A moment of panic

For some reason, I thought I had a Kobo promotion set to start today.  But I hadn't lowered the price on Amazon.  I was afraid of getting the infamous "nastygram" for having a lower price elsewhere.

Luckily, I had the date wrong.  Crisis averted.

But that just goes to show how scatterbrained I've been ever since the kboards dumpster fire.  I know I shouldn't let it affect me like this, but it was a part of my life for over four years.  I tried to help the others there as best I could.  I offered blurb advice and cover advice.  I even made covers for people.  I was utterly dependable in the Make it Free thread.  I was always congratulating and encouraging others.  I really tried to be an asset to the community.  A positive force for good, you know?

And now it's over.

In other news, I just put all my books on the library service Bibliotheca.  I haven't received the confirmation from D2D yet, so I don't even know if they're live on that site yet.  But they'll be available there sooner or later.  My income expectations for the Bib are low, but maybe it'll put a little change in my pocket.  Can't hurt, right?

Summer surrenders its hold

Then the cold dry wind comes, and the swirl of the brittle corpses of leaves, and the skeletal black branches silhouetted against an angry gray sky, and the sex-crazed deer trying their best to suicide-ambush unwary drivers, and the frenzy of gauche commercialism in expectations of holiday sales that often disappoint, and the gloom and melancholy resulting from too little sunlight on the skin, and the discomfort of obnoxious relatives in too-close proximity, and the scratchy irritation of clothes that are meant to be more warm than comfortable, and the ache of feet that never stop being cold, and noses that run, and eyes that water, and knuckles that chap and bleed, and the mocking sun that is paradoxically too bright yet without warmth, and the rich aroma of hot chocolate that soothes for a moment before being quickly subsumed by the oppressive norms of the season, and the calendar--that hale tormenter!--chiding us at every interaction that there's more yet to come.

But seeing loved ones on holidays, reveling in the joyful faces of laughing children and the kindly faces of caring elders, makes it all worth it.

The majesty of Dune

I've been meaning to re-read Frank Herbert's Dune for a while.  I haven't, though, and I know why.  It's because I'm afraid I won't like it as much as I did when I read it all those years ago.  And I don't want to ruin those fond memories.

Having said that, I'm starting to think that my worries are unfounded.  I've been skimming through some quotes from the book, and the language is just as powerful and majestic as ever.

Here are a few quotes from the masterpiece of science fiction:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

What do you despise? By this are you truly known.

There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there, staring out at you!

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.

The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind.

If only I had twelve grand to spare

Then I could get a 20 mm rifle from Anzio.

http://www.anzioironworks.com/MAG-FED-20MM-RIFLE.htm

From the photos, it looks like they do gorgeous work.  And that video with the silencer!  lol  I'll admit that putting a silencer on a 20 mm cannon is not something I would have thought practical.  But American ingenuity always finds new ways to surprise me, it seems.  Major props to Anzio.

The downside to a 20 mm rifle is the paperwork involved.  If I recall correctly, these things are classified as "Destructive Devices," which means extra bureaucracy involved and long wait times.  But if you've got the money to spend on something like this, you can probably afford the patience, too.

Fun fact: Once upon a time, way back in the 1950s, Americans could order 20 mm Solothurns through the mail.  No forms to fill out, no background checks, no nothing.  Just simple mail order like any other product.  You could even pay C.O.D.

That all changed, of course, when the laws changed.  But there was a time when the only limit to your personal arsenal was your wallet.

So how was your week?

These past few days have been a blitz.  There's been a dumpster fire at kboards, in case you haven't heard.  I've been a member there for over four years.  I had over 2500 posts.  And I've spent the past couple of days manually redacting every single comment.  It took many hours and cramped my wrists, but I got it done.

Naturally, I haven't done any writing or revising or anything else I should have been doing instead of trying to manage this crisis.  :(

On the plus side, this situation prompted Timothy Ellis to create a new forum as a replacement, and other than a few technical hiccups, it's going swimmingly.  I'm very optimistic about Writer Sanctum.

I've also joined K'Sennia's forum, the Indieauthorhaven.  Thanks for starting it, K'Sennia!

Now I need to get my head back in the "professional author" game.  I'm still pretty frazzled, so it might take a few days for my brain to settle down, but I'm going to try to plow ahead anyway.

In the meantime, Mr. Wilson is still available for free at My Book Cave, so if you haven't picked up a copy yet, you've got about a week left to do so.

Let's hope this coming week is a lot more boring than the previous one.

Tanyard's Law of Pills

Whenever the instructions on a pill bottle tell you to take two pills per dose, it is inevitable that you will eventually end up with just a single pill left in the bottle.

Magnet promo: one week in

So I'm a week into this My Book Cave magnet promo newsletter builder thing.  I've had 71 downloads of Mr. Wilson so far.  I have no idea if that's good, bad, or average.  This is my first time doing this, and I have no clue what to expect.

No newsletter sign-ups yet.  That's kind of disappointing.  But again, maybe that's typical.  No idea.

Anyway, the story's still available for free at the link for those who want it.  All it requires is an email address.

https://mybookcave.com/g/58bced60/

And you might as well check out the other books, too, while you're there.  All the offerings are free, so there's nothing to lose.

Dipping my toe in the library waters

I just clicked the Overdrive box on three of my books on Kobo.  They'll presumably be available for libraries around the world to purchase in something like 7-10 days.  This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, but I had a hard time figuring out how to price the books, so I've held off.

Some people say to set the ebook's Overdrive price at three times the retail price.  Others say to set it at the print price.  Others suggest going higher than that, citing trad-published ebook titles selling on Overdrive for $59.99 or whatever.  And still others say to set it as low as possible and basically write it off as a marketing avenue instead of a real income stream.  Decisions, decisions...

I finally decided on $14.99 for each of the Free Space trilogy books.  So far, those are the only books I'm making available to Overdrive.  The series is complete, unlike Wheel of Fire, so library readers can get the whole thing if they want.

Every time a library purchases a copy, I'll get 50%, so about $7.50.  I reserve the right to change the Overdrive pricing at any time, because this is totally new to me, and I don't know what to expect.

We'll see what happens.

Florence cometh

Maybe.  These "tracks" are always just guesses.  They rarely turn out to be accurate.

In any event, I'm north of the Fall Line, so I'm not worried.  And it's been a little dry around these parts anyway.  We could use some rain.

Writing makes for strange bedfellows

I logged in to My Book Cave to see how the magnet thing was going, but something else caught my eye first.

Yes, that book in the middle is by Corbin Bernsen, the actor.  I did a double-take because I had no idea he'd written a book.  Yet there it is, right between a pair of romances.  It feels weird that Corbin Bernsen and I are both promoting our work on the same site at the same time.  I mean, I watched this guy in Major League decades ago.

Anyway, if you ever happen to come across this blog post, Mr. Bernsen, congratulations on completing a novel.  It's a remarkable achievement.

Strange recurring dream

I'm driving down a road through the woods.  I come to a turn-off on the right that goes a few feet before stopping at a warehouse entrance.  If I keep going straight, the road ends at a swamp, and there's only a narrow pedestrian bridge over the water.  By "narrow," I mean less than a foot wide.  And there are alligators in the water.  There's a significant maze I have to traverse in order to make it through Gator Country alive.

If I enter the warehouse, I find myself on an upper level--like a maintenance catwalk or something--and there are bad guys on the lower level.  They'll kill me if they see me.  And they always see me, forcing me to run in the dark.

Either way involves risk.  The dream ends before it's resolved.

I've had this dream twice now that I can remember.  I have no idea where it came from.  My dreams are usually just mash-ups of events in my life.  For example, if I've been to the dentist recently, ate a rack of ribs for lunch, and read about a house fire on the internet, then I might dream about a dentist trying to kill me with a rib bone while chasing me through a burning house.  That sort of thing.

But this current dream doesn't make any sense to me.

Out of this World magnet promotion

Free books!  Not kidding.  Click here:

Out of this World

Direct link:  https://mybookcave.com/g/58bced60/

My own Mr. Wilson is there.  All it requires is an email address.  And you have to be willing to be contacted by the author.  You'll see the details at the link.

Anyway, check it out.  Maybe you'll see something that catches your interest.

A little musing about James Dickey

For those who don't know, James Dickey was a 20th century poet and author.  He's best known for writing the novel Deliverance and appearing as the sheriff in the movie adaptation.  Here he is in a scene with Jon Voight and Ned Beatty:

I read his poem "The Leap" recently, and the imagery struck me as instantly familiar.  The dead woman in the poem is described as looking sort of like Evelyn McHale:

Yet when I google "The Leap" and skim through some of the online literary analysis, almost no one mentions the similarity.  It can't be a coincidence--Dickey even gets the one shoe on/one shoe off part as depicted in the photo.  He must have been inspired by the photo.  Yet most literary analysts seem oblivious to it.  *shrug*

You can read The Leap here.  Compare the imagery to the photo above.

A neat short

I mentioned this story on a kboards thread, so I figured I'd mention it here, too.  It's a quick and fun read.  Notable for being all dialogue.

They're made out of meat

The Bandit is gone

Burt Reynolds has passed away.  He was 82.  "He's gonna go to Glory riding eighteen wheels."

The Bandit and the Snowman... together again at last. 

In The Longest Yard, Burt showed us how to drive a Citroen while drinking alcohol, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd, totally rocking a 1970s-era jumpsuit-like outfit and white loafers, and running from the cops.

In Deliverance, Burt Reynolds taught me everything I need to know about "the system," particularly its facade-like nature.  His question to Ed--and the answer that never comes but still must be considered by any man who feels that our slick, modern, convenience-filled world is missing something important and fundamental--is more-or-less the whole existential premise of the movie.  "Why do you come on these trips with me?"  Deliverance isn't about hillbilly rape.  Especially with a director like John Boorman at the helm.  It's basically a dark, tragic bildungsroman.  Not one of my favorite movies, but still brilliant, and perhaps Reynolds's best work.

R.I.P., Bandit.  :(

Still gives me chills

From the 1992 DCI finals.  The finale of SCV's Fiddler on the Roof show:

They finished in seventh place that year.  Think about that for a second.  :o

There used to be a YouTube channel with a bunch of full shows uploaded, but it's gone now.  Probably due to copyright reporting. 

Anyway, that SCV closer is one of favorites.  Maybe my all-time favorite.