So, as I am in the planning stages for National Novel Writing Month as evidenced by this last post, I am continuing to catalog my ideas so that I can select the very best one. This next one is a bit of a re-post, but as I didn't select it for last year, it's still a viable option.
I have wanted to write Soul Food for years. I see it as a Sci-Fi novel about an astronaut who bungles a mission in space, falls into a coma, and wakes up twenty years later. He sees the changes happening on Earth all around him and realizes that they are a product of something he saw on his final space walk. Just prior to his slipping into his coma he sees an alien force or being. He realizes that he has seen the reason for all the negative changes that have occurred in society and culture during the 20 years he was asleep.
As an astronaut his projects were all about "off Earth" living, but after his coma he sees that surface dwelling capabilities have exploded, religiosity is a new, overwhelming fad, and there have been great leaps forward made in ensuring contentment in old age as well as longer living. It is only because he has as an alternate perspective due to his coma that he begins to see that all of these advancements are a product of the alien entity and he surmises that the alien is harvesting human souls for food. (How the hero discovers that Aliens prefer the taste of human souls, particularly older souls, thus the advancements in senior living, senior medical care, etc) in a manner similar to human's like kobe beef is still a bit of a problem in my outline.)
The original title was Soul Ranch. Soul Food is more tongue in cheek but far more catchy. Could be a comedy in the vein of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but sadly I have no comedy writing experience. It's a pretty nebulous topic for a novel. Hard to write believably. Plus, what would the ending be? I know I've butchered the synopsis above, but that just tends to make my argument for me that this would be a tough one to tackle. But there are so many fun themes, the Rip Van Winkle-ism of the character's life, religion keeping the herd docile, the ability to increase population in a manner similar to a cattle ranch being taken over by new ownership and being turned around. All fun, but tough stuff to get across easily.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Pumped for NaNoWriMo
I'm sorry but the word NaNoWriMo just doesn't thrill me. It's hard to get pumped for something with that name. They originators should have gone with just NaNo. Nevertheless, just like the last few years (here and here) I'm getting ready for National Novel Writing Month and starting to think of stories. I ran into one today.
I got a tour of a very large refinery near San Francisco and heard about a death that occurred there last year. Hearing about someone dying at a refinery isn't that remarkable. It's dangerous work. I had to take an 8 hour class just to get access. My company had someone die on the job just last year. It happens, it sucks, we drive on. The article I found on this particular death leans toward a fitness related death.
But, this story had some oddities to it. First, it was his wife who initially reported him missing when neither his truck nor his company truck nor the man himself came home. They started a plant wide search and found his truck in the contractors parking lot, and his company truck near the lubricants unit. They couldn't find the man though.
Three days later after an extensive search they found the man dead in a tank/vessel (one of these huge gasoline tanks) that was up a large hill and almost a mile from his truck. He had no reason to go into that vessel and he would have known no contractors are allowed to go into a vessel of that type alone or without the proper precautionary measures in place.
Finally, he left his radio and his phone in his truck. I think this is the oddest part. I was just a visitor today and had my phone with me the whole time. These contractors live with their radios.
There is a lot here for a story. There's the potential for big mean oil company in the bay area against a potential whistle blower. There's death and confusion. There's so much that could be made of this story. Sad part is that it's true. I wonder what really happened.
I got a tour of a very large refinery near San Francisco and heard about a death that occurred there last year. Hearing about someone dying at a refinery isn't that remarkable. It's dangerous work. I had to take an 8 hour class just to get access. My company had someone die on the job just last year. It happens, it sucks, we drive on. The article I found on this particular death leans toward a fitness related death.
But, this story had some oddities to it. First, it was his wife who initially reported him missing when neither his truck nor his company truck nor the man himself came home. They started a plant wide search and found his truck in the contractors parking lot, and his company truck near the lubricants unit. They couldn't find the man though.
Three days later after an extensive search they found the man dead in a tank/vessel (one of these huge gasoline tanks) that was up a large hill and almost a mile from his truck. He had no reason to go into that vessel and he would have known no contractors are allowed to go into a vessel of that type alone or without the proper precautionary measures in place.
Finally, he left his radio and his phone in his truck. I think this is the oddest part. I was just a visitor today and had my phone with me the whole time. These contractors live with their radios.
There is a lot here for a story. There's the potential for big mean oil company in the bay area against a potential whistle blower. There's death and confusion. There's so much that could be made of this story. Sad part is that it's true. I wonder what really happened.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Kindles at Takeoff and Landing
As a frequent flier I saw a point in Joshua Fruhlinger's article E-Books, I'll Miss You that made me pause. In the article he listed reasons why he would miss his e-reader and why he was going back to regular book reading. It wasn't a convincing article, but this grabbed me:
It's not really the Kindle's fault, but we couldn't be together when I needed it most: The moments on a flight just before takeoff and landing. It's then that I'm most anxious or most bored (the in-flight entertainment goes off around this time, too). The FAA was uncomfortable with our relationship and callously stood in the way.
Like I said, it wasn't convincing, particularly when he wrote he hated the battery life limits of his Kindle . . . preposterous.
This past weekend there was this article Do Our Gadgets Really Threaten Planes by Daniel Simons and Christopher F. Chabris. There answer . . . No.
I've read this many times before and have heard rumors, but had never seen it so brazenly spelled out. Why don't the airlines just admit that there is no problem or danger? Nothing is worse than sitting in the terminal or on a long flight reading and having to shut the ole Kindle off for takeoff and landing.
I suppose the thought now is that they don't want passengers to have laptops et al out, on their laps, cluttering the aisles in case of an emergency. But what if I have a hardcopy of Lonesome Dove on my lap? That's about as big as some laptops. Why can't I have my iPhone out with Airplane Mode on.
The part of the article that I thought was the most resounding was this:
To gather some empirical evidence on this question, we recently conducted an online survey of 492 American adults who have flown in the past year. In this sample, 40% said they did not turn their phones off completely during takeoff and landing on their most recent flight; more than 7% left their phones on, with the Wi-Fi and cellular communications functions active. And 2% pulled a full Baldwin, actively using their phones when they weren't supposed to.
Consider what these numbers imply. The odds that all 78 of the passengers who travel on an average-size U.S. domestic flight have properly turned off their phones are infinitesimal: less than one in 100 quadrillion, by our rough calculation. If personal electronics are really as dangerous as the FAA rules suggest, navigation and communication would be disrupted every day on domestic flights. But we don't see that.
It's not really the Kindle's fault, but we couldn't be together when I needed it most: The moments on a flight just before takeoff and landing. It's then that I'm most anxious or most bored (the in-flight entertainment goes off around this time, too). The FAA was uncomfortable with our relationship and callously stood in the way.
Like I said, it wasn't convincing, particularly when he wrote he hated the battery life limits of his Kindle . . . preposterous.
This past weekend there was this article Do Our Gadgets Really Threaten Planes by Daniel Simons and Christopher F. Chabris. There answer . . . No.
I've read this many times before and have heard rumors, but had never seen it so brazenly spelled out. Why don't the airlines just admit that there is no problem or danger? Nothing is worse than sitting in the terminal or on a long flight reading and having to shut the ole Kindle off for takeoff and landing.
I suppose the thought now is that they don't want passengers to have laptops et al out, on their laps, cluttering the aisles in case of an emergency. But what if I have a hardcopy of Lonesome Dove on my lap? That's about as big as some laptops. Why can't I have my iPhone out with Airplane Mode on.
The part of the article that I thought was the most resounding was this:
To gather some empirical evidence on this question, we recently conducted an online survey of 492 American adults who have flown in the past year. In this sample, 40% said they did not turn their phones off completely during takeoff and landing on their most recent flight; more than 7% left their phones on, with the Wi-Fi and cellular communications functions active. And 2% pulled a full Baldwin, actively using their phones when they weren't supposed to.
Consider what these numbers imply. The odds that all 78 of the passengers who travel on an average-size U.S. domestic flight have properly turned off their phones are infinitesimal: less than one in 100 quadrillion, by our rough calculation. If personal electronics are really as dangerous as the FAA rules suggest, navigation and communication would be disrupted every day on domestic flights. But we don't see that.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Buy the Old One Instead
I took a moment to read a blog I enjoy, The Curzon Group, a blog devoted to thrillers in the mould of the old British thrillers like Forsythe's The Dogs of War. It's a fun blog to drop in on every now and then.
Today, Peter Stuart Smith writes about e-readers and the future of publishing. It's an interesting post for anyone who intends to read or write or publish in the future, but the passage I zeroed in on was this one:
So if you are thinking about buying one of the new devices principally to read books, don’t bother. Get the old-style one, and you won’t regret it for a moment. But if you really are the kind of person who wants to sit by yourself in a corner somewhere, watching a film on a screen you can cover with the palm of your hand, without a doubt the Fire will be a far better buy for you than the iPad.
As an owner of a Kindle and an iPad, anyone who has read this blog knows that I love my Kindle and can read about that in these posts. I love that the battery life is so long, I love that it synchronizes with all my other devices, and that I can take it anywhere with little or no trouble. But lately I've also read on the iPad. I don't know why he thinks a Fire would be better than an iPad. They seem pretty much the same in terms of reading, but the iPad has better or more powerful capabilities beyond just reading.
I agree with "buying the old one instead" and going with an old school Kindle for reading. But the Fire? I don't know why it would be better than the iPad.
Today, Peter Stuart Smith writes about e-readers and the future of publishing. It's an interesting post for anyone who intends to read or write or publish in the future, but the passage I zeroed in on was this one:
So if you are thinking about buying one of the new devices principally to read books, don’t bother. Get the old-style one, and you won’t regret it for a moment. But if you really are the kind of person who wants to sit by yourself in a corner somewhere, watching a film on a screen you can cover with the palm of your hand, without a doubt the Fire will be a far better buy for you than the iPad.
As an owner of a Kindle and an iPad, anyone who has read this blog knows that I love my Kindle and can read about that in these posts. I love that the battery life is so long, I love that it synchronizes with all my other devices, and that I can take it anywhere with little or no trouble. But lately I've also read on the iPad. I don't know why he thinks a Fire would be better than an iPad. They seem pretty much the same in terms of reading, but the iPad has better or more powerful capabilities beyond just reading.
I agree with "buying the old one instead" and going with an old school Kindle for reading. But the Fire? I don't know why it would be better than the iPad.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Are Books Like Sausages?
According to Wikipedia,
Nicolas de Chamfort is attributed with originally saying: “One would risk being disgusted if one saw politics, justice, and one’s dinner in the making.”
The following few weeks I will provide a series of posts that will put paid to the question of whether novels should be added to this list. With the upcoming release of my second novel, On the Edge, I hope to first use all of the lessons learned that I cataloged in the AAR series following my release of Toe the Line. The hope is that by following the AAR advice On the Edge can morph my hobby into a business enterprise by actually turning a profit.
That being said, an update on On the Edge is probably a good place to start. I wrote On the Edge as a part of National Novel WritingMonth (NaNoWriMo) probably in 2007. Despite the years in-between, this novel came together far more quickly than Toe the Line and is much more complex. At the moment I have completed a final rewrite of the novel and have asked my personal editor (my cousin) to read it through for obvious mistakes in the story and any spelling, grammar or other easy to recognize problems.
The following few weeks I will provide a series of posts that will put paid to the question of whether novels should be added to this list. With the upcoming release of my second novel, On the Edge, I hope to first use all of the lessons learned that I cataloged in the AAR series following my release of Toe the Line. The hope is that by following the AAR advice On the Edge can morph my hobby into a business enterprise by actually turning a profit.
That being said, an update on On the Edge is probably a good place to start. I wrote On the Edge as a part of National Novel WritingMonth (NaNoWriMo) probably in 2007. Despite the years in-between, this novel came together far more quickly than Toe the Line and is much more complex. At the moment I have completed a final rewrite of the novel and have asked my personal editor (my cousin) to read it through for obvious mistakes in the story and any spelling, grammar or other easy to recognize problems.
So for the moment I have a paper draft with a plethora of
red marks and suggestions in it. The last time I dealt with this I uploaded it
to my Kindle, re-read it, and made edits in that format. As I outlined in my
previous post, this was a huge mistake. I shant do it again. What will I do? I
will keep it in MS Word and make the edits. I plan to upload it to the iPad and
reread it one final time before Step 2, which includes advance review copies.
I plan to have a post a week on this topic. To find the most
recent be sure to check Self-Publishing Label in the Labels list on the right
of the screen. And for goodness sake if you have some advice let me know now
before I go too far down the wrong path!
Friday, September 7, 2012
Great Similes Make Me Stop
There are times when I run across such wonderful similes that I have to stop and take note. It happened a few months ago when I ran across this winner by Daniel Foster writing in National Review in an article called Ask Me About Your Volt:
Oh, and it is quiet. Ghost quiet. U-boat-full-of-mutes-in-cotton-booties-coasting-through-an-ocean-of-mineral-oil quiet.
It's impossible not to love that metaphor. it's so visual and brings to mind every WWII sub movie that you've ever seen.
I ran into one today, also from National Review. Daniel Foster again, writing in their blog, The Corner, about the drain that comes from the following the political conventions:
For the past few days I have been feeling like Super Man under a red sun.
Again, I need no further explanation of what he means. Perhaps it's not good similes that make me stop, perhaps it's National Review similes. Then again, perhaps it's just Daniel Foster.
Oh, and it is quiet. Ghost quiet. U-boat-full-of-mutes-in-cotton-booties-coasting-through-an-ocean-of-mineral-oil quiet.
It's impossible not to love that metaphor. it's so visual and brings to mind every WWII sub movie that you've ever seen.
I ran into one today, also from National Review. Daniel Foster again, writing in their blog, The Corner, about the drain that comes from the following the political conventions:
For the past few days I have been feeling like Super Man under a red sun.
Again, I need no further explanation of what he means. Perhaps it's not good similes that make me stop, perhaps it's National Review similes. Then again, perhaps it's just Daniel Foster.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
As a Follow-Up
As a follow-up to the post I wrote the other day on reviews I offer this . . . or rather Richard Parker at The Curzon Group offers this:
"I'm not going to say what's already been said but I would say that this would be Amazon's best opportunity to do what I've always hoped they would and completely scrap the star rating system. Writers, readers and publishers have all become completely obsessed by it and it would certainly be one less headache for all concerned."
It's worth following the link if only cause he has more to say on the subject. The end result though is that I think I agree with him. I think the star rating system for the most part is rigged. Again, how many times have I written a review, much less given a star. I'd love to hear from anyone who follows this blog, who isn't a book reviewer, but just an average reader, who has given a review or a star on Amazon. Just how rigged is it I wonder.
"I'm not going to say what's already been said but I would say that this would be Amazon's best opportunity to do what I've always hoped they would and completely scrap the star rating system. Writers, readers and publishers have all become completely obsessed by it and it would certainly be one less headache for all concerned."
It's worth following the link if only cause he has more to say on the subject. The end result though is that I think I agree with him. I think the star rating system for the most part is rigged. Again, how many times have I written a review, much less given a star. I'd love to hear from anyone who follows this blog, who isn't a book reviewer, but just an average reader, who has given a review or a star on Amazon. Just how rigged is it I wonder.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
My Library
Pre-Kindle I loved having a library of my favorite books. I had so many that my wife, once we were married, forced me to get rid of some of them. Now, with a Kindle, that library can't be in the way as the old one was. How can my wife get mad about all the space my books take up when they're all tucked away nicely in my Kindle.
I was looking at my Book Review tags and I'm up to 67. Think how much room I'm saving on my book shelves. Now, I only keep the most significant books I can, but keep all the e-books I have. So when I came across this quote at Home is Where the Book Is, it got me thinking about these two libraries:
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
I have two libraries ergo I must be doubly not miserable.
I was looking at my Book Review tags and I'm up to 67. Think how much room I'm saving on my book shelves. Now, I only keep the most significant books I can, but keep all the e-books I have. So when I came across this quote at Home is Where the Book Is, it got me thinking about these two libraries:
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
I have two libraries ergo I must be doubly not miserable.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
The Reviews Are In . . . do we care?
Last week I was going to post this story I saw on Yahoo about a fellow who made 25K a year writing reviews for other folks. Apparently Todd Rutherford made a lot of money posting reviews that were either copied from previous works or were not quite as custom as he proclaimed them to be.
On the drive into work today I heard this story on NPR that discussed how the English author R.J. Ellroy was caught not only writing glowing reviews of his own work that he claimed were written by others but that also derided some of his competition.
Then today, whilst trying to determine what I should blog about today, I read this post at the Kill Zone which discussed "paid reviews on Amazon" and whether or not reviews actually affect their purchasing.
It was this last post that got my grey cells working. How many times have I read a review and used that for purchasing a book. I remember I read a review for Wool, but that was only to confirm a friends recommendation. I looked at the number of reviews for Outlander, and probably should have been more focused on reading them, particularly the ones with 1 star. Still, that's pretty rare. Most of my reading list is built by friends recommendations not reviews.
Makes me think I should spend less time trying to get reviews and more time trying to get real folks, friends and family to actually read my work.
On the drive into work today I heard this story on NPR that discussed how the English author R.J. Ellroy was caught not only writing glowing reviews of his own work that he claimed were written by others but that also derided some of his competition.
Then today, whilst trying to determine what I should blog about today, I read this post at the Kill Zone which discussed "paid reviews on Amazon" and whether or not reviews actually affect their purchasing.
It was this last post that got my grey cells working. How many times have I read a review and used that for purchasing a book. I remember I read a review for Wool, but that was only to confirm a friends recommendation. I looked at the number of reviews for Outlander, and probably should have been more focused on reading them, particularly the ones with 1 star. Still, that's pretty rare. Most of my reading list is built by friends recommendations not reviews.
Makes me think I should spend less time trying to get reviews and more time trying to get real folks, friends and family to actually read my work.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Not My Favorite of the Bunch
I don't think it was the best of the trilogy, but I said in a previous post, it had the strongest ending. In fact I think that The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest was the weakest of the three stories. One of the things I liked about the first two, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, was that Blomqvist and Lisbeth work independently of one another but came to the same conclusions. It's like one of those magnificent stories with intricately woven plots and sub-plots that somehow come together at the end.
The other thing I liked about the previous two novels that was absent in this one was that the reader got to watch and read about Lisbeth Salander and her terrifically anti-social ways. Not so much in this book. In this book the reader is treated to Lisbeth sitting in a hospital bed. Despite that, it was worthwhile reading and like I said I loved the ending.
I was all set to not care about what happened to Lisbeth's brother. I thought that Larsson had done a decent job of completely dropping a once major character out of the story in such a way that the reader didn't care. Then, BOOM! he brings him back and creates an incredibly compelling ending.
I already remarked about this passage and how good I thought it was, but sadly that was the only passage I marked.
Nevertheless, it is a great trilogy, it's easy to see why so many people were wrapped up in them, and it's sad to think that Larsson won't be producing more.
The other thing I liked about the previous two novels that was absent in this one was that the reader got to watch and read about Lisbeth Salander and her terrifically anti-social ways. Not so much in this book. In this book the reader is treated to Lisbeth sitting in a hospital bed. Despite that, it was worthwhile reading and like I said I loved the ending.
I was all set to not care about what happened to Lisbeth's brother. I thought that Larsson had done a decent job of completely dropping a once major character out of the story in such a way that the reader didn't care. Then, BOOM! he brings him back and creates an incredibly compelling ending.
I already remarked about this passage and how good I thought it was, but sadly that was the only passage I marked.
Nevertheless, it is a great trilogy, it's easy to see why so many people were wrapped up in them, and it's sad to think that Larsson won't be producing more.
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