Thanks and Good Night

My thanks to political commentary and philosophy blogger Glen Filthie over at Filthie's Thunderbox, who enjoyed my sample chapter and gave me an unsolicited plug along with some random commentary on political correctness and the effect on fiction writing today. Check out Scenes We'd Like To See as it amuses you to do so.

I read Glen on a regular basis and find him an agreeable, easy read.  Thanks Glen!

 - W.L. 'Bill' Emery

WWII Newsreel Featuring Bill Emery

My father served in the US Coast Guard during the second world war.  He didn't like it much, the environment either being too hot or too cold, with Spartan accommodations.  For basic training he was stationed at the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida.  When I visited St. Augustine (I lived in Jacksonville, FL), I once took a tour that included the renowned Ponce de Leon.  When the tour guide pontificated about the luxuries of the Ponce, I thoroughly confounded her by announcing that my father had stayed at the Ponce and found it oppressively hot and overcrowded, and the room service that was so poor no one used it.  While our guide was sputtering, I mentioned that the U.S. Government had paid for the entire stay, including meals and a host of activities.  I added that my father told me that the food was terrible, the worst he'd ever had, and the activities were even worse than the food.  I had the tour group's interest by that time, and completed my impromptu lecture by stating that the worst part about his entire stay was that they had some nut that would get up before dawn and blow a trumpet, waking everyone up.

Request for Criticism on Untitled 22-11-2016

Presented for the first time anywhere is Chapter One of an untitled story I'm sort of working on.  Read this or not as you like, but I would appreciate any thoughts or criticisms you, the reader of this hound, might have about the offering.  I'm not really interested in your random thoughts about the election, your uncle Charlie and his drinking habits, or your current financial state and how I might help you.  Just what you read below the fold, please.

Standard Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is most likely accidental.  Your mileage may vary.  Et cetera, ad libitum, ad nauseam, et alii...

Why are some writers obsessed with cats?

This short vignette was stolen from Michael DiSibio, edited by yours truly, and used without permission.

• A cat takes more interest in your writing than your spouse or your boss.

• Cats don't mind watching you write for hours on end. In fact, they find it comforting and will fall asleep nearby.

• A cat will take a keen interest in the cursor moving on the screen if it catches their attention.

• Cats love keyboards.

• If you leave your writing post for a few minutes and return, your cat will be sitting on your chair and will look at you and say, "Are you really going to keep up this pitiful charade of writing, or do I have to show you how it's done?"

• Like writers, cats don't really have time for full meals. They nibble throughout the day.

• A cat's measure of success, like writing, is inversely proportional to the expenditure of energy needed to get things done.

• When a cat has no more interest in what is going on at the keyboard, he walks away and finds someplace to sleep, as does the writer.

• If you work all night to solve a particular plot requirement and you succeed, your cat will come running into the kitchen and celebrate with you at 4:00am with a bowl of cream.

And that's why some writers are obsessed with cats.

General Announcement of Publication

My good friend and fellow author, John B. Meilink, has just published his third book, The Unruly Guitarist: "Thank you, Modesto, and Good Night!". I haven't read it yet, but will just as soon as I find an afternoon or two when a dozen or more critical projects are not demanding my time and effort.

The author is a professional musician, and when he isn't holding a piece of wood in each hand and hitting stuff with them, he's living the life of a musician.  Although he might deny it, many of the situations in this book are based on real life events.

I can't say it's an excellent read, since I haven't read it yet, but if it's anything like his first two books it's worth reading.

I'm A Celebrity!

On the way to finding something else entirely (which I'll post if I should find it), I stumbled across this article from the Toledo Blade: Under The Hat of Jack Roush. The author, Rachel Lenzi, quoted me and almost got it right.

Old Writing

I've been following Charles G. Emery on Facebook, and generally enjoy his (re)posts.  One in particular caught my eye, Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather hear your voice than read your texts.  I'd much prefer not to be pestered at all, thank you.

You see, back in the bad old days (here we go, right?) when dirt was a brand new thing and everyone had to walk to school barefoot for five miles in the snow, uphill both ways... we had the letter and the telephone.  Given that this was before AT&T angered the wrong people and got itself broken up, long distance calls were prohibitively expensive.  In fact, bear with me while I digress a moment.

Criticism, Critics, and the Wisdom to Ignore Them

I enjoy reading Sarah Hoyt's blog, and her latest communiqué reminded me of something that happened to me some time back, and that had a brief impact on my writing.

How Not To Market Your Work

Nosing around a few sites, I stumbled across Self-Publishing Review (SPR), where I found this little gem, Six Ways You Are Ruining Your Book Marketing Campaign.  This is worth reading.

About one-quarter to one-third of your time will be spent writing your book.  You'll spend an equal amount of time in editing your work, which is finding and fixing the places where auto-correct suggested the wrong word and you accepted its suggestion without looking.  Then there's the grammar and the pot plot holes you left with a promise to fix them later - and, well, now it's later.

So you've got a great book, or at least a finished book.  You create, or (like in my case) you buy a cover, then you put the whole business out on Amazon and wait for some big name Hollywood producer to call you and offer several million for the film rights of your brand new, Cinderella story, NYT runaway best seller, and big time money maker, which you've title Hundred Proof Gin for the Real Man's Soul.  When that doesn't happen, you check sales and see that you've sold two copies: One to your S.O. and one to an unknown aardvark who fat fingered his keyboard and now wants his bread back.

Your problem is that you didn't advertise.  For every day you spend writing, you'll spend a day trying to get the hoi polloi to buy and (you hope) read your magnum opus, then give it a six star review on Amazon.  But, see, no one knows you and your work exists.

That's where advertising comes in.  Sadly, you are not Don Draper.  If you were, you'd be working in New York and getting paid an incredible salary to come in to the office when it suits you, get hammered by two in the afternoon and sleep it off on the couch.

Truth be told, you enjoy life in the basement and the company of your cat, an undemanding purr-box who sits in your lap and occasionally helps you type.

Being no expert, you try advertising your book, and then wonder why sales don't spike.  This article points out why.  I especially like the second reason, consulting amateurs and treating their advice like that of a professional.  Would you go to one of these basement dwellers if you suspected you had cancer?  Or wanted your 401K to perform better?  Or maybe you need a few grand by the end of the week, and want a nice race track tip.  These guys would have it, right?

Read the article, then draw your own conclusions.  Or, if you lack the skill to draw, read the writing on the wall.

Success Is Not Relative

cliché trigger warning:

Hometown Reads

Last time I visited my local Barnes and Noble bookstore I asked the manager why the store didn't feature a section comprised exclusively of local authors.  I got a flat three minutes of prevarication, culminating in the tired old cliché, "I'm sorry, but my hands are tied."  Feeling a bit discouraged, I declined an overpriced B&N latté in favor of a more stimulating beverage.  I went down the street to Bar 145 and got two fingers of good old thought provoker in front of me, water back.

It has always seemed to me that local authors would benefit from a web page.  Someplace on the net where we could rest assured that we're not alone, where our work could be advertised, and where the liberals could give the conservatives a bad case of the red ass, then the conservatives would retaliate with a few stinging remarks of their own, which would send the moonbats into orbit - so the place would need to be policed a bit.  Then the organizer would have to find all the authors in Toledo, then set up the web site... we're talking about a ton of work, which I am not up for.

Fortunately for me, and for the rest of us, someone else arrived at this conclusion as well, and is willing to put some work behind it.  Becky Robinson of Weaving Influence has launched a new site, Hometown Reads, which features authors from the Toledo metro area.  Authors get their own individual page with links to their own website, Facebook, and other social media sites.  Or, if you'd just like to see what local authors are publishing, that's available as well.

This service has been needed for a long time now, and I'm glad Becky and her team are running the ball in for a touchdown.  As for me, it's five o'clock somewhere, but I have to teach tonight.  Toledo Ballroom (2400 N. Reynolds Road, Toledo, OH) has a group class scheduled tonight at 7:00, and I'm teaching intermediate bronze level cha cha. Happy hour will have to wait.

Worthy Reads for 10/28/2015

I found 5 Observations on the Evolution of Author Business Models by Jane Friedman via Morning Coffee – 28 October 2015 by Nate Hoffelder, which is an enjoyable site in and of itself. The author, Jane Friedman, has just returned from an Novelists, Inc. (NINC) convention / conference.  I believe this event was specified as a conference, which is a convention without the booze and attendant moral indiscretions.

Useful Links and Worthy Reads

Here's a hodgepodge of unrelated links and a worth while blog post.

Streetlib Now Distributes eBooks to OverDrive’s 33,000 Libraries
I ditched SmashWords several months ago, mainly due to the amount of work it takes to get a book on SmashWords, and the extremely poor revenue that's returned, as compared to the 500 pound gorilla that is carefully not mentioned - Amazon. If you put your work out there with the hope of making a few bucks, it's Amazon and whom ever you think is in second place.  Bite me.  It's my blog and I'll use whom if I see fit.  Anyway, the new player on the block is Streetlib, and it's so new that it refuses to rise to the top during a Google search.  I haven't given Streetlib more than a cursory look, but if it performs as quickly and cleanly as it looks, it could be a real contender.

5 Favorite Free Fonts for Interior Book Design
Part of formatting your work is choosing the right font so as to make your work attractive and easy to read.  Try reading something in an ornate Gothic font sometime and you'll appreciate Times New Roman in ten minutes or less.  The author, Joel Friedlander, seems to know what he's talking about, if for no other reason than I like his suggestions.  I found it an interesting, worthy read.

Cliché Finder
It was a dark and stormy night... or some variant thereof.  This site provides a searchable database of clichés.  It's kind of interesting, and I can see where it would be useful, especially if you want to find out whether or not the brilliant line your protagonist just uttered has been over-used in the last century or two.

Now if you'll pardon me, I'm more than fashionably late for happy hour.

Business Cards

I asked Tina Bongorno, the beautiful and talented lady who created the cover art for both my books, to design a business card for me.  Here's the best of four final results.

What impressed me the most is that the staff at the print shop remembered the logo.  Not me, of course - the logo.

"Oh yeah, you're the one with the feather and the ink well.  Nice card."

Well, there you have it.  At least an impression was made, which is worlds better than complete obscurity.  My thanks to Tina for the excellent job she did on the card.

On Publishing and Associated Headaches

Writing a book is only part of the fun. Next comes editing (where you get to fix all the mistakes you made, including typos) then the real work begins. Over at the Mad Genius Club, Cedar Sanderson has put together a list of links to articles that will help make this process a lot easier. You can read all about it at From Writing, to Publication, and Beyond by Cedar Sanderson published on March 7, 2015.