Now, the bad/bizarre: I have been fighting with Smashwords for the last two months (and over & over with other issues over the last year or so) over their inconsistent and sometimes inappropriate application of their “style guide” and “Premium Distribution” rules. Currently, six of my eBooks are held up from “Premium Distribution” – all for things that are also “wrong” with my other 18 already-approved eBooks.

What’s wrong, you ask?

Well, when formatting my books, I like to use both an indented paragraph and a small trailing space (less than 1 line-height) after each paragraph. I believe that this enhances readability on dedicated eReaders, and I’ve been doing it for years. When my eBooks started getting rejected for this, I took a look and discovered that the Smashwords style guide explains how to do both, then says you are not to do both, but only to do one. All 23 of my eBooks have the same formatting, in this regard. When my 7 latest eBooks were rejected for this, I emailed support about this, making reference to the 17 others that had already been approved and my personal preference for it, and Mark Coker (founder of Smashwords) emailed me to say that “since this is what you want we’ll let this through.” One of them was approved, the others stayed rejected until I tried re-submitting them yesterday – now they’re rejected again for this and other reasons:

I use page breaks. Apparently (this is a new one to me, so I haven’t checked the style guide again today about it) the style guide advises that “since not all Smashwords formats respect page breaks we recommend you insert two paragraph returns before every page break.” Which I do, everywhere I feel it is appropriate. I’m aware that “not all” the formats respect page breaks! Last time I checked, only 3 of their 8 formats retained my page breaks. At the same time, I don’t feel extra line breaks are always appropriate where a page break would be the best option, and in some of my front matter I only put a single line break, so that -if page breaks aren’t available- the front matter doesn’t stretch on and on with unnecessary space. (ie: if it’s all going to be on one page, let’s try to keep it all on one page!)

Whoever reviewed my eBooks for premium qualification also decided that some of my books need new covers and new titles. They think they might be too confusing. Here, take a look at my books on Smashwords. You’ll notice that the top 7 eBooks have similar covers and titles. If you actually spent more than the briefest moment looking at them, I suspect it would become clear to you that 6 of them are individual short stories from the same collection, and the 7th is the full collection – since that’s what it says in their descriptions. And if you downloaded the preview of any of the individual short stories, so does the Preface to each story, very clearly. So since what I’d like is for people who try one of the individual stories to buy the full collection, I’m doing what I can to keep the stories connected to the collection, both by title and by covers. If you scroll a little further down the page, you’ll see I did the same thing with 7 short stories from my 2009 collection, More Lost Memories. (All 8 eBooks of which have been approved for “Premium distribution” more than once without my being told they were “too confusing.”)

Actually, when I’d originally submitted the first couple eBooks from this new collection, I got an email from Mark Coker asking what I was doing. I replied with an explanation similar to the above & never heard anything back… and now I’m seeing them rejected with this reason included once again in the long list of things “wrong” with them.

Prior to April of this year, when I went through and re-formatted and re-created all my eBooks for Smashwords (because they had their meatgrinder re-process all their eBooks and then decided to reject about half of them from “Premium Distribution” for the following), it was because they were rejected re: their Copyright declaration. At first it was that I used a correct Copyright declaration that said Modern Evil Press was the publisher (it is), but had failed to mention Smashwords. I also wasn’t using their recommended license statement, which I consider excessively informal, because I was using a proper, formal license statement instead. I guess their automatic filter was looking for either their recommended license statement or the phrase “Published By [publisher] at Smashwords” – I opted for the latter. Of course, then I had to go through and do it all again, when a few days later their system started rejecting for including the © symbol on the Copyright page.

You know, because some eReaders might not display it properly.

So I’ve been rejected for properly declaring my copyright. I’ve been rejected for making informed decisions about how I’d like my books to appear on eReaders. I’ve been rejected because my book covers might confuse readers, “especially once these go out to distribution.” (Because people who would spend $hundreds on an eReader are obviously pretty stupid, right?) I’ve even been told I need to change my books’ titles. The audacity.

This is why I am beginning to get fed up with Smashwords. Yes, all my titles are available to customers who go directly to Smashwords.com, and “Premium Distribution” isn’t the end of the story. Yes, if I go re-format all my books (because if I only go re-format the 6 currently rejected, I won’t have consistent formatting across all my titles – I’m trying to be professional and consistent, so if I take out the trailing spaces after paragraphs in some, I’m compelled to take it out of all of them – and resubmit them all, hoping they don’t get rejected for some other, new reason) for the third time this year to accommodate Smashwords’ ever-changing requirements, then it would simply be a matter of them telling me what I can and can’t name my books and what my covers are allowed to look like. Yep.

In other news, I don’t have this problem when selling directly into the kindle store. Everything there just works (once I’ve hand-coded my book into their proprietary format). Ooh, and apparently I can sell my eBooks directly through GoodReads, now? Maybe I should suggest to Mark Coker that Smashwords should partner with GoodReads as a “Premium Distribution” channel. Because (seriously) I’m nowhere near fed up enough with Smashwords’ frustrations to pull my books or otherwise give up on them; I like what they’re doing enough to want to see them do better. That’s why I suggested (to founders on both sides) that Smashwords and Podiobooks (both distributors of independent electronic fiction) should work together – and now they do. That’s why I tell every indie or aspiring author I know about Smashwords. I love hearing about upgrades, enhancements, and new partners… even when they do lead to some of my books going undistributed for months at a time.

The primary example I was intending to post about relates to Edison’s famous quote, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This attitude correlates to what I know of Edison’s work habits and his process of “invention.” For example, we know that as the “inventor” of the light bulb, he started from the previously established invention of the incandescent light bulb and painstakingly went through many thousands of variations over several years in an attempt to improve upon the result. Meanwhile many other scientists and inventors were working on the same thing and at least one of them was awarded a patent on “Edison’s invention” a year before Edison had a working bulb. He worked with teams of people, worked things out on paper, worked things out through experimentation, failure, and repetition, then kept working. Living up to his famous quote, he put 99% of his efforts into working, and 1% into thinking.

Tesla, on the other hand, spent a lot of his time thinking. Visualizing. Solving problems (completely) in his mind before ever beginning work on them. When Tesla built the first induction motor, it didn’t take him thousands of tries, dozens of skilled assistants, trial and error after error after error. Instead, he simply built an induction motor, and it worked, exactly as he’d known it would. And the induction motor wasn’t simply a variation of an existing technology, it was a wholly new invention, the like of which had not been imagined by anyone prior to Tesla. The only thing which had stood in the way of its construction years earlier was a lack of financial backing.

That was another key difference between Edison and Tesla: Edison was very much a capitalist, working & creating what he did in order to build power and wealth. Tesla had intended, in multiple instances, to give his inventions freely to the world and tried to prevent them from being exploited for the creation of wealth at the expense of the greater good. Edison “invented” for money. Tesla invented to make the world a better place, to improve things, and because it was fun for him. Edison became powerful and wealthy. Tesla struggled with money, unable to complete (or sometimes begin) the construction of his later inventions for want of financial backing.

Then there’s me. As an author, for a long time when I’ve seen the apparently-universal advice to & from writers/authors about writing every day, editing everything over and over, revising, outlining, rearranging & reorganizing, polishing, tightening, and otherwise working very, very hard on the perspiration-parts of writing, I’ve always thought it seemed odd how far from my experience it was but had trouble expressing that difference. I realized recently that what other writers are doing seems very much in line with Edison’s famous quote, but that what I do is more in line with how Tesla invented.

They’re taking an idea and heaping upon it ninety-nine times more work to turn it into a somewhat improved iteration of the same thing everyone else is writing. They often believe there’s a “right” way to write, and that there are “rules” for writing a “good” book, and a lot of their work goes into trying to fold, spindle, and mutilate their ideas & words until they fit. Alternatively, I sit down and write a nearly finished draft on my first attempt. This wouldn’t be possible without weeks/months/years of ideas gestating in my mind, sure, but not in any rigid or organized fashion. Not with any ‘revising, outlining, rearranging & reorganizing, polishing, or tightening’ taking place mentally. As with Tesla’s visual thinking, all I usually have to do is open my mind and the story appears within it, fully formed. Then I simply have to sit down and, as Tesla built each of his inventions, write it as it appears in my mind – and it works!

Which is not to say that my books work in the same way that all those Edisonian writers’ books do. In fact, if you attempt to judge my creations by the rules of what is currently considered “good” books you’ll almost certainly find them lacking. This is because that is not what I was trying to write. I’m not trying to create the ten-thousandth iteration of any of the same styles/structures/ideas that are already out there, that many other people are working on. I’m trying to create the polyphase induction motor in a world of brushed DC motors, not to build a slightly-longer-lasting or slightly-brighter-burning light bulb or a slightly-better telephone transmitter (all Edison goals/”inventions” and all also “invented” by others).

My favorite of my novels embodies the experience of depersonalization disorder, which multiple characters experience within it, through its own structure, style, and in the way its confusing resolution erases the only actions that happened on its pages. This is clearly not done with making money in mind. Forget What You Can’t Remember exists because I believe it is an experience worth having, an experience different from anything most people have to face. It is not my least-popular novel, but it is close. It is certainly my most-loathed novel. Being nearly the opposite of a thriller, and the structure of a thriller being at the core of the “right” way to write a “good” book, it isn’t going to please everyone. I guess financial struggles are another thing I’ll continue to have in common with Tesla for the foreseeable future, too.

As long as I’m still on the more-thinking side as well, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

I’m working on Untrue Tales… Book Four. I know I mentioned it on Twitter/Facebook, but in case you haven’t been following me; I began writing Book Four while I was in Las Vegas recently. (During the day while we were there, my wife Mandy was at a teaching conference, so I had plenty of time to work. Evenings were for having fun.) I got about 5700 words written in Vegas, and haven’t added a word in the three weeks since. Actually, I’ve been pretty darn depressed lately -including the last three weeks, comicon, Vegas, and for quite some time before that. I’m a bit surprised I was able to write anything at all. Luckily, I’ve been working on feeling a bit better and in the last week or two, and while I haven’t managed to get any actual writing done (and have actually experienced stress to the level of physical pain the last two times I tried to sit down to work on Book Four), I have been working through the story quite a bit.

I’ve seen/remembered quite a bit of the rest of the story, and it looks like instead of 7 books (or more) as I recall originally envisioning, the story will be well told in 6 books. The first three are done, you can read them now. I should have Book Four done within a couple of months. (ie: before NaNoWriMo’10) Then maybe I’ll write Book Five for release in early 2011 and Book Six for release in mid- or late-2011. I am planning on keeping them all very close to the same length as each other and as the first three books. The writing may (or may not) go quickly through all 3 books, one after the other, but I’m beginning to get used to the idea of investing months per book for editing/preparation/recording in advance of an official release.

I’ve just looked at a calendar, and if Book Four is ready by October 8th & I start podcasting it on the Modern Evil Podcast that week (immediately after TeaTA finishes its run), then it’ll run out in mid-December… Two more books of the same length would be another 5 months of episodes, if posted back-to-back, which would put the release of Book Five in December 2010 or January 2011 and Book Six in March 2011. Which I suppose would be alright. The first three were released in 2004, 2005, and 2006. I somewhat wish I could release the next three in 2010, 2011, and 2012… but I also don’t like the idea of sitting on a finished book for a year or more… and I kinda want to get all three books written as quickly as possible.

Of course, pre-2008 I was only writing/publishing about one book per year.

Now, for the release, I’m thinking of doing a modified version of what I’ve been implementing with my more recent releases (though certainly in line with the current availability of the first three Untrue Tales… books). I’m thinking of releasing the individual books 4-6 as eBooks and audiobooks and not as individual paperback books, then putting out the second trilogy as a combined paperback after all three books are done. I brainstormed a variety of models for putting out various other combinations of paper/eBook/audio at various intervals, doing various fundraisers, even thought about limited hardback releases, but due to the expense of paper (and the miniscule interest I’ve seen over the years in the individual books in the series in paperback) I think this will be the most reasonable plan. Then, maybe, I’ll look into doing a limited hardback release encompassing the full series.

On the writing itself: (Possible spoilers ahead) I haven’t written -or been in the mindset that created- books in the Untrue Tales… series for over four years. Since then I’ve been through a variety of life changes, not the least of which was my marriage in 2007. Despite Trevor’s having been reunited with his wife at the end of Book Three, their being together for the remainder of the series, and Book Four being about their life together before his being exiled to Earth, my relationship with my wife actually distances me from the relationship Trevor has with his wife. Writing Book Four has been an emotional stumbling block since (perhaps) 2005, and is the primary reason I’ve not previously continued the series. It was supposed to be about Trev & Toni’s love story, which led directly to his exile on Earth… and writing the core of that story is one I may never be able to do.

Luckily, upon examining the way the story needs to be told and how events unfolded prior to Trevor’s exile, I discovered that the emotional core of and the how-they-met-and-fell-in-love part of Trev & Toni’s story doesn’t get told in Book Four or (probably) anywhere in the series. Book Four is still nearly-all-flashback to what led Trev into exile, as told by Toni, but she’s keeping a vital element secret. Something that won’t be revealed until the cliffhanger ending of Book Five. Something which, since she’s keeping it secret (for good reason), means she won’t be telling the story of how they met, fell in love, et cetera, either. This takes a huge weight off my back re: writing Book Four.

I’ve also discovered that the tall man, the closest thing to an antagonist in the first 3 books, figures into Trev & Toni’s backstory and into future books – would you believe he’s actually a complex, sympathetic, and manipulated character? His love story, I get to tell.

Most of the rest of what I have planned, I can’t tell you about here. It would give too much away. But it’s going to be awesome. The main battle sequence in Book Five is mind-blowing, and the twist at the end of Book Five… well, the main storyline has been planned from the beginning, it’s just a few details that have needed ironing out. Most of which happens in a process very similar to remembering something that happened to me long ago… or far into my future. It’s hard to tell the difference, sometimes.

It’s coming. If you want to get early access, you can volunteer to be a ‘Beta Reader’ – you’ll get to read the books before the general public does, in exchange for giving me feedback on them. You don’t have to be a professional editor, you just have to be an interested reader (and familiar with the first three books in the series).  Email me, or comment below, if you’re interested.

My experience so far: it looks mostly the same, except for all the things that are broken. It pretty-much broke all my plugins, one way or another, including Disqus comments. (Which I can have enabled, and then the WP admin pages break, or I can disable it… which I was thinking of doing anyway… possibly turning comments off altogether, since they certainly don’t happen around here the way they do on “real blogs”) Then, since I’d made quite a few custom changes to my theme to work with the various plugins, the site broke. I glanced at currently-popular free WP themes for a couple minutes, then decided to use the exciting, “new” default theme. Several features of which also appear to be broken.

I’ll probably tweak it a bit, and if you have suggestions please feel free to comment… comments ought to be working correctly… but yeah, that’s why it looks different. WP 3.0.

I do not recall the precise details of the conversation, but it began with a confusion. When the caller insisted that something must be wrong, that Untrue Tales… wasn’t all there, I immediately went into tech-support mode and tried to determine where their problem downloading might be. Soon, as they explained further and my mind wakened more, I realised that what they meant was that the story didn’t have an ending.

Which is correct. Only the first three books of the series are written, so far, and I have plans for at least another four (possibly six) books to complete Trevor’s story. I have been putting off continuing the story for the last several years. Book Four is supposed to be nearly entirely flashback, filling in the story that led to Trevor’s exile on Earth and separation from his true love, and I’ve worried that I won’t do the story justice.

I wrote & published (via Cafepress, originally) Book One in 2004, Book Two in 2005, and Book Three in 2006. In 2007 I began seriously working on starting Modern Evil Press, buying ISBNs, contracting with Lightning Source, and getting several books both in print and available for purchase everywhere. And got married. In 2008 I stopped working a day job and started being a creative full-time, devoting quite a bit of that time to creating audio versions of my existing books and writing Forget What You Can’t Remember and More Lost Memories, which were published on 1/1/2009. In 2009, in response to certain feedback from readers of FWYCR, I spent the better part of the year doing research on zombie novels, then wrote Cheating, Death. Then edited together the Lost and Not Found – Director’s Cut for sale as an eBook. So far this year I’ve put out the print edition of LaNF-DC and am nearing completion of this new collection of short stories and essays, Time, emiT, and Time Again. I’ve been busy.

Then, while I was working on Cheating, Death I had a few ideas for an alternate history universe where I could tell at least a few good stories. I’ve been doing a fair amount of research on the period and characters from which I intend to develop these stories from, but the task is far and away the most research-intensive project I’ve ever attempted. (Normally I prefer simply to write the stories and worlds that originate in my own imagination, rather than to attempt to start anywhere near actual history and real people.) So I’ve postponed it a bit, too. In fact, putting together (and expanding) Time, emiT, and Time Again was partially because I suspect that I might not feel ready for the first book to see print by the end of 2010, and I wanted to be sure to put out at least 2 new books this year.

On the other hand, I’ve received my first enthusiastic contact from a fan since Dragons’ Truth also led a few people to ask me if/when there would be a sequel. (My response to that is a question of where, exactly, one might go from the end of Dragons’ Truth. As soon as someone has a reasonable idea, I don’t see any problem with pursuing it.) I know thousands of people have downloaded the eBook and Podiobook versions of each of the three Untrue Tales… books, but the dropoff in readers/listeners from Book Two to Book Three is fairly significant, feedback & reviews are sparse & mixed, and I’ve long suspected that people aren’t getting to the end or don’t like the series very much. The only people who, prior to today, had asked me about continuing the series were people who hadn’t read it yet and were avoiding it because it was unfinished.

Actually, I’ve still been asked more frequently about the description of the fireplace in Book Three than when or whether Book Four will be written. As in: “I really liked the whole series, except for the description of the fireplace in Book Three. What was that about?” That, dear readers, was in the same vein as the entirety of Forget What You Can’t Remember; I was trying to simulate in the reader, via writing style and structure, the experience the character is having – forced on you by the act of reading itself. You like to feel tension and excitement while reading the tense, exciting parts of a thriller. You like to feel as though you are being romanced while reading a romance. I just tried to do the same thing with irritating distraction (in the fireplace), depersonalization disorder, and amnesiac confusion and ethical doubts (in FWYCR).

Yet I’ve now had a great conversation with someone who not only liked the Untrue Tales… books, but is eager and excited to read the rest of the series. Eager enough to look up and call the author’s phone number, to ask about the rest of the story. Which is, in itself, perhaps enough motivation to attempt to squeeze Book Four into my schedule before starting on the alternate history series. At first glance, I think perhaps if I start thinking about it now, I might be able to finish it & publish it by the end of August. Or perhaps September.

Even though I’m not much motivated to write it. I’m a bit distanced from the explicit erotica, violence, and (the core of the thing, which most readers will never notice) the central motivation for the whole project being the satire by exaggeration of the way series like Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events were unfolding at the time. Rather than despising such frustratingly written yet inexplicably popular books and wanting to mock them by emulating and exploding them, I just don’t care about them any more. Technically I had already got to that point by the time I published Book Three, but it has been a real stumbling block to the continued writing of the series. I will have to determine whether I can either simulate or replace that motivation, in order to continue the series without drastically altering the storytelling style.

Perhaps this comes down to that question of ‘why’ – Why I write, why I publish, why I do all this work. If I write “for the readers” I’ve got to finish the series. If I publish to be able to write what and how I want to write, I’m fine to go on ignoring it. I think it’s complicated and contains some of both of those (and other factors), which is why I’ve neither written the next book nor taken the first three out of print. I shall continue to think about  it, and I’ll see if I can start working on it this summer.

In about 20 hours, the widget here will change from counting down the hours to saying I was “successful.” Which is awesome. For an attempt to try to raise funds to cover publishing costs by selling art, it has been a success. As you may already know, if you have looked at this kickstarter project’s progress at any time in the last 44 days, I actually surpassed my funding goal on day 1. I had two pledges on the first day, one for the “signed paperback, plus” level, at $15, and one for the “painting and everything else” level – at $500. Then last night my sister pledged another $15 – which I appreciate; she’s certainly my most loyal and supportive reader, always helping with editing and then buying the books she’s already read anyway. She has a full collection of every book I’ve published.

What I find troubling/frustrating is that in the time from the first day to the last, my project received no other pledges. I recognize that this may be, in part, because when they went to the page it said I’d already surpassed my $300 funding goal, having $515 in pledges from day one. I further recognize that it means that only 3 people (so far) considered this to be a good way to pre-order this book, and support the project.  Maybe I didn’t sell it well enough. Maybe people aren’t interested in time/love stories, sci-fi stories, or it’s the “short stories and essays” part that’s throwing them off. I don’t know. But I tried.

My furthest-reaching campaign was via podcast. I created an ad and had it inserted into 5 of my audiobooks over at Podiobooks.com. I realize it was a little long, at a full minute, and that the same ad played before every single episode of each book, so that some people may have gotten into the habit of skipping past it… I’m going to work on refining my advertising attempts in the future, I assure you. (Literally days after I submitted my ad plan to Evo, he sent out guides to the entire PB authors community explaining how to do better than I did – not mentioning me, just … basically, it felt like a response, addressing a laundry list of things I did “wrong”.) Still, the ad was attached to somewhere in the neighborhood of 19k+ episodes of my books. At a minimum (if there was 100% overlap of readers between books) around 475 people downloaded at least one episode with the ad, based on the stats I have, and perhaps more than 1650 listeners heard it. On my own podcast, the promo itself was downloaded another 50 or 60 times by itself, and I’ve mentioned it in four or five other episodes, to try to remind my readers about it. Now, since the first 2 pledges came before the ad started running, and the other pledge was from my sister, I know that advertising this on my podcasts has had a 0% response rate.

Hundreds of people visited this blog, over a thousand people follow me on twitter, I have another couple hundred ‘friends’ on facebook, and I’ve tried not to mention the fundraiser too often but I’ve certainly mentioned it plenty of times in the last 6 weeks. The backer that wasn’t my sister (and wasn’t for the painting – that guy is a patron who funds lots of kickstarter projects) came from someone who saw it on Facebook, so that was semi-successful. But blogging, twittering, podcasting, talking about it at parties to my longtime friends, and the rest of it seems to have drawn no interest.

I don’t know what else to do that I can afford to do. Yes, it was “successful” in that I reached the goal amount and will be able to print the book without going further into debt. Yes, this book will be profitable before the first copy is printed and sold, and will continue to be profitable just about forever (because while I’m not great at business, I at least know how to subtract). Yes, that’s wonderful and I’m grateful, and I’m looking forward to being able to continue using the sell-art-to-publish-books model in the future. I think it’s great.

Still, I wish I had a broader (paying) readership. People who were so looking forward to my next book that they’d be willing to pay $15 for a signed copy (or $1 for the eBook! Seriously!). I’ve had at least 6100 people download at least one of my eBooks or audiobooks (and perhaps as many as 28,000 people) in the last couple years. I know those aren’t “big” numbers, those certainly aren’t “big publishing” numbers, but if 1% of 6100 people had been willing to pay $15 for my next book I’d have had triple the amount currently pledged and could publish my next few books without worry. If one-tenth of one percent of 6100 people had pledged, I’d have had twice as many pledges as I do now.

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that people just aren’t interested in reading (or paying for) the books I’m authoring.

I suppose I’ll just have to keep working on it. Keep trying to be a better and better author. Keep trying to find new readers and new listeners, hopefully some who can afford to pay a few dollars a year to buy my books. Keep coming up with effective ways to keep profitable if/when that doesn’t happen. Persevere.

As you may know (I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned it here), I’m not a fan, in general, of the “it was all a dream” story structure. For example, regardless of anything else it may have going for it, I consider Donnie Darko a piece of shit because it cancels out everything interesting that would have happened in it, if not for the time-altering resolution. I recently watched and complained online about several episodes of Stargate where “it was all a dream.” In one episode, we start in the future, follow the characters, the intrigue, the investigation, then the dramatic action sequence, the result of which is … nothing you just watched happened, because they sent a note back in time preventing it. In another episode we watch what seems like interesting character development, interesting action, and enigma-unravelling intrigue, but when they unravel it, it turns out the team was actually kidnapped, and everything we just watched never happened, it was just a dream the alien captors projected into their minds. There were three episodes in a row that did the same thing.

I don’t like it. I don’t like spending hour after hour watching or reading about events that, within the story’s own created rules/timeline/consistency, never happened. I don’t mind that it’s fiction. I know that fiction never happened. I don’t even mind something like fan-fiction, which I know isn’t canon & the events of which didn’t “actually” occur in the timeline of the original story. So I suppose it may be a subtle, difficult-to-define line. I suppose it has more to do with a particular structural technique within the story, rather than the basic concept of a story that “never happened.”

So … knowing how much I dislike “it was all a dream” stories, it was -momentarily- troublesome to me when I realized that there was an aspect of this sort of structure in the new story I’ve been developing.

Then I remembered what a “terrible” writer I am: My plan for the story is (and has been since I came up with it) to not tell the parts of the story that were cancelled out by time travel (except as first-hand accounts by witnesses from the alternate futures). I’ve been mapping out the (currently three) iterations of an epic space opera involving human colonization of the solar system, invasion by aliens, and humans’ various (and increasingly advanced) attempts to defend itself, making use of a modicum of time travel as a last-resort measure, over and over, and that’s why I have so many pages of notes already. I’m confident that I could, if I didn’t write the story in such a way that cut out all the action, adventure, romance, et cetera -if I wrote in a more traditional way, and if I wrote “publishable” fiction- this could easily be a book length story by itself. Quite possibly an epic space opera, longer than any of my other individual books.

Instead, I’m going to write it from a different sort of perspective. I’m going to try to explore the effects and implications of time travel (and love), rather than to try to write an exciting and engaging yarn of adventures through space and time. I’m also going to try to address part of the idea that people are trying to wrap their minds around when they utter something like “if time travel was possible, wouldn’t we have seen time travelers already?” I’m going to do it by showing all the parts that weren’t “just a dream” and I’m going to leave out all the parts that were.

When I first began explaining the story to my wife, this afternoon, I said that it seemed I was about to write yet another story where nothing happens; where none of the action takes place on the page, where it’s just a bunch of people talking about things that happened, and about what they’d like to do next. Seems to be a big part of my writing style, I suppose.

Until a few days ago, it was unclear what terms Apple would be accepting publishers to offer books through their iBookstore; only a handful of major publishers had announced any deals. Then more publishers began putting out press releases about their agreements with Apple. I didn’t see anything coming out about small press and independent publishers making deals, or any official process for applying… but then I got an email from Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, notifying me that Apple and Smashwords had reached an agreement and that qualifying Smashwords titles would be available in the iBookstore on April 3rd (ie: at launch).

In addition to the existing requirements for “Premium Distribution” from Smashwords to its partners (including Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, and Amazon), in order to be distributed to Apple, each eBook needs its own ISBN (and Smashwords would gladly provide free ISBNs that list Smashwords as the publisher, or $10 ISBNs that list the author as the publisher), needs to be available in the ePub format, and needs to have a cover image at least 600 by 900 pixels. No problem on the cover images; all mine are print-ready sizes. No problem on the ePub format (well, except that Smashwords doesn’t allow some of the nicer features of the format, such as chapters / Table Of Contents), since I always convert to all available formats. I also own an hundred ISBNs, and assign them to my print books, audiobooks, and eBooks, as I create them.

One thing I haven’t been doing is assigning ISBNs to the individual short stories I’ve been selling through Smashwords and on the kindle. For book-length works, I’ve assigned an ISBN to each version I’ve made available for sale. But at the rate I bought them, back in 2007 before single-ISBNs were available in the US and buying 10 ISBNs was over $300, I paid roughly $1200 for 100 ISBNs. I’ve just looked it up; I can now buy a block of 1000 ISBNs for $1000. Sigh. My ISBNs cost $12, so it seems difficult and expensive to assign them to individual short stories. If my ISBNs had cost me $1, it might seem less terrible, but spending another $84 to put the seven short stories I’ve released individually from More Lost Memories (which I’ve been pricing at a reasonable $0.99 each)… and of which I’ve only sold 15 electronic copies (that’s total, across all 7 stories) since making them available a year ago, netting me $6.09. Let’s do some math: In order to break even on selling these stories via the iBookstore, based on the $0.99 price each and the 60% royalty rate, I’d have to sell 142 copies of these stories to iPad users. On the other hand, the market value of my ISBNs is now less, and if I pretend they’re only worth the current market price, then it would be easy to expect to earn out the $7 worth of ISBNs… sigh. I suppose I ought to have been depreciating the value of my ISBNs on my taxes, after all.

So … I’m resigned to go ahead and assign the ISBNs to the individual stories, I suppose. Hopefully it won’t wreak havoc on my ability to show a profit this year. Between the More Lost Memories stories and the short story & essay collection I hope to put out this summer, I’ll be using about $200 worth of ISBNs just for the individual short stories. If you’ve read my recent posts on sales & income, you’ll know this is … not a small expense. It isn’t something I have to pay right now, but because of the way I’ve been accounting for my ISBNs (as a pre-paid asset), it counts as an expense against this year’s income. I have some plans/ideas for covering expenses better this year, some already in motion, but this ISBN thing may make things more difficult.

Then there’s the iPad development costs. Basically just the $99, since I’d do all the work myself. That’s not including the cost of the iPad… which wouldn’t be a strictly business purchase, anyway. But I’d like to do some work … really, I’ve been meaning to develop for the iPhone, as well, but have been putting it off. Having finally reached a point of not feeling perpetually behind on already-completed projects (which has a lot to do with my decision to take a step back from the Art Walk & other habitual activities & re-evaluate my path) I think I may have time to work on some of the projects I’ve had in mind for the last year or few.  Things like narratives that tell a different story depending on how you hold them or where you are, or the ability to allow readers to interact physically with a story… in ways I won’t try to describe here.

…I’ve lost track of things here, somehow. I’ve been staring at this post, slowly adding to it, for the last six or seven hours, actually. I think I missed half my point. I can’t recall what it is, now. I’m quite tired. Actually, I started watching The IT Crowd on Netflix instant when I set down to write this, thinking it would be nice to have a little something on so I wasn’t sitting alone and in the dark and in the quiet typing… I started on the first episode of the first series and I’m now on the last episode of the last series. It has been much better than I’d originally expected from the brief description, but I’ve been laughing most all the way through it. The show has been quite distracting. I’m sure I’d have struggled & wandered a bit in this post, but not for as long as this. Sorry. Let me try again, more succinctly:

I want an iPad or two. I want to see my eBooks on the iPad. I’m excited to be able to sell my eBooks in the iBookstore. I want to develop for the iPad (&iPhone). I’m not burning with desire for the device (nor do I have the money, really, right now), so I’m planning to wait a bit before getting one. (When the iPhone came out, I didn’t run out & get one right away. I patiently waited, then ran out the day after the price drop & bought one for $200 less. Depending on which comes first, a price drop or an upgrade…) I’ll probably go into the local Apple Store next week to molest try out an iPad – part of my hesitation is in not ever having had a chance to see and touch the device; $500+ is a lot (for me) to spend on something sight unseen.

I’ve participated (as a vendor) during the First Fridays Art Walk Roosevelt Row Street Closure (now known as Phoestival in Roosevelt Row) 21 times. Six in 2008, all 12 months in 2009, and all three so far this year. In 2008 I paid $35/month for a space. In 2009 I paid $385 for the full year (~$32/mo). For 2010 the price of a single space increased to $50 per month, with no ability to (or price break from) paying for multiple months in advance. I have had other expenses, including things like building my two portable gallery walls, putting gas in my (borrowed from dad) generator until I bought a battery-based power solution, buying & replacing lights… buying replacement parts for the couple of times my walls were broken in strong winds… paying for an account & equipment to be able to take credit cards at the event… et cetera. Since I started participating in May 2008, my total expenses (including the $745 for 1 space per month) have been about $1759. That’s about $84/month, overall.

Then there’s income. For convenience, on three occasions I had made sales online (usually via Twitter) and the art actually changed hands at the art walk, but I am not including those three transactions in the figures below, as they would certainly have occurred without my participation in the art walk. I have included sales which were a direct result of the art walk (ie: a followup email/call about something seen at the art walk, which resulted in a sale), even if they were completed elsewhere.

In the first three months I participated, May ’08 through July ’08, I earned $19. Total. So I took a couple months off. Sales were better when I returned in Oct ’08, and were generally good through about May ’09. For that 8-month period I averaged about $131 in sales per month. My highest sales month was March ’09, in which I made $297 between art walk sales and art walk followups. Then sales went into a slump.

In the last ten months, from June ’09 through March ’10, I averaged about $35 in sales per month. I only made $50 or more in 3 of those 10 months. In an equal number of them I earned $15 or less ($0 in January). Compared to the new minimum cost of $50/month, this is not sustainable.

Buoyed by the 4 or 5 good months between Oct ’08 & May ’09, my net income from the art walks is generally positive. Net, I lost less than $19 for 2008, then earned roughly $147 in 2009 & $11 so far in 2010. That’s $140 total, less than $7/month. But it’s also positive… generally. So it’s not (yet) an actual money-losing proposition to participate, which is better than I’d expected before sitting down to look up the numbers. Plus, big expenses like building the portable walls are already paid for, so (theoretically) the ongoing expenses will be closer to the $50/month now charged for the space.

So what I have to decide is why I’m doing the art walk. If it’s to make money, that’s clearly a failure. I barely break even. If it’s merely to show off my art, I suppose that’s working out okay – tens of thousands of people walk by my art every month, and will do so for as long as I participate. If the purpose is primarily to show my art, I need to decide how much I’m willing to pay for that privilege – if it’s as much or more as it would cost (in money and in time) for me to participate in a “proper” gallery, either one where wall space is rented to artists, or a co-op like eye lounge, then I need to consider those alternatives as well. If my participation has something to do with community… a community I don’t live in, don’t work in, and only physically visit twice a month (once for the art walk, once for the vendor committee meeting)… then I’m possibly more nuts and ineffective than I thought. If there’s some other reason… I don’t know.

But doing the math & writing this out helps me consider it.  I think that at one time I thought it was about trying to earn money, but have since given that up – having seen both that I don’t seem to earn money there and that my family isn’t desperate for add’l income from what I create. I do hope that the economy recovers enough that the sort of people who were opening their wallets (and their homes to my art) in the hopeful period right after Obama (Mr. Hope) was elected will do so again someday soon, but I don’t think money or sales are really the point.

I think I’m going to stop doing the art walk for a while. I’ve been thinking of running through the remainder of a correspondence art course I never finished, and I’ve been thinking of spending some time deciding whether I’d like my art and/or writing to be “about” anything, and perhaps in a few months or so I’ll have something new and interesting to show, instead of just bringing random selections from what remains of my last 13 years of work & hoping they catch someone’s eye. Maybe I’ll have a reason, an answer, a new thought… Or at the very least, have a few new books to sell.

I’m a little disillusioned with First Fridays & the art walk, the “Phoestival,” et cetera myself, right now. Let me state that here, and perhaps expound on it later. I have been considering halting my participation in the event.

I received a very inflammatory email yesterday from someone I’ve never met or heard of before, but whom I now half want to murder (and half want to attempt a rational discussion with him, first). My first thought upon receipt of the email was that -damnit- I’d missed yet another Downtown Artist Task Force meeting! Yet again, because no one told me when it was until after it had happened! Then I read the long, rambling email from Kim Moody, co-founder of Alwun House, and I found more and better reasons to get angry.

Now, of note, I’d never heard of Kim Moody prior to receipt of this bizarre email. I don’t know how I got on his (long) list of “downtown participants” (most of whom have @phoenix.gov addresses). In fact, for a couple of hours today I thought Kim was a woman. No idea. Kim is, apparently, a co-founder of the Alwun House. According to several Alwun House PR pieces I found today, Alwun House says it was Phoenix’s first art gallery. It’s apparently been there for 38 years (something like 23 of them unlawfully, by their own account), and was a founding member of Artlink (the organization that started the First Fridays art walk in Phoenix, 22 years ago). I’ve been a Phoenix-area resident for 24 of my 31 years, I’ve attended ASU’s College of Fine Arts (briefly, I admit, in 2002), I’ve been creating art and visiting galleries and museums, and I’ve been attending the First Friday art walk pretty regularly since I returned to the valley (from N. Arizona) in mid-2004, and I never heard of the Alwun house until after I’d stopped attending the art walk as a visitor. I didn’t hear about them until after I was already a “street vendor” with the Roosevelt Row street closure. So I’ve never even seen the place. I never noticed it on the Artlink maps, the ~4 years I was attending First Fridays. They weren’t even a blip, to me, then.

But now they’re all over my radar.

Because they’re being ridiculous. The most obvious part of their ridiculousness was evidenced in an attachment to the unsolicited email from Kim Moody, a copy of an op-ed piece he wrote 5 years ago about how horrible it was that the government actually expected people to obey the law. The attitude of the piece was that the presence of police, fire marshals, health inspectors, zoning and tax enforcement officials at the art walk -actually doing their jobs and educating participants about what they needed to do to come into compliance with the law- was an assault, comparing it to the then-recent bombing of Baghdad and to the less-recent massacre of Irish civil-rights protestors. I cannot accept such attitudes any more than I can accept the ridiculous statements of those who protest traffic law enforcement.

I try to do things honestly and lawfully, myself. Not just by obeying traffic laws as well as I am able, but others as well. So, for example, despite the fact that I was creating arts and crafts and wanted to display and sell them during the art walks, from 2004 to early 2008 I refrained. I was (and still am) nowhere near being able to afford to rent a gallery myself, or to rent/buy a home in the area for that matter. But setting up in empty lots and on sidewalks is unlawful, and I’m still not convinced even attempting to get my work into galleries is a good idea, so there was no option for me at that time. Then, as soon as there was a lawful option (the Roosevelt Row street closure), I was there. I already had my Transaction Privilege Tax Licenses from both the city of Phoenix and the state of Arizona, and before I showed up in April ’08 to show my art at the Phoenix First Fridays Art Walk for the first time I seemed to have read more state statutes and local ordinances about what was going on (and what was prohibited/allowed) than anyone else there (including city employees, that night).

The event has changed a great deal since that night, but the reason for the street closure is related to my own participation in it – what had been going on before, for years, was unlawful and increasingly unsafe. People were setting up on sidewalks, empty lots, and alleyways to show and to sell, and the crowds on Roosevelt spilled out into the road every month – mostly around these unofficial “vendors” and mostly at the intersections at 3rd Street. The police “cracked down,” as it were, on these unlawful participants -after multiple warnings- and Roosevelt Row stepped in to try to keep a vital and vibrant part of what First Fridays had become from being destroyed (and from potentially taking the rest of the event with it). They did what was required to allow the unofficial “vendors” who had been participating in Phoenix’s First Fridays event for years to do so lawfully. The local artists and craftspeople and the t-shirt vendors and the sunglass resellers and the sno-cone guys who had all been participating illegally were now given the opportunity to keep doing what they’d been doing for years, except now in compliance with the law. I thought it was (and is) a wonderful compromise between community, culture, and law enforcement.

I am a creator. I create art; I paint, I sculpt, I write… And I make most of what I create available for sale to people who like it. The only storefront I can afford is my websites and, once a month for a few hours, a 10′x10′ space at the art walk. I’m not motivated by money, by sales, by fame, any of that. I am a creator – I will always be a creator – I will always create new works. I would like to share them with the people who like them, and with the people who love them. If doing so can help cover the cost of their creation, all the better. But money isn’t the thing. Creativity is. If money was the thing, or fame, I’m sure I’d be in several galleries by now and struggling to keep up with demand. I care about art. About creation. About freedom. I love that I, a totally independent creator, am able to participate in an event like the Phoenix First Fridays Art Walk without having to deal with commercialism (ie: renting “gallery” space from someplace like Red Dog) or politics/snobbery/art-scene (ie: getting my art accepted by a “reputable” or “collective” / “community” gallery).

On the other hand, the current incarnation of First Fridays in Phoenix has very little to do with fine art. Or so it seems. I suspect that the number of people who currently attend the event to see and/or purchase art and/or visit the galleries is higher than it has been in years. It only seems different because of the 20,000 to 25,000 other people who are also attending the event… proportionally, it seems like almost no one attending the “art walk” is there for the art. A lot of them are coming just because it’s fun. People come out to people-watch, and people come out to be seen. People come out to eat and drink and be merry. People come out to see what the local creators are creating. People come out for lots of different reasons; there are more reasons to come out on a First Friday than ever before, and it’s changed the atmosphere of the event.

Another factor is something that is affecting people regardless of their field; the economy is in a severe recession (or worse, we’ll see) and consumer spending is down across the board. Because of the problems in the larger economy, even though it shows signs of improvement, people still aren’t spending money like they used to. This includes art consumption. So, more people are attending the art walk who aren’t looking for art at all, and everyone in attendance is less likely to spend money, and it’s no wonder galleries aren’t doing so well these days. Aren’t doing as well as they used to, during First Fridays.

I’m not doing very well there, myself. Even at the start of the street closures, when I began selling my art at the art walk, I’d already reduced the prices on all my art. Last year I cut prices by another 40%, to try to increase sales… to try to make sales, at all. Sales didn’t go up. Aside from a couple of impulse purchases (and mini-paintings), most my sales are to people who have bought my art before, to people who aren’t swayed by price as much as by their love for a particular piece. I raised my prices back to my old “normal” range (circa 2003) at the end of last year and … sales are flat. Price inflexibility? The whole thing is bizarre. I began doing mini-paintings (8×10″ & smaller) specifically for the art walk, so I would have pieces I could price $10-$20 (pocket money) without resorting to the vulgarity of selling prints. Their sales are brisk compared to my larger pieces, and I still don’t cover the cost of showing there, most months… which means that no matter the cause (a shift in audience, the bad economy, I’m a crappy artist, whatever), it doesn’t make much sense to continue participating… financially.

But I’m not motivated by money, so why am I showing? Why am I participating? This is something I’ve begun asking myself lately, and I’m not sure I know the answer. I like the event. I liked what it was, years ago. I liked what it grew to be. I liked it enough to participate -as much as I was able to, within the law and within my budget- for the last two years. I like that Phoenix has a monthly cultural event that consistently draws tens of thousands of citizens of all walks to gather together downtown – apart from sports. I like that close to a hundred local creators who wouldn’t otherwise be able to show or sell their creations locally are given this opportunity to share their work with Phoenix, and I appreciate that  another forty or fifty local businesses, non-profits, and food vendors also find value in participating in the event every month – helping make it all financially possible. If I weren’t showing, I’d still be attending. But I’m showing. Why am I showing? Is it worth $50/month to me to just have my work visible to local crowds? Am I just paying a fee to be seen? Am I doing it because of some twisted belief in commercial participation, that one needs to have one’s life’s work translated into currency for validity? If so, I’ll almost certainly stop. Am I doing it because it’s important for me to do my part to support this event, this community, and to help maintain its grounding in the arts?

I think part of that is why I’ve been attending the Roosevelt Row Vendor Committee meetings every month I could since they began, and have tried to do my part to help in other ways, showing up when help was needed. I think that the idea of wanting to see this continue to succeed is why I agreed to take on a job I loathe to do, when others were unable to do it after literally a year. Not because I want to do it, not because I’m seeking reward or recognition, but because it seems as though if I don’t do it, it won’t be done.

I think this is part of why I’m writing this post at all; I support the existence of the event, and want to see it succeed -not just for street vendors, or for the public who comes out every month, but also for the galleries and the artists- and there are people attacking it. Every time I see their inflammatory statements, I feel called to defend it with reality. To explain what they aren’t seeing. To try to bring light to what they seem only to wish to destroy. Is it worth it? Is it worth my time and effort to go through point by point and refute Kim Moody’s email? To provide facts and logic to replace his speculations, accusations, and outright lies? I doubt it. It would be like Jon Stewart’s daily attempts to refute Glenn Beck (et al) with facts, logic, and common sense; Beck won’t change his tune, and the people who listen to him will only continue to believe & repeat the propaganda. It reminds me of an episode of South Park.

Personally, I may just need a break. I may just need to form a plan. Take some time off from showing and take a look as an interested viewer, instead. Go see what’s going on over on Grand for the first time in years. Maybe make it over to the Alwun House (and try to stay my hand from burning the place down to shut up its owners). Maybe see if I can’t come up with a reason to be participating in the art walk. Right now it’s merely … what I do.

I’ve taken on a job
I am both
     loathe to do &
     wish were already done,
a job I am more than capable of
lowering myself
     and my standards
     and my
            productivity on
         my own work
to accomplish.
To do what I’ve been avoiding
   Working for someone else
   Building a generic
              corporate
              clone of a site
   Learning all that e-commerce
                     bullshit
   Sitting through meeting
             after meeting
             after meeting about it
   Waiting for groupthink
All in the midst of my own crippling
depression.
All instead of anything I’m interested in.
 (If I were to give the opposite of
  an Ignite Presentation
   (Talk about your passion!)
  I might talk for five minutes about
  modern web development.)
Troubleshooting the irrational behaviour of someone else’s CSS
/* Professionally-developed CSS */
frustrates.
I take long breaks.
I’m confident that with 8 good hours
I could show more results than their
last year’s work.
But there are so few
                     good hours
right now I’ll be lucky
to get 8 good hours all week.

I’ve taken on a job.
I wish someone else would.

 
—Teel McClanahan III

I don’t like the parts of running a small business that are the business side of things. Accounting/bookkeeping, paperwork, taxes, marketing, even some aspects of customer service. All of which are things which increase in time investment & complexity, the more business I do. With the books side of the business, the side most likely to be able to create working advertising for, the amount of extra work that needs to be done for each book sold seems disproportionate with the amount of income earned, especially in relation to the same ratio re: art sales. But how do you sell my original artwork via a 2-line text ad? What search keywords are going to be coming from people who will like my art and will click on an ad? Books are somewhat easier, though I doubt the word “zombie” comes cheaply…

If I were selling enough paper books directly (I earn 2x to 6x more per book when I sell directly, rather than wholesale, so hitting any $ target is less copies/marketing/et cetera that way) to say with any seriousness that I was making as much or more than I could earn via a traditional publishing company & contract, the time and effort it would take to physically process & ship the orders would nearly be a full time job in itself, leaving little energy left for creation of new works. That is a scary thought. That is what I’m somewhat afraid of: that I’ll be doing so much business that I won’t have time to create.

So, yes, perhaps I’m doing this writing thing “all wrong” and I ought to have gone the “normal” route where I let a publisher take most of the revenue in exchange for doing all the business-side stuff I don’t like, giving up the ability to do the editorial, design, layout, cover design, and web site design aspects of the job that I do like along with them. Except that doesn’t really end up paying much better than what I’m doing now, for most authors, since they’re putting their own money into the publicity efforts I’ve mostly been avoiding… Out of the advances they’ll be lucky to ever earn out. Maybe.

Success, though… For me, it’s more about being able to create. To create what I want to create, when I want to create it. I semi-recently had a conversation with my wife about it, where she (effectively the sole income-earner in our household) questioned the very idea that I ought to be trying to earn any sort of living from my creations. Like, “where did you get that idea?” And I think she was right, and well in tune to what I actually believe & want than my own behaviors and projected beliefs represented.

We’re closer now to a financial situation where we don’t have to worry every month about how we’re going to afford groceries than we were last year, and I’m decreasingly thinking about how to turn my creations into a regular income. I have faith in my work. I believe in the act of creation.

I don’t believe in the value of money, business, the market, or marketing.

And yes, this post is a messy ramble. I wrote it on my iPhone while my iMac was occupied with actual work.

Anyway, ‘Second Thoughts’ will run for 3 episodes. I’ve got it recorded but not yet edited. Then I had planned on alternating between episodes of the Lost and Not Found – Director’s Cut (on Fridays) and new poetry (on Tuesdays)… and when I drew up that schedule a couple of months ago, I’d expected to have been able to write the 5 new poems such a schedule calls for… but I haven’t written any new poetry.  I could grab 5+ more poems from my 3 existing collections. I could cut the podcast back to once a week. I could *quick* write some poetry in the next 2 weeks. I haven’t yet decided.

Regardless of what I do, after I finish podcasting ‘Second Thoughts’ and the Lost and Not Found – Director’s Cut, I’m out. If I only do 1 episode of LaNF-DC per week, I’ll run out of content April 9th. Including the presumed mid-week poetry episodes, that’ll be episode 167. I don’t have anything ready for episode 168. Yet.

Theoretically I could podcast the remaining stories from More Lost Memories… though I have been reluctant to do so. I could podcast all the remaining poetry from both volumes of Worth 1k… I could edit and polish the other stories from my unfinished collection and podcast them. I could … write a new book. I could let my podcast go on ‘hiatus’ pending new content. I don’t know.

I should be able to write a new book between now and then, but I have a lot of other things going on. A major factor of which is that the book I’m currently researching for … I expect not to be one of the quick ones. I expect to spend at least the next month researching for it, actually (though I suppose if I cut back on crochet work, I could get through my reading faster), before I write word one. I expect it to come out to be one of my longest novels yet, if I want to do a good and thorough job with it. I suppose I could do what some other authors have done before, which is to podcast the unfinished, unedited work as-I-write-it. Or I could write some other book in between researching for it, and podcast that.  I don’t know.

What I don’t want to do is podfade. To stop podcasting. I really would prefer not to go on hiatus. I don’t want to lose my momentum. I also don’t want the quality to drop, or the nature of the feed to change – it’s a podcast of my writing. It isn’t some guy jabbering, it isn’t an interview show, it isn’t topical or political or humorous or informative – it’s a podcast of all the literature I write. Twice a week, every week. I’d like that to continue.

They tell me that if I’d just let other people do B, C, D, E, et cetera, then I’d be able to focus on A. Depending on who I’m talking to, and what they think should be my focus, feel free to shuffle those random placeholder letters. Often without first-hand knowledge of my work, they assume that the quality of B, C, D, E, et cetera are insufficient – in fact, they also often assume that whatever A they’ve picked as my focus is also not up to par, on account of my spending so much time & effort on the rest of the alphabet.

Alas, I have an aversion to working with other people, and I never bought into the idea that any one human could only do one thing well.

So I spend most of my time alone. And I do most everything on my own. When I farm out part of my work to another entity, I try to farm it out to robots and other automated systems; when I put together a new book, it goes from a set of digital files to a book both in my hands and for sale anywhere without my having to communicate directly with even one other human. Even that, I’ve been considering doing myself. A few months ago I was looking into acquiring a small offset printer (& looking into binding solutions) so that I could print and bind my own books. It’s still something I’m considering. I like doing things myself. (Not to an extreme, such as making my own paper, weaving & stretching my own canvas, or creating my own pigments, but most of the way there.)

I write my books. I edit my books. I create the layouts. I design the covers. I write the copy and design the web sites. I record and edit the audiobooks. I compose the music for the podcasts. I sell most of the books by hand, standing in the street. When orders come through my web site, I pack and ship the books; I hand-address the envelopes. I paint my paintings. I photograph them. I put them online. I sell most of them by hand, often standing in the street. I am the creator. I do all the creating, then I personally put my creations into the hands of the readers and art lovers who want them.

In the few areas where my control ends and a human’s control begins, I have found that rather than getting excellence I get delays, complications, mistakes, and disappointment. I have come to accept that, for example, Podiobooks.com is not fully automated, so that whether my episodes go up on time is based on what’s happening in a particular human being’s life – a particular human being with no personal stake in their timing. So I stopped caring whether they went up on time there, and started my own podcast/site where I have full control over when episodes are posted. I have to work with people in order to participate in the First Friday Art Walk, where a significant portion of my sales take place each month. After the first few months doing it, I came to accept that things would never go as planned and to simply expect  and accept that some new problem will crop up every single month. The problems are always, always because of human error, and usually because of people with “no skin in the game” being the ones making the plans and decisions. Oh, and although I don’t usually talk to them, there are humans involved in the process of getting a book set up at my printer – so I’ve come to understand that it’s unreasonable to expect the book to be ready to print or available for sale on time, or even within the time periods contractually promised me.

I heard or read something recently that I felt clarified a point about goals I wasn’t well able to express in my long post about it. The idea was that anything you hoped to achieve, if it required someone other than yourself to do even as little as say yes, or say no, wasn’t a goal, but a dream. Things you could potentially achieve without relying on someone else are goals. But you can’t count on other people, you can’t force other people, you can’t know what other people are going to do before they do it. So things you hope to achieve that rely on someone else doing something particular, those are just dreams. Those are, at least partially, not achievable by you. Part of the point of making such a distinction is to set personal expectations appropriately. To recognize that sometimes other people don’t come through. Sometimes they do. People achieve their dreams every day. But not always. (I would say, not often.)

As easily as I can set (and achieve) the goal of writing another book, of doing everything to go from an idea in my head to a digital/physical product I can share with other readers, the getting someone to buy and/or read that book is just a dream. In the same way, every part of my work I hand off to another person to accomplish goes from being a goal I can achieve to something I have to hope & dream another person (or company, or group of people) will do their part to help me achieve. My time tables, my quality expectations, my creative vision, they go out the window and are replaced by those of the other people involved. (And the more I insist on any one of those aspects getting closer to what I want, the farther the other two get.)

The unreliability and inconsistency of other people isn’t the only (or even the primary) reason I don’t like other people, but it has a lot to do with why I don’t like working with other people. I’m anti-social, misanthropic, and -some would say- nihilistic. I don’t loathe everyone, and I’m aware that many people do excellent work – I’m also aware that it tends to be when they are working on something they care about and believe in, rather than “for money” or “for other people,” that people tend to do their best work. So… theoretically all I need to do, if I wanted to work with other people (aside from somehow overcoming my being generally anti-social), is to somehow find people who are passionate about and care about my creations, as much as or more than I do. Let me know if you see any.

One of the thoughts was related to the apparent ‘new decade’ (no need to get into technical definitions and ‘counting starts at 1′ – my beliefs about time are far and away less specific, & more meaningful and orderly) and the question of what one was doing 10 years prior. On Twitter this was often read as 10 years ago to the minute; I suppose it was fun for people to think about a 10-year-old party on New Year’s Eve. But a lot can happen in ten years. A lot happened in mine. Ten years ago…  Ten years ago I’d already begun painting again, a bit, though I still hadn’t re-started my writing.  Ten years ago I’d just begun creating online comics for the first time. Ten years ago I was living in Tempe. Ten years ago I cut my hair off: New Year’s Eve 1999 I had hair so long I could sit on it, New Year’s Day 2000 I had “normal” short hair.  Ten years ago this month I was getting fired (technically I quit) from MicroAge for insubordination for calling out my boss’s incompetence in front of the other employees (he & I & his boss & HR all agreed he was incompetent and that I was right about everything except saying so where the other employees could hear), and later that day I was getting hired at Realink. It was nearly ten years ago that Sara said yes. (Did you know she said yes, once?)

Since then, I’ve painted quite a bit more and by early 2002 I’d got back to writing again, though by September 2004 I’d stopped creating new comics. (I suppose that lasted exactly 5 years, from September 1999 to September 2004.) I did fun things with my short hair, bleaching it, dying it fun colors (blue, green, pink, and purple – sometimes all at once & in my own designs), et cetera. In 2002 I worked my way back into college, to try to pursue a BFA in painting, then got laid off from Realink (My insubordination there was turning down promotions I didn’t want. Repeatedly.) and, the economy actually having been sh!t (for normal people) this entire decade, I couldn’t find another job. I wrote Forlorn, my first novel, that year, “before I turned 25.”

Then, I moved to Pine, AZ at the start of 2003 and lived with my grandparents – my grandmother needed near-full-time care after her stroke (and a lifetime of increasingly bad heart problems), my grandfather had been doing alright taking care of her, but then his cancer came out of remission and on chemo he couldn’t do that and maintain the property up there, so I went up to help out as much as I could. And to escape from the world. To go live in the mountains. To retire from corporate life and to become a full-time creative. I edited Forlorn into Lost and Not Found, I began selling my art and my hand-made natural-form furniture from the family shop I ran there, I began getting commissions for new paintings, I wrote Dragons’ Truth, and I developed a deeper appreciation for my family, building a relationship with my grandparents before I lost the chance. I grew out my hair and my beard; I did not trim them at all for several years (though I did eventually start shaving my upper lip).

In 2004 the economy was truly in a slump; I had to drastically lower the prices on my art to keep sales up, and by the summer of 2004 I had to move back to Phoenix and find work. I ended up working in a travel agency’s mail room for half the pay I’d been getting at Realink. At first I tried literally to kill myself, then stayed there nearly 4 years. I wrote the first three books of the Untrue Tales… series during those years. I painted more. I fell in love again. I had actual sex for the first time. Then had it turned around on me, not just ripped away but twisted into a horror, and I was thrown into a painful emotional tailspin that devastated me for years. I cut off my beard and began keeping my head shaved. I wrote two collections of poetry. I started my own, official, publishing company, Modern Evil Press. In October of 2006 I met Mandy and then courted her over the course of the next year -no need to get into the emotional, sexual, and spiritual difficulties that year entailed in a post like this- and on December 1st, 2007 Mandy and I were married.

In March of 2008 I left my corporate job (I was fired for insubordination when my boss insisted that it didn’t matter what was right, only that I do it as she’d decided, and I insisted -rather loudly and violently- that if that were the case I couldn’t work with her any more) to retire once again to the life of a full-time creative. My wife, who I love and who loves me very much, has been willing to accept the relatively meager lifestyle of a single-income family (see yesterday’s post on Numbers) in order to allow me to do what I love and am passionate about. And to keep me from having to deal with the life-threatening difficulties of attempting to hold down a corporate job.  (Which is to say, we are both well aware that I would probably make additional attempts on my own life if faced with doing a job I loathe, especially if for an incompetent, unreasonable boss.)

Since which time I’ve written another two novels, a collection of short stories, recorded and serialized seven audiobooks from my novels, painted quite a lot more, and learned a bit of bookkeeping, business, and tax rules. I’ve shown my art and my books at most of the Roosevelt Row block parties on the Phoenix First Friday Art Walks each month, and have been an active member of the event’s Vendor Committee. I’ve only occasionally been insubordinate to my boss (myself), usually by doing things like suggesting that I write what people want to read instead of simply writing what I want to write. Oh, and I’ve begun regularly attending a church, an activity I haven’t done since … well, since 1996 or 1997, I suppose. I’ve even begun to read more books, again, which had fallen off quite a bit since moving back to the city.

Which brings us back to the present, and to the ‘new year’ ahead. 2010. This is supposed to be the year the aliens collapse Jupiter into a star and jump-start the intelligence of life on Europa, right? If it happens, I won’t be surprised. No, this year I’m looking forward to more of the same. What same, you ask? Well, let’s look back: Fifteen through twenty years ago I was creative; writing and painting and storytelling. Ten years ago I was beginning to get back into being creative; painting, drawing & writing comics, and writing online (my online journal posts go back to March 2000 – those 1995 posts are transcribed from a paper journal I was forced to keep for a class). During the last ten years there’s been a recurring theme of getting “back into” art and writing, of retiring from workaday life to be a full-time creative, and of my incompatibility with keeping a job and putting up with corporate bullshit. So more of the same is: working on my art, writing new books, telling new stories, trying to figure out how to get more money out of my creations (or at the least to lose less money on the books), and trying not to have to go get a literally soul-crushing corporate job.

In 2010 I want to read at least a dozen books on [Hitler, Einstein, and the 1918 Spanish Flu], then to write that zombie novel I’ve got lodged in my brain. Then see if I want to research for and write the [70's|80's] zombie thriller/mystery that follows it. Then totally write the teen/zombie/religion book I’d meant to write last year, but couldn’t on account of I need to write those other two books (the 2 I just said I want to write) as research first. I’d like to see if I know how to finish the second book I began for NaNoWriMo 2009, another book with an author for the main character. I’d like to finish Time, emiT, and Time Again – which calls for at least a couple more skewed-time-based speculative fiction stories. I know that’s five books already, but I’d also like to write some new poetry, this year. Oh, and I worked out that I only have to write a quarter-million-words a year to maintain about a half hour of original podcast literature per week, every week…

In 2010 I want to read many, many other books. I have a huge backlist from the library already, and hundreds of books on my shelves that I bought, intending to read, and haven’t read yet. I’d like to review most of them, too. Reading is good for you, you know.

In 2010 I want to paint more, and better, than I have before. I’ve even penciled in the finishing of the correspondence art course I bought and began but never completed (especially since I can’t possibly afford to go back to school right now). In addition to potentially improving my technique, I’d like to begin to consider the idea of “intent” and of “purpose.” Right now I paint because I’m an artist, but I understand that other artists create art with other reasons in mind. Most of them seem to have something specific they intend to communicate with their art. This is, generally, not the case with my work. In 2010, I’d like at least to consider the idea of whether or not I’d like to try to mean something.

I keep thinking about wanting to try my hand at making comics again. I don’t know whether 2010 is the year for it. Wait and see, I suppose. At the least, I’d like to build a working site for my existing comics, and put all the archives of my old comics up online.

In 2010 I want to work on being a better Christian. To pray more. To read the Bible more. To seek God’s will more. To soften my hard heart and my stiff neck, if it is His will. I’d like to be a better husband to my wife, and a better role-model as a life-long-Christian to her as a pretty-new-Christian. I’d like to learn to be a better member of my church, of the community. This paragraph represents the hardest of what I’ve listed.

I’m sure there’s more, but this post has gone over 2k words, all told. Quite a ramble. But if the point wasn’t clear: I’m in a good place. I’m happy. Even though I’ve been pretty bad lately, even in this deep depression, I’m happy. (If that doesn’t make sense, ask me about it. It makes sense to me.) I’m doing what I want to be doing, what I’ve been working on doing for a long time, and even though it isn’t exactly financially successful, it’s been successful for me and my family in the ways that matter to us. I’m happily married, and my wife loves me more than I’ll probably ever be able to catch up to. My God loves me, and is faithful and just. My family gets along with one another, loves one another, and that is a real blessing.

The last ten years have had a lot of ups and downs, but they’ve been good and they’ve brought me to a good place. The next year will certainly have more ups and downs, but as I said, I’m glad to hope for more of the same.