s your credit rating.  No one needs a charge card.  Fool yourself if you have to, but no one NEEDS a credit card.  (don’t get me started)

I’m so sick of hearing “but we have to bail them out, or the companies will fail.”  I say let them fail.  THEY screwed up, they need to fail.  If you’re a failure, you lose. End of story. Fail in a fight, you lose. Fail at war, you lose. Fail in business, you lose.  And what happens when a company fails?  Another company comes along. One that knows how to succeed.

If the auto industry as we know it fails, something else will come along.  Aren’t you at all curious as to what it could be?  Are you so enamored with the planned obsolescence you’re driving now that you really don’t care to find out what someone else could build?

Progress is built on forward motion, and all too often forward motion only happens when a society that has grown lazy and fat is forced into action.  This country grew lazy and fat, gorging on unnecessary credit and bloated values. They called it a housing bubble for a reason, but it wasn’t the only bubble being blown out of purportion, and now we’re all shocked and appalled to find those bubbles have burst.

Failed business = unemployed workers?  Yes, it does. So get out there and find a new way to invent the wheel. Get this country off it’s collective ass. Use the brains you were born with and find a new way to make it work. Roll up your sleeves. The world has more executives than it needs, and not enough workers. We’re rewarding failure, catering to an unwarranted sense of entitlement and enslaving future generations with a debt they didn’t incur.

Our government representatives bailed out the Investment Companies and Banking Establishments because that’s where THEY keep their retirement funds.  If they’d been interested in saving the country, they could have already.

Think about it.  There are (approx)  140 million registered tax payers in the United States. Citizens who file and pay the IRS.  The same United States Citizens who are having trouble paying their bloated mortgage, their unnecessary credit cards. The same US Citizens who aren’t buying new cars because they can’t afford to, or spending money on dinner out or new clothes.  In turn, they’re losing their jobs as car dealers, waitresses, and retailers.

We gave well over 7 billion in bailout money in round 1, and God only knows how much has gone out now, and it hasn’t solved anything.  What would have happened if we’d given each and every tax paying citizen 1 million dollars?

First, it would have cost us taxpayers 140 million, instead of several trillion.

Second, that money would have been spent right away.  People would have paid their bills, refinanced those ridiculously large, adjustable rate mortgages they had no business signing in the first place (a subject for another time), bought new cars, new clothes, new toys. If they were smart, they would also have invested some of that into stocks and bonds and college funds for the kids.  Money that would have gone straight out into the world, supporting businesses, banks and Wall Street.  The result would be businesses that can stay in business, workers who aren’t in fear of job loss, which spurs more confidence and spending, which spurs more business and success.

Atlas is holding the world up on his shoulders, not sitting at a conference table working out how to get someone else to hold it up for him.

The world is changing. Our country is changing. It’ll reinvent itself, become stronger, more secure, fruitful once again.

But what if it doesn’t?

Good Girl!

Lori posted over at the Commune about some escaped parrots in her town, and chatting with her about it reminded me of a funny thing that happened to a co-worker a few years ago.

He had a Cockatoo, big beautiful bird that had bonded to him the way most birds tend to bond with a particular family member. Trouble was, this bird no not only bonded with him, but it had taken a serious dislike to the man’s wife. She couldn’t get near it, couldn’t hold the bird or pet it, which isn’t unusual. But this went above and beyond.

This bird had a unique habit of picking up claw-fulls of seed from its bowl, flinging it all to the carpet, then saying “Good Girl” as the man’s wife vacuumed up the seed. He would then pick up another claw-full, toss it to the carpet, and as the vacuum moved under his cage, he’d call out “Good Girl.”

Every time this man’s wife was cleaning the house,  she was treated to a chorus of “Good Girl! Good Girl!”

Gotta love birds!

got shirts?

I couldn’t resist – I’ve opened up a Cafe Press store with custom shirts (so far) and more to come.  So check it out:

http://www.cafepress.com/MidnightReading

Just when you thought it was safe to go in your closet!

Wazzup!

I’m pretty pleased with the new look to Midnight Reading’s front page. You can find links to the novels there, and follow me on Twitter.  Pete Tzinski’s Twitter is displayed there too, if he ever rejoins the online.

Ether’s newest chapter is up tonight and it’s getting rave reviews.

And I’m officially sick of Winter !!

What’s new with you?

News and things

So  I think I’ve finally gotten it together enough to say that the Keeper series is in full swing, and now available (in part) at the Midnight Reading site.  Right now, you can buy/download/read the first book: KEEPER and also Book 2 in the series: MADNESS.

Book 3 in the Keeper series will be available in June 2009, and the final book (#4 for those who can count) will be available in October 2009.

You can read them for free online, or buy a downloadable ebook, or purchase them as trade paperbacks.  Meanwhile, Ether is still posting a chapter per week, and enjoying much success and happiness.  And I shall strive to get my self in gear and blog a bit more often – I’ve been horribly lax this Winter and just waiting for Spring to get here!

Gah. I’ve had quite enough of Winter, thankyouverymuch.