by Louis Bertrand Shalako
c2011
All Rights Reserved
What do I do when I am not writing? Well, I might be going through my list of submissions, to make sure seven days have passed since my last rejection. Some markets have this stipulation in their submission guidelines. I might go through my list of stories, all in one or two folders, e.g. 'sci-fi stories,' or 'non-fic subs,' some simple label like that.
I have three postal submissions all ready to go. I just need postage, i.e. Monday morning, out they go.
This sci-fi/f/h/spec-fic folder has a fair number of stories in it, and sometimes I literally submit to pro markets and the 'for the luv' markets, and everything in between. I look for new markets in other writer's posts on facebook and stick them in a document file.
There is always stuff to do.
I might be going through a folder and deleting old versions, or even just different formats--while one market might require a .txt file pasted into the body of an e-mail, there is little call for it later, whether the story is accepted or rejected. 'Delete.'
I might be reading everything I can get my hands on regarding the business side of the publishing industry, and I'm not reading ancient history either. I prefer to look into the future where I have the opportunity to do a little re-writing.
'I want some input.'
I check out market lists. If you do it fairly regularly, you might be the very first guy to ever submit to a new market. Some editor, sweating it out in hopes of getting some good submissions and making a go of things in a pretty tough world, will remember your name for quite a while.
So, if I am not writing anything, I act like a businessman, an editor, a publisher, a researcher, literally anything rather than some unemployed guy just killing time. It may look all the same to an objective, outside observer, but my time is 'directed.' It can still be fun and relaxing, and we often stumble across ideas and inspiration.
As a publisher of my own works, I still have concerns of an ethical nature. On some theoretical level, I understand that some publishers might pull a few strings and make things happen--put someone's name in for an award, that sort of thing. I don't know if it's the world's second largest inferiority complex or what, but yeah...that's a toughie.
At some point I have to go and input some data into the Canadian SF Association database, so that I can be in there for all of history. I think I'll just put my very best published work...just one in there and be very, very humble. Oh, and there is a deadline. But that one will take some grab-myself-by-the-scruff-of-the-neck type of motivation.
We are privileged to be able to do this at all. (And we bleeping well know it.)
Okay, facebook is not exactly face-to-face, 'let's go have a beer, boys and girls,' but here we are rubbing shoulders with some of the greatest writers, poets, and artists of our time, and a few guys in disguise for some very good reasons.
You really can't put a price on that.
Let's just call it, 'precious,' and leave it there for the moment!
It keeps life interesting.
What else have I got going on? Twitter is kind of tough. What the hell am I going to say? But a little research goes a long way, too.
I'm always leery about signing up for new things. There is a workload, a learning curve, some chance of spam or whatever. In that sense, it is a kind of game. I like to think it through a little bit before making any hasty decisions. Nothing in life comes for free. What do I hope to gain, what is the cost, up front and hidden, and what are the dangers, obvious and otherwise?
There is a fair bit of disinformation out there, and not all posts, statements, or opinions expressed by acknowledged experts are appropriate to my own business model. It really does pay to listen. After a while, you learn who your friends are, among other things. You learn who to listen to; and who to ignore...or tolerate.
That little stint in journalism school might pay off after all.
UPDATE: I just went through all my blogs and updated the ads. Simple little things, and try to keep it tight. (And sometimes I come back later and look for typos.)
-louis
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Parkinson's Disease.
by Louis Bertrand Shalako
c2010
All Rights Reserved
Parkinson's Disease is different from Alzheimer's. In Alzeimer's, the classic presentation is of a person 'losing their mind,' especially memory, the kind of dementia where a person doesn't know who they are, or where they live, etc. Nine fresh quarts of milk in the fridge, and they bring another one home. They go to the bank and end up in another town, sort of thing.
Parkinson's is a chemical imbalance in the brain-stem, which affects major locomotor groups. This means coordination, balance, and mobility issues. This imbalance causes false nerve impulses, which cause the tremors, and my dad can have pretty big tremors of the arms that go on a long time. He has trouble sleeping, what with the arms going all the time. My dad has no strength, he can barely open a packet of lunch meat.
He can barely put his coat on, and I have to be there to help him off with it. He gets to the door, and he can just sort of freeze there. It's like he can't remember how to walk. After some time, maybe thirty or forty seconds, his whole body starts to shake, because he wants to walk and just can't do it. Sometimes I go over, hold him gently and give him a little push, and he starts right up!
Routine is a big thing for my dad, although his mind is still maybe eighty or ninety percent...I don't know, maybe a little less.
There are things he can't remember--he might go to put out a bag of garbage and forget there is a bag of salt in the front closet. If he fell on ice, all I know is that it is real hard to get him up again. And if he did it at five a.m. and it was minus 22 degrees, and if I didn't hear it...well.
I cut his meat up for him, I help him on with his socks and pants, dry him off after his bath or shower...I don't know. At some point I started to deteriorate.
It isn't really necessary to justify sticking my old man in a retirement home. But it is necessary to think it all through, and do the best thing for the man. We owe him that much. We've got a nice place for him and he can afford it. Other than that, my sister has been really good, and I'm glad I got some help with it.
c2010
All Rights Reserved
Parkinson's Disease is different from Alzheimer's. In Alzeimer's, the classic presentation is of a person 'losing their mind,' especially memory, the kind of dementia where a person doesn't know who they are, or where they live, etc. Nine fresh quarts of milk in the fridge, and they bring another one home. They go to the bank and end up in another town, sort of thing.
Parkinson's is a chemical imbalance in the brain-stem, which affects major locomotor groups. This means coordination, balance, and mobility issues. This imbalance causes false nerve impulses, which cause the tremors, and my dad can have pretty big tremors of the arms that go on a long time. He has trouble sleeping, what with the arms going all the time. My dad has no strength, he can barely open a packet of lunch meat.
He can barely put his coat on, and I have to be there to help him off with it. He gets to the door, and he can just sort of freeze there. It's like he can't remember how to walk. After some time, maybe thirty or forty seconds, his whole body starts to shake, because he wants to walk and just can't do it. Sometimes I go over, hold him gently and give him a little push, and he starts right up!
Routine is a big thing for my dad, although his mind is still maybe eighty or ninety percent...I don't know, maybe a little less.
There are things he can't remember--he might go to put out a bag of garbage and forget there is a bag of salt in the front closet. If he fell on ice, all I know is that it is real hard to get him up again. And if he did it at five a.m. and it was minus 22 degrees, and if I didn't hear it...well.
I cut his meat up for him, I help him on with his socks and pants, dry him off after his bath or shower...I don't know. At some point I started to deteriorate.
It isn't really necessary to justify sticking my old man in a retirement home. But it is necessary to think it all through, and do the best thing for the man. We owe him that much. We've got a nice place for him and he can afford it. Other than that, my sister has been really good, and I'm glad I got some help with it.
Big Changes: A Nexus, Crux, Watershed Moment, etc...
by Louis Bertrand Shalako
c2010
All Rights Reserved
The next few months look very busy for us here at Shalako Publishing, what with our dad going into an old age home, the need to prepare a house that has seen little maintenance for forty years for market, and developing our web presence, and a few other things.
Just clearing out a lot of old junk, and putting a few tons of it to the curb will take some time and energy. Pop has deteriorated quite a bit in only a month, and some say he won't actually come out of the old age home--he's supposed to be 'trying it out,' and I'm getting a two-week 'respite.'
That's the story, and everyone seems to be sticking to it...I can't shake 'em.
What that means is that I can drag all of his model airplanes out and take pictures. I need the photos for some online ads. Dumb things, questions like, 'who gets my roller skates--they cost $500,' will no doubt rear their ugly heads. Hopefully the seeds of dissension are minimal.
(I don't frickin' want 'em.)
In some ways I can't deal with it, but I do have a brother and sister.
All I can really do is to put my head down and try and achieve as much as I can regarding my own goals. As for writing new material, I don't know why, but it is about the farthest thing from my mind.
With three novels in the can, and some small experience in self publishing, maybe I just feel more in control of my own future, or maybe I just got hooked on editing! You have to admit, it can be all-absorbing, and it is a new skill.
All of this leads to my own fate. Where the hell will I be living in three months? Theoretically, my number comes up for geared to income housing in May or June. I get two refusals, and then I either take the third option or go off the list and then re-apply, which results in another 18-month to two-year waiting list.
Here's the thing: I might be going from a house in a fairly affluent working-class neighbourhood to an eleventh-floor highrise. I have a cat...an outdoor cat. Right now, my back gate opens onto a park of three hundred acres...you see my point. A balcony is something people jump off, in my humble opinion.
I have a bicycle, camping equipment, construction tools, a canoe, model airplanes, dressers, desks...the whole lot wouldn't bring $500 at auction. So I have some angst, all things considered. The 'replacement value' of all this junk is considerable. Do I have a garage sale, let it go for pennies on the hundred dollars, or store it indefinitely? And if so, why?
But the truth is, my dad needs more care than I can actually give him, including physiotherapy, constant supervision, help dressing, the whole schlemiel.
c2010
All Rights Reserved
The next few months look very busy for us here at Shalako Publishing, what with our dad going into an old age home, the need to prepare a house that has seen little maintenance for forty years for market, and developing our web presence, and a few other things.
Just clearing out a lot of old junk, and putting a few tons of it to the curb will take some time and energy. Pop has deteriorated quite a bit in only a month, and some say he won't actually come out of the old age home--he's supposed to be 'trying it out,' and I'm getting a two-week 'respite.'
That's the story, and everyone seems to be sticking to it...I can't shake 'em.
What that means is that I can drag all of his model airplanes out and take pictures. I need the photos for some online ads. Dumb things, questions like, 'who gets my roller skates--they cost $500,' will no doubt rear their ugly heads. Hopefully the seeds of dissension are minimal.
(I don't frickin' want 'em.)
In some ways I can't deal with it, but I do have a brother and sister.
All I can really do is to put my head down and try and achieve as much as I can regarding my own goals. As for writing new material, I don't know why, but it is about the farthest thing from my mind.
With three novels in the can, and some small experience in self publishing, maybe I just feel more in control of my own future, or maybe I just got hooked on editing! You have to admit, it can be all-absorbing, and it is a new skill.
All of this leads to my own fate. Where the hell will I be living in three months? Theoretically, my number comes up for geared to income housing in May or June. I get two refusals, and then I either take the third option or go off the list and then re-apply, which results in another 18-month to two-year waiting list.
Here's the thing: I might be going from a house in a fairly affluent working-class neighbourhood to an eleventh-floor highrise. I have a cat...an outdoor cat. Right now, my back gate opens onto a park of three hundred acres...you see my point. A balcony is something people jump off, in my humble opinion.
I have a bicycle, camping equipment, construction tools, a canoe, model airplanes, dressers, desks...the whole lot wouldn't bring $500 at auction. So I have some angst, all things considered. The 'replacement value' of all this junk is considerable. Do I have a garage sale, let it go for pennies on the hundred dollars, or store it indefinitely? And if so, why?
But the truth is, my dad needs more care than I can actually give him, including physiotherapy, constant supervision, help dressing, the whole schlemiel.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Marketing 101: Drop Shipping, Distribution, Promotion.
by Louis Bertrand Shalako
c2010
All Rights Reserved
On Lulu.com there is a bulk cost book calculator. One hundred copies of 'The Case of the Curious Killers' would cost about $1,018.00. A thousand books was about $8,500 and ten thousand was $76,000. First, we see that the cost per book goes from $12-$13 down to $10, then $8.50, and then to $7.60.
Presumably there might be some price break on bulk shipping. In this example, an extra 4,000 words in a manuscript, half a blank page in nine differenet places, and excessive end matter, bring costs up significantly. The minimum order to put one title on shelves across a territory would have to be something on the order of $100,000 to $200,000.
A few years ago, I ordered something from the east coast and it was shipped from the west coast. The product was made in Japan. That's called 'drop-shipping.' It saves the retailer and ultimately the customer money, if this is indeed an edge on the competition, and if it results in lower cost to the consumer. This could be done creatively with POD publshers in different parts of the world. Much food for thought here. Essentially what we need then is a POD platform in Germany, a translation, some kind of quality control, and a German 'campaign.'
A Print On Demand publication solves the problem of lack of initial capital. It replaces physical plant and material costs. It is a kind of 'drop-shipping hyphen drop manufacturing,' which has certain limitations. Lulu offers a cheaper grade of paper, but only inside the US shipping; i.e., a limited market. One book would cost $21.00 to ship to my house here in Canada, and that's a hard sell for a paperback book.
Starting up a business and learning one's way around by serving a niche market is not exactly unheard of, but the fact is I have no experience in retail sales or management. However, I have gone past business planning to, er; 'business experimentation.'
One thing I remember from being a stock boy at K-Mart (going back a few decades,) was that they had regular promotions. 'Dollar-forty-four days,' and things like that.
The e-books lend themselves to this very nicely, because I can literally give a different one away every month, for free. This is why reading my own stuff and revising the hell out of it, is a necessary part of the process. Before I can effectively promote a product, I prefer to have full confidence that it actually does the job.
E-book sales generate data. If I shoot my yap off about the government one day on facebook, and the next day see a spike in sales figures, well, it's an obvious inference, isn't it?
Forgetting that, it appears that a little over a hundred previews, which are people actually downloading a sample and 'viewing' it, sells two e-books. Bear in mind that people don't necessarily judge a book by its cover, but the cover is an important key to attracting their attention.
So what I want to do in the short term is to generate views. I want people to sample the product, to enjoy it, to see that 'it really isn't so bad after all,' and then I want them to tell two friends, who hopefully will also tell two friends.
If my product is any good, someone will buy it. The most expensive product I have is twenty bucks; and the e-books are all under two bucks as I recall. I've got them in pretty much every major online bookstore, except the iStore, iTunes, and Apple...and I'm not even too sure about that. They might show up there sooner or later.
No one knows what a difference a year of thoughtful, professional applicaton might bring in terms of sales results. Assuming that I have a pretty good chance of living to about 85, this could go anywhere.
c2010
All Rights Reserved
On Lulu.com there is a bulk cost book calculator. One hundred copies of 'The Case of the Curious Killers' would cost about $1,018.00. A thousand books was about $8,500 and ten thousand was $76,000. First, we see that the cost per book goes from $12-$13 down to $10, then $8.50, and then to $7.60.
Presumably there might be some price break on bulk shipping. In this example, an extra 4,000 words in a manuscript, half a blank page in nine differenet places, and excessive end matter, bring costs up significantly. The minimum order to put one title on shelves across a territory would have to be something on the order of $100,000 to $200,000.
A few years ago, I ordered something from the east coast and it was shipped from the west coast. The product was made in Japan. That's called 'drop-shipping.' It saves the retailer and ultimately the customer money, if this is indeed an edge on the competition, and if it results in lower cost to the consumer. This could be done creatively with POD publshers in different parts of the world. Much food for thought here. Essentially what we need then is a POD platform in Germany, a translation, some kind of quality control, and a German 'campaign.'
A Print On Demand publication solves the problem of lack of initial capital. It replaces physical plant and material costs. It is a kind of 'drop-shipping hyphen drop manufacturing,' which has certain limitations. Lulu offers a cheaper grade of paper, but only inside the US shipping; i.e., a limited market. One book would cost $21.00 to ship to my house here in Canada, and that's a hard sell for a paperback book.
Starting up a business and learning one's way around by serving a niche market is not exactly unheard of, but the fact is I have no experience in retail sales or management. However, I have gone past business planning to, er; 'business experimentation.'
One thing I remember from being a stock boy at K-Mart (going back a few decades,) was that they had regular promotions. 'Dollar-forty-four days,' and things like that.
The e-books lend themselves to this very nicely, because I can literally give a different one away every month, for free. This is why reading my own stuff and revising the hell out of it, is a necessary part of the process. Before I can effectively promote a product, I prefer to have full confidence that it actually does the job.
E-book sales generate data. If I shoot my yap off about the government one day on facebook, and the next day see a spike in sales figures, well, it's an obvious inference, isn't it?
Forgetting that, it appears that a little over a hundred previews, which are people actually downloading a sample and 'viewing' it, sells two e-books. Bear in mind that people don't necessarily judge a book by its cover, but the cover is an important key to attracting their attention.
So what I want to do in the short term is to generate views. I want people to sample the product, to enjoy it, to see that 'it really isn't so bad after all,' and then I want them to tell two friends, who hopefully will also tell two friends.
If my product is any good, someone will buy it. The most expensive product I have is twenty bucks; and the e-books are all under two bucks as I recall. I've got them in pretty much every major online bookstore, except the iStore, iTunes, and Apple...and I'm not even too sure about that. They might show up there sooner or later.
No one knows what a difference a year of thoughtful, professional applicaton might bring in terms of sales results. Assuming that I have a pretty good chance of living to about 85, this could go anywhere.
Plot Versus Description.
by Louis Bertrand Shalako
c2010
All Rights Reserved
Example One:
The door hinges squeaked eerily in the evening breeze. The door thunked softly against the wall as John entered with gun drawn. His savage eyes sweeping the room for danger, he listened intently. Moonlit branches cast cool shadows across the indistinct floor, soft underfoot. His quarry had to be here.
Example Two:
The door hinges gleamed dully in the soft moonlight, the thick wood dark in the corner of the room, away from the light cast by a hundred heavily-mullioned Georgian windows. The door swung across the patterned Astrakhan rug, woven in a multi-hued potpouri of colours and textures, all of them warm and inviting. A tall, svelte John Vermilion-Dragonpuss stepped lightly into the room. Ignoring the plate with a big ham which had a bite out of it, and the Cezanne on the wall, heavily shadowed, he was both tense and casual at the same time. With his big, black gun drawn from his brown leather holster, with his right hand, as it was on his right hip, it was like heavy and stuff, he listened for anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary, anything at all that he might hear...his boots rested casually on that rug, oh, so soft and expensive.
The moon, hovering far above the silken landscape below, cast its cool and uninviting light across the floor through the windows Elmer Toboggan had purchased at the quaint old glazier and doughnut shop in the village three days before, and what a tale that was to tell.
John's eyes were savage. He had forgotten why he came in here in the first place!
***
Okay, what is my point? Simply this: the first example is what I call 'plot-based' writing style and the other is clearly descriptive. Okay, so I hammed it up a bit.
I began reading a historical romance novel this one time, and it took eight pages to get three horsemen from the top of a hill to the bottom of the hill, another three pages to get to the village, and five pages to get to the door of the inn.
Right about there is where I simply quit reading.
The first sentence of Marcel Proust's 'In A Budding Grove,' is 125 words long. It goes something like this:
My mother, when it was a question of our having M. de Norpois to dinner for the first time, having expressed her regret that Professor Cottard was away from home, and that she herself had quite ceased to see anything of Swann, since either of these might have helped to entertain the old Ambassador, my father replied that so eminent a guest, so distinguished a man of science as Cottard could never be out of place at a dinner-table, but that Swann, with his ostentation, his habit of crying aloud from the housetops the name of everyone that he knew, however slightly, was an impossible vulgarian whom the Marquis de Norpois would be sure to dismiss as—to use his own epithet—a ‘pestilent’ fellow...
I was looking at the page count in my reader. It said '847 pages,' and I can proudly claim to have read the first eight or ten of them.
c2010
All Rights Reserved
Example One:
The door hinges squeaked eerily in the evening breeze. The door thunked softly against the wall as John entered with gun drawn. His savage eyes sweeping the room for danger, he listened intently. Moonlit branches cast cool shadows across the indistinct floor, soft underfoot. His quarry had to be here.
Example Two:
The door hinges gleamed dully in the soft moonlight, the thick wood dark in the corner of the room, away from the light cast by a hundred heavily-mullioned Georgian windows. The door swung across the patterned Astrakhan rug, woven in a multi-hued potpouri of colours and textures, all of them warm and inviting. A tall, svelte John Vermilion-Dragonpuss stepped lightly into the room. Ignoring the plate with a big ham which had a bite out of it, and the Cezanne on the wall, heavily shadowed, he was both tense and casual at the same time. With his big, black gun drawn from his brown leather holster, with his right hand, as it was on his right hip, it was like heavy and stuff, he listened for anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary, anything at all that he might hear...his boots rested casually on that rug, oh, so soft and expensive.
The moon, hovering far above the silken landscape below, cast its cool and uninviting light across the floor through the windows Elmer Toboggan had purchased at the quaint old glazier and doughnut shop in the village three days before, and what a tale that was to tell.
John's eyes were savage. He had forgotten why he came in here in the first place!
***
Okay, what is my point? Simply this: the first example is what I call 'plot-based' writing style and the other is clearly descriptive. Okay, so I hammed it up a bit.
I began reading a historical romance novel this one time, and it took eight pages to get three horsemen from the top of a hill to the bottom of the hill, another three pages to get to the village, and five pages to get to the door of the inn.
Right about there is where I simply quit reading.
The first sentence of Marcel Proust's 'In A Budding Grove,' is 125 words long. It goes something like this:
My mother, when it was a question of our having M. de Norpois to dinner for the first time, having expressed her regret that Professor Cottard was away from home, and that she herself had quite ceased to see anything of Swann, since either of these might have helped to entertain the old Ambassador, my father replied that so eminent a guest, so distinguished a man of science as Cottard could never be out of place at a dinner-table, but that Swann, with his ostentation, his habit of crying aloud from the housetops the name of everyone that he knew, however slightly, was an impossible vulgarian whom the Marquis de Norpois would be sure to dismiss as—to use his own epithet—a ‘pestilent’ fellow...
I was looking at the page count in my reader. It said '847 pages,' and I can proudly claim to have read the first eight or ten of them.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Busy, Busy, Busy. Jam-Up!
by Louis Bertrand Shalako
c2010
All Rights Reserved
When I worked at Fibreglas Canada back about 1977, there was a platform up above and in between the baggers on S-3 and S-4, which were production lines for pink batt insulation.
"Jam up!"
When you heard guys shouting that, you were sort of galvanized into action, spinning around and then pelting up the steps; unless you were actually on a machine. In which case you had problems of your own. The line would be chucking batts all over the place.
Cut lengthwise by roller knives and cut transversely by pneumatic choppers, the line moved along at a pretty good clip, from the ovens where the continuous blanket was cooked, to the line up of automatic baggers where the fibreglass batts were packaged.
All of the scrap after a jam up went into the pile beside a manual bagger. Anything unsalvageable went to the nodulator.
The first time I ever heard the thing, I thought, 'Soylent Green is people.'
A nodulator is a drum (and some fixed knives) with a lot of spikes sticking out of it, rotating at high speed. The sound of that thing chewing into a big blanket, or a load of acoustic ceiling tiles, was memorable.
More than one guy died or lost a limb in that thing.
***
I had a jam up last night. I don't know, some kind of information overload.
My brain took in a big chunk of data. Like a six-inch thick wet blanket of white wool, undercooked and half raw...a big long one, and it must have dragged some other stuff in with it. Step back quick if that happens. Don't stand on the scrap!
It doesn't pay to get too tired, and I have been going great guns. The brain can only integrate what it has learned so fast. While the overview may be fine, details and operations may still be fuzzy, or even unlearned. Short-term memory requires repetition, (and successful repetition,) in order to integrate into long-term memory.
Only then, in my opinion, does the brain really know what it is doing. It has 'learned' it.
***
Today I cooked dinner, did my dad's laundry, took him to the grocery store, went out and put some big envelopes on my credit card. I bought smokes and a coffee.
I printed out a 41-page crime story, wrote 'nano-brief' cover letters, made up SASE's and envelopes, and all that sort of thing. They go out Monday when I get my entitlement.
Oh, yeah! A blog entry. It looks like 'Paranoid Cat' went through into Google Books quite quickly, and yet two other books, entered previously, are still processing. Then, in the evening, some kind of tech issues with the site. I can't get in to check, but they are building or prepping for Google E-Books Canada, or whatever. (I suspect.)
In between times, I work on my ODSP books. And then I need to do the income tax and figure out my next 'life decision.' (Huh.)
What with helping dad on with his pants, and his socks, and just trying to keep on top of things generally, I wonder what it is that I am missing now...or next!
Remind me to call the optometrist. My eyes are going.
Theoretically, I need to write some new material.
Other than that, not much happening.
Notes: I wrote down three or four things to do tomorrow.
c2010
All Rights Reserved
When I worked at Fibreglas Canada back about 1977, there was a platform up above and in between the baggers on S-3 and S-4, which were production lines for pink batt insulation.
"Jam up!"
When you heard guys shouting that, you were sort of galvanized into action, spinning around and then pelting up the steps; unless you were actually on a machine. In which case you had problems of your own. The line would be chucking batts all over the place.
Cut lengthwise by roller knives and cut transversely by pneumatic choppers, the line moved along at a pretty good clip, from the ovens where the continuous blanket was cooked, to the line up of automatic baggers where the fibreglass batts were packaged.
All of the scrap after a jam up went into the pile beside a manual bagger. Anything unsalvageable went to the nodulator.
The first time I ever heard the thing, I thought, 'Soylent Green is people.'
A nodulator is a drum (and some fixed knives) with a lot of spikes sticking out of it, rotating at high speed. The sound of that thing chewing into a big blanket, or a load of acoustic ceiling tiles, was memorable.
More than one guy died or lost a limb in that thing.
***
I had a jam up last night. I don't know, some kind of information overload.
My brain took in a big chunk of data. Like a six-inch thick wet blanket of white wool, undercooked and half raw...a big long one, and it must have dragged some other stuff in with it. Step back quick if that happens. Don't stand on the scrap!
It doesn't pay to get too tired, and I have been going great guns. The brain can only integrate what it has learned so fast. While the overview may be fine, details and operations may still be fuzzy, or even unlearned. Short-term memory requires repetition, (and successful repetition,) in order to integrate into long-term memory.
Only then, in my opinion, does the brain really know what it is doing. It has 'learned' it.
***
Today I cooked dinner, did my dad's laundry, took him to the grocery store, went out and put some big envelopes on my credit card. I bought smokes and a coffee.
I printed out a 41-page crime story, wrote 'nano-brief' cover letters, made up SASE's and envelopes, and all that sort of thing. They go out Monday when I get my entitlement.
Oh, yeah! A blog entry. It looks like 'Paranoid Cat' went through into Google Books quite quickly, and yet two other books, entered previously, are still processing. Then, in the evening, some kind of tech issues with the site. I can't get in to check, but they are building or prepping for Google E-Books Canada, or whatever. (I suspect.)
In between times, I work on my ODSP books. And then I need to do the income tax and figure out my next 'life decision.' (Huh.)
What with helping dad on with his pants, and his socks, and just trying to keep on top of things generally, I wonder what it is that I am missing now...or next!
Remind me to call the optometrist. My eyes are going.
Theoretically, I need to write some new material.
Other than that, not much happening.
Notes: I wrote down three or four things to do tomorrow.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Visualization, Daydreaming; Plotting and Scheming.
by Louis Bertrand Shalako
c2010
All Rights Reserved
In the process of reconfiguring my brain-bucket for high performance, certain challenges arose. One of these is multitasking. It seems odd that a person could plot out a novel in literally one-minute increments. This involves a process of applied daydreaming, or 'visualization.'
This builds up a store of imagery in the appropriate database inside of your head or mine.
Just now, I visualized a hero-type entering a building where the Great Mojo lives, and the influences are both obvious and irrelevant--Bruce Willis as John Maclean, (hopefully I spelled that right,) running in bare feet across broken glass...as well as Dr. Peter Watts. I forget the title, but the climax happens in a big, forbidding edifice, the headquarters of some secretive organization.
It's also kind of irrelevant, although in parody, it's helpful to pick a half a dozen story-features and stick to them. Examples include 'Blazing Saddles,' and "The Producers,' by Mel Brooks. These are films, obviously--one wonders what the actual screenplay was to read. It is great acting and comic instinct that makes parody work, and not 'accuracy,' if you think in terms of 'Spaceballs.'
My little data store of images, characters and ideas is growing, and at some point we need to talk about structure. To some degree, I can decide upon an era, music, clothes, cars, names, colours, etc. Characterization is independent of plot.
But the structure of a novel is kind of like a template--things sort of plug in where they are needed, as much as anything. For me, the ending is crucial. Otherwise, and this may seem odd, I just don't know where to start.
Figure out where it ends, and then 'step back two hundred and fifty pages,' which is a trick in itself. For that reason, a thin sort of first draft is okay, right?
A professional writer like Robert J. Sawyer will describe a character's appearance right upon first arrival in the book.
Why can't I do that? Modeling for success is an old and well-known ploy.
And so we come to 'process.' Once you have all the tools, and all the materials, and learn the trade...it really is just an industrial process after a while.
There are times when my logic may seem a litte fuzzy. That's why I talk to myself, it helps me to talk my way through unfamiliar operations, and identify problem areas.
It's a kind of self-checking routine: because when I'm cussin' and swearing, it's time to rest and re-evaluate.
The one thing I should probably do is to take better notes.
They help you to remember.
Notes: Yes. I'm about to post some submissions, and once again I'm double-thinking myself. Where in the hell will I be living when they inevitably reject my manuscript submission?
Because I don't think it will be here. Theoretically, I can put in a card at the post office...if I sent an e-mail to a major publisher saying I had moved, that one will never get through...never.
Does that seem negative?
That seems kind of negative, doesn't it.
c2010
All Rights Reserved
In the process of reconfiguring my brain-bucket for high performance, certain challenges arose. One of these is multitasking. It seems odd that a person could plot out a novel in literally one-minute increments. This involves a process of applied daydreaming, or 'visualization.'
This builds up a store of imagery in the appropriate database inside of your head or mine.
Just now, I visualized a hero-type entering a building where the Great Mojo lives, and the influences are both obvious and irrelevant--Bruce Willis as John Maclean, (hopefully I spelled that right,) running in bare feet across broken glass...as well as Dr. Peter Watts. I forget the title, but the climax happens in a big, forbidding edifice, the headquarters of some secretive organization.
It's also kind of irrelevant, although in parody, it's helpful to pick a half a dozen story-features and stick to them. Examples include 'Blazing Saddles,' and "The Producers,' by Mel Brooks. These are films, obviously--one wonders what the actual screenplay was to read. It is great acting and comic instinct that makes parody work, and not 'accuracy,' if you think in terms of 'Spaceballs.'
My little data store of images, characters and ideas is growing, and at some point we need to talk about structure. To some degree, I can decide upon an era, music, clothes, cars, names, colours, etc. Characterization is independent of plot.
But the structure of a novel is kind of like a template--things sort of plug in where they are needed, as much as anything. For me, the ending is crucial. Otherwise, and this may seem odd, I just don't know where to start.
Figure out where it ends, and then 'step back two hundred and fifty pages,' which is a trick in itself. For that reason, a thin sort of first draft is okay, right?
A professional writer like Robert J. Sawyer will describe a character's appearance right upon first arrival in the book.
Why can't I do that? Modeling for success is an old and well-known ploy.
And so we come to 'process.' Once you have all the tools, and all the materials, and learn the trade...it really is just an industrial process after a while.
There are times when my logic may seem a litte fuzzy. That's why I talk to myself, it helps me to talk my way through unfamiliar operations, and identify problem areas.
It's a kind of self-checking routine: because when I'm cussin' and swearing, it's time to rest and re-evaluate.
The one thing I should probably do is to take better notes.
They help you to remember.
Notes: Yes. I'm about to post some submissions, and once again I'm double-thinking myself. Where in the hell will I be living when they inevitably reject my manuscript submission?
Because I don't think it will be here. Theoretically, I can put in a card at the post office...if I sent an e-mail to a major publisher saying I had moved, that one will never get through...never.
Does that seem negative?
That seems kind of negative, doesn't it.
Version Control, Perception Management.
by Louis Bertrand Shalako
c2010
All Rights Reserved
Wow. More questions, more answers, and more challenges. I only have about seven or eight projects in my 'New Book Versions' folder. There were 153 items in that folder.
I've been going through it. Deleting stuff. For each book I would need the original cover image and the final cover image. I need one good, clean and up to date master file in something like a .doc, nicely formatted a la trade paperback, and one e-book.
Maybe one pdf of them each. In that folder I might need, cover images, master files, blurbs all written up and a promo pic of yours truly and not much else.
Another author, an fb friend, was perturbed because she had just spent endless hours revising an older version of a project. I've done the same thing. What I have done is to take my latest revision of 'The Paranoid Cat and other tales,' and simply tacked the date jan2311 into the file name. Even so, uploading that version to a number of sites has essentially taken all day.
I don't know if I can delete a book on Google Books while it is still processing. Theoretically I need a html file to upload to Amazon. It's the preferred format.
Stumbling around in the Google site, I see they do indeed have Google e-books up and running. All I have to do is go back and start filling in fields. My work is never done, and one success spawns more challenges, doesn't it?
Life's funny that way.
I don't know where I will be in a year, but that's enough time to learn my way around a little better. That's a fair amount of time to learn marketing, and I don't know...maybe mellow out and try to socialize a bit more.
Compared to where I was a year ago, I'm doing all right. It's important to keep it all in perspective, and manage one's perceptions to a certain extent.
Up until now, my biggest failures have been inattention to detail, impulsiveness, and haste. Also, by focusing on tiny details, my narrowed attention fails to observe the big picture...okay, a little pompous-sounding, but you get the idea.
In terms of perception management, I do get a little uptight at the thought of all that work, but it is my job, and there is no one forcing me to sit here for hours a day--it's my own choice.
I'm lucky to be able to do it. Just to have the opportunity. Thank God I'm not 18 years old. I would pooh-pooh this chance, and let it slip by. I know that for a fact.
So that's my challenge to myself: to become about a million times more professional than I am right now. To learn the business side of it. To look at the big picture once in a while...and to socialize more!
Throw in three more POD's, another title or two, and I don't know what all. Short stories, poems and a lot of talk-talk-talk. Oh, yeah. Polish up the old skill-set.
We've got a fair bit of stuff on our plate.
c2010
All Rights Reserved
Wow. More questions, more answers, and more challenges. I only have about seven or eight projects in my 'New Book Versions' folder. There were 153 items in that folder.
I've been going through it. Deleting stuff. For each book I would need the original cover image and the final cover image. I need one good, clean and up to date master file in something like a .doc, nicely formatted a la trade paperback, and one e-book.
Maybe one pdf of them each. In that folder I might need, cover images, master files, blurbs all written up and a promo pic of yours truly and not much else.
Another author, an fb friend, was perturbed because she had just spent endless hours revising an older version of a project. I've done the same thing. What I have done is to take my latest revision of 'The Paranoid Cat and other tales,' and simply tacked the date jan2311 into the file name. Even so, uploading that version to a number of sites has essentially taken all day.
I don't know if I can delete a book on Google Books while it is still processing. Theoretically I need a html file to upload to Amazon. It's the preferred format.
Stumbling around in the Google site, I see they do indeed have Google e-books up and running. All I have to do is go back and start filling in fields. My work is never done, and one success spawns more challenges, doesn't it?
Life's funny that way.
I don't know where I will be in a year, but that's enough time to learn my way around a little better. That's a fair amount of time to learn marketing, and I don't know...maybe mellow out and try to socialize a bit more.
Compared to where I was a year ago, I'm doing all right. It's important to keep it all in perspective, and manage one's perceptions to a certain extent.
Up until now, my biggest failures have been inattention to detail, impulsiveness, and haste. Also, by focusing on tiny details, my narrowed attention fails to observe the big picture...okay, a little pompous-sounding, but you get the idea.
In terms of perception management, I do get a little uptight at the thought of all that work, but it is my job, and there is no one forcing me to sit here for hours a day--it's my own choice.
I'm lucky to be able to do it. Just to have the opportunity. Thank God I'm not 18 years old. I would pooh-pooh this chance, and let it slip by. I know that for a fact.
So that's my challenge to myself: to become about a million times more professional than I am right now. To learn the business side of it. To look at the big picture once in a while...and to socialize more!
Throw in three more POD's, another title or two, and I don't know what all. Short stories, poems and a lot of talk-talk-talk. Oh, yeah. Polish up the old skill-set.
We've got a fair bit of stuff on our plate.
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